D&AD Final Design Boards

Dressing the Screen Final Developments

Once we were satisfied with our images, I cropped them in Photoshop. The numbers and arrow were then ready to mock up as exhibition way-finding. We weren't 100% decided on whether to use these or not, so the effectiveness of the mock ups were important in swaying our decision.

OUGD503: Responsive: Collaborative Practice

During our next Crit and Peer review session, we were put into the same groups as before. This gave us the opportunity to see how each pair had developed their concepts. It was also a chance to gain feedback on our own developments and ideas.

The main nature of this session was to let the work speak for itself. We swapped work in rotation, mainly looking at another pair's boards to gather information on their subject. The feedback was then aimed towards not only how they could strengthen their ideas, but also how they could present their work to


Our Feedback:

Comment on the effectiveness of the concept. Does it address the problems identified in the brief?
Strengths & Weaknesses:
You have addressed both Russian and English in the concept but the string way finding could segregate the two as opposed to writing them in one. In the brief, it suggests it should be image-led, but no imagery has been used as of yet.
Suggestions:
Keeping the concertina concept apply relevant/appropriate images so the brief is addressed further.
Make more progress addressing other problems within the brief as it is difficult to see the effectiveness of the concept from a single item.

Comment on the design direction and decisions made regarding the production and distribution of the response. 
Consider the fact that all the materials need to carry company information. At the moment, the design is broad, not specific to the brief apart from the title. Consider how this concept is going to work across a range of outcomes. How will it transit between printed and digital? Will the concertina idea work?
Suggestions:
Experiment with a broad range of applications and see how the concept and design direction will look. The sooner you start and decide, the more development you'll have. Apply it and see how it looks.

Comment on what you would do differently and why?
Focus more on concept +unifying the two languages as opposed to the separation. The focus seems to be on way finding at the moment, but we would have focused more on the brand which we would then apply across different medias simultaneously. 
Remember to focus on synergy.

If money and time were no object how far would you go with the brief based on what has been presented?
Rent out an exhibition space and go to town experimenting with physical applications. Much larger and grander scale as this would be much easier to photograph.

Dressing the Screen Identity Development

As development for our thread concept, I began making basic digital posters to see how well it would work on-screen. I began by simply adding lines crossing over and into one another. I then experimented with adding type. My initial experiments were only in black and white as we hadn't agreed on a colour scheme yet.

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Another experiment was to create a clipping mask, placing the text over the background design. Although this was a similar style to the one we were hoping to create with the thread, the effect was not really bold enough. 

From this, I began experimenting with different line thicknesses to get an idea of how thick we wanted our thread to be. I tried the same experiments using pink and turquoise on both a black and white background. I then showed these to Jamie to get his opinion.

Here is a mock-up invitation I created using the same concept and the text provided to us in the British Council brief pack.

One of our other ideas was to hand-stitch over the type used for headings and way-finding in our exhibition. We went to the market to look at the range of string, thread and wool on offer. We bought two colours: fluorescent orange, and charcoal grey. We thought these two colours complemented each other well and gave us a good starting point experimenting with the bold colour orange, or keeping the colours basic and sticking to grey, black and white. 

While Jamie focused on the poster, I continued to stitch the type. Most of my experiments were with the think fluorescent orange over black text. I wanted to see how different stitching methods would look. Some of the experiments are shown below:

After discussing the identity of Dressing the Screen: The Rise of Fashion Film, we agreed to use the colours pink and turquoise. We had considered using red and blue to represent Russia and Britain, but Jamie pointed out that this was too cliche and stereotypical - something the brief had specifically asked to avoid. 

We had discussed making our own backdrop design to be used consistently throughout the exhibition identity. In order to keep the thread idea consistent, we revisited the idea of stretching thread across a backdrop, similar to the way I had constructed the lines of stitching on the type shown above. 

In order to do this, we measured out the dimensions of all the designs in Illustrator (the arrow, the numbers, and finally the main frame. I measured and marked where each nail needed to be. For the frame we decided to space each nail 2cm apart as it was a large surface area. For the numbers, we reduced the spaces to 1cm as they were much smaller and needed the thread to almost cover the black template beneath it. 

For the threading, I began on the number 4. I tied the pink thread to one of the nails to secure it in place. I then proceeded to wrap the thread around all of the nails, making sure the thread crossed over itself as much as possible, covering all areas of the number. 

The next step was to do the same with the blue thread.

As the blue thread was noticeably thicker than the pink, I decided to add another layer of pink thread so the colour was balanced more evenly, and the number itself looked fuller and more 3D.

Jamie applied the same process to the arrow.

Once we were happy with the outcomes, I continued with the other numbers.

With the fame, we decided it was best to leave a reasonable amount of white background showing and it would work better when we were editing the design with type. It also meant the the overall design wasn't too heavy or over-done.

Photos from the final shoot in the photography studio