Uni Project: Impressions of London

We as individuals have different views of the city, so for this project we had to create eight A6 postcards portraying our viewpoint with an accompanying diary to support the evidence. At first, with the thought of the 'diary' in my head, i decided that i would do a timeline based postcard series of my events through 24 hours since i was planning to go shopping in Central London that day. Then i realised that would not be very realistic of my viewpoint, and decided to base it all completely in my local area as that is where i am for most of my time. I also wanted to show people the "real" side to London, rather than what they see on the television, i wanted them to see how "my" London- East London, really is, and how life is, in a council estate.

Below are the eight "raw" photographs that i have taken, before being edited into postcards for the presentation, so that they can be seen in all their detail. The "diary" has now been interpreted as the accompanying text with each photo to explain what it is and a similar caption text will be at the back of each postcard aswell.

The first picture is a 'stencil graffiti' sprayed onto a council flat wall by a Banksy wannabe, who has cheekily labelled my area 'Safe', with the obvious intended irony that it really isnt. I thought this was both clever and funny at the same time.


The next picture is that of my local underground station, first of all, because it represents my local area, aswell as the fact that it is the exact station replaced with that of 'Walford East' in the East End based TV Series 'Eastenders'.


The following two have been chosen because i believe the "London Underground train" and the "Black cab" are both symbols of London, and since they can both be found in my area, they simply CANNOT be left out.


I have decided to photograph the "Black cab" next to its neighbouring trash trolley so as to not give it a sense of romanticism but a sense of realism, if that makes sense? :S loll


The next picture is the closest i could to taking a birds-eye view of a typical council estate and i tried to capture as much of the happenings as i possibly could. In this picture, you could see the residential housing, School, playground, football pitch as well as various construction works in progress.


This picture is a more detailed view of the residential housing that can be found in a council estate.


This is one of the many pieces of graffiti found on my estate, and i have chosen this because it has been on the wall for at least 15 years and has become a symbol of my estate, and it also shows the multiculturalism found within London.


Market stalls are part and parcal of life in the East End, so i decided to include a photograph of one. This is at the end because i want the viewer to finish off with a bright a cheerful picture of East London ;D haha

Uni Project: Photographer's Signature

We were each given the name of a random photographer and told to make an 'A3 historical evidence and critical opinion', interpreting that however we may. Not knowing anything about photography or photographers, i was very nervous going into this project. However, this all changed when i started researching my photographer, W. Eugene Smith, who specialised in war photography and was in the front line with the US Army in Japan in World War II. He was a character that i found very interesting, and whose pictures i thought spoke a thousand words.

To help me make my A3 poster, i started researching and taking a look at as many of his photographs that i could find. Seeing as he was most famous for his pictures of war, i decided to make a tribute poster in his style, by making a photographic war poster based on the wars going on in the world today. I also decided to make it as a "spoof" of one of his non-war pictures entitled "three genrations of miners", therefore taking inspiration from both his war and non-war work.

Below is my piece, that i entitled "two generations of dickheads", once again making reference to the title of that of W. Eugene Smith. It is folowed by Smiths piece, from which it took inspiration.

"Two generations of dickheads" (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

"Three generations of miners" by W. Eugene Smith

Uni Project: The World's A Stage

For this, we had to create a photographic visual style as part of a corporate identity for "Piddock & Puddock" estate agents in our own interpretation, for which i decided to completely rebrand the company!!

"Piddock & Puddock" Estate agents, specialists in banquesting suites and wedding halls to cater for the South Asian community have been re-branded as 'Pritam & Patak"!!! :D

This is our logo:

Our photographic styles tend to show both scenes from venues aswell as asian wedding scenes to try and put as much of the probable final outcome of a wedding into the minds of the target market audience during advert placements.

Below is an example of an advert placement in a newspaper (Click to enlarge):

Below are designs for several more adverts (Click to enlarge):

Summer 2008: Cancun video diary

I went Cancun for 8 days last July, and as requested by Pete Nevin.. i made a video diary.. leave comments :P (press Full Screen 2 view properly)

Uni Project: Typographic Self Portrait

A project that i did for 1st Year Graphic Design.

"make a typographic self portrait"

I decided to make a male figure similar to those found on toilet signs, in the same height as my body... and create it using typography in English and Bengali to represent both of my cultures.

Both read "My name is Abdul Aleem".. CLICK TO ENLARGE: