Neve Loch (She/Her)
My design so far has been a vessel for my own personal experiences; whether that inspiration is gained from the people I love most, the community I grew up in or the aggravation of everyday prejudices. My work is a reaction to my own environment, and an effort to encourage deeper human relationships to things that are personal to myself and to others.
Projects this year which highlight this include a typographic memorial for my late Papa Shug and a short film inspired by a quote by Margaret Atwood centred around the male gaze out-with film. Furthermore, I worked on an extended essay titled ‘The Dictatorship of Background: Why the Scottish Working-class are Alienated from Higher Education’. This idea materialised through my own experience coming through the higher education system as an individual who grew up in a working-class area which was further inspired by the education I received in the widening participation scheme – which I later became a tutor for.
As I continue to develop as a creative, I find it important to seek an understanding of others and differing life experiences. In future I expect to use my love for people, community, culture and equality to further flourish my portfolio through my key interests of film-making and lettering design but not limited to.
Rock Image 2
Reimagining Film Title Sequences – A exploration in lettering design
I fell in love with the Movie Title Sequence database website called Annays.com (which has unfortunately been discontinued). I find it interesting to see how lettering design has changed throughout the years through my favourite medium – films.
I wanted a project that would allow me to develop my lettering design skills as well as my digital skills. This led to my brief: To create new lettering designs for the list of my favourite films I have been accumulating for over six years.
L’Oeuvre Feminine
Living as a woman in a male dominated world is difficult. Our sexisalisation/objectification is ever-present, which is dangerous for woman mentally as well as physically.
In my third year, I wrote an essay titled “The Effects of the Female Gaze and the Male Gaze on the Audience”, which mainly berated the male gaze and the effects it has on women. I have always felt intensely interested in this subject matter so making this my inspiration for a project was unsurprising. However, I was witnessing a new trend coming to social media which seen young women filming themselves wearing clothes with the themes of ‘female gaze’ and ‘male gaze’. Although the trend is completely innocent, i think it implies that the male gaze is escapeable and that women need to change when men have internalised these biases.
So, with these being used as a catalyst for a project – I wanted to create a film which highlights the problematic nature of the everyday male gaze using a quote found in the ‘Robber Bride’ Book by Margaret Atwood.
L'Oeuvre Feminine
A film inspired by the iconic Margaret Atwood quote which highlights that the male gaze is ever present and inescapable. The film using both film found videos/pictures and real life filming to communicate that the male gaze isn't just a film term - it is also present in the daily life of a woman.
The Shug Memorial
Design a typographic memorial for someone or something you think deserves to be remembered – my Papa Shug.
The toppling of a statue dedicated to the slave trader Edward Colston by BLM protestors in 2020 was another powerful signal that the UK urgently needs to reckon with the legacy of its colonial past.
Sadly however, in a country contaminated by toxic nostalgia, many were affronted – not by the veneration of Colston – but by the statue’s removal. This uncomfortable fact suggests that future efforts by campaigners and activists to have similarly offensive works removes will continue to be met by resistance. So, while the debate rumbles on, can we at least redress the balance, and create more works of art dedicated to people who actually deserve to be remembered?
Naturally, the impact of your memorial will rely in large part on your skill as a typographer, and so your ability to select, create and compose type will be key. As a typographic memorial however, you’ll also need to think carefully about the words you choose, the material/s you use, the scale you work at and the location of your piece.
While we don’t, of course, expect you to actually build your design, in situ, at scale, we do want you to make it as real as possible. Which could mean working with the materials, techniques and processes you propose to use, working at a reduced scale to create a convincing representation of your final design.
