Extended Practice: February 2015

Saturday, 28 February 2015

DBA Logo/ Identity Development

I drew some initial sketches after our first meeting, we had decide that we where going to focus on the idea of connecting.

I thought about drawing the C and N as triangles using the initial ideas of pattern and triangles connecting.

I then came to this idea which i a C on the side and an N

I then tried digitising some of the other ideas I had drawn in my sketches, I liked the idea below of the C and N connecting, I felt that it was really simple and fluid.

Some further ideas that I tried using the idea of connecting and building.

After our meeting with one of the members of DBA, we had a big discussion as a group about our concept, we weren't very confident with our initial thoughts, and we felt that there wasn't much substance to the idea.

And so through talking we came to the idea of 'more' and so our designs now turned to looking at representing more.

I explored symbols which represented more... I felt that these looked more substantial than the previous designs, but I still didn't think they would work in reality.

I looked further into the idea and focused on adding, and adding elements.

I came to this idea eventually and I felt it was one of my strongest I liked how the plus symbol was in the negative, and the four squares incorporated my earlier ideas, four representing the four cities.

However after this as a group we had discussed the idea of team work, I wrote a quick list of which animals work in teams and I looked into ants, I felt that bees had been done before, and so I drew the ants firstly as an image,

I then tried simplifying the ant so that it might be used as a logo, the image below shows the transformation of the illustration to make it look more serious, i did this by changing the stroke type and stroke width and I stretched out the head and back so it came to a point.

Final Ant:

We then decided to go back to the idea of building more and growing, and so I started now with a square, I used the colours to see the difference a different colour for each city, and a square representing four cities.

I started by having a square made up of four squares and expanded outwards.

We then moved onto the idea of using an isometric grid from this I experimented with the letters of the cities and taking them apart to make building blocks, and then I made a simple logo a box made up of four squares, coming to a central point and the main point point upwards for north.

We eventually discussed all of our logo ideas and picked Joe Leadbeater's design for the logo, I felt that this logo was one of the best and I also felt that we had to compromise as I liked Will Jefery's logo ideas too, but for the sake of moving on it was decided that we would use the logo below.

I looked forward to seeing how it could be applied to different deliverables.

Friday, 13 February 2015

Szechenyi Baths Screen Print

12/02/15

Today I went to spot varnish the packaging of the bottles, previously I had printed the nets on to the coloured card digitally, and I also I printed the pattern of the logo mark onto trace to use as the screen exposure and I also washed and prepared an A0 screen.

I began by trying to spot varnish, I printed onto a white piece of paper first as a test.
This came out okay, I thought that I might need to do more pulls through the screen.

And so I then went on to try it on the blue card. However I did lots of pulls and nothing came through the screen.

I asked one of the workshop staff about it and he was unsure, he then came back to me and told me that for it to work you have to firstly print colour and then align the screen again and then varnish.

I tested which colours would go well over the card and I chose cadium yellow and cobalt blue.

I then attempted to print the colour blue over the blue card, I did a few pulls and looked to see if it had worked, and it hadn't worked, it was patchy and parts had missed, Lyndon (workshop staff) tried to help me do another pull as the squeegee was really long and he thought maybe I couldn't apply enough pressure.

Anyway this didn't work either. And so we thought that maybe we could clean the screen and try again. After I took the screen away I saw that on the print some areas had come through really thick and it looked like a blob and other areas had not come through at all. And so I decided instead of losing more prints and card that I had bought especially that I would try a different idea.

Thursday, 12 February 2015

Yearbook Presentation

11/02/15

Our presentation for the yearbook, I put the presentation together with guidance from the other members of the group.

Our concept was a journey, represented by a maze and drawing through the maze.

Daisy and Mel H came up with a basic structure for the slides and what we needed to cover:

Presentation.

(Concept)
Explaining the concept.
The mazes and what they mean.

(Alphabet Mazes)
Created an alphabet so that we have all the letters for people’s names.
This will be shown at the front of the yearbook with a brief explanation of the concept and meaning behind it.
Each person will fill out one of these puzzles.
Everyone will have a maze of their first initial.
Even people who have the same first initial can have different journeys. Because there are several different outcomes to each maze and each person will take their own journey through the course and make their own decisions.
(Show Mel and Mel Mazes.)
(Then turn to next slide to show how we will digitalise it.)
We will digitalise each persons mazes so that it is personal to them. Whilst making all the aesthetics similar, using the our colour scheme which is this blue and will be explained later.

(Colour Scheme)
Has been popular through out year group.
It is gender neutral.
Matches the studio, which will make our application to the end of year show more thorough.

(Layout)
Explaining the layout options and examples.
Where the name is on the side so when flicking through its easier to see.
Having information down the side and right hand page mainly image.
Giving each person the option to include one or two images on the right hand page.
Explaining the break up pages… Showing exhibitions that we have put on, guest lecturers and live briefs such as TDR, Ditto, SM, DBA, DR. ME.
Die cut front cover.

(End of year show)
Because of the colour scheme the yearbook will work well with the end of year show, as they are the colour of the studios.
Way finding on the floors using the blue vinyl colour as a path through a maze, or maze on the floor.
Everyone’s individual mazes under their names in the exhibition.

The 2015 front cover maze on the big white wall.

We then took our own sections and went into further detail.

I had the Colour Scheme and Layout sections, I wrote small concise paragraphs about each section.

'Colour

The colour scheme we have chosen reflects a minimal modern and sophisticated aesthetic, we chose to use a range of monochromatic colours and teal as the standout cool as we felt it stood out well, yet it is a calm and cool colour. The scheme also fits in well with the interior of the course area and was a popular colour choice in the year group and so this also aided our decision.

Layout

As for the layout here are two examples that we devised. We wanted to have a very simple and clean layout as the minimal aesthetic lets the work of the students shine. A feature of the layout will be the name of the student in the top right hand corner, this acts as a quick reference for someone flicking through the book, and it means that there is the name on both sides of the double page spread. As for images we felt that 2-3 strong photographs of different projects would be the strongest, more becomes complicated and messy to look at. Additional pages will include double page spreads about all the exhibitions students have hosted, an Awards page and a Visiting Professionals Page/ Briefs, these will follow a similar aesthetic to the front cover, or first slide of this presentation, we will use the maze typography to create the words and expand it outwards like 2015, then photographs with a teal filter will be used as the background, details of the students, briefs etc will also be included on the page.'

In the presentation I think that I got quite nervous and I didn't say what I had exactly wrote down, but I still think I got the idea across.

Saturday, 7 February 2015

Yearbook Group Meeting 1

6/2/15

Group:
Me
Daisy Conway
Melissa Hardcastle
Melissa Gater

We went away and drew some initial ideas, concepts and sources of inspiration.

Notes from the first meeting:

Mel G
The idea of growing
moving on, using boxes like moving house
Trace layers
Add a coloured insert to have all the text on and the images go on the full dps

Daisy
Information to takeaway should be included
logo on each page
information page not a cv

Mel H
Students number= a colour value
hanging in there
x and y axis
ups and downs

As we all talked and showed ideas we all got more ideas from one another, we also found there to be a lot of complications and disagreements.

We eventually arrived at the idea of a journey and this would be our concept it would be represented through a maze

We made some design decisions and delegated jobs

We also considered the expansion to the end of year show and we thought that this shows further potential beyond the year book.

Friday, 6 February 2015

Yearbook Research

I looked into some initial research into things that I thought could be inspirational.

I like this brochure design as the foil is really interesting, this is obviously very feminine and this wouldn't suit everyone in the year, and I personally would avoid this aesthetic too.

I really liked the clip in this work, I thought that separate elements could be clipped together and this would be quite interesting, however there would be at least 50 pages and so this isn't an appropriate bind.

I think that this poster is good because it takes a retrospective look at what was. I think that it suggests you where and now you are moving forward, and its an interesting way of listing everyones names, and it is minimal.

I like the string that runs through the names its very interesting to look at and it shows connection. I also think that this idea could be continued into the exhibition.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/21021005/1-Hotels-Branding

A filofax style has never been used before, and a well designed folder and well made folder could look really professional it also means that people can take out any page they want to look at in more detail, they could act as CVs.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/17794681/MICA-Grad-Show-2014

We could consider the use of neon and neon printing I like the way the page edges are neon and this creates contrast with the white cover.

http://pick.mydesy.com/archives/40013

I like this door idea, and the cut out, its like opening the door to new things and it invites the audience to read.

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/328270260313054472/

This is an interesting format, its different because of the way it opens and the size of the entire book, I like it and I still think that it looks professional.

http://www.bloomberg.com

I think that this is a strong visual, I don't think that an idea like this would exactly work like this, I think that gold is the colour of 1st place and I think that this could be a strong concept.

http://www.gooddesignmakesmehappy.com/2014/04/project-love-tom-froese-stationery.html

I like the front cover of this book as it is clearly for a creative subject and I think that the tools are essential. And I also like the print method of this piece, I think that he two colour image is really effective, I prefer this to full colour print in this piece. However I think that in this kind of style there needs to be more consideration of the professional appearance of the book.

http://blog.karenhurleydesign.com/image/81090875570

This is a similar style, I feel that this style is a little more adult and I like the use of space.

http://hative.com/3d-pop-up-brochure-design-ideas/

I saw both of these designs on a post about pop up design, I think if done well like the two above it would look really professional and add an extra dimension and interest. Again minimal colours, I think that this might suit a lot of people in the year.

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

DBA Research

After our initial discussion we had decided that we would base our concept and therefore our identity on connectivity and joining together seeing as the four cities where being united through the HS3. And so I did some brief research into a identities that show connection, so that I could do some of my own logos for Capital North.

Logos that show connectivity.