#29

The first thing I do when I embark on any sort of research project is to read up on the matter. So I purchased these books and have started to read them to acquaint myself with the subject. Some of the books are very simple almost for children, a few of the books are very difficult because the myths are verbatim as they were written a thousand years ago. My favorite so far has been the Lore of Scotland which is more like an encyclopedia of all types of events relating to folklore myths and legends.

#28

After my mid-semester review where I decided to focus on Scottish myths and legends I spent the next day diving into researching the topic. Below is some of the research I found. I did struggle a bit in that mythology is a lot different when it comes to research than history. There is no exact tracing or dating of anything and it felt a bit disorganized to me.

I was able to break the topics up into categories and found a cohesive narrative of the ideas. The first thing I did was go through and highlight all the locations related to the myths and legends to try to begin to decide where to travel to for this assignment.

#27

MID-SEMESTER REVIEW FEEDBACK

I found it important to include this blog post to keep these blog up to date with the evolution of my project. I presented my mid-semester review to my personal tutor, professor and director and we both realized that I had a hugely broad topic and foundation of research. I had too much.

So a suggestion that was made to me was that I focus on Scottish myths and legends. I was thrilled at this idea because while it was a topic I knew some about, it was still an area of knowledge I could develop. I also jumped at this idea because a lot of visuals came to mind when I thought about this topic. This was helpful because I was really struggling with visuals in my last idea.

Additionally, I knew a narrowing down of this topic to myths and legends was going to be much more effective when it came to researching by traveling through Scotland. Traveling is a huge element to my project and I originally had about 12 locations to visit but now with the narrowing down of the topic I have about 6 which is much more doable.

#26

This week I began to research visuals for this project. I have subscribed to a multitude of history magazines and was able to find images in there that gave me inspiration for this project.

I found this combination of medieval imagery and modern imagery a good representation of what I would like to display in my final result. I also love the element of collage.

This is an example of what I found to be a really successful map. I talked about my issues with maps found in history books because they often are very vague and not helpful when providing information. This is a specific map with loads of content and exact pin-pointing of what to know about a region.

I found this graphic based on imperial occupation of Barbados and I loved the aesthetic of it. I felt that the multi-media aesthetic is what I would like to go for. I also have a background in print making and would love to incorporate it into my research narratives final result.

This last image I found I really liked because it was a modern artistic rendition of historical portraiture. I think digital assets like this can prove to become invaluable in the future.

#25

BRAINSTORMING SESSION DAY 2

After having so much success on my mind-maps, the next day I revisited them and filled in the blank periods that were influential to Scottish culture. Listed are the time periods below. I did try to divide my idea bubbles up into green highlighted categories of “HISTORY” and purple highlighted categories of “CULTURE”.

I did this in order to solve my research question which I was brainstorming could be the concept of asking “DOES HISTORY DESIGN CULTURE OR DOES CULTURE DESIGN HISTORY”

STUART DYNASTY BEGINS TO FAIL AND ESCALATES INTO WAR

STABILITY OF UNION USHERS IN ENLIGHTENMENT TO SCOTLAND, DEVELOPING SCOTTISH CULTURE TO THIS DAY

UNION WITH ENGLAND IS FINALLY ACHIEVED, SETTING OFF DOMINO EFFECT OF CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SCOTLAND

STABILITY OF UNION USHERS IN ENLIGHTENMENT TO SCOTLAND, DEVELOPING SCOTTISH CULTURE TO THIS DAY

#24

FIRST BRAINSTORMING SESSION

I sat down on one of my days off and started researching various Scottish topics and I kept getting overwhelmed about where to start and what to invest my effort and attention in. I realized the topic of all Scottish history and culture since the dawn of time until now was too much of a daunting task.

Instead of looking on the web and going down the rabbit hole I decided to mind-map. I had just about lost faith in mind-mapping for a history project when I got on a roll and quickly scrawled out 5 pages of 5 historical periods that I felt were essential to developing modern day Scottish culture.

CELTS SETTLE IN SCOTLAND 1200 BC

ROMAN OCCUPATION between 79 AD and 124 AD

VIKING EXPLORATION AND INTEGRATION starting in 800 AD

ENGLISH SUCCESSION CRISIS OF 1066 AD is a domino effect of cultural influence into Scotland

SCOTTISH SUCCESSION CRISIS OF 1286 inspires domino effect of cultural influence

#23

WHAT RESEARCH HAVE I ALREADY DONE?

For a few years I have spent every weekend reading Scottish culture and history books. I have compiled an image of all of the covers of the 29 books I’ve read up until this date. These books have formed my foundation of knowledge on the topic.

#22

DISCOVERING MY TOPIC

In the last semester my agency worked on a business strategy to find a way to preserve historical culture. This semester I wanted to build on that idea and explore Scottish history and culture as my personal research narratives project.

To give you some context, I have always loved UK culture and I love history. Every historian has a sacred region they like to investigate and I love to learn about the history of the British Isles and Ireland. The more I looked into the differences between Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland, the more I felt a connection to Scottish history. Being an American, I could see so many ways in which the Scottish diaspora created the culture in the US. I spent years reading about modern day culture and past history. I came to the University of Edinburgh I wanted to live in Scotland and I wanted to attend the famous school that was such a legend in all of my books. I wanted to use my time in Scotland to discover everything about Scottish culture and history that I couldn’t discover simply through books and television while living in the United States. This is what formed my motivation for choosing this as my Personal Research Narratives Project.

#21

The following content found below in blog posts #1-20 is my work for my Publication Class. This was a class where printing was our only journalistic medium and I ended up enjoying my project due to the fact that I handle editorials all the time in my graphic design job. I got to do some sketching on my iPad too and was overly enthused about that.

#20

Finally I have printed my publication piece. I can’t believe I finally finished I would have to say that most of my working hours went into this project. I found a printer in my area and they were able to print the magazine in a few hours for me. Over all it was a pretty good print job. I believe more than anything that my strength was interpreting the essay and I believe that I made a readable magazine. I’m glad I used indesign for this project and hope to strengthen my skills in the platform more each day. Below are the front cover and back cover and the first two spreads.

#19

Below are the last four spreads of my project. I am happy with how it turned out. As you can see I had a hand model the piece to show that it is a small magazine. I tried to show the engaging part about the road to hell process. I was happy with how the last supper turned out and how the presidents famous lies printed out. If I could do anything again I would probably try to make more negative space like the ART IS SUBJECTIVE page. I like that page a lot despite it being so simple.

#18

Some of the very last design changes I made to this last page of mine were the presidents graphics. I felt I didn’t like that the presidents were on two separate pages so I moved them all to one page. Initially I wanted to sketch them but as soon as I started sketching them I knew it wasn’t the look I wanted to go for. So instead I went with a modern image with a blue gradient on each of the cut out faces of the presidents. I chose images where they looked naturally deceptive. Finally following a friend’s feedback that my original spread had a disjointed look of how I was displaying the president’s quotes I changed the quotes to my handwritten dialogue sequences that I’ve had going through out the whole essay.

#17

On to my fourth iteration! This is very very close to my final version. I was searching for a bold color to match my beige and was happy I finally found this navy. I changed all of the white text on top of the navy to a beige colored off white. I included my last supper drawing on the third spread. I reworked my road to hell page because I received feedback that the ballot page inspired look felt disjointed from the rest. I got rid of all pure white backgrounds on the magazine to give it a more polished look. And lastly I changed the typography of the “ART SHOULD BE SUBJECTIVE DESIGN SHOULD BE TRUTHFUL” to two fonts that make SUBJECTIVE look more unclear and TRUTHFUL to look more clear. I let this quote with all of the negative space really anchor my entire essay.

#16

Here is an image of my entire process and end result of drawing this Last Supper painting. Drawing a sketch based on a painting is much harder than drawing a sketch based on a sketch but I made it work. This drawing took about 8 hours. It’s fascinating how much you learn about a piece when you spend that much time reworking it. One of the things I was shocked by was the COUNTLESS amounts of hand gestures. Anyone who draws knows that hands are some of the hardest to draw so I was tediously coming across every one of these hands and realizing not a single hand gesture is the same. It really makes you think about how reactionary the entire dinner party is.

#15

In my last variation I used The Last Supper painting twice. I repeated the image and during a round of feedback one of my professors took pains to mention to the entire class if you are repeating an image to justify its being there otherwise it is unclear design-wise why you need them both. The professor recommended I draw the four windows of The Last Supper but I decided I would rather draw the second occurrence of the painting because that page lacked any real sort of artwork.

#14

This is a chart showing my three variations of dimensions. I went through three sizes before being confident with my final choice. Initially I put the spread over a A3 size of paper so the single page was 8.25 inches by 11.7 inches tall. Then when I decided to use the drawing as my front cover I thought that I would model my magazine inspired by the famous New Yorker magazine dimensions of 7.875 inches wide by 10.75 inches tall for a single page.

After this variation I printed out my essay for the first time and I learned SO much from doing so. I was not happy with the size at all. The text at 12 point was way, way too big. I wanted everything condensed. So I decided to reduce my entire page size to the size of the National Geographic magazine size which is 5.75 inches wide by 9 inches tall. I ended up being able to fit all the text on the same original pages by reducing it to 9pt over 12pt spacing. I printed out this fourth iteration and was much much happier with it.

#13

Following the third variation’s feedback where a professor said that my watercolors didn’t contribute any interpretation of the essay by displaying something I removed them all entirely. Truth be told, I was unsure about my inclusion of these watercolors the whole time. I more used them as placeholders for the images. I was hoping for feedback about them in my second iteration but it was glossed over. I was never confident about them and I knew deep down that they felt out of place so I ended up getting rid of them and am happy with my decision and the next result.

#12

On to the third iteration! This is where my work started to take shape. I ended up keeping many of these elements. Going on with the theme of a fine art essay I used my beige drawing pad background for a few of the text backgrounds. I reincorporated my cut-out last supper image on top of a watercolor and I ended up changing all of my watercolors to greyscale. I wanted to keep with all colors on the piece to be what could be found in fine art works, specifically all neutrals. Lastly, following a professors feedback I reincorporated my “road to hell” ballot graphic for that page’s section.

#11

My next iteration I wanted to incorporate more of what I interpreted from the essay. This is the final page where Milton talks about lying more extensively. I wanted to tie in my research about famous lies in American history so I came up with a piece showing three famous American presidents saying lies that we eventually all learned were not true. Bill Clinton famously denied that he had a sexual relationship with his White House intern and was impeached for his actions. George W. Bush famously lied or ‘revealed inaccurate intelligence’ that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which he used purely to justify his invasion. Lastly, Lyndon B. Johnson was the president at the end of the US war with Vietnam. For decades American school children were taught to learn that we won the war in Vietnam but it became clear we by no means won.

#10

After I came up with the front cover I quickly thought of an idea for the back cover too. I found a sketch by Leonardo Da Vinci of a woman with a very ambiguous looking face and I recreated it by drawing it on my iPad. Since I made the front cover about the distortion of the truth I wanted the back cover to be about ambiguity. I wrote the phrase “MY FACE SAYS IT ALL” because her face gives nothing away. She could be mad or happy or sarcastic it’s all whatever the audience takes away from it. The drawing is ambiguity incarnated.