OUGD603: Fossil - The Brief

This brief happened quite organically and grew through discussions with a peer from the Level 6 cohort. When discussing extended practice in general, Luke Owen mentioned how he had hit a bit of a wall with one of his briefs, Fossil. He mentioned how he had been researching one particular group called Yorkshire Fossil, as well as into the topic of palaeontology in general and how the field is seen by others less knowing. From the outside in, most people (myself included) think of palaeontology as fairly boring and very Ross Gellar, although this may be true, the craft as an art is severely underrated. It is possible to walk down Whitby beach and find something which is hundreds of millions of years old, all it will cost you is time. We had a brainstorm and discussion with other members of the class and they got so excited when we raised the idea of merchandising Yorkshire Fossil in a contemporary fashion way, possibly in a similar way to Supreme or Off-White, which is what led Luke to ask me to get involved with the project.

Having the discussion with Luke led us to question, if by changing the perception of palaeontology, would that make it cool? Would the field grow to be more than just lots of Ross'? 

To catch me up to speed on what Luke had been previously working on, he created a reference guide for me to quickly see the direction of the project. It was clear from this that we both had a similar aesthetic in mind for the direction of the brief, and that we should divided roles for each other to avoid stepping on each others toes or wasting time on one aspect of the project. 

Laying out roles

As Luke has already done quite a bit of research into the issue, we plan to be working on seperate aspects of the brief at any one time, to help speed up the working process and participate in actual collaborative practice. We intend to play to each others strengths, with Luke focusing mainly on the design and pre-historic research, and myself featuring on styling, planning the shoot (locations, call sheets, model sourcing), as well as contemporary research into the issue.