4x48: Venice

We will embrace and explore this city and seek to create a series of projects that draws from your collective experiences of your time spent here thus far. Over the next 48 hours you will be creating 4 projects, each separate and containing multiple parts. All relate to the idea of being in a new place. The content, broadly speaking, is Venice and all of your projects will represent this content through the filter of your own perspective.

Everyone is rewarded with a substantial amount of work for their portfolio, something you can identify as being done in 48 hours which is an impressive feat. But this is a design challenge and at the end we will review the work and a winner of the challenge will be chosen. The prize for the winner is dinner with Tankboys.

I will also be creating an exhibition of all of your work from this workshop to be displayed back in Boston and on the BU–SVA website. I will be documenting the process throughout the workshop to also help promote your work.

• 4 thematic project sessions
• 12 hours per session
• Total of 48 hours (use your time wisely)

Part 1 — Tour Project

Session 1 · 12 hours

A tour is often a good way to acclimate yourself to a new place. It helps you orient yourself and allows for guided discovery. Spend some time thinking about a tour that you would like to create in Venice. It can be something unconventional. This could be a tour of wall paintings, bridges, security cameras, typography, etc. Not a tour for the typical tourist in other words.

1. Photograph 10–20 locations, “stops” on your tour.
2. Name and develop a logo / mark for your tour. The name and mark should draw all of their inspiration from the content of your tour. The shapes you draw, the typeface you choose should all have direct reference to the tour itself. This can be done through visual metaphor, color, texture, pattern etc.
3. Develop an icon or marking system to identify stops on your tour. This would typically be a sub system of your logo. It need not be a direct visual reference but should fit well with the logo.
4. Create a tour booklet which includes a map of your tour. Combine your photos, logo, marking system and a map together in one form. Think of the different approaches you may take to developing this form based upon the content of the tour.

Part 2 — Mapping Project

Session 2 · 12 hours

Tours use maps. Maps are often conventional since people generally understand how to approach a map. However for this project I would like you to think about unconventional approaches to mapping. Constellations are an unconventional map of the sky. A table of contents or index, while common, can be an unconventional map of content. You get to consider how specific or general you’d like to be. Maps serve a purpose by illustrating all that is known about a place. In today’s world maps are created by identifying everything. What happens when we create a map using only what we know.

1. Draw 2 maps from memory. Draw 1 map of your path from your apartment to the scuola and draw another of your path from your apartment to the BU studio. Include landmarks, location names etc that help you identify the path in your memory. How would you give directions to a friend using a hand drawn map?
2. Find your own map of Venice (physical or from the web) and superimpose your memory maps on top of your found / “accurate” map. The way we understand and navigate places in our mind, the way we communicate directions with a friend are often completely different than how traditional maps are rendered. A memory map typically only identifies the known instead of the unknown.
3. Create an unconventional map of your favorite places or your favorite thing about Venice. Maybe you love gelato, so make a map of all the gelato shops. Think about this as being an information graphic, or propaganda, or a way finding system for children. You decide on the form, but push yourselves to rethink what a map is, what it can be.
4. Create an unconventional map of Venice. Maybe the form is created by only using color, or only using type. It is up to you, but represent all of Venice rather than just specific locations.

Part 3 — One Story

Session 3 · 12 hours

You’ve been in Venice long enough to have a story to tell, or at least a story to make up. Your surroundings are more familiar now, but still new, still exotic. Stories are time based narratives. This is guerrilla filmmaking. We don’t have the serious equipment, software or expertise for filmmaking, but how, as designers can we tell a time based narrative using what we know.

1. Develop a concept for a simple story and write a synopsis.
2. Create storyboards for your story, indicating characters, tone, or key moments. Identify important aspects of your concept in your storyboard. Is it a dialogue? Is it a third person narrative? Does it have a more documentary style?
3. Create a short film / motion graphics piece using what you know. Create stop motion with a series of photos, use type and sound and static image to help tell parts of your story, use basic digital movies to capture tone. It is all up to you, but don’t let your technical knowledge restrict your ideas. Embrace the constraints.

Part 4 — The Object

Session 4 · 12 hours

Choose an object unique to Venice — document and photograph, be inspired by and understand what this object means or could mean, what can it represent. Can this object serve as a metaphor in some way? How does this object represent Venice or connect to Venice in some way?

1. Re-present this object in a new way. Let the object’s purpose or meaning determine the format of your presentation.
2. Create a tiled poster inspired by this object. You may interpret this in many ways. Does the object inspire you to add additional content? Can the object be an icon for something? etc. The object itself should play an important role in the poster.
3. Gather content and create an A5, 16-page booklet inspired by your object. Again let the object inspire a topic or set of content. The content does not need to relate directly to the object and a representation of the object does not have to play a dominant role in the booklet.

Bonus Project

Design a typographic logo for 4x48: Venice.

At the end of the workshop we will review the work and a winner of the challenge will be chosen.