OUGD505 Ethical Design STUDIO BRIEF 2

Studio brief two will encapsulate all of the Degree so far into the course, testing on what has been learnt and the capabilities of all. It will look at thorough practice and specialist knowledge that we have acquired. The brier requirements want to see an awareness of ethical, social, cultural and commercial considerations throughout the project. We need to consider roles of Graphic design process and the professional aspects of the work (finances, legality, etc.). Demonstrate an informed understanding of the chosen ethical topic and the considerations that accompany it. Produce technically competent and conceptually appropriate outcomes.

STUDIO BRIEF TWO - LOOK AT

Product
Range
Distribution = Distribution to audience

Social, Political and ethical change.

Prepare a Body of research - Primary and Secondary

An issue or a social/ethical concern

+Identify a problem

+Research it

+Create a Brief

+Generate Ideas

+Develop

+Produce

Interim submission (Body of research presentation) - 20th march

Submission - 18th May

Collaborative - Group ideas and direction

Main Problems
Trial & Error (making mistakes)
Coping with digital errors 
Idea process generation (creative block)
Pitching your ideas (confidence and help)
Organisation of work (portfolio advice)
Coping with criticism - one of the hardest areas a practising designer must face. Aiming to produce something that initially would be seen as something negative as something that has benefitted more in the process of feedback. Turning a piece of 'negative' design into a 'positive.' This can be approached using unconventional design and turning it into something that creates a clear form of visual thinking.

Following a group discussion we came to the conclussion that the concept was to encourage young designers to question the rules of contemporary graphic design by respected individuals like Massimo Vignelli and Jan Tschichold by producing experimental pieces of design that break the rules. Breaking down the conceptions of good graphic design and the 'rules' which have been set by others, we want to inspire freedom and expression through the medium of poster.


Layout & Photography: Micheal
Grid Systems & Typography: Connor
Photo Edits, Imagery & Illustration: Emma

Collaborative - influential Designer research

DAN FRIEDMAN -

American Designer who studied at Schule fur Gestaltung Basel, there he studied under Wolfgang Weingart and Armin Hofmann before moving back to the US in 1969. Friedman's design style is post-modernist and new wave type, though influences from swiss-punk are clear within his design. Using minimal colour palettes, usually using just two colours within his work, predominantly black. His posters usually contain edited and manipulated imagery edited and combined together producing interestingly composed design.

PAULA SCHER -

Is an american graphic designer whos known for here typographic work and being the first female principal of Pentagram. Scher developed a typographic solution based on Art deco and Russian constructivism, which incorporated outmoded typefaces into her work. The Russian constructivism had provided Scher inspiration for her typography; she didn’t copy the early constructivist style but used its vocabulary of form on her works. Scher plays with swiss punk styles and techniques, again using a limited colour palette of two colours and playing with image and type combinations and forms.

Considering the way these designers experiment with type and image and do not conform to the 'Rules' of graphic design, they use their own rules and techniques to create powerful imagery. The use of limited colours makes the design simple yet also seems bold and clear cut, it resonates ideas of simple two colour prints, which were used in mass produced posters. 

MUBI - Distribution Research

THE BAG THING-  

Bag Thing is a targeted event marketing and distribution network based in Greater Manchester. The Bag thing offer high quality flyering and postering services, alongside online exposure throughout our website and social media platforms, and other bespoke promotional packages. Artists, labels, promoters, venues and beyond – who return month after month, are a testament to BagThing’s cost-effective reliable and flexible service. Here are a few kind words from some of our customers.

Contributors - 

Soup Kitchen
Deaf Institute
MAMA
Ministry Of Sound
Green Man Festival
Gigs and Tours.com

These range of businesses use The Bag Thing to easily distribute advertisements, posters and event listings to their targeted audiences. The Bag Thing is placed in bars, concert halls, shops and cafes around the Manchester and Salford areas especially in the student areas of the city. The easy bag consolidates a range of posters, ads and booklets which promote the best places around manchester.

The Deaf Institute - The deaf institute is a manchester nightclub, and music venue which holds regular events, the Deaf Institute uses the Bag Thing to promote their event listings, this is in the form of a small booklet which clearly puts across the clubs aesthetic and the information on events. The small handheld booklet is a clear simple effective way to promote the bar, this technique can be incorporated to promote MUBI. A small movie listings booklet placed in cinemas and as well in distribution methods such as inclusion in the Bag Thing. This will help to promote to the target audience of young adults (Students). 

The Booklet can work with the posters to create an aesthetic and relatable style for MUBI to be recognised for. 

Research - Collaborative - Rules - OUGD503

Vignellis Canon 

Whilst considering the group discussion on how we can approach the brief and how we ourselves perceive it, it became clear to look at the rules we were taught when first arriving at university, the books we were given to read and how we felt about them. One of the main examples that was mentioned was Vignellis Canon, a book we had all been told to read on numerous occasions and something that is revered as some sort of design Bible, though we all read it at the time, each member of the team agreed it didn't really change the way they wanted to design, as well we came to the conclusion that Vignelli crushes creativeness in a way, claiming that it must be design driven straight forward and subtle, which does mute creative styles and methods of production. 

Further thinking about Vignelli, and considering the concept of the project it became clear that the so called rules in the canon are rules we have all broken or not considered whilst designing as this is our style and to follow these rules would mean changing our style and not following creativeness, these rules that we have broken can be looked at closer in detail, with each rule being documented and broken on the page, this could work well as content for the poster.

As a group we considered, looking at the individual rules and seeing if we could choose three, each rule being the theme of each poster. We began by re-reading the canon and taking quotes from it and seeing if we could utilise the rules into themes.


- 'Choose the proper size of type in relation to the width of a column: 8 on 9, 9 on 10, 10 on 11 for columns upto 70 mm, 12 on 13, 14 on 16 for columns up to 140 mm and 16 on 18, 18 on 20 for longer columns.'

- " We do not like the use of type as a decorative element and we are horrified by any type deformation"

- 'It is essential that design is imbued with visual strength and unique presence to achieve its purpose.'

- 'Visual strength can be achieved also by using delicate layouts or materials'

- 'Appropriateness directs us to the right kind of media, the right kind of materials, the right kind of scale, the right kind of  expression, colour and texture.'

- 'No matter what the solution must be appropriate' 

- 'Design without discipline is anarchy' 

- 'Good design is never boring, only bad design is' 

- 'Semantics for me, is the search for the meaning of wherever we have to design'

- 'Semantics Eventually become an essential part of the designers being a crucial component of the natural process of designers and the obvious point of departure for design'

- 'Mies, my great mentor said "God is in the detail" that is the essence of syntax: The discipline that controls the proper use of grammar in the construction of phrases and the articulation of a language, design.'

- 'Syntactic consistency is of paramount importance in graphic design, as it is in all human endeavours'

- 'Whatever we do, if not understood, fails to communicate and is wasted effort'

- 'We like design to be intellectually elegant, that means elegance of the mind, not one of the manners, elegance that is the opposite of vulgarity'

- 'We desire that culture of obsolescence. We feel the moral imperative of designing things that will last a long time'

- 'Attention to details requires discipline. There is no room for sloppiness, for carelessness, for procrastination'

- ' Design without discipline is anarchy, an exercise of irresponsibility'

- 'Contradiction can sometimes reinforce ambiguity, but more often it is a sign of discontinuity and lack of control'

- 'Ambiguity and contradiction can enrich a project but can equally sink the end results.'

With the concept of bending and breaking the rules the quotes can be used as a parody of themselves, the quotes can feature in the poster design though the rule is not being used, for example having a poster which has no design discipline though it has vignellis quote on discipline as content.

Quarry Hill Project - Design development

The research undertaken helped to form the project in the way that it influenced the choice to use photography of the old Quarry Hill flats,using images from Peter Mitchells book to produce a striing image which shows the might of this former building. Explore how type could fit onto the design and what colours could be used. With the project Being limited to traditional print methods of production, all the images had to be converted toa half tone so that they can be used in print. 

Quarry Hill Flats - Leeds Public Spaces

Quarry Hill Flats 30th March 1938 -

The Quarry Hill site forms part of two Improvement Schemes commenced under "The Housing of the working classes Act, 1890" one relating to "York Street Insanitary Area" 1896, the other to the "Quarry Hill Unhealthy Area" 1901. The two areas were comprised of a total of 66-75 acres on which were 2790 houses, 53 public houses and several other properties purchased under compulsory order of demolition, 1901. A total of 2147 houses, displacing approximately 9060 persons, were demolished prior to 1930. Most of the remaining houses have since been demolished and further purchases made in order to provide a site for present development.

The Site -

Situation - Quarry Hill is situated within half a mile north-east of the centre of the city and forms the focal point of the east end of the Headrow. The site is bounded on the north by New York road, on the south and east by York Street and Marsh Lane, and on the west by St.Peters Street and Eastgate.

Suitability - The site is well elevated and has a gradual rise from the South-West to the North-East. It is surrounded by wide thoroughfares and served with bus and tram transport. The Central bus station is now in course of erection, adjoins the site. Schools are adjacent to the site, also the Leeds Parish Church, St Marys Church, and St Patricks Roman Catholic Church and School. The principal shopping streets of the city and the Kirkgate Market are within a few minutes walk.

Development - 

The scheme has been planned as a self-contained community and is an open vertical development rather than one of horizontality, planned with the object of obtaining the maximum amount of light, air and public space. 

Dwellings - 938 dwellings are included in the scheme, the allocation being:

Type A1 - two-room dwellings - 80

Type A2 - three-room dwellings - 400

Type A3 - four-room dwellings - 394

Type A4 - five-room dwellings - 36

Type A5 - six-room dwellings - 28

= 938

Density - 36 dwellings per acre.

Storeys - from 2 to 8.

Population - It was estimated that the dwellings will house 3280 persons or 125 persons per acre.

Amenities - 

The amenities include - Thirty-one stores available for prams, cycles and hawkers' barrows. A refuse disposal station providing for the disposal of all refuse, which will be conveyed from the dwellings in underground suction pipes. A communal laundry fitted with steam and electrical equipment and providing for 64 sets of washing and drying equipment, together with ironing room, attendants' room, cloakroom and lavatories, also a boiler house with special provision for obtaining auxiliary heat generated in the incinerator in the refuse disposal station.

A small radio by-wire sub-station from which wireless programmes can be relayed to the dwellings. A small electricity sun-station was included at the request of the electricity committee. Provision has also been made for a small mortuary, or "chapel of rest", also two estate offices and the necessary maintenance stores.

The site also had space reserved and plans prepared for a community centre, including a hall to seat 520 people, with stage and dressing rooms also a smaller hall (Wich could have been divided into a number of rooms) and a refreshment room, kitchen servery. The plan also included a child welfare centre at the ground floor level and a small pavilion serving two bowling greens and two tennis courts. The pavilion can be made available during the day-time for use as a sun balcony by children.

Public Space -

Playgrounds - Five Equipped playgrounds (incorporating small shelters with lavatories and drinking fountains) are included for children of varying ages.

Recreation grounds - In the centre of the development, provision is made by the terracing of the land for two bowling greens and two tennis courts. 

Ornamental greens - Large areas will be laid out as ornamental greens and shrubberies and planted with varieties of flowering trees and provided with adequate seating conditions.

Construction work began on Quarry Hill Flats in the 1930's and were ready for habitation in 1938 though construction continued for much time after. The Flats were modelled on Karl Marx Hof flats in Vienna and built by Leeds City Council. It was the largest housing scheme in the country at the time and aimed to incorporate the latest housing ideas and techniques. 

The Flats were to have solid fuel ranges, electric lighting, a refuse disposal system and communal facilities. The steel frame and concrete construction was to prove disastrous and in 1978 the whole complex was demolished. 

Quarry Hill Key Reference Points -

• Previous slums on the site were back to back houses. 
• Crowded houses and communities with no proper sanitation.
• Council recognised something had to be changed about the unclean areas of the city.
• Slums needed to be improved or demolished.
• By 1914 half the slum dwellings in quarry hill had been emptied and demolished.
• People were rehoused in the suburbs.
• Many working class people missed the close-knit communities of the back to back terraces and also wanted to live in the city.
• Leeds City Council decided to build flats on the Quarry Hill site, providing affordable housing for council tenants.
• Charles Jenkinson and the Director of Housing, the architect R.A.H Livett, decided to base the design on Karl Marx Hof in Vienna. 
• New style estate with huge blocks of flats.
• Communal public spaces and facilities for tenants.
• Formal Gardens
• Courtyard
• Playgrounds and kindergarten
• Laundries
• Shops
• Flowers cascading down from the balconies which impressed delegation from those who visited Leeds
• QH designer also visited an estate called 'Cite De La Muett' at Dracy in France to look at the revolutionary building techniques which had been used there, which was designed by Eugene Mopin.
• Mopin was commissioned to produce a structural design for Quarry Hill. The 'Mopin System', as it became to be known, used a light steel frame encased in pre-cast concrete units.
• Using the Mopin System meant that construction of quarry hill did not require scaffolding.
• The system eliminated the need for plastering or brick-work, so there was no need for a skilled labour force.
• No skilled workforce made the project very economical
• The scheme was ment to be 800 flats but the heights of the buildings were increased to seven or sometimes eight storeys and the number of flats became 938.
• Livett's original designed incorporated a community hall, seating 520 people, with a stage and dressing rooms, 20 shops, indoor and outdoor swimming pools and a wading pool, even an estate mortuary to lay the dead.
• In the final Design, the swimming pools were replaced with 2 tennis courts and a bowling green but these were never completed.
• The flats used the new Garchey waste disposal method.
• The garchey is the mechanism in the original kitchen sink into which you are meant to put your wet rubbish – vegetable peelings etc. – and items like cans and bottles.

MUBI - Photographs to consider for use

MUBI - CINEMA PHOTOGRAPHY

Having realised the aims and concept for the brief I began to compile images and screen grabs from movies which are currently and have previously featured on MUBI. This was to get a range of visual ideas of how the posters can work using movie content shots. The range of colour and black and white imagery gives a sense of how the project can work in terms of colour scheme, using black and white images would enable the use of MUBI's colour scheme which is a requirement in the brief. The black and white images can also relay ideas of timelessness and a classic age of cinema which is highly regarded and available to stream on the site.