Mobility City – RSA

Brief
Design or re-design a mode of public transport to improve the experience of people with disabilities that will, in turn, improve the experience for all.

Idea
My idea for this brief stems from the ideas of magnets and their forces. I have come up with the idea of giving people a small magnet which they will carry. This magnet will sense the transport around you and either vibrate you, speak to you through an ear piece or guide you with force, to get on public travel.

For example, when your heading to the bus stop, there will be a unique vibration you will feel from the magnetic sensor, indicating you are a certain amount of space away from the bus stop. There will be various codes for different transport modes. By having the vibration mode on these magnetic sensors, this will benefit a lot of disabled people because most of them will be able to feel the vibrations.

FMP Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep gratitude for the various people who helps and supported me along side my Final Major Project. I Firstly would like to thank my tutor and head of course, Camille Baker for the helpful tutorials and enabling me to visit her office for assistance and at any time required.

I wish to thank all the participants who kindly took part in my primary research questionnaire, as this was a personal subject to participate in.

I would also like to extend my thanks to the technicians Paul and Craig, from the Foundation Department who guided me with building the installation, and letting me use the Foundation workshop and resources. In addition, I would like to thank Andy, another technician, for organising the time for me to use the workshop.

Further more, I would like to thank my friends Catherine Jane Mallett, Michael Kennedy and Ricky Tollfree, who gave up 6 and a half hours of their time to help me build a black out room for my installation.

Finally I would like to thank Tom Lynch, who gave up a lot of his time to guide me through the technical aspects of my project, assist me in the laser cutting room and provide me with his support and guidance.

Thank you!

CHANGES TO CODE!

When setting up my exhibition space, I guaranteed that I had enough walking space inside the black room for people to walk around, without all the sensors bouncing off people’s motion at the same time. However I miss judged the space and this meant I had to alter my coding. At first the thought the room was too dark, so the sensors we’re not working properly. However it turned out to be that the furthest distance which the sensors were set to, kept bouncing of the wall of the box, making the installation light up on its own without anyone around it. Also, the distance between the three numbers were too close together, so I had to give them a further gap. So I had to change the distance of the code.

The new distance is:

#define close     46
#define near     60
#define far       80

The change to this has been modified to detect motion when someone is much nearer to the installation. This works out better because after testing it, if there are multiple people within the installation, it will give the installation enough time to switch the LEDs off and turn back on again when another user approaches it.

Final UCA Gallery Set-Up

IMAGES OF INSTALLATION SET-UP

 

VIDEO OF INSTALLATION IN USE

UCA Gallery Exhibition – Set Up

On Monday 13th April, I started setting up my exhibition space. As the original plan was to put my installation in the Gallery with the lights switched off, I thought this wouldn’t be dark enough for my installation. I started thinking of some ideas by using black out sheets and surrounded the space with these, however the sheets were not big enough to cover half the gallery, nor was there enough. Another idea was having tents and putting my installation inside the tent, however the tent was too small. So I came up with the idea of building a not so little room, which would be completely blacked out.

Making the Black-Out Room

The first step was to speak to the technicians to arrange MDF boards to be brought to the gallery and screwed together to give me the base of my room. The technicians screwed everything into place for me, ready for me to come in the following day and add the final touches.

Painting and Blacking the Room Out

Tuesday 14th April was the day i came in with 3 of my friends to finish the room. Before the walls were painted, i had to go over them with gum tape and seal all the wholes and scruffed up bits, so they wouldn’t be visible when painting over. After sealing everything off, we all started painting the installation, giving it two coats of black paint. Once the paint was applied, I used a large black out sheet to act as the roof of the room. The sheet prevents any light from getting inside the room, which was perfect, as I needed it to be as dark as possible. The black out sheet was staple gunned to the top, ensuring its stability and strength to stay put in its place. In addition to this, I added another black out sheet to act like a door and to block out most of the remaining light. 6 and a half hours later, the room was finally complete!

Finally I would like to say a huge thank you and credit Catherine, Ricky and Michael, who took time out of work and college to come in and make this happen!

The Final Outcome

Bio – About me

Maria Kiniaris, Digital Communication Design

I can once and for all hold my hands up and say, ‘Yes! I have finally completed three very tough, intense and fun years of University!’. Looking back from my early school days, I never would have imagined myself at University purely because, in all honesty, I never knew much about University in itself. After speaking to many people, and watching my friends travel in their own directions, it was my time to take it that extra step further. Having such a huge passion for graphics and digital design, this strived me to further my knowledge about the pathways in life and what steps I can take next to further my knowledge. One of the first questions I asked myself was how to get into uni? In 2011, I decided to go on my own travels and at the age of 17 I finally got accepted to do a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at UCA Farnham, focusing down the Visual Communication pathway. The year consisted of a lot of hands on work, videoing and editing films which was a new path for me, and furthering my knowledge in Adobe Creative Suits. In addition to this, I ended up qualifying for a Drawing Award as well which was a bonus! After qualifying for my Foundation, I soon after got a transfer over to UCA Epsom, where I started of my degree in Digital Communication Design, and this is when it all officially started! I had a mind set of becoming a motion graphic designer when I first started my degree, however this soon changed when my mind was opened up to many different aspects and roles you can actually undergo within the industry. Within the first two years of my degree, I had experimented with many programs which were all new to me. Some I enjoyed, such as working in 3DS MAX and Unity, building my own 3D environment and game, working in Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign. Some programs I found a bit more challenging such as learning to code on CSS and HTML and working with Ardunio. However when I got into my third year, I decided to challenge myself further and reach out my comfort zone and undergo a project which incorporated Ardunio and coding. After finishing my final year, I still had a passion for graphics and working within the Adobe Creative Suits which I want to pursue a career with these programs involved. After undergoing a social media based brief for the D&AD awards, I found another passion for social media and enjoyed the interactivity with online users. These three years are finally over, however my life has just begun, taking me on a new journey to experience.

FMP – Words for Gallery Exhibition

The Continuum of Identity 

Many studies have shown that social media influences people to construct their profiles in the way they want to be perceived online, in order to fit into the cyberspace world. The Continuum of Identity installation is based around the differing identity representation that users undergo whilst being active online. One side of the installation represents the ‘offline’ self and the other side represents the ‘online’ self, which represents the personas that users inherit online and offline.

The artist’s interest in this topic stems from her personal use of social media, and the powerful effects it has on individuals in today’s society, which tends to influence how they behave online. The motivation for studying this specific area, lies in personal experience and encounters she has come across whilst actively being online, especially on social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram, whereby users alter their image to fit into a specific social sphere. How the media portrays people using these social environments is marked, compared to how they represent themselves on their own personal social media sites, such as Instagram, where a user’s posts that are shared with the world  are personally selected and edited by them in certain ways to show how they want themselves to be perceived.

This project explores how social media can change one’s online and virtual identity, and explores how people create and maintain an online persona on Facebook and Instagram. It also demonstrates how users of online dating services emphasise a persona that highlights an identity where they look their best to impress other users, as an example of how people construct their online identity.

The installation incorporates layers of acrylic sheets etched so that when the sheets are lined up, you able to see through them and the view will produce a full facial image.

The aim here is to focus on the breakdown of the identities that people create through social media.

‘The Continuum of Online Identity’ focuses on three main stages of this breakdown:

1) Anonymity, 2) Pseudonymity and 3) Real Life.

Each sheet will light up according to how close of far away an individual stands to the installation, the closer you get, the more you see. The distance represents how well you know someone and how much you see; the further away you are the less you see, the closer you are, the more it lights up because you see more of someone.

This installation uses body sensors, which have been coded to detect motion and light up the installation in stages, depending on how far/close you are to it. The coding has been put together in Arduino 1.6.3, using an Arduino UNO device, which has been inserted inside the installation. Alongside this, there are 6 Adafruit NeoPixel RGB LED strips which project light through the acrylic sheets which have been laser etched onto. All of this is placed inside a wooden plinth instead and darkened tent.

FMP Logo Design

Making the Facial Features

Removing the Excess Colour

Choosing a Colour

Experimenting With Effects

Choosing a Font Style

FINAL

The Daily Diet – RSA Brief

Challenge
Encourage young people to:
– Replace an unhealthy meal with one that is lower in sugar, fat and salt
– Eat more portions of vegetables
– Drink fewer fizzy drinks, replacing these with water or sugar free options.

Ideas

One
Scanning bar codes on foods so kids can keep up do track with how much intake on sugar, fat and salt they are taking. This idea generates from the app called ‘My Fitness Pall’, whereby you can keep track of your food, calorie intake, exercise and health through scanning the codes of foods.

Two
Snakes and Ladders themed chart. The idea behind this is to get kids involved with eating healthy foods and not forcing it upon them. The idea is simple and fun, not too complicated to put children off taking part. Everyone loves a challenge ey?

How will it work?
There will be a snakes and ladders board, which you can download from the website and print yourself, or you can request one to be send. Each child will have a token which can be personalised online with their face on. The aim of the game is for the first child to climb to the top of the board, with the incentive of winning a prize at the end which the parents will provide.

The traditional way of playing Snakes and Ladders is to roll the dice and climb the amount of numbers which have been presented. In this version, each type of food you eat will be a number. For example, as the recommended daily consumption of fruit and vegetables is meant to be 5 a day, each fruit and veg you eat will class as one point and a big glass of water will be the final point to tally up to 6. Each child will be able to earn a maximum of 6 point a day. So the more fruit and veg you eat, the more you will be able to climb to the top of the board! For each bad food you eat daily, for example foods with high fat and sugar, you will be deducted a mark and you will have to slide your way back down!

GAMES ON!

D&AD PANTONE BRIEF

Background The challenge for Pantone is to re-imagine your home town through a new colour scheme, thinking about everything that its identity can include, physical and digital: logo, transport, way-finding etc. Within my lifetime, I have lived in various places around the UK. I lived in North London for 10 years, moved to Bristol for 7 years, then moved to Farnham for 1 year and now I have been living in Epsom for 3 years. As I lived in Bristol for my main teenage years, I found that it has a lot to offer towards this brief. Bristol, the birth place of Wallace and Gromit and where the famous anonymous street artist Banksy is from, is a very artistic City, especially within the city centre where you will be surrounded by a lot of street art and history everywhere you go. Art Around Bristol Banksy in Bristol

These specific Banksy graffiti pieces I have selected to add into my research because these pieces I have seen with my own eyes in Bristol on various occasions. The colours are kept very two tonal, focusing on the black and whites. The colour aspects within the art pieces focus on import ants assets that Banksy wants the viewer to see instantly. For example, ‘The Wild, Wild West’ piece where the teddy is throwing the spray can which is light up like a bomb, which is being thrown at the police. This is a rebellious art piece, which the bright orange on the can makes you focus on it. Other Art Around Bristol

As you can see, Bristol is full of art and colour. I love how Bristol’s character is uplifted due to the rise and creativity in street are. As the aim of the brief is to re-imagine your home town through a new colour themes, I have decided to integrate Bristols artistic, colourful and full of life street art colours into Epsom, the town I am currently living in. Epsom is a town in Surrey which lies within the Copthorn hundred used for periodic, strategic meetings of the wealthy and powerful in Anglo Saxon England. In addition to this Epsom has a racecourse which holds The Derby every year since late 17 hundreds. Images of Epsom

As you can see, Epsom doesn’t have half as much colour as Bristol has. Epsom is more older/victorian style with bland colours. Nothing really catching anyones attention compared to Bristol. So I have decided to merged the two places I have lived in to create something wonderful for the people and committees in Epsom. IDEA Since 2013, around Bristol their have seen statues of Gromits all personalised in a certain style to raise money for charity.  Gromit Unleashed began as a public arts trail in Bristol, a collaboration between Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, the Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity, and Aardman Animations, to raise funds to support sick children and babies at the Hospital. They set out to capture the imagination of the public by adorning Bristol’s streets with 80 giant Gromit sculptures for 10 weeks, before taking the sculptures to auction to help raise funds for life-saving equipment, patient comforts, family facilities and child-friendly artwork at Bristol Children’s Hospital as part of the Hospital expansion.  Some of the Gromits

From this scheme which ran through Bristol, I have decided to bring it to Epsom to create something exciting and colourful. Instead of using Gromit, I have decided to use horses to represent horse racing and The Derby which is a traditional and historical event that is ran in Epsom every year. In addition to this, we can bring the community together to raise money for local charities by going ‘horse spotting’ and paying to see the wonderful statues of the racing horses, which will bring the community together and create a colourful and community loving town. Horse Design Statue Ideas Possible Patterns/Colours to Apply onto the Horses Horse Riders – The Epsom Derby Winners – 2014 WINNER – JOSEPH O’BRIEN (AUSTRALIA)

Colour/Pattern

As you can see, I have designed a few racing horses which incorporate the specific designs. Just like the Gromit dogs, this shares the same purpose, bring colour to the community. By placing these horses around Epsom, the will lthen go into auction and sold for money which will go towards charity.