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Evaluation.

End of module evaluation OUGD301

The start of this module was a bit of a nightmare for me, as I was a bit unsure what design work I wanted to create and felt the pressure of third year and felt I should be producing really amazing work. This pressure kind of paralysed me to do anything good, and just did what I thought I should be doing.

When I received the headline brief, my immediate reaction was to illustrate - which is probably one of my weakest skills, so I don't really know why I even attempted to do this. I just made decisions and not very good ones, and I was trying to design what I felt like I should be designing. I did not feel comfortable with what I was doing, but it took a disastrous crit for me to realise what I was doing was not working. It was at this point I was forced to really look at what I wanted to get out of this module, and find something that I wanted to work on. I naturally fell into a brief that led me to creating type.

Typography was what I was interested in before I came to the course, and I felt like I was stripped off everything when I came to Leeds - learning to work in a completely different way, realising how much there actually was to design and how my way of working before was quite superficial.

Now, I feel I have fallen back into typography after learning everything that I have and have started to love it again. The reason I picked to do a brief on the Royal Mail was due to seeing the Johnson Banks send a letter campaign, I just thought it was brilliant, but I did not really see it as typography at that point- just a great idea. Which is what I am really interested in and what I think makes good design, concept. But now, I see typography as a format to present my ideas - rather that image - which, for me, seems like such a simpler and more effective way of doing it.

The Royal Mail brief was without a doubt the brief I enjoyed the most and that must show through in my work. This was my starting point to typography and was a self initiated brief so I was able to do what I wanted with it really. The rest of the briefs gave me a real world context to use my type and concept skills.

I am really happy with my perfume book cover, however, I do want to work on it more before submitting it to Penguin, as I think after I had stepped away from it, I started to realise things that I did not like. For example, I forgot to put the penguin logo on it!! Also, I want to experiment with the type on the back of the cover a bit more. I showed this piece to Si Scott and he said that he liked the used of the mask to represent the masking of natural odours idea.

The H.G Wells cover was a very quick brief, and I do like the final pieces. However, I want to do more on it - for example, produce the whole set before submitting to D&AD. And to experiment with the composition of the type more. I think it has more potential.

My other brief was Jazzcakes. I enjoyed this one the least, and after a Week I just wanted to get rid of it to be honest. I just got qhite bored of it - I could have done all of that in a day, and I should have set it as a day brief really, It probably would have been more successful as a shorter brief, just because I lost the motivation to do anything with it. Next time I have a branding brief, I am going to spend just one day on it.

I have learnt alot this module - I seemed to feel alot more comfortable working in the studio as well, and this has had alot of impact on my body of work.

Every time I got a brief last time, I would feel paralyzed for the first few days not knowing what to do, but now, I come up with ideas in minutes. Just knowing what I am good at and knowing my idea is going to be in the format of primarily type, makes the whole process alot of smoother and more successful.

I have not submitted two briefs that I worked on - headline and Metro. I did not complete these briefs because I had a bit of a nightmare with them (this was the disastrous crit) and decided that I needed to get out of the rut I was in and more onto something fresh to inspire me - which really was the best decision I made.

I am going into uni tomorrow to foil these. I am a bit poor at the moment, so I am doing a bit of designing to try and make my christmas presents a bit better/more thoughtful!

The starting point was when I decided to do some personalized Christmas tags for the family - each letter being individual.



This is another T-shirt design for a present for my boyfriend. Looking at a variety of fonts.

Updated Boards:

Final Logo:

All the final contexts -

PROMO

These are to act as promotional products. I decided to do an umbrella as they described themselves as an 'umbrella' of things, as they deal with art to bakery.

I decided to do a tea cup as they run tea and cake events.

The T-shirt could be give away items, or for staff to wear at events. Same goes for the canvas bags.

I think that this shows the logo can work along a range of products, and works particularly well on the bag and the t-shirt.

PRODUCT

STATIONARY:

Jazz Cakes - Product

Generating Font in Font Lab.

I then took the red ink on red stock look from the booklet and creating some more posters.

BOOKLET DESIGN TWO

It was good to see how the font works as body copy and printed out. I chose the colour red to relate to the Royal Mail.

I liked working with red on red - it has a screen feel effect to it.

I tried it on white paper as well, but think the red is a lot more successful.

BOOKLET DESIGN ONE

I used one of the foiled prints as a band around the booklet and one of the stamps to seal it. I think this works quite nicely as a set - with a postcard inside and a set of stamps inside.

As part of the second typeface brief I decided to create another booklet just for this way up. Having the font as a workable type really made this easier! I did two variations and the (top) second one is the final.

I already had my typeface set up as an illustrator file, but it was getting a bit tedious having to use the type as a shape rather than an actual font. It seemed pointless having a font that was not workable, when I wanted to work with it in context of things, and see what the font would be suitable for.

I copied and pasted the illustrator files into Font Lab and then edited the letter forms within Font Lab. Below are some screen shots of me doing this. It took a full day to create the full typeface.














And now it is part of my font book :)

H.G Wells Book Cover.

HG WELLS BRIEF:

'Design a stunning and contemporary cover look for one of the 20th century's most acclaimed authors, HG Wells.'

View from bottom upwards to read in order.

I was able to create an identity/logo for the books which I discovered when creating my presentation boards. I then applied it to book marks to be given away with the book, each one being different to the book - making it a bit of a collection item to aim to buy the whole series of books.
I do think I could do more with this, and will take this brief a bit further before submitting it to d&ad.

Above you can see the digital version of the branding.









These are the photographs, of my final pieces which I have used on my boards. I am happy with the concept behind these pieces. I like that the concept is quite hidden. To me design that has a hidden concept or meaning has a lot of impact - such as the fed ex logo as once you have been told/realised you always remember the logo from then on. My favourite bit of the design is where the authors name has been constructed out of the title of the book.



I am not completely happy with this typeface, but It was only meant to be a short brief so I did not want to spend too long on it - as I would not be using all the characters anyway.

I went on to develop the type face for the front cover, it seemed to give it more credebility, by using a bespoke typeface for HG Wells.

Whilst printing off and mocking up the book covers, I was able to pick up on some small things that needed to be changed. I found it hard to decide on font size, and where to place things without having a print out of it on a book next to me. Having more interaction with the book allows you to make more changes for the better.


The print out does not always come out how it looks on screen, trying to print green on green caused a few problems and had to print it out a few times until I got it write.
















Here you can see how I created the type, I based it on helvetica, but broke it down into different sections. I then used these letterforms as my basic structure, but edited it futher.



Digital development of the type.


Hand drawn designs of the type.







Hand Drawn designs to show development of type.



Key pieces of development to explain my concept.







Key pieces of development to explain my concept.




I have been working on all my briefs for a while now, so I have decided to fit another day brief in. As my last book cover one was successful, I have decided to pick another book cover brief, for D&AD.

'Design a stunning and contemporary cover look for one of the 20th century's most acclaimed authors, HG Wells.'

The cover must be for a hardback book, produce designs for at least three :

THE HISTORY OF MR POLLY

'‘If the world does not please you, you can change it'

KIPPS

'Kipps is the heartwarming account of a young man suddenly tossed into a higher echelon and after surviving different dramatic events manages to marry his childhood sweetheart and live happily ever after.'

ANN VERONICA

'In the course of the action the heroine matures from an innocent and naïve girl to a representative of the New Woman.'

TONO-BUNGAY,

Tono-Bungay (1909) is widely regarded as Wells's finest novel, combining futuristic science fiction and contemporary social satire. In it, George Ponderovo is apprenticed to his Uncle Edward, a dynamic chemist who invents a bogus medicine, Tono-Bungay, and earns a vast fortune. But as he witnesses Edward's spectacular rise, he also contemplates the corrupt English society that allows his uncle to wield so much power.

LOVE AND MR.LEWISHAM,

For Mr Lewisham, knowing little of love and its far from smooth path, this was to be the beginning of a deep inner conflict.

H.G WELLS:

Known as the 'Father of Science Fiction', H G Wells was responsible for an entirely new genre of writing. It was his bold, daring and hugely innovative books that first introduced readers to the concepts of time travel, invisibility, genetic experimentation and interstellar invasion - ideas that have gone on to inspire future generations and given rise to the entire science fiction industry. Disturbingly accurate in his prophetic writing, H G Wells was also the author of a number of key sociological and historical works.

His middle period novels (1900–1920) were less science-fictional; they covered lower-middle class life (The History of Mr Polly) and the 'New Woman' and theSuffragettes (Ann Veronica).

They must work as a set.

Words relating to the 1900-1920 period.

Less Science-Fictional.

Sufragette's.

Womens vote.

RESEARCH!