AD103 Visual Communication - Rye Hill House

This is a live brief. I have been asked to re-brand, re-name and design a logo and stationary set plus one other item for ‘Rye hill house’. I completely rebranded this establishment. I created a whole new name, a new colour pallet and a great set of stationary. For the extra item for ‘Rye hill house’ I created a pizza menu. I think the business card really does answer the brief as its very simple, cost effective and attracting. I particularly like the way I picked out the main text and hierarchy of information using the colours from the logo to highlight it. I think the compliment slip works really well as it keeps everything simple and gives the user a lot of space to write what they want on the sheet. I think it really works well with the rest of the set.  I kept the letterhead and compliment slip the same to keep the whole stationary a set. I think the letterhead in particular works well as it is still very effective on its own without the body of type. I think the stationary all works really well together as a set using all the same colours and keeping everything in the same format.I think my pizza menu really does answer the brief keeping as it allows you to have interchangeable menus and you can simply place the different menus over the top of the ‘menu board’. I think this menu works really well with the brief, as it is very cost effective as you only have to print off the actual menu and you would keep the same backing board. I really like the typography used in the design, as it is a font I searched for and found myself. I think it does work really well with the symbol because of how complex the symbol is. I think it needed a very simple typeface to accompany it. I chose the colours from the symbol using a dark purple for the smaller text so that stays quite prominent. I also chose 80% black for the main type so it looks a lot softer than a bold solid black. It took a long time to find a layout that worked well with the establishment and that met the target audience but I think the one I chose really does work well as it looks very classy and professional.

50 more inspirational logos...

I found this website very useful when trying to get the arrangement of my logo correct, some of them are way better than others!

MTV

This logo is Typography based but I do think the large letter ‘M’ seems to make the logo look like it is symbolic rather than a complete typographic piece. In my opinion I would class a design like this as a combination mark as it does use both typography and symbolic pieces. I think the typography in this design has been manipulated to make the logo look more current and up to date with the tight design on the letter ‘M’ and the very scratchy, soft ‘TV’. I think the target audience for MTV is the local population aged 16-34 or they’re about. I think that obviously the logo would have to match the target audience of the programme so that the viewers would immediately correspond the logo with the program. I think for this particular age group the logo would have to be trendy and cool and I think the designer has created a perfect example. There are three different typefaces used in this design which I think has completely bent the rules as normally I would say that two typefaces were more than enough and use one for the main body of text and one for the smaller print when thinking about the hierarchy of information. Personally I really like the typeface used in the TV part of the logo as it is really modern and ‘street’ and I think that immediately looking at that typeface you know it has to do with music. I think the idea of this logo is to be really modern and up to date and I think it really does work. I think the idea is to be as simple as possible but to be really careful, as you don’t want the logo to be left ‘undressed’. The colours used are white and black. The colour of the logo is changed depending on the situation and where it is placed, however a lot of the time the logo is put in black so it stays simple and modest. I think the logo does really work in black but because of the simplicity it could also work in any colour! I think the logo is very successful and I think it all looks very well put together and I really like the placing of the typography. The only thing I would think about changing would be the typography underneath the main logo as I think that it just looks like its floating and doesn’t really have a specific placement on the page.

AD103 Research Task 3; Letterhead and Logo Design

This book includes a lot of innovative and exciting work from well known designers. This book has everything from logos to letterhead, business cards to stationary sets. Personally I think that some of the logos work a lot better than others, i think the ones that seem to stand out the most are the typographical based logos which are very simple but obviously effective.

I love seeing the logos put onto the stationary sets and seeing how they work as a set.

AD103 Research Task 4; Review a website

WWW.ZIGGURATBRANDS.COM

I really love the work produced by some of these designers. The website is very easy to navigate around and has a lot of useful information on it. I’ve known of this website for a while now and often refer to it when looking for inspiration in my designs. The website allows you to look through a whole portfolio of work including Identity, Packaging and Print. Personally I love all of the identity work and really admire the ‘Tree of life’ piece at the minute. Also I love the fact that there is a small amount of information underneath each piece of work telling you what the design is about and who created it. 

AD103 Research Task 4; Review a website

WWW.PENTAGRAM.CO.UK

I love this website. It’s very clean and at a first glance seems very simple. However I did find whilst navigating around the page it was really hard to find what I was wanting. The website includes a lot of designs in the portfolio from architecture to signage, interiors to packaging. The Website also includes an online interactive blog which allows you to see the designers most current work and get an incite on what they think about it. The blog also allows you to write what you think about the design and voice your opinion of the work of real successful graphic designers.

Student Union Final Piece

Student Union

I really enjoyed working to a target audience of my own age. I think this helped a lot as I would be able to look at a design and immediately decide if I like it and if I think it works. However i do think the project seemed to drag a little bit and felt like it lasted a while. When looking for a typeface that would suite my design I encountered quite a few problems as i couldn't quite find one that fit as well as i wanted. In the end i decided to make my own font and made it exactly how I wanted it. In the group 'Crit's' I did take some criticism and I do understand that the typography is quite hard to read however this is the idea I was going for in my design and I think with a simple typeface it would have simplified the whole poster and the image that I was looking for wouldn't have worked as well. I think creating the illustrations really did work well as I had so much fun messing around with colours and the size of the strokes etc. I think the hardest part of the whole design was the arrangement of the typography and still i don't think its set up perfect. I finally learnt how to make my own typography in this project, i think i will use this a lot more now and try and create my own individual type each time i use it. I think i worked really well throughout the project and my time management worked out really well and i set it all out so i had enough time for each section of the project i.e. Research, Development etc.

Exhibition

Exhibition.

This poster is absolutely beautiful. The poster is a mixture of both beautiful illustrations and a strong bold body of typography. I love the fact tat the text in the centre of the image has been created into a form of illustration so it seems to look a lot more appropriate.  The use of one colour pallet is amazing and makes the whole design look a lot cleaner cut and simplifies the complicated image down a lot. I would say that the main focal point of the poster is the circle in the middle of the design, as it seems to look a lot stronger than the rest of the design as it has a small amount of colour on it so your eyes are immediately attracted to it. I think the next focal point is the main large text in the centre of the page and then possible the illustrations behind the text then finally the body of text and the logos. I think it’s a great idea to have some text that is hard to read as a strong focal point as it draws your eyes to it and makes you think and you want to know what it says.  The layout seems very strong and I love the fact that all of text is aligned to the centre of the page. The target audience will be people that are interested in art and design, as the poster is advertising an exhibition. I think it would attract budding artists and designers as the poster is so strongly illustrated. The concept of the image is that everything is hidden and you have to look into the design to realise what its about as the only thing that’s easily read is the main bits of information. Personally I love the design and the strong, simple colour pallet looks amazing!

The Muse

The Muse, Venice, California

This type of poster is completely illustration based. Even though there is text in the design it has been put in in such a style that is created a beautiful visual. The use of colour in the poster really sets off the mood and the pastel tones create a great textured look against the strong black ink work. I love the fact the design is made by mixed media, as this medium seems to be disappearing again and not as many posters lately are seen in mixed media form. The Hierarchy of the design is set up so that the black on the poster is the main image and I think this works very well. The black design seems to be a total different image and I normally wouldn’t like a design to do this but it seems like its floating in the page and looks lost and some how works! Obviously the main focal point of the poster is the black image, shortly followed by the ‘Venice, California’ Writing in black, and then I think the darker tones of colour so the oranges and reds, then the pinks and then finally the yellows. I think this is a great idea to portray the focal points by using colour to set away the main points of the image and then to set back the points use a subtle tone that sorts to blend with the background colour. The layout of the design works really well with the main tones in the middle and the main colours on the outside so they don’t mix in with the most important features. I think the target audience for this design are couples in mid 20’s early 30’s wanting to visit Venice on a romantic break. The idea behind the design is that the town of Venice is really soft, subtle and calm. I think the black design shows the culture of the county and the poster seems so obvious and straight to the point. Personally I think the poster is a beautiful design with a lot of good illustrations mixed in. 

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality

I thoroughly enjoyed this project.

As this was the first project of the Foundation Degree Year One I think just about everyone in the class felt pressured to set there work off at quite a high standard.

I really enjoyed getting to grips with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator again after a long 6-8 weeks off. For the past two years i don't remember designing something completely vector based so I thought I would challenge myself and draw out my design then get it scanned straight onto the Mac. On the other hand i can safely say i wasn't looking forward to the reams and reams of research expected of me at the National Diploma level. However once i got into the project i really enjoyed learning more about the subject matter of Virtual Reality and I really do think i've came out of the project with wider understanding of it.

Initially i did encounter a few problems with setting up my layers pallet and making sure everything was kept organised with the amounts of different colours etc I used in developing my design. However this problem was shortly solved and i was back on track to producing a high quality design... if only!

I think my development of the final idea went really well as from the first initial scamp I scanned in i think the design has came on significantly. One problem i think i did come across was the fact that my initial ideas didn't seem strong enough to support the subject matter and I think if I was to redo this brief i would defiantly set myself more time for initial ideas and try and get as many down as possible to make my designs and development broader.

I think i did acquire new skills on the Mac in the Adobe programmes and learnt to organise my layers as when your working with at least fifteen layers at a time its really hard to keep organised. Personally i think my time management really did go well and my design was Printed and ready with my research/development book for deadline.

I think my strengths are working to deadlines and my time management skills seem to be on form at the minute. I think i need to improve the amount of initial ideas I put down and really develop at least three of them instead of diving straight into one design. To build on my strengths I think it would be great to work to a tighter brief and see what i'm like under pressure. I think my lack of initial ideas could stop me reaching my goals and getting the best out of my final designs.

This is my kind of design. I often see a lot of quality pieces by the designers of the coca-cola adverts but to see a design with this amount of simplicity is uncommon. The design does not seem to have any influence on the coca-cola brand but some how still ties in with it closely.

In my opinion, a fantastic piece of design. I have never really like full on typographical based designs as they always seem a little over dressed but the simplicity and the use of white space in this design really is effective and really stood out from the rest of the designs. However, I'm not completely sure on all of the bright colours when talking about peoples opinions and facts but i suppose without the colours I don't think the design would look as lively.