Design diary

The world's population has risen from 7 billion to 8 billion in 12 years, and by 2030 it is predicted that 1 in 4 people will live in a slum ( Phillip , 2022) due to 2 main reasons: overpopulation and the lack of support for impoverished people. The amount of disenfranchised people within these countries creates a cyclical routine of poverty; this means that most people within these areas and their subsequent relatives will never leave poverty.  The Line project in Saudi Arabia is one of the proposed solutions to the problem of overpopulation. The idea is that The Line will be a length of 110 miles, where everything will be within The Line, with no cars or carbon emissions, with it being able to populate over 9 million people. The Line will run off 100% renewable energy, and residents will have access to all amenities within a five-minute walk ( Pendleton et al. , 2021). Suppose the Line is just as successful as it is being pitched to the world; it could help mitigate the overpopul...

I was looking at some prompts for what to draw next! I was looking at some youtube videos and stumbled upon this one ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWC84dd0CdA&ab_channel=Lilstarnerd ). This video has 7 prompts, one of which really interested me, called "favourite things", which got me thinking about my favourite things: which brought me to my 3 teds! Horis, Monkey and Ted are 3 teddy bears that mean a lot to me for various reasons, primarily memories of my childhood. I then looked at a colour palette that I'd generated using a random colour generator. I tried to look at the colours from the palette in relation to the photo I'd taken and then created a 2D "flat" version of the image that focussed more on colour than realism. After creating it, it reminded me more of what they used to look like (before they were well-loved!), which is really lovely to look at. Although this is nice, it's a more "abstract" version of the photo rather than ...

The invisible child- I find children's books always have the most gorgeous illustrations. Usually, the artwork is simple but incredibly effective. The Moomin books are some of my favourite pieces of art, especially the invisible child. I feel like the emotion conveyed in the character's subtle "movements" are something I can use in designs as it shows how small things can significantly impact users' emotions.  

The Little Prince has always been one of my favourite books, one of my favourite things about the book is the little coloured illustrations throughout. The art is still inspiring to me so I tried using markers to recreate it. Here's some of the other work from the book, it's a lot softer than the art I normally make but I feel like the subtlety of the work is what makes it so great!  

 After trying out the lighting exercise last week, I have tried to put the same effect on a project I did last year. After doing this, I can clearly see the areas which would need more lighting/ areas that don't look safe or accessible during nighttime. As you can see, the area in the top right looks quite dark, which would need to be developed in the future if this project was to be taken and used.

Creating this blog has made me think about my own creativity and the concept of if I am even a creative person. I circled around for the answers to a question that didn't matter. I realised that even if I wasn't creative alone, feeling inspired can make me creative, even if it feels a tad artificial. I find this inspiration at home. "Home" has always been a concept I've found hard to understand. There are so many definitions of the concept of "home" that it felt too abstract for me to be able to wrap my head around until I moved away. Home to me now is a feeling of comfort, of going somewhere and feeling completely at ease; it's somewhere where the most inspired, not only creatively but personally, to be better and to strive for more. Home is somewhere where I can sit and reflect. Home is somewhere where we can leave Christmas decorations up until February. Home is with my friends playing games for hours on end! Home is feeling inspired by the people...

I have done a narrative project around Gloucester city centre that shows the juxtaposition between the beige of the concrete and the colourful nature. While doing this project, it was surprisingly difficult to find nature, to the extent I had to walk slightly out of the centre. The natural aspects of the city really need to be increased and have more diverse plants to encourage biodiversity and offset the carbon footprint created by the sheer amount of concrete within the town centre. As you can see, the difference is astronomical and shows how the colour of nature juxtaposes the colours of the concrete.

 Here are some sketches I did, using pencil, coloured markers and a black pen of different garden pieces  I found online. These sketches allow for a vibe of an area to be portrayed in small and quick drawings that could be shown to a client.

 Carbon footprint is the amount of carbon which you produce during a period of time or during a particular activity. As part of researching this, I looked at my own carbon footprint, which was under the carbon footprint. However, this doesn't mean there aren't things I can improve on, for example, decreasing the amount of heating within my home and eating less meat. As a designer lowering our carbon footprint is incredibly important for us to start to make a difference in saving the planet from the effects of climate change. One way of doing this is to increase management in sites we create and have fewer concrete pieces within a design and more plants.

 This week I've been working on adding lighting to masterplans, I worked a lot with changing settings of brushes and the eraser to create different effects. Here's a masterplan I've changed the lighting of that was given to us.