PPRD!

This was the another little live brief that had a quick turn around! The brief required a Christmas card design that reflects the marine industry, by a company called 'Jenkins Marine' they manage boats for companies have worked closely with the RNLI and more recently helped create the artificial reef in Bournemouth. They have clients all around the world who they do business with so they needed a design that is universal and has a Christmas/Marine theme.

The brief it's self was quite broad, there were not many set guidelines as such, apart from keep it festive and nautical themed. I decided to keep it simple.

Essentially I took these two terms, and got them down on paper, and when they were in front off me I arranged the creatures and festive objects in to opposite pairs.

This in turn created some really random but humorous results.

The designs ranged from a dolphin finding a Christmas tree in buried in the sand, to a crab coming across a mince pie!

I used a light water-colour wash which keeps its playfull but precise.

In terms of a rationale, the Christmas card serves it's purpose in that It offers the light-hearted humor. I feel there is a nice contrast between the sea creature and the santa hat drawing of the octopus, just what you need at Christmas.

PPRD!

After our hand in this week we had a some time to carry on with live briefs or D&AD. I noticed that some live projects had the deadline fast approaching so i thought i would have a go at a few. The first was an animal print for the Vis-com fundraiser coming up after christmas. The idea is that we all complete a piece of work that could be framed and put up on display in Coffee Republic for a period of time, and then at 60 million Postcards on the night of the fundraiser. My idea for an illustration was based around the idea of a bird cartoon drawing I created for Screen based 1 last year. I felt that it could be recycled and was to much of an opportunity to make some large scale prints from. I ended up just pimping a group of birds on an electricity cable. A little humor never hurt anyone, also I feel they are salable for the fundraiser. This week we had a screen printing session and I below was the out come, at the moment there are black an white and a few colours mixed in, but I have a plan to add some water-colour washes, roughly over the birds.

Sound posters

Communicating ideas!

Re-brand (Packaging)

Re-brand (labels)

Business identity!

Thankyou!

Hand-in for first project.

So we have just had our first hand in for that massive brief filled with lots of different briefs, vis-com keeping us on our toes as usual. I have to say it was pretty hard going, turning around project after project week by week, but it still wasn't as bad as Text and image last year!. Few things i really enjoyed about this brief like the fact that within a week we would all have an outcome even if it was unresolved, it was really nice to see what people had achieved. I particularly enjoyed the packaging project where I feel I created some of my strongest work to date. Also the communicating idea project was fun because I was allowed to take an idea and run wild with it buy creating a sound installation, well the concept anyway.

In terms of disappointment, I feel the thank-you project lacked something, and wasn't resolved in the sense that the idea behind it or the meaning of it is slightly lost but hey no point crying over spilt beans is there.

For the hand in I had to have everything finished and final or as close to that point so thought I would just give u the updated work.

London Paper

In London we had the whole day to go off and do what we please so a group of us decided to go to some of the places mentioned on the list which included Magma books , V+A and London graphics centre. Here is where I bought some really fine quality paper to use for my Business stationery.

London trip!

So we went to London on Thursday for a little retail therapy, jokes not really. It was for a talk at the London design centre, to see Paula Scher a designer from Washington who has designed the logo for Citi Bank and so much more, Paula has been around for a quite a while now and had her fair share of major jobs. The talk was put on by D&AD, just like the one last year with Kyle Cooper. They basically asked her to go through her long history of work, which was interesting but at the same time I felt her old work was redundant to the common practice of today and I didn't feel that I learnt much to take away and incorporate in to my own work.

On the other hand her more recent work was really quite bold and beautiful, below are some examples,

The MOMA identity was one of my Favorites, a really clever re-brand.

Then there was the floor numbers that took up the whole space of the floor, and got bigger or smaller depending on how high up each floor was.

Not forgetting a brief that required a music college building in NewYork to have

a whole new image, with a very small budget. So they gave it a lick of paint,

and covered it in Typography... obviously!

For the brief I would like to steer away from plain and simple posters for the public, instead create some sort of interactivity with the message. In other words a sound installation, this is one of the few ways I can get my work across to the public in an effective way.

I have been recently researching and agency called 'Greyworld' lead by a man called Andrew Sioban who I hope will help me to realize my final piece.

Heres just an example of greyworld's work. Below is a set of bollards that light up, to the untrained eye they are simply a set of bollards but, but infact the bollards can sense the movement of the people who walk past. Through the sensors sound is released at high or low pitches depending on the speed and aggressiveness the person is walking at when they walk by.

Communicating an idea!

The objective of the brief was to choose one of the videos from the website and collect all the most interesting point of the talk, and communicate to the public in a way you see fit.

So its Friday and we have had this Communicating Ideas brief for a week now and all I have done is look at the various educational videos on a website called 'ted.com'.

After much consideration in to which one would be more beneficial for me, but also the one that would challenge my thinking a little more. I ended up torn between the sound and the consumerism video, upon later reflection and a talk early that morning saying we should think out side the box. I finally chose the sound one.

In the talk by Julian Treasure. He talks about there being 4 ways in which sound affects us 1) Physiologically, 2) Psychologically 3) Cognitively 4) behaviorally. I have chosen to focus on the psychological and cognitive affects of sound. He describes our passion for sound but also the way in which we suppress sound all the time, and more interestingly our common associations with sound sound that evoke happiness and sounds that evoke fear.

Today we had a Laser cutting induction, I had heard good things about this process, but as usual had no work with me, which was big mistake. The man who inducted us was really nice i think his name was Ed, really laid back character. The induction was short and sweet, just the way I like it.

But I did pick up some interesting facts about Laser cutting: It works through illustrator, which means its recognizes vector work and strangely needs to be set to RGB. The designs themselves can be a as detailed or a as simple as u like, the important thing is that the image is made up of a stroke or a fill so the laser can read it. You can create some interesting patterns by setting the power and speed.

So that the laser understands the difference between cutting and etching the stroke and the fill are separated in to blue indicating a cut, and red indicating a singe or etch.

I am glad I found out about this because not only will it be good to know for the future when doing final pieces, but also for the business identity brief I have just done, I will look in to creating a business card in this style.

http://aucbcam.com/

D&AD Briefs

So the D&Ad briefs have been out for a while now and I had had a quick look at a few of them last week but in no great detail. This Monday there was some time to focus on professional projects or what ever you got going on at that time. So a group of us got together and decided we would have a go at one.

We all downloaded the briefs and sifted through the potentially winning briefs, even

tually we got down to a possible three:

* Company called 'onedotzero', who are asking for some sort of moving image which explores the concept of a 'disappearing city '.

* Another brief from 'www.lastminute.com' who require a new campaign so people can get more from the website, with an imaginative and fresh out look.

* The last brief was from 'Lloyds TSB'.

This one asks to create an integrated campaign to bring Lloyds Partnership with the olympic Games 2012 alive.

After much deliberation and carefully considering the practicalities of each we decided to go for the 'onedotzero' brief. It was out of this and the Lloyds brief, it was clear that we could be much more creative with the moving image brief, as opposed to the the olympics one which we would have to consider the all aspects of the Olympics, including the Paralympics and being politically correct.

It would clearly be a nightmare.

Final Re-branding

So just thought I would update you on the goings on of the re-branding project after the first crit iIwent a way with a strong concept but the visuals were not justifying the concept. So the last week was spent trying to bang out an improved logo, labeling and packaging. I have worked hard, with the little time I had in the project. The labels and packaging I feel are nearly resolved some final touches like bringing up the levels of the pea illustration, and just general typography issues like character spacing and paragraph styles. Other areas that need addressing, are making the maquette for the products and packaging.

Inspire me!

Below is a really good website for packaging, it's really given me some inspiration.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/06/02/beautiful-and-expressive-packaging-design/

So whilst the whole idea of business identity and stationery was fresh in my mind i was doing some research for the rebranding, and I receive an email form a friend who is studying arts and events 3rd year. She is doing her dissertation but also having to think about her end of year final event and she is trying to sort sponsors out so to apply to these companies she needed a letterhead to establish an identity for the members of the group. The names are Natalie, Amy, Ciaran, and Celia. They are calling them selves 'NACC Promotions' the initials of their names. hers the design below it's black and bold just how she wanted it and teh way it's set out kin of expresses a stamp maybe of authority. This for the team was important to firstly establish a foundation, and also make them corporate and legitimate.

Old to New

For this part of the project we were given the choice to rebrand any of the following, tinned veg, spam, fondu tapioca and other redundant product. The idea was to bring them back in to circulation as either a new exiting or unusual product. The re-brand could be in keeping with the origins of the product, or have a modern up to date end product.

I ended up choosing mushy peas which

I was trying to steer away from, but the opportunity to re-brand the current mushy peas packaging was all to tempting. I felt that what ever I did would look more sophisticated.

I decided to go down the root of opening the scope for higher end people to except mushy peas as and indulgent accompaniment to expensive meals.

I worked out to do this I couldn't have the existing brand, style or even ingredients. My idea was to rebrand it as pea puree, a

perfect accompaniment to meals such as scallops wrapped in bacon. The reason I chose to do it this way is because it allows people of all social classes to go to the supermarket and buy the very thing that created the nostalgia at an expensive restaurant.

The product would come in a squeeze bottle and when heated up in the micro wave, thus be presented on the plate to the level of a high end restaurant, bringing back them all those nostalgic memories a couple of family experience.

In terms of concept I am very happy at the moment I don't think there is any competing products on the market. Next thing to perfect is the packaging, I need something that enhances the posh pea brand. I intend to look at M & S and waitrose labeling and packaging to move the product on!

Here is the full stationery including business card front and back, Letter head and compliment slip. I chose to keep the soviet colours throughout creating the continuity in the piece. I think the gold and red strips bring together the separate elements of design, for example the business card strips continue from front to back.

The design for the business card came from the influence of the musical score and represents the idea of expressing political issues through the sound of music

The badge stays in the corner of all the documents to give that slick business look.

In terms of Typeface I chose a typically Russian font. Its formal and conforms to the business stationery theme. My only criticism is that it's not the clearest of Fonts.

So for my business identity I was in to minds whether to go down the root of the controversial political pressure, or go with the musical influences and symphonies.

To be honest I was torn between the two so my final pieces represent both side

of the coin, showing that the political issue was as much a part of his life as the music.

The design consists of the original soviet badge but the symbols in the middle have been changed to what Dmitri Shostakovich truly believed in and if he could he would proudly represent.

The badge its self represents the sickle and a hammer to represent the farmers and the star represents the communist party. My badge takes a realist approach to the regime replacing the sickle with shackles to represent forced labour and wheat to represent the the famine that the soviet union caused.

Business Identity and stationery

The next part of the Brief was to create a set of stationery for a person that was chosen at random My identity was Dmitri Shostakovich, who I found out after some initial research that he was a Russian Composer of the soviet union period in the 20th Century.

The great thing about this project was not only we were getting to grips with creating stationery, which is a very handy to tool in the industry, but also we were given the opportunity to dive deep in to the mans personality, finding what they were about and what they stand for which a letter-head and identity are essentially used for.

For Shostakovich as well as finding out his background, I also received a small history lesson in the process. I had a lot of information to base my identity on, for example even though he composed in the communism period, his music represented ideas far from a communist way of life.

His work was controversial and on various several occasions his music was denounced under political pressure.

As far as his privet life goes his family was threatened and eventually he was blackmailed and forced to join the communist party due to political pressure.

Back to the old school, back to the new!

So it's Vis-Com second year and I have been back in to the swing of things for a week now, and let me tell you it has felt like 4 weeks already. On the first day back we were given are new brief, which I like to call the brief that gets u thinking!

This was quiet a shock for me considering the last time I done much thinking was in July for my Placement. The first of the four projects in the brief was simply the word 'Thank-you'. The idea was to say thank you to someone or something, but in your own way be visually different.

We only had a week to think of something, so the outcome would have to be short,sharp and precise. By the time the tutorials came round I had an idea, that I thought was thinking outside the box. I was going to be a piece about Irony, the thanks shared between to distant friends that buy each other the most pointless presents.

The idea was shot down after I was told that I hadn't addressed the brief, the thank you had to be from me not a general one. After having looked at a really creative piece by Kessels-kramer where the pages had been ripped out and some letters had been stamped on in Dutch. So with-in a couple of hours I was thanking my Favorite Book by Howard Marks called 'Mr Nice'.

The idea was that I would say thank you by stitching through the binding of the book, It would turn out to be a delicate process, also a delicate finish,making the words thank you a little more special.

In the critique I expressed by new idea, there was a mixed view but the overall opinion was that the piece was unresolved and that I had forced it together because of my love for Kessels-Kramer.

It was a blow, but in hindsight I do feel like I rushed in to an outcome with out following common design protocol in my sketchbook.

PPRD Hand In!!

Coming up to the Hand in tomorrow and am already aware that i have some work missing from the earlier projects like conclusions and rationales particularly throughout my text and image project. The reason for this is that I started my blog later than most and when it came down to the reflection i have only really got form around December.

I can only blame myself for this, but I made a decision that I would not try and back date the work I had missed over the last few months instead I would concentrate on the present and future work and realize my potential through careful reflection. For example the work i have posted recently that includes London trips and outside learning, this i hope will see me through the requirements.

I also have a folder with all relevant pieces of work, outside and inside college work, evaluations rationales, handouts, tutorial reflection sheets, and any other design work I have collected.            

Berlin Trip

Hello just come back from Berlin  and feel exhausted its been a crazy three days i have seen a lot in Berlin, and a great time with some of the the second year students. I went to see many famous places  like the Jewish Museum, National Gallery, Bauhaus Archiv, and the Guggenheim.My favorite exhibition was at the guggenheim it was various artists form the photo realism era in the 1970s to now, this painting on the right done by a designer called Don Eddy was my favorite of all. We were all convinced it was a photograph only later we realized that i was a painting by looking up close. I think the reason why this worked was because in the 70s the photography had this lack of colour to it, which makes these paintings so realistic. I really don't think this is possible now days.  

There were some great pieces of art in the Jewish museum including a nice photography exhibition depicting the rise and fall of Berlin during the 1970s 80s and 90s. The lovely thing about this work was that it was presented in light boxes raised off the floor, with seats positioned around the room.

Below is the photography.

    

Day Workshop for type radio

We had only had the new project a couple of days but already we got a new little day project on type radio. The aim of the day was to get in to groups and create a poster that was strictly made up of type, That promoted the use of the website how useful it can be to designers and students all over the world.

First of all we brainstormed as a group with some ideas as to how the poster and layout may look. One of the biggest issues we had was the fact that we wouldn't be able to use an image, so getting around having just a flat image with type on it. we all agreed that there were millions of average posters out there, not to mention the four other groups around us with a similar objective, therefore agreed it should be a little different.

We came up with the idea of having the poster as a folded book, so when the poster was folded each side would have on of the letters form the title type radio, and as it unfolds the website and relevant information is revealed

It was nice to work in groups again because everyone had an input towards the final piece, It received a mix review at the end of the day  mainly because we didn't stick strictly to the brief, and also some of our choices for lay out and use of colour was confused.

Never the less I learnt a lot.  

    

New Brief

Today we were given a new brief which was all about the website 'Type Radio', The idea of the brief will be to transcribe a recording of a designer that we pick. The problem was that i wouldn't be able to pick the designer or typographer, it would be picked out of the hat.I managed to get Erik Spiekermann and wasn't sure whether or not it was a good idea, because I had seen some of his work earlier on in the year in the Helvetica film. he of course designed the typeface Meta and a few others during his successful career.

After looking at some of his design work i was moderately impressed with his work, and thought could only bring good things when I went to listen to the type radio interview on Erik.

            

1,000 Graphic Elements: Special Details for Distinctive Designs

I bought this book last week in search of some really well put together graphics and inspiration, and came across this.

I covers everything from print techniques to manipulated surfaces to graphic devices. As a whole the book as sent my imagination runnin

g wild and has helped me to realize some of my potential in visual communication already and i havn't had it long. Another great thing about the book is that it has taken a snip of the graphic techniques form all over the world including american and australian design, but also closer to home in the Uk which keeps me up to date with present concepts and visual

 thinking. 

Another key element to this book is the book binding incorporated in to the designs, and look forward to creating some new work under this influence. 

I would defiantly recommend this book for anyone who needs a little wider understanding of the graphic design practice - good book. 

Hamish Muir lecture

Today we had a lecture with Hamish Muir a much renowned graphic designer who has worked with Mark Holt and Andree Gurther through out his illustrious career. He talked about his early art days where after studying at the Poole College for Art he worked in a cramp studio with three other designers. His work includes advertising for the Edinburgh Festival, called 'flux'.

When he started in 1985 there were no apple computers so all there work was hand made and very unique.

His answer for the future of the design was to have little ideas and just work from there, delicate touches and thinking outside the box is the key to success.  

4 designers

                                Last week we traveled down to London for a conference on the 23rd and 24th with 4 accomplished designers which is held annually in leicester square. the talk attracted around 500 students, also industry desiners from all around the uk and the rest of the world. On e of the lectures was a man called Adrian Shaughnessy  who created published the book 'How to be a designer without losing your soul'. He was very insightful when presenting his tip and ideas of graphic design. the most interesting thing about adrian was that he was never taught the design practice, in fact he as only now started to learn the fundamental rules of graphic design after the age of 50. he is certainly an inspiration.

Another lecturer was a man form project triangle called Martin  who are based in Germany, I was very impressed with their design it was very out there and European.