Cover references from right to left,top to bottom
R
1. www.firewatch.com 2. https://dribbble.com/shots/1701801-Guilty-Pleasures 3. https://dribbble.com/dchen 4. www.fromupnorth.com/famous-movie-cars-by-nicolas-bannister/ 5. https://dribbble.com/dchen 6. www.fromupnorth.com/famous-movie-cars-by-nicolas-bannister/ 7. www.ollymoss.com/#/firewatch/ 8. www.ollymoss.com/#/firewatch/ 9. dribbble.com/DrewEllis 10.www.ollymoss.com/#/firewatch/ 11. https://dribbble.com/dchen 12. https://dribbble.com/shots/2191072-Bottle-Logic-Passionate-Dragon 13. www.ollymoss.com/#/firewatch/ 14 . https://dribbble.com/dchen 15. www.fromupnorth.com/famous-movie-cars-by-nicolas-bannister/ 16. dribbble.com/shots/1184517-Dallas/attachments/156070 17. https://dribbble.com/shots/1284989-MWY-Camping-Ripasso-label 18. www.ollymoss.com/#/firewatch/ 19. dribbble.com/DrewEllis 20. www.fromupnorth.com/famous-movie-cars-by-nicolas-bannister/ 21. www.fromupnorth.com/famous-movie-cars-by-nicolas-bannister/ 22. https://dribbble.com/shots/581001-Untitled-Project-Authentic-Dry-Goods 23. https://dribbble.com/shots/323028-Cocktail-Recipe-Cards 24. https://dribbble.com/dchen
{ CONTENTS } R- Research D- Development
R- Designers -
8-9
: Nicolas Bannister
10 - 11 : Dave Chanell 12 - 13 : Olly Moss 16 - 17 : Drew Ellis 24 - 25 : Salih Kucuhaga 32 - 33 : Edward Kauffer
R- Styles -
22 - 23 : Labels 26 - 27 : Branding
D- Ideas -
6-7
: Virtual Conversation (1)
14 - 15 : Iconography (2) 30 - 31 : Results 34 - 35 : Poster Sketches (3) 36 - 37 : Poster (3)
D- Practise -
18 - 19 : Line Drawing 20 - 21 : Vector Graphics 28 - 29 : Iconography
{ C O N V E R S AT I O N } - Understanding a conversation -
Over the past few years there has been an exponential growth in technology, which has completely re-defined the way we interact with people, companies and entertainment every single day. Understanding the way people communicate and use technology is essential for a designer, it has changed the way we sell products, send messages, and just design in general. Twenty years ago a designer would never have considered needing to learn to code to create a client website. So by 2035 who knows what sorts of main stream design will have become redundant. The obvious approaches to this brief is looking at social structures, social stereo types, and then moving on them and creating our own conversation around a certain political stature. However I think while those ideas would be great! It’s first important to take a step back and think exactly how can I approach this from a fresh perspective. In 2015, conversations are brand new. What constitutes a conversation? Google’s definition stands as: a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged. Talk: speak in order to give information or express ideas or feelings; converse or communicate by spoken words. Now this would suggest a conversation is simply spoken words between people, thus meaning with my design I’m going to have to MAKE people talk about what it is they are seeing or feeling. This can be done in a range of interesting ways. The unbranded is something I am fascinated in. The idea that simple design can spark a persons brain to discuss the meaning of what it is seeing. This can be seen in business, film and even technology Where can we see it in business? In the very best brand collateral we see some incredible examples of the unbranded. (That possibly sounds contradictory but hear me out). No words, no name, no branding, except we know these two lights represent MacDonald’s. Brilliant. It’s this sort of billboard that will create a conversation and cause people to remember what they learnt. ‘Now open nights’. Now, film and tv is a little bit different and often harks back on nostalgia but can be great in advertising a new franchise or sequels. And this through iconography. When you think delorean you think back to the future. When you see a police phone box you think dr.who. Its these icons in films that if used correctly can make people talk. And people speaking are the best form of advertising for your film, whether it is good or bad. If no one talks, no one knows. Now technology is a little more broad but is still hugely relevant in the world of design. Apple, despite their flaws are in some ways the kings of advertising! There’s something about their clean, steal style which means before we even see the apple logo we are already thinking about their name. But we can also look at it in terms of how we personally communicate with technology. In this case coding. We can give a computer a set of basic commands and cause it to create something brand new and entirely visual.
{ V I R T UA L C O N V E R S AT I O N S } - Idea 1 Now I’ve spent a lot of time on idea 1 as it was my first idea and one I believe that would be incredibly fruitful towards this project. It was based on the conversations we have as people with computers. In this case code. The way we speak a particular language to a computer and it would interpret it and release it in a variety of visual data. Now the premise for this was I would simply learn html, css and java and towards the end of the project be able to create some visual in comparison to the code work my computer and interpreted. Now this was easier said than done. It’s been a two weeks into this project so far and while I’m making evident progress with my coding ability it isn’t nearly going to be disciplined enough by the end of this project to create something I’m happy with. In this case I am definitly going to keep going with the coding lessons and hopefully implement them at a later date. But for now instead of building completely new skills from the ground up I’m going to go away and look into a way I can build on existing skills.
{ NICOLAS BANNISTER } - Designer Nicolas Bannister 9th October 2015 The unbranded. The unbranded is a great perspective to take on this brief and is something movies show us in particular and is something Bannister thrives off. The way the unbranded works within Bannisters work is based of simple nostalgic memory combined with iconography. Iconography is commonly looked at as logos or an individual design, however in this case its related to movie vehicles. The vehicles are iconic from our favourite films. In this case Jurassic Park, Back to the future and even James Bond! These cars are so recognisable that the posters needn’t conform to the regular logo and hectic imagery of usual cinematic posters. Even though there is no coloration between these films, the fact he conforms to one layout means any mix and match can be seen as a set, a clever idea.
R www.fromupnorth.com/famous-movie-cars-by-nicolas-bannister/
R www.fromupnorth.com/famous-movie-cars-by-nicolas-bannister/
{ D AV E C H E N E L L } - Designer -
Dave Chenell 13th October 2015 Dave Chanell is a designer I have been following some time through the likes of Dribble.com, to see his working progress and what incredible illustrations he’s working on next. As a second year designer I’d hate to be stuck in a box, and currently I have no pre-determined road maps for my future. With each project I want to explore as much of the creative industry as possible. It’s his dare I say ‘minimalist’ style he has perfected in his illustrations that have attracted me. Linking this in with the idea of the unbranded and that idea of minimalism based on Bannisters work and I think I could begin producing some really nice and near results. This will be a huge parrallel from my ‘OTT’ posters from year one.
R https://dribbble.com/dchen
R https://dribbble.com/dchen
{ O L LY M O S S } - Designer / Art Director Olly Moss 6th October 2015 Moss is an English designer who is famous for his original movie posters. However outside of his work for the film industry its obvious he has a no bullshit love for video games, something which has now fed into and massively supported his latest project on the upcoming game from Campo Studios, Firewatch. While sticking to his roots and creating some incredible design work for the game, Moss has been directly involved as the art director and his work can be directly evidenced in the games visuals This is especially relevant to this projects concept of ‘conversations’ and even more so with this years over arching theme of ‘Collisions’ this is a collision of design and technology. The fact that he has transcended from being a design to taking over the creative vision of a video game is fascinating to me and is evidence of how diverse the creative industry is in the modern age. We are by no means trapped in a box in regards to which direction we want to take our creative visions, whether it be design, film, web even computing!
R www.ollymoss.com/#/firewatch/
R www.firewatch.com
{IC ONO GRAPHY } - Idea 2 Based on the idea of a conversation around film I wanted to create a set of idents that focused on a hero vehicle and see if people understood it’s meaning. Thus with the recent release of Pan and the hype around the upcoming Star Wars I felt the two of these were the perfect test subjects for me to build a test out of. The overall process was some very good practise. I created these with a combination of Ai and Ps. Which allowed me to use sophisticated subtle gradients within my work. Overall I feel the visuals I created and their purpose were both successful! With a small group of people who’d never met talked internationally across the world about these films. Making a conversation. Although I’m happy with the work I’ve made and can see where this will impact the conversation brief, I want and idea that takes the idea of a conversation to the next level, where I can get people to socially collaborate in a similar way they did commenting on these film idents to benefit a final piece. Something that will truly push my skill set.
{DREW ELLIS } - Designer -
Drew Ellis 30th Otober 2015 I’ve recently become fascinated with this design style as its become incredibly fashionable in modern design and Drew Ellis has done some fantastic work in this regard. His work is so clean and concise and its for this reason I think it will work brilliantly when illustrating a future city. However, its also important for me to consider the bigger picture. While there will be a strong focus on illustration, iconography and logo design will play a small role within this project and this line drawing style will flow seamlessly between the poster and its branding. In Ellis’s work and the work, I’ll create it’s the attention to detail in regards to shadows and shading that really make this poster work. And within this regard I’m going to put a lot of practise into external projects to get a grasp with the style and my abilities and see what sort of quality work I can produce.
dribbble.com/DrewEllis
R dribbble.com/shots/1184431-New-York-Illustration/attachments/156046
dribbble.com/shots/1184517-Dallas/attachments/156070 R www.firewatch.com
{ L I N E D R AW I N G } - Practise In preparation for this style I applied the line drawing to a Star Wars based icon, this was a great attempt at combining illustrator and Photoshop to create visually striking work. The main illustration and structure was done in illustrator while the finishing touches were made in Photoshop due to its enhanced blending options and subtle filters. I also took a crack at the university Christmas card and while took this opportunity to apply it to a brand new project. Now this took a lot of time and effort for me to finally get to a standard I was happy with. It was the simplistic nature of this Christmas card I was trying to achieve the entire time. This was a perfect practise piece for many reasons. The main one however was the huge variety of buildings our university has which aloud me to practise a whole range of different styles from old all the way through to incredibly modern design. It has also been a huge test on my illustrator skills and left me much more familiar with the kit.
{VECTOR GRADIENT S } - Practise Now I’ve featured Dave Chanell in my work previously. And while I was really enjoying using the line drawn style I wanted to explore some more illustration styles before forming some real developments to ensure I was happy with my choice of style. So in a similar way to my line drawing style I did a practice pan piece and then reapplied it to an external brief, once again it was the Christmas card. While I feel both of these tests were successful I was still really liking the line drawn style from the previous pages.
{ C O N V E R S AT I O N S } - Branding -
Now back with idea 2 and the understanding the best form of advertising is word of mouth I realised this is equally reliant in terms of branding! How a brand is born, sells it self and how we interact with their products. Now while I’m doing this poster more as a personal development and something I can look back on I also want to consider it from a real world sense. Now a poster like this would be packaged a sold to the public and if I were to sell this how would I do it? How would I have a conversation with my consumers without directly speaking to them. So because of this I want to consider myself and branding myself, so while I’m working on the cities of the future its also time for me to consider how to convey my personality in my designs. Now speaking from personal experience when I invest in a product I always expect the best and if I get anything less I’m remotely disappointed and while the product is important as a designer the way the product is provided to me is equally as important, when I get a nice box I like to keep it. Now a nice box changes depending on what ever kind of product I’m expecting. Great examples of companies who do packaging well are apple, Disney, and most recently found to myself, Asus. When I buy their products just from the packaging I see really impressive quality. Now this has to be considered when branding myself and my own products, how will my logo look, what materials will I use, how will I sell myself and my product? This will need some huge development, however after taking a summer internship at a branding studio I feel I’ve absorbed enough knowledge to apply it into my own projects.
{SALIH KUCUKAGA } - Brand Designer -
Salih Kucukaga October 2015 Kucukaga is a great example of a designer who works with the style that fits perfectly with this project so far. With this idea of ‘branding myself ’ I want the whole project to feel like its been meticulously devised to fall seamlessly together. In light of this I will create the logos and typography of my branding in a similar respect to the way I do the poster and animation. I feel in this day and age good design is simple in a way that it has become about getting straight to the point. In case of these nice simple branding designs I feel the point is proven. The style is sleek and simple and you know exactly what it is you’re about to buy. Now as my poster has gone for a very simplistic illustration style I am going to translate this into the branding that will come along side it. The branding will be based around line drawing like the poster itself and in many ways be informative, following this pattern of knowing what it is you’re getting.
https://dribbble.com/salihkucukaga
R https://dribbble.com/shots/2194053-Coffeehood-Paper-cup
{L ABELS} - Research With this branding of a poster there is much in terms of packaging to brand, so all of my effort in design is going to be in create a smart minimal label that sells both the product and myself. I feel like when it comes to branding identity is huge. Making sure you can recognise a person or product instantly is essential and in doing this simplicity is key. The MacDonald’s ‘M’ the Disney ‘D’ are all great examples of iconography we are all familiar with. Although it’s the idea of continuity is also hugely important. As a student who will be soon looking for employment in the industry having a pre-established identity for my self across all of my work will be a huge step up and thus what I’m hoping I create over the next few weeks will be professional enough for me to carry on with for the next few years. I’ve done some research into label design as you can see here and you can see I’m focusing on a particular in many ways simplistic style which I feel will benefit my design style and the overall product.
R 1. https://dribbble.com/shots/2236103-H-chstadt-Typeface
2. https://dribbble.com/shots/2191072-Bottle-Logic-Passionate-Dragon 3. https://dribbble.com/shots/323028-Cocktail-Recipe-Cards 4. https://dribbble.com/shots/647684-Maple-Ave-Brewery 5. https://dribbble.com/shots/1681340-Shipping-Tags 6. https://dribbble.com/shots/1362405-In-Progress-Logo-Labels 7. https://dribbble.com/shots/1284989-MWY-Camping-Ripasso-label 8. https://dribbble.com/shots/1701801-Guilty-Pleasures 9. https://dribbble.com/shots/581001-Untitled-Project-Authentic-Dry-Goods
{BRANDING} - Idea 3 My third idea would be to see how conversations in fact mould a brand. For this I needed a client. And so when the Larkins asked me to develop their, I didn’t hesitate. I learnt a huge amount developing this idea from client relations to managing an entire branding project myself. And whist this gave me the opportunity to explore icons, custom typography and a range of ways of concepting my designs I felt it was missing part of the magic of the conversation brief. I set out with this project to build on my own freelance experience and develop my client relations. And while I felt the way our talks moulded this entire design process fitted the brief perfectly, the final piece was missing the personal touch academic briefs so often have. And so after completing this idea and developing a logo, icon and poster designs, it was time to move back to the conversation brief and re-think my strategy.
{IC ONO GRAPHY } - Practise With some successful experiments behind me it was time to begin creating some real work towards the idea of a future city. Now I wanted theories and opinions from myself obviously, but also my peers and a few complete strangers too! So this icon has been created to post online with a small caption requesting help from the online community on Imgur. Now as it’s the internet I had now idea what sort of results I’d get from complete strangers so I wanted to visually impress them before hand. And thus this line drawn icon was born inspired by a retro 1920’s vision of the future.
{ R E S U LT S } - Idea 4 While I’ve been working on the idea of branding myself I’ve received some great results in terms of my questionnaire predicting the future. Both my peers and strangers have had their say on what they think the future of our cities will be like. Now there’s a definite coloration between some of the theories and it’s these I’m going to pick and chose to build my visuals. Now obviously some are more realistic than so combing all of these different ideas will be the best way for me to get a well rounded view of the conversation we’ve had about the future. So with my results there are approximately fifteen great theories I can work with, combine and collaborate on. Now as they have such diverse readings I feel there’s a lot of fun I can have here in terms of poster design. I am going to turn three theories into three posters and one extra long poster. The concept is hard to describe but once I sketch it I feel some new ideas will begin to form.
{ E D WA R D K A U F F E R } - Brand Designer Edward Kauffer October 2015
Now while the other designers I have researched are new, Kauffer is a designer I’ve known and been inspired by for a very long time. Now codes and conventions are a huge part of design for me and have had a big influence on how I go about starting my projects. It just so happens Kauffer set some of the very basic codes and conventions that build up most modern poster designs. Now I’ve been practising basic line illustration and when I was going about it these types of posters were in my mind the entire time. Because of this I feel this layout will be a good launch pad to turn my illustrations into posters them selves and thus had to feature this work in my development record.
R http://design.designmuseum.org/media/ item/74551/1814/lr-Oxhey-Woods-byEdward-M.jpg
R http://media.aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/BLAND_c1930_Great_Southern_Rys_Blarney_Castle.jpg
{BUILDINGS OF MANCHESTER } - Idea 4 To ground my concepts of the future in reality I have focused on Manchester as a development point. Manchester was the heart of Britain’s industrial revolution and is now a centre piece of modern architecture. This means it has a brilliant blend of old and new and its this contrast I feel we will begin to see in future developments. And thus making the city a great reference for me to include within my designs. The buildings featured here will be both beneficial for me to replicate in a futuristic setting as well as a great launch pad for me to develop my own ideas from.
R 1. http://i3.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/article7750010.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/ SBR_MEN_100914Citylabs_01.jpg
2. http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/manchester/manchester_mattansell_210906_05 r.jpg 3. http://s3.freefoto.com/images/807/02/807_02_8838_prev.jpg 4. http://www.archh.com/m/anamkapoor/data/projects/main/14502375017737.jpg 5. http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/28936763.jpg 6. http://i3.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/article7750010.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/SB R_MEN_100914Citylabs_01.jpg 7. http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/manchester/the_point_manchester_b150311_db 1.jpg 8. http://www.restaurantsofmanchester.com/mobile/photos/british/modern-urbis600.jpg
{POSTER SKETCHES } - Idea 4 Now with the theories received and the style chosen I’ve began production on the main poster. Now at first I was going to create it directly in illustrator but quickly realised this wasn’t going to work and I went straight back to the drawing board in respect to how I was going to create my poster. The idea behind this is there will be three different posters depicting different concepts of the future in 100 years. Then with some illustration mastery I will merge all three posters and have them seamlessly transition across three A3 pages. The combining factor will be a road that runs from the top city all the way through the three depictions of the theorised futures.
{POSTER } - Idea 4 Now with the theories received and the style chosen I’ve began production on the main poster. Now at first I was going to create it directly in illustrator but quickly realised this wasn’t going to work and I went straight back to the drawing board in respect to how I was going to create my poster. So I’ve began literally building…building assets. And one I’ve created perhaps twenty or thirty of these I will be able to place them around and build the city building by building until it’s complete with detail. While I am happy with how this style is turning out and feel it will be great in terms of a massive poster, scaling in illustrator has proven to be an issue but something I will have to learn how to over come. It’s these moments I realise how much I need to expand my technical knowledge of the adobe suite, but its moments like these that inspire me to do it and go on to learn a new skill. From some online research it seems I can expand the layer which will transform them into shapes, rather than strokes in a similar way to converting fonts into outlines. This should then fix my scaling issues at a later date.
{L ABEL SKETCHES } - Idea 4 I am now in the very early stages of branding myself. While I work on the poster I want to ensure I have branding and packaging to go alongside it. The idea behind these sketches is I am going for quite a classic approach with these posters, and arching back to 1800’s train tickets I am going to rope that classic style, with my classic poster format but give it a fresh modern appeal. So as you can see there is only one rendition of this idea so far and it’s going to need a lot of development, however with both the designer and label research I’ve had prepared so far I feel the combination of the two will allow for a complete project which will be a great kick start into year 2.
{F I NA L I DE A } - The Time Capsule Finally I have come to a point in the brief in which it can be assembled into a final idea. Earlier I placed my design work online and asked people to comment what they predict the future will be like in 100 years. And thus now I’ve began working on a design time capsule. With the predictions I’m going to move forward and create a set of prints that turned these predictions into illustrations. And from there I would work in a small amount of personal branding to produce a document. A document I wont open for many, many years. With the intention that when I open it the conversation a range of strangers had online will open up and maybe predict the future. This is somewhat based on a documentary I saw about the creators of Back To The Future. Obviously 30 years ago when they created the show they had to predict what 2015 would look like and now its fun for them to look at what they got right and what they got wrong. So now its my turn to follow in their footsteps.
R http://www.blastr.com/sites/blastr/files/back-to-the-future-part-ii-original.jpg
R http://wirednewyork.com/real_estate/hearst_magazine_building/images/ hearst_building.jpg
http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2015/06/hith-Hanging-Gardens-of-Babylon-E. jpeg
http://caad.msstate.edu/wpmu/sarcnews/wp-content/blogs.dir/47/files/newyork-4th-year-sarc-fall-2012/west-chelsea-district.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7307/12050327503_b917d94532_b.jpg
R http://www.climatetechwiki.org/sites/climatetechwiki.org/files/imagecache/Illustration/images/teaser/teaser_image_6.jpg
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/1/005/09e/247/1399c68.jpg
http://cdn.londonandpartners.com/asset/a0362f0f5fc8f1b638d790c4d2fd542d. jpg
http://metrovaartha.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/11/mullaiperiyar-dam.jpg
R http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/w/images/6/60/xBt_tower_2.jpg.pagespeed.ic.HRHkFhkuho.jpg
http://suminfos.com/data/News/What-is-a-computer-server.jpg
http://travelinnate.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Space-Needle-6.jpg
{PRINT TEST S } - The Time Capsule During multiple stages in this process I have created printed work that hasn’t quite captured the same presence as its on screen counter part. And so for these prints I spent some time working with photoshop, almost a trial and error sense. To create the best possible print results for each of the three prints I had been designing.
{ C E R T I F I C AT E } - The Time Capsule As I’m sure in the futrue I will have forgotten about this project until I start routing back through my universisty projects. And so I devised this small certificate which outlines the project and my ambitions. So that in the future when I open it I can see when it was dated and sealed and see whether I was right or wrong.
{F I NA L OU TC OM E S } - The Time Capsule And here is the final result of this project. I wanted to create both physical and digital mock ups of my final piece. So the physical can be carried with me, sealed and safe until the day in the future I decide to open it. While the digital versions can go online and be left immortal in the world wide web.