New Project - Simulating Experience

I have been given the new brief for the next project I am to complete. The brief says:

Design and build a simulation which triggers a specific experience or emotion in the user/viewer. There is no limit on scale and should succeed in creating a complete and extreme atmosphere which exposes the user to a personal fear, fantasy, snapshot in time. Use whatever medium necessary to convey the experience: video, sound, smell, movement, vibration, electronics, furry carpeting, lights, colour, etc. The simulations should be fully functional for the interim exhibition. Somethings to think about about:

• Does the work have a real-world context? Is it an intervention, a performance, a service?
• What constitutes experience? How does one artificially replicate it?
• Does the project speak of larger systems? does it make aware something intimate?
• Is it for a single participant or a group? Is is public or private?

So, first impressions of the project are that I feel very overwhelmed and don't really have a clue what I want to design/make. I will have to have a more thorough look through the recommended resources andsee what I can come up with.

Hat Box and Label

 The next few pictures show the box that I altered to make the packaging box for my hat. I painted the top with white acrylic to cover up the design and also covered the sides with a long strip of white card. I then added a thin strip of aluminium foil to link the box with the actual hat.

 I reproduced my logo large enough to fit my box lid, printed it out and then stuck it on top of my box.

 

 This is what the lid of the box looked like when I was finished and had displayed it in the studio on my plinth.

 The picture below is the first part of my label before I added the layer illustration and the feature text.

 The next two pictures show both sides of my finished label. It shows the logo, layer diagram, feature list and an explanation of the brand name.

Here is my finished hat and packaging displayed in the studio.

 

I am quite pleased with how my hat box and label turned out. I think they look fairly professional and I did well to complete what I did in the time I had. If I were to carry on with this project I would make some print adverts for my hats and possibly improve on my hat box design.

Finishing the Hat

These are some pictures of my finished hat with the spike and hollow spheres added. The next few pictures are some detail shots of the hollow tin foil spheres. I made them by folding and pressing multiple layers of tin foil around various balls and beads. I then trimmed the edges and glued them on to the hat in this grouped formation.

 I also made a wool felt pad for the inside to make it a little more comfortable to wear. I made it by stabbing a special felter's needle into unspun sheeps wool to tangle the fibres together and make this soft circular pad. I then glued it to the centre inside. It cushions the head quite well without filling up too much space in the hat.

Overall, I am fairly pleased with how it turned out. I would have liked to have made multiple designs and will probably do so if I carry on with this project in the future. Tin foil was a fairly difficult material to work with so next time I would probably pursue Mylar foil a little more and see if that would be a viable hat material instead.

Label Design

I was pretty sure how I wanted my label to look but I thought I'd try and draw out a couple of ideas anyway in case I came up with a better idea.

So the idea I'm going to go with is the middle one. The one side features the logo I designed. I think the circle shape will suit my logo design best, and also fit with the circle shape of my hat box. The other side of the label will feature a layer diagram like the ones I encountered when I looked at Gore Tex. I haven't drawn it yet, but I have decided on the wording of the layers.  I plan to use some of the wording I found in the music video I researched featuring the fake shopping channel. I will also be lying about the layers slightly but I think this is appropriate and suitable because a lot of manufacturers lie about their products, and in my context it is even questionable as to whether this hat will even do anything functional or whether it is needed at all.

Draft layer descriptions:

-NASA tested space grade aluminium foil wave barrier.

-Hyper fine super strong Teflon for durability and longevity.
-Breathable and stylish Egyptian black cotton.
-Another layer of scientifically engineered barrier foil so you can feel twice as safe.

I will also mention the felt liner, the extra layers of foil on top and the hollow tin foil spheres that will some how deflect the alien telepathy even more. Using persuasive language again to help bolster the features special qualities.

Making the Hat - First Steps

The following pictures show the first few steps I have taken in completing my hat.

 These first two pictures show my hat after I folded my fabric around the head form then stitched the folds in place. I also folded back the front edge to make it neater.

 The next two pictures show my hat after I applied another layer of tin foil  to the inside and outside of the hat to improve the stability of it and cover the visible stitches.

These pictures show my hat after I applied the tin foil spike to the top, as shown in my final design. My next steps will be to make the hollow foil spheres and then hot glue them to my hat. My last steps will be making a felt pad for the inside to make it more comfortable and then attaching the packaging label that I  eventually make.

Using the tin foil layer material I made and tin foil on it's own was quite a difficult material to work with. At times it was quite fragile, flimsy and tore quite easily. But at other times, like when I was stitching it together, it was quite tough to sew through all the layers. If I were to make a hat like this again, I would probably make the base hat from fabric on it's own and then apply the tin foil afterwards. This would mean I would not have to deal with the thickness of the layers although applying the tin foil would probably be more difficult than gluing it to a flat layer in the way I did.

Brand Name and Logo Decisions

After some brainstorming I have decided that my hat's brand name will be HAAT which stands for Helmet Against Alien Telepathy. It's quite a simple idea but I think it's quite effective. I did try and think of some more complex abbreviations using words like 'tin', 'foil' etc, but I felt this worked the best.

So I then started work on a logo to go with my brand name that I could put on my label and packaging. Here are my designs.

I particularly liked the look of this one.

Obviously I will need to polish it up a little, but I really like the basic idea of it. So I will be proceeded with this logo in mind. It is ideal for a hat box lid because of its circular design. I have purchased a large hat box and will be altering it soon to suit my purposes and will apply this logo to it in some way. I will be showing the alteration process on this blog soon. The logo will also feature on the label that I design, make and attach to the actual hat.

Hat Designs

Whilst carrying out the material samples I was also working on some design ideas for my hat. These are the initial design pages.

 

Then these are some designs that I developed from my original designs.

 This is the final design I have decided on. I may alter it a little and make the hollow spheres and the spike on the top a little larger, but I plan to stick pretty close to this idea. However, I may encounter unforeseen problems that mean I have to alter my design, so I will have to wait and see.

Material Samples

As suggested by my tutor I tried out some material layer combinations to see what would work best for my hat. I also tried out some miniature hats to see how I could realistically make a simple hat out of tin foil.

This first sample was a layer of black generic fabric, possibly polyester, between two layers of tin foil. It was a fairly good combination, although the glue did take a while to dry.

 This sample was the same as the first but with an extra layer of ironed out plastic bag in between. I had some left over from a previous creative venture so decided to try it out. But it was a little thick and rigid for the main material of a hat, perhaps I could use it for decorative structured elements instead.

 This next sample was the same as the first but with a layer of fine plastic mesh. I thought this would make the fabric more stable structurally and also give the material a nice surface texture. This was a pretty good combination, but it was a little stiffer than the first so maybe not as ideal.

This next sample was the fine plastic mesh between tin foil layers. It dried a lot quicker than the others but did not have as much structural integrity so would not be a an ideal construction material.

I have decided to use a composite material made from a layer of tin foil then the black fabric then this tissue paper and another tin foil layer. I believe this will give me the structural capabilities that I need and also a complex enough layer design to draw and feature on the product label.

 The next few photographs are of  folding experiments. I was trying to work out a way of making a hat out of a flat sheet by folding at various points in order to make the hat shape. In the first try I folded in four places, which worked quite well but made the hat quite cube-like.

 In my second try I made five folds (shown here on the right) which made the design much more spherical. I will be employing this method in order to make the base of my hat. I will then build upon that with more tin foil to expand and improve the design.

 The picture below shows the corner of the composite fabric I plan to use for my hat. Here I am just about the glue down the last corner of the last foil layer.

I now just have to wait for this large piece to dry and I can begin constructing my hat.

Tutorial with Jo Newman

On Tuesday 7th February I had a tutorial so that my progress could be checked and I could get some advice and feedback on my work and project idea so far. Jo Newman was pretty positive about my idea and gave me lots of great advice about my project idea. She mentioned premade hat boxes for packaging that I could alter and suit my project which I didn't even consider so I'm glad she brought that to my attention. Another thing she mentioned was that I should try gluing tin foil to either sides of a piece of fabric which would help with the construction of my hat. She also advised that I make a series of small samples where I try out layers of tin foil and various other materials. Another thing that she noticed was that some of my blog posts were a little long and some parts could edited out to make the information more concise.

So I will be getting on with all of these suggested tasks as soon as possible.

Advanced Materials

It was suggested to me at the last group presentation that I could also look into technologically advanced materials such as Mylar, Teflon etc to help make my design more innovative and futuristic. This also got me thinking about packaging and advertising design as well. A lot of high-tech all weather gear now contains a material called Gore-Tex. On the labels, packaging and advertising there is always a diagram similar to the one below explaining the properties of the Gore-Tex fabric. As well as the layers that surround it and make up the garment. Alot of them also have the different layers labelled with fancy names and the word 'special' is used a lot. (Gore-Tex information here.)

This is obviously a technique used to help sell the garment and explain the technology to those who don't quite understand. I could employ this technique when it comes to my packaging and advertising. I could even get the complicated chemical names for fairly plain things like certain plastics and fabrics, then layer them with tin foil and produce a similar diagram to make my hat seem far more high-tech than it actually is and back up it's technological claims.

I also looked at Mylar here. I had heard of it before and thought it was this really high tech material only used in fancy spaceships and aeroplanes but it seems I was wrong. Biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate (Bo PET) is the fancy chemical name for Mylar and it turns out it is used for a whole range of things. Food packaging such as foil coffee bags and yogurt pot tops, electrical insulation, emergency shock victim heat blankets and even NASA spacesuits. So maybe I could use some pieces of Mylar film layers in my hats to make the hat seem even more protective. It could block a certain kind of alien telepathy that no other material can. It is also used in metallic helium balloons, so maybe that is a viable way for me to get my hands on some Mylar quite cheaply.

I also decided to look at the well known material Teflon here. Simply because it is a material with a wide range of properties such as heat resistance, low friction, non-stick, high strength and high flexibility. As well as it being used in a myriad of products from school children's blazers to frying pans and arterial bypass surgery to armour-piercing bullets. It's even used to make of Gore-Tex. So it stands to reason it could make people believe the hat is even more high-tech. Again, like Mylar, it could also block more alien mind rays or have another specialised purpose. Even if it just makes the hat easy to clean or highly durable, it all adds to the effect. Plus it's chemical name is real fancy, Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which is an added bonus. It's also sold fairly cheaply in plain flat pieces as cooking tray liners to reduce the need for oil, so if I wanted to use it in my hat, it would be easy to get hold of some very cheaply.

So I think it has been fairly useful for me to look at these three advanced materials as they have given me some good ideas for package and advert design as well as what my designs will actually be made from. They have also shown me that I could get hold of  simple forms of Mylar and Teflon a lot more easily than I first thought, so it would not be a hassle at all to incorporate them into my designs.

Advertisment Research

My tutors recommended that I look at a couple of different advertising ideas. The first idea was products on channels like QVC and generic shopping channels. Mainly products that have a fairly silly purpose, make the user look ridiculous or are so pointless no sane person would buy them, but they do which any fuels the industry even more.

Here are a few images I was given as examples.

Chocolate shaped like a human heart.

Chin Exerciser

An urn shaped like a head.

'So beautiful, you might mistake it for art!' apparently.

I also found a couple of my own examples shown below.

It was also suggested that I look at products which are advertised using fear. This is because there is an element of fear attached to my tin foil hat product as people would buy it to protect their brains from aliens.

I found these two shopping channel adverts which use fear to help sell a product.

The fear of someone stealing your food.

 

The fear of home invasion and your gun isn't close enough to grab it.

Apart from these I found some print ads that use fear. However these are not used to sell a product, but to persuade or alert the viewer in relation to campaigns.

 Apart from this last one I found. Which is a cosmetic surgery advert playing on people's vanity and fear of being ugly and therefore fear of mirrors.

 This second one uses fear of being fat on your wedding day to sell a dieting product. This kind of fear is used a lot to sell diet foods, diet regimes and programmes like WeightWatchers. It is also a good example of a very effective advert with little or no text. The picture is very obvious and it is easy to understand the message.

I also found some much older advertisements that used a certain amount of fear to help sell a product or idea.

I will have to think about what sort of style I am going to use in my adverts/packaging and what sort of tactics I am going to use to reinforce people's fear and encourage them to buy the product.