Then & Now - Initial thoughts

Despite being up to our eyeballs in dissertation right now, we have been set our first project for the year. The title is "Then & Now" and we need to produce two outcomes; one 'big' and one 'small'.

Okay, so what are my first thoughts on the subject?

Something that has changed over time

I am reading a great book about the moon landings at the moment called "Moondust". This got me thinking about the primitive computer technology that was used to put man on the moon. How does this compare to the processing power in my mobile phone? I assume not very favourably. So there's one train of thought. Not quite sure how to make something visual from that, but that's not the point at this stage.

Fashion. Yeah, this has changed over time, obviously. Problem is I am not particularly interested in it as a subject.

One idea I had over the summer that would fit this brief is to do with football (and fashion actually). I was thinking about how you rarely see a player wearing black boots these days, whereas in the past there was no other option (okay, apart from Alan Ball's white boots). Perhaps I could do screenprints of team line-ups for big matches throughout history, where I use little boot icons to represent each player on the pitch. The boots would be coloured to match the ones worn by the player during the match.

So for the 1966 World Cup final, all the boot icons would be black, except for little Alan's. If I did one from let's say Argentina 1978, most of the boots would be black, apart from maybe the Argentine playmaker or winger, who would probably have had white ones. A similar image from the Euro 2012 final would be utterly bereft of black boots, with the majority being luminous orange, lime green or pink. Even the bloody centre-halves!

Another thing that has changed markedly over time is our consumption. How about a pair of images that show the sheer volume of brands we are consuming these days, compared to different points in history? Could be visually interesting and makes an important social statement.

How about the relative value of celebrity Then & Now? Look at the first Hollywood superstars and how they had true class and compare them to today's X-Factor 'celebs'.

Something that combines both the past and the present

Not sure what I would be saying with this, but I am thinking that an image of dinosaurs wandering around modern Bath/London/New York would look pretty cool.

Something which is both Then & Now. A timeless classic that hasn't really changed

• VW Beetle
• Vespa scooter
• Helvetica!
• Converse All-Stars
• London black cab
• London Underground map
• Raybans
• Brogue shoes
• Braun products (Dieter Rams)
• Fender Stratocaster
• Gibson Les Paul

Other ideas from different parts of my brain

Olympic branding Then & Now. Compare and contrast the awesome Otl Aicher designed Munich Olympics of 1972 with the dreadful pink splats that Wolff Olins knocked up in their lunch hour for London 2012. Another angle would be to look at what happened to the Olympic infrastructure after the circus had left town. What became of the amazing stadium in Beijing? I remember seeing images of derelict stadia left over from the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. What a waste!

While stuck in traffic on my way home from uni the other day, I got to thinking about how traffic density has ramped up in Bath over the years. How could this be explored and represented visually? Where could I get the data? It would be nice to present this graphically for any number of cities around the world.

How about air traffic density over the UK? This would have an important environmental message and could look striking visually. This needs to be explored...

Another idea I had was to do a series of Then & Now photos to show the extent of damage (and damage that is still visible) from the Bath Blitz in World War II. I would personally love to research this and I find it quite eery when I see the shrapnel damage to some of the buildings in the city centre but unfortunately I think this subject has been done to death. And it is a bit too obvious.

And so back to football

One final idea on the football theme - how about a piece that documents the change in the design of footballs used at major tournaments? I could do a book shaped like a regulation size five football, with vector illustrations of all the balls (should be able to find enough reference material online) and snippets of trivia on the other side of each one - things like tournament top scorer, most assists, controversy surrounding the ball at the time (too bouncy, floaty, swervy, etc.).

Wow. That was a long first blog post for the third year.