Studio Practice: April 2016

Friday, 29 April 2016

Module Evaluation

At the start of the module I wanted to be more creative and adventurous with the work I produced, it being the last module I felt I was confident enough to be able to produce more expressive work which I was interested in. When we were briefed on secret seven, I was very confident that I would be able to produce an interesting body of work as it was a subject which interests me, designing for music is something I love doing personally and have done before. I was able to attempt styles I have not yet tried this year such as, collaging, photography and hand painted pieces, I was able to be as creative and expressive as I could with the brief. My final resolution was a combination of photography and photoshop editing to create a series of physcedelic pieces, which I really enjoyed and felt was the most successful brief of the year. With the money brief I was unsure if I would enjoy it at all as it was a subject I had never thought of or been interested in, though as I progressed through the research and directed it to something I was interested in I felt that the work I was producing took shape and made for a successful outcome, though I feel the doubt at the start of the brief hindered me as I was not confident with what to do at all, I know now it could have been a lot better and a more interesting product.
With studio brief four I was even less confident as I was not fully sure of how to work with a group of people I had never worked with before, though at the beginning I expected conflicts, clashes of ideas and differences in style, I found that in reality we worked well, bouncing Ideas off of one and other and producing some genuinely interesting and different work, I felt that the I was hindered by some poor time management as I tried to juggle all the work I had and prioritised some things over others, which is why I feel I have let myself and my group down in ways that I prioritised other projects over this one, this is something I have identified and understand that I need to progress a lot on going into second year. For studio Brief four I was unsure of what to produce, seeing other peoples ideas, considering first years and also keeping in mind to keep it personal to me I felt that I had to make it open to all yet I could make it more focussed. I looked back over my years worked and found that music was a reoccuring theme and that I should go down this route again for the last project, which is when I realised one of the things I would loved to have had was a gig venue guide, having realised gigs were on in places after they had taken place. I produced a small publication based on live music venues in leeds, and the cheap drinks to buy there, I felt that I could put my own style into this and make it personal but also for others, this mind set allowed me to produce what I felt was the best work I had produced all year and a final product which I would purchase myself.
The main things I realised over this module is that my time keeping has been very weak and something I know I need to improve on, in the future I shall prepare timetables, calendars and lists so that I spend my time equally on each brief, yet the work I have produced has been to a high standard and I have been (mostly) confident about the work I have produced.

Name For Exhibition

Name Ideas

- Spare Change
-Stock Art
-Shares In Art
-Print Assets
-Deep Pockets (Noun used to refer to the possession of abundant financial resources)
- Investing In Art
-Working Capital
-Capital
-Stock
-Principal (sum of money lent or invested of which interest is paid)
-Shares
-Property

Group Exhibition Work

Working on from what Nicky had done for the poster for the exhibition, something which set the tone for the rest of the branding, I reworked it to work with the new name we adopted 'Investing In Art' which I found through research of stock market terminology. The large type was not needed to be fully legible as long as the information was clear else where, for example the small type used in the space. I added in also an arrow going up which represents rising price of something (Stock market term) it also shows prosperity and positivity. The arrow design was chosen to be the final resolution for the groups main poster.

I played about with a digital style Idea looking at retro digital stock market design. Continuing using the type chosen by the group I attempted to make up some invite sheets which could be sent out, using green lines across the design to give the effect of looking at a screen, which is how they looked in the 80's when they became general in offices and business'. I used the same style on the envelope which would be sent out to the Graphic design studios which we chose to invite around leeds.

Using the same style as the poster we produced, I mocked up this poster/invite to be sent off to graphic design studios so that they have something to keep as well as an invite. The style of the concept is kept throughout the design of this mock up and would be placed in this envelope again with the name of the exhibition on. The black poster can be folded along the lines which separate the large type.

Exhibition

I researched into exhibitions which had been done before to get an idea of what is common practice and what is innovative, different in an art exhibition. I needed to consider the requirements for an exhibition, such as, lighting of the exhibit itself, branding, space and most importantly the art which will be on display.

Sunniya Saleem is a visual artist with years of experience in watercolours, mixed media, graphic design and creative arts. Her solo exhibitions uses rough materials such as steel rods to hang her work. The style of Sunniyas design means you have to maneuver through the work and walk around objects to see the work instead of just being flat on walls.

Design by Tokyo - Danish Design studio exhibits all there work in frames. A concept which would be interesting to use, it could give an essence of prestige to the work.

Money Screen Printed Final Evaluation

The final resolutions to the project came out really well, the image I used to show the Mod subculture came out really interesting due to the bitmap edit I did on it, the main parts of the image, such as the four people at the centre of the image came out very clear with the screen printing picking up on the shadowed parts and coming out like a real black and white photo, not a screen print. The Gil sans type which I used came out clearly and legible and, having struggled in previous screen print attempts to create a print with small legible type, I did not find fault in it this time. The 'watermark' style shapes of the lines and mod symbol, printed rather well, although the thin lines did fade on some prints and on others the paint smudged some how, I realised I should have used a thicker stroke for the image though I wanted them to be thin and in the background, a thicker stroke would have pulled more attention to them. The block of colour behind it all was the biggest struggling I encountered with the ink running on a number of occasions, I struggled for a long time to get a solid rectangular shape, luckily the best resolutions of this block of colour came out on the stock paper I chose to use.

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of the brief with a successful screen print being the outcome yet I felt I could have gone further with the design and development, I felt the resolution could be far stronger had I gone deeper into developments. I feel I have met the brief with a different style and concept of bank note, as well as making a design which can and has been screen printed, meeting the main brief requirement.

Thursday, 28 April 2016

Group Evaluation

Money Digital Devlopment

Having an idea of my concept which I realised through research and experimentation I moved onto designing through digital means, having found imagery of subcultures through my research I edited them converting the images to bitmapped ones, I broke down how I could represent subcultures through simplistic imagery. I Broke down each aspect of what I felt I needed on the note:

Imagery (Subculture image)

Type (Simple type - Gill Sans)

colour (Block of yellow sitting behind everything)

water mark (line and iconic symbol of subculture)

The type I chose is gill sans a simple, clear legible font which works well at small size. To arrange the type I used an 11x11 grid system. The simple style is modern, easily read and clear.

This is the style of water mark which represents the RAF style target symbol, which was used as an emblem for the mods, stitching it to there clothes and using it on there vespas.

This is the design I would like to screen print, it is the idea I was attempting in my drawn experiments, The colour yellow is inspired by the fashion of the subculture, wearing bright colours such as yellow suit trousers. I tried to make the aspects of the designs relate to the subculture it was representing.

I played about with the design looking at type, colour and layout, attempting to find different styles which would work, yet I felt the Yellow resolution is simple and clear to my concept.

I attempted a punk one to show my concept further. I looked at the punk subculture and found there symbol to be the anarchy symbol of an A in a circle. I utilised the images of punks which I found, using an iconic image such as Reids 'God Save The Queen' image of the Queen edited, I also used an image of punks surrounded by the police. I chose the colour red for this design as a sign of there subculture as it was a re-occuring colour used by punks (Fashion, music and art).

Money - Drawings Experiments

Having extensively researched money design past and present and come up with a concept I began to generate hand drawn Ideas of money print. These were based on the images I had seen in Richard Barnes Book 'Mods!' I also used the research into the current english not, too see how type and image was displayed. I had to consider the elements which make it currency, obviously the amount of money the note grants the bearer, who was issuing the note, in this case the bank of England (I wanted to make the note simplistic yet seem usable which is why I chose to include the issuer)

I initially wanted to produce Notes, based on subcultures, which featured an image and a small paragraph of type about the subculture, the style I drew above is what I initially wanted my design to look like, yet I had to consider the requirements of the brief which meant that I had to produce my note via analogue methods of design (Monopint, screen print) and that Type at a small size can be lost through screen print, I had to have my type at a size of 12 or higher. Meaning the type would take up alot of the design If i was to put a paragraph on the page, I realised this and knew I would have to make the design of the note more simple.

I continued to try the same style until moving on to digital designs, which I felt would be easier to fully understand my concept.

STUDIO BRIEF FOUR - DEVELOPMENT

I had My concept and had looked at the places which would make the content of my publication as well as considering the research into zines I did, the target audience and visuals of the design I formed it using InDesign, I made it as basic as I could initially to keep it simple yet then began to play with colour and imagery and shape to create something visually pleasing as well as informative.

The structure of each page would be set up with the name of the place, address and opening times on one half of the spread and information about the place on the opposite facing page. The image of the building/interior/live band would sit in line with the type at a good size which sometimes meant the image would go across both pages. I wanted the cheap drink idea to be a bright sharp side point to the information, like an after note in a sense, as seen below in situe the sticker like effect would sit atop the image and be clear to read, not only does this make the page more bright, it makes it pop rather than just writing it alongside the other information about the place.

For Each bar I used the colours around the building and on there logos/websites to identify a recognised colour relationship for each place for example

Belgrave - Bright Pink (Inspired by the neon pink signs around the bar)

Brudenell - Mustard Yellow (Taken from there official logo)

O2 Academy Leeds - Dark Purple (Taken from the lights they shine onto the building during a gig)

Oporto - Dark Red (inspired by the lighting in the venue)

Nation of shopkeepers - Dark Brown (Inspired by the dark earth toned furniture)

Headrow House - Green (Inspired by the plants around the bar)

Smokestack - Beige (Inspired by the colours used on there website and logo)

Leeds Union - Blue (Inspired by the colours used on the website and bar decor)

Wardrobe - Orange (Inspired by the Colours of there logo at the bar)

For the sticker I used cheap drinks which I had drunk at the venues myself - these are the cheapest lagers of the place guide

Belgrave - Amstel

Brudenell - Red stripe

Oporto - Tuborg

O2 leeds - Fosters

Wardrobe - Heineken

Union - Carlsberg

Nation - Red stripe deal

headrow - Peroni

Smokestack - Brooklyn Brew

I attempted a few different ways to incorporate the related colour to a page, I did some ideas based on suggestions from my peers. Firstly I was told to put in some lines to represent music waves, a concept I was unsure of but experimented with, I felt it did not do anything to add to the design, but were just there on the page as a decoration, I felt the page looked better as a simple design without these wavy shapes. Another concept was to have the information type box as the related colour yet I felt that it took away from the information, it was purely visual effect and took away the simplicity of the design. The third style I tried was have a colour border around the image, again I felt this was unnecessary and just another visual aspect which was not really needed. Instead I changed the type face to the colour chosen for each venue and placed it behind the original black title of the name, I made it so it was off to the write, shadowing the bold black text with colour type behind it, this was subtle, clear and worked really well with the simple style I wanted to put across.

Below Is the finalised Digital design of the publication, the 11x11 grid I used was followed yet each page is slightly changed up to keep it fresh and enjoyable for my target audience of freshers, not only music lovers but people new too leeds who want new experiences, it is an open topic as anyone can take something from it even if it is the cheap drink guide.