Illustrator.

My A1 poster of Jonny's font.

I was really looking forward to putting my letters into illustrator, but over the weeks I seem to have lost my enthusiasm. Probably because I found the recycling brief more exiting, but anyway, here it is.

I still need to add a bit of colour, however i'm a bit unsure about that at the moment. I prefer it in grey.

I'm not entirely happy with the outcome. I'm not really sure why either. Maybe it's just not me. Anyway, going to play around a bit more and see what I can do.

Ok, so after spending hours experimenting with different colours, gradients and textures, I just couldn't find one that I liked. So, i've ditched the 'paint brush' idea and done for a clean, crisp outline.

I really don't know which one I like best.

Message & Delivery - Mail Shot.

I've struggled with this brief, mainly because i'm still a little unsure of what a mail shot should consist of, but i've enjoyed it none the less. Especially designing my envelope, which I think I may have spent just a little bit too much time on.

I've gone for a newspaper theme, basically trying to get the message across that newspaper has other uses, and that we can recycle it ourselves. My envelopes are made out of newspaper and are also reusable as i've included a button to close it and a clear plastic wallet on the front for you to slip the address in. I really like the idea but it's a bit fragile and I have doubts it will survive in the post.

So, when I was thinking of other uses newspaper can have, the only one that kind of stood out was that it could be used as wrapping paper. So I wrapped one of my books up and took some photos.

At first I thought it was a good idea, but now I think its a bit naff. Maybe I should of found a different use for it. Anyway, it gets my idea across so it'll do.

Ok, so here's some of my final ideas.

I'm a little unsure about it at the moment, it looks a bit empty. But i'm still playing around with it anyway so hopefully i'll come up with something better.

Visual Literacy - Semiotics.

Investigate, document & discuss examples of how graphic designers have used visual devices to communicate messages, ideas or concepts in their work.

Visual Synecdoche

This term is applied when a part is used to represent the whole, or vise versa. Quite simply, the main subject is substituted for something that is inherently connected to it.

Examples:
- Statue of Liberty: New York
- Big Ben: London
- Apple: Macintosh
- Pyrimids: Egypt

I thought this was quite a good example of a synecdoche simple because of the Eagle and it's association with America. Also, stars and stripes are immidiately associated with America obviously because of the flag.

Visual Metaphor

A visual metaphor is used to transfer the meaning from one image to another. Although the meanings may not have no close relationship, a metaphor conveys an impression about something relatively unfamiliar by drawing a comparison between it and something familiar.

Examples:

- Big Apple: New York

- Mouse: Computer device

- Light bulb: Idea

- Red heart: Love

Visual Metonym

A visual metonym is a symbolic image that is used to make reference to something with a more literal meaning.

Examples:

- Yellow Cab: New York

- Black Cab: London

- Cross: Church

- Kangaroo: Australia

I've really struggled finding examples of these, so I apologise if some are wrong.

The Final 3.

(See previous post for self evaluation.)

Although it was a nightmare to print onto this paper, it looks really good, and fits into my subject area really well.

No news is good news.

My subject was: Recycling

After researching this subject through reading week, we then had to produce designs for a set of 3 high impact posters that deliver a personal identified message derived from our research. These posters were to be 2:1 format presented at A3 scale.

To start this brief we were given a few quick exercises to do, which allowed us to visually get all our ideas down quickly and effectively. After choosing 10 objects and words that we thought were associated with our subject, we had to produce as many pieces as possible which contained at least 2 of our words and images. This helped me a lot as i've always struggled to get all my ideas down onto paper.

Here are my ideas..

I particually liked the idea of using instructions to get a message across. So this is what I began to experiment with.

To limit my palette, I chose to only use the colours green and brown for obvious reasons. Also, my stock would be recycled paper, which actually turned out to be a bad idea as it was a nightmare to print on!

I decided on the idea of using instructions to show the process of recycling. Basically the cycle of a can; can is put into the bin, can is then waste, waste is then melted and turned into liquid, liquid is then used to recreate the can.

Final Ideas.

Image. Image & Text. Text.

I'm quite pleased with my ideas. I feel the image poster and the text poster works really well, it's simple and gets my message across effectively.

As for the image and text poster, I feel I could of improved this slightly. I don't think it shows the cycle well, basically because it isn't a cycle, it's just steps/instructions. I could of overcome this by simply having an arrow going back up to the can. I also feel the text is a bit cheesy, but is this a good thing?

Violet Violet Violet.

What is violet?

I really haven't been very well this week so i've found it really hard to get into this brief, which is a shame as I found it really interesting. However, I could carry it on through reading week to get the most out of it.

A concept which I have been experimenting with is how violet is made; the mixing of the primary colours, red and blue. A literal approach yet i've found can be really effective. I've been using seethrough objects to convey this, one thing i've found quite successful is feathers.

I was quite unsure as to how this would turn out at first, but the violet is actually really visable. I really love this image and think it answers the question "what is violet?" very well.

There are a few other concepts which I like but have yet to develop a bit more. One which I really like is showing the shades of violet, starting from the reddy voilet through to the bluey violet. I have experimented with text for this but have ideas for images which I feel will work a lot better.

When researching violet I found various references to flowers, so during reading week I took a trip to the garden center where I took numerous photos of different brightly coloured flowers. I've picked out a few of the best ones.

I particually liked this one of a violet pansy, so I've used this photo to experiment with all the shades of violet.

I know it's not brilliant, and all i've done is replecate an image, but I like it. It's simple and it gets to the point.

Alphabet soup pt.2 - Jonny's Font.

For this 2 week brief, we each had to create a typeface which reflects our partners personality. My partner was Jonny.

The words I had which described Jonny were confident, funny, opinionated, artistic, organised, temperamental, chatty, contemplative, indifferent and amusing. I realised I couldn't include all these characteristics as some condradict others, so I put them into groups of which I felt fit together.

Artistic was the easy one, it could be pretty much anything, but I came up with a paint brush and the marks which it makes. For example...

I wanted this to be the fill for my letters but as our final a1 piece had to be traced, I realised this would prove a lot harder that I thought, so I decided not to take it any further. Though I will experiment with this technique when we digitalise our work.

I was struggling to come up with ideas so I looked in the thesaurous for words which related to the words i'd got. This would also give me an in depth understanding of the words. For indifferent I got unconcearned, casual, relaxed, laid back and easy going. When thinking of relaxed/laid back as a typeface I thought of itallics, so I began experimanting with the angles of the letters. As a result of this I ended up making only half the letters itallic to create the idea of the letters literally being layed back. Instead of the itallics leaning to the right I lent them to the left to emphasise them being layed back. It's really subtle yet I feel it's really effective.

One of the words I found for organise was frame, so I used just the outline to frame the letters. I am a little unsure of how frame can represent organise though. I also used capitals to show maturity and confidence.

Here's my final outcome...

I am pleased with the outcome, though I feel it would of worked a lot better if the outline was thicker. This way I could of shown confidence more effectively. I also feel I should look more into the angles of the letters as some aren't as successful as others. This was the major problem when creating these letters but I thought the best way was to keep every angle the same no matter what the current angle was. I think I overcome this problem quite well I just feel I need to look more at the O and Q, and possibly the X, which will be a lot easier to do on illustrator.

I felt my typeface worked particually well on the name badge. This proves that the typeface is practical/functional as well as aesthetic.

As for my partners typeface, I feel he put across my personality really well. I especially liked the dashed/incomplete lines to show that i'm shy. Jo made the point of saying I was being a bit too generous when it came to the crit, but I actually really liked it.

The only issue I had was that it didn't work as particually well on the a1 sheet as he seperated the letters. Whereas on the name badge he joined the letters and where they crossed/overlapped was the confident part of my personality showing through.

I really can't wait to get all my letters onto illustrator. I will put them up as soon as they're done. =)

Si Scott.

Looking back at my blog I realised I hadn't really got much work up by other designers. So thought I best add some more.

So why not start with one of my favourite designers, Si Scott. I absolutely love his work. And what makes it even more interesting is that it's all hand drawn. Take a look at his website http://www.siscottstudio.com/, theres a video on there of him producing some designs. It also mentions he's done talks and presentations at Leeds College of Art & Design, I don't suppose we could get him to come down again? lol.

Accept and Proceed Logo

Orange

I only hope that one day I could produce something as amazing as this. =)

Colour Theory.

My colour was purple.

The mess we started off with...

We were confused at first as to how to catogorise them, so we looked at the type of colours that we'd got. We arranged them into 4 piles, the light purples, dark purples, reddy purples and the bluey purples.

We ended up organising it into a cross, having the item which we thought was the most purple in the middle, then all the catogories coming off from that item.

We began to think of other ways we could organise the colour and decided to pigeon hole it lol. It actually turned out ok, though I think we should of thought more about how we organised it.

Still a good idea though. ^_^

How great did all the colours look together. I noticed the second years complementing it too lol.

I've studied the basics of colour before, but I didn't realise there was so much to take into account when using it. I found it really interesting how your eyes react with different colours and how colours start to create their opposite in it's surrounding colour when it's not there.

My eyes are still hurting from Fred's presentation! lol

I actually didn't realise that complementary colours don't go together. On my foundation course we were taught what the complementories were, but were never actually told what complementary meant, so I always thought that they just complemented each other, I guess not lol.

Anyway, here are just a few pictures from the last colour exercise we did...

Good ol' Mono Printing.

I really enjoyed mono printing. Though i've done it before, i've only really used black and white, so I found it really interesting to experiment with colour.

I ended up with about 20 prints, but here are some of my favourites...

Black and white. I love how something so simple can look so effective.

I really like the subtle difference between tones, and how each shape acts like a window to the next.

I had a go at experimenting with geometric shapes, though it didn't turn out the way I would of liked. The general idea is there though.

I was going to have another go but completely forgot lol, it's something to think about next time though.

When taking pictures of my work I always experiment with different angles to see what different effects I can get, I thought this one looked quite interesting.

Bring on the next printing lesson!

The results.

I can't quite belive it's been a whole week since I've posted on this, it's gone so fast.

I know this is late, but I felt I needed to post this as an end to Alphabet Soup part 1. How great did everyones work look on the wall. Yet again i'm sorry about the quality of the photo. I've found my charger now, so I will be up and running with my digital camera next week.

Unfortunately, I only ended up with 7. I guess I didn't realise how long it would actually take me to make them on Photoshop, which is something to think about in the future.

I really can't wait to see the results of Alphabet Soup part 2.