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
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.
