Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
OUGD201 Evaluation
So the end of what I would say was my most successful brief yet. I think that the key to me enjoying this so much and also coming out with results that seem a league apart from my final on the last brief is the fact that I really immersed myself into the what is good brief and did my research. I feel that my publication could have been better but within the timescale I left myself and also taking into account layout is not my strong point, I am happy with the end result. This could have been made close to about 80% successful if I had considered (and spent more time over) my content and information in my publication.
My research for the first part of the brief whent really well, I was putting in the hours and reaping the rewards, I found out some really useful stuff. I think i took the research very far and this is half down to my own personal interest in the subject I picked. By the time it was time to do the presentation I had a hefty file of relevant primary and secondary research based on "Meditation" and managed to perform the presentation with ease, which naturally lead to my design development stage.
The Concept idea came about halfway through developing visuals and information, and from there on out with the what is good brief I was flying along - I was actually shocked at how well I had organised myself. I was so well organised I basically left myself a week and a half towards the tail end of the project to actually produce a protype of my design. I am confident that my nets were considered, the design itself was justified, relevant, and considered. The only thing I would have liked to have done is given myself more oppertunity to use more print processes like flocking. I think flocking will definitely have to be done sometime in the near future while I still have these amazing resources at my fingertips!
My investigation into print was limited to what I knew was relevant to my idea and I know this is something I need to stop doing, but I feel the aspects of print I did research about were substantial and I also used them in order to create a physical end result. I think that sort of knowledge is totally priceless. What I have learnt from the writing in this paragraph though, is that there are alot of amazing stocks, and processes which are more than possible to use at the moment - and this project was a huge awareness booster of print. I also wish that I had ordered some stock samples and got in touch with a printer somewhere down the line of this project
The final prototype and the boards flowed out of the development and my only setback was not being able to hand my sketchbook in because a paranoia that I missed something out of the PDF is in the back of my mind. I think I should have spent alot more time making sure everything was accounted for in my PDF, but then again I wanted it to follow the same path as the rest of the project and for it to be succinct, minimal - but informative. I think also more stocks could have been considered in the earlyer stages of production development because I started printing my boards and publication spreads on sugar paper and it just boosted the quality of the overall perception of the work.
The publication could have definately been more considered. I definately spent too much time with my head in a sketchbook for the good brief and not enough time thinking about the publication. I know for a fact the content is weak - and like I said before this is because time simply ran out.
Non the less! I have done the best in my ability to up my game and produce something "nice" in both cases because I am rapidly attaining a sense of pride with my design work. But the best thing is... I'm starting to know what I want, and how to get it! I have felt something in my design practise improve and it feels permanent which is definately a promising prospect for future personal development. Bring on the next modules!
My research for the first part of the brief whent really well, I was putting in the hours and reaping the rewards, I found out some really useful stuff. I think i took the research very far and this is half down to my own personal interest in the subject I picked. By the time it was time to do the presentation I had a hefty file of relevant primary and secondary research based on "Meditation" and managed to perform the presentation with ease, which naturally lead to my design development stage.
The Concept idea came about halfway through developing visuals and information, and from there on out with the what is good brief I was flying along - I was actually shocked at how well I had organised myself. I was so well organised I basically left myself a week and a half towards the tail end of the project to actually produce a protype of my design. I am confident that my nets were considered, the design itself was justified, relevant, and considered. The only thing I would have liked to have done is given myself more oppertunity to use more print processes like flocking. I think flocking will definitely have to be done sometime in the near future while I still have these amazing resources at my fingertips!
My investigation into print was limited to what I knew was relevant to my idea and I know this is something I need to stop doing, but I feel the aspects of print I did research about were substantial and I also used them in order to create a physical end result. I think that sort of knowledge is totally priceless. What I have learnt from the writing in this paragraph though, is that there are alot of amazing stocks, and processes which are more than possible to use at the moment - and this project was a huge awareness booster of print. I also wish that I had ordered some stock samples and got in touch with a printer somewhere down the line of this project
The final prototype and the boards flowed out of the development and my only setback was not being able to hand my sketchbook in because a paranoia that I missed something out of the PDF is in the back of my mind. I think I should have spent alot more time making sure everything was accounted for in my PDF, but then again I wanted it to follow the same path as the rest of the project and for it to be succinct, minimal - but informative. I think also more stocks could have been considered in the earlyer stages of production development because I started printing my boards and publication spreads on sugar paper and it just boosted the quality of the overall perception of the work.
The publication could have definately been more considered. I definately spent too much time with my head in a sketchbook for the good brief and not enough time thinking about the publication. I know for a fact the content is weak - and like I said before this is because time simply ran out.
Non the less! I have done the best in my ability to up my game and produce something "nice" in both cases because I am rapidly attaining a sense of pride with my design work. But the best thing is... I'm starting to know what I want, and how to get it! I have felt something in my design practise improve and it feels permanent which is definately a promising prospect for future personal development. Bring on the next modules!
What is good? Final Product prototype
The final product: "Meditations - Focus & Relaxation"
The Packaging was inspired by hardback spiritual books like the Kantos of Krishna Or the Crystal Heart in Buddhism. Spot varnished and embossed, the product needs to be touched and interacted with to understand the message within, and also the overall message. Which was, "The answers lie within" or, the process of going within.
Contents: 1 x guide to Focus & Relaxation with perforated pages.
4 x Wax earplugs
1 x Marker pen
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
What is good pt. 2: target Audience, feedback from today's crit.
As I said previously, my target audience is Buisness people which are looking for stress relief/ Designers looking for a creative boost and also stress relief/ seekers of meditation.
The feedback from the crit made me realise, up to this point, I hadn't considered how I would actually be reaching my target audiences. So I started to think about a couple of places where a product like mine would be sold.
Starbucks
A good place to reach all of the said demographic as starbucks is a place where alot of these types of people go, and starbucks also does sell off the wall products and things considered possibly "different" such as jazz cds.. I think the product would be well recieved in a place like starbucks or even a cafe which has similar ethics but is a smaller company, because the people going into these places often do have fast pace lifestyles and are often interested (even if its just to look at initially) in "off the wall" products like this - incense etc.
Book Shops - e.g Borders
My product is starting to resemble a book and the prototype I made I think is starting to bring quite a spiritual feel and is very similar (in condensed format) to the books I have been reading which are about meditation and meditative reading. This then lends itsself to having the box/book distributed in a book shop. I think it would be best placed on a plynth with some POS and promotional material around it, because it is really a form of subculture and is'nt easy to get into without knowing much about it.
Internet & Networking
A good platform for this type of design i think would be internet based, for example on a health website.
I think that pin pointing this is important because it just helps to clarify my design rationale.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Type
The most recent session was about readability of body copy and how it can be manipulated across different amounts of columns, was really helpful and again, will contribute to the publication. (Which is beginning to demand some mindset put upon it.)
A limitation would have to be how you use the leading as something too spaced out can affect the tone of voice of the copy, also tight leading can have an adverse effect - but this all depends on what it is the reader is looking at. E.g, a short informal paragraph has different limitations to a longer more formal paragraph.
Instead of putting up screenshots up here, i'm printing out all the session work and im going to label it and attach notes for hand in. I think this will show a more coherant understanding of this than a blog entry can.
That's another thing graham has been teaching: Hard copy is invaluable when it comes to type!
ta
A limitation would have to be how you use the leading as something too spaced out can affect the tone of voice of the copy, also tight leading can have an adverse effect - but this all depends on what it is the reader is looking at. E.g, a short informal paragraph has different limitations to a longer more formal paragraph.
Instead of putting up screenshots up here, i'm printing out all the session work and im going to label it and attach notes for hand in. I think this will show a more coherant understanding of this than a blog entry can.
That's another thing graham has been teaching: Hard copy is invaluable when it comes to type!
ta
Indesign Workshop
So as I have been doing with the other workshops, here's my rave review on the Indesign workshop. This entry will be more instructional as I feel that it will help me in the long run to gather things like this on an online document format until I'm comfortable with practising them. These points are here to reiterate and also because these workshops a really good starting point and source of info for the 16 page publication.
- Paper Sizes: Always make your document the size of the finished, printed product. (makes sense really)
- Gutter = Space between columns
- Margin guides = consistant white space around page edges
- Bleed = when print needs to extend over the page edge (- eg a full page photo spread in a publication.)
- Print an A4 print onto an A3 page for best results. (Same with A3 on A2 etc.)
- Slug = extra space for printing crop marks etc.
Some limitations:
- Using a font when sending a document to a commercial printers is effectively illegal, who'd have guessed?
- DPI resolution should be 300.
so there you have it - all this stuff is good to know and is contributing to my publication nicely :)
ta
what is good? start up to present. (Meditation)
So the blog has been neglected recently because I have been throwing myself into this research brief, but I want to basically do a massive entry showing whats been going on with the project and where I am with it now.
So My group did some lists, and we were quite a mixed group so we came up with some quite mixed responses- from Nelson mandela to class B drugs...
So after the session, I was sure that I wanted to pick Meditation as my good, for two reasons, I'm interested in where this can go as a design project, and that it's already going places in a personal sense.
So, I did some more brainstorms and realised that from the ideas, stereotypes and other stigmas attached to meditation, (cults, middle age nutters etc) - it would be a good idea for me to take this on in a health and social sense and promote the health benefits and also show how meditation improves the mental aspects of someones persona, eg improves confidence.
In the days leading up to the presentation my research broadened and I started looking into articles from the NHS website and the TM (transcendtal meditation) program website, which outline the clear health benefits and also other benefits like creativity etc. From here I made a research file which I'm still adding to in order to further broaden my knowledge.
After doing the presentation I was suprised that it was recieved so well and a few people asked me afterwards how do I meditate? This was a massive help and I think some questionaires are neccessary (sorry guys.)
I know what questions I need to be asking:
- If you knew how, would you meditate?
- Have you ever meditated?
- What do you assosciate meditation with?
- Do you know who you are?
So just before I end this gargantuan entry, We got the second half of the brief after the presentations and I'm getting excited about it because an idea has been slowly developing through the course of this research side of the brief, that strangely seems to mesh with this second half perfectly. I dont want to rush this idea into existance though, so more research and a refined and collected design apporach is definitely gonna be important here!
ta
You can also get my Presentation from this link if you have an interest in what was said: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0T86WPM3
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Photoshop Workshop
Another session with Mike today, I feel like ive really learnt alot again, just want to document a few things that I think will integrate into my print based publication ( this goes for the last two workshop review posts as well - failed to mention this before).
So yeah, learnt how to do duotone on images on photoshop, didnt know how to do this before and used to cut corners but doing it the real and right way looks so much more effective than a bodge job effort like I would have done in first year.
I also learnt that file formats actually do have a point to them! e.g, when you want to save an image and not lose any information for print, you save it as a TIFF file instead of a Jpeg, because a Jpeg is a lossy file format but is ok to use if emailing with. TIFF is much better to design with as you wont loose image quality. Also learnt that a Raw file is what cameras initially use before converting the images to Jpeg.
My eyes were opened to some of photoshops hidden treasures like channels today as well - same concept as layers except it is a selection tool of part of the image - e.g the highlights. Channels are sick man because you can use them in conjunction with finishing tecniques like spot varnish and flocking - two things that I want to consider when doing my publication.
I like to end these entries with A limitation (in a sense) so here's one!
In order to use duotone in photoshop, the image's colour mode first has to be converted into a greyscale image.
Bada bing, Bada boom.
So yeah, learnt how to do duotone on images on photoshop, didnt know how to do this before and used to cut corners but doing it the real and right way looks so much more effective than a bodge job effort like I would have done in first year.
I also learnt that file formats actually do have a point to them! e.g, when you want to save an image and not lose any information for print, you save it as a TIFF file instead of a Jpeg, because a Jpeg is a lossy file format but is ok to use if emailing with. TIFF is much better to design with as you wont loose image quality. Also learnt that a Raw file is what cameras initially use before converting the images to Jpeg.
My eyes were opened to some of photoshops hidden treasures like channels today as well - same concept as layers except it is a selection tool of part of the image - e.g the highlights. Channels are sick man because you can use them in conjunction with finishing tecniques like spot varnish and flocking - two things that I want to consider when doing my publication.
I like to end these entries with A limitation (in a sense) so here's one!
In order to use duotone in photoshop, the image's colour mode first has to be converted into a greyscale image.
Bada bing, Bada boom.
Monday, 5 October 2009
Typography Workshop
Had my first typography workshop on Thursday, like I said about the illustrator workshop, I learnt alot of stuff I'd Never considered before.
I knew a bit about the personality of type, but Graham (The tutor) took this to a whole new level, by doing things like telling us all to pick a typeface for a word to convey an emotional link to the word through visual identification. e.g A Happy dog!
I've posted really just as a reminder to myself of this:
Type point sizes - 1 point is a 72nd of an inch, but 72 pt type is not an inch high! It's bigger because of typesetting methods.
Type in books is about 8 point because you hold it closer to your face than a magazine, who's font is typically a little bigger. Graham also told us that these fonts are generally small because of print limitations such as the cost of printing. The point size and overall content has to be considered and often condensed and rejigged to become cost effective for a print run. So again this is a limitation i have come across, the cost of the print run will often dictate the content and also point size of any given publication.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
First Illustrator workshop of the year
...was today! I can safely say that what I learned in that session doubled my knowledge of Illustrator. I also know now, how little time you have to spend selecting colour harmonies when you use the colour guide. I'ts kind of like ebay,
"You enjoyed magenta, You might like...!"
and the colour wheel that changes your colours in real time! Yeaboi.
Really I just wanted to do this post as a bit of a reminder to myself about a limitation I came across today in the workshop. Which is as follows:
When you save a custom swatch as an "ASE" file, (enabling you to use the swatch in other Adobe suite programmes) A message box comes up if you have used tints saying:
"Swatches containing tints/ gradients are not exchangeable between programmes."
Well, they are just the tints and gradients wont show up in the other programme... Bummer.
Anyway that's my little rant over with. :)
"You enjoyed magenta, You might like...!"
and the colour wheel that changes your colours in real time! Yeaboi.
Really I just wanted to do this post as a bit of a reminder to myself about a limitation I came across today in the workshop. Which is as follows:
When you save a custom swatch as an "ASE" file, (enabling you to use the swatch in other Adobe suite programmes) A message box comes up if you have used tints saying:
"Swatches containing tints/ gradients are not exchangeable between programmes."
Well, they are just the tints and gradients wont show up in the other programme... Bummer.
Anyway that's my little rant over with. :)
Final Postcards
This is my 1 colour, the relevance to my journal, is quite vague i guess, but basically I went to America - what is there far too much of in America?
I just did this as a little warning to Brits wanting to go to America with the intention of being healthy... Caution! Burgers!
2 colour, I made the same mistake of using transparencies instead of tints originally with this one too, easily remedied, 2 spot colours on stock. The colours I used were from the PANTONE Solid Coated colour book on illustrator.
3 colour, again from the solid coated colour catalogue, I based the font on a Powell font and I like the end result of this one - 3 spot colours on stock.
Final full colour. I just put the word over an Photograph of a bench that I took in San Diego. Found out today that white is also called paper colour today! haha, obvious maybe, but you learn something new everyday!
Ideally, before hand in I do want to do some embossing of the text onto the full colour image if possible - Im not too sure on how to do it properly. Suppose that's one to add to the list! I have a feeling embossing is going to be a bit of an in thing this year so I'm sure I'll find out sooner or later in the year!
P.s, I'll post up further prog with this if and when the creative juices flow.
A Fundamental mistake.
Well, starting the year with a mistake, that's what I like to see! I wanted to post this just to point out something that was brought up about 2 of the postcards I had produced and was also brought up today in the illustrator print workshop.
This was the 3 colour word, I brought it to the pinup with me on tuesday. Basically it was brought to my attention i had used a spot colour and a transparent colour - not a tint. This is now so obvious to me and Im not sure how I overlooked it at the time, but, all a learning experience! So, anyway this is 2 colour not 3.
This is what i did to change this, I just changed the spot pink to an opaque colour and added another spot colour. Making this, quite obviously a 3 colour design! I was a little shocked at how I had overlooked how obvious this is at the time.
Simples!
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