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2015 - 2016
Charles Mason 1
Introduction “Echo - a close parallel to an idea, feeling, or event.” The quote above basically sums up the purpose of this book , a place where I can reflect and document my first year of university at NUA and all of the work I have produced so far. University life really isn’t as easy as it may seem, not for me anyway. 300 miles away from my girlfriend, family and friends. Getting thrown straight into a brand new city, having to learn to cook and get a job. Attempting to live on literally nothing due to the stupid government. All this may seem like an awful lot for just a degree to hopefully get me noticed when looking for a job within the harsh and competitive design industr y. Its amazing how muc h you can learn in a year. About growing up, about yourself and about your work. Constantly being surrounded by creative people, continuously critiquing and learning from eac h other. One thing you realise is your not the only one with this overall goal. I’m not saying ever yones goal is the same, but your not the only one aspiring for that top designer job, aspiring for your work to be ac knowledged, aspiring to be able to pic k and c hoose your jobs or to even just
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work for yourself and nobody else. Realising all of this can be quite daunting at first, especially coming straight from college where ever yone wasn’t quite sure what they wanted, and were just experimenting within the world of design and the many career options it provides. Hopefully this book successfully reflects my first year at NUA in a visually interesting, yet truthful way. It is a combination of ever ything I’ve learnt this year, positive and negative (explaining the blac k and white theme). Ive tried to keep the design of “Ec ho” as minimalistic and clean as possible. Par tly due to the timescale of the project being shor t and the fact I want my work to do a lot of the talking, just as muc h as I want the document to represent the way I actually work. “ Why the name Ec ho?” Af ter researc hing into the whole meaning and purpose of a reflective journal the word “Ec ho” kept coming up. “Ec ho - a close parallel to an idea, feeling, or event.” I felt this was a nice name for my journal as it was unique and still ver y appropriate.
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BA1A
3 - 4 - Positive and Negative. 5 - 6 - One word Poster. 7 - 10 - Modular Typography. 11 - 12 - Typographic Collection. 13 - 14 - Yarmouth Trip. 15 - 16 - Building an Image. 17 - 18 - Two Sides Booklet. 19 - 20 - Type and Image Booklet. 21 - 22 - BA1A Evaluation 23 - 24
Design Books
25 - 26 - Book1 27 - 28 - Book 2 29 - 32
BA1B
33 - 34 - Visual Identity 35 - 36 - Inside Out 37 - 38 - Pac kaging 39 - 44 - Adver tising 45 - 46 - I Wish I Had
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Collections - 47 - 48 Infographic - 49 - 52 Event Magazine - 53 - 54 BA1B Evaluation - 55 - 56
Freelance Work
57 - 58
City of Ashes - 59 - 62 South Downs Associates - 63 - 64
Lectures
65 - 66
Turner Duc kwor th - 67 - 68 Pentagram - 69 - 70 David Pearson - 71 - 72
Trips and Exhibitions
73 - 74
Carl Cashman - 75 - 76 Jarrolds Print Museum - 77 - 78
Studio Research
79 - 80
Taxi Studio - 81 - 82 Brand Me - 83 - 84
Final Evaluation Thats it
85 - 86
- 87 - 88
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Workshop:
Positive & Negative. Task : To create an outcome exploring the concept of ‘positive and negative’ within 3 hours. The positive & negative task was the first workshop of the year. The task was basically to visually represent the idea of positives and negatives in any way we liked. I c hose to photograph the concept within the surrounding environment. Blac k and white really caught my attention of being a ver y clear and visual way of showing the contrast between positive and negative. I decided to take a set of interesting abstract photographs in blac k and white, all of them taken inside the university building. As we only had 3 hours in total to complete this process I decided that our building was the per fect place to shoot due to the interesting arc hitecture and lots of white space ever ywhere. With 90% of the environment being the large white walls, and the rest being the huge metal staircase or glass windows, it made it easy to take interesting abstract shots whic h emphasised the concept of positive and negative.
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The first image on the top right hand side is of a ceiling light. I really like the way I’ve captured the light being emitted as it gives of f the look of movement and shows positive and negative tones through the smooth gradients whic h are then harshly juxtaposed by the brightness of the light itself against the dark bac kground. The next image below is a birds eye view from half way up the stair case. The image is almost an illusion as it looks like a shot across the floor of a corridor leading to a metal staircase. What looks like white floor is actually a wall and the staircase is actually going under this layer. I really like the contrast between the glowing white and dark blac k walls. The metal sheet being a sliver whic h fits in-between both colours nicely.
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One Word Poster “Mature” The one word poster project was the first project I completed this year and on the course in general. This mean’t I had to get used to and work out how the teac hers wanted us to document our work. I also had to learn a lot about how the design process worked here and what they wanted to see. The brief itself was actually ver y simple. To create a Poster containing one word in whic h the typography had to relate and have context to the words meaning in some visually interesting way. We had to pic k from a long list of really quite randoms words, it was nice to get this c hoice rather than just been forcefully given a word. I came up with a range of detailed ideas for a bunc h of the words but in the end I decided my ideas on ‘Mature’ were the strongest visually and conceptually. My first thoughts when I read the word ‘Mature’ were about age and something being old. This then lead to the idea of time and how cer tain things mature dif ferently over time like food and drink. Cheese and wine were two things whic h really stood out as potential paths my project could take.
I really liked the idea of some how bringing c heese into my poster as I thought it was quite an obscure and interesting take from just the word ‘Mature’. As it was a typographic brief I wanted to use type as image and not just illustrate a bloc k of c heese with the word mature on it. In the end I decided to experiment by cutting typography out of c heese and just playing about with how malleable and flexible it was to use. I conducted a few tests and found it was actually quite easy, just a long process to create c heese typography whic h looked legible. The next step was deciding on a suitable and relevant bac kground whic h would enhance the type. I decided on going for a c heeseboard kitc hen setting as I thought it would give some context to the c heese. This was needed as due to the c heese being cut per fectly into letter forms it may have not been that obvious what it was actually made out of. Overall I think this project was successful for my first ever NUA brief and was a great place for me to star t the year and course.
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Workshop:
Modular Typography. Task : To create a hand rendered typeface consisting of shapes and geometric forms. The modular typography workshop was actually quite a fun morning in whic h we had to create our own modular typeface. Modular type goes bac k to the ar t movement D Style, moving for ward to Bauhaus. Designers suc h as Josef Albers, Ken Garland, Wim Cavel and Hamish Muir played a huge role in creating interesting and new modular typefaces in their work. I actually really enjoyed this workshop as it was ver y open and allowed us really to have fun and just play around with letter forms. I found that it gave us the c hance to look at type a dif ferent way and interpret it as shapes rather than just letters on a page. My idea was all about using triangles and cur ves to create an interesting yet readable typeface. We also learned about what makes something legible or readable and the dif ferences. Legible means the reader should be able to understand the type without ef for t, whereas readable just means if they can read it even if they do have to tr y quite a bit harder.
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When working with geometric and modular type having a clear grid or guide system is key to keeping that geometric consistency needed. I first drew my typeface out really big on A1 paper spelling out ‘Ken Garland’. I had a 3 section grid to measure the baseline, x height and cap heights of all the letter forms. This worked well as I could consistently draw my shapes precisely to create these letters exactly were I wanted them. Once I was happy with my large scale pencil drawing I took a photo of it and used that as a guid line to star t remaking it on illustrator. Although the workshop outcome was only suppose to be a hand rendered piece, I decided to take it this one step fur ther as I was excited to create a digital finished version of my typeface. I literally repeated the exact same drawing process just by using shapes on the sof tware. I think this was a cool and ef fective workshop as it got me to think dif ferently about letter forms and how they can be created.
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Ty pographic Collection A hand made hard back book documenting Typography found on drains around Norwich. Our brief was to researc h, collate, document and evidence a typographic arc hive whic h we had to present as a finished book. The brief was incredibly open leaving us able to collect any kind of typographic forms we found interesting and present them in a considered visual form. I really enjoyed this Typographic Collection project. Especially the designing and craf ting of the book. I think I was able to enjoy the end stage of the process so muc h due to gathering lots of content and researc h to fuel and refine any ideas I had in my head. My original idea was to create a complete A to Z typeface from letters I photographed on drains around the city centre. I thought this was a really cool and unusual place to document typography within the urban environment. The only problem I faced whic h ruined my whole idea was actually finding ever y letter in the alphabet on a drain within the city.
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Af ter photographing literally ever y single drain within a mile of the city centre I decided to give up my typeface idea and think of other ways to arc hive this gathered information. I had luc kily had internet when taking these photos on my phone, this mean’t I could c hec k what exact street eac h drain photo was on. This gave me the idea to categories the images by their street names. I decided to make up a small street sign template and of f set the typography over the drain image on eac h double page spread. I of f set the type to make the layouts more dynamic and to compliment the structure of the images . I only pic ked the most interesting pictures typographically, judging by the range of typefaces and sizes in eac h image. Overall I am ver y happy with my outcome as I feel it ef fectively showcases my collection in a unique and visually interesting way. If IW were to do the project again I would have used a better camera to make sure that I got the best photos possible.
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Yarmouth Trip We took a day trip to the seaside town of Great Yarmouth to photograph typography within the enviroment. Our day trip to Great Yarmouth was actually quite an incredibly eye opening and interesting day out. This was due to the town being suc h a visually intriguing place. The purpose of the trip was to photograph typography within the environment. Yarmouth was prefect for this due to the old ghost signs scattered around the town and the shear amount of corroded arcade and fairground typography along the seafront. Im not sure if it was just because it was winter but I have never been to a more depressing and frankly scattier seaside town. The whole town was corroded and eroded from the harsh costal weather and the whole place just needed a paint job. The people I saw didn’t have too muc h going for them either and it almost seemed as if they had given up on life along side the town they lived in. Im pretty sure Great Yarmouth is going for a Las Vegas like look , with all of the arcades along the seafront thinking their massive casinos and all of the giant neon signs desperate for your attention. I found this desperate environment
interestingly photogenic as ever ything you looked at had a personality of some sor t. The whole town looked like it had been through a lot and just given up. At lunc h time we found this incredibly strange little cafe whic h felt like my Nan’s living room not a restaurant. The waiter couldn’t speak any english so we just had to point at the menu and smile. It was bizarre to say the least. We were the only ones in the cafe and looked like the first customers they’d had all year by the way the woman stared at us as we ate our bland and boring food. Apar t from the awful fish and c hips id eaten, I would say I did enjoy cer tain par ts of yarmouth including the huge barren sandy beac hes. The pier was also interesting as once again it was just filled with slot mac hines and arcade games. These places were great for photographing type in as you were literally surrounded by typography in all colour, sizes and typefaces. Overall it was an interesting trip in whic h I took some cool photos.
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Workshop:
Building an Image. Task : In groups create a typographic outcome from the photographs we took in Great Yarmouth. Building an image was quite a fun workshop whic h required us to work in teams combining ideas to create one final piece relating to our trip to Great Yarmouth. The group was made up of Andy, Patric k , Enrika and myself. We star ted by just going through all of our individual photographs we took whilst in Great Yarmouth. We eac h selected the most interesting couple of images to show to the rest of the group to help us decide on an idea. One image that stood out to all of us was a photograph taken from inside of an arcade of the word ‘ VEGAS’. The word ‘ Vegas’ was especially intriguing as Great Yarmouth desperately gives of f a Las Vegas wanna be vibe. With all of the arcades tr ying to look like huge casinos, barely escaping copyright laws and the massive eroded neon signs blinding you from ever y direction. Great Yarmouth screams a false reality whic h makes it actually quite a depressing place.
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We wanted to make our outcome unique so instead of an illustration or flat image we decided to create a physical 3D piece. Af ter brainstorming a load of ideas we decided to re-create the type from the vegas photograph out of matc hstic ks. Af ter drawing out the outline we spent hours stabbing roughly a box and a half of matc hstic ks into a sheet of foam board. We had to pierce all of the holes in the foam board with a pencil just to get the matc hes to fit, this was also ver y time consuming. The idea behind the matc hes was their red tip whic h represents an led light relating to the neon signs. When photographed from above these red tips come together to make an eye catc hing piece of typography. The piece is also visually interesting from all angles due to how crooked and in per fect some of the matc h stic ks are but together look beautiful.
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Workshop:
Two sides booklet. Task : To create an interactive 2 sided booklet. The ‘Two sides booklet ’ workshop was basically to create a two sided booklet whic h was interactive and interesting. To be completely honest I struggled with this workshop to star t with as I didn’t really get it. The briefing lef t it feeling incredibly open and at first ver y confusing. Af ter speaking to class mates and teac hers during the workshop I eventually understood that the point of the task was to play around with tr ying to link both sides of the booklet in a creative way. This was to get our brains actively thinking about layout design and how to approac h it. Teac hing us to design the document as a whole and not a bunc h on individually dif ferent and visually confusing pages. As we only had a few hours I decided to tr y and make something quite abstract and a bit weird. Using the scanner I printed out a bunc h of distor ted cloth textures to give me a bit of content whic h looked abstract. As the whole workshop was hand making our booklets we were encouraged to experiment whic h gave me a nice creative freedom I’m not to used to having too of ten.
I decided to tr y and bring typography into my piece to make it more interesting. I came up with the idea of playing around with the word invisible and how I could por tray this visually over two sides. Af ter thinking about layers and using the textures ef fectively I decided to cut out the word from the first layer, leaving the similar texture behind to show through. The idea is that you can still read the word due to the outline, but while the booklet is shut it ’s kind of hidden. Then when the book is open the word is blindingly obvious due to having no fill. I like how although its meant to be invisible you can still read the type as it reminds me of how invisibility is sometimes por trayed in films or ar t. I also like how well the bac kground texture compliments the type by being subtle but noticeably there. Overall I think this workshop was ver y ef fective at getting me to think about my booklet as a whole and not just page by page. This is definitely healthy practice whic h helped me with my ‘Type and Image Booklet ’ over the week.
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Type and Image Booklet An 8 page double sided concertina booklet based on typography I photographed around Great Yarmouth. The type and image booklet was c hallenging yet rewarding. I found it ver y interesting going to Great Yarmouth and photographing the surroundings. I thought Great Yarmouth was actually quite a visually shoc king place. This is due to how it plays its self up as Nor folk’s ‘Las Vegas’ with all of the big typography and casino like arcades. Its actually ver y poor and malnourished, showing this through how eroded and old all of the letters are on eac h sign. On how empty the arcades are and just how abandoned the whole place generally feels. I wanted to tr y and show this through the use of blac k and white photography with minimal colour showing through on cer tain letter forms. Using typography as my main theme in my book meant I could play around with format and how I could tr y and relate the two together. I ended up deciding that a concer tina book was a ver y interesting and appropriate format that I could do a lot with creatively. I was luc ky to have the word ‘ Yarmouth’ be exactly eight words, the same amount of pages our booklets were suggested to be.
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This allowed me to spread the word over eight pages whic h ef fectively made use of the format and made my book instantly a lot more visually interesting. Making moc k books was a key par t of the design process. This was because the format being a bit more complicated than a normal booklet consisting of 4 page sections. I had to work out sizing and how I was going to attac h all of the pages together, it allowed me to spot and deal with any potential imper fections and problems before my final book. It was also helpful to view how well the typography would be read over a range of pages before committing to the format finally. Overall I am happy with my outcome and I feel I learned a lot about booklet design and especially playing with format. Although if I were to do this project again I would probably re-design the front cover due the slight illegibility of the book title as it is spread over the spine from front to bac k. I did this to keep the concer tina theme going but I do now see a practical issue with this.
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BA1A Evaluation This first term at NUA has been c hallenging yet enjoyable for me so far. I have really enjoyed how practical and first hand all of the briefs are, for example creating posters and binding books already is great fun and I think if the course wasn’t this hands on I wouldn’t enjoy it. My favourite project so far has to be my typographic collection. I really had fun developing my initial ideas into a professional feeling hard bac k book. It gave a real sense of ac hievement and the whole process felt ver y rewarding. Although one down point of the project was I didn’t not get any feedbac k from staf f due to this project not having any crits and the lac k of tutors in the studios.
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For tunately I have a good range of talented friends who gave me constant feedbac k. Some of the guest lectures this term have been great suc h as Turner Duc kwor th, as their lecture was really inspiring, showing us what it can be like to be a graphic designer and what a great career it is, swell as giving us lots of advise of how to make contacts with agency and so on. Overall I have learned a lot about graphic design over these 10 weeks including learning a lot Contextually from the researc h repor t I created on the Bauhaus movement. This is something that was completely new to me and I look for ward to researc hing more into the histor y of design over the rest of the year.
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100 Ideas that changed Graphic Design By Steven Heller & Veronique Vienne 100 Ideas that c hanged Graphic Design is a really great book that I enjoy to read when either bored or am looking for that extra bit of inspiration on a project. It ’s strange how pretty muc h all of my friends in graphics also have this book , so it seems to be incredibly popular with students. Written by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne it ’s a book full of histor y, styles and just ever ything graphic design. The book star ts by explaining how it believes just like science has the big bang, graphics has over 100 big bangs in its histor y to help explain why cer tain examples of graphic design look and feel the way they do. The book is basically an encyclopaedia of historic events in the field of graphic ar t. I personally really like this book and read it regularly. I like the way it contains an even mix of
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histor y and writing with large visuals and imager y ever ywhere. This is good for me as I am ver y muc h a visual learner like most designers and get bored or put of f lots of endless body copy in a book. The book is ver y colour ful and doesn’t get boring despite its consistent layout plan. I think this is because there is suc h a range of content that ever y double page spread is still so dif ferent yet layout out similarly . The one thing I don’t par ticularly like about this book is the cover. It was designed by pentagram and personally I think it ’s ver y boring and uses a ver y generic stencil typeface whic h is overused. Despite that one ver y pic ky downfall, I would definitely recommend this book to anybody interested in graphic design or just design in general due to its broad relativity to all of the ar ts.
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The a-z of visual By John Ingledew The A -Z of Visual Ideas aims to open doors that lead to adventures in the land of imagination and inspiration. It links and interconnects ideas from all creative disciplines and dif ferent periods of histor y, to explain how and why they work and help readers connect to numerous sources that will inspire them. Ideas in the commercial arena need to provide answers to a clients problems, while ideas in ar t need to ask the question of the viewer. This book aims to provide stimulus, strategies and sparking points to create ideas that can both provide answers and ask provocative questions. Eac h entr y of the book is a potential star ting point for creating an idea or a possible source of inspiration to fire the readers imagination. It aims to help unloc k creativity, ensuring that readers never again have to stare at a blank piece of paper.
I actually really enjoyed this book , the layout is incredibly clean and ver y easy to navigate, the book is incredibly visual with images being a key par t of the layout. There is a really nice mix of illustration and photography whic h makes the book ric h in ar tistic content. I really like the way the book is alphabetically ordered so the reader can easily find their desired section. Overall this is definitely one of my favourite design books to pic k up when I star t a project and am looking for some inspiration. The book has a great range of content whic h is capable of inspiring ever ybody from students to professional designers within industr y. I would definitely recommend this book to any creative designer due to the huge range of content and wide scale of tec hniques/processes showcased.
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Visual Identity A creative set of stationary for the “ Tea appreciation society “. The brief was to create a visual identity for a club or society without the use of a logo. We had to Choose from a long list of strange and ver y random societies. The idea was to be creative and dif ferent with our ideas, creating a cleverly thought out concept whic h was easily understandable still without a logo of any form. My final idea was for the ‘Tea appreciation society’. To get my project star ted I had to do lots of researc h into what visual trends represent tea and how they are interoperated. I looked into colours and textures as I felt they were both ver y relevant. Browny organic, natural colours stood out the most, especially with there now being a large market in unique organic tea flavours. A texture whic h stood out to me was tea bag material, this has a ver y organic rough feel to it in whic h I wanted to capture within the design. We had to showcase the visual identity of our club or society on a set of stationar y. This set included a letterhead, envelope, business card, compliments slip and any extra additions we wanted.
I wanted my letterhead and envelope to visually link and work successfully as a pair. To do this I decided to relate them to the idea of a tea bag, the tea being the letter and the bag being the envelope. To make this happen I made my envelope out of a sheet of tea bag material, this was actually easier than I first thought and came out exactly as I imagined. Next I printed a tea grain texture onto the bac k of my letterhead so when it ’s folded up it looks exactly like tea inside of a tea bag. I thought this was a nice little creative link in whic h the stationar y needed. I wanted all of my stationar y to follow this theme and link to tea in some way. I decided to make my business card a tea coaster due to how common and accessible they are, they could be placed in cafe’s to promote the society and ser ve a tea related purpose. My compliments slip followed this unconventional format approac h by simply being little sugar pac kets labelled with “Thank you, have a sweet day!”. Once again I used a tea related item and made it a practical piece of stationar y.
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Workshop:
Inside Out. Task : To create a new interesting and innovative outcome from an old object or form. The inside out work shop was an interesting and fun task in whic h we had to dissemble and distor t an object to create something entirely new. This was really quite a cool workshop as we had creative freedom to create anything we wanted as long as we had reason. Lots of people were ripping apar t sof t toys and pulling them inside out whic h was cool but I thought ver y overdone. I wanted something more interesting and visual and the idea of electronics and robotics had my attention more. Obviously I couldn’t rip apar t a big piece of mac hiner y and make something new so I had to think smaller scale and find something actually practical. Af ter searc hing around my room for a piece of electronics I could actually af ford to destroy, I found one of my playstation controllers. This was a c heap enough piece of electronics and one I could sacrifice. It also meant I couldn’t get distracted by my PS3 anymore.
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The first step to creating something new was taking the plastic frame of f. This would have been muc h easier with a set of small screw drivers but unfor tunately I had to go without. This just lead to me completely destroying plastic by smashing it on any hard sur face I could find. I even resor ted to using my c hair leg and body weight to crush the tough exterior. I know this wasn’t ideal but it was the only way to get to the interesting insides. Once I had finally broken the outer layer it was practically unusable whic h was annoying. I personally thought the textures, form and colours inside of the controller were a lot more visually attractive than the boring blac k case and wanted to somehow show this. I decided to layout all of the inside components on top of the outer cover remains in the exact places they would go inside. This was cool as it related to the inside out title and generally made a more creative and interesting structure to look at.
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Packaging Packaging for the word “Collaboration”. The brief was to Design a pac k as a response to one of the words from a large list. We had to Consider physical form, metaphor, function and think laterally about ever ything. The word that I finally decided on was “Collaboration”. This project wasn’t your usual pac kaging project as we were pac kaging a word not a physical product. This meant it wasn’t all about sur face graphics and more about physical form. I struggled to understand this at first and spent the whole first week just tr ying to get my head round what the brief actually wanted. Af ter speaking to a few teac hers and other pupils I finally understood this unusual yet definitely helpful project. Af ter lots of brainstorms on the dif ferent words tr ying to come up with a cool and unique response I was finally happy with the word “Collaboration”. The idea of possibly using magnets to hold a collaboration of multiple pac kages caught my attention the most. I wanted my pac kaging to also link to my word some other way, possibly by the use of colour or the shape and form it took.
The final idea I came up with was a 3D cube made up from 3 individual pac kages. The idea is that the individual pac kages are collaborating together to create one final form yet work on their own. The pac kages consist of 2 L shaped cuboids whic h are accompanied by just a basic rectangle cuboid. Combined they make a per fect cube. When all together the Cube is completely white, yet when apar t the sections are mostly blac k. The sections contained two magnets eac h, this is what holds them together and allows you to take them apar t without any struggle at all. As form is the main focus of the concept I decided my box would be more ef fective with out any sur face graphics. I thought the blac k and white really contrasted eac h other well and made it clear that they worked together and apar t. I did come up with a commercial alternate sur face graphics concept. The idea was pac kaging for a tea set, the 3 sections would contain dif ferent ingredients suc h as tea bags, milk and sugar. The individual sections would connect as a set yet still work individually as pac kages.
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Advertising #Everydayheroes The brief was to work in groups and promote one of the six areas listed below as a fully realised adver tising campaign. Charity Shops, Organ Donation Good Deeds, Social Etiquette, First Aid Awareness and Family Meals. This was the most realistic and commercial brief we had received so far this year. This was definitely one of my favourite projects so far due to how realistic and practical our outcomes had to be. My group originally contained just me and Callum whic h was great as we live together and are close mates, later Daisy joined our team as she needed a group and we were happy to accommodate her. We decided to create an adver tising campaign for Organ donation. Our idea was all about capturing a feel good factor and making ordinar y feel people feel like superheroes saving lives. We came up with the caption ‘#ever ydayheroes’ as it reflected the fact that ever yday people can make a dif ference and actually save lives like a superhero.
Our logo was a mix between a hear t and the classic superman symbol. I think this was incredibly successful as the link between superheroes and a hear t was instantly obvious. Due to having suc h a strong logo to star t with the rest of the campaign just star ted to come together incredibly smoothly. My job was to create a set of posters promoting the campaign. Due to the superhero theme I wanted to go for a vintage comic book flat graphic style whic h would matc h the rest of the work. I came up with 3 images, the first being a man wearing ordinar y clothes and a cape levitating like a superhero. The second a city scape with a beam replicating the bat signal idea only with the hear t logo. And the third a close up of a superbelt on a formally dressed person, also containing the campaigns logo. I used screen print textures over my illustrations to give them an old sc hool feel. I feel that they were ver y successful and clearly convey the visual message in whic h our campaign carried. Due to the success of the posters the rest of the campaign followed this style.
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I Wish I Had “ I wish I had used a photocopier” I wish I had was a shor t week brief in whic h we had to create a single poster responding to the phrase “I wish I had”. The key was to visually relate the typography on the poster to the phrase. This project was interesting as it made me analyse ever ything I had done over the year, thinking bac k to what I wish I had done dif ferently. I came up with a bunc h of ideas but they were all quite generic and obvious. The idea whic h stood out to me the most was “I wish I Had used a Photocopier”. This was basically inspired from me not using a photocopier to distor t typography manually whic h is an ef fective and interesting process I experimented with at college. I thought this would be a cool idea as I could easily just use a photocopier to distor t the poster whic h clearly linked the typography to the context of the poster. To make my typography even more distor ted I decided to print 2 versions of my poster out in dif ferent typefaces. I then stuc k them on top of eac h other and ripped away individual halves of words to reveal the dif ferent typeface underneath.
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I thought this would give the type an even more interesting look when photocopied. Once I had secured all of the typography layers together I star ted to scan it in. Whilst scanning I was moving the type, twisting, shaking, stretc hing and just generally making it scan incorrectly. The cool thing about this tec hnique whic h makes it so successful is that the outcome is a complete surprise. This is great and something I think we should practice more as designers, it means that no par t of the image or type is forced or per fect. I must of scanned over 100 dif ferent versions of the poster. I had landscape and por trait versions stretc hing the type in dif ferent and more interesting ways ever y time. A key par t of the process and something I couldn’t forget was that the type needed to still be legible so that it made sense. This meant I had to find a reasonable balance between distor ted and dysfunctional. Af ter reviewing all of my scans I finally pic ked in my opinion the clearest and yet most typographically interesting scan.
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Workshop:
Building an Image. Task : In groups create a typographic outcome from the photographs we took in Great Yarmouth. The collections workshop was a ver y straight for ward yet interesting c hallenge. The task was to gather and then document a collection of objects in a visually interesting and considered way. These days I don’t really collect a lot of things. I have a small craf t gin collection and a ver y large collection of typefaces I’ve built up over the years but thats all. But it wasn’t always that way, when I was younger I had a massive collection of toy dinosaurs and animals! I used to collect panini football stic kers and cards ever y season and I was also a ver y keen Pokemon card collector. Because of my current lac k of collections I had to gather something up with not muc h notice. The first collection was just 10 yellow objects I found within my room. I decided on the colour yellow because of how vibrant and eye catc hing it is. All of the items
really stood out to me in my room whic h is what gave me the idea to use them. I gathered a range items from a pair of headphones to a lemon. I next laid out all of my items and took a range of photographs from dif ferent angles, layouts and perspectives. Finally I was happy the image you can see on the top right. I love how the yellow pops from the bac kground and makes all of these ordinar y items seem more interesting. The second was a collection of only red sweets in whic h I bought from the shop. I laid them out into a square format in their dif ferent sweet and size categories. The bright red really contrasts the bright yellow collection nicely to create an interesting overall image when combined. I think this workshop was quite helpful when it comes to just thinking about how to lay cer tain stuf f out depending on size and colour. This will come in handy when doing any layout design in the future of this course.
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Infog raphic A series of simply illustrated infographics showing how to make 4 classic cocktails. For my infographic project I decided to create a set of 4 infographics whic h clearly and simply illustrate how to make 4 classic coc ktails. The purpose of the infographics is to help somebody who has no knowledge or experience bar tending create per fect coc ktails themselves at home. The infographics contain a small histor y section and then an easy to understand key linking to the exploded coc ktail illustrations. For the illustrations I decided to go for a simple linear style whic h then has of f set bloc ks of textured colour. I think this approac h was ver y successful as the drawings both are simple and clear but still look ver y smar t and cleverly stylised. I drew the outlines and placed the colours on illustrator. I added the textures on photoshop. In my head my idea was to create a set of coc ktail infographics for the 4 main types of spirits. This being Vodka, Rum, Whiskey and Gin. For Vodka I illustrated how to make a ‘Cosmopolitan’, for Rum a ‘Caipriniha’, Whiskey an ‘Old fashioned’ and Gin a ‘Classic Mar tini’. I tried to keep the layout of eac h infographic ver y similar so they were obviously a set.
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To reflect the histor y and look of the cer tain coc ktail I decided to subtly c hange the title typeface and colour on eac h of the infographics. For example the cosmopolitan infographic uses a script pink typeface to visually represent the fact it is a ver y classy feminine coc ktail, whic h I have clearly stated in the Histor y section of the infographic. I designed the key of the infographic to be a ver y simple and easy to understand system made up of just numbered circles whic h can be easily understood by a person of any coc ktail knowledge or experience. I added an almost paper like texture to the bac kground to give the infographics the context of a drinks menu in a bar or restaurant. One of the most c hallenging things I found when making the infographics was the laying out the type and image together. Due to the shear amount of information and illustration on the page, it was hard to not over crowd the image. An over crowded layout would completely go against the point of my infographic being clear and simple to breakdown.
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Event Magazine A small magazine based on my creative journey whilst designing for the rock album ‘Rise’. For my event magazine I decided to c hoose the recent album ar twork commission I completed for a local roc k band called ‘City of Ashes’. I pic ked this as my event to give me a good c hance to really evaluate the whole process star t to finish and a 16 page magazine enabled this well. I also thought it was the cool that the magazine would be only filled with content i’ve created, so the magazine also acted as another form of showcasing this interesting project. I based the design style of the magazine completely of f of the album. I used the same typefaces and colours to keep an on going and consistent theme whic h clearly linked to the content. One example of this is where I have placed red gradient maps over all of the photography to keep the dark red and blac k theme going. I think this works well as nothing looks out of place and the images blend into the blac k bac kgrounds smoothly. Due to the minimalism of the album I tried to keep the layout of the double page spreads ver y clean
and considered. I played around with using an obvious typographic hierarc hy by using clear titles and subheadings whic h read easily. For the titles and subheadings I used the typeface ‘Couture Bold’ as it is a ver y clear and precise typeface whic h I have also used on the front of the album cover. This typeface worked well alongside ‘Bodoni 72 Book’ whic h is the font I decided to use for my body copy. I pic ked it due to its easy legibility when small and condensed whic h made it per fect for my bloc ks of copy. I also liked the way a serif and sans serif typefaces contrasted eac h other making the page ver y easy to understand. If I could do this project again I would definitely of tried to use a better camera when taking the images I have used. This is because of some of my images printing out par tly pixelated. Luc kily the red and blac k hides it well. I would also maybe be more imaginative with some of the title names tr ying to relate them to the content more creatively than “final designs”...
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BA1B Evaluation I thought BA1B was a really fun term as I found I actually enjoyed ever y single brief. This unit was definitely harder than BA1A just because of how many more projects there were to keep up with over the shor t timescale in whic h we had to finish it all. My favourite project this term would have to be the adver tising brief. This was because I got to work along side one of my best buddies and due to how realistic and commercial the outcomes were aloud to be. I liked this because I really enjoy branding and it gave us a c hance to show how our creative skills would pay of f in the real world of design. The project I probably disliked the most was the visual identity brief. This was because I wasn’t use to producing unrealistic concept based ideas. So when ever I produced a unique and contextually relevant identity it was wrong. It took me a while to understand that the brief didn’t want a standard set of stationar y but a visually interesting concept led set of ideas that didn’t have to be 100% realistic or practical.
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I feel this term I really got my head around staying caught up with contextual studies, whereas last term I fell behind and had to rush the final contextual repor t. This only caused me extra unnecessar y stress whic h did not help me handle finishing week smoothly. The group presentations were also something whic h I actually enjoyed, when at the star t of the course I would have been absolutely dreading them. Creating this reflective journal wasn’t easy alongside the rest of the workload these projects had me doing but I feel I paced it correctly and have created a nice document that showcases my work and says something about myself as a designer also. To conclude id say that BA1B has been my favourite and most successful term yet, and I can only hope that I have worked hard enough to get a better grade than I ac hieved last term!
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City of Ashes
Album artwork commission From December till late Marc h this year I was luc ky enough to be commissioned by a local band to produce they’re new album ar twork. The job included the entire design of the physical album and all of the promotion and adver tising surrounding it. This was an incredibly big job for me as it required a lot of my time when I wasn’t battling my degree at uni or at work. I have to say overall I had suc h a good time working on this project. Being a big fan of the band myself I was flattered to be apar t of the process, this helped me a lot motivationally. I had done some bits of design for the music industr y in college but nothing this real so I had to learn a lot and fast. Sourcing and researc hing a range of companies who could print the records and researc hing into how they are made, I spent ages learning about the process. Although the album wasn’t due to be released till marc h the 25th I had 2 weeks ( over c hristmas ) to finish a detailed concept of the album cover and general look of the whole campaign. The band wanted me to also almost rebrand themselves in the process. They’d spent 2 years making and recording this new album, learning about they’re music and c hanging themselves. Their new image needed to reflect this in a subtle but definite way, so this was also par t of the c hallenge. To help me understand their vision I was aloud
to listen to the album 3 months early whic h I was incredibly excited about and I feel this was needed for me to attempt to coney they’re music making visually. Luc kily for me the frontman of the band ‘Orion Powell’ had lot of great ideas in his head about what visual aspects he wanted the album to convey about they’re music. Brainstorming with the band was a really helpful star t to the design process, I felt involving the band as muc h as possible was most ef fective for both par ties so we were all on the same page. Af ter a good few late nights and meetings with the band I had successfully come up with a visual look the whole band loved. Reflecting the futuristic melodic roc k vibes the album releases, the red and blac k textured approac h paired with slic k sans serif unique minimalistic typography really represents the album visually. The look of this album is cer tainly a lot dif ferent visually to their previous ar twork. A few months later now with this whole project being finished I can safely say I enjoyed ever y moment and am ver y happy with the final outcome. Although it was a dif ficult and stressful process i’m honoured to of been involved and believe it will add another depth to my professional por tfolio. The ar twork has had an amazing response on social media from fans and hundreds of copies have been shipped all over the world.
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South Downs Associates A simple branding project for a small local company back home in Eastbourne. South downs associates are a local group of investors in my hometown of Eastbourne. A precious client recommended me to the group to brand their new company. The ethos of the group is to smar tly invest into local and international businesses and projects. They also deal with impor ting high quality wines and proper ty. A key par t of the branding was making it feel ver y local to the South downs to give of f a familiar and trustwor thy feel. Due to me living in eastbourne all of my life I didn’t have to do muc h secondar y researc h at all. I star ted to think about what features of the downs were more significant and recognisable. The natural cur vedness and beautiful green tones are two things whic h stand out, but I wanted something a bit more unique and less generic. Af ter thinking about it in more detail and talking to the client, we decided that the river Cuc kmere was an interesting landmark whic h represents the South downs in a unique way. Af ter visiting the river whic h is only 10 minutes from my home I instantly made a link between the wonder ful bendy shape of the
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river and the ‘S’ of South downs. I star ted by just drawing out the shape of the river and tr ying to highlight the ‘S’ in dif ferent ways. I wanted the ‘S’ to be obvious but still have reference to the shape of the river Cuc kmere other wise the whole reference would be pointless. Colour wise the brand needed to look fresh and familiar. I decided to go for a teal green, this represents the green of the downs and the blue of the river. Af ter working more on using the rivers natural unique cur ves I created a vector whic h replicates the exact river from a birds eye view. I then cropped it the represent an ‘S’ shape and used this as negative space upon a teal circle. I went for a typeface called ‘STIXgeneral’ as it has a ver y clean and professional look whic h contrasts the cur vy logo. Overall the clients and myself were ver y happy with the final outcome. I only spent roughly two days on the project and it ’s now already in use online and on a range of professional stationar y.
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All images from Turnerduckworth.com
Turner Duckworth NUA Graphic Design graduates Matt & Miles who now both work at Turner Duckworth represented the company. Turner Duc kwor th are a design agency based in both London and San Fransisco. Turner Duc kwor th are known for their huge list of giant clients from across the globe. Their two teams collaboratively tac kle some of the hardest briefs from the largest company around. We were given a lecture by two NUA Graphic Design graduates Matt & Miles who now both work at Turner Duc kwor th in the London Design studio. Their lecture highlighted five points of advice in the Graphic Design industr y. 1. Live the brief - Here they spoke about the impor tance of primar y researc h. The best way to properly represent a brands unique ethos is to understand it fully and this does not happen from jumping straight on google images or Pinterest. Its all about emerging yourself within the brand first hand to get the purest outcome possible. 2. Make it rewarding - “Anyone can make it look nice, it is the idea that that creates the impact. 90% of the idea should be obvious and the other 10% should be lef t to the audience.” Have a reason for ever y design decision as sometimes simplicity on it ’s own just isn’t enough.
3. Be like no other / stand out - “Move away from the cliques. There is the idea of the alliance and the brand and you want to stand somewhere in the middle.” 4. Work hard and be nice to people - Being a graphic designer is one of the most social and collaborative jobs you can have, this means you have to be able to work ef fectively in a team. Being nice is just a generally positive as you never know what contacts you will need in the future. 5. Go fur ther - “If an idea doesn’t spread, then its dead” always take your ideas that one step fur ther and never leave a potential design route unexplored. To Conclude this lecture was definitely my favourite of the year par tly due to how inspiring and down to ear th the guys were. Their talk made me ver y excited about working in an agency due to how fun they made it look. I was amazed to see two people who loved their jobs as muc h as Matt and Miles whic h was great to see.
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All images sourced online
Pentagram Dominic Lippa from Pentagram visited NUA to give an inspiring talk about his career. Domenic Lippa is an internationally recognised designer, known for his work in identity, pac kaging, retail graphics, typography, signage and print. His clients range from Swarovski, Clarks Shoes and H&M to the University of the Ar ts, University of Sussex and BT. He studied graphic design at the London College of Printing. Af ter founding and running Lippa Pearce for 16 years, he became a par tner at Pentagram London in 2006. Lippa has a huge presence in Londons design community. Since 2007 he has been the design director for the London Design Festival. Lippa is also a member of D&AD, Type Director ’s Club, Ar t Directors Club, Royal Society of Ar ts, and the Alliance Graphics Internationale (AGI). He has sat on the juries of numerous competitions including D&AD and RSA awards.
Lippa talked a lot about how he star ted his career where we was a co-editor and designer for the international magazine Baseline. One project that Lippa seemed incredibly proud of was his teams award winning campaign for the 2011 London Design Festival. The theme of the design revolved around using only red and white colours and distor ting typography to have a folded paper ef fect. I really like this as a campaign and think it ’s so successful due to how simple and memorable it is. I think I especially enjoyed this talk as Lippa in general just seemed like a really genuine and knowledgeable guy when it came to design and the industr y. It was also really interesting to hear about his experiences whilst at Pentagram and how they work.
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All images from typeisimage.co.uk
David Pearson David Pearson is a London based designer who currently works for Penguin Books. David Pearson is a London based designer working in all areas of print and branding. He is primarily a book designer for Penguin Publishers. He described him self as a ‘tec hnophobe’ (he doesn’t even own a mobile phone) he aims to capture only the hear t of publishing within his work. Pearson spoke all about how he got to where he is today, he told us the complete journey of how in under a decade from leaving college he’d broken into the elite league of publishing designers. Pearson’s tale is ver y muc h a success stor y, In 2002 he lef t college to join the text depar tment at Penguin books, this was cer tainly not his dream job but a good way into his dream company. Af ter 6 months of joining, the text depar tment was made redundant but luc kily Pearson was pluc ked
from the many and for tunately given a job in the book cover depar tment of the company. Pearson couldn’t believe his luc k as this was were he wanted to eventually end up. He realised being a junior designer gave him lots of oppor tunities to experiment and improve. This was because junior designers were only given more experimental briefs with no sales expectations whic h was per fect for a designer in Pearson’s current position. All of this has contributed to make Pearson one of the most influential designers at this current time. I really enjoyed this lecture as it was inspirational to hear all about how he made it, he also shared a load of great tips and pointers for any up and coming designers.
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Carl Cashman In early Februar y I visited an exhibition at moosey ar t called “Sun shines out my ar ts� by a guy called Carl Cashman. He was exhibiting a range of hard graphic spray paint pieces from his most recent collection of work. I was interested in this event purely just because of simple yet striking his work looked, I was not let down at the exhibition. I found his work incredibly interesting as it was just so basic only using simple patterns, shapes and bloc k colours to create suc h a diverse range of images. It amazed me how something so simple could be appreciated this muc h and actually look this good.
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The bottom photograph on the right page was a huge piece covering a large wall. This installation was painted in luminous paint and was simply made from isometric cubes and panels. I liked this piece as you could interpret in anyway you wanted as it had no clear context and It was also impressively huge. I think this exhibition was helpful to go to as it helped me understand not to underrate simplicity as it can be incredibly ef fective when executed correctly. It was also healthy to see another style of working and I managed to have a c hat with the ar tist about his career whic h was cool.
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Jarrolds Print Museum We visited the very old Jarrolds Print Muesum for the morning to learn about vintage printing techniques and the history behind printing. The Jarrold’s print museum is a small primarily volunteer run printing museum in the centre of Nor wic h. The museum exhibits a real range of rare old-sc hool printing mac hines whic h are incredibly impor tant to modern day printing methods. We had multiple talks from a range of senior citizen volunteers who were all either designers or workers in the printing industr y within the last centur y. We learned ever ything from book binding methods, how to set typography and the old fashioned letterpress. I found all of this incredibly interesting as I am personally a big fan of vintage typography. I have used the letterpress before so learning about its histor y and the original tec hniques held my attention firmly. I learned an especially large amount about lithography and how it was discovered whic h was cool due to how impor tant this was for todays modern printing methods.
All of the volunteers were surprisingly well for how old they must of been. They were all still incredibly enthusiastic about the printing industr y and you could tell they loved telling us about it. One thing that really amazed me was just how complicated these mac hines were considering the time in whic h they were built. It also just seemed so strange to see a huge mac hine needed for suc h a small print job. In comparison to the printers we have today it seems like another world. The museum had a huge range of these impressive mac hines, it was also impressive how all of the volunteers new how to work them so well considering how over complicated they looked. I really enjoyed my visit and it made me appreciate not only the amazing tec hnology we have today but still how amazing and precise old methods were.
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All images from Taxistudio.co.uk
Ta xi Studio Taxi are a small design studio based in Bristol. They work mainly on branding and advertising and pride themselves on their “fearless creativity”. Taxi Studio are a small design studio based in the city of Bristol. Founded in 2002 by the trio Alex Bane, Spencer Buc k and Ryan Wills, Taxi have grown by 847% and now employ a mix of 35 creative thinkers. The Company work mostly of branding and pac kaging briefs and pride themselves on their “Fearless Creativity” whic h is what they have become known for. Since 2002 they’ve won many of the world’s most prestigious creative awards. At last count their cabinet contained more than 150 wins, including coveted D&AD Pencils, a Cannes Lion, awards from The One Show and the New York Festivals Grand Award for Design. For a small agency in Bristol this isn’t bad at all. My contextual studies group and I decided to actually do our presentation on Taxi studio due to how inspired we all were af ter their talk at NUA earlier in the year. I think it was their passion for Fearlessly creative ideas whic h really interested me, the fact that they have lost jobs in the past for being too creative and the fact this hasn’t stopped them was inspiring.
Taxi Studio are devoted to getting brands noticed, their diverse skill set attracts a wide variety of clients from global names to star t ups. A few examples include Nestle, Coca-Cola, Carlsberg, Adidas, Tesco, Cadbur y, Nestea and the Design Council. When it comes to Fearless Creativity, actions speak louder than words. With one unforgettably audacious stunt, Taxi put their money where their mouth was to prove that the biggest big ideas are nothing to be scared of. Taxi Studio founder and creative par tner Spencer Buc k harboured a dark desire to give Bristol’s iconic Suspension Bridge its own troll. When the oppor tunity arose to collaborate with like-minded misc hief makers, they decided to stage a Halloween spectacular to put Taxi on the map. The Stunt went viral getting 10,000 views in under a day and ended up on the news gaining lots of exposure. The police even turned up although luc kily no one was arrested and the city council didn’t press c harges. I really rated this move from Taxi as it bac ks up their point of “fearless creativity” paying of f.
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Brand Me
Brand Me are a design agency based in London whoare branding specialists, creating only the most unique and memerable brands. Brand Me are based in Covent Garden London, they are a unique agency specifically tailored to branding and pac kaging. For over 20 years they have been producing award winning design to get brands noticed. Last October I was luc ky enough to do a weeks work experience placement at this unique agency. I loved ever ything about the company from the interior design and vibes of the creative of fices and meeting rooms to how friendly and playful all the staf f were. The location of the agency being in ver y central London was also incredibly interesting and convenient. I stood in on meeting with clients, learned about the creative process within a design house and was even assigned to work on one of their live briefs. Unsurprisingly half of the staf f, including one of the co-founders were NUA alumni. This was another reason I pic ked this course. The live brief I was given to work on was for Sainsbur ys pure juice range. I had to redesign the pac kaging for the three dif ferent price ranges of the sainsbur ys own juices. The coolest and most ner ve
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rac king par t of the process was being treated as and working with the design team. I attended the team crits and meetings with the rest of the designers working on the project whic h was a really useful and interesting experience. During my week I was given my own design station in the studio with my own iMac and ever ything I needed. Overall the whole experience was great for me to understand how design houses like this work and made me cer tain this is what I wanted my future to look like af ter university. Over the 25+ years Brand Me has been running they have worked with an impressive range of clients only taking on the jobs they believed suited them. Some of these include Coca-Cola, Twiglets, Orangina, Mornflake, Fosters, Sainsbur ys, Simple, Dr Oatker and Blossom Hill to name a few. I have kept in touc h with cofounder Steve Booth and will tr y to arrange more work placements for me within the near future and I believe having a Brand Me is a ver y helpful Contact to have.
All images from Brandme-uk.com
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Writing and designing this reflective journal was probably the most stressful project i’ve ever undergone. Ive never stared at a document for so many hours on end, never scrutinised and restar ted a piece of work , and never wanted to complete a piece of work so bloody eagerly. At the beginning of the year I would never of thought I would be able to fill a nearly 100 page book with just my own work. Looking bac k now I really have done a lot of work this year whic h really seems to of gone too fast! It almost seems as if none of it ever happened it went so quic kly. Id personally say layout design is my weakest and least experienced field. So this reflective journal was a real c hallenge design wise and academically due to how unacademic my brain is. I found I just had to play to my strengths in order to have a c hance of a nice outcome. These strengths primarily being typography, hence how simple and dependant my book is typographically.
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I think my first year at NUA has definitely been a success. My first term was amazing as ever ything was so new and I met so many crazy people. With the second term being equally as good, just getting to know ever ybody more and really taking in the Uni lifestyle. In a way it just seems unreal the first year is over. I think my favourite brief this year was either the adver tising or typographic collection. I guess I enjoyed both of these as I really felt my final outcomes were successful and understood the project clearly. I’d probably say pac kaging or visual identity were my least favourite just because they weren’t as practical and commercial as I hoped they’d be and personally didn’t enjoy them anywhere near as muc h. Its hard to conclude on a whole year is a couple of sentences but if i’d have to I would just simply say: An eventful and exciting time, in whic h I have learned lots about design, as well as growing up.
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Written and Designed by Charles Mason
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