OUGD405 STUDIO BRIEF 2 - HOUSE NUMBER RECONSIDERATION

I chose the idea of house numbers to undertake research about for this brief, and came up with a mind map of ideas on the different questions I could ask people when knocking on their doors.

I thought about asking them things to do with the house they live in, such as how long they've lived there for, how many people live in the house, would they prefer a different house. I also thought about different questions such as do they like Christmas, do they prefer tea, coffee or hot chocolate, or their favourite number. In the end I went for the questions, how long they've lived in the house for, would they prefer a bigger or smaller house, or live in a different area, do they have a milkman, how many people live in the house, and also do they think that the tradition of it being lucky for a woman to propose to a man on 29 February in Ireland to be romantic or silly. I thought these were 5 questions that were quick and simple to answer, and would provide good information to produce some sort of publication or chart with.

I started out in my home village called Cookley, and found it really hard to find houses with the number 1-20 on, as a lot of streets had houses with larger numbers on. Being near Christmas, many doors that I knocked on had nobody in, and several little old ladies turned me down, and looked a little bit afraid of me and my mum standing in their doorway. I only managed to get 4 houses done in one afternoon, which took a lot longer than I had anticipated. 

As I was going from door to door I also felt increasingly uncomfortable knocking on peoples doors and asking questions that I wasn't particularly interested in, and I felt like I was just wasting their time when they'd much rather be doing something different. I wasn't interested in what their responses to my questions were, I was just hoping that nobody was in in the door I had knocked on.

I then thought I'd try and get more interested in house numbers by looking at different designs on Pinterest, and I did actually find some really unusual and artistic ones, however none of the house numbers I had seen so far were interesting in the slightest, which made me think that pretty much all of the houses I will knock on will have boring, generic house numbers.

These are some of the more interesting house numbers I found on Pinterest.

House number on an oar.

Number on a window flower basket style plaque.

House number cut into a piece of slate in the shape of a house.

House number inside a box full of grass. Stark white contrasts against the dark, rich green of the grass nicely.

This made me a lot more interested in house number designs, however when it came to having to go out and knock on more people's doors, I kept on putting it off and off, because I just didn't enjoy doing it. This lead me to thinking that if I'm going to have to force myself to go out and knock on people's doors, I'm not going to enjoy it, and the people whose doors I knock on are going to realise that I'm not enjoying myself and are more likely to refuse me.

I then came up with a mind map of things I could research that actually interest me, so I would enjoy researching these things and produce a lot better of an outcome because I have enjoyed researching it.

I thought about capital cities, which was an idea from my first mind map. I am really interested in different cities, not necessarily capital cities, but interesting ones, and really want to go travelling, so I thought this would be a topic that I could research that there is a lot of information about, so I wouldn't ever find it hard to get research. I thought I could research what certain cities are most known for, and special sights you have to see when you go to these cities, such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I could also look more into the history of the cities, how they came about existing, and how they were affected during the war possibly. The only problem with this topic is that I wouldn't be able to get a lot of my own photographs, as I have only been to a few countries, and can't just fly out to 20 different cities to take photographs for this brief, it's not economically feasible.
I also thought about figurine, figure type toys, such as Lego minifigures, Be@rbrick bears, Sonney Angels, Russian dolls and even china animals. I collect these kinds of figures and find them really cute and interesting, pleasing to look at, even if they do just end up on my bedroom shelf collecting dust. I thought I could research the kinds of materials they're made from, and some of the very first figure toys that were made, how they have evolved over time. This is something I'm really interested in, however I am doubtful as to how much concrete research can actually be done. I also think this topic is a little too broad, I should narrow it down to just one kind of figure toy, to make my research less broad and more specific.
Something similar to my figure toy ideas is teddy bears, as I love collecting these and have so many it's unbelievable. I also know a really cute shop in Leeds that's jam packed full of teddies to the brim and is amazing. However Leeds is a little far away from my home town where I am over Christmas. But I thought about researching different popular types of teddy bear such as Build-a-bear, Charlie bears and Steiff, bringing in some of my favourite teddy bears as well.
I also thought about beer bottle labels, or just bottle labels, as I am constantly taking photographs of bottle labels in shops, and buying drinks just because they have an interesting label. I could research into different bottle label designers, and some of the more unusual designs. This would be interesting to look at all the different designs, however I don't think I could collect a suitable amount of research into the labels necessary for this brief.

The idea I have chosen to go forth with is the interesting cities idea, as this is something that I'm really interested in at the moment, and the imagery for some cities is just breathtaking. I also chose it because I think I can do a lot of research about the different cities, and can choose areas of research that interest me, because there is so much information around. I think I will present my research as fact files, one A5 piece of paper for each city, kind of like a Top Trump card I suppose, which could be a fun way to present them. Maybe research into cities top trumps would be a good idea for my presentation? I am really excited about researching into cities of my choosing, but just hope I have enough time to undertake as much research as is necessary, as changing my idea with only just over a week until the deadline is pretty risky.