AD109: 4Tomorrow Poster Live Competition

4tomorrow Posters

The last part of the Work Related module was to choose our own live brief/competition to work on.

I found it hard to decide on one in the beginning. At first I went for and urban art competition, where you create 3 pieces of mixed media artwork based on your city, which was right up my street. However, I came across the ‘poster 4 tomorrow’ competition, which reminded me of the Student Union project, so I decided to focus on this instead.

The quote for this year’s competition was ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’ which lead me to the idea of using the nuclear symbol/sign or nuclear bomb as part of my concept.

I used the shape of a brain to symbolise knowledge and education and then placed the nuclear sign inside, which was simple but looked modern and it was eye-catching, so I think it communicated the quote well, serving its purpose.

My second poster was the nuclear bomb, where I created typography ‘Education’ in the shape of the bomb and had it as though it was being dropped from a plane. This again spoke the message clearly in a different way than something more obvious. I learned from the Student Union project, that you should try and be ‘quirky’ with that kind of project, have a bit less of obvious and a bit more creative humour. Which is what I tried to do.

I also decided to use cut outs of paper, which I layered up with foam stickers and then scanned them into the Mac as the poster, as I thought this would look more interesting than in illustrator, and also because this style itself looked childish, tying in with education. Further more I added a handwritten font to the quote to emphasise that childish theme.

I will also submit these posters into the live competition, which I have the chance to win a work placement in Paris. So this negotiated project has been a great opportunity as it allows you the chance to expand your portfolio and gain some recognition for yourself by entering live competition/briefs.

Out of all 4 projects in this module I think this is my favorite. I enjoyed working on something I enjoyed doing and it gave me the opportunity to be more creative.

AD109: SPACE Logo Design

SPACE

As part of my Work Related module, we were given a series of live briefs to work on.

Space was the 3rd brief that we worked on, which is the HE bar and I.T centre.

Space turned out to be even more complicated than BlueBridge. The client didn’t want anything associated with outer space, no planets, stars or aliens. So it was hard to come up with a concept without thinking of space.

I also couldn’t get the MySpace logo out my head, as it’s really unusual and space also symbolises the fact its used as a place to get some ‘space’ and chill out, and the space can also be used for gigs.

So I tried to use this idea, and applied it to my designs.

I eventually decided to produce something simple, something that didn’t really focus on one area; it’s neutral in a sense. My style is always a more contemporary, minimalistic approach.

Therefore, I created a simple Typographic logo, where I focused on the shape of the lettering. I decided to leave spaces in certain letters, which would emphasise ‘space’. I also went for a light blue with a grey, its contemporary and ties in with the college too, but there are options of colour too if the client wanted another colour.

I wasn't as keen on this brief as I was with BlueBridge as I found it more difficult to think of ideas, I had the same problem when choosing a restaurant for the branding project. But I managed to get an idea in the end and I'm satisfied with the outcome.

Weekly Time Plan starting: 02.05.11 (Neg Project) AD109

Monday:

Develop Space Ideas. Look at the Design Competition Web sites to decide on a brief for Neg project

Tuesday:

Choose brief for Neg project, carry out some research and begin idea generation. Also catch up on PPD tasks.

Wednesday: 

Develop Ideas for Neg project.

Thursday:

Develop Ideas further, and catch up on PPD tasks.

Friday: 

Finish PPD Tasks.

Saturday:

Begin Essays for Digital Skills and Work Related Modules

Sunday: 

Continue Essays

Weekly Time Plan starting: 18.04.11 (Work Related) AD109

Monday:


Finalize Penguin book cover, and make sure it's uploaded onto the competition website.


Tuesday:


Catch up on PPD Blog Tasks


Wednesday: 


Continue with PPD Blog Tasks (Competition Briefs)


Thursday: 


PPD Tasks


Friday:


PPD Tasks

Concept Personnel Work Placements

http://www.conceptpersonnel.co.uk/blogMore.php?id=172

I found this website interesting too, showing current work placements, which I'm interesting in doing soon!

I may be doing a summer placement fingers crossed! So I will definitely check this website frequently.

Pentagram: Notes on a logo.

http://pentagram.com/en/new/2011/04/new-world-symphony-video.php

This video I found quite interesting, which shows the original drafts of logos which Pentagram has designed. I thought this was useful as it showed some insight into how they develop their work.

I constantly look on Pentagrams website for inspiration when doing logo design too.

AD108: Editorial Project (Newcastle and the Arts)

'Newcastle and the Arts'

What I enjoyed:

I really enjoyed doing this project, Editorial is possibly one of my favorite topics in Graphic Design, So I loved having the opportunity to do this.

At first I wasn't sure on my topic, but eventually once I got into it, the concept just came to me (Jim McElvaney style).

What I didn't enjoy:

There wasn't anything that I didn't enjoy about this project, I love Editorial Design, and I had fun working on the magazine spread. 

Problems encountered: 

The only problem I encountered, was developing an idea, as it's hard to think of something when it was 'Newcastle and the Arts' I tried to do something original, and in the end looked at lazarides and found Jim McElvaneys exhibition.

What went well:

Everything about this project went well, it was straight forward with putting it together, especially from the tutorials given on InDesign in I.T sessions. It really helped my understanding of the program and I was able to put a successful editorial piece together, and I'm satisfied with the outcome.

New skills learned: 

Creating a successful piece of editorial design.

SWOT conclusion:

Strengths:

Development, I'm very quick when developing an idea, and I produce lots of variations.

Weaknesses:

Idea Generation (sometimes!) it depends of the topic given, sometimes I find it hard at first to get into the project to gain ideas and concepts

Opportunities:

I will continue to work on Idea Generation

Threats:

Again, just Idea generation, but I'm continuing to work on this with every project.

Design Competitions/Live Briefs

As a PPD Task, the class was asked to research into current Design Competitions,

I looked at quite a few, but these were the ones which I found most useful and most interesting.

D&AD is a well known Design Awards so this was one of the first that I thought of.

My favorite Design Competition website was graphiccompetitions.com because it had a variety of competitions, instead of just one. It also caters for all design categories, so it had lots of graphic design briefs and photography, advertising, etc. So it's my favorite from the bunch!

I also liked it because of the variation in briefs, it wasn't just general artworks which can be entered in by designers, It also had briefs where you can design an accessory, packaging, etc.

I really enjoyed this task, it opened my eyes and made me more aware of the competitions which are available to enter into, and I will definitely keep checking, as doing this expands my portfolio too!

D&AD Student Awards

http://www.dandad.org/awards/student/2011

Northern Design Competition

http://www.northerndesigncompetition.co.uk/

Roses Design Awards

http://rosesdesignawards.com/

Graphic Design Blog

http://graphicdesignblog.co.uk/

Penguin Design Awards 

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/index.php

Graphic Competitions

http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/

YCN Design Competitions

http://awards.ycnonline.com/briefs/

LOGORAMA

LOGORAMA

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

We were shown this in class, I think it's amazing! It mental seeing all the different logos in this, every time I watch it, I always see a new logo. It's really well done, and hilarious. Definitely a one to watch!

Weekly Time Plan starting: 04.04.11 (Editorial Project) AD108

Monday:


Continue developing Double spread and following page in InDesign. Start to finalize, and print development, start annotating to keep up with work.


Tuesday:


Finalize double and following spread, print off and mount onto Black card ready to hand in.
Continue with development book, print off any more screen prints, annotate, and begin Written Report.


Wednesday: 


Continue with Written Report, Evaluating my Final Piece (1500 Words max). Talk through research, any Ideas which have been taken from it, talk about the chosen Grid System and Layout, following onto the given Topic, what or who I Focused on, what the concept was for the spread, and where I got this from. 'Why why why?' what choices I made and the reasoning behind it.


Thursday:


Finalize Report, add any images which will help communicate what I have written, and print off to put with mounted work to hand in.


Friday: 


Go through research and Development, read through annotation and make sure that it's explaining my ideas fully, and finalize to hand in on monday.

AD109: BlueBridge Logo Design

BlueBridge

BlueBridge is another brief which is part of the Work Related Module.

I much preferred this brief to the Seaton Sluice one, I found it more fun and I liked that we could come up with our own concept. 

BlueBridge was a complicated project to begin with in terms of idea generation as the client stated they did not want any musical instruments or anything that was too obvious. So it was the idea, which I took time developing.

Eventually the ideas were flowing and I had tonnes of developments, various concepts, shapes, and typefaces. However I eventually narrowed it down to just 3 designs. All designs that I thought were the strongest concept and which suited the style of the record label and the requirements of the client. Which were, to be a contemporary record label, and be focused both on students and industry, as the purpose of the record label is to help students get from college into work so its about ‘bridging’ the gap between education and industry.

My 3 ideas were based on the initial ‘B’ for example I had a basic shape of a ‘B’ with a treble clef cut out of the centre, even though they didn’t want anything obvious I thought that it looked contemporary and that it was appropriate.

The second idea I had (which is my favourite from the 3) was based on the shape of a plectrum, with the block capitals ‘BLUE’ cut out the centre, I thought that it was simple, and again it looked really contemporary.

The 3 idea was the least obvious, I got the idea from a CD cover when researching on the internet. Originally the idea was to have two outlines of CD’s overlapping but I later added the line down the middle to make it look like two lowercase b’s back to back. The line also symbolised ‘bridging’ the gap between two CD’s. The colours I went for were light blues and green/blue and I changed the opacity so the colours showed through each other and in the end creating a great effect.

The Clients also seemed impressed with my ideas, and loved the concept however, there were other ideas put forward which fit their requirements much more.

Ad101: PPD Task (Design Agencies Presentation)

Design Agency Presentation

As part of our PPD module, we were asked to research into Design Agencies which we thought were interesting, and then put together a powerpoint presentation to discuss our findings and why we chose to focus on these specific agencies and we also had to choose one project from each site which we liked the most.

I was paired with Adam Ferguson, and we both chose two agencies to research and then came together to discuss our findings and put them into a powerpoint.

We looked at Pearlfisher, Hawaii, Ziggurat Brands, and The Partners. All of which had their own style.

I think my favourite design was the MySpace logo, which is so unusual and a huge improvement to the original, it's a quirky idea and I'd like to work on something like this in the future.

Weekly Time Plan starting: 28.03.11 (Bluebridge Live Brief) AD109

Monday:


Continue Development of Bluebridge logos, make changes that were discussed with Rachel and Ronnie.


Tuesday: 


Continue with Editorial Project, Finish developing the artwork and scan into the mac to begin developing in InDesign.


Wednesday: 


Finalize Bluebridge logo ready for tomorrow's presentation with Ronnie and Client.


Thursday:


Present to the client, get feedback and if taken further, continue developing any changes required.


Friday:


Continue Developing Editorial Project, put together in Indesign, take regular screen prints to put in development book to annotate progress.

Weekly Time Plan starting: 21.03.11 (Bluebridge Live Brief) AD109

Monday:


Present first ideas to rachel, and choose ideas to develop.
Develop the chosen ideas, show variations, and discuss with rachel and improvements to be made.


Tuesday:


Continue to develop ideas, try out on stationary maybe? see how it works.
Get some feedback on progress and start finalizing.


Wednesday:


Finalize design, and start producing stationary, maybe a few ideas on t shirts to show how the logo can be used elsewhere.


Thursday: 


present designs to Ronnie.


Friday - Sunday:


Continue with AD108 (Editorial Project) and finalize following page, scan designs for the front page (double spread) and develop further on the mac.

AD104 Task 5: Typographic Blogs

http://ilovetypography.com

I love typography was the site which I found most inspirational and gained more understanding  from. This website unlike other Typographic blogs, focuses on how to teach you about typography, the history, how to make your own, and what fonts are popular in the current market. So it covers a wide variety of topics, as well as frequently posting inspirational typographic designs and various articles, etc.

The Origins of ABC

http://ilovetypography.com/2010/08/07/where-does-the-alphabet-come-from/

The first article I looked into was 'The Origins of ABC' which is based on the history of Typography, and how it has evolved over the centuries.

It goes all the way back to the very first form of written text, Pictograms, commonly associated with Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

It also looks at other written languages and compares them, showing the differences and the similarities between them

I found this so interesting, and I never thought about how pictograms could be the historical version of infographics.

This image shows a timeline of the various forms of written language, which I found really interesting and educational to see how the written language has evolved from symbols to separate letters.

On Choosing Type

http://ilovetypography.com/2008/04/04/on-choosing-type/

Who shot the Serif

http://ilovetypography.com/2007/08/26/who-shot-the-serif-typography-terms/

Arial Versus Helvetica

http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/06/arial-versus-helvetica/

FormFiftyFive

http://www.formfiftyfive.com

FormFiftyFive is another blog which I looked at, this covers a wide variety of articles, which are posted frequently, from Typographic Designers latest work, to New Typography websites launching.

What I liked about this site, is that it keeps you in the loop, and informs you of great opportunities, like this job which was available in november 

http://www.formfiftyfive.com/2010/11/senior-creative-superstarr/

Unlike ILoveTypography, which is more of an educational blog, teaching you about the history of Typography and how to identify a specific font or tell similar fonts apart. FormFiftyFive, is more of a notice board, informing or updating you on the latest designers/designs and projects, and keeping you up to date on what's current in the industry. It also posts images which are found inspirational.

Designer Headstones

http://www.formfiftyfive.com/2010/10/designer-headstones/

This article really stood out to me, as it's so unusual! while it's quite morbid, I thought that it was really interesting seeing an artistic and contemporary approach to Headstones and I never thought about how Typography is applied to them.

I like the style of the one above, I think the cubes is a cool alternative to the common shapes used. The style of the Typography is also quite cool, the way the letters have been spaced out and also the Typeface used.

It's a lot more modern, and I think it would be an interesting Idea to have customized or personal headstone, which could reflect on your personality, again a really morbid topic! but 

This headstone isn't quite as interesting as the one above, it's a little more boring.

It's simple and contemporary with the choice of colour and font, I think black is too miserable... I prefer the cube headstones

I've never quite associated Typography with Headstones, but this article has definitely opened my eyes to say the least! I wont look at headstones in the same way....

AD104 Task 4: Typographic Design Companies

Typographic Design is also great for brands who want to have their own font, which expands their brand even more. Especially for television channels, as they're so many, you want a viewer to instantly recognize a channel by seeing their typeface on an advert, as sometimes channels don't necessarily have their logo in the top corner or on show all the time.

So there are definitely advantages of having bespoke Typography.

Fontsmith

Fontsmith for example is a Typographic Design Company that specializes in bespoke Typographic Design, their portfolio shows more TV channels than any other form of company. They have also worked on large companies like Post Office, SEAT Car Manufacturer and even Lurpak.

The television channel I decided to focus on was SKY News HD, which is a popular channel, and the typeface used on all the sky news and football/sport channels is exactly the same.

It definitely carries the style and brand through every channel showing the family brand.

As you can see the font has been used on the Headlines, the icon in the top corner and the smaller headline bar on the bottom of the screen.

So it shows how the one font can be applied to every piece of info on the screen.

The advantages of this are so that it doesn't look mismatched, if every piece of info had a separate font, it would look a mess and some parts wouldn't stand out, and possibly wouldn't be legible. Whereas the channel will benefit more from their own bespoke Typeface, as it's guaranteed to be a reliable bold, legible font.

Here is another image showing how the font has been carried through to sky sports channel. 

The same font is used on all the score boards.

Daltonmag

Daltonmag is another large Typographic Design Company which specializes in bespoke Typography. They've worked on a lot of large companies such as, BMW, Vodafone, BT, Recycle, Telewest and the National Lottery.

BT - Phonebook

Vodafone

Telewest

As the portfolio didn't have various examples of one project, I decided to give 3 examples from a few of their projects for some of the most well known companies/brands.

Vodafone being one the most well known brands, is based all over the world, so this font is highly recognizable, as is the Telewest font and the BT font.

All the examples given show the advantages of bespoke Typography, how it can expand a brand and make it more recognizable from a small piece of info, and not just the company logo itself.

AD104 Task 3: 50 Years of Helvetica

50 Years of Helvetica is an exhibition formed to reflect on how Helvetica has influenced Art/Typographic Designs and culture over the last 50 years.

Designers from all over the world joined together to work with online archives and galleries, Blanka and Candy to create a 'visual diary' of 50 events from the last half century. Using Helvetica itself to show the inspirational movements which have occurred.

Vince Frost - A Popular Face

The First Image which stood out to me from the exhibition was this photograph based on the birth of Michael Jackson, I like the simplicity of this photo and how the board has been used as the main focus.

I like that they didn't create a design based around the moonwalk, or a portrait of his face or something along those lines. This design, is much plainer, and a lot less obvious, which is possibly why I like this design so much, it's clever... in the simplest way.

Ros Shiers - Butterfield 8

This next image is based around the movie Butterfielf 8 which stars Elizabeth Taylor.

I love the style of this Image, I like that the helvetica 60 has been used as a base and the illustrations of Elizabeth Taylor have been drawn inside to create the shape of the numbers with some parts outside the lines so that it's not too much like a clipping mask.

I love the illustration style, it makes it look like a fashion design, which ties in with the storyline of the movie, as her character was "A Fashionable Manhattan Beauty" - Imdb.

Overall, a good reflection on 1960 and Elizabeth Taylor being so famous is a strong image in herself and communicates the message well.

Farrow - 1962

This image is based on the 1962 Eclipse and also the movie Eclipse also created in 1962.

I like the simplicity of this image, and how the Typography has been used to create the circle. The colours are also perfect, and the typography is just the right size, making the image look  as realistic as possible. I think this is a good event to represent 1962 and the meaning behind it is very notable.

Antoine+Manuel - I Have A Dream

This Image is based around the speech 'I Have A Dream' done by Martin Luther King Jr to win black rights in the USA. This event is possibly one of the most memorable moments of black culture in america, and is a perfect representation of the year 1963.

I like the modern style of the image, I like that it's not a typical image of Martin Luther King Jr himself, and focuses more on the Typography and the title of the speech.

I also like that the main Typography is in black, reflecting on how this speech was to win Black rights.

Fabio Ongarato - Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

This last image represents 1965 the year Mary Poppins was released on VHS not the year it was created which was 1964. This image is a perfect example of a Typographic design, which is in the style of Neville Brody. Where the typography is sliced and distorted until it's hardly legible.

I think that this is an interesting approach to Mary Poppins and the phrase is well known from the movie and is immediately associated with it, so this was a perfect representation of the movie and the year 1965.

I also like the illustration style and the colour palette used, it's very colourful which makes it look fun and lively like the movie is, again a great reflection on the movie.

The whole exhibition is full of great designs, which represent some important events, like the creation of the apple mac, the first landing on the moon, etc. But these designs showed better examples of how the font Helvetica had been taken and used to create a great design. Which is why they're my top 5. I also thought that they had more of a clever idea behind them of representing their year.

I also thought that these designs showed a wider variety of styles which have been applied to the font, and show how each designer has used it to inspire their design and mixed it with their own personal style.