Go TV idents

A quick update for this brief, I'm still playing around using the logo I developed into fairly subtle motion graphics. This is my latest tester:

Alpha Road site mock-up

The CD covers are just about done now but I also wanted to do a few other bits of design for the band, so these are two directions for a website design using the graphical style I have developed for the band.

Xmas Card brief (Now with missing apostrophe, oops!)

I have worked up the flash file a bit more and changed the colours, size and font but kept the same basic idea. I have already spent far longer than I wanted to on this so hopefully this idea will be ok. I talked to the technicians about a animated gif version and it is possible but the file size will be quite a bit bigger, around 1MB rather than 150k that the flash file came to.

'Still' version

Edit: GIF version now complete (above). This came in at 2.3MB which is just about acceptable for emailing people. It loops nicely but is jerkier that I would ideally like. Making this work in various formats has been a headache, but I have learnt a lot about the successful delivery of this sort of graphic.


Animated flash version link: http://megaswf.com/simple_serve/78897/

College xmas card mini brief

Another nice little live brief I'm working on to design an animated xmss card that will be mailed out from the college. Quiet sophistication is the idea, think Harvey Nicks, not Wilkinsons.

So far I have two possible design directions,

I think they were looking for a animated Gif file but i'm not sure how this will work in practice as they can be a bit clunky, movements are jerky and anything too complex results in a massive file size, but while i'm struggling with gifs I made a flash tester using after effects. Anyway the idea is very simple just falling snowflakes behind some text. 

Click here to see, try to ignore the adverts and white background, on the crapy hosting page. 

http://megaswf.com/simple_serve/75878/

My Second idea is not animated yet, and the design needs more work but its potentially far more interesting if I can nail it. An image made up from bits of a font, and no this isnt looking sophisticated yet but it could with  more work I think.

Student Union mini brief

Lana our SU president passed on a quick brief to me that needed to be done the same morning for the protest march tomorrow. These will be A5 flyers to be handed out to students on their way into college. I also made an A3 poster but this probably wont be used.

The finished version chosen by Lana with union logo (to be printed B&W not colour)

Alternative versions

Finished Flatland poster

Finally done, printed full scale 90x90cm, after yet more little changes. I did a test print on an ink jet printer yesterday and I was really unhappy with the colours, nothing at all like the laser print outs I was working with. The colours looked far too bland and grey so I changed the colour mixes I was using and also looked at an alternative with a blue/red mix. In the end I couldn't decide so I printed both, but seeing them printed it was the blue and red one that I liked better so that will be the final version. I also corrected a few minor typographical issues, little details that would probably only bother me but I wanted this to be a piece I could be happy with so it was worth the effort. Overall this is the biggest and most complex piece of printed work I have ever done so I am actually feeling a sense of achievement completing this.

Flatland: final test prints (probably)

I think the design for the giant poster is just about finished now. I experimented quite a bit with the colour but none were beating the grey version so I decided to use the overlays to build up a grey when its overprinted. Unfortunately the laser printer isn't reproducing this accurately so I may just have to hope it works when printed, it should do.

To explain the green colour is made from 8% yellow ink, 8% cyan + 4% black. The purplish colour is 8% magenta and 4% black. So (and this is the clever bit) when combined in the overlay section it adds together as 8% yellow, 8% cyan, 8% Magenta + 8% black = Grey!

The main text is 100% black and the title is 40% black

Flatland Typography

This brief is a typographic (ISTD) brief so I do want to make sure the typeface decisions I am making are carefully considered. I have found the style I want using a traditional serif font but I wanted to test more to see if I can give the design an extra edge, again this is all in the detail, but as the font will be so big a wrong choice will stand out, and a good choice will look fantastic. I dont want to customise a font for this as there are many great faces out there that will work for this but I will kern each letter in the final design.

Font tests, from top left clockwise: Cochin, Adobe Caslon pro, Adobe Garamond Pro, Hoefler Text, Sabon, Century Schoolbook.

My preference was Cochin and a few other people I showed these tests pointed out this one as well so thats decided. I havent used this font before so I looked it up to find out a little more. Adobe have a nice info page on it click here . Its French and designed in 1912 so its perhaps a little new for Flatland but only by a few years. Its got a traditional look with a little twist that I feel is perfect for this project.

Flatland Brief, final design direction

I'm really pleased that finally my experimentation has paid off and think I have an interesting solution to the giant poster design. I was constrained by the maximum width the digital printer can handle (900mm) so I was thinking of extending the length to about 1400mm to comfortably fit in the whole book at 9pt text. Now I have decided to sacrifice the point size slightly to make it a square format print (900x900mm) After I did this it all seemed to fall into place, I made shapes of various sides, from a triangle to a 12 sided polygon and arranged these in a grids. this still looked too 'flat' so I copied the arrangement and offset it to create a slight illusion of depth. This is looking far far better than my previous versions and I love the simplicity of this approach, (why am I finding the more I refine a design, the less there is actually in it?)

This is a full scale print made from tiled A3 sheets I assembled in our studio. I still wasn't sure on colour choice at this point so I just used greys for this but it was still quite effective. The shapes looked best if they don't align exactly to the text columns I found, I settled on a 6x6 grid for the shapes and 10 columns of text, this gives a nice symmetry and a nice overlay effect.   

Alpha Road product shots

I now have the designs for the CD cover/posters finished and printed so the opportunity to learn a bit more about taking good product shots came at the perfect time. It turns out its quite simple but its all about knowing how to use the correct lighting. I have only ever used studio flash lighting before so it was great to learn how to use constant lights correctly.


I have spent some time (probably too long) tweaking both version of the design now. I finally got the text and copyright info off the band for the backs, but then I decided to completely redo the typography after speaking to Graham, its all about the fine details so I hope this is noticed!

'My version' Front

Back

 Folded out
(the CD sits in a slit cut inside, its designed but I'm having trouble getting it printed so I will rephoto when I have it.)

'Band Version' front

 Back

 Folded out

 Reverse side

Poster side

Alpha Road colour tests

I think the basic design for the two versions is now there so I am now testing and refining. Choosing colours is one of the things I find the hardest in the design process. It is so subjective but also its makes such a massive difference to the successful outcome of a design, even to the extent of making of breaking a design I think.

Flatland brief layout testers

These are test prints of ideas for the layout for the large scale Flatland 'book on a poster' idea. I am still keen to use an overprinted style for these. I think this will work well on this large scale (i'm thinking of approx 1300mm X 900mm) because it draws you closer to see if you can read the small text. I do want all the text to be readable, though I'm not expecting someone to read this from start to finish, its a display piece; primarily designed to intrigue.

I have done many experiments with different fonts for this brief to get the right feel, these are just the ones that made it as far as a test print out.

 Testing a section full scale in white text over dark teal and gold

Different font and more condensed layout, this is a very dark overprint on the text, its still just readable up close but looks completely knocked out from a distance.

Last weeks progress crits..

Not blogged till now, oops, anyway the crits were positive and I got quite a bit from them, mostly confirming my own thoughts but sometimes thats all thats needed. I hadn't done as much new work that I would have liked because catching up with my dissertation took two full days out of the week, its going to be a juggling act from now onwards between graphics and dissertation unfortunately. Anyway enough excuses. these are the sheets I prepared showing the status of my current briefs as of that point.

Go Tv sting

I have redefined this brief as a series of short idents/stings to promote the various styles of programming for the channel. I want a level of subtlety and quiet sophistication to them and I want them to all work well as a set. The logo I developed is very strong and geometrical so I want to play with softer movements and transparencies to counter this. I am looking at how Channel Four have done this and its a major inspiration for this project.

This is a tester to try to capture the 'feel' I want, definatly getting close, and I can see how this could run as a set with many variations.

Alpha Road Progress

I sent Tom some of the ideas I had done for the band and thankfully he sent an email back saying he loved them! I was surprised that the one he liked best was the ultra bold text layout, I didnt think it really had the feel they were going for in their music but maybe this contrast will work for them. I have taken two ideas further, this one and the arrows text which was my favourite. They also liked the idea of having a folded poster as packaging for the CD so I have done a little experimenting on this.

The ultra blocky text idea refined: Tom commented the band name and the title could be mixed together in my previous layout so I have used a different orientation for each now as well as the different colour, works better I think. This would be a design for the front of a simple card slip-case

As a poster fold-out. I'm still not sure how the CD would be held inside, the cheapest way would just be a small sticker to hold it all shut probably.

The Arrow text idea as a fold out, still needs refining a bit, I'm not happy with the front cover panel, I wont use this font again for this idea I have decided. It will look interesting as a poster when done I think.

Flatland idea Layout tester

Ok I did this the other week but I have not been sure what I feel about this direction so I havent blogged this until now. The idea behind this is a giant poster (90cm by 180cm) with the entire text of the book on one side in 8pt Caslon. This was a tester I did just on two sheets of A3 to get the feel of how it would look

In many ways this would work and answer the brief but something was nagging me about it. I have now read most of the book and have a better feel for the text, and this is making me question the need to have this readable in my outcome. The ideas in the book (and this little rough illustrations) are far more interesting than reading the text as a whole. Doing this tester made me realise how interesting this tiny text could look, amazingly you could (just) still read it. I am now wondering if I should explore this, and use this small dense text in layouts as a sort of illustration on the themes in the book...