Here, I am going to compare and contrast the processes and practices of two of the visiting lecturers I have been into Stockport College this past academic year. I am going to talk about Ian Macklin of Goodies Corp. who is a moving image designer who came in October to deliver a talk to the current second years primarily about storyboarding but he also included other elements of his projects in the talk. I am also going to talk about Lauren Moriarty who is textile/product/industrial designer and recently came in at the beginning of March to give a lecture to the entire HE design students about herself and her work.
The reason why I am comparing the two are that I found that Ian Macklin was incredibly interesting because he works with making concert visuals for major music artists such as Kylie Minogue. This proved to be very useful to me as I am extremely interested in this area of design. My reason for choosing Lauren Moriarty is because it was possibly the most interesting lecture that I have seen since being on this course, she told a great story.
Listening to both Macklin and Moriarty I was able to conclude that in the design industry it is crucial that the delivery of a piece of work to the audience has to be done correctly so that there is not confusion and that the right message has been put across. An example of this from Macklin’s experience was whilst he was designing concert tour music visuals for Kylie Minogue’s show was faced with the issue of controlling his moving elements on screen so that it firstly, wouldn’t cause harm to the audiences eyes the screens at concerts are so big that anything that moves to q
uick could be too much for an audience member to take in and so that the attention isn’t drawn away from the performing act that would be Kylie by what is on screen. Moriarty recalled as similar experience about audience perception; where she had designed a piece of work for a product design show that was a massive print that went on a large window outside the show that depicted a white firework exploding, but it was seen to look like a large bird mess on the window. From this Moriarty had to change it by giving the window graphic some colour.
http://www.meandyoustudio.com/kylie-x-us-better-the-devil/
How both Macklin and Moriarty get work is very different as Macklin told that he has to usually pitch work to clients or is approached to pitch work. Macklin talked about turn around storyboards, which is a very fast presentation of designs and ideas to the client. He once again recalled the Kylie concert visuals project as the project took just under a week from start to finish and presenting it to the client, which in my opinion is an amazing achievement. Whereas Moriarty got work and got her work out by going to trade shows with her products for sale. Moriarty like Macklin pitches her work to companies such as Habitat, who have took on a number of her pieces, which includes a successful butterfly lampshade that has had Habitat asking Moriarty to produce a bird version of the lampshade which is layered to create a motion of the bird’s and butterflies’ wings flap when the lamp is spun.
http://inhabitat.com/2006/02/02/fluttering-butterfly-lamp/
Both Macklin and Moriarty rely on their contacts in the industry and recommend it to students for when they get into the industry. Macklin told of a contact that got him and his company into designing concert tour visuals including the Kylie project. Macklin started as a freelancer and mainly working in broadcast until his contact took him into new grounds, which is now a major part of his practices. Moriarty’s contacts on the other hand are of a huge array talents and skills. Moriarty mentions contacts such as students who she collaborates with that bring different materials and methods to creating products such as how she collaborated with a student that was able to share with her a thermo ink that she implemented into one of her lampshade designs that changes colour with the heat of the lamp to reveal an image of the London skyline.
http://mocoloco.com/archives/004405.php
Moriarty also has many contacts in the industry with stockists and suppliers as she uses a vast array of materials for her products. Macklin wasn’t really able to outline any contacts or collaborators other than his wife, which he runs the company with. The nature of Moriarty’s practice depends on her collaboration with others especially suppliers of the materials she uses.
From this analysis I can take a number of issues discussed and implement them into my own practise especially what Macklin’s response told me about how he designs around the audiences response to the work. This is because in my major project I am to designing concert tour visuals and I am using many small elements rather than a few large, which is more likely to distract the audience. Moriarty’s contacts base is quite inspiring and is some thing I would keep in mind and utilise, as her work proves the old saying ‘it’s not what you know it’s who you know’ as this assists her and her work and generally gives her a wider knowledge of her practice.
I was out in Manchester the Friday just gone and I was in the recently opened club FAC251 with friends and was on the second floor where they play retro 70's and 80's soul and R'n'B music, and I noticed they had three 4:3 aspect ratio video screens side by side that are above and behind the bar. On the screens they were showing old black and white movies and this kind of reminded me of Vj-ing, in the sense that visuals were being put to music. The black and white movies were quite bazaar and definitely caught my eye but they didn't have anything to offer with the music. Then a colour film came on that looked like it was maybe a porn movie but it was just scene after scene of topless women dancing to some sort of music, in the scenes you could see that they had a radio with them so I guess that was what they were dancing to. The movement of their bodies and the dancing worked amazingly with the music and it was quite captivating. I managed to catch the name of the film when it finished from its dvd menu that was on the screen and it was Russ Meyer's Mondo Topless. 
