CoP Design Boards

OUGD601

CoP 3

Callum O’Reilly CoP3 OUGD601

Callum O’Reilly

OUGD601

Callum O’Reilly

The Brief

Create a magazine which combats brand obsessed consumers to stear clear of buying into brands because of the power it gives them to have control over the consumer’s life and personality.

Giving the consumer power back to represent their opinions and views as they wish rather than the representing that of the brand’s. Showcasing the manipulation brands have over consumers, who choose to financially fuel and represent highend brands.

Considerations The publication should in fit with the high end fashion/ lifestyle magazines this type of consumer would buy and read, to be familiar to them and therefore convincing. Bare in mind the audience is a younger market (18-30) as the magazine is aimed at people high-end brands are beginning to cultivate, rather than already loyal consumers.

It should be considered that Burberry in 2018 burnt £28.3 million worth of stock to change their brand image to resonate with their new branding identity. Rememeber to highlight the wrong doings of Burberry and other high-end brands and the fact that through endorsing them in purchasing their products the consumer is giving them consent to do so.

OUGD601

Callum O’Reilly

Research

The entire project was research led, it was a visual response to the findings of an essay which uncovered the way in which brands are forced into refreshing to stay relevant to an evolving consumer. My initial theoretical research and cover the unethical methods in which high-end brands deal with their access stock, and also repress personality through the cultivation of neotribes. Therefore, the visual response engages with the target audience of high-end brands, at a point where they are trying to cultivate them into loyal customers, by intervening at this point the publication will make them reconsider their buying habits; in turn rejecting the unethical methods and morals of high-end consumerism. In order to successfully engage with this target audience, an outcome which engaged with the fashion interested younger community, with enough income to start investing within high-end products, needed to be created. This audience mainly focuses on technological engagement, yet to keep to the traditional values in which high-end fashion has derived from, a printed publication would be best to represent high-end fashion brands. Research brought to light the type of publications which the audience being targeted reads, lifestyle new wave fashion magazines create a simplistic modern output to engage with an up-and-coming audience, who are easily impressionable (such as the target audience for this publication).

Visual investigation highlighted the elegant nature of these magazines, further resembling an online style of design brought to print, further showing how it is more familiar for a younger audience to engage with. Negative space, high fashion photography, and large typographical treatments make new wave fashion magazines the new platform for impressionable audiences. Research also entailed establishing the grid systems in which these magazines are based upon, in order to create a professional outcome which would sit side-by-side in situ. The content of the magazine itself will be research led in terms of revealing facts such as Burberry’s wrongdoing, as previously discussed, the way in which brand employee influences to display a particular lifestyle, the figures behind the largest corporations in the world that own fashion houses yet try to distinguish products is unique and individual; as well as millions of kilograms of waste caused by high-end fashion consumerism.

OUGD601

Callum O’Reilly

Initial Ideas

Initial items so visual developments of research factors found within fashion lifestyle magazines. Wireframes were created in order to create a professional and consistent visualisation of fitting style, both engage with the target audience. Exploring wireframes led to various digital explorations testing the way in which imagery and text can work together, in order to create a visual lead impact, and the relationship between content, visuals, and playing on knowledge of the target audience. This exploration can also be seen in advertisements, developed at a later stage within publication development, that emphasise the way in which high-end brands play on their imagery and lifestyle, that is decided by the consumer, in order to have their products endorsed. Ideas of conversational style spoofs highlight the way brands abuse imagery, and test boundaries of how far they can push consumer into becoming part of their loyal customer community. Within the initial idea stage, cover ideas and various layouts were explored to see which styles and various grids could work within the type of publication that is being created. These initial ideas with them taken to critiques that by both tutors and peers, both of which have experience being part of this target audience or currently within the target audience.

OUGD601

Callum O’Reilly

Development

Development stages of this brief allowed for experimentation with editorial design in fitting with the magazine of a fashion lifestyle influence. This allowed for experimentation within a gridded system in terms of placement of typography, colour and imagery. Imagery was also experimented with in order to create the most fitting visuals to visually represent the articles themselves, as well as other outside contributions.

This development allowed me to explore in many ways to be able to create a consistent style for the magazine, reflecting the consistent nature of content found within a fashion lifestyle magazine, allowing the outcome to be as professional as possible. Various design rules were kept consistent throughout, in order to ensure this familiarity throughout the publication to bring together the content as one.

Experimentation was needed to ensure the best visual style that was most relevant to the target audience was achieved, as previously identified within research, the design needs to be streamlined and modern in order to fit within the familiar online inspired methods of interaction that the target audience are used to. This was achieved through developing a content style which did not change throughout, as well as a clear identity magazine as a whole. Process considerations have to be taken into account in this development stage, considering the placement of text to ensure that in production there were no issues. Or in some cases created a revolution in which text was coming from the spine, full bleeds were also taken into consideration. All digital developments were processed from previous research on the way in which these magazines are gridded, and also taken from inspiration of wireframes.

Colours were experimented with familiar colours from that particular spread, taken from the imagery which had been carefully selected and contributed from different artists, and photographers. This change throughout the development stages, yet was kept within the identity of the magazine through the use of typographical considerations.

OUGD601

Callum O’Reilly

Process

The production methods within this brief slightly different to usual, due to the nature of the brief and the required standard of the outcome, the document needed to be printed externally.

Printing externally allowed for an industry-standard perfect bind, which would not have been achievable within the facilities to hand, hindering the design and therefore creating the possibility of the document falling apart. Professional printing did not only ensure quality in terms of binding but also allowed for the chance to create a magazine in which was enclosed in a professional cover, in this case a 300 GSM matte laminated cover. Whilst taking into consideration the 170 GSM silk paper which the content would sit on, the consistent design allowed for no risk of ink bleed through pages. The paper was chosen in order to create a professional feeling magazine which would infest with those found in industry. The process of formatting the document, and designed to fit with the needs of the printer, ensured a development in my thinking process before going into production of any other products in future. The printers required a 3 mm bleed on any full bleed images, as well as the consideration of the spinal content that will be lost due to the perfect bind. The process also tested my time constraints and management, as I needed to have the print sent to production by particular deadline in order to receive the completed documents in time the deadline. Overall the entire process was successful, and the magazine which has been created as of the professional standard in both terms of design and production.

OUGD601

Callum O’Reilly

Evaluation

Visually the outcome successful in terms of being a professionally printed high quality perfect bound document, similar to those that would be found on the shelves of the lifestyle fashion magazine style. Design was Simplistic keeping the main focus on the content itself and consistency offers an equilibrium of importance throughout the information given to the audience, further exemplifying the way that the consumer needs to consider their purchasing decisions; in order to endorse their own morals rather than the brands that they are finding to. The entire publication offers a new understanding on the way that you are also endorsing the imagery that goes along with the brand and its lifestyle, as well as the negative connotations from brand.

I believe the project overall has been successful in creating a product which could create an impact on the audience, yet it could be improved through questioning within a focus group of the target audience who are interested in brands to gain an understanding of the way in which they engage with the content and visual nature of the piece as a whole. The target audience is interested in the lifestyle they are portraying, as discovered in the essay which is the reason, they are buying into the brands the first place, and therefore interested in lifestyle magazines in which they believe influence their consumer decisions to portray this particular desired lifestyle. Lifestyle magazines also are more modern, simplistic and designed in a more streamlined way reflecting an online experience, which my target audience is more adhered to, again increasing the level of engagement with the target audience. The content was created in way that the audience would find engaging, in terms of a range of media including artworks and poetry, alongside conversational articles that bring to light factual information that supports the evidence of immoral values from high-end fashion brands.

Overall the visualisation of the concept I believe was successful, the design is consistent and works within a modular grid, which was developed deriving from research of the particular type media wanted to create. Magazine’s professional in its production methods and could easily be perceived as a highend fashion lifestyle publication. The content is presented in way that offers equilibrium of importance to both the visuals and the articles themselves. All of which are supported by bold statements officially linking both to the articles and visuals through a selection of colour and placement. To further the project, I would have liked to present the document to the target audience and gauge their reaction, therefore assessing the overall effectiveness of the visual outcome.