A-Z of Typographers

http://www.freshbump.com/featured/special-features/a-z-of-typographers/

I found this A-Z of typographers on the internet whilst researching modern type.
The website has shown me many different ways different typographers create type from initial sketches to high resolution vector shapes. I really admire the work of Si Scott and Narani Kannan. I think they are two very inspirational typographers and I am going to look at there work in more depth in my research for AD206 - Negotiated Project.

Narani Kannan is a Graphic Designer that focuses all her work on her own typography. She completed her Bachelors Degree at the Ontario college of Art and Design. Kannans work is only just starting to be released and her career is only starting to blossom. 

Recently, Kannan has been designing a new typeface for every piece of design work she has created. She states that it takes twice the amount of time but works twice as well because of the originality. She starts every typeface she creates on paper with straight lines, corners and sharp edges. Everything quickly changes and transforms to soft, swirly, designs.

AD206 - Negotiated Project.

Ministry of Sound
Just one set for my possible outcomes for the ministry of sound brief I chose for my negotiated project.

I really like this possible out come, I think the typeface could be refined on the information to make it a little bit more legible but i think the saturday sessions typeface really works well and immediately looking at the poster you can tell that they are part of a group, for a nightclub, and aimed at students. I think the body copy at the bottom of the posters works really well when made to sit together tightly. The logo could be edited by making it softer and perhaps using the multiply effect on adobe photoshop and mixing it with the background a little bit so it gives a softer look. 

Currently off target...

Over the next three weeks, I did have plans to complete my Ministry of Sound brief, unfortunately I have had to take a detour and start a work placement way earlier than expected. Hopefully will be back on track with the live brief sooner rather than later. I think this is something that I will have to learn to deal with at all times and become flexible within working terms.

However work placement at JulesB is really going well.
Ill keep you up to date.

Heres the link to the website that hopefully I will be contributing too.

http://www.julesb.co.uk/?gclid=COvB2ZT23qwCFYYOfAodMyEmrQ

Steppin Stone

I found these Emails from Adam Johnson from 'Steppin Stone' thought they would be useful for my PPD.

AD206 - Negotiated Project. Time Plan.

Time Plan

W/C Monday 14^th November 2011

Research into big clubs all around the world that are as successful or not as successful as ministry of sound.

Research into other posters from the clubs listed above that he has already researched.

Research into the Ministry of Sound, including CD’s, DJ’s, music type, styles, genres and imagery from the club – décor etc.

Look at previous posters form the nightclub ‘Ministry of Sound’. Answer questions on each of them stating if they are successful or not and why.

Look at different typographers and the styles they use. Modern? Retro? Classic?

Look at poster layout, size, and structure.

Reviewing what I have and what I haven't done.

I have done a lot of research this week and have defiantly covered all of the things on my time plan. 

I will now have two days to relax and get back to working within my time plan on Monday.

This is what I have on my time plan for next week. 

W/C Monday 21^st November 2011

Start to think about initial ideas for posters.

Think about type size, what has to be on poster etc.

Try out different typography styles and see which ones work best.

Then have an ideas critique with peers and tutors.

Choose the style that he is going to set all three posters in.

Steppin' Stone.

Recently as a class we were asked to create a logo for the company 'Steppin' Stone'.
This was a live brief so would be very good if your work went into print.
The company is ran by two friends, in which they help people starting out with their businesses.
I created a few logos and showed them to Adam, the owner and creator of the company and he really liked them and looked into them a little bit further.
He then showed them to his work partner and they chose my design to run with.

AD206 - Negotiated Project.

Good Posters.

Poster 1.

Why is/isn't the poster successful?

This poster is very successful as it shows exactly what is happening and gives you the times and dates and they are very legible. The colours are very ‘nightclub like’ and the neon really works well. 

What could be done to make the poster better?

The poster could be made better by making the typography at the bottom more prominent by perhaps putting it in a black bock or a faint gray box with the opacity down so that it was more legible and not getting lost behind the picture. This would make the poster easier to read but overall the poster works really well. 

Poster 2.

Why is/isn’t the poster successful?

This poster is successful because of the colours used. I think the oranges and warm tones of the illustration really work well. The typography is very legible as its just a clipping mask of text. I think the free entry marking on the top of the poster is very good as that will be good when attracting people to come to the event.

What could be done to make the poster better?

I think if the main word, ‘edge’, was a little less cleanly cut out it may have worked better as it would have fit with the illustration. I think once again the typography at the bottom could have been made a little bit bigger so it was easier to read when on a po ster.

AD206 - Negotiated Project.

For AD206, I was given the opportunity to do something completely on my own and create my own brief and proposal. I decided to complete on of the live briefs from the D&AD briefs and the one I chose was for Ministry of Sound. The brief asks for the designer to create Three posters to advertise 'Saturday Sessions'.
http://www.dandad.org/awards/student/2012/categories/4/typography

I have started to look in a little bit of research by looking at posters that I think are and are not successful.

What is/isn’t good about this poster?

I dont think this poster is ver succesful because it looks quite boring and doesnt really look like its advertising a nightclub. I think the illustration could do with being changed so its more like a nightclub rather than a form of bridge. The bottom part of the typography is more legible than most of the posters but the name of the poster doesn't really look too good when i runs into the image it starts to get a little bit lost in the illustration. I would personally change the typography so it was in a block at the bottom of the poster and make the illustration bigger so it used more of the page.

What is/isn’t good about this poster?

I really don't like this poster. I think its very hard to read the name of the club and the background of the image doesn't really fit well with the club even thought it's a jungle party I think it looks very gimmicky and looks tacky. I think if I was to create the poster I would make it more professional by perhaps fading the opacity of the animal print and using it as most of the poster and then having all of the text together at the bottom of the page, or the top of the page in its own box.

What is/isn’t good about this poster?

I really dont like this poster. I think that all of the typography is far too much and it is really unlegible. I think the image in the back of the poster really doesn't work very well because of the complexity of it. However the poster is for a techno/trance event so I think that is defiantly something to consider when looking at the poster i will be creating and when genre the music is. If i was to create this poster myself i would once again keep all of the typography together and split it so that the imagery was the main focal point and the typography being in a box of its own. 

What is/isn’t good about this poster?

I really don't like this poster! The colours of the background really make it hard to read the typography and i don't think the illustrations do the event much justice. I think the the logo is in the best place so its more prominent that the rest of the poster but i don't think its very current, or up to date. I think if i was going to re create this poster, i would personally take away the coloured background and have one block colour and if the three colours needed to be used in the design i would consider using them for the typography.

AD204 Packaging.

For AD204 we were given three smaller projects. This particular module was not a normal module but more of an idea exercise and idea generation module. The module focused more on the idea generation and  development that having three beautiful, high quality visuals at the end of the project. I think this project was very successful as it made me think alot about getting my ideas straight down onto paper rather than over thinking ideas. 

The first part of the project was a team exercise and working in pairs we had to do a quick name generation exercise for a 'new orange juice drink'. Myself and my partner came up with the name 'Orange Pulse'. We thought we would aim our product at students and keep the cost low and create more of a energy juice drink that a standard fresh orange juice. I think its very successful overall and the logo works really well. I think the background of the bottle is very good and immediately screams that it's an orange drink.

The second part of the project was to find a piece of packaging that I didn't think was working and to rebrand the chosen product. I chose Apples Earphones as I thought compared to the rest of the range, the earphones didn't seam to work so well. I kept an image on the earphones so they are immediately recognisable but then added colour into the design to try and liven up the work a little bit. I think it worked really well as an illustration. 

The final part of the project was to design another piece of packaging for the Nuby Baby Range. I used animal print and pastel colours to make the designs soft and appealing to children. I really like this final outcome and i think my work has developed throughout this project, gradually getting better and I think they have resulted in my final piece.

The start of a new era!

First year finished. Now onto second year!
Cant believe how quick the last year has flown!
This course will be over before i know it, going to have to start thinking about my next steps and looking at other University's that I will be able to do a top-up year at.
This year is going to have to be my experimental year, I will have to venture into different aspects of Graphics instead of just taking the 'easy route' and sticking with what I know I can do.
So here goes...

AD206 - Negotiated Project. Time Plan.

For my negotiated project, I have given myself a time plan to work with.

Time Plan

W/C – Week Commencing

The Designer will:

W/C Monday 14^th November 2011

Research into big clubs all around the world that are as successful or not as successful as ministry of sound.

Research into other posters from the clubs listed above that he has already researched.

Research into the Ministry of Sound, including CD’s, DJ’s, music type, styles, genres and imagery from the club – décor etc.

Look at previous posters form the nightclub ‘Ministry of Sound’. Answer questions on each of them stating if they are successful or not and why.

Look at different typographers and the styles they use. Modern? Retro? Classic?

Look at poster layout, size, and structure.

W/C Monday 21^st November 2011

Start to think about initial ideas for posters.

Think about type size, what has to be on poster etc.

Try out different typography styles and see which ones work best.

Then have an ideas critique with peers and tutors.

Choose the style that he is going to set all three posters in.

W/C Monday 28^th November 2011           

Start to develop the style that he has chosen to do the three designs in.

Develop one poster further with one particular style then add that style to the other posters.

Print out posters to see how they look when printed.

Be involved in a development critique to get other peoples opinions on his work.

W/C Monday 5^th December

Start to bring together the three posters and get them ready for print.

Print all three posters.

Mount to foam board and cut out professionally.

Finally the designer will label and stable his research/development book.

The Partners

The brief is to create a name and a logo design for and art exhibition that travels to different hospitals all cross the UK. I chose this brief as it seemed very appealing as the idea of creating a logo for an art exhibition that will be seen by millions across the country seems very interesting. I initially looked at name generation and came up with two names. One of which being the name I chose and another being the reason why I chose the one I did. Wandering Art was the name I came up with because the art moves around all over the country frequently so I think it work’s really well. I started to get a few initial ideas down on paper and I worked with a few different images before coming up my final illustration that I added to the logo. I used the first letter of each word and tried to keep the movement in them by using a brush stroke through the whole design. I think the illustration has worked really well and I needed to add the name to the design to see how that looked. I added the typography to the illustration and played around with the layout.

Space bar

I was asked to design a logo for ‘Space Bar’ in Newcastle College. This was a really hard brief to work with because the whole building had been wasted for so long and had no brand or anything in the whole establishment. I started with some name generation exercises and put every name that popped into my head onto paper and went through a process of elimination. I decided to work with the name ‘Wasted Space’ I think its very appropriate but I still decided to create a logo using just the name space in case the client didn’t like the name. My initial ideas seemed to be images of space and images of food and drink etc but don’t seem to work very well. I then looked at typography that will suit the bar as I didn’t want anything to obvious and I decided that that look that would suit ‘Space Bar’ best would be the very contemporary and modern. I started with some initial scamps and put everything down on paper before I started on the Mac. I decided to look more into the work of designers like Si Scott and the way he works with typography creating everything very modern however it all looked a little bit too over the top so I went back to basics and decided upon a very simple typeface with a box around it to tie everything in together. I developed the idea over and over again and came up with my final idea. The next thing I had to look at was a colour pallet that would suit the contemporary look I was going for. I went with a soft blue pallet that really seemed to complement the typography. 

Bluebride Records

Bluebride Recording Company logo. The recording company has just been set up in Newcastle College and they have asked our class to create a logo for them. I immediately set out researching the Newcastle area and then moved onto researching recording companies. I came across a few really good companies that I decided to look more at and then I put them onto my Blog to tie in well with my Personal Professional Development. I immediately started looking at some initial ideas and got a few thing straight down onto paper as I find this is the easiest way to start designing by getting all of your ideas straight down on to paper in case I happen to forget any. My first few ideas seemed to be really gimmicky as I seemed to include images of the bridges in Newcastle and then images of the bridge in a guitar and they weren’t really working too well. I then looked at incorporating images together so adding the music note with the name or adding the music not to the bridge and not using any typography. This didn’t work, as it was really hard to tell what the logo was trying to advertise. I then create my best idea and it was an image of headphones but with the headpiece as a bridge so they were both collaborated into one. I really liked it and then took it into development. I changed the weight of each bridge stroke and then decided on what looked better. I then worked with the type for a while and decided that it looked best in black without any other colour in the logo because I noticed that a lot of recording company’s just had very simple colour pallets. My final piece is very successful and I really do like it. 

Seaton Slice

I was asked to design a logo for Seaton Sluice first school based on a design created by one of the students. I immediately started sketching out a few initial shapes of the rosette that the student created and really tried to simplify the design as obviously it was going to be printed onto a number of piece of clothing and packaging etc so the school requested that we kept the design to a bare minimum and very simplistic. I had a few ideas of just simple circle shapes to create the design but I thought my designs were almost to simple and there had to be something about my design which made it stand out from other peoples in my class that were fighting for the top spot. I then chose one of my designs to develop. It was just a circle in the middle of the page with two ribbons coming out of the bottom with Seaton Sluice First School printed in the centre of the circle. I then began to expand on the design and added an outer circle so there was two colours the middle of the circle to create some depth. The design was beginning to take shape. I then finally added outer part of the design to the logo and created the swirls around the outside. I think it has really came together now and looks really effective on its own on a white background but also works really well on a purple background (the colour of the school sweat shirt)

Design Event Talk

I am planning to go to a design event talk on 10 May at 6 PM. The talk is focused on the work of Troika and its a talk specifically from them. I am going to look into the work from Troika so i have some idea on what they are about before I go to the talk.

Time Plan 12th - 13th April.

Tuesday AM:

Start looking at designs and names for the new rebranding of space.

Do some name generation tasks

Start working on 3 names to generate

Tuesday PM:

look more in depth of the 3 names I have generated

Start looking more at one particular design 

Start to develop one design

Wednesday AM:

develop further one design

Finalize one design.

Wednesday PM:

Print and mount final ready to present. 

LOGORAMA.

Logorama is a short film written and directed by Francois Alaux. The amount of logos in the short 16 minute film is absolutely unreal. I love the way some of the shapes and building have changed form into their logo. One thing I read was a review by Nicholas Hansom. He states that any kid nowadays could probably recognize Ronald McDonald or Mr Potato Head over the pope. I think the amount of corporate identities in the short movie really shows the amount of branding around us. 

Graphic Competitions.

This Company offers any amount of design briefs ranging from 'Apple' to 'The NY Art Marathon Competition'. Their are quite a few different briefs that I would like to work with on this website and I think looking at the Illustration Competition really gets me excited about the pieces of work I could enter into this competition. This competition allows you to enter as many different illustrations as you like. I really think I will put a few designs forward to this one and see what comes of them. Another Creative competition i would like to enter has to be the 'Design against fur'. I entered this brief last year and I found it really interesting so I think I will look at it again and see if i can design a better looking final piece. 

Penguin Design awards.

I have recently entered my design for the penguin book awards. The brief was to design a book cover for the book '100 years of solitude'. The design brief takes place once a year giving the designer two different books to look at. I think my book cover turned out really successfully and i have entered my book on the website. 

Roses Design Award.

The roses deign awards have yet to release a new brief but i am going to keep an eye on the website to see which ones they bring out this year. Roses Design awards always seem to get really interesting design briefs on their website for students to look at and work too. Because the Design Award has been live for Thirty one  years they obviously get a lot of contacts. The competition expands throughout the whole of the English regions and now is the most established creative event outside of London.

Northern Design Company.

I really like the idea from the northern design company as I think its a really good way to showcase your work. I have a lot of different pieces of work that I am going to enter into the competition as their is work that isn't from live briefs that i have been particularly pleased with and I think this is a way to put it to the test. I think my work from the editorial project just needs a few tweaks and working with the color and it would be a good contender for the competition. I am going to enter a few pieces of my work into the design competition as their is no harm in entering more than one piece. 

YCN - Online Briefs.

YCN are an agency that specialize in bringing new, young graphic designers up in the world and getting them ready for the big world of work. They say their website is full of 'A collection of live creative briefs presenting a range of modern communication challenges across all media'. I think their is a lot of brilliant design briefs on this website, some a lot better than others. One of which that stood out for me is to rebrand the boost energy drink. I think it would be very exciting as the word boost in itself throws off so many different ideas. Something else that really gets my attention on the website is to design a creative visual for the marks and spencer Plan A campaign and develop campaign elements to bring your identity to life. I think this would be really good to work on as designing corporate identities for such big brands like this one will really push me to my highest point. Also because their is so much other branding for marks and spencer, it wont be as hard to find the target audience and what the director of the business likes to see on their packaging etc.

DandAD

D&AD is a design website full of different live briefs given out to students in all HND or Degree like courses. D&AD - home of the talented and skilled, the imaginative and the curious, the restless and the bloody- minded. Commercially savvy, sometimes romantic, often cynical and occasionally rather weird. A source of information and ideas: of professional development, support and inspiration, interesting people to talk and nice things to look at. All creative life is here. This is what D&AD describe themselves as. I think the statement shows that they are very hard working, busy and thrive from Graphic Design. Some of the briefs that are up at the minute really attract my attention. I really like the idea of designing a contemporary packaging range for the body shop. I think it would be really nice to look about at packaging and see what is contemporary at the minute. I may look at this brief in more depth and see what comes of it. Their is also a brief going live from the company 'The Partners'. This is to rebrand the company and design a new corporate identity. I think I will look further into this brief and start up a few initial scamps for a logo and see what comes of it. D&AD have also offered a typography brief that I am immediately interested in. Its to design new typography for the Windows Phone Seven and I think it would be a brilliant brief to work with because of the relevance to my course. 

AD108 Art & Design Application - Editorial Design

LIBYA OIL CHAOS.

The brief from AD108 was to design a Editorial piece on a subject chosen from random. My subject was Libya and the Oil Chaos. After a lot of research into my chosen subject I looked at many different editorial pieces and spilt up one piece in particular looking at all aspects of it. I then looked at different editorials and compared them in the layout and page furniture etc and by this time I had a good idea of what I wanted to create. I then followed this up by finding some illustrations and pictures I could add to my editorial and produced a large-scale illustration and photographed an image of the globe whilst tipping Ink onto the top of it and avoiding Libya. This worked really well and then I followed up by finding a few images that worked with the piece. Next I searched for body text and text that relates to the editorial I am doing and I think I found the perfect piece. Finally I needed to look at layouts and the way I could set up the editorial and I think this was the key point in my whole design.

First of all when looking at my editorial piece I am immediately attracted to the illustration situated on the first page. I think it’s very attracting because of the detail in the photography, I think the colours in the illustration work really well and compliment the rest of the page. Next I would say I am attracted to the headline and the way it stands out from the rest of the page, I think its very successful in bold and it immediately catches you attention. I love the simplicity of the serif typeface and think it really works well with the fine separation line between the headline and the rest of the design. I think the way I have situated the sub header works really well, as it doesn’t take the attention away form the main headline but still plays its part in the hierarchy of information. I think the layout of all of the body copy is really successful especially on the second and the follow on pages as its all set in one format so it will always run at that specific framework for this magazine. I think it looks really effective as it’s very easy to ready and because it makes some sort of shape reading from left to right it seems very appropriate.

The page furniture that I decided to go ahead with works really well at setting the whole design off. It ties in the whole of the design and brings everything together. I think the fact that’s its not in One Hundred percent black means a lot as it keeps it separate from the rest of the design so that it doesn’t take away the main focal point and mess with hierarchy of information.

I took a lot of inspiration from the ‘Empire magazine’, which was all about films. I really considered the page furniture when looking at this magazine and it all works really well when set up together. I think I took my inspiration from the page furniture of this magazine, but I think I have adapted it a lot and made the page furniture on my design a lot better than the one in the Empire magazine. I think it has worked out really successful. I took the grid structure from the empire magazine into consideration but I don’t think it was suitable for the topic that I was given to work with so I completely designed my own new one. I think it does really work well and I think it’s very easy to read; reading left to right, and is easy on the eye. I think I have really excelled myself in the grid structure and it has all came together really well. The techniques all work really well when they come together and I think it’s really effective. I love the illustration I used on the first page and I think because I created it myself and photographed it I got the best design I could have done.

Also I took a lot of inspiration from the magazine ‘Horse and Hound’. I think the reason I thought this magazine was so effective is because the grid structure, page furniture and main focal points always stay in the same place and the trend works well through out the whole of the magazine. I think if I was to produce a whole magazine then I would also run the same trend because of how appealing it is and it keeps the whole magazine tied together and immediately recognisable. I think another way of keeping the whole magazine connected and looking like a magazine rather than a lot of individual reports are to work well with the colour, or the layout of colour. So having two pages in the editorial grey on my design could lead to having two pages black on the next report. I think it works really well the way I have set up the colour pallet with reflecting colours used for text.

The way I set up my sub header has worked really well with the main type being in bold then the follow up header being on the line below. I took this from one of the magazines I looked at in my research. Most of the time sub headers are in some form of paragraph or sentence but I thought it looked a lot better as just a key statement to lead into the rest of the report. I think it my sub header is possibly the key part of my design as it is very recognisable and easy to read and is one of the things that immediately stand’s out of the page when you initially look at.  I also really like the page breakers before the start of the report with the reporters name at the top of it. I think it works really well at starting off the whole editorial and setting the page off. 

If I was given more time to do this project I think I would have worked a lot more on the layout of the first spread so their wasn’t as much type on it as I think it does look very busy but the piece is about the news and something very serious and when looking at magazines in this particular niche they all seem to be very text based and not a lot of illustration. I looked at this magazine and it is a fine example of a news magazine.

   In conclusion I think my design is really well executed, as I don’t think I was given the best piece of news to deal with, how ever their was an awful lot of information to source and look at and I think I have created a very professional, smart, and sophisticated final piece. I think all of my piece comes together very successfully and works really well as a final. I could imagine it in some sort of new magazine and I think the follow on page works really well and the whole grid structure could work really effectively throughout the whole of the magazine. 

Graphic Design Research.

Review the designers website…

This website is very easy to navigate as everything is set out in list’s. The colours used are very prominent throughout. The neon pink is used immediately to attract the viewers eye and the way it has been used through the rest of the website shows the hierarchy of information. I think the way the website is set out is very successful because of the simple layout and the large illustrations to immediately catch your eye.

Introduce the company, history, background and structure…

The company is a London based group that have worked for a lot of big brands including; The BBC, Jaguar and Ford. The company is made up of 50 people, from illustrators to designers to creative directors. The design group has been working and producing successful pieces of work for the past 25 years and have gained a good reputation.
Discuss any information on the Graphic Design Company…

The agency have gained numerous awards for their work but a few of the most recognizable ones are:  Richard House Hospice, Office Games that they received in 2009 and Fine Cell Work which they were the Winners in 2011. They say they ‘Thrive on working for smaller projects as well as big ones’ they stated that smaller projects keep them fresh.A piece of work taken from ‘The partners’… I think this piece of work is the most successful I have seen from the DesignCompany. I think it really works because of the use of colour and the faint green used on the car in the follow on page and how it has been used on the

main page to connect It. Reflect on the company…

I think the company is obviously very successful with the amount of awards they have been given and all the big jobs they have done, I think one way of keeping fresh and up to date that I have learnt is to do short, small projects and to keep creative. 

Ziggurat Brands

“All brands have stories to tell”

•Focus more on the idea behind the brand, like to connect emotionally with people the products are aimed towards:“Make your consumers happy. Make an emotional connection with them. Increase sales.”

Hawaii

•Leading design agency established in 2005

•Led by designer Paul McAnelly

•Well known for the multimedia designs they apply to their projects.

•Worked for clients worldwide, such as:

    MTV, Miss Selfridge, Virgin, AOL, etc

•Worked on publications for Grafik Magazine.

Fisherprice

Review the designers website…

I think this website is really successful because of the way it has been set out. I think it immediately attracts your attention by every time you go onto the page the illustration changes. The colours used are very good as they keep the website looking soft by just using 80% black instead of a solid 100%. I think the way the menu bar runs along the top and the other text goes down the left hand column really ties it all up together.

Introduce the company, history, background and structure…

The company is very successful and you can immediately tell by the list of people they have worked for. They have a very successful set of clients and I think they are a very worshiped design agency. The company is based in London and has over 60 members of staff.

Discuss any information on the Graphic Design Company…

The company is one of the most successful I have yet came across but still works for the likes of ‘innocent’ and ‘Absolute Vodka’ One of the most recent pieces of work they have done is a whole new rebranding of the ‘Waitrose’ shop. This shows that they like to vary their work and not just work to one specific clientele. The company is also very successful and have been nominated for two DBA awards.

A piece of work taken from ‘Pearlfisher’…

I really like this piece of work they have created and I think the fact that its just one piece of typography is very successful and the colours used work really well together, I think the bright Orange in the ‘J’ is really complimented by the soft shade of gray in the ‘me’

Reflect on the company…

Overall I think the company is a very well branded, well known successful group of people and they all obviously work really close together producing pieces of work like this one.