Saturday 30 March 2013

10 Things: Publication

Using all of our previous knowledge on grids and layout, were asked to create a publication to advise people about graphic design. The key element of this publication was to make use of a variety of interesting and unique layouts. By doing this, the content becomes more engaging for the reader. I began by drawing thumbnails of different potential layout for text and image based double page spreads. As I was unsure about which layout I thought would be most appropriate, this helped me to visualise one layout against another. 

Once happy with a few different layouts, I began applying these to my publication contents. Initially I began with a basic contents page as shown below. I thought it was not necessary to make this too complex as its main function is to be clear and easily readable.

Experimentation of Contents Page

As we have covered a wide range of colour theory during our first year of Graphic Design, I wanted to include as much of the basics as possible. In terms of layout, I experimented with using the colour wheel to replace the o's of the main title. I also considered using the primary colours in a ring around the title to add emphasis to the subject.

1. Colour Theory


However I felt that these two ideas combined seemed to cancel each other out. I decided to keep the type all black.

My third experiment with the colour theory title was to place the whole text on top of a colour wheel so the O was forming its own mini colour wheel. This greatly reduced the amount of readability however so was not paractical. 

My final idea was to shrink the title down to 50pt. The content was to then be placed in an ideal layout across the double page spread. I experimented with using different alignments and shapes such as cicles to again emphasise the reference to a colour wheel.  



2. Scale
With the double page spread about scale, my main idea was to show a visual representation of scale using type. I did this by including an extra-large title. The large 'C' has also got 'scale' written in extra small type within the gap. I used a similar layout structure as the colour theory to keep my publication partially consistent.

Using placeholder text, I was able to get a rough idea of how my pages would look. I also experimented with adding images as examples of my 10 things.

3. Typography

For the typography pages I wanted to show a few examples of different typefaces. Similarly to the scale pages, I thought the main title would be the most appropriate for this. Each letter of the word TYPOGRAPHY is displayed at the same point size but each in a different font. I chose the fonts based on weight, hight, serif and sans serif.


4. Software
The main software I focused on were the main ones we have needed as BA Graphic Design First Years. I wanted to keep these pages simple and clear as the software itself can sometimes seem overwhelming to new users.


5. Terminology
I used a 4 by 2 grid layout for the terminology. Again i wanted this to be as clear as possible.


6. Grids&Layout
The Grids and Layout pages use a more experimental layout. I placed some of the text upside down and showed a broader range of type point sizes. There is a combination of both type and image used.




Scale Continued
Based on the style of the main Scale title, I experimented further with the contrast of extra large and extra small type place next to one another. Below are examples of this when focusing on Points Per Inch and Point Size.



Documentation of the development process of my publication in InDesign:

7. Rule of Three
For these pages I wanted to convey the importance of rule of three in Graphic design. My main methods of doing this were through colour and type. The two work together to form a subtle yet playful visual representation.

8. Type Characteristics
Similarly to the previous typography pages, I waned to show a more detailed comparison of type characteristics. These pages show clear differences between certain typefaces. I have chosen type which I feel best visually represents each characteristic. The page to the right is to then focus on 'handglovery' - the anatomy of type. 

9. Semiotics
Semiotics focuses on the theree S's: Sign, Symbol and Signifier. Therefore i wanted to add emphasis to the S's in the main title. The three S's are then defined in a 3 by 3 grid layout. 

Front&Back Cover

Contents page Revised

The Final Publication pdf:

Wednesday 20 March 2013

Speaking From Experience

Brief: 'Produce a graphic response/ graphic product/ piece of work that makes a statement, comment, observation or gives advice about your first year on this course. Work with any appropriate media or format and develop and identify if the content will be entertaining, advisory or informative.

Background/ Considerations
-Think about the new experiences you have had, the difficulties that you have overcome and the new people you have met and the life skills you have acquired this year. 
-Remember what it was like starting your first week. How did you feel and what emotions did you experience? Excitement, trepidation, fear, or did you feel overwhelmed? You might have benefited from some advice, opinions and insight from others that have experienced the same transition.
-What might you say, do or give to next years graphic design students to make the transition into the student experience, particularly this course more welcoming?'

This is a a live brief to be presented to the first years in September. You can work independently or in a group. This brief can be interpreted as interactive or mainly visuals e.g. posters. Base you're outcomes on your own experiences of being a first year.

Me and Issy Tanner decided to collaborate on this project. Initially we researched into different resources aimed at students - particularly first years. We based our research mainly on our own experiences of being first year graphic design students at Leeds College of Art. We looked at existing websites designed for students in order to get initial ideas for what we wanted to create for our own project. 



Initial Brainstorm Ideas:
-Decoration ideas - home DIY/ crafty tips for students/ using everyday items
-Food - fun recipes/ creative food/ food facts/ eating habits
-Audience - new freshers
-Drinking - creative drinking/ fun recipes/ jelly shots/ colourful shots
-Sex - socialising/ condoms/ condom packaging
-Tone of voice - humorous/ informal/ lighthearted
-Money - How to save/ Budgeting
-Freshers pack - exclusive to Graphic Design/ CMYKRGB (7days)

studentbeans.com describe themselves as 'n essential part of student life'. It is a useful website providing students with advice, discounts, job vacancies, entertainment and general student tips. We began by browsing through various articles on this site to generate more inspiration and ideas. 

Interesting and humorous articles found on studentbeans:


This article shows various examples of alcoholic shot ideas including their recipes and images. This could be a nice idea for a small publication as entertainment for new students during freshers. The shots could be made and photographed. Primary research would include asking students to test and try the shots and feedback with their favourite recipes. This would be a lighthearted and fun approach to student life, focusing more on their social life as opposed to the experience to expect as a graphic designer.

Rainbow jelly shots

Cosmopolitan Jelly Shots

Watermelon Jelly Shot
Although this works as a nice concept, we felt that it would need to be combined with more products in order to form a more useful, diverse and interesting outcome for freshers.

_________




Ideas to consider:
-Give students an form of contact if they have any questions about their 1st year at uni
-Create a freshers pack which is fun, motivational and makes each student feel welcome.
-Use bold design elements in order to produce an outcome which is professional and aspiring.
-Consider items which would be exclusive to graphic designers and therefore make them feel part of a community. 
-Give students a freshers pack which they want to keep and remember from their first few days at freshers.
-Consider socialising, student habits, useful information and fun extras.
-Base research on existing 1st years to gain a wide range of opinions, feed back and examples of their experiences over their 1st year of Graphic Design at LCA.
-Find a balance between a lighthearted, friendly tone.. with a sophisticated and professional visual element.
-Use consistent type, imagery and colour throughout the design process to form a strong sense of identity - emphasising the new graphics community the 1st years are becoming part of. 

_______________



Initially we were asked to generate three main research boards: 

Concept
Production
Method of Production

These were to be no smaller than A3. Me and Issy decided it would be most effective to display our ideas using Illustrator. We designed our original freshers packs including all of the content and how it would look as a collection. For our method of production research board, we grouped each different method together into categories. All three boards were created from scratch using Illustrator to keep a consistent, original and personal aesthetic across all three boards. 

Producing these research boards gave us the opportunity to experiment with a variety of different typefaces for our logo and body copy. After experimenting with a few different fonts found on Dafont and Lost Type, we agreed to use a typeface called Valencia for our logo and main heading text. We were both fond of this because it had unique and light style, without losing legibility. Next we experimented with body copy type. Helvetica Light complemented Valencia and worked effectively as a clear and readable typeface even at a small point size. Once happy with our type choice, we applied this to our research boards. The aesthetic of our freshers pack was already beginning to gain a clear sense of identity. This caused us to generate all kinds of other ideas which would work well with this logo and body copy.

Main typeface/ typeface for logo:

Bodycopy typeface:


Final Three Research Boards

At this point in our Speaking From Experience development, we had planned to include a wide variety of items for students to receive in their freshers pack. These were:

-Name badge/ sticker x 60
-Food Recipe book x 60
-Drink recipe book x 60 (possibly alcoholic shots inspired by studentbeans.com)
-CMYK Condoms (one of each colour per bag) x 60
-Blog card including all of our BAGD blogs x 60
-Business card with Me and Issy's e-mails for any questions x 60
-Typographic Poster x 60
-Ice Breaker Game x60

After further development and discussion we began deciding on a name and colour scheme for our freshers pack. During research of business cards we both particularly liked an example using black and fluorescent orange on an off-white/antique white stock. We liked this as it was a simple yet effective use of colour. We agree that the fluorescent orange would work well as a subtle addition to implement across our whole body of work.

Image: business card inspiration.

Using the Formula Solid Matt Pantone reference book we managed to find the code we were after:
We were also very drawn to the slightly more red fluorescent shade but were aware this was much less common, meaning it would be harder to work with and match in terms of materials.



 The only difficulty with using a fluorescent colour was that we were unable to print this digitally. This meant we would need to consider other methods such as screen print or using the fluorescent as the stock itself. This encouraged us to push our ideas further and consider a wider approach to our method of delivery.

_____________________


During our first presentation to Amber, Simon and two 3rd year Graphic Design students we received a range of positive and constructive feedback:

1. Think about the balance between the course and spare time.
2. Think about what exactly is going to be in the freshers pack.
3. What is the tone of voice? 
4. Is the content going to be mainly focused on Graphic Design or student life?
5. Good idea to include blogs but unsure if its necessary to include e-mails.
6. Consider screen printing onto the bags.
7. What is your budget? 
8. Good for the freshers to receive something specific to them as graphic design students.
9. Consider using a funny, lighthearted tone of voice - avoids being depressing and putting the first years off.
10. Lots of ideas to work with.. This could however be time consuming? 
11. Very good that you are providing them with contact to older years.
12. Might be expensive to produce?

__________________________

Before the crit we had planned to create 60 bags: one for every 1st year student on BAGD. However after many discussions we decided to reduce the limit to 10 only. By lowering the amount of bags, we were able to spend money on our items/ production of items more effectively. If we had been given a certain amount of money to help fund the project, we possibly could have achieved 60 bags. However it was definitely more practical, especially with the amount of time we had, to create 10. The other benefit of this was that we could focus on making 10 well-fined, professional and sophisticated packs as opposed 60 average, rushed ones.

As we were trying to be as efficient as possible we reconsidered our items. Due to cost, time and our feedback during the crit, we decided to remove the recipe book, ice breaker game and business cards. The new list now consisted of:

Name Stickers x10
CMYK Condoms (one of each colour per bag) x10
Blog Cards x 10 
Typographic Posters x10
Blog Cards x 10
Stationary (rulers, rubbers & pencils) x 10



We began designing our individual items to get an idea of how we wanted each of them to look individually. We began with the name badges. As a fresher at the beginning of this year, the name badge is one of the only items I remember receiving in my freshers pack. During primary research we found out that quite a few people also remembered the name badges and, like me, have kept them as a small memory of their first day at LCA. This was a good incentive to ensure our name badges were just as memorable. We wanted to design stickers which were basic and not too flashy to avoid embarrassment of using them. To make these stickers more fun we researched further into packaging. Finally we found a design of small fold-out boxes which were exactly what we were looking for. Using this as a base for our own design we recreated our name sticker packaging using black card. 



Once the packaging was complete, we printed out our logo onto A4 fluorescent orange paper. These were then cut into squares and Spray Mounted onto the front of each name sticker box.


The final name badge stickers including name badge:

In order for our packaging to function properly and seal the name sticker, we digitally designed and printed another small, circular sticker to hold the folds together. We were very pleased with the outcome although at some points the circular stickers didn't seem strong enough to hold the folds in place. To resolve this issue we left them folded and stuck under a heavy weight overnight.

We then continued to create the condom packaging designed by Issy. We agreed to remain with the CMYK condoms. Issy ordered 10 of each colour so we were able to match the condoms with the cyan, magenta, yellow and black. We carried out a vast amount of research into existing condom packaging and found all kinds of amusing puns. We decided to attempt a range of humorous catchphrases to use for our condoms in a similar manner. As this was the least serious element of our freshers pack we wanted to be as humorous as possible. We agreed that the smartest way of achieving this would be to use a range of innuendos relatable to both the course and sex. This was a subtle way of portraying the balance of having but also taking the course seriously. 

Issy created the condom packaging designs digitally, using a matchbox packaging template. These were then printed on antique white paper stock and we cut and folded them all into matchboxes. The full 40 matchboxes are shown below:

Our next task was to gather our stationary items. We thought about essential stationary which we would have found most useful in our first week of freshers and decided to keep it simple and focus on rulers, rubbers and pencils. These were to match our existing colour scheme and aesthetic. We were aware that most stationary is already branded with its own identity so we would need to consider new ways to implement our own design, making the stationary feel more exclusive to BAGD. We generated a few ideas how to carry this task out.

Firstly we concentrated on the rubbers. Using a rubber bought from the library, similar to the one we were given during freshers, we removed the sleeve surrounding it. Issy measured the dimensions of the rubber's sleeve. From this we were able to generate a template in Illustrator to design our own sleeve. We agreed the best way to integrate the fluorescent orange was to use this as the stock to print onto, in the same manner as the name badges. As the rubbers were reasonably small we kept the sleeve design simple, including only the name BAGD, the logo, the years of their degree and also the term 'Fresher'. This meant whichever angle the rubber was placed there was a form of text or imagery to be seen.


As we were keen to experiment with as many design processes as possible, we booked as laser-cutting induction. During the induction we asked for advice from a tutor about laser-cutting our rulers and pencils. We chose this process for these items in particular because they were the smallest and therefore most difficult to brand in almost all other processed such as screen print. We were told that it was likely we'd be able to laser cut the rulers if we were careful and precise, using a maximum of 5mm for our design, otherwise it would overlap the ruler measurements and look messy. Unfortunatey we were not able to do this for the pencils as the maximum hight for the type on these could be a maximum of 2mm to fit onto one flat edge of the pencil. We attempted this on one of the spare pencils, but the results were not effective enough and the small surface area made the text almost impossible to read. 

Below are a few photos documenting the process of laser-cutting our rulers:

We tested our laser cut out on ordinary paper first to ensure it was correct as to test it was the correct size. We were really pleased with this so decided to attempt the same process onto our plastic rulers.


Initially we set the cutting mode to 'cut-out'. However after the first attempt this proved to be a mistake. As our rulers were a cheap form of plastic, the laser melted the design into the ruler but did not cut the entire way through. Learning from this mistake, we changed the cutting setting to 'engrave'. 

The engrave cutting mode proved to be a lot more successful. As we were pleased with this outcome we agreed to continue with the engrave method for the rest of our ruler collection.





During the crit we received a positive response from everyone at the suggestion of including a list of our class' blogs. This would give the First Years the option to have a look at our blogs if they were interested as getting a further look at the type of work they will be producing. Issy did the original designs for the blog card but we agreed it needed a different approach in order to make it slightly more interesting. Using Issy's ideas as a starting point I adapted the layout into a series of variations. My initial intention was to add the florescent orange by hand after digitally printing the blogs. We wanted to attempt a similar style to the original business cards which inspired us during the beginning of the project. This would mean applying a thin florescent edge to both sides of the blog using paint. With this in mind, I experimented with blog layouts which would allow room for the paint. Below are a few examples of the blog layout development in Illustrator.





After experimenting with various layouts, I thought it would be most practical to present the blog in a concertina format. This would not only enable the list to be long and centred, but also useful and foldable to place inside the freshers bags. I made a few mock up blogs to show Issy and she agreed this was a good idea.
We printed all the blogs onto the same antique paper as used for the condom packaging. 

I experimented with two variations of the concertina: the one above with lines and the one below without. However the lines made it easier to fold the concertina sections equally so we decided to keep the lines on all 10 blog prints.


Another possible idea was to present the logo on the blogs in the fluorescent orange. If we had chosen to do this it is likely we would have had to screen print so it would not have been the most practical idea. 


Our final item was the typographic poster. This was designed by Issy, we agreed to base it on 'The Anatomy of Type' as it was a big part of what we learned during our first few months at LCA. Issy focused her own design on the Handglovery poster often used to  explain the wide range of useful type terms. She used a roman, serif type in the same style. From the beginning we had planned to screen print the poster. As we had both been inducted we thought it was an ideal time to attempt screen printing  for ourselves. We originally wanted to print the poster A1 in order to fill a large blank uni wall because freshers always arrive to an uncomfortably empty new room when they move into halls. However this was not entirely practical in terms of printing as our bags were smaller than we had expected and we only had enough time to coat a screen big enough for an A3 poster as we had to expose with the two intended layers separated from one another. 

In order for the typographic poster to work effectively we wanted to print using two separate layers: one for the lines coming off of the type - these were to be in the florescent orange colour. The second layer was for the type and logo. We exposed both layers for the poster and also the logo design for our bags. We printed our florescent orange design as the 1st layer. once this had dried we applied the rest of the design in black ontop of the colour.



First we tested our line print our on newsprint and antique white paper to get an idea of how the final prints would look. As the orange was very faint on the first print we agreed that we would need to apply quite a lot more paint to the screen.  Once doing this the outcome was stronger and easier to see.

We printed fifteen posters in order to allow for mistakes and have a choice of which ones we felt were most successful. Generally we were very pleased with these posters, although we encountered problems along the way, we were able to work around this to produce the print we had hoped for.




We encountered a few problems whilst carrying out this process. After printing a few practice sheets of the first layer, let our screen in order to buy our final paper. However we forgot to wipe the screen down first. This meant it had begun to dry and we were unable to print. We wiped the screen down as quick as possible and waited for it to dry. As we tested the print again we realised the screen was not yet completely dry. This caused the paper to stick to the screen and tear when we attempted to peel it off. Some of the emulsion on our design was damaged however luckily it did not effect our design dramatically. We washed the screen properly and left it to dry properly before attempting another print. To our relief it worked and we were able to continue printing. We took a more patient approach from there on and things started to to run smoothly again.

During our third crit, part of our main feed back was to be careful when printing onto our paper bags. We were warned that printing onto them can be difficult due to them being uneven when folded. As we only had 10 bags we were unable to experiment beforehand we had to just try our luck and hope for the best.

The print on the bags wasn't perfect but we were happy with it all the same. As they all looked the same the design was still consistent enough. If we were to do this again thought I think we would print onto a flat surface and make it into our own bags or to take an existing bag apart to print then reconstruct it to produce the best print possible. 


Once the posters and bags were done, all that was left to do was finish making boxes to place the condoms in and to fill our freshers pack with its new contents.

We bought black ribbon to present the stationary as a set. This also meant the stationary was held neatly together as opposed to being left loose in the bag. 

All of our products began to come together. The freshers pack was now more easy to visualise. During the file few hours of ensuring we had completed everything, we received a lot of support and compliments from our peers. This made us feel more positive and confident about our idea. As we had worked so heard on this brief we were relieved it was generally receiving good feedback.