Nature can feel like a stranger, far away, when we are tucked in, safe in our houses.
But the more time you spent exploring our planet and emerging in nature the more you will realise, we are one planet and every choice we make, matters in some context.

This module is about reconnecting to nature, which comfort and technology has disconnected a big percentage of “The Western world” from. We simply cannot grasp the hardships people live with in rural areas, nor the impact of our actions have when it comes to nature, cause for lots of people they have never had to be at the mercy of nature, nor do they necessarily know that they lack this knowledge or understanding, not to mention the importance of our connection to nature.

In the very start of this module, we looked at the issue of our disconnect with three different problem-solving approaches, as interior designers, product designers and interaction designers. Our solutions were visualized by creating 4 A2 posters, one visualizing the issue, and one for each discipline.
That work, including descriptions of it, can be viewed in my blog post “Nature Disconnect Mood boards” https://learningspaces.dundee.ac.uk/soc-dig18-avchristiansen/2019/03/04/532/

RESEARCH

When it comes to research during the module, we did some field work as far back as the first weeks, we went to Trentsmuir Forest to both experience the forest, but also to collect quite a few objects from the beach and forest. Which left us with both “natural” materials, like wood, leaves, sand etc. and ocean and forest trash like plastic and glass bottles, metal cans, fishing and metal wires, spray cans, fireworks, single-use grills etc. This gave a better understanding of the disrespect there is to nature, the trash from the ocean was no surprise, however, the trash left in the forest and on the sidewalks everywhere in Dundee city startled me. And so that was the core issue for the mood board project.
However, for our second and last project in the module, I wanted to look at the issue of disconnection to nature from a new angle, and to do that I needed more research.

I started out with mind mapping the issues of plastic pollution in our oceans

I then went on to make another mind map for designers who inspire me with their approach to sustainability or reconnection to nature.

However, after doing these I still didn’t feel that I had enough knowledge of the meaning of “Nature Disconnect” so I did searches on the definition of nature and more importantly, what being disconnected to nature means and what consequences it has. I did that by watching TED talks and looking up articles, and that is where I was lucky enough to find a research paper about “The relationship between Connectedness to Nature, Environmental Values, and Pro-environmental Behaviours” made by two psychology students from Charles Darwin University, Australia. Here they had tested exactly what I wanted to know, how connectedness to nature impacts our behaviour and who it impacts the most, and why.
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/issues/volume8issue2/pereira/
This is the link to the website, however, the paper with my notes and highlights is in the SKETCHBOOK section of this post. But for convenience, I will give a short summary of the relevant points for this project.

SUMMARY

Connectedness to nature does indeed lead to pro-environmental behaviours, however, connectedness to nature only explains 10% of the pro-environmental behaviours in this study whereas, in some other studies it showed to be 17%  or even 19,36% caused by connectedness. However, multiple studies, including this one, suggest that we are all subconsciously emotionally connected to nature, and the strength of the emotional connection correlates to our pro-environmental behaviour.

However, in 2015, when this paper was released, the feeling of individual responsibility showed to be declining, interestingly enough with rising concern for the environment. Which brings us to the groups of people described in this paper:
The egoistic type; focused on impacts for that one individual
The altruistic type; concerned about the impact of other people
The biospheric type; concerned for the impacts of climate change for all living creatures.

The general ideas for this development is the lack of knowledge on the significance of the subject, and common mindsets like “one person cannot significantly reduce the impact of climate change nor is one person responsible for the consequences” decreases the pro-environmental behaviours, not only of the person who says it but for the people who listen to it.

It is also suggested that people who live in urban areas are more likely to be less connected to nature, or simply less aware, and therefore less acting, on their relationship to nature, and the environment around them.  They are also less likely to know about the benefits of being in and connecting to nature.

1^st BRAINSTORM

Before I created a specific persona, I wanted to stay with designs for children, where I had the initial idea for trying to let blind children experience nature by creating a “feel like” landscape. However, no matter how I looked at it and tried to reshape it, I kept getting into more of a onetime art piece, which at the time I wasn’t satisfied with.

PERSONA & FOUND OBJECTS

To try to get away from my initial ideas and mind space I made my persona based on the data from the research paper, to see who, according to the paper, might be typically disconnected, even though they don’t know they are. It also inspired me to get quite a few details in there to make her feel realistic and recognisable.

Because the brief gives the challenge of using found objects, I used the artefact analysis sheet we were given, and it gave a really cool insight to the effect I wanted the materials to have on my persona. However, my actual found object is wood I got from a barrel that had broken. But after going through the paper what stroke me the most was how big an impact having an emotional connection to nature did, and so I wanted the used materials to have an emotional connection for her as well as her obtaining an emotional connection and appreciation of living plants. So, I ended up making a “fake/tailored” wooden material, which was her family’s old dining table. And so, I made the artefact analysis on that to explore and explain the emotional value in the used object. and then I used my broken barrel and metal cans as found objects for the prototype. I also wanted the metal cans to be from her own use to make her feel individually responsible for her consumption of recyclable packaging.

2^nd BRAINSTORM

After creating my persona, I decided to focus on furniture, where I relatively fast decided I wanted to design something useful, which would fit her personality, with a working and visible microcosm inside. Since that would be a benefit to her busy lifestyle and it would still give her the emotional connection expected with watching something live, grow and thrive.

After messing about with different furniture, I mainly stuck with sculptural takes on bookshelves because of her superficial interest in art and books.

Many of the initial Bookshelf ideas were round, or oval, where the plants were supposed to grow inside the sides of the circle. I experimented with shaping a metal grid I found. It worked well to hold the round shape and give some extra texture. I also played with different materials and inspiration sources to get a feeling for the aesthetic I wanted, however, I mainly stuck to plastic, because it is seethrough, and I wanted her to be able to watch the plants live.

 

PROTOTYPES

For my final product, I decided on my parallelogram shaped design. So, I started changing the angle of the body, and the orientation of the shelves. I did all my “refined” prototypes in cardboard to make it easier for myself, but it also made it possible to find the most material saving layout for the final cut-out.

FINAL PROTOTYPE

The finished prototype is made of Plexiglas, metal cans and wood from the broken barrel. I drew the pieces for the model in Illustrator were after I got the glass laser cut, unfortunately, the laser cutter was set at too slow a speed, so the plastic burned all the way around the edges. Which ended up with me spending half a day sanding down the edges to get the sides back in sizes that would fit together. To get a smoother surface on the glass, I was told to smear on toothpaste and let it sit… however, I can not recommend that it doesn’t actually change much. To get the barrel wood to look like it was from an old dining table I coloured it in strong coffee and gave it a few more scratches. I then cut the metal cans into strips to line both the inside and outside of the model. Before glueing the last piece to the model, I put in the stones, soil and plants to emulate the microcosm.

laser outline-1c632uy

EXHIBITION

For the exhibition, I created a booklet and a brand around the product. I chose to call it Ullassa after the Hindi Sanskrit describing “the feelings of pleasantness associated with natural/natures beauty”. I found that in many ways finding an appreciation for Ullassa is exactly what this project is about. In this context, I also made a small 100-word statement to place next to the exhibition, which consisted of prototypes and a sketchbook showing the progression of the project, paired with the instruction booklet and the statement to give the audience an idea of what receiving the product would include.

I would like to first go through the sketchbook, and then close in on the subjects and pages within it;
Please do scroll down after this, since the blog continues with more information on the branding and project reflections.

PERSONA & ARTEFACT ANALYSIS

PROTOTYPES

BOOKLETS

RESEARCH

BRAND

For the instruction booklet and statement, I chose a minimalistic design for my city-dwelling and busy persona, Jessica. First I thought it funny to call the product Grow YourShelf, to include both the function of the product and the development it would stir in herself, in the product name. However, when I stumbled over the Ullassa Sanskrit I couldn’t help but find it cannily relevant, and so I wanted to include this appreciation and connection to nature through the branding, which lead me to a green and black colour scheme followed later by the idea of printing it on craft paper, to give it some texture and weight. To get a coherent aesthetic I went to Pinterest to collect some inspiration and get an idea of what it was I wanted.

I decided to use Gill Sans MT as my body font and Bodoni MT for headings throughout all my handed in text because they both give a bit of interest while staying readable and elegant. Using the same fonts just gives it an extra connection to the other pieces that have it. The same goes for the leaf frame I drew for the booklet and statement it shows some aesthetics from the product, a square with plants growing around it, and then the angled folds of the booklet, to give it that interest and connection to the product.

The 100 word statement was printed on regular printing paper and glued to cardboard.

REFLECTIVE ESSAY

To finish all of this off I have written a short essay talking about

Reflections essay-1qsttpm

Overall design and thoughts:

This project is called Nature Disconnect, so I wanted to use my layout to show the connection to nature that we are slowly regaining in our designs. A global example of this is the “Grow It Yourself Movement” and the increased awareness of how we influence our environment with our decisions as consumers. The colour scheme I choose shows the cliche that we as consumers often fall for, that if something looks and feels natural, it probably is. It is still a good indicator, however, sustainability is a quite complex topic, that often can´t be deciphered that easily.
The rope also opens the discussion of wheater or not we are actually disconnected to nature, or if we have simply changed nature into so many products, that technology and nature in many ways have become very entangled, Cause at this point, all nature is man-made, and that is neither good nor bad, but it means that we can never truly be disconnect, for we, us-selves are nature.

The boy at the end of the rope shows the goal for the next generation, that they will look at found objects and “trash” as resources and materials that can be reused and repurposed into something new and exciting with a story.

Manifesto board:

I made the first mood board, the manifesto board, as an intro to the project. It has three sections, Stating the issues, Examples of solutions and the target group I chose to have in common in all my projects.

I chose the city family dynamic for three reasons,
1. people who live in cities are often the ones who are also less connected to nature, due to the city environment and often the busy lives that stereotypically follow city life.
2. I chose the family dynamic because the influence children have on adults often gets understated. If the children become aware of their impact and lack of connection to nature, they will drag their parents out as well.
3.I chose a family setting with young children, because they have an amazing ability to put creativity and entertainment into everything they do, and appreciating the small things is in many ways what connecting to nature is about. Children are also the ones who benefit the most because they bring it into the rest of their lives.

Product Design Board:

With all of the above in mind, I created a concept I call Search Toys. It´s a way to get children engaged and aware of the resources around them. They get the mechanics of a toy or the structure of a toy, and then they have to search in nature or the families used packaging to finish making the toy. this not only gives them the feeling of accomplishment of building it themselves, and the awareness of the resources around them, they before called trash, but it also makes them fix it themselves when it brakes because it is made of something they can find and have made before. This is to make them go against the throwaway culture in our part of the world.

The board is made up of four sections, inspiration, materials, storyboard and prototypes.

Inspiration part shows the fashion artist Edgar Artis, who uses lots of different materials and cut-outs to use backgrounds as patterns. It also includes the 2012 Poland Student Design Winner Musicon by Kamil Laszuk, which is a complex and engaging toy that gave inspiration to my prototypes. The third inspiration is the outdoors, and specifically an improvised outdoor swing in my local park, it is a good example of how minimal effort makes it easy and fun to engage in nature.

The materials section show how both old packaging, leaves, flowers, branches and stones can be used in the toy designs.

Interior Board:

When it came to the interior design board I wanted to children and parents could stay in and experience the outdoors. Again I separated my board into four parts, Inspiration, First ideas, Storyboard and Prototypes.

All the inspiration pictures are “open” structures, they have great views to the outside, and they all emerge in the landscape more than disrupt them.
In my brainstorms, I played with lots of shapes, and angles, I had an Idea of making an installation with mirrors, zooms and microphone to encourage visitors to use all their senses to explore an area. I also looked at deconstructable materials like paper tubes, that architect Shigeru Ban, for example, has done lots of successful work with (http://www.shigerubanarchitects.com/works.html)

But I ended up with a final concept called Sky House, which is a packageable and portable treehouse, cause lets be honest, what kid doesn’t dream of a tree house? The idea consists of three parts, an adjustable net in the bottom, an equally adjustable plastic ceiling that you can look through to observe the night sky, and a waterproof cloth to put around the structure, like walls.

Interaction Board:

For my last board, the interior design, I had three ideas I was joggling between, Scavenger Hunt, Bug Buddy and Curious Cam.
Scavenger hunt is an app that allows you to scan any plant, fungus or tree to see what it can be used for.
It´s a way to get children and parents alike to get a closer relationship with the plant species around them. Ideally, it should be sponsored by universities, botanic gardens etc, so that they could get the location and count data on the plants, and in return, maybe the kids could collect enough points to get tickets to botanic gardens or research centres.

Bug Buddy, is an attempt to make children less scared of germs and insects. It would work as an app where you can scan the insect and get facts about it.

Curious Cam is a product idea to make parents more comfortable with letting their children out on their own. it works as a picture compass, it will suggest a road for you to go, if you choose so, and when you then want to go home, it will show you in the right direction. But the idea of it is that it takes a picture every once in a while so that when the child comes home, they can show the parent where they´ve been and what they´ve done, so that it can feel like they were out “together”.

 

“Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.”

– Charles Eames

For this project, we went deeper into the area of graphic design and started working on layouts. In particular magazine layouts.

Magazines are interesting because they often have a lot of elements that have to work together and still be aesthetically pleasing, especially in fashion, life and travel magazines.

We started out with finding and analysing articles we liked. This consisted of finding the underlying structure, the number of columns and locating the margins.

For inspiration and reference, I already had a board on Pinterest with layouts that I like, so I used the designs I had on that to analyse on.

Pinterest board: https://pin.it/thakehrbapfd6q 

The article I have used in my designs is “Let’s start designing a future that gives us a future” by Nicolas Roope. (https://www.dezeen.com/2018/10/10/un-climate-report-united-nations-nicolas-roope-plumen-opinion/)

It’s an article from Deezen about Environmental Sustainability and I started out being inspired by this design

I wanted it to be a factory in between the two pages, and then have the smoke from the chimney cover the top bit of the page

But when I put it on the page I didn’t really like it, so I analysed some more designs.

I did quite a lot of these to get inspiration and to find a pattern in which layouts I liked the most. A big part of what I found hard to start with was finding a good place for pictures. But analysing other designs like this really have a useful insight.

So after this, I felt more ready to go into InDesign again, I chose to work with 6 columns because most of the layouts I had had 3 or 6 underlying columns. I also chose to keep my graphics to only one picture and I wanted that picture to of course say something, but to also be quite easy and pleasing to look at, because again, I found that that is what I was drawn most to in other designs.

In my next designs, I use two different pictures

In the end,I chose the one of the icy mountains, because ice is something we all associate with global warming in this context. And it will in that way give the article more power, even though he doesnt actually mention the ice melting.

So now that I knew that I started playing around with a few designs.

 

When it comes to the fonts I used in my designs I had drawn inspiration from magazines like these

So a very simplistic type with no serifs or change in weight. The title is bold, the intro is made into an “element” by either giving it another shape (not licked in columns) or by underlining it.

For the body text I wanted something that was easy to read, but that didn’t draw too much attention to the type at first. So I chose Banschrift, because it went well with Zona Pro,  that I used for all other text.

I decided to stick with this design

I then did a few variations of it, unfortunately, I lost some of them.

To give the design it’s last finish I made baseline grids to align the text.

iPad design

for the iPad, I wanted to transfer the layout from the magazine to a new format.

I knew I wanted to keep the big picture in the top, and I also decided to have it in “6” columns. In practise 2 small columns and one big in between them.

I then chose to put quotes in the right-hand column and picture information etc on the left-hand column I wanted to keep the title and byline like they are in the magazine to keep the layout as close to the magazine as possible.

I then created a baseline grid and added the top bar of the iPad to give it more of a realistic feel.

And in the end, by two final pieces in PDFs:

Ipad done-yvexs6

Layout done-10itz3a

 

 

“You cannot not communicate.”

– Paul Watzlawick

Signs are an often overlooked art, in every way. We often do not even notice half of them, unless we are specifically looking for them. And they are truly everywhere. In this project, we were to design a sign or object that would affect the behaviour of people walking around our building DJCAD. The object had to be completely removable, could not be a nuisance and had to leave a lasting impression on the people who interacted with it.

We started out with a talk on behaviour and the effects of fonts. Where after we went around the building to do our own observations on behaviour.

Observations

We found that people in the building always seem to know where they are going, and barely give walls and the ground a second look.

We also found that people walking alone, unsurprisingly, are more likely to take up their phone when they see others, or they just walk with it in general. Not always using, but just holding it in their hands.

People walking together, on the other hand, where after talking and walking close to each other, but they seemed to be even less likely to pay attention to things around them. Because their attention was focused on the other person. Whereas people walking alone, are looking for any distraction if they do not have their phone in their hand.

We also found that people were more likely to walk through the big doors in the hall, and rarely did anyone uses the small door on the far right.

Brainstorm

Doing our initial brainstorm we came up with lots of different ideas;

Lines on the floor, to make people change their normal route unconsciously, a button to challenge people’s curiosity, signs to confuse them on which floor they were on, writhing meaningful quotes on the stairs, putting it on the ceilings over the stairs, and so on. Unfortunately, not all these ideas were put on paper, but these are the ones that made it.

Location

After brainstorming for a while, we chose to split up our group, into pairs of two. Marianna and I chose to work with the quote on the stairs. We wanted to make people enjoy walking around more, and we wanted to make them aware of the “fear” that walking without our phones gives most of us. We feel naked and uncomfortable without it.

And for that purpose we choose the last stairs walking from 5th floor to 4th. Because it leads to both the library, the Crawford building, to the restrooms and to the lifts. And yes, the lifts are important too. Cause this was one of the places we saw lots of people clinging to their phones. Especially in the morning.

Quotes

After figuring out what we wanted to achieve, we started brainstorming on which quotes we wanted to use.

We found and came up with quite a few;

2nd Brainstorm

We choose to use the slogan

“Don’t be afraid

To walk

Without your

Phone”

Because it is short, it communicates our point, and it has three meanings. Which would be fun and challenging to try to communicate.

Now that we knew what we wanted to write we could begin our second research on fonts, colour schemes and graphics to communicate our point the most effective.

Choosing type

Picture of final photoshop prototype

We choose to go with the yellow to orange colour scheme, but with a black text, to make it more refined. When it comes to types we choose Centaur on the first line “Don’t be afraid” because it is comforting in its round curves, but the serifs and the square dots create interest and generates attention. Also the “Don’t” was put in italic and bold, the italic to emphasise the meaning, and the bold to visually even it out with the PHONE at the end of the sign.

For the second line “to WALK” we used Modern No. 20, for the “to” and Copperplate Gothic light for “walk”. We chose to use two fonts so that they “walk” would pop out more.

Modern No. 20 has character, but without drawing too much attention to itself, whereas Copperplate is a gothic font, that has a lot of weight and character to it. It is also very old and signals how fundamental the statement is.

“Without your” is written in Goudy Old Style, it is a relatively neutral font, easy to read and easy on the eye. We choose those characteristics because this bit of the text is not the most important, however, it is important for the meaning, and therefore has to be easy and fast to read.

“Phone” however, is written in Bodoni MT Condensed. We chose a condensed font to create some interest in the last bit of the text since this will be what will be seen first when you walk towards it looking at your phone. This is also the reason why we chose such a heavy font.

Caps

We used caps in a few different ways in our design. In the first line, it is only the first letter that is in caps to keep it comfortable and easy to read. In the second line, we had “to” in low caps and “walk” in all caps, to show what to focus on, and to give the sign more visual impact. “without your” is all in low caps to visualise that it is not the important bit. “Phone” on the other hand, is in all caps because it is the point of the sign.

As said the sign has 3 meanings, and all three are emphasised by caps.

Designing the steps

There are 11 steps on the staircase we wanted to use. The phrase was only 4 lines, but since the stairs are only 13.5 cm high we wanted each letter to spread over two stairs. And so we had 3 stairs left for blanks. We chose to put one on the top stair to visually give the letters some room, and two on the bottom stairs, so that there was more blank space to draw attention while turning around the corner. But also because of the angle the sign is read from, the bottom letters need “more space” because they are closer to the viewer.

Building process

To begin with, we wanted to get the type printed, at the at the print unit, but because of the size of the document, 183.5 x 148.5 cm, it would be quite expensive and would take multiple prints.

So instead of print, we decided to use cardboard. Jason helped us cut out the cardboard in the size of the stairs, 13.5 x 183.5 cm.

We then started spray painting them in our yellow and orange colours. However, the yellow spray paint kept spitting and we were unable to do the gradient effect as we wanted it. Instead, we got a rougher look with spits of paint and unperfect coating, that gave the sign some texture, that it otherwise would have lacked. So, in the end, it was quite lucky really.

For the lettering, we used black markers, one to line them, and one to fill them in. And since we wanted the fonts to be as correct as possible, without printing them, we put up the projector in first a lecture hall, and later on in a small room.

Here we drew the letters on in the sizes we wanted them. I had earlier on figured out which size the letters should be so that when you looked at the stairs from the 4th floor it would fit together over the stairs. I did this by creating a photoshop document where I put the text on I the perspective we wanted, and then I enlarged the letters into the same size.

Pictures of letters on the staircase, and then next to each other like when we painted them

Final observations

On Tuesday the 20th we put our cardboard strips on the stairs with masking tape and observed as people walked by if they noticed the sign if they were walking with their phone, and if they put it away.

Unfortunately, we only observed over a short period of time and didn’t get too many readings.

Fortunately, we were able to see a pattern anyway. Most people who walked by did see our sign, a lot actually stopped while walking to give it a closer look, and one group stood and discussed it for a while. So it defiantly had visual impact enough to be noticed, but not many walked with their phones while we stood there, however, two people out of five put down their phones after seeing the sign.

For myself, when I see signs or objects like this one, I do not change my own behaviour at once either. But it will often make me think about it throughout the day, and I will try and change my behaviour. So if we were able to, it would have been useful to follow the people who saw it, to see if they walk less with their phone throughout the following hours. Or we could have stopped some people and asked them. But let that be a reflection for next time.

“Knowledge is happiness to me”
Miles Davis

When looking for examples of visual communication, album covers are great, they have a long history of using creativity in all aspects to communicate what the music will be like before the customer buys the album.

To start the assignment I watched a few interviews with Miles Davis, to get a feel for his character and the things he liked. Which lead me to look into his own artworks.

He also mentioned some of his idols like Picasso and Dali, he also mentioned some albums he wish his were like, which were Sting’s album Sting and Mick Jaggers called Primitive Cool. All the materials are in the end under research, if you are interested in watching it too.

1st brainstorm

But to start my product development I did a whole lot of different designs while I watched the interviews and listened to the single. These are a mix of notes of observations and designs.

---

Mood board

After my first brainstorming I had to narrow my ideas down so that I could start working on the overall design and details.

To do that I put together a mood board filled with pictures that represent my interpretation of Miles Davis’s personal style and character. In it I have put pictures of Miles Davis himself, his own art, art he was inspired by and art that represents his past like being a pimp and his addiction to heroin. I chose to incorporate his past because these are things that his fans will know and recognise they were also things he talked openly about, in an unashamed manner, which really says a lot about the vibe he gave “I don’t care what others think”.

This attitude is also clear in his naming of the album “So What”

2nd brainstorm

This leads me to my second brainstorm where I worked with composition, colour theory and abstraction.

Detail work

I now had a more refined idea of what I was going for and why. I wanted the initial focus to be on Miles Davis’s silhuet, which I wanted to achieve by using bright white centrally placed on a dark background, the next thing I wanted focus on was his signature in the top, which is made in a solid white as well, a white edge will lead the eye from one to the other.

And the final thing for people to notice will be the woman standing on the other side of Miles Davis, she is popping out of the picture by being red in contrast to the blue/black background.

I decided to try a few media’s to try different styles with the design and see what would give me the result I wanted. I tried with coloured pens and pencils, lead,watercolour, oil paints and acrylics.

Final product

My final product is made with acrylics on A4 watercolour paper. To create the 30 x 30 cm paper I needed I taped together my prepped watercolour paper, where after I cut it in the desired size.

I started with a background inspired by my previous acrylic piece and the watercolour piece.

The bent in the paper that came from taping the two pieces together was placed as a third of the paper, so I made the white line and Miles Davis figure where after I did the signature and white spiral.

After coming that far I did not want the album to look cheap, so I made a colour swatch to compare with the almost finished product.

I quickly decided to use a tad of black in my read colour to allow the white to be the primary contrast.

When the woman was painted in and the product picture was done, I got an idea when looking at the red colour swatch. I wanted it to be the actual case of the CD, and my final piece to be a sleeve over it. This would give a little more supprise and colour to the album, it would also make it seem more expensive and in a better quality because of the added packaging.

Understanding the artist

To get a feel for who Miles Davis was and what he liked I watched a few interviews with him. (linked below under research)

 

Research

Youtube recording of “So What” by Miles Davis 1959

Youtube interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdbncehVoqk

Miles Davis’s personal art:
https://www.milesdavis.com/gallery/miles-artwork/

Examples of other albums from the same period: 
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=album+cover+1959&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGpJipj8LeAhVLBsAKHYkACRAQ_AUIDigB&biw=1280&bih=610&dpr=1.5#imgrc=_

Analysis of “So What” by Miles Davis:
https://lkellunis.weebly.com/analysis-of-miles-davis-so-what.html