General House Style Project... Plus Other Stuff

After my initial design it was pointed out to me that the line counts as an illustration and from this would not satisfy the brief. However after some editing i have now not only made a stylish document but also complied with the original working brief.

Other notable pieces of work this week include my Solving Problems Through Design module. After weeks of looking into replacing plastics with paper to make the packaging more green friendly, I have made a huge breakthrough.

One of the people at my place of work pointed me towards a television show in which a women makes things from palm leaves. This can be directly applied to my project. If all Ipod packaging was me from this instead of recycling it the packaging can go into the green bin to make compost :)

It's the last week of term next week which mean its deadline day from this terms work....I should get it all done though. One thing I have improved upon is my organisational skills.

House Style Project

After weeks of typing out the general house style guide I have finally came up with my first "draft" of what will be the final document. It is currently now up on Facebook for feedback...

Letterbox Project

Progress with the letterbox project has been made this week. After having made some designs of what I would like my box to look like I finally decided on a design. From this I have started making my box out of MDF. Here are some images of the letterbox so far...

Final Project Idea?

After having a rather mellow first two weeks of this project I have finally stumbled on the news article that could form the basis of my letter box project. Voyeurism...

Illustration Class

Over the past few weeks I have had my Developing Illustration Concepts class. This class is headed by Francis Lowe. My drawing skills are not my strong point but I like to think over the past few weeks that they have improved. Here is an example of the improvement. Not too bad?

Opportunity...

 

 

University hasn't been the only thing that has grasped my attention over the past few months. Having played guitar for a few years I decided it was time to form my own band. I really have enjoyed playing in this band and having finally decided on the name (Versity 92) I thought it was time to start a Facebook page. It's at this point an opportunity arose. The band needed some a new logo to feature on our new page so i got out the laptop and started designing various styles of logos. Here are some examples.

The Big Draw Work

A live project that i have had to participate in over the past few weeks was for the Big Draw Project. There were clients who wanted ideas for possible posters etc. Here were some of the ideas that I came up with as part of the group.

New Blog

I started off this academic year doing my PDP (Personal Development P...) On the University apprtoved blog know as PebblePad. This i have found to be over the past few months to be a waste of time as it it quite childish in a way. This blog so far has impressed. The transfer of information all at once will seem odd but it's just me transferring past entires in to catch up :)

Typography 146DVA Week 1

Finally started the Typography module for 146 DVA. For this module there are two briefs to satisfy in 5 weeks. Sounds easy.... It really isn't. Just started on the first brief for now. Making a contain for a letter that's 200 x 200 x 200 mm as response to a current news story. My first port of call was to decide what story to actually respond to. After searching the internet i found two stories of interest. The stadium name change that was going on at Newcastle United and hackers overloading Facebook with pornographic material. I started to mind map my idea and see where it takes me. As for a response i quick cam up with an idea that would satisfy my my brief to a certain point. The only hurdle was the size of the container. I want to hang a new Facebook logo in the middle of a computer screen. However as soon as you start to take one apart they blow up. It's a good job i questioned this before i started opening one up. To get around this problem i plan to make a vacuum formed container that looks identical to a computer screen. This way it will satisfy the brief.

I will continue to work on my first project brief and start to work on the second brief this week.

Visual Communication 1 - Week 5 of 5

This weeks task was to make a manifesto about my own practice. This manifesto was to be made up of three words. This i felt was a good task. It helped me to look at myself as a person. My strengths and weaknesses in art and design and identify how i work. I started in Simon Bell's seminar writing down the words that he had used to describe how other people work and then i looked up these words to see if they match how i work. Immediately i had come up with a few options and explored the meaning and looked at there inverse to see if i would want to be called that. From this i found my three words and encased these words into  box with a black edge. Simple and effective. Just how i work.

On reflection i think i have done well with this project. I could have possibly looked at more words but this would have made my selection more difficult.

Visual Communication 1 - Week 4 of 5

This week was logo design. Our task was to create a new logo for Argos which would help them expand there business into China. I started by mind mapping ideas that i have had for the sort of new logo that might work for the company. I also looked at the sort of stereotypical things that you would expect to see at Argos. This helped me to visualize more outcomes to the problem.
I looked at many different successful logos that have not changed over time due to there iconic design. This helped me to pin point keys things i would need for my own designs. I draw a few possible sketched ones and made a final drawing from one of my initial ideas.
The second logo was made form something that you would not usually associate with art. I chose to use tin foil. This did not work out as i would have liked.
The final logo was drawn using Photoshop. This is one that i thought came out well.
The critique helped me notice that my originally drawn logo needed something extra to help people know that it was part of Argos. Something that after a while could be taken away. This critique was helpful.

On reflection I am disappointed that I wasn't able to make an effective logo using items that were not regularly associated with drawing.

Visual Communication 1 - Week 3 of 5

For week 3 of 5 our task was to take an advertisement and condense it down to make a billboard design. I started this project by looking at all of the different adverts and then mind mapped ideas for a few of them. I then looked at different types of adverts to help me make a design for my own. From this I chose the advert that I would work on for the week and started to sketch out some designs for it. However so far on this course i have struggled with my drawing because i believe it to be one of the weakest aspects of my practice. Hopefully this is something that will improve with the weeks to come. Having made my final piece i was relatively happy with what i had done however from looking at the critique sheets this made me change my mind. I found that the composition was not as well planned as i thought it to be and that the advert may not have been clear enough to the viewer. These are the sort of errors that i hope to move out of my work.

This week has shown me that I need to work hard on my drawing skills and practice a lot more than i do currently.

Visual Communication 1 - Week 2 of 5

For this next week project our task was to make an illustration for a book called "The Necklace". After having read the book and the brief I started to mind map the sort of images that came into my head when I thought about the story. From the rather obvious images like the necklace itself down to the type of transport used in the narrative. After mind mapping I researched different book covers and looked an different types of book illustration to give me some inspiration. After doing this i knew what sort of image I was after. I did the photo shoot and tried to take as many different types of compositions for my images so that i would have a wider selection. I then made contact sheets so i could judge the potential of each of the images before I made my final edits. Using black and white imagery for the illustration I found to add more drama to the piece. During the critique session that week i gave myself 3 out of 5. This was due to the image quality but that's one of the few things i would change about the week.

On reflection I believe that i have done well with this project. However i still believe there is still room for improvement in my images. Not bad for a weeks work.

Visual Communication 1 - Week 1 of 5

I have now started the wonderful journey that will be my degree. Since I have only just received this PDP project i might a well start by reflecting over the first project. The first project i received was the Visual Communication module with Phil Perry. This is a 5 weeks module that had 5 week projects. From my point of view i would have to be very strict with my time management to achieve all of my goals for the week. This will help me produce better quality work rather than it being rushed at the end of the week. The first project was a typography week. The idea being that our respective groups all to what was the same story line wrote 4 different times and broke them down into just dialogue. Then using type faces tell the story so it somehow makes sense. After first hearing the brief i knew this would be difficult. Mainly because i would have to type out all of the lettering myself.
I highlighted the dialogue that i need to use and started to pick out my fonts and where they would go. The process of actually drawing out these fonts took so long but as i started to get to grips with it the fonts look better. My final piece for this project was done after many experiments with font and different sizes.

On reflection this project was a good one to start university life. It showed me how much work actually should go into a project and that i shouldn't actually rely on a computer. The work itself i felt was a success except for one piece of random human error. The work did not get many bad points as part of the critique so overall i am very pleased.