Wednesday 30 May 2012
Final Evaluation
Paul Brandreth
OUGD303
Evaluation
From the FMP I have gained great work for my portfolio. The briefs I have chosen were influenced from my design strategy and my statement of intent. I have tried new briefs like the D&AD annual report and ended up really enjoying it and had to change my statement of intent, because I changed my statement of intent I then decided that I should produce another annual report. This time I new the subject matter I was designing for but I also was always considering what work I wanted to produce for my portfolio and website as this is what I will take with me after I finish to show what I have achieved in the three years of study but also something to build on. I think that Graphic design is an exciting profession because you never stop learning and the subject matter is always new. For the Swatch brief I choose this to relate to the subject matter but also for the design approach, as I want my work to show that it is versatile depending on the client and the brief set.
My work before Christmas was all over the place. My statement of intent was confused and this showed in my work. I have now narrowed it down by exploring subject more and more. I feel my FMP is a lot stronger than before Christmas but looking back that were crucial for me use it as a learning curve. If I didn’t use that time before Christmas to explore and find out what kind of designer I want to be I don’t think my work would have been as strong this time around.
During my FMP I have spent a lot of time to get it wright and from this I feel a lot sharper – thinking wise and starting to consider and realise design aspects such as colour I can actually use well to a strength that I didn’t know I was too good at before. I have used a lot of InDesign in my FMP and I am constantly still learning new shortcuts and tips the more I use it.
The two main words of advice I would use in the future with Graphics or everyday lives are, “There’s Busy & there’s productive”. I think that the way someone handles their time is important to keep a clear focus of the direction someone needs to take to achieve it within a certain timescale. The second quote is “how can someone comment on work if they can’t see it but you can talk about ideas” I learnt this the hard way before Christmas. I was the person to say an idea to see what peers thought but I understand to start briefs early and get some visuals down to discuss and get feedback as soon as possible. The pace set at this FMP has been fast and I think I have enjoyed / produced my best work because of it.
Overall my three years on the course have moved fast. I have enjoyed my time here in Leeds but can’t wait to progress my practice further. I think the stage I am at can springboard me into internships and maybe into employment. The two key aspects I wanted to achieve from Leeds College of Art were to find employment and be proud of my work design approach. Even when times were tough and I wasn’t happy with what I was producing, I’ll remember it as a learning curve. For my practice now to succeed I will need to consider photo-shoots and how to present final work better as a feel this is the main area that is letting me down. For the end of year show I shall retake my products to present them to a higher professional standard.
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Final PDFs
Brief 1 - Printed Textiles
Brief One : Year Book Evaluation
The brief was to produce a yearbook for Printed Textiles & Surface Patterns. This was an ideal brief for my statement of intent and for the experience to work with a live client and send a publication to print. At the start of the project when we teamed up with Robyn and Sai we discussed design directions for the yearbook and spoke to Paul from Surface Patterns to understand what he was after. Paul required a look book that would fit well on a coffee table. The layout was asked to be abstract t. We all nominated Robyn to be the manager of the group. I think Robyn was a great manger and kept the group well organised with arranging meetings and chasing up emails from the Surface Pattern course team.
The Course team kept delaying the submission of the students work and the majority of their work was sent around two weeks before. Myself and Sam was put in change of the layout of the work in the three process sections. This made the turnaround of the layout stressful and we were always inputting new images. On the last day before the PDF submission was due were were still chasing up 9 students. This made it difficult for me and sam to change last minute, which was not ideal. Will produced a nice cover design inspired by the number of students on the course and Sai designed the logo/ branding for the course which turned out good and Robyn produced the 7 double page spreads for the disciplines.
Overall I learnt that sometimes you have to put your foot down if the client is messing around not meeting deadlines, It made my life difficult and Sams too, I wish that they would have met the initial deadlines so that we would have had more time to experiment with the layout of the contents but overall I was happy with the final PDF submission. There was nothing negative to say about how our team approached and dealt with the brief. I think everyone did a great job and collaborated in a professional manner. As soon as the Yearbook is published I shall take photos and add this project to my portfolio, website and also under experience of live briefs on my CV. This was the most difficult brief but gaining experience was live clients was a learning curve. This was the only brief I collaborated with and from this I learnt a lot from Sam. As I usually have to justify why I have made decisions why I have placed images text and the layout in a certain position, the approach I learnt from Sam was to base it around a grid system, which was more experimental, and I think this had a slight knock on effect with other briefs.
Brief 2 - Typocircle - Nottingham Contemporary
Brief Two: Typocircle Speakers – Nottingham Contemporary
This brief was ideal to my statement of intent as it was to deal with a subject I am interested in. This brief was initially set buy D&AD to produce three covers, and three double page spreads for three Typocircle speakers. To make this brief more substantial I rewrote the brief to suit my practice and my portfolio. I thought that an exhibition based around typographers would be something interesting for the creative industry. I decided to promote the event at the Nottingham Contemporary as the location and place itself hold similar exhibitions there regularly. I choose to design the event for five designers/ agencies who had previously gave talks for the Typocircle.
The challenge of the brief was to find a way to promote and brand the event for five typographers who produced a wide range of typography from hand made to digital. I had a lot of odd letters in my sketchbooks that I had been exploring for a few months but was unsure when to bring it into a brief. This brief gave me the chance to explore the type I had wanted to explore for a while. The type was influenced by letterpress, Memphis group (Colour), retro surface patterns and Rarekind London. The letterforms were a mix match of different hand-drawn letters, I then applied textures that I had made before Christmas from Vernon Street and brought it all together within Photoshop. From the process used to create the letters it explored a wide range of methods that all five Typocircle speakers could relate to.
The stock choice was important as I finally decided to use sugar paper as this kept the hand made look and made it look more authentic. As part of my statement of intent I was to explore printed formats. Fort this brief I decided to create a range by adding an interactive book covers on the five publications for the designers. The cover pulls out to a mini poster. Where the cover is folded with the text and front covers on it created a guideline for inside the publication where the images would be placed above and text placed below the guideline to keep the publication branding running thought the books.
As part of the range I decided to bring in the latest technology the smartphone into the exhibition. The concept was that the smartphone uses GPS to measure where the viewer was in the gallery space and work as a tour guide. When the viewer was facing an image / price of artwork close enough the app would give information about who produced the work and what is was called. The app had an option to find out more information about the artwork and would be compatible with headphones with audio to support the concept.
Overall I was happy with the final artwork. It was something that my portfolio and statement of intent needed. For my portfolio and website I will retake my photos and try to get a photography student to help me as I feel that I fell at the last hurdle of the project.
Brief 3 - D&AD Annual Report 2011/12
Brief 3: D&AD Annual Report
As part of my design strategy I wanted to enter another live competition. The D&AD was ideal for my initial statement of intent, as I wanted to explore the financial sector. The concept was developed from using a pencil to mark out the financial data but this later developed into a concept of interacting with a D&AD ruler. The ruler was etched with the words “How does one measure success?” The concept of relating a ruler to the financial report referred to the brand / or4ganisiation I was designing for. The tone of voice reflected the group too. Inside the publication the data was measured using the measurement off the ruler on the edge of the page. Each piece of visual data varied in height which was marked with a soft weight pencil across the page to the ruler marks and this was how the ruler brought in an interactive aspect to the report. The soft weighted pencil referred to the pencils handed out by D&AD for awards.
As part of the range I also was asked to produce a screen-based version of the annual report too. The screen based version still used the ruler concept but as the screen based data could move and a printed version can’t, I decided to make the data be viewed by different categorises. The layout of the contents was also interactive ion the screen based version as it was simple to navigate and find the sections the user was after quickly.
This was the first brief I explored Embossing (font cover & ruler), it turned out good and is another skill I can visually show within my portfolio. The brief used the pencils to represent the data e.g. the flags of different countries that was a simple concept from researching the brand identity of D&AD.
Overall the project moved fast and I really enjoyed working with facts and figures for the financial sector. As I enjoyed this brief I decided to produce another annual report for Swatch. The only negative aspect I had with this brief was the data supplied from D&AD as it was a` sheet of facts and figures supplied by D&AD. If I had to do this brief again I wouldn’t change an awful lot. I am happy with what I produced and am proud top have this work in my portfolio.
Brief 4 - Swatch Annual Report 2011
Brief 4: Swatch Annual Report
The Swatch Annual Report was one of the briefs I started last. I decided to produce another Annual Report after producing the D&AD annual report as I enjoyed the brief and it was part as my Statement of intent of design strategy. I choose to produce an annual report for Swatch as this was for an audience for what I could produce a different aspect of design approach for to bring a range of approaches to my portfolio. The approach I took was to design the annual as if it was being aimed at the brands target auidence. Once the user sees the publication they will understand more about who the brand are. I aimed the annual at the up and coming hip movement. I researched into personas for the brand and created mood boards. From these my design decisions were based around them but also taking in mind the legibility for the user.
I tried different formats for the annual, breaking it down into sections which would make it more accessible for the users. I had fun exploring the formats and designing this part of the brief. Inside the publications I decided to keep the colours down to offset 90gsm white (GFSmith Samples) and black ink. This was to create a balance between the bold, colourful, abstract shapes on the cover / envelope to contemplate the inside of the publication which also makes it easier for the user read. I did try using the abstract shapes from the cover on the insides but I thought it looked over the top and was unbalanced
The most important aspect I have learnt from this brief was how to have control over design decisions and how to create a balance within design. The more I work like this the better my design decisions will become. Overall I was happy with this breif. It is great for my statement of intent and once I retake the product shots and put the report in context I will also have a brief to add to my portfolio that I am proud of.
Brief 5 - More Chance
I tried different formats for the annual, breaking it down into sections which would make it more accessible for the users. I had fun exploring the formats and designing this part of the brief. Inside the publications I decided to keep the colours down to offset 90gsm white (GFSmith Samples) and black ink. This was to create a balance between the bold, colourful, abstract shapes on the cover / envelope to contemplate the inside of the publication which also makes it easier for the user read. I did try using the abstract shapes from the cover on the insides but I thought it looked over the top and was unbalanced
The most important aspect I have learnt from this brief was how to have control over design decisions and how to create a balance within design. The more I work like this the better my design decisions will become. Overall I was happy with this breif. It is great for my statement of intent and once I retake the product shots and put the report in context I will also have a brief to add to my portfolio that I am proud of.
The more chance brief was written for the purpose of
supporting my Statement of intent. I wanted to look at current news affairs and
produce an interesting way for the audience to read the articles in a different
way. I wanted to offer supported articles/ facts and figures to the main
article each week in 5 categories that have been the most talked about in the news
in the previous five days. The publication would be distributed each Friday for
commuters on the London Transport system. I choose Friday as most workers finish
for the weekend and it would be an ideal time for workers to have more time to
take the publication home and sit down to read it. The advertisements were to
be an app used for More Chance to find out the chances of events occurring.
This was a play on the name of the publication. The tone of voice depends on
the article story; if it were humorous the language used would be humorous. If the
article is serious so is the language used for the article.
This brief took me the longest time to produce. Most of the
time was spent researching different articles and it left me less time to
explore the design. I like all the aspects of design for the brief but not the
layout used for inside the publication. I think that it looks slightly congested
but at the same time it looks as if it should be because of the location the
publications are to be distributed.
Sunday 27 May 2012
Friday 25 May 2012
Publications Swatch En of the day progress
Medium
Range
Financial
Open publication - Free publishing
Open publication - Free publishing
Open publication - Free publishing
Watch Illustration Development
Final two illustrations (above)
Thursday 24 May 2012
Brief 3: D&AD Annual Report
Trouble uploading today, but the deadlines been moved till monday 12pm. It submitted my work without any images so have to wait for an email back and due to technical difficulties I have been given an extension if needed. Saturday re-shoot the cover.
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Monday 21 May 2012
Final Newspaper sent off to print
Turnaround should Friday / Saturday Monday latest. I had to add two blank pages to make the publication up to 40 even thought it will be format in a saddle stitch format.
Sunday 20 May 2012
Saturday 19 May 2012
Large Publication
Changed the info graphic posters from colour to a more minimal diagram to suit the inside of the publications.
Posters - Final
Change the sections at the bottom so the shape goes to the corners of the posters rather than 1cm in each side.
To do list
Swatch
Financial book
Cover resize and wrap & inside texture (a2)
covers for 3 publications
Letter to be sent out in front of the folder
Size envelope and design
Website - language and other methods to show the difference between screen and printed annuals.
More Chance
Print & Foil posters
Image of poster in context
Stickers in context
Typocircle
Map for entrance of the exhibition
resize covers and find a light stock
Year Book
DC blog / dp
Pdf and mock up boards
Design Context Publication - Title?
Take photos & mock up boards.
Final four Posters
Final four Posters, maybe reconsider the colour scheme. Some are more energetic and some are more dull, need to be consistent across the range.
Type Composition
Lining up the typography and finding a composition for the type to fit on the page but also so it can grab attention on top of the hierarchy.
Posters 4 Swatch Highlights
Posters ideal for the office and for conferences.
The four posters each highlight the success from 4 sectors, watches, production, operating & Electronic Systems.
The concept for the diagram came from some research found in my DC blog where the diagrams used similar shapes that are found on watches. It suits Swatch because of the abstract simplicity. I then tried to create the identity run across the 4 posters using the colour swatches off some screen grabs from the swatch website. I think the textures create a depth to the prints that reference the new swatch audience - hip movement.
Friday 18 May 2012
End of the day progress - Swatch
Small Publication - Stock Important & also the front cover. Stock has to be off white and thin for all the folds
Medium publication - Colour images
Medium Publication - Greyscale Images
Small - Range
Need to use textures and colours from the cover to bring the identity back to the body copy / financial publications.
Thursday 17 May 2012
Cover & publication
Book 1 arrived today. The book was printed well so I've ordered the other four and hopefully receive them tomorrow. The cover needs to be scale larger and use a lighter stock as the creases have started to rip, maybe use sugar paper like the poster.
Inside formats & colour
I think the colours on the inside don't look like due to the cover not using shades of certain colours. I.e green and dark green together, something to consider and the layout of type.
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