Built Environment – FIELD READINGS — on graphic design + visual culture

Built Environment, Graphic Commons, Graphic Design, Observation, Photography, Psychogeography, Research, Typography, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

Graphic commons: an unexpected drift

Date: 10.12.2020
Distance: 2.4 miles
Steps: 5271
Start: 07:37
Ground covered: Residential area to dockside, return via university campus

What started as simple exercise, to try to stave off a bad back from sitting at a desk for far too many hours, turned into a drift; the first one proper since my Lockdown 1.0 Constitutionals side project back in April.

Although I have been out walking for exercise now and again in recent months, these occasions have been few and far between, and mostly involved a round-about trip to one of our many local Coops. And while I started on this occasion only intending to go around the houses, I instead ended up down by Ipswich docks staring across the water.

The territory is very familiar, but I have not walked it for a while. It took me close to my place of work, where I haven’t ventured since the last week of October. An accidental collage I had discovered in the summer was still on the side of an old phonebox, (see below), it was a little bit more decayed than when it first caught my eye, but still resolutely stuck in its vinyl resistance to the elements.

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Built Environment, Environment, Observation, Photography, Psychogeography, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

Constitutionals

Since I wrote Graphic commons: Government sanctioned dérives, I have started to upload photos taken on my daily #coronawalks to a dedicated Instagram feed called Constitutionals.

It features much more of a variety of observations than just the graphic or typographic, as written about here, and is more typical of my usual Instagram feed. Depending on the amount of photographs I take, and my post-walk editing decisions, each addition has so far ranged from one to 21 photos. However, as Instagram restrictions only allow you to add a maximum of 10 photos in any one post, several days have multiple entries.

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Built Environment, Graphic Commons, Graphic Design, Graphic Interruptions, Observation, Psychogeography, Research, Typography, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

Graphic commons: Government sanctioned dérives

Making the most of the ‘sanctioned’ time I am allowed out to exercise during the UK government’s coronavirus pandemic ‘lockdown’, I have been drifting through my neighbourhood on a daily basis for the last week. Despite the awkwardness of swapping sides of the road every time I see someone coming in my direction, this has allowed me to visually re-engage with the Graphic Commons of this area of east Ipswich.

I know these streets well from the many dog walks my wife and I have done around our locale. Or so I thought. However, with our dog a year gone, and in more recent years him being so lethargic with age we tended to take him for less lengthy walks, it appears I have either become unfamiliar with some aspects of my surroundings, or simply never spotted them in the first place. So now, under circumstances I would not choose, I have been conducting observational research on the visual culture of my immediacy.

As would be expected, the start of my walks tend to have some degree of planning; at least in respects to me deciding what direction I am going to head in before I close the front door behind me. From then though, I make my decisions on a whim—that whim is often influenced by whether there appears to be too many people for my liking walking in one particular direction—and I drift the streets based on instinct and the random thoughts that themselves drift through my mind.

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Built Environment, Graphic Commons, Graphic Design, Newspapers, Photography, Research, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

Aesthetics of convenience

In the first of a series of publications that investigate different aspects of the graphic commons, Aesthetics of Convenience explores the vinyl window displays of convenience stores. Through a photographic and textual discussion of how these ‘little and often’ shop window displays affect human behaviour and environmental ambiences, the paper seeks to encourage a discussion about the visual culture of public spaces, as imposed on those that live in, or pass through them.

Published as a 20 page numbered limited edition tabloid newspaper, Aesthetics of Convenience brings together my own explorative photographs taken on numerous dérives, and a 1250 word essay which pieces together my thoughts when out traversing the graphic commons.

Aesthetics of Convenience is published as a limited edition of 100, and costs £3, (plus £2 postage in the UK, and £5 postage everywhere else). To buy a copy, follow the Paypal link, leaving your name and postal and email addresses in the notes section when paying: PayPal.me/paynigelball

Built Environment, Critique, Graphic Commons, Graphic Design, Observation, Photography, Psychogeography, Research, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

Graphic commons: Tunnel and peripheral vision

Distance: 3.7 miles
Steps: 8113
Start: 06:25
Ground covered: Feeder roads into and out of Ipswich town centre; pedestrianised shopping precincts; town centre.

It has been a while since I last did a dedicated graphic commons walk; 2017 in fact. More recent graphic commons posts have mainly been about walks taken as part of other activities. This reengagement is due to the resurrection of a graphic commons project that was put on-hold a few years ago—that of a series of publications dedicated to specific categories of the commons as I see them. The other commitments that took precedent over that project have now been completed, and it seems like a good time to jump back in. I will post more news here soon as it develops, but for now, here is a more generalised document of yesterday’s dérive.

The walk’s territory is very familiar to me, and picks up from two I conducted in 2016, peripheral visions and dérive of convenience. Although the walk was specifically to record more convenience store window displays, of which I got plenty, other categories presented themselves to me, with abundance: vinyl banners, telephone booth adverts, fly posters, etc. Ipswich, it appears, is the graphic commons gift that keeps on giving. While the delivery mechanisms themselves hadn’t changed much, some of the graphics had.

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Built Environment, Photography, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

One person’s ordinary…

My father, a commercial photographer, subscribed to the British Journal of Photography and from a very young age I used to love flicking through its pages. While over the last ten years I have maintained a sporadic subscription to the magazine, it has never been as satisfying to my adult eyes as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, photo-books have become my photography drug of choice and I find immersing myself in the vision of one particular photographer at a time gives me a much deeper connection with the work shown. One particular photographer whose output I have become fascinated by in recent years is Iain Sarjeant. Since 2016 I have been collecting his Out Of The Ordinary volume of books, the series now in its third and final iteration. These titles document the spontaneous shots he has taken as he journey’s through everyday Scotland as part of a long-term project.

What first attracted me to his work was that I could see something in his photos that mirrored my own interests in the overlooked. But this soon became more than just an interest in the subject matter and as much about his approach to it—he has an eye that looks to make order out of what other’s would pass by.

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Built Environment, Critique, Culture, Design, Graphic Commons, Graphic Design, Politics, Research, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

Proposing the Graphic Commons

This text was first published as a pamphlet of the same name in August 2017. It is republished here for the first time online. Copies of the original pamphlet, as a numbered limited edition of 300, are still available on request. Please get in contact if you would like a copy.

This essay introduces the term Graphic Commons as an identifier with which to discuss graphic design within shared public environments. It sets out why a new linguistic term in contemporary graphic design discourse is required, and situates this as part of wider discussions surrounding urbanism and social responsibility.

Much has changed since Henri Lefebvre’s 1974 declaration that: “…there is no architectural or urbanistic criticism on a par with the criticism of art, literature, music and theatre.” (1991, p92) Some 43 years later urbanism is studied in renowned academic centres such as University College London’s UrbanLab. However, graphic design as a discipline is often overlooked as part of ongoing critical urban dialogues. While anti-advertising rhetoric is in rude health within academic, design and political circles, advertising remains its focus. Although a critique of advertising is an important aspect of the Graphic Commons, and therefore appropriate to discuss under the term’s usage, this proposal considers a much wider remit of study. As Lefebvre stated: “There would certainly seem to be a need for such a criticism… We are talking, after all, of the setting in which we live.” (1991, p92)

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Advertising, Architecture, Built Environment, Culture, Graphic Commons, Heritage, History, Observation, Photography, Politics, Psychogeography, Typography, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

Graphic commons: Bucharest, a bohemian rhapsody

Recently I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to travel to Bucharest, Romania, for work. The trip was so that I could attend an art and design education fair and to talk at a couple of high schools about our courses. This was my first such recruitment trip abroad, and I’m told you often only get to see a city from a car window and in the evening before flying back the next day. Thankfully though, because of the timings of our itinerary, I managed to get a little time to myself to wander the city and soak up Bucharest’s visual culture.

This was my first visit to Eastern Europe, and one, given the timing of the trip, that was over-shadowed by Brexit. Our host, locals and delegates from other countries all had an opinion, with none of them positive. The majority of Romanians I spoke to about it, (and Romania isn’t a country afraid of change, it could be argued), all thought Britain was putting itself in a ridiculous position.

One of the things that struck me about Bucharest from the outset, was that it is a country that is happy to wear its history on its sleeve—it is there in plain sight for everyone to see. Our hotel was very close to Revolution Square, the site of the uprising that saw Nicolae Ceaușescu toppled from power nearly 30 years ago.

Monuments to these tumultuous times have seen better days, and the local anarchists appear to show little respect for those that lost their lives fighting against the dictator. Some locals said the current government is the most corrupt in 100 years, so it appears a struggle continues. Given we were a week away from national celebrations of 100 years of independence for Romania, this is some claim given their more recent history.

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Analogue, Built Environment, Community, Culture, Graphic Commons, Graphic Design, Observation, Psychogeography, Research, Urbanism, Visual Sociology

Graphic commons: analogue community

Lostwithiel, Cornwall, (affectionately known as Losty by the locals), was the nearest town on our recent summer holiday.

As I have mentioned in a previous post I have an interest in noticeboards, and Lostwithiel has not one, but two that I could find. What struck me more than this though was that 2 noticeboards did not seem to be enough for its towns-folk. For on our first proper wander around Losty, every single telegraph-pole seemed to be adorned in posters of varying quality and displaying a cornucopia of events and information. These flyposters didn’t seem to be an alternative to what was on the ‘official’ noticeboards—in fact, it looked like there was a lot of repetition.

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Advertising, Built Environment, Critique, Culture, Graphic Commons, Graphic Design, Politics, Protest, Review, Urbanism

Reclaim the sheets

While some may praise Lush for its recent #SpyCops poster campaign, having your own shop window to deliver a political campaign message in is a luxury most do not have. Now, the non-shop owning agitpropper can turn to Brandalism, who have launched a Subvertising Manual that shows anyone how to reclaim visual spaces from advertisers by replacing 6-sheet adverts with their own artwork.

Taking aim at the backlit hoardings most frequently seen at bus stops, the manual tells you everything you need to know to hang your own work in these spaces. Subtitled What You Need And How To Do It, it discusses what tools are required to open the displays; artwork sizes for the majority of bus shelter hoardings, (advertising lingo calls these 6-sheets); what to wear and the best times of day to hang your work to avoid getting caught; and where you can find information online so your work stays up as long as possible.

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