What bloody pain an identity can be

The other day finally realising I just couldn't go to sleep. I decided to work on my logo yet again! Last year I created a logo for myself more of an illustration styled one. I also did some where i looked more at colour, as I knew I wanted to keep the same type and colour really just how that colour was put onto the text. I also played around with the coloured ao'connor type just adjusting where everything shud go, and wether or not to include Connor. As I said it my crit I hate my name for a logo/identity but everyone said you can do so much with it.I just hope i've done the right thing. But after just looking at it-grey or in colour, adding the Connor or not, adjusting where the type should go. I even aligned it altogether but the a just didn't look right. So after all that I just decided to stick with what i've got...I think it looks ok?

Web Design Project

For this assignment you are to produce a web site that will house your work, acting as an online portfolio and curriculum vitae. Your site will be designed to be part of an integrated web campaign, you should consider how linking to sites such as Facebook and Flickr can bring traffic to your site, and also how you may gain visitors by linking to the sites of other designers and practitioners.
The web site is often a first point of call when a client is seeking a designer. Your site should clearly state who you are, what you do and how to contact you.
. The site produced will represent you and your work using the appropriate skills to emphasise your work and your personality. You should consider carefully how you want to brand yourself and your identity as a designer. An understanding of web aesthetics is as essential as an understanding of web technology, therefore it is important that you research to gain a full understanding of conventions, limitations and the expectations of the audience.

Your site should be clear and considered (you have considered usability issues), but reflects yourpersonality (brand) – what is it you have to offer that no other designer has?
All sites must be online and fully web ready (including appropriate meta tags) before the deadline.


The first stage of this project was to look at recent websites to see what we like/ don't like about the navigation/aesthetics of websites around. I looked at a few just as a starting point such as:

Digital Kitchen

Which I thought had a great, simple homepage. I liked the cut out type on the grey background. Then when you click the boxes come up and you can either click on those or the list to show the work. The only thing I found strange was the list was on the right and is normally on the left. Easy to navigate and use.

Good Is Dead
Though I thought this was easy to use by clicking on a link, aestheticaaly I didn't think it was pleasing.

Graphical House
Presentation wise very easy, consistant in style with bars, list in bars ordered easy to use. Then box comes up with the work.


A website I looked at whilst doing my research was one by Spencer Wilson a really ace website that I thought would be good to base my website on- use all the same functions (drag and drop) would be nice and simple to do.As I don't want my website to be too complex.


The first thing I had to come up with was my identity- my brand. My initial idea was to be "Organised Chaos", as generally thats how I work. So I first looked at type I could use:




















After this I  choose my type and looked at colour:

I choose the pink type as i thought this worked the best, but I did quite like the light green one. After having chosen the type and colour. I then looked at designing the website. I tried to use a consistant style and worked with the colours. I first looked at the homepage, lookng at different ways it could be laid out, but I didn't change to too much per test, Then I did the same to where the work would be presented. I also looked at the Contact and Links. Looking at the Links I changed/reversed the colours in the box which I think worked better as it makes the type stand out more.

The next day I had a crit with Neil and a few of my class mates. The main comment was about the name, Neil made a good comment that if he was to hire a Graphic Designer if he saw Organised chaos that he wouldn't get a good impression just by the name. Another comment that the type looked organic I had used American Typewriter, and when they ade that comment I agreed. I said one of the thigs I didn't like was my name for an identity. Neil thought that using simply my first name might be the best identity name as there is so much I could do with it. So I then looked into different ways of graphically representing my name.

For the identity anna I looked at different ways I could show the name keeping the same colour. I thought about the a more how I could arrange that. When I came up with my logo choosing my final layout I looked at colour(Like when I chose the type) and looked at combining two typefaces making one letter bigger than the other etc. I think overall it works quite well, I think some people could be confused that its anna, but I was thinking aa as its the first and last letter in the name.

Refering back to the Organised Chaos identity, a lot of people said that I should have made the organised look quite neat and then the chaos messy, or that type should be all different sizes.

Wayne Hemingway

Well-known Graphic Designer Wayne Hemingway came to talk to a selected bunch of people, luckily I was one of them.

At first I found him quite boring I guess as he was saying that he was "in a rush" until he cracked a joke, said something and wanted it editing out, which caught my attention! 

He talked about a ideas for a housing project, as I guess this is quite important I found it important, but really as people have said a lot he put this in a clever way..."Piegeon holing yourself as just a Graphic Designer or a Fashion Designer", and that if you have a real passion for design then you shouldn't focus on one or the other but as a whole.

The next thing he came up with, and probably what he is more well-known for was 'Red Or Dead'. Starting up his own buisness by using what he had to then gain a buisness, a career. I thought this was a really good idea, as he started out from nothing and made his life out of something so small. Something that anyone could do. 

He said "Don't forget about what design looks like,but it was the least important part, until the end."

'Push your creative potential"

"Best designers bring own experience"

These comments however small really made me think! 

Packaging Project

Out of the three projects we had this was the one I was least looking forward to.  I really like packaging but it really just isn't my thing.

When we got given the brief I thought it was quite a nice brief we had  to design a new watch box for surfer company Animal. we first had a group day project where we came up with images as a group of Animals products an style. Then individually we had to research further and then design and make the packaging. The first thing I looked at was Animal though I had done this in the group project  I researched it further, looking at the watches and, their style in type, advertising etc. One of the things that seemed to be a big thing in our group was making the boxes recyclable, I decided to keep that on going as I thought it would be a good idea, as I thought Animal may be interested in this concept. I looked further into this but found it hard to find out information on this. All I could find was information about recyclable materials so I  continued with this. Then I looked into the actual design of the box. I found some research from Pentagram.

A set of packaging for Swatch called 'Swatch Irony' which really caught my eye, besides this I looked at other packaging, but this really stood out, as everyone else was coming up with making a box. I thought this would be really unique. I then took this as a starting point for how my packaging would look. I liked how there is a bit where you can see the face. I took this net put it in size and then made up some mockups just out of paper to see if it would work. I should have realised but the inner case needed to be smaller so that it would fit inside, so I redrew it and made a mock up. The next stage was to think about the illustration/ image on the packaging.

For this I looked at View 2 magasine. Which had some really ace illustrations.

D&AD

• D&AD brief to make a direct mail shot for Crisis a well- known organisation that helps the homeless, the target audience is for 30-50 year olds. We have to make awareness and the mail shot has to be creative. intelligent and gritty, we have to consider materials we use for this project.
  

For this project I am working with Martin. Our first idea was to create almost a box/flat box, where by if you pop in a pound the image would change.

Obviously the first thing we did was to research into Crisis the actual organisation, and then research into simple stats about the homeless. We also looked into life stories from being homeless and then organisations helping people to rebuild their lives. After looking at this we had the ideas of making the image change into a homeless person to a person who looks clean shaven, well dressed etc.

The problem with this idea is that we had to think about how we would turn this idea into a reality- how we would fit the money into the box, we thought of using a mechanism where by you put money into a slot and then push this in. But another query we thought about was the safety of sending money in the post. As there have been a lot of questions about sending money in the post about people stealing.

We mainly thought about the images for the next few weeks, about how it should work- the mechanism. Having an image with a homeless man turning into a buisness man (or someone who turns into someone who looks clean, shaven etc). Then we thought about having the mechanism so it was like a billboard so images were sliced and alternate so when they move it showed the transition, another thing that we thought about though for making this was the cost of the thing itself, as we are aware Crisis don't have a lot of money to spend on  this so we needed to consider this as a major thing.

the next thing we thought about was placing homeless person into different scenes, different scenarios, such as a club- outside the club, or inside, but after we looked at different places we thought that this would appeal to a more younger audience, compared to the one we are aiming at. Another place we thought of was a inside/ outside a car, and some other typical places where homeless people would be, we went round town as some added research. We thought of a bank- sort of brings the opposite into the reality.

We then thought this was quite typical and thought that others would think of this, we spoke to Neil and he agreed. 

We had a crit with both Neil and Catell an illustrator who came in and helped us with D&AD. I found her really useful, very good in the way she talks and overall I found her most useful. She said in both her talk and to us to look at recent work, what's now which I found to be one of the most useful pieces of information given to us. Neil also said to look at advertising where by its supposed to be funny and creative- something thats different. We looked at a few of these to be honest on bored. 

These we found really coo, they were so clever.

We then had out talk with Hannah who also came into help us with this competition brief. e literally came up with our idea in this session- or it was the session that made us think the most about an idea. We said about our idea, and then she said about some projects that she had done- bout the one where she sent random items in the post and they al came back, she said as long as you have a stamp on the item it should come through, this made both me and Martin think about sending an object;

• It's something different- and something that hopefully no-one would have thought of.
  

So the next thing to think about was the object would be.

The next day Martin came up with some possibilities, the main one being the key, and then we thought of others I thought of a pen. As previously we was looking at tag lines, we both wrote a list, of possibilities, and then Catell looked at them, she said she would keep away from the obvious words such as door, open, words that were quite typical. So we said about looking at some of the videos we looked at, and one of the comments we saw also, that said something like wonder ever how homeless people have pens, or where do homeless people get pens from, hence why I thought of making a pen. We researched into this small pens and materials you can buy them in, but then we just thought that the key was such a strong idea.

We then looked at materials in which we could make the key and the cost, we went down to a local key cutters and they had some aluminium ones which were really light, we did want them in bright colours, to really stand out, but discussed with Hannnah that really red would be a good colour, pure red like the Crisis logo. But the only colours they did was metallic blue, Then we thought of a clear plastic so we went to model making and managed to get it done there by creating an illustrator file, we designed it so that the logo would be cut out ad then have some etching marks like a key.

When we got it back we was so chuffed with the final key he did five for us, ones where the logo was cut out, and one where it had been etched, we made a decision that the etched one looked the best, and more clear. As we was told when we asked if they could do us some samples.

After we looked at the tag itself, this was a simple matter, we looked at type first, we wanted a san-serif type - nothing to fussy, though we had discussed previously about hand-writing it in a script type of font. but we looked at this and decided to have it in the pure red as we couldn't get the key done in the colour we wanted. So we looked at type and then how to place it as our tag line is;

UNCOMFORTABLE?

We wondered whether to have it in capitals or not. We then placed the type in the middle, to one side and then just slightly off so it was still legible, but could potentially make people feel 'uncomfortable' reading it, as people like it when everything is properly placed, and we slightly slanted it to get more of a feeling of what the tag line says.

Discussion over the key ring itself.

Martin spoke to Neil about our idea. He said he wanted to see some visuals- a poster something to put it into context we thought about putting it on a front door mat, he said there was lots of possibilities of where you could put it,

But back to the tag he said that instead of paper/ card you could get some cheap plastic ones, where you take out the middle, this is just another possibility and i thought it was a good idea, but I got the feeling that Martin liked using paper/ card, but we are going to try both of these and see which one we feel looks better. Then its a case of printing these off and then doing the poster.

Greeting Card Project

I had a crit which really helped me decide what to do . Me. Neil and Claire had a look through my research and they said about the fact that in using the Vernacular photography they came up with a palette, a colour base I could use for my illustrations.
I looked then at more Vernacular Photography. I collected quite a wide range. The more I had the more I had to choose.
The next stage was to find some bits of paper with some text, maybe some old maps, scraps of textured paper literally anything I could find to build up my collage, and scan then in and cut round the bits I want, after this I then came up with the collages. By building up the collages I managed to come up with background colours accordingly.Another reference before I started my final pieces was to look at the artist Sabrina Wardharrison. In my sketchbook I had started to put making tape to fit my research in, and Claire thought this would be a good book to have a look at as it reminded her of this and could be a possibility for a style.  
My next crit where we had to show our finished designs was really use. Some of the comments were that some of the collages looked to modern so they needed to be made more old, my colours were quite sophisticated. We then had overnight in which change the points made to use the day before, so what I did was to change some of the more modern pieces of collage making them more old.


Vernacular Photography
Vernacular Photography is something that I looked at when I researched into what I would like to do for my Greeting Cards project. I first looked at famous hollywood idols, but then I looked at this, I thought this would be better as you almost wonder what has happened in their life/ what they are thinking about, whereas Hollywood idols you know more about their life.

The next stage was to find some bits of paper with some text, maybe some old maps, scraps of textured paper literally anything I could find to build up my collage, and scan then in and cut round the bits I want, after this I then came up with the collages. By building up the collages I managed to come up with background colours accordingly.

I really enjoyed this project and though at the start I had some problems at the start I think I came up with some innovative designs.

My teachers comments:

Your greeting cards came from some solid research and you have used your sketchbook well.You've clearly found some good references and have used them sensitively making the process of your own. You've taken onboard criticism from the critiques and have acted upon it. To improve these further treat every part of the surface as important, some of the backgrounds could do with more detail.

Poster project

First project to design an A3 poster which advertises an object or a social issue. When picking an object think about what the object could represent.

For this project I choose to do the social issue as I thought it would be quite hard to pick an object, one which I could really get into. I think I would get bored of thinking of ways to advertise an object. There are things such as keys etc which open doors etc, but I think I would find it hard to graphically represent. So I decided to choose a social issue- one that hasn't been /or people don't really know about. I first looked through some websites for a social issue that I could base my poster on.I came up with a few ideas like building in third world countries, but its not what I thought it was so I changed my idea. Not knowing a lot of social issues I found it quite hard to  do. But I finally found my issue which was the shorter working week. 

I found out a lot of things around this such as: the fact that Britain's work the most hours than any other country in Europe. Working between 35-37 hours a week.I found things like our pay rates and how much time off we have and holiday time.

My point to get across was that it would be a good idea to have a shorter working week as you would be able to spend more time with the family, and more free time, more time to organise your time with the house etc.

I carried on with my research, I found some interesting things though, like the fact that a shorter working week would cause more stress. I think that when I was thinking about it I only looked at the positive effects it could have on people, but realised some of the negatives of a shorter working week, I read on website that a shorter working week could have some serious health effects. I think some people would prefer it, but others wouldn't like when I asked the class they like a shorter working week. But I think thats because thats them as a student.

My next step was to research into styles of advertising, illustration styles, and advertising companies.  

I the came up with some designs in my sketchbook, just some quick scribbles which lead to other ideas etc, coming up with some tag lines which I found quite hard to do. But used ones that had been used on other pieces, and then coming up with ones of my own based around ones I had looked at.

Then I started my final design, I didn't leave enough time really to do this I found it which I think was a big mistake, I literally had one day to come up with the final piece. I came up with a design in my initial ideas, one which I had developed from my intial ones.I thought of an object to represent, or one that I could work on to do with a shorter working week. Whilst doing my research I saw this one advertisement/ poster which I didn't really get, as it was literally just a white coat-hanger on a black background. Maybe it was just an image, but I quite liked the style of it, just its simplicity. So I decided a calendar anyway would be the best object to use, I didn't make it exactly as simple as what I had seen,not just a calendar in a block of colour (as it would have been hard to see what my advertisement was about).

The next day I had a critique where I some points were brought up about the simplicity of it, such as: saying that the illustration style of it was good, and people pointed out things like the fact that October doesn't have 28 ays in it. Some things which were very small, like maybe changing the type or changing where the tag line was. Another idea was  to take a photograph of an old calendar and then working on top of it, but the whole the point of my design was to make it simple, but I thought it was a good idea as another experiment, something which I could try out anyway.I felt afterwards like I got a good general feedback from this, with good suggestions on how to improve the final outcome.

The day after we had another critique by one of our tutors knowing nothing about what the advertisement was for.

When it cam to mine she said that she thought it was about day light savings- she wondered why october as you change the clocks that month so that was one thing to change, and maybe the illustration style- but I was so set on this working, she also said about looking at the negatives of a shorter working week because many companies would not be happy as it means less money for them, etc.

When I handed in my final I made the weekend into red to potentially show a negative, and then changed the month to february, but she said why february - I felt like I could have put any month and she would have said the same- so I felt either way like i couldn't please, it was a real hard one maybe the style of illustration was wrong.I got such positive feedback from one and then not very good to another (or I felt like this), and handing in.