OUGD503 Responsive Brief 01 Individual Practice Leeds Arts Party Digital Poster Evaluation

I learnt a lot from creating this digital poster. because the illustration was 'outsourced' the majority of my thought went into the composition of the piece and the visual balance of all the different components. I am well aware that layout in general is a huge weakness of mine and as such, I tend to keep my distance. This forced me to give it another try. It was hard and it took a lot of criticism before it got to what you can see above but in the end I really learned a lot and have gained the confidence to say that this is something that can be learned and doesn't need to be entirely instinct as it seems to be for everyone else in the class. Scale was an issue that I wrangled with quite a lot with this design. getting the type to be fully legible at this size and the hand held distance form the reader was tricky but enlightening. 

This is one piece of design for the arts party that I feel totally fulfils the brief and did exactly what Fran wanted while still being surprising. It was a very quick, practically no research brief that was fairly rushed. However, it seems the speed at which I did it meant tat I didn't have time to second guess myself which has paid off. I feel that the colour coding of events, as brought across from the website works perfectly in this situation as does the font decided on for all of the arts party material. The hierarchy created through the collective use of scaling orientation and colour intensity ensure that the important information is communicated as quickly as possible. I also think that this kind of finish (hand rendered textures with digitally sharp edges) captures essence of the arts party in a way tat my earlier work has not. I has all the connotations of creativity but somehow the vector edges of the shapes free these connotations from a purely visual arts restraint and open the floor to the concept of creativity in general, which is exactly what was required. The only slightly problem I have with this design is the tracking on the contact information at the bottom of the poster, It is a little too wide to aid legibility. I thought I was making it more legible but after some time away from the design I can see that this is not the case. Or rather it is more legible but not more readable.

It did and is still doing its job well, intact it seems to have become the new banner texture for all our social media, so Fran obviously liked it!

OUGD505 Intern Magazine Workshop

Today we had a workshop from the creator of intern magazine Alec. We were asked to get into groups and come up with a concept for a magazine and then execute the front cover of the first issue.

As a group we started to think about existing magazines and where there might be a gap in the market. An obvious gap was the lack of a sustainability magazine that focussed on a more green life. We filled out the sheet above to help define the specific areas of our idea.

We then split up all of the information into sections for the presentation and created a simple presentation that would act as a backdrop to our elaboration.

We came up with the name and brand with an aim of visual irony. The idea being that we use the word junk to play on the fact that the magazine would be about helping you to use junk to do great things and to celebrate initiatives that are doing the same. We used F37 bella (an overtly glamorous font) to juxtapose with the concept of the word junk. Making the message that junk can be beautiful.

I really loved this workshop and a lot of the magazines that the class came up with were great ideas that could legitimately work. I think this magazine could also work an I know that a few of our group would be open to attempting it perhaps sometime in the future, which would be wonderful!

OUGD503 Responsive Brief 02 Collaborative Practice Evaluation

Working collaboratively has always been something that I have enjoyed and this project was no exception. Roz and myself are very compatible working partners and this has meant that we managed a lot in a very short amount of time. There was full communication between us which meant that the balance of work that each of use did was fairly balanced. I also love the energy that working with someone else provides, the positives are  amplified, the highs are higher and the lows are less disparaging. All in all a great experience. The idea generation was a stage that was tricky, having a third member at that stage in the brief was incredibly useful and provided the insight that we needed. However, loosing one of our members was a bit difficult. It meant that by the time Fran left we had already set out to do a large amount of work, it was pretty much impossible to reduce this without compromising the quality of out submission. This meant that we had a lot to do in a short amount of time. More than anything I am surprised that we managed to do all of this and incredibly proud that we did. One aspect of the design that took a lot of thought and time was creating a cohesive blend of Roz and I's illustration styles and creating depth in the game, I think we have managed to achieve this simply through a willingness to compromise. This took a lot of work with colours which I had not really gone into much depth with before. I struggled a lot with this because it is something that normally builds up with experience. However, this is one thing that I really feel I have gained through this brief; the confidence to experiment with colour more in the further and trust my instincts. Although not all the colour is great or perfect, it is definitely well considered and learning form the experience is really all I can ask for.

OUGD502 OUGD503 REsponsive Brief 02 Collaborative Practice Reflection and Formative Evaluation of Self

I have been working with Roz on a D and AD brief for the second part of our responsive module. I have really enjoyed our idea generation and the positive energy we always get from working with one another. However, I have noticed that in comparison with Roz I am a much slower worker. This is always the way I have worked. I like to spend time sweating the details and crafting something. As this project progresses I realise more and more that this is not feasible for commercial practice and I need to speed up on all fronts. Roz is helping with this and we have an open dialogue on the subject (in any collaboration communication is key) slowly but surely I aim to improve this part of my design practice and I will monitor it in the coming briefs.

OUGD503 Responsive Leeds Arts Party Flyer for Showcase Evaluation and Reflection

Evaluation:

Using hand draw lettering in this brief was a justified decision in the fact that it communicated a hand crafted more human approach which fits with the message of the arts party. However, in this situation I am uncertain about how effectively it has worked in situ. I am uncertain why this is but it could be the hand drawn type on top of hand drawn type, too much perhaps. Through the development of the design I have learned about the aesthetic that the arts party wants to create and how I can best achieve this. Mostly through the use of colours it seems, although the colours are very light pastels and this can seem very girlie and soft, perhaps the colours require the harsher edges of digital design to counteract this. I also learned a lot from working with a group of people that aren't necessarily graphic designers. This means you have a few communication bridges to cross but the effort is worth it and having crit with them was a new experience entirely. I think one thing that this project highlighted was my need to step away from my work before someone critiques it. I found that working on it and then the next minuet getting a crit meant I was much less open to making changes and could (internally) get quite defensive. I am glad I have learned this about my process because now I can mediate this. I really liked helping out on the day of the showcase because I got to see the delivery of my design and gauge a response. The response was overwhelmingly positive, despite my hang up about it and this was heartening and also very motivational, just to see my work in use out side of the college.

OUGD502 Nomination for Communications Officer Students Union

Recently I received an email from James in the SU about the up coming student elections. He suggested that I might be good for the role, based on the work I have done with the Arts Party so far this year. To start with I was hugely flattered but I started to feel that perhaps the role would be too much to balance with what I know to be a steadily increasing work load in the third year as we approach graduation and becoming a professional designer. I talked to Danny and Amber about this opportunity and they seemed to think that it was  a great move and even that some of the work could be submitted as part of the responsive module in the third year. I also talked to James about my concerns and he summarised the briefs that I would be doing during the year and the way the role works in conjunction with all the other representatives in the students union .  This sounds so great to me, I would get to work with new people and get a budget for the print work we do. So, I went for it, the next step is to look at a small visual campaign that tells people that I am running.

OUGD503 Responsive Penguin Book Cover Competition Submission and Evaluation

This was a very self pleasing project that was supposed to be quick and simple. However, nothing ever is with me. I did very little research for this project and was simply inspired to do this from an exhibition of book cover illustrations I saw recently. However, I am very happy with how this has turned out. I really enjoyed the process of creating this and treated it as a kind of respite from other work. I love the deep symbolism of the illustration and the way this came very naturally from reading and enjoying the book. The lettering work is not my best by a long way but I think it works in this context, creating a human feel to the design and an imperfect emotionality that fits the book and its tone of voice. The only concerns I have are to do with the target audience and the business of the cover. I feel like perhaps this is not a gender neutral cover design, it is very feminine (this is because the book is so) and this may not help its chances in the competition. The quote on the front of the book was not something I knew about until half way through the brief. So, perhaps because of my carelessness, the cover is a little busy. it doesn't need the extra visual texture of the quote but it had to be there. Apart from this, the brief has been a thoroughly enjoyable one and I hope to do it again next year.  

Development work can be found at:
http://b-taylor1316-dp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Responsive%20Penguin%20Book%20Cover%20Competition