Friday, 19 May 2017
End of Module Evaluation
Evaluation OUGD406
This module I have learnt a lot and gained a great deal of confidence in my work. Studio brief 1 enabled me to practice working to a brief for a client. The live brief added pressure to the hand in, but it encouraged me to work to a high standard. I was able to bring in thing I had learnt about layout such as the Marber grid from other modules such as design principles. I feel that my work has become more refined and I have started to develop a unique style. I feel that I have managed to use hand made elements well alongside digital processes which can be seen in my illustrations for the book covers.
I really enjoyed screen printing in studio brief 2, this is something I have done in the past and was excited to do again in this project. I think my strong use of colour and bold typography works really well as it is simple but still very striking. I had to really think about time management for this brief as in screen printing I had to allow for extra time for mistakes. Next time I would like to try out using different paper stocks in order to push my design further.
Working in a group for studio brief 3 was a new challenge for me, but having other people to work with motivated me to work harder and I think my work was stronger because of it. i found working with people with very different skills to mine a challenge but it was rewarding to create new and mor interesting pieces of work as part of a collaboration. I found crits useful in my development of the module as getting constructive criticism helped me know how to improve my work.
Studio brief 4 was slightly rushed as it was right at the end of the module and my time management was not that good, this project required more group work which was enjoyable for me but i wish id have had more time to do it to a higher standard.
This module will help me in the future as group collaborations have given me important skills to bring forward into level 5 and 6 as well as in future employment. My design skills have also vastly improved and I have gained more knowledge of the adobe suites and other traditional methods like screen printing and bookbinding.
Collages Converted to black and white.
I converted the collages to monotone so they wouldnt take away from the illustrations and typography.
evaluation sb4
The book effectively communicates our message in an easy to read way. The layout is simple, clear and the consitancy helps readers flow from one page to the next making it an easy read. A more complicated layout woud have drawn the readers attention away from the information. The booklet is pocket size wich is also nice and easy and not too intimidating for sudents to flick through. This which was part of our aim to create an imformative but fun booklet to ease students into dealing with university life. We tried to focus on more things the course may not inform students of, like going out and general more informal stubjects. It is both personal to us and relavant to new comers wich will hopefully put everyone at ease when we present it to them next year.
Next time I would like to use only primary sourced images by taking the photos myself for the collage. but i am happy with the overall aesthetic that has come from the collages, expecially in the monotone. Next time I will set aside plenty of time to take pictures in so the work is totally original. Time management is something that desinately needed imporovement, we diddnt have time to screen print.
We ended up just using ordinary printer paper-stock , but i think we could have improved our booklet by using something more unusual. Scap paper or a type of colour would have added interest to our otherwise quiet simple booklet.
In terms of format, a folded document idea such as a constatina would have been more successfu, if, perhaps we spent more time thinking about how it would fit together. Working in a team worked well as the tasks were distributed evenly, and we all pulled our wieght, Working with people I knew was good as I could talk to them openly about work and give constructive critisism without worrying they would take it badly. Dividing our time worked well and we motivated eachother to get the work done efficiantly.
production
We originally wanted to screen print our booklet but given our short time limit and not being as organised as we should have been this did not happen this week, although we are planning on doing it next week so we can show the 1st year our intentions. We printed our booklet off on ordinary printing stock but if we screen print, we want to print on recycled scrap paper in order to think about saving money on paper. We then bookbound the booklets to give them a proffessional finish. The layout of the booklet incorperated collage illustrations and typography well toegtehr with the collage on one side and the typography and the illustrations next to
eachother. We used a limited colour palette in order to emulate how the booklet would look if it was screen printed and to make our life easier when we do get round to screen printing.
The elements of the booklet compliment eachother and niether of them would have worked by themselves but they work well in harmony together. The collages stand away from the illustrations and typography and provide a balance throughout the booklet. 
initial ideas
We wanted to create a book which provided the first year
students with tips and tricks which would help them settle in their first year of university. Although the book was going to be informative to some extent, the general context would be fun and light-hearted. With this in mind we gathered a list of ‘Needs and wants’ from our peers in relation to four categories; nights out, travel, uni supplies and food. These categories were chosen because they were the most consistent amongst the class, they were mainly essentials outside of the studio but essentials within it were also considered (uni supplies).
After distinguishing the main categories, the ways in which we could illustrate them were considered. The idea of hand drawn illustrations was favoured amongst the group, as it was
important that the reader understood that traditional image making techniques are widely encouraged on the course, and that individuals should not limit themselves to mac based software. Collage was also a strong concept as the outcomes would be visually rich and would mean that only a small amount of text would need to accompany them, again
enforcing the range of image making provided as part of the course.
Above, a rough sketch of some footprint is provided, this was an initial idea for the category of travel. From our class
research, the concept of Ubers as an alternative to walking is a costly form of travel, and one which many students waste their money on. Therefore enforcing the idea of walking as a way of saving money was a strong concept. Another category which was particularly popular amongst our peers was food, and how a great deal of money is wasted on takeaways, the collage above formed the basis for ‘food wants’.
The format of the booklet was experimented with, different pagination techniques were considered as we felt it was
important that the information and imagery was presented simply. Our original idea was to create the booklet on scraps of leftover paper from screen printing, this would be an
effective way of enforcing the idea of re-using materials and saving money that would otherwise be spent on expensive researchers from somewhere like Fred Aldous.
collages
As my part of the designing I created the collages that would suppliement each topic page. My original collages were in colour but I made them monotone as this prepares them for screen printing wich we originally were going to persue. These images were quite quickly done using the quick select tool on photoshop but their rough edges actually work
really well in the collage, better than the bits that are straight edge in my opinion. The composition of the collages had to be quite balanced so your eye is
taken across the whole image. When the
collages were put into the booklet, we changed them into montone shed of pink purples and blues, this emulated what we want to do to it if we get round to screen printing before we show it to the first years in september.
Book Of Little Things
From our experiences we have learnt that a lot of little things can add up to make a big difference, this is where the name ‘the little book of needs and wants’ stemmed from. First year has been a year of learning how to balance out needs and wants.
Our book aims to outline some of these with an aim to help new comers manage and enjoy themselves. The little book of needs and wants is designed specifically for first years, outlining some of the decisions we struggled making in first year the book offers advice on how to save money and how best to spend money on food, going out, travel and uni supplies.
Thursday, 18 May 2017
RAUM Exhibition Branding
In order to contribute to the exhibition, I was assigned to help the letter press team. I had to cut down 100 invitations for the exhibition to a specific size of 12cm by 22cm. These invitation will be handed out in order to advertise the exhibition to the leeds college of art community and people around leeds.
Mesh Evaluation
Overall I really enjoyed working in a group and I think our work was sucsessful. I think that I contributed fairly to my groups workload. I did find that some people took over on the work and were not that accepting of other people’s ideas. I found that my contrabutions were not taken into the final presentation, I understand that this was because other peoples work was of better quality and fitted in better in the end but i did feel that I diddnt have as much of a say in the ideas as I wanted.
From our presentation, the feedback that we got was mainly posotive, People liked the grid system and the custom typeface. People liked the use of helvetica paired with it. The design isnt too over the top, so they wont take away from the prints, this is also the case with the colour scheme, they have a strong identity but dont take away from the prints. The pointers we got were to be careful with the posters, they cannot just be put up in the street as there are laws about it, you must have permission so this idea needs revising. Although people liked the whole concept it was pointed out that it could have fitted with the idea of traditional printing a bit more, the idea is currently very digital. The social media side of the design was also hard to read according to some people.
Design Development
From the 2 original ideas that our group had started looking into we decided to go with the mesh idea after presenting the two in a crit to the class. This idea needed alot of development though so we formed a grid system from the mesh and created a logotype that fitted the grid. We divided the work between us so we all had a role within the project. My role was the layout of the exhibition and how the posters would hang. For this idea I did some research into simple flypostering methods but soon realised that this diddn’t really fit with our mesh idea so I found some metal mesh sheets that fits the idea well and would be easy to hang the posters from even for double sided posters. The idea diversified into looking at the area codes of leeds and creating the shape of the area code on a map and putting this into the exhibition as a way to sort the posters by location.
Exhibition Space
Research
For my part of the project, looking into how the posters will be displayed in the exhibition I looked into existing ways posters are displayed, I did some primary reserch around leeds. I also went and looked at the exhibition space in room 700 of the Leeds Central Library. I found some samples of metal mesh that we could use to hang the posters from in the exhibition and made enquires into how much each type of mesh would cost us. We decided on the copper mesh pictured because it was the closest fit aesthticaly and was not too expensive at £12.00 per meter square. Aswell as this I conducted some secondry research into other exhibitions and how thier work has been hung and did web searches into poster hanging techniques.
Initial Ideas sb3
In our group of 6 people our initial ideas were very contrasted and we diddnt know where to go with it so we split off and seperately worked on two different ideas in order to gather more ideas. The first idea was named ‘emulsion on mesh’ or ‘EOM’ for short, this idea looked at the process of screen printing and would use bright blocks of colour overalyed like what happens in screen printing. We started out by going to the print room and quickly rollering some ink onto folded paper and layering on different colours to make colour blocks. We then took photos of our experimentations and added some typography over the top as an example for a booklet of flier.
The second idea was ‘mesh’ and looked into mesh found on screens of screen prints. The simple name mesh would easily sum up everyones prints but also using this in all aspects of the branding so for the wayfinding, socail media, fliers and posters ect. we made mock ups using soe mesh that we found and made some signs using tape to cover the mesh.
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