OUGD505 Brief 2 - Ideas & Concept

To get the ball rolling, I generated some thorough mind maps - this allowed me to use my research to define some ideas and concepts - It also helped me determine a target audience.

before coming up with a final concept I played with the idea of creating 2 guides for males and female students for example in a freshers pack. This seemed like a good idea but I felt that by doing 2 guides I was again separating genders. Both should be equal this means my campaign needed to be gender neutral.

I came up with ‘Lets be clear’ both as a campaign name and concept. The reason behind this is literally the name. Sexual assault/harrassment should be really honest and transparent there should be no misconceptions of rape, inappropiate manners etc. The idea of being clear really sums up just how unclear sex ed is now adays. This concept is incredibly strong powerful.

Audience
Picking a target audience was easy after my survey results (Check blog post) it was clear that most people believed that young adults around student age where more effcted this could be due to the lack of education taught earlier on.

OUGD505 Brief 2 - Intern Mag, Session

Today we were joined by creator of Intern Magazine, Alec Dudson - He discussed how he came about creating the independent mag, He originially started studying in sociology and gaining an MA this was all well and good but Alec was intrigued by magazines, and editorial design, this led him into getting an internship with italian architecture mag domus, this was all well and good but no one wanted to hire him permanently so he moved on and again interned for an independent mag called 'boat' this was based on culture a different theme for each mag, but again unpaid no permanent job. This angered him that he was working for free but still not getting anything in return. This was when the idea hit why couldn't he set up his own? He had all the knowledge so he grabbed this opportunity with both hands, he called his mag intern quite simply because of his experience his magazine aims to make the intern the star of the show and pays everyone for the content.This was inspiring that he managed to start up on his own after the discouragement had previously set him back, he was still fighting for his career.

After Alec's intro in groups he set us a task to create our own independent magazine, in order we were asked to think about, concept, audience, aesthetic, strategy, life span, and progression all of these are fundamental to how an independent magazine could work.

In our groups we instantly bonded over the idea of a 'games' themed mag not just video games though but physical like, conkers, marbles, and even card games the concept was to engage with play by helping people have fun.

Our audience was to be around 20-30s although this is not restricted as your only as young as you feel! right? We felt this was age people really engage with games and play, this said this is how we picked aesthetic. We went for a simple but colourful/playful look. In stategy the magazine would be quarterly and themed so a new topic would be highlighted in each issue. In hindsight this could mean the lifespan is quite simply put forever as there are always new games and old to discuss to progress this further we could easily start producing our own games, creating events and even branding the magazine for mercy etc. The concept has the opportunity to expand.

To come up with this we researched into other independent mags such as of course the intern, offset, the gourmand, colours, the carton we noticed that there were no real competitors in the independent market for games. We saw this opportunity and went with it, I believe this would actually work.

This was a really interesting task, and beneficial I will be able to use this as a guide for creating any idea.

OUGD505 Brief 2 - Task 4

Todays study task was based on politics and the facts based around young voters,

"A YouGov survey published in May 2014 stated that less than half of eligible young people planned to vote in the general election."

How could graphic design be used to ensure that more than 41% of 18-22 year-olds actually participate in the election process?

In my team we tackled this brief head on by identifying the problems with this question - like in study task 2, some of the reasons we believe students don't vote are; 

No incentives

Does my vote really count

Can we really trust the politicians?

They talk shit - Plain and simple whats actually coming out of their mouths?

Most of their policies don't apply to young people

They make it difficult for us to vote, register every year?

Lazy 

The manifesto's are way too long and confusing - we aint gonna read that.

Although myself I vote and have since I turned 18 there is still not enough done to engage young people, many aren't taught about the importance and feel irrelevant to the whole process - many believe their vote will not count, often or not the manifestos are so complicated those who have an inkling to learn are immediately put off. The problem is that politician party's are not targeting their biggest market teens.

How can we target the age group 18-22? How can we make this age range vote?

In response to our identified problems we then went onto thinking about how this could be rectified and how we could solve this problem; here are some of our soloutions.

There lots of solutions to the problems we have identified such as; 

No sign up

Incentives - free stuff

To the point policies 

Get rid of the bias and bull shit - running the country isn't supposed to be childs play tell us what we want to hear.

Make it less dry

Get rid of the Jargon

these are only some of the solutions to our problems, we felt the best way to target our audience was to create a non biased collection of manifesto's for each party, in effect a jargon buster guide - this will and would target everything someone our age would need and want to know without being force fed or told what or who we should vote for - to do this we will research individually into campaigns both related and no related that are effective. 

because we have decided on how to target our problem we have all picked a political party to create a small publication for this will be in the form of a hot dog fold - it will then open out to become a poster - which they may or may not want to use, these publication can be handed out at colleges/universties, even on the street and on public transport. Mid next week we will convine to show both our research and designs for the publication. It is really important for everyone to vote so lets tell our age group why they should be voting and also let them chose for themselves.

Lets not be sheep.

Pretty good looking sheep.

OUGD505 Brief 2 - Study Task 3

The Brief:

In today's session with study task 2, and brief 2 in mind we were asked to create and design for the exhibition 'Disobedient Objects North' Disobedient Objects is an exhibition about the art and design produced by grassroots social movements. It includes exhibits loaned from activist groups from all over the world, bringing together for the first time many objects rarely before seen in a museum.

With this in mind we were asked to create an A5 leaflet and 10 page concertina, Featuring the exhibition the idea was to create a branding and identity. To do this I have looked into post modernism, because like this exhibition this is relevant to the rebellion of design. This lead me to use the provided content and guidelines to create a poster which expresses the overall feel of the exhibition but the movement of post modernism also.

A small insight to the guidelines for each product:

Format: A5 – Portrait
Title: Disobedient Objects North
Sub-Title: In Association with the V&A
Date: August 3, 2015 - August 29, 2015
Location: People's History Museum, Manchester.
Contacts:
www.phm.org.uk
www.vam.ac.uk
Image: Single exhibit-based image, People's History Museum logo, V&A logo,
Use of two colours only: Black and white
(Use embedded InDesign file and follow grid.)
Save as PDF file.

With only the use of one image I chose to pick a big impact image - The guirilla girls, this really spoke statement for this exhibition by using this as the teaser it would appeal to those already aware of the movement of rebellion. Accordingly with the image I used all necessary information making it clear when, where and who was hosting the exhibition - I have kept the design both simple and impacting this is so that the message of the image is not lost, I chose the main type because of the connection to post modernism this really fit with the overall feel and experience I was trying to create.

Moving on to the concertina fold, i used a similar design to the flyer to execute consistency in retrospect - I should of us the same image on the flyer, for the front cover I added more relevant information. And again for the content I threw it on the page, making it unformalised and edgy, this really suits the overall exhibit, a small insight on what the consumer will experience.

The specifications:

Format: A5 x10 – Portrait – Concertina spread (front and back).
Title: Disobedient Objects North
Sub-Title: In Association with the V&A
Date: August 5, 2016 - August 31, 2016
Location: People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Spinningfields, Manchester, M3 3ER, United Kingdom

Not only this but content and body copy was provided, all the text must be included.. to pick my images I read the information I was to place on f the leaflet. After reading the leaflet I picked both the most appropriate and resoloution for print as many of the images provided where too small for print, in terms of quality. This directly informed my image direction.

Furthermore, I then expanded this task to create some additional material which I felt was appropriate for the exhibition, In this case I chose to create a ticket for admission, this has a similar and consistent feel the only thing different from the other material is no image, I feel adding an image was unecessary and would complicate the overall use of the actual ticket.

In response to this there is the possibility to expand this task further by considering other supporting materials such as; posters, banners, ad shells, bags/mech, brochure etc.

This task taught me to focus on the brief and what I was asked to do, not only this but it helped me learn how to adhere to a strict brief such as logo guidelines. By doing this it has allowed me to understand the importance of thoroughly understanding my work/the brief. In response this is similar to task 2 - A problem = the soloution.

OUGD505 Brief 1 - Design Boards

OUGD505 Brief 1 - Final Print for Exhibition & Evaluation

After doing my prints I layed them all out to make a decision on which had turned out best, below lies my favourite note, this was probably the best and diverse print of my bank note I did - with this I marble the inks. I chose this note because of the quality - I have since then mounted it onto gmund bier weizen stock, this is because the contrast of the grain suits my note and compliments it.

Evaluation:

This brief has been inparticualry interesting, I have learnt a lot about the production and making of money not just in terms of design but actual thesis such as security measures - my favourite findings about security measures included the canadian passport with UV light (see bp) this design is both clever and visually appealing alongside this I found out plenty about british currency that I was unaware about such as silver threading... The strip going across the note I once believed was just holographic foiling but it is infact a silver strip which is threaded into the paper.

 Aside from my research into currency I explored my own interests into illustration and photography both looking at primary and secondary research. From my research I came up with the concept of creating something postive, in this case 'saving our wildlife' this is were my bank note and coin designs originated from, my coins feature animals of particular endangerment to british wildlife, and my note feature the habitats of said animals. The designs themselves were inspired by Beatrix Potter - wildlife lover and illustrator/book writer and british wildlife photography. If my bank note were to be actually printed at the royal mint it would definitely be reproduceable - I would also have access to creating holograms! this would look great on my leaf design.

One thing I found most difficult about this brief was picking a currency and direction, after copius amounts of research I was still intrested in knowing more about money leaving me eager to do it all, I intend to learn more in my personal time. 

What went wrong?

Nothing really went wrong in the design process itself until I got to the printing stage, the most problematic area was applying the gloss layer to my print, this was slightly disappointing in future I will re access the line point size before printing. 

what went well?

The overall quality of my prints are strong, I have been practicing my screen print methods in my own personal time this has paid off as I am growing experience in how to print better. It has also made me eager to do some more traditional prints.

If I were to do this brief again I would like to do some more illustration possibly of landmarks this time, I am happy with my outcome the only thing I would rectify are the mistake I made when printing a gloss.

OUGD505 Brief 1 - Final Outcome - Coins

Here is a rough mock up on how my finalised coins would look like if made, as I cannot make real coins this is the next best thing - in reality there is the possibility of me having ago using a press and clamp to create this in metal. The leaf patten on the £1/2 is to make it clear they are full pounds. I kept the shape of the current coins the same this is because blind people use the shape of coins to define what to pay with. I believe by keeping the same shape I am not discriminating anyone.

My designs are representative of british wildlife, picking which animals featured on the coins was down to the rarity and how endangered they are.

1p - British Fruit Bats are the wildlife of the night, this creature is representative of other animals that come out at night such as the barn owl.

2p - Cod, well known for fish and chips... this is native to britian because we are eating too much cod - cod is effectively become less distinct and populated.

5p - Butterfly, there are not many butterfly's flying around anymore in Britain which is a shame I would like to make people more aware of this.

10p - Hedgehog, Hedgehogs are often found in gardens many people will see a hedgehog in there liftime, although some hedgehogs are sentenced to poisoning and road kill.

20p -  Bumble Bee - These are particularly endangered and are well deserving of being on the currency as the british bee is one of the biggest contributors to life and economy without bees there would be no life.

50p - Badgers, Badgers are often culled and treated as vermin but they are infact a protected species these beautiful creatures are understated.

£1 - Robin, I chose this bird out of all the british birds because it is one of the most well known birss associated to british wildlife, surpassingly it is rare to see a robin.

£2 - Fox, I chose to have the fox on the £2 because of the hunting - I believe that foxes have been cruelly been hunted for fun for many years finally people of britian are coming to the realisation of the beauty of this animal. Save our foxes.

OUGD505 Brief 1 - Printing the note

After finally settling on a design I began to print my note through screen printing as I mentioned in the previous blog post, I have had to separate my design to create one complete note this means I needed 4 separation. 

The first separation that needed to be printed was the block colour, then on to the actual image to do this I picked a green base and a navy for the halftone image this contrasted really well and created a deep green. Next the 3rd separation needed to be printed this was the silver layer, finally the clear/gloss separation.

Printing the gloss:

When printing the gloss I had some problems, the first few pulls printed perfectly and after only 5  mins the screen became fully blocked. This could of been due to the line point of my design, this was really disappointing for me as it meant my design was missing a main part of the element.

Fortunately I have a few images of the doccumentation before the screen became fully blocked.

Colour change:

With the clear screen blocking so easily I considered trying another colour, this pushed through much better but wasn't the effect I was looking for - so I decided to remove this layer for the time being.

4 Colour screen/ The positives:

Here are my exposed positives ready to be printed,

Embossing exploration:
 After the realisation of the clear/gloss layer not working I had a go at embossing my design by hand using embossing tools this worked really well but the paper was not taking will under the pressure - in this response embossing was out of the question.

The next stage is picking which and what note to use for the exhibit.

OUGD505 Brief 1 - Further Development

Basic Layout structure:

By getting a basic structure going for my note design it means that a pattern can be followed for the design of each note, so for example even though my £10 note is designed with a basic structure this can be followed for bank note 5 and 20. My structure is really simple - the front consists of basic information such as the amount due, the bank of england and a security thread strip. On the back of the structure is again the amount and agreement of payment and if possible to print a hologrpahic leaf also for security measures, although i believe for student purposes it will most likely have to be replaced with silver ink.

Final Layouts:

This is the decompostion of my bank note design it consists of 4 layers. Layer one - block ink of choice, I believe when printing I will chose blues/greens this is because of the imagery I have chosen to use It will suit both the nature and concept. The 2nd layer will be of the actual imagery again to be printing in similar colours of contrast though so it is visible - I have halftones my image both for the purpose of screen printing and for security measures, this will make the note incredibly hard to be reproduced. The 3rd layer is silver ink this if done professionally would be a mixture between holographic and silver thread, the silver will represent specific security features. And lastly my favourite the clear ink this is purerly for security I have created a pattern based on the photograph I am using - Wood grain pattern, I have also repeated the amount of money this will make the note incredibly hard to be reproduced. The overall look will be modern and sustainable I will be printing on recycled paper in the real world I would use recycled cotton for strength by using recycled materials I am promoting and pushing my concept further.

Separations for print:

Clear.

  Silver.

Block colour.

Photograph again block colour.

Experimental Layouts:

Here are some of the layouts and changes I have made before arriving to my final solutions these were rejected because of both practicality and design.

Here the note is the same but instead the text is different, as my design is about nature and wildlife I had a go at writing my own type - this although good made the note appear feminine, and a note should be unisex there is also no gaurentee of continued modernity.

Similar to my actual design the only thing different is the positioning and sizes this appeared over powering because of the increased £10.

I also experimented with the direction in which the note could face, such as landscape. Similarly I have explored positioning and layout.

Also I considered what the bank note could be sized and shapes like, this would be around half the size of the current note - the only issue with this is it could be too small?

I really liked the idea of completely changing the shape of the not to a cirle this would be incredibly hard to be reproduced although not conveniant for actual wallets and purses - although in theory wallets are made around money so maybe a round wallet?