CoP3 Module Evaluation

I’ve really enjoyed Context of Practice again, even more so than last year. This is probably down to the increased amount of one-to-one time with a tutor where I was able to discuss things relevant to a topic which I picked because I was interested in it. The lack of lectures like “City and Film” from last year which had barely if any relevance to the work I was doing removed a stigma from the module, making it easier to enjoy. Not only have I enjoyed the module, but I feel like I’ve grown as a person from studying what I studied - I feel less worried when doing my own thing, and feel generally more confident about myself and my work, so it would be no exaggeration to say that this module has not only effected my attitude towards my work, but also my life in general.

Beyond this I’m really pleased with how feel I feel I’ve understood and interpreted a subject as complicated and occasionally unclear as Nietzschean philosophy, and particularly how well I articulated it’s appropriation to graphic design, a context in which I was initially concerned would be too far from philosophy to make the essay work. The addition of the thoughts of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and to a lesser extent Niebuhr, allow for the essay to show not only how Nietzschean philosophy fits into the context of graphic design, but also how graphic design fits into a philosophical context broader than just Nietzsche.

Coming up with an idea to practically show my understanding of my subject was really difficult because neither Nietzsche nor The First Things First Manifesto are directly responsible the production of graphic design, hence why I chose to produce a publication - a medium of design which is as much about distribution as it is about communication, as is the case for a manifesto or a train of philosophical thought. However, by using the conclusions reached in my essay, the form of the publication was able to follow Nietzschean principles to physically combat the modernist principles that are generally supported by the First Things First Manifesto.

When blogging about my research I innately wrote about why I was doing that research in particular, what I was going to do next, and why. In particular I feel the order in which I undertook my readings was logical and well-reasoned as it allowed me to find a balance between a truly original reading of Nietzsche with influence of well-informed opinions of his works from secondary sources, particularly from Lee Spinks and Arthur Danto. The secondary sources were chosen as the former was suggested by my tutor and the latter received numerous good reviews on the internet, so in that sense it could be argued that there was even some tertiary research involved in my project. Being able to select which books and journal articles to read as effectively as I did from the very beginning of the project allowed me to keep my focus on the critical analysis of the sources rather than the usefulness of the sources, which was really helpful. The main weak point of my research was the lack of variety, however, I’d argue that the nature of my project didn’t lend itself very well to some forms of research that may have been more present in other projects. For example, my project required more qualitative research than quantitative research which, in general, makes testable processes difficult to undertake accurately. When this is considered in the context of my project it would’ve been even harder as finding a big enough sample of people who understood Nietzschean philosophy to make the tests accurate would’ve been a difficult enough task in itself.

As previously alluded to, I feel my planning and time management was excellent throughout this module, the amount of reading/research I did over summer, my timeline reflection document, and confirmation of blog posts are all testament to this as they demonstrate the consistency that ran throughout my undertaking of this project. The fact that there was recently a period of a couple of weeks where I was unable to do much due to illness, hence the big blog gap between the 21st of December and the 1st of January, and I’m still very happy to submit my project in it’s final state on time is further proof of this. Planning and time management has proven to be one of my main strengths, so, without trying to sound arrogant, I’m not particularly surprised by this.

In my mind the weakest part of this project is the crafting quality of the practical element. This is down to a combination of the poor alignment of the printers causing me to have less room to trim edges, and my lack of experience of book-binding in general. Retrospectively I should have met with the book-binding assistant months ago to discuss the practicalities of what I wanted to do, something which didn’t occur to me at the time, partly due to my enthusiasm to get on with the project. Whilst the order in which I read the books was well thought out and logical as previously mentioned, I now find myself regretting reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra first - retrospectively I enjoyed it more than any of Nietzsche’s other books, and wish I could’ve read it at a point where my knowledge and understanding of Nietzschean philosophy was stronger, so perhaps reading it 4th or 5th would’ve been better, but this is only a minor change. Other than these couple of things, I’m really pleased with how I undertook the project and wouldn’t have done much differently given another chance.

Outside of the project, I feel like my general performance in the module was really good, things such as being as fully prepared as possible for my 1-on-1 tutorials, making sure I took notes from lectures on things like academic conventions, and the consistency of my blogging are examples of this. That said, I feel like the demands of this module in terms of numbers of lectures and seminars etc were a lot lower than in previous CoP modules, so I don’t see any real excuses for me to less consistently punctual and prepared as I was for each session.

Like previously mentioned, I feel like this project has made me grow as a person as it’s impacted slightly on the way I think. I’m also going to re-read Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the hope that I enjoy it even more with my new-found understanding of Nietzsche’s thoughts. In terms of the influence the project has had on my remaining modules, the improved confidence I have from this project will really help me with PPP in areas such as networking and presentations. Extended Practice has already been influenced as I approached the Clockwork Orange brief from an existentialist point of view to create a strong outcome that I wouldn’t have got any other way, hopefully this will be a theme amongst the rest of my projects, as I was really pleased with how the approach aided my process.

Publication - Photographs

Publication - Binding

When setting up the pages of the publication for binding I made sure to have the bottom of the pages aligned as well as possible because there was more room for trimming the pages down at the top than at the bottom, so the bottom right corner was pretty perfect.

This meant that the top left corner was always going to be less than perfect because of the mis-alignment from the printing. I was hoping this wouldn't be a problem because I could trim the two sides that need cleaning up. However, the book-binding technician suggested that because of how thin the edges of the pages with the holes in were, this could risk the integrity of the binding and the individual pages. Because of this I decided to leave the book in the mis-alignment, even though it's a bit more imperfect than I'd have liked it to be.

Retrespectively this was because I made the holes too big as I wanted to make sure that the copy of the essay would fit inside the gap even if the gaps were in pages that were mis-aligned when they were bound. This meant that the copy of my essay fit in comfortably. 

I also put a little too much glue on the spine during the binding process, which left a slight mark on the back cover. This isn't too detrimental however, and adds slightly to the imperfect, aged aesthetic I wanted to get.

I also found that the pressure of the clamps holding the book together while the glue was setting damaged the print quality on the back cover ever so slightly, but this only adds to the aged aesthetic the stock provides.

The binding of the essay went very smoothly, the spine was almost perfect.

There was a slight problem in that I'd made the cover page slightly too short, but this is only a minor issue.

The clamps holding together the book mustn't have been quite as tight, as they didn't damage the quality of the printing at all.

Essay - Final Copy

Publication - Laser Cutting

When I was trimming down the pages of the publication I couldn't be accurate enough to cut the indents out to allow space for the essay to sit in because the gap I'd left myself was very small. Had I made the gap any larger the pages would've been too flimsy to hold the copy of my dissertation in place.

To get around this I bought some thicker card that was a similar colour to the stock I used and laser cut the indents out, making them far more precise and much sturdier than the ones that I would've been left with from cutting them out from the 150gsm stock. Unfortunately there were lots of burn marks left on some of the indents, so some of the pages won't be as clean as I'd have liked them to be.

I also tried burning the title into the cover page. This didn't work because the 220gsm stock I used for the cover was still too thin.

Having tried numerous times with various different settings on the laser, I found a result that I liked and found that when I backed it against another piece off the 220gsm paper it not only had an aged look from the burn marks, but also got the debossed look that I liked about my copy of On The Suffering of the World, so I ended up being pleased with this despite it not being exactly how I wanted it. 

This in itself is quite reminiscent of a passage from Lee Spinks' book referring to the behaviour of the Ubermensch:

The Overman 'Seizes the right to new values' by replacing every traditional law or 'Thou shalt' with the affirmation of 'I will' - Spinks, 2003, p124

Publication - Printing

Fortunately the paper I got printed really nicely, there was a slight show through onto the other side, but this is only a small issue and is actually quite similar to the show through of the copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra I read.

§However, the printer didn't align the double-sided printing perfectly, and some of the pages were quite a way off being properly aligned. This has resulted in the margins of the pages being slightly inconsistent, similar to the ones in the copy of the Gay Science I read (below), which suggests to me that it would still be acceptable to be published and is only an aesthetic issue, so isn't too important.

 

Publication - Online Publishing

Rather than even considering looking into how to properly publish an online book I used Issuu because it's free which wouldn't restrict the will to power by restricting the amount of people that access it.

Issuu also allows me to keep the spine-to-the-right functionality of the main publication, as well as allowing me to mock up the idea of my essay being inside the main publication through hyperlinks and skeuomorphism, as shown below.

Paper Order

The different paper samples are shown below. Left to right they're Peregrina Majestic, Lorenzo Vellum, Original Gmund, Parch Marque, Lorenzo Topaz. 

I decided to go with Lorenzo Topaz because it has a naturally aged look about it very similar to the pages of the older copies of books I read as research for my essay. I placed the below order:

Lorenzo Topaz 150gsm A4 x 50
Lorenzo Topaz 220gsm A4 x 10

Unfortunately I wasn't able to test print on the different stocks to try out what weights of paper don't bleed through to ruin the other side of the paper, but I did some quick research to inform the weights I ordered. The heavier paper is for the covers.

http://paperworks.com/about-paper-weights

http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/products/perm/merch020622_paper_buying/

The 150gsm seemed the best option of the choices on offer by G.F Smith as it was closest to the suggested weights from my research. I'd used their 270gsm paper before and it showed no bleed through at all. Between this and the advice from the internet, I'm confident the 150gsm will work well.

This thickness of paper should also provide a reasonably thick spine, so the publication shouldn't look particularly thin or thick.

Practical Element - Digital Publication

Over recent weeks I've been ill which has stopped me from experimenting with stock for my publication. I now find myself in a position where I'm not going to have to experiment with the stocks and printers before ordering them, which could result in a poor quality outcome. This has highlighted to me the experimental nature of the project. 

For this reason, publishing it in an e-book format would support the experiment and would be validated by the idea that it's a re-appropriation of the meaning of a publication and goes along with the idea that the shadows of the past need to be eroded away at like the shadow of God. The distribution of my own ideas over the internet also allows my will to power to be expressed in a more active way than just producing a printed publication. 

Unfortunately this would remove the capability of having a spine on the right because of the lack of spine in general, but I could still produce a physical book alongside the e-book as an experimental/conceptual piece, which would minimise the importance of the printed quality, which could potentially be an issue.

Case Study - Interview With Protestant Preacher Dr John Revill

Having re-read the latest draft of my essay, I realise that my reference to an episode of the Simpsons is, while very appropriate, not very academic. I feel the point needs to be backed by a more academic source. My grandad, Dr John Revill, has been a Christian preacher for the majority of his life, and seemed like a good person to talk too about this. The interview went as follows:

*Interview starts by me showing Dr Revill the first 13 minutes and 30 seconds of The Simpsons, Series 2, Episode 13: Homer vs Lisa and the 8th Commandment.

Q: How long have you been a Doctor?

A: 53 Years.

Q: And how long have you been a protestant preacher?

A: A bit longer, 59 years.

Q: If you were Reverend Lovejoy having the conversation with Lisa Simpson, what would your advice to her have been?

A: Certainly is not to watch the forbidden fruit as it were, but then to tell her farther that he ought not to be involved as he may get into trouble with the law.

Q: Is this not going against the fifth commandment?

A: Not really, no. She’s still respecting her father, and he ought to set an example as a father not to encourage his family to use methods of stealing which were dubious.

Q: So does this mean that, on occasion, there are situations where any rule, even one of the ten commandments, will find an exception?

A: Yes. The ten commandments have to be taken together as a whole and sometimes one of them is much more relevant than the others, meaning that sometimes you can not obey one of the commandments without breaking one of the others. We call this situational ethics, so stealing a loaf of bread for someone who’s starving isn’t necessarily wrong.

Q: You said something to me the other day about the war with Isis, and how you don’t believe in war, but you believe in peace, and you believe in defending innocent people. In defending innocent people in this instance, to some extent there’s a case of accepting war. Does this mean that you don’t think moral rules should have some wiggle room in them?

A: Yes, this is situational ethics.

Publication - Stock Samples

I requested some paper samples from G.F Smith this morning to print my publication on. I was specifically looking for textured yellowy-cream papers to try and re-create the old-fashioned look that some of the books I've read have had because of their age. I requested:

Peregrina Majestic Candlelight Cream 120gsm

Peregrina Majestic Candlelight Cream 290gsm

Original Gmund Beige Verge 120gsm

Original Gmund Beige Verge 300gsm

Parch Marque Natural 90gsm

Parch Marque Natural 176gsm

Lorenzo Topaz 100gsm

Lorenzo Topaz 150gsm

Lorenzo Vellum 95gsm

Lorenzo Vellum 220gsm

I thought G.F Smith were a particularly appropriate foundry to request from given the high-end nature of their papers, as it's a sort of indulgence that supports the idea of the will to power.

I have particularly high hopes for the Parch Marque Natural 90gsm and the Lorenzo Topaz 100gsm samples.

 

 

Publication - Typeface Changes

Having started writing some of the content for my publication, I've found that some of the original decisions I made aren't as suitable in practice as they are in theory. 

The first change was that I altered the quotes from Quicksand to Gotham. I found that the decorative nature of Quicksand clashed with the titles and was too distracting from the body copy. Gotham is still a very modern font so fits the element of pastiche, but is more minimal while retaining similar character styles and sizes so it won't impact the hierarchy too much.

I also made the body copy smaller, as I found that even the small change of making it 9pt rather than 10pt made the chunks of text hold their shape a lot better both against the right side of the columns and around the quotes. It now is somewhat reminiscent of Derrida's Glas in how the text is split up.

Glas - Jacques Derrida

Publication - Influences

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The choice of stock was heavily influenced by the colouring of the pages due to the age of the copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra I borrowed from the library, which was 55 years old. By finding a stock that had a similar colour and texture I hope to recreate an aged look.

On The Suffering of the World

The copy of Schopenhauer's On The Suffering of the World had I bought had a front cover on which every single word was debossed into the page, this gave the text an element of power and a sense of credibility that wasn't present in the text on the covers of any of the other books I read for this project. For this reason I want to try and create a similar effect for the text on the cover of my book.

Glas

Whilst Jacques Derrida's Glas wasn't a book I read, and I have no idea how relevant or otherwise it is to my project, it should be pointed out that the inconsistent and somewhat obscure layout of text in my publication is similar to that in Glas, which was something I've been made aware of recently.

Publication - Grid and Typographic Decisions

I wanted to use a fairly decorative blackletter font for the headings because the historical relevance of blackletter fonts is reflective of pastiche, and picking a decorative one goes against modernist principles. I looked at Teutonic and Germanica particularly, I chose Teutonic number 4 particularly because of it's mixture of decoration and weight.

 

 

 

I set a grid up using the golden spiral as a basis because it reflects existentialist thought because of links to unexplained natural beauty. The body copy is in Cochin because it's a traditional serif font but with a particularly low x-height which will make the text look less blocky and academic.

I decided that the pull quotes should be in a fairly modern sans-seif font so the aesthetic wasn't overly old-fashioned, as the idea of pastiche is to re-appropriate the past, not to purely copy it. I chose to use Quicksand because it also has a fairly low x-height and it's decorative features, which make it a suitable partner for Teutonic No4 and Cochin. 

None of the three fonts used are particularly common, so they back the idea of individuality and avoiding the eternal recurrence, things that wouldn't have been achieved had I chosen to use Helvetica, Futura, Garamond, Times, Didot etc etc.

Practical Element - Design Decision Proposals

My publication will be a guide on how to use Nietzschean philosophy to transcend morality and ethics in graphic design in direct opposition to Lucienne Roberts' Good. The following proposals for the design of my publication make it suitable for the project:

• The spine will be on the right, which will make it appear that the reader is reading the book backwards, which is important as it suggests they're un-learning something. This relates to Nietzsche's form of Nihilism as he believed that destruction was necessary in order to make way for creation.
• The contents of the book will be ordered in such a way that it makes some sort of sense when read with the spine to the left, as those incapable of transcending tradition are incapable of becoming the Ubermensch. For this reason when read with the spine to the left the book will read more as an explanation of how the research for my essay was undertaken.
• The publication needs to represent how Nietzsche's thoughts aren't based on traditional philosophy, and how they're generally seen as more accessible to the average person than the thoughts of most other philosophers because of this. For this reason I don't want the book to look overpoweringly academic at first glance, and so I intend to keep it quite short, hopefully under 50 pages.
• My essay will be written up in a separate book that sits within the main publication in a similar way to how hip flasks are jokingly placed in Bible's (below), as this then makes the essay fully readable regardless of if the main publication is read with the spine to the left or to the right. By separating it from the rest of the content it's also an expression of my own will to power by highlighting my own academic work.
• The layout of the pages will be based around a grid based on the golden ratio which reflects the acceptance that not everything can be understood by science that is also present in existential thought. For this reason, the book will be B format size (198mm x 129mm) as I've seen this size accommodates a golden ration based grid comfortably in my extended practice.
• The pages will include larger pull-quotes to break up the larger bodies of text, which differentiates it from most other academically-based books, avoiding the layout taking on aspects of the eternal recurrence.
• Aesthetically, the book will look quite old-fashioned to reflect the pastiche of the Ubermensch. This will be done by using serif fonts, bookbinding methods that result in an old fashioned look, and stock with an inconstant colour. All these things also avoid modernist principles which is a statement against the First Things First Manifesto in itself, as it was based on modernist ideology.

The ordering of the content will be as follows (spine to the right) for the publication to make sense when read both ways:

• Introduction
• Contents
• Analysis of 1964 Manifesto
• Analysis of 2000 Manifesto
• Analysis of 2014 Manifesto
• Discussion of Design For Life - Nigel Ball
• Discussion of 10 Footnotes to a Manifesto - Michael Bierut
• Discussion of the Effects of the 2102 Tobacco Advertising and Promotions Act
• Discussion of work by Edenspiekermann
• Discussion of work by Margaret Calvert
• Discussion of Car and Drinks Advertising
• Introduction to the Will to Power
• Introduction to the Ubermensch
• Introduction to the Eternal Recurrence
• Discussion of Quotes from Human All Too Human
• Discussion of Quotes from Beyond Good and Evil
• Discussion of Quotes from The Gay Science
• Discussion of Quotes from Thus Spoke Zarathustra
• A Copy of my Dissertation