OUGD603 - The Batsford Prize - Idea Sketches

In order to start visualising how some of my ideas would be composed and produced, it was decided to produce some initial sketches to get a rough idea of how these could look. Initially, the quote "The mind is a blank slate upon which experience imprints knowledge" was worked with in communicating the Educationalists' view in regards to the nature and nurture debate, suggesting that its our nurture/experiences in the environment which shapes our knowledge. This was explored in how this quote could be composed, splitting it into different words and sections and exploring alignment in thinking about how this quote would potentially work with imagery overlayed underneath.

One idea was to use imagery of a brain, either illustrated or collaged in which the quote would be screen-printed over. It was thought that in this instance, the type would potentially work better if using justified alignment since this stretches out the type and leaves negative space in which the imagery could then been seen through more effectively than if the type was more bunched together. Another idea in relation to this was to use both serif and san-serif typefaces, splitting the quote down into further sections, using a bolder san-serif typeface to highlight the more important words in the quote, as well as potentially manipulating size and colour for the same reason.

With the Educationalists suggesting that a child's mind is malleable, another idea was to produce a photographic image to then screen-print over. This would involve the production of a brain out of plasticine or a similar mouldable material then photographing people/the environment pressing against it, showing the environment (nurture) as moulding the brain.

Instead of overlaying text with imagery, a further idea was to create physical type, composing this into the shape of a brain, exploring how type and image can be interwoven in a more interesting and experimental way. This imagery would then also be screen-printed to show the idea of 'imprinting' the brain through the printing process. In addition, other ideas looked at how type could be interwoven in different ways, such as spiralling type to represent a DNA coil (nature) and creating more sporadic text compositions with letterforms hiding amongst imagery of cells and their movement (nature).

In most of these ideas imagery and text are used together, however based on John Locke's idea that the mind initial resembles a "white paper, void of all characters", it was thought that potentially type could work on its own, using a blank white piece of paper and embossing/de-bossing the type onto this to create a minimalistic typographic poster which seems blank however when you look closer/at certain angles see that a design has been imprinted onto it, representing the quote by Locke as well as the idea that "experience imprints knowledge".