Merge yourself with your work
↳ Client: Adobe "Design Is Power" & Made By Humans
↳ Design Team: Marta Yarza, Simona Bunardzhieva, Tina Touli
The brief was to execute 3 images on the topic of creativity for the "passion projects" section of the "Made by humans" website. We had nearly unlimited freedom with the only limitation to show our passion.
As designers, we’ve learned that our work isn’t just something we do 9 to 5 – but rather it’s an extension of us. We live and breathe creativity and it’s only when we fully merge ourselves with our work, that we produce strong and unique outcomes. Much like the birds who fly with their wings, our work is a part of our own beings, bringing us to unknown destinations.
Merge yourself with your tools, your ideas, your work.
This project was a physical and digital exploration, connecting designers to their work in a very literal sense. The objective was to attempt things never done before, and push the boundaries of design and creativity as far as possible!
The interest was in manifesting an intangible idea into the practical world, and as designers, to communicate it in a visual way.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Three designers who like to get their hands dirty, experimenting with materials and trying out things that have not been done before.
After many trials and errors (attempts with optical illusions, paper sculptures, painting living plants, ink drippings photography, water distortion, big scale printing and more), the final material executions were selected: marbling, bubbles and projections.
WORK IN PROGRESS | PHOTO SHOOT
At the end of the shoot, the celebration came in the form of marbling hands. Not exactly a blood oath, but it felt appropriate.
Fun fact: the ink remained on the hands for almost a week. The price you pay for loyalty.
The photoshoot took a place in a photography studio in north London, which allowed greater control and flexibility over capturing the images. The studio was available only for about 6 hours and 3 concepts to shoot! Not an easy task, but luckily luck (and a lot of time watching, and pizza) helped achieve it.
WORK IN PROGRESS | MERGE YOURSELF WITH YOUR TOOLS
This concept is about merging yourself with your tools, and the final image shows how the human ideas can flow into the tools and begin an existing of their own.
A common object that would represent creativity, but in a very inclusive way, was chosen: the computer, an anonymous object that is used by many and can be associated with multiple things. It was painted in white acrylic paint (so it would absorb the marbling) and hoped that the experiment would work.
One of the earlier marbling experiments that semi-worked. A mixture of methylcellulose and alum (potassium aluminium sulfate) was used, and carefully dropped diluted acrylic paint, after which a hand was dipped in. The use of acrylic paint for the marbling was a smarter option as it is easier to wash, but the coverage was not opaque enough. So for the shoot, oil-based marbling inks were used, which were much harder to wash, but produced nice, dense colours.
WORK IN PROGRESS | MERGE YOURSELF WITH YOUR IDEAS
"Merge yourself with your ideas, and what better way to keep your ideas than your favourite notebook?" With this image, the message is how creators become one with their thoughts.
For the bubbles shot, a lot of impressive bubbles in a short amount of time with the use of a giant balloon. A mixture of dish soap and water was used to make the bubbles more durable and elastic.
The early experimentations with coloured water and bubble distortion, didn't bring any interesting or strong ideas. Luckily, as it often happens, one of the failed experiments brought the idea of the final shoot - ink drops, dispersing into the bubbles.
With only one suitable notebook at hand, the challenge was to find a way to place the bubbles onto the notebook without ruining it. So the idea was to use clear acetate sheet to hold the bubbles, placing them onto another clear sheet on top of the notebook, and this way preserving the water from ruining the pages.
Earlier experiments, where the focus was in the effects of distortion and visual deformation. At some point, the thought was to shoot giant bubbles in front of people (but that didn't work out).
WORK IN PROGRESS | MERGE YOURSELF WITH YOUR WORK
For the third and final image, the idea was to honor the digital world and designers who create work on screens, experimenting with the use of a low-res projection with a pixelated image on a messy physical surface.
The first idea was to build a paper sculpture, but it was not feasible to create one fast, cheap and easy. The inspiration led to the use receipt paper rolls, which were carefully arranged on three metal rails.
This image required a lot of digital retouch. In the beginning the composition wasn't working, and the final image was changed sideways. The final shot was composed from a lot of separate photos, and was painted digitally, as per the evolution of the idea.
