Farzan Chishti - Graphic Design and Multimedia

Alpharabius

2009-06-11T06:50:00.000+04:00

"An isolated individual could not achieve all the perfections by himself, without the aid of other individuals. It is the innate disposition of every human to join others in the labor they ought to perform. In order to achieve what they can of that perfection, every man needs to stay in the neighborhood of others and associate with them." Scholar - Alpharabius a.k.a {Al Farabi} Circa 872 Persia "Al-Madina al-Fadila"

Philosophy

As a philosopher, Al-Farabi was a founder of his own school of early Islamic philosophy known as "Farabism" or "Alfarabism", though it was later overshadowed by Avicennism. Al-Farabi's school of philosophy "breaks with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle [... and ...] moves from metaphysics to methodology, a move that anticipates modernity", and "at the level of philosophy, Alfarabi unites theory and practice [... and] in the sphere of the political he liberates practice from theory". His Neoplatonic theology is also more than just metaphysics as rhetoric. In his attempt to think through the nature of a First Cause, Alfarabi discovers the limits of human knowledge".[16]

Al-Farabi had great influence on science and philosophy for several centuries, and was widely regarded to be second only to Aristotle in knowledge (alluded to by his title of "the Second Teacher") in his time. His work, aimed at synthesis of philosophy and Sufism, paved the way for the work of Ibn Sina (Avicenna).[17]

Al-Farabi also wrote a commentary on Aristotle's work, and one of his most notable works is Al-Madina al-Fadila where he theorized an ideal state as in Plato's The Republic.[18] Al-Farabi represented religion as a symbolic rendering of truth, and, like Plato, saw it as the duty of the philosopher to provide guidance to the state. Al-Farabi departed from the Platonic view in that he regarded the ideal state to be ruled by the prophet-imam, instead of the philosopher-king envisaged by Plato. Al-Farabi argued that the ideal state was the city-state of Medina when it was governed by the prophet Muhammad as its head of state, as he was in direct communion with Allah whose law was revealed to him. In the absence of the prophet-imam, Al-Farabi considered democracy as the closest to the ideal state, regarding the republican order of the Rashidun Caliphate as an example within early Muslim history. However, he also maintained that it was from democracy that imperfect states emerged, noting how the republican order of the early Islamic Caliphate of the Rashidun caliphs was later replaced by a form of government resembling a monarchy under the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties.[19]

Influenced by the writings of Aristotle, in The Ideas of the Citizens of the Virtuous City and other books, Al-Farabi advanced the view that philosophy and revelation are two different modes of approaching the same truth.[citation needed]

Powers of 10

2009-06-11T06:23:00.001+04:00

Did Picasso know about Einstein?

2009-06-01T22:01:00.001+04:00

Was it a coincidence that Picasso developed Cubism at about the same time that Einstein published his theory of relativity? Arthur I Miller thinks not, as he explains to Ciara Muldoon

Arthur Miller

On the wall of Arthur I Miller's office at University College London is a graph drawn by Charles Joseph Minard that illustrates Napoleon's advance into Russia in 1812. Starting at the Polish-Russian border, the graph shows the losses suffered by Napoleon's army as it marched towards Moscow, and then retreated in the bitterly cold winter. It captures, Miller estimates, six or seven "dimensions" - time, space and temperature among others - on a 2D surface. The graph also illustrates Miller's own interests in the interactions between physics and art, the visual representation of ideas and, one might even argue, his own journey from mainstream physics to the interface between science, history and art.

Particle theory and beyond

A physics graduate of the City College of New York, Miller gained his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and started his career in particle theory. After further research at the University of Massachusetts, he moved to Harvard, where he switched disciplines to study the history and philosophy of science. "It was unknown territory for me at the time," he recalls. "I wasn't even aware that the field existed."

So why did be change track? "I was always interested in why things happen," he says, "so I thought I'd look into it." As a historian and philosopher of science, Miller studied the works of Einstein, Poincaré, Bohr and Heisenberg, and published and edited books on the history of relativity and quantum theory. A major breakthrough came in Paris in 1976 when he discovered Poincaré's letters and manuscripts in the possession of Poincaré's grandson. The papers, which had been missing since the great French mathematician's death in 1912, showed how his research interests reflected his philosophical views.

Miller has since moved away from conventional history of science, having become interested in visual imagery through reading the German-language papers of Einstein, Heisenberg and Schrödinger - "people who were concerned with visualization and visualizability". Philosophy was an integral part of the German school system in the early 1900s, Miller explains, and German school pupils were thoroughly trained in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

According to Kant, visualizations are abstractions of phenomena that we have actually witnessed, while visualizability refers to the properties of an object that exist whether or not we look at it or take measurements of it. In Newtonian physics, visualization and visualizability are synonymous, but in quantum mechanics they are not.

Einstein and Schrödinger never fully accepted the highly abstract nature of Heisenberg's quantum mechanics, says Miller. They agreed with Galileo's assertion that "the book of nature is written in mathematics", but they also realized the power of using visual imagery to represent mathematical symbols.

Heisenberg, however, went further than this, and his subsequent research laid the groundwork for Feynman diagrams - visual representations that marry intuition and imagery. Here the visual imagery is generated by the mathematics of quantum mechanics, rather than being abstracted from phenomena that we have actually seen.

Einstein and Picasso

Miller's books

It was Miller's research into visual imagery in physics that led him into the world of art. The thread running through his 1996 book Insights of Genius: Imagery and Creativity in Science and Art is that the human mind is the ultimate instrument in both art and science (Physics World August 1997 p51). The book explores the interrelations between intuition, aesthetics, visual imagery and representation, as scientists and artists attempt to "read" nature.

In his most recent book, Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty That Causes Havoc (2001 Basic Books), Miller argues that Poincaré is the link between relativity and Cubism. Both Einstein and Picasso, he claims, were influenced by Poincaré's non-Euclidean approach to geometry and his speculations on simultaneity - Einstein directly through reading a German translation of Poincaré's La Science et l'hypothèse,. and Picasso indirectly through a circle of friends and acquaintances known as "la bande à Picasso". Miller's argument is that Einstein and Picasso were both working on the same problem, the nature of simultaneity - temporal simultaneity for Einstein and spatial simultaneity for Picasso - and that for both of them there were no preferred reference frames in which to view phenomena.

Many historians of art have felt that relativity somehow influenced the development of Cubism, but they have never believed that there was a direct link between the two. What prompted Miller to delve into the topic in such detail? "I always had an interest in art, and Picasso particularly, and Cubism even more particularly," he says. "It seemed to me that there was more science in there than met the eye and had been investigated before. The roots of science are not even in science," he continues, "so why should the roots of Cubism be just in art? Maybe it is, but I really doubt it. There's too much science in what Picasso was doing."

Miller regards Cubism as a "research programme" in which Picasso, like Einstein, discovered a new aesthetic - the reduction of forms to geometrical representations. This involved simultaneously representing, on a single canvas, many different viewpoints. "That had to have something to do with science," says Miller, "so I looked into it in great detail. I reviewed all the newspapers Picasso had read and looked back into what was going on at that time in literature as well." Although Einstein and Picasso were unaware of each other, the avant-garde movement in the first decade of the 20th century encouraged them both to question the traditional understanding of space and time.

The question of whether Picasso was fluent in French has been much debated in art circles. Many argue that he could barely read a newspaper, let alone study Poincaré's book, but Miller believes that there may have been more direct links. "What I did was to get the sources that were written as close as possible to 1907, when Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and put together a story where mathematics really did matter," he says.

Miller discovered someone in Picasso's circle - an insurance actuary called Maurice Princet - who studied advanced mathematics as a hobby. Princet had read and lectured on Poincaré to Picasso and his friends. "Princet was in Picasso's atelier at the time that Picasso was having a great deal of trouble with Demoiselles," he explains. "My hypothesis is that just at that point, Picasso realized the importance of what Princet was discussing concerning geometry." However, Miller is careful to point out that we will never know for sure how much Picasso was influenced by the work of Poincaré.

Miller's book has, on the whole, been well received. Writing in the Irish Times, the novelist John Banville called it "learned, inspired and daring... a fine and stimulating book that makes breath-taking connections across the gap between the so-called two cultures of science and art". The New York Times Book Review said that Miller had written a "double detective story [and] an intellectual thriller" in which he manages to "quantum tunnel into art history from the history of science, appearing suddenly on the other side of the barriers without showing the usual signs of strain".

Back to basics

Miller is currently writing a book about black holes. There are lots of "gee whiz" books on black holes, he says, but the intense struggles that took place between Eddington and Chandrasekhar in the 1930s, concerning the collapse of stars, have never been analysed in depth. "There was also a fear of things disappearing, and many people, including Einstein, didn't understand the mathematics," says Miller. "So until the 1960s black holes were considered theoretical monstrosities that couldn't actually exist - an ugly solution to the most beautiful theory ever created."

"Today," Miller continues, "black holes have taken their place in the fabric of nature and have become symbols of its frightening beauty." In addition to covering the physics and mathematics of black holes in a way that can be understood by non-specialists, the book will, he says, address the differences in outlook of astrophysicists and physicists, other cultural conflicts and the Cold War. "The whole episode", says Miller, "sheds light on what science is, how it works and where it can go wrong."

Back in the present, Miller says that computers are having an immense impact on scientific creativity. "This is the real rapprochement between art and science," he says. "Progress has been impeded by primitive computer architectures, but it will be amazing when it really gets going."

About the author

Ciara Muldoon is at the Centre for Science Studies, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK, email psmcam@bath.ac.uk

Albert Einstein

2009-06-01T21:35:00.000+04:00

“Where the world ceases to be the stage for personal hopes and desires, where we, as free beings, behold it in wonder, to question and to contemplate, there we enter the realm of art and science. If we trace out what we behold and experience through the language of logic, we are doing science; if we show it in forms whose interrelationships are not accessible to our conscious thought but are intuitively recognized as meaningful, we are doing art. Common to both is the devotion to something beyond the personal, removed from the arbitrary.” — Albert Einstein

Online Portal Project & Regional Corporate Identity

2009-05-22T09:57:00.004+04:00

I have been working on a project for an I.T company that deals with products from the following companies Dell, HP, Apple, Cisco, Toshiba, HP, IBM, Compaq, and Acer.

My biggest challenge was to integrate all the elements such as company history, email system, product line-up, an online inventory and stock system into a single easy to use and attractive package.

What i learned from this project, and will improve upon is market segmentation, and how to maximize business prospects by adding more forms of media such as sound and video to pull in more customers, and enhance the reputation of the company. Also i learned how to apply theoretical ideas in the real world to deliver a product that is functional and effective.

I will hopefully do this in my upcoming projects. I also want to learn how to fine-tune and prepare copywright material for companies.

and the online portal is

http://www.al-sadeeq.com

World Health Organization

2009-04-13T01:32:00.004+04:00

One of my latest Designs
World Health Organization - UAE - Campaign for Diabetes - Mona Hashim Zein Msc, RD

Pink is the New Black

2009-03-23T11:00:00.007+04:00

UAE Inter-University Powerlifting

2009-02-27T01:16:00.001+04:00

What is Colour?

2009-02-25T15:04:00.004+04:00

My Animation: A State of Trance - Armin Van Buuren

2009-02-21T21:30:00.001+04:00

Typography & Semiotics Project

2008-12-01T06:29:00.009+04:00

Helvetica Project Reflective Report

Strategy

My strategy for this project is based on formalism, minimalism,
and play between negative and positive space.
"In art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content. In visual art, formalism is the concept that everything necessary in a work of art is contained within it. The context for the work, including the reason for its creation, the historical background, and the life of the artist, is considered to be of secondary importance. Formalism dominated modern art from the late 1800s throughthe 1960s."1

Concept

The aim of the "Helvetica" is a new design was to create a neutral typeface that had greaclarity, had no intrinsic meaning in its form. I will explore the form to try to bring some sortof emotion from it, by exploring color, contast, and texture.
In this project i will explore the qualities of the helvetica font to make the viewer becomeone one with the font. For the poster, I will concentrate on color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content.However for the part regarding the A5 pamphlet will stick to context and content so that a person is not distracted by the somewhat vagueness of the work. And so that a person from
a non-art background can relate to the work also.

"Plato argued that eidos included elements of representation and imitation, since the thing itself could not be replicated. Subsequently, Plato believed that eidos inherently was deceptive."

1. Formalism (art). (2008, October 19). http://en.wikipedia.org/w/
index.php?title=Formalism_(art)&oldid=246209365

I tried using the Van de Graaf canon popularized by Jan Tschicold used to divide the
pamphlet into pleasing proportions. But i personally found it a little bit to wierd and waste of space. So didnt'nt use it really. Wierdly the designer himself gave up on it later in his career, which i didnt find surprising, it was too orderly and static.

Execution

I started with sketching out some rough layouts of the poster which i eventually threw away by mistake.Then i made numerous revisions for the work what was most startling was that the type looked very different printed out than it looked on screen. Specially for the handout, i discovered that type 12 was too big and 10 looked way better. Next thing which was important was the kind of paper, i choose a matter paper and inkjet printer, which was giving better contrast then the laser printer.

Aldar Ad

2008-10-17T00:45:00.001+04:00

My Adobe After Effects & Avid Project

2008-10-16T17:14:00.005+04:00

I animated the logos and the other graphical elements in Adobe After Effects, the video in the background is edited in Avid.

Video Post Production

2008-10-10T01:06:00.000+04:00

I really liked the shapes that are on the top of the video

Logo Animations

2008-10-05T10:57:00.001+04:00

Creative Gap

2008-10-05T10:55:00.001+04:00

Cute Animation

2008-10-03T04:55:00.001+04:00

Catalogue

2008-09-25T21:32:00.007+04:00

Print Campaign Final

2008-09-25T20:57:00.002+04:00

Possible Final Logo

2008-09-24T00:29:00.003+04:00

A4 Posters

2008-09-17T02:37:00.005+04:00

"When I was young I was so naughty"

"When I was a kid I did'nt like to brush my teeth"

Print Campaign Corporate Identity

2008-09-16T02:41:00.010+04:00

1. What is your logo?

2. What are the main colours of your logo?

The main colours of the logo are Grey, Black, and Red. In the background there is a scribbled line that continuosly changes colours this symbolizes that the company is dynamic.

3. What fonts/ design style does your brand have?

The logo uses a font called X-Ray. The style has sharp edges on a background of organic forms to give depth. The design also relflects the name of the company letter “p” and scribbles in the background.

4. Describe the character/persona of the brand?

The persona of the brand is contemporary, young, lively, and a dynamic design agency.

Connecting emotions, Creativity, and Customer Satisfaction are our goals

Connecting emotions doing business with imagination and vision, bringing joy, happiness, and richness to the community.

Creativity by designing with courage and emotion, engaging our spirit and touching emotions.

Customer Satisfaction means exactly what it says behaving as being part of the client, and doing projects in a truthful manner since they are our means of living.

5. Our Target Audience

Anyone who wants branding for their existing or new venture, and even individuals. Examples of our services are web design, graphic design, multimedia, Advertising & marketing brochures, catalogs, business cards etc.

6. List the ways you are going to promote your brand through print media.
Give supporting reasons.

Logo - An icon to represent the company

Business Cards - To bond and initialize relationships between client and design agency

Brochure - To market our portfolio and services

Magazine Ad - So that clients know of our presence.

Poster - to market our company in different localities, malls, exhibitions etc.

A4 Poster Design

2008-09-14T20:08:00.005+04:00

After producing very contemporary layouts.
I chose to do the next layout that remind us of the past.

GM Hummer Marketing Poster (A3) Landscape

2008-09-14T15:48:00.003+04:00

Client: GM

GM Hummer Marketing Poster (A3) Landscape

2008-09-13T00:53:00.006+04:00

Client: General Motors

Greenpeace Environmental Awareness Poster (A3) Landscape

2008-09-13T00:45:00.003+04:00

Client: Greenpeace

Hummer Print Ad. A3 Poster

2008-09-09T12:35:00.004+04:00

Client: GM

Promotional Material Research

2008-09-08T02:44:00.002+04:00

This is a great example of how to promote and market a concept or idea.

Cute Animation

2008-09-08T00:33:00.001+04:00

I am looking forward to learn the skills to do such animation.

Minimalist Typography Usage: Video Production

2008-09-06T17:46:00.002+04:00

Minimalist Design

2008-09-04T01:00:00.004+04:00

Another Possible Logo

2008-09-03T12:00:00.005+04:00

I am not too sure about this one, maybe its too complicated. But it took a lot of time to make this one. I first sketched it out and then worked & finalized one using the lighting table. Then I took a picture of it using my cellphone, uploaded and retraced a vector in Adobe Illustrator.

Define a Name, and Produce Some Logos

2008-09-02T14:52:00.005+04:00

Initially, i wanted to name my company as FC Design. However later I came up with three different names that sounded more fun and exciting. The names i came up with are "Pixels and Scribbles" "Dots and Doodles" and "Shapes and Squiggles." I have decied on "Pixels and Scribbles" as the final name. Also I want the company to be non-commercial and cost-effective. I think this name evokes the following qualities.

Exciting
Unconventional
Young
Lively
Refreshing
Affordable

Project: Research/Brainstorm - Choose the Concept Year - 3

2008-09-01T22:32:00.015+04:00

PLAN A

What is the product/brand/event?

The product is a design agency i want to promote. Its gonna be my own design agency.

Who is the target audience?

Companies who desire professional designing and consultation for cheaper than industry rates.

What do you want to communicate?

I want to communicate the design agency as fresh, young and best of all affordable. Also i want to use humor as an element to communicate. When funny ideas are expressed, people are more interested in the ideas.

Examples of how i will take the idea across different mediums.

Print

Video

Web Formats

PLAN B

What is the product/brand/event?

The product is a music collection i want to promote.

Who is the target audience?

People who listen to Trance and progressive music, and want to download the music for free.

What do you want to communicate?

I want to promote the artist as the music will be opensource thus available for free.

Examples of how i will take the idea across different mediums.

Print

Video

Web Format

Project Research/Brainstorm Year 3: Assignment 01 Draft 2

2008-09-01T12:10:00.003+04:00

After reviewing the Print Ad in Class.
I made another version.

Project Research/Brainstorm Year 3: Assignment 02

2008-08-31T15:26:00.007+04:00

Pick a Product: Ipod

Find out how the product has been advertised using examples in

- print

- video

- web/interactive

Project Research/Brainstorm Year 3: Assignment 01

2008-08-31T14:48:00.007+04:00

Create and imaginary product using 4 random words
Water
Dark
No Where
Smart

What is the product?
Electric water purifier

Who is the target Audience?
People who are in countries where clean and safe drinking water is rare, and people who go on treks.

Visualize the Product and Create a concept for the ad. Print Layout.

Summer Project

2008-08-30T01:18:00.006+04:00

Systematic Solutions

In the summers i was working on a corporate branding project for a company called Systematic Solutions. I designed their business card, letterhead, website and also worked as the copyrighter.

Advertising Analysis (Honda Accord Cog)

2008-08-30T00:37:00.010+04:00

Honda Accord Commercial

The duration of the commercial is 2:00 minutes. The reason I like the ad was it was shown similar to the way perpetual machines work. Also the way the commercial is organized is so systematic and perfect.

The concept used in the commercial is called “Rube Goldberg” machine is a deliberately over engineered apparatus that performs a very simple task in very indirect and convoluted fashion.

The commercial starts with a bearing rolling onto a hub. This then starts a set of movements. Wipers walk across the floor, valves roll down a bonnet and then tires roll uphill. The commercial comes to an end when the locks close causing the hatchback to close, and then a car comes of a trailer, and poses in front of the camera.

To me the most interesting part of the entire sequence was the tires rolling uphill, after a little bit of research i found out that this was accomplished by having weights placed in the tires.
Interestingly i also learned that a group of artists nearly sued the company for stealing their ideas from which this whole advertisement was based on.

Credits:
Director: Antoine Bardou-Jacquet
Production Company: Partizan Midi Minuit
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy
Agency Producer: Rob Steiner
Agency Creatives: Matt Gooden & Ben Walker
Post Production: The Mill
Producer: Fi Kilroe
Flame: Barnsley
Flame Assistant: Dave Birkill