LCMS 16 | The Communicate Collaborate Issue

no. 16 Communication & Collaboration Issue

less commonmore sense

Editor’s LetterCommunication is intrinsic to our lives; it enables us to share with others, whether speech, thoughts, ideas or visuals. Collaboration helps us to put that communication to good use, and by working with different people, challenging and thought-provoking ideas can occur.The fashion industry owes its success to the continued

collaboration between many different individuals and professions. Buyers, merchandisers, PR teams, journalists, designers, technologists, assistants, photographers and many more all work with each other to be part of this social phenomenon. Cross-sector initiatives are also common, with fashion particularly renowned for collaborating with music and film producers amongst others.Fashion has and always will be a form of communication,

whether it is a conscious decision or not. The messages may be direct, such as in the conveyance of class or subculture, or they might just be a message that you want to be looked at. As Martin Amis said, “Apart from warmth, protection, and propriety, what was the idea of clothes exactly? Patently the idea was to express something through the medium of shape and colour. But express what?”This issue focuses on the importance of communication

and collaboration for new and continuing students, and our alumni. We are privileged to go to a university which may come under the singular umbrella of ‘Arts’, but contains a wide array of diverse subjects. We all need to get out there and start communicating with other students on different courses because the potential for great collaborations are everywhere, as you will see in this issue.

Giselle La Pompe-Moore | Fashion Sub-Editor

ContentsGareth Lewis & Alex Roots p2

Jack Lee & Rosi Holdsworth p4

Claire Griffiths & Helena p6

Nicola Di Costanzo p8

Scarlet Shillingford p10

Peter Franz Weber p12

Samantha Huang p13

Haohao Huang p14

Uzair Choughtai p16

David Barkley & Kate Burn p17

Ian Curtis p18

Simon Schwyzer p20

Mark Davis Front Cover

The Magazine of the Students’ Union University of the Arts London

Communicate & Collaborate2

Music and fashion have always been tied together, musicians often use fashion as a way to identify and differentiate themselves, and their fans do the same. In turn, fashion often draws inspiration from the music industry. Earlier this year Less Common More Sense ran a fashion design competition in collaboration with Syllabus Music and Alex Roots.

Alex Roots is pop with a healthy dose of punk and a bit of a retro streak. Described as part Katy Perry and part Cyndi Lauper, she pairs 80s quirk with noughties in-your-face lyrics and solid commercial appeal. Alex is fast becoming the city’s golden girl. Tipped by the press as a big chart invader for the coming year, she has been praised by Tiscali for her storming liveshows and magnetic charisma.The competition aimed to find a designer

at University of The Arts London to design an item of clothing or an accessory for Alex to promote and to wear in a photo shoot for this issue of Less Common More Sense. We received many outstanding entries but the winner is Gareth Lewis with his very modern, classy and edgy bag, which also helped Gareth to win Accessories Designer of the Year at the Drapers Award (www.drapersawards.co.uk). Gareth met up with Alex at the RAK music studio in London in the Summer for the photoshoot.

Gar

eth

Lew

isan

d A

lex

Root

sFashion Editor (text): Giselle La Pompe-Moore

Photographer: Abigail Rose Liparoto

Photographer’s Assistant:

Tatiana Woolrych Syllabus Music:

Gideon

3www.wearelesscommon.com

Jack Lee & Rosi Holdsworth


The success of this collaborative project was due to the way two people managed to express and explore ideas together. The amazing part of collaboration is not only the ability to combine two individual’s strengths, but also the motivation that one affects the other. Partnership is about eliminating silence.

In search of the Queen


Helena: Me is a collaboration between Helena, a young woman and artist who has learning disabilities, and her photographic facilitator Claire Griffiths.Helena has difficulty communicating her

wants and needs in life; whilst working as a support worker in Helena’s home, Claire noticed that Helena showed great frustration whilst on holiday because she was unable to take her own holiday photos with her fiddly camera. When back from the holiday, Claire

brought her medium-format camera and tripod to work, and set about sharing the use of it with Helena. Together they used a cable release on the camera to document Helena’s life in the large residential care complex.Helena chose exactly what she wanted

to photograph, composed the images and directed subjects. This was a big breakthrough in our understanding of Helena’s life; the images she took enable us to see into her world and what is important to her.

Claire Griffithsand Helena


Nicola Di Costanzo


Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another. The project Light&Vision aims to communicate in a different way and it wants to let people feel differently about reading a book. As we know, we can see what we are reading (the

letters), but we may not think about our other senses and so we don’t feel the pages. These two books allow the reader to both read and feel the message using their other senses. It is a process in which different physical means work together to convey the message.

www.wearelesscommon.com 9

We wanted to create work that we had designed the brief for, while still working as a group. We wanted to create something that allowed everyone to play an important part in the creation of it. This was primarily how the theme of urban tribe came about, which we later expanded on when we borrowed the headresses made by Daniel Diego Lincoln so we could play with the idea further. The collaboration allowed multiple inputs and ideas from everyone that was involved and without each persons input, it would have not resulted in the same final images.

Scarlet Shillingford


© Peter Franz Weber

Peter Franz Weber

Boys love to play with toy guns. Just like any other type of play there are benefits to it, even if it evokes fear in people, because it can encourage discussion about guns. The BiteClub biscuit reduces the negative connotations associated with guns, and provides a harmless, tasty and creativity-fostering toy treat.


Samantha Huang

It was two books lying unwanted in the reception area of my building that formed the foundation to this series of projects: how many of us consider what this says about ourselves? Not just in terms of waste, but also how we see paper – the life this is drawn from and what this means to communication overall.In the spirit of books, these works

speak in a few images what volumes, literally, cannot. Taking second-hand and discarded English or Japanese texts, these sculptures strive to give this overlooked, ignored and often forgotten medium a new life.My project is far from over: it

can be expanded using nearly any other medium, showing how the origins and sources or a material ultimately effect everything they contact, even while the spectator remains unaware of this force.


than 14 days, Huang wrote the numerical dates on a 25-metre-long roll of paper completely by hand. After this accomplishment, he took 8 days to colour-code his hand-scribbled numbers based on historical records of modern Chinese history (e.g., Huanghuagang Uprising, Xinhai Revolution, New Culture Movement) and family history. The aim was to visualise

the relationship between Chinese modern history and his genealogical records. After

Visualizing time is always a tough topic and has attracted many designers’ and artists’ attention. So is history, which is a quite subjective topic. Haohao Huang stuck firmly to his beliefs in his thesis by using info graphics as an approach to visualize history.The project Mapping Time

Based on Genealogy and Historical Study consists of a simple but incredibly detailed mapping of 100 years worth of dates on a long paper canvas. Over a time period of more

reviewing Chinese modern history together with English translations and his personal experience, he found that his own understanding about history was unexpectedly challenged by the subjectivity of historical findings. In order to communicate the historical facts to the audience, he has stuck to his position as a graphic communicator throughout the entire project, resulting in a whole new visual representation of a nation’s history.

Haohao Huang


For this project I looked at a mineral called ‘coltan’, which is surrounded by controversies similar to that of the blood diamond. But did I simply want to raise awareness on the issue? Was I planning on making the viewer feel guilty about the subject and want to make a change? I decided that a poster would become an effective record of my research journey. I aimed to present the viewer with a bulk of text: they

could decide whether to read the whole thing or just the first line. Either way, they would discover what coltan was, but to different degrees. However, like any political issue, the viewer is faced with facts and opinions, and yet a solution escapes them. With subjects like coltan, global warming or the Iraq war, there are always contradictions, conspiracies and other aspects that prevent a simple solution or answer.

Uzah

Cho

ught

ai


pass judgment on the way brands communicate, from advertising and packaging to websites and other channels. Value-rated dichotomies such as: Regressive or progressive? Trivial or educational? Passive or inspiring? Salesmen or storytellers? are used to gather opinion and form the character. For example, the more intelligent you are perceived, the bigger your head gets, and if you only ever talk about yourself, expect a big waist.

Civil branding harnesses the power of mass communication for social influence and brand difference. Growing brands is about putting a socially progressive narrative inside the primary message of the brand, to create unique and honest company personas. A brand’s most important asset is its tone of voice, its character. Roll Models generates brand characters from consumer opinions, creating accurate displays of a brand’s impact on its society. Consumers

David Barkley and Kate Burn


18 Communicate & Collaborate

This comic book typographically represents how the blind superhero Daredevil interprets the sounds around him as a kind of visual language that enables him to form mental pictures. Onomatopoeic words from the movie were distorted with mirrors and kaleidoscopes to give an impression of Daredevil’s fleeting mental impressions.

Ian CurtisOnomatopoeic Daredevil Comic


SimonSchwyzer

Arcadia is a fictional utopia referring to the mental state of the player. For this piece, I documented people visiting the arcades in London in order to counter the stereotype of gamers being antisocial personalities. Most of the regular visitors communicate with each other

and the process of playing video games itself requires collaboration with the game. The screen-shot quality of the photographs highlights the intensity people put into their hobby, as well as the metamorphosis of the player into the character within the video game.

List of ContributorsGareth Lewis [email protected]

Alex Roots www.alexroots.net

Abigail Rose Liparoto www.daughtersof.co.uk

Gideon (Syllabus Music) www.syllabusmusic.com

Jack Lee & Rosi Holdsworth [email protected]

Claire Griffiths & Helena www.clairegriffiths.com

Nicola Di Costanzo [email protected]

Scarlet Shillingford [email protected]

Peter Franz Weber www.peterfranzweber.com

Samantha Huang www.flickr.com/photos/samanthayhuang

Haohao Huang www.haohaohuang.com

Uzair Choughtai uzairchoughtai.blogspot.com

David Barkley www.davidbarkley.co.uk

Kate Burn www.kateburn.co.uk

Ian Curtis www.howtoholdasixpence.com

Simon Schwyzer simonschwyzer.com

Editorial TeamEditor-In-Chief Kit Friend www.arts.ac.uk/showtime/kitfriend

Deputy Editor Tatiana Woolrych www.arts.ac.uk/showtime/tatianawoolrych

Fashion Editor Giselle La Pompe-Moore [email protected]

Lead Designer Barbara Ward http://bward.jotta.com

Designer Mark Davis www.markandtom.com


Are you a new talent in publishing, editing, writing, design, photography, illustration, blogging, proof reading, radio, tv, animation, film, ceramics, dance, performance or anything else creative? We want you!

Less Common is looking for new members of it’s magazine production team, and for its brand new online activity at our new home: www.wearelesscommon.com.

Less Common More Sense and our new brands are student-led. Our media activity gives voluntary opportunities for you to show your talent, and crucially to help showcase the skills and work of your peers at UAL. They are designed, and supported, to compliment your studies and aspirations as one of our students, and to be a joy not to be a job. You will not be expected to take on the same duties or responsibilities as an employee, but will need to pull through on any commitments you make to your team in your collective work.

Less Common More Sense MagazineOur award-winning print wing, producing around 4,000 copies in print and online, 3 issues per year, and always looking to develop. We need:EditorThe main control for the magazine, you will co-ordinate the team and have the ultimate say on things. The Editor needs the patience of a saint, big ambitions and scope for developing the publication.

Sub-Editors: Art, Design, FashionCo-ordinate the discipline-specific content for LCMS, need a their finger on the pulse of the London creative scene and can find the best talent from amongst our student body.Designers A team of 2–3, with one lead designer selected each year, laying out content, producing illustrations and typography, and generally leading the graphic side of the magazine from concept to print.

Proof ReadersGot an eye for detail? Our magazine would be nowhere without these dedicated individuals, dissecting the fabulous work students send in, checking more mistakes and editing content.

Less Common Online

Online EditorThe main control of our online content, co-ordinating the team of bloggers, working with our web developers, marketing and other gurus to bring Less Common to the bleeding edge of the web.Less Common RadioFrom DJs to Podcasters, if you’ve got a talent or idea in the audio spectrum we want to hear from you!

Less Common TVChurning out animations on your course? Maybe you fancy chronicling what it’s really like at Art School, or you’re just a bit of an American Beauty-type. Social NetworkersFancy being our very own Twittercrat? Have a million friends on Facebook and know your Flickr from your Tumblr? We want Less Common out there and integrated wherever our students are going online – and to link their content back to us.

BloggersAre you the next big thing in online journalism? Maybe you’ve got a talent for sifting through the creative world – physical or virtual – and crafting a turn of phrase that has your friends green with envy. Web DevelopmentD0 y0u wr1t3 l1k3 th1s? F4ncy y0urs3lf 4s 4 w3bm4st3r? Or maybe you’re just good with code and fancy applications – either way, we want you!

Less Common MarketingWe need:

Marketing ManagerThe head honcho of our PR and advertising wing, we need you to expand our brand and look for new opportunities of income and exposure. Working closely with our Marketing team within the SU we want someone with sparkle and a knack for breaking into new sectors.

Events TeamFancy breaking into new scenes? Already organizing exhibitions, but want a brand on your side? We’re interested in the Less Common brand being stamped all over events – and we’ve even got a load of bars at UAL you can use to host them. Party-goersIs last year a bit of a blur? Do you spend more time on the steps of Shoreditch townhall than

in the studio? We want you to spread the word about Less Common in the chic and the shabby venues alike. And we won’t even ask you to be up before midday.

Are you Less Common?

Apply for all these roles online at www.wearelesscommon.com

The Magazine of the Students’ Union University of the Arts London www.wearelesscommon.com

LCMS 16 | The Communicate Collaborate Issue

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