New Visual Language ( Final Version ) by James Betts

CONTENTS

04 06 08

Theory Introduction Modernism Post-Modernism

10 12 14

City In Flux Development Final Piece

16 18 20

Earth Artifact Development Final Piece

22 24 26

Typography Development Alphabet

Credit

Welcome to the first issue of New Visual Language, representing the very best work created through the year by just one designer. The works combine both a theoretical basis with practical contemporary design, of both a usability and aesthetic sense. After just one year within academic practice I feel this magazine is the prime example of progress and the incredibly fast learning curve that is present within modern age design.

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THEORY CHAPTER 1

“ Theory of design has a huge part to play in modern day design. Over the past one hundred years there have been some huge revelations in the industry, and it’s important to study, remember and re-kindle those classic flames into modern design! ”

Theory

MODERNISM

“ If you do it right, it will last forever.” -Massimo Vignelli

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Modernism is an early 1900’s design movement which has had a huge effect on both the world we know today and my own design projects. Modernism to me is seen as the start of graphic design, and the point in which we can begin to see conventions we class today beginning to unfold. Modernism consists of some of my very favourite designers such as Saul Bass, Massimo Vignelli and Josef Muller Brockman. All three of which have been huge inspirations on my work, whether its the inclusion of minimalism or work with typography you can see references to their work throughout. In fact even in this magazine production Josef Muller Brockman’s editorial methodology is apparent at the core design stages. Brockman developed an incredible grid system which has become key within editorial design. Following a universal grid allows to both hold the form and function of the production and despite each page being individual there is still a strong sense of unity from cover to cover. Following this core minimalist elements from both Bass’s and Brockman’s poster designs can be seen within the structure of my Earth artifact project, inspired in both a visual and typographic sense. Despite these direct inspirations, it is the whole modernist idea of form following function that I particularly endeavour to pursue in my designs. A different form allows for a different function i.e. two different types of chairs. Thus when creating my work it’s become very important

to consider what function I want to have before following it with the form. Louis Sullivan (1890’s) from the Chicago school said “Form follows function is the law”. Being an architect this was very important to him and he saw it as a natural law comparable to the law of nature. As the primary function of nature is for a species to survive. And with this function in mind evolution has then formed the species in a particular way to do so. This idea of form and function is also directly relatable to typography. Legibility and readability are both imperative when it comes typography. Legibility is concerned with the very fine detail of the typeface and how we recognise each individual letter where as readability follows the idea of understanding body copy as a whole. However in this you can begin to see subjectivism as both perfect form and perfect function is dependant on both. ‘Less is more’ Is what I feel contemporary design is arching towards within both form and function and is something this magazine has a strong rooting in. As you can tell I have gone for a very minimal approach to both my typography and imagery to create an overall body with a very minimal editorial layout, which is rateable to Aristotle’s famous quote, ‘‘The whole is more than the sum of the parts.’

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Theory

POST-MODERNISM

“ It’s not about knowing all the gimmicks and photo tricks. If you haven’t got the eye, no program will give it to you. ” -David Carson

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Post modernism was another fantastic era for design, however personally I feel my own design style arches back more towards its predecessor, Modernism. Post Modernism is described in many ways of being “weird for the sake of weird” as Matt Groenings ‘Simpsons’ So eloquently put. However it is obviously much more than that. After the conclusion of World War 2 design began departing from Modernism and despite the overlap within some designers there was a definite gap beginning to form. A visual way of describing Post modernism is like looking into a broken mirror, a shattered representation of things we recognise. It could be equally described as ‘the collapse of the sign’. It is this idea of undoing codes and conventions that fuelled Post Modernist designers as they began to unwrap semiotics and turn all the codes that designers had kept to on their heads. A key concept designers followed were the fact that design and reality are not mirrors of one another. Creative interpretations are subjective to both the audience and the creator. The idea of questioning reality and undoing normal narratives was often seen as a destructive notion, however in the eyes of a Post Modernist it was the complete opposite. In light of this idea of subjectivism I can see this being strongly applicable to art and illustration, although as a designer I’m a much bigger fan of form following function.

Despite not being an overall fan of the Post Modernist era there is a handful of designers who’s work I personally appreciate, however don’t receive inspiration from. David Carson is one of these few. He has created some incredible posters that have a very unique style. This unique style is evidence of the Post Modernist view on destructivism. As he has used regular typographic conventions and scrambled them to ‘construct’ something entirely new. This inspiration for originality is what is so fantastic about post modernism. Despite creating some of the more ‘wacky’ design pieces they rarely conform to another idea. However in light of this in many respects I think this sort of descontructivism is in many ways dying out. What was once an original idea of destructing conventions and reassembling them for your own desires was once a very brave move to make, however it is now becoming more and more common. You can see a range of ‘post modernist’ artists and designers whom have used conventions from other post modernist practitioners. And if you can now start pointing out codes and conventions within post modernism then I believe its losing it’s purpose entirely. This is also a contributing factor to my own design style. As I feel this grunge phase has become really desaturated and thus I aspire to a different era of design.

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CITY IN FLUX CHAPTER 2

â&#x20AC;&#x153; A City In Flux was my first project I personal undertook within university. Due to this it as a huge learning curve and it almost felt like my stabilisers had been confiscated and it was finally time to have a crack at design myself. â&#x20AC;&#x153;

A City In Flux

With City In Flux being such a huge learning curve I went through a vast amount of development before settling on a final idea. With the brief being so open I first had to receive my own interpretation on what a city fluxing meant to me. With living primarily in Manchester, having a second home in York and then my University course being in Huddersfield I have had a huge amount of experience with getting around different cities and noticing the different ‘icons’ within each one. Thus I focused on the way a city flux’s in terms of transport and people getting around them, such as London’s classic red bus.

Thus I began creating a small business card sized info-graph about these classic red London buses, however despite liking the overall minimalistic design and colour scheme it became important I considered ‘function’. Thus I created a set of new info-graphs based around iconic landmarks. The intention of these was that tourists could pick them up within train/ bus stations and follow the little map to their destination with the convenience of keeping it in your purse or wallet! Despite liking the concept developing it was a struggle.

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A City In Flux

There was too much information to hold on such a small page making it incredibly impractical to read! Thus I resulted looking back towards the transport links within the city and applying the minimalist style I liked from my London bus designs to tickets! I then created my own ticket concept. With so much travelling between different commitments I always end up with an assortment of different tickets. Thus my idea was to create a company whom you could buy a ticket from to traverse all of their network with one simple ticket, and thus Exec was born. This concept followed the idea that you would buy the

one ticket at what ever station you find yourself and then as you travel along your journey you could rip the piece off for the particular piece of transport and thus as you travelled you’d only have the one ticket. Although I really liked this idea it was important to further consider the function and understand we are now in the digital age, and everyone expects to be able to do everything via their smart devices. Thus I began reconsidering the idea and how it would work in the real world with both a physical ticket, and a digital version. Thus I began developing ideas for what my app would look like.

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A City In Flux

CITY IN FLUX UI DESIGN

App design is like nothing I’ve ever done before and thus I had to think about how to refine my skills to allow me to create an app concept. In an ideal world I would have loved to have created a functioning app however there were many constraints that made this impossible. Number one of course is I am not a computer scientist nor app designer. This means if I were to want to create a fully functioning app I’d have to learn the code or a piece of software that would integrate it for me. Despite this not being impossible by this point in development I was coming towards the end of the project and time restraints wouldn’t allow me to both learn, refine and then use these skills. Thus I began using the skills I did know to create a concept app layout and functionality. My concept was similar to that of the ticket. You would chose your starting point, destination and then the app would direct you between the two in the quickest time all while keeping just one ticket digitally on your phone. What was also important when creating this app was looking back towards my original minimalist London bus info-graph and use that same style to begin to create the iconography you’d expect within the app. I spent a lot of time working with logos, colour schemes and overall layouts and it turned out to be fantastic practise for both my illustrator and Photoshop skills! What was also important was continuity. Both the ticket and the app were being developed to look as if they were from the same company, and thus it was important there was evidence of that in both designs. To do this I ensured I used similar fonts however certain considerations had to be made when selecting them as different fonts are obviously used for different reasons. This being a user interface getting the sizes right was the first most important thing along with letter spacing. I chose a san-serif font a sit is rare you’ll see a serifed font within a UI. Serifed fonts make reading body copy easier due to

the different letter definitions however for ui’s simplicity is the best course of action. This is related back to that over arching law of form follows function. The function of this app to get people from A to B and by following this very simple concept I began developing functionality around it. Thus what would the step by step process be to get you to buy your ticket? I needed a simple home page which would allow you to chose your type of journey, followed by a data form in which you would input the raw details of where you were going. Once you’d done this you would be met with a scrollable display showing you all the different routes which would you get from A to B, how long they’d take and how much they’d cost. Once purchased you would be displayed your ticket with unique QR codes which would allow conductors to scan on arrival. Other functions have been considered such as a Google map integration. Obviously not all bus stops and train stations are right by one another, because of this a solution was devised if you were to press the ticketed icon it would reveal a map showing your location and the next location you must walk to. What was finally left to do was to understand compatibility. Being in the digital age we are never a few feet away from an all new digital device. Because of this and due to my personal preference I decided to focus on ios. Apple’s software is something I use all the time and whenever I have an app I am always glad to see it’s both backwards compatible with previous phones as well as working on the iPad. With this in mind I did the same for my own app. I created the entire app originally for the latest model and then redeveloped it to fit the latest version of iPad! This gave me a strong understanding of how real app developers work and how they have to constantly consider the different situations users will find themselves in! Thus this final piece ended being a whole travel scheme, including ipad and iphone digital apps and the physical travel ticket.

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AN EARTH ARTIFACT CHAPTER 3

â&#x20AC;&#x153; Earth Artifact was by far my favourite project of the three. After settling in with the pace of work with City In Flux , Earth Artifact finally allowed me to use my creative freedom! I was able to research into a vast amount of my very favourite designers to source inspiration from every corner of the digital illustrative world. â&#x20AC;?

An Earth Artifact

DEVELOPMENT Since the start of this project my Voyager posters have gone through a range of developments. Originally starting as a homage to the classic 1980’s sci-fi culture everyone loves, and then moving through a range of styles before ending upon my final piece. What you can see to the left was in fact my original ‘final piece’. I spent a huge amount of time moulding , editing and gradually refining this piece to try and create a poster that was reminiscent of the 80’s and however I felt it was hugely successful considering it was built up from scratch in Adobe Photoshop, nor me or my tutors felt it as honouring the narrative of the Voyager travelling through space. Thus a redevelopment was necessary and it was back to the drawing board. It became based around this idea of how could I portray the Voyager journeying among the stars? So I looked into Nasa’s raw files about the Voyager and began to understand its impending mission and the cold loneliness of it’s adventure. Thus I began working on a range of info-graphs which represented the core science behind the mission, However they lost their visual aesthetic and thus I returned to the poster idea and began blending it with the info-graphs in a very minimal sense. Here I was getting somewhere. Creating a very simply vector based poster with a short paragraph of information informing the audience of where the Voyager was at this time. However the minimalist style didn’t capture the epic scale of the objects the Voyager was encountering such as Saturn and Jupiter. Thus a new set of posters were designed to begin to comprehend the huge scale of the mission.

Title

Pt Sans Bold: Pt 358.79 : +0p

Tagline : Lucida Sans Uni’ : Pt 24.3 : +400sp Credits :

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SteelTongs Regular : Pt 20.02 : +0p

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An Earth Artifact

THE FINAL THREE

As a young and practising designer I feel it’s incredibly important that I practise a range of styles to allow me to focus my abilities with digital design software while at the same time ensure I can work range of styles to a high quality level. This meant I spent a lot of time working through my sketchbook. When ever I got even the smallest idea I jotted it down with absolutely no attention to detail, the whole premise was to ensure I didn’t forget that little morsel of an idea. This then allowed the development of these ideas into fully fledged posters. Initially at the start of my research stage I looked into classic 60’s,70’s and 80’s sci-fi films, in recognition these are the era’s NASA was deploying their probes into space. Thus naturally I began to see those classic sci-fi posters that came accompanied with those films and followed my designs in a similar fashion. I became hooked on reusing this fantastic design style and relating it to contemporary news as it was to depict the Voyager forty years after its departure from Earth exploring our vast solar system. The image was sketched in my pad and then digitalised through a combination of both Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. This was another time consuming process and was my centre of attention for a number of days as I gradually refined both my skills and the poster itself. Over time the poster was finally completely and I was incredibly happy with the result! However neither me or my tutors felt I’d fulfilled the brief and the poster needed to portray a narrative of the Voyager.

I looked back at my initial designer research and took inspiration from their work. In this small period of time I produced a vast amount of different styles of posters, strongly focusing on a info-graphic type of sense to portray the narrative my original was missing, however despite these being more information heavy, it was time to find the balance between aesthetics and narrative. With the inception of the trio of posters you’ll find here as my final piece. These were originally intended to look like black and white date photographs of the incredible sites the Voyager will have experienced. With the same skills I’d developed creating the first poster I set out to create one of these grainy black and white images of the Voyager leaving our solar system. Overall I felt this was a huge success! Yet there was still more ground to be broken and that meant a play with very minimal colours to match the continued theme of a minimal poster. With the inclusion of photoshops incredible colour filters I spent time gradually refining, enhancing and further refining the colours I was adding the poster. Overtime I was happy with quite a dark space age colour scheme which I felt not only embodied these incredible planets I was trying to portray but managed to keep that low quality photo type nostalgia I was looking for in the first place! In the end I was incredibly happy with all three of the posters as they managed to include that 80’s sci fi element I originally set out to create while at the same time portraying the narrative of the traveling Voyager.

Figure Key : 1 :-: Jupiter

1977 - 1979

2 :-: Saturn

1979 - 1980

3 :-:Voyager

1980 - n/a

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TYPOGRAPHY CHAPTER 4

“ This was a big learning experience as I’d never before worked with typography! Many key skills were developed upon as we put our work through a range stages from pencil drawings, to vector alphabets, through to a Photoshop canvas! ”

Typography

DEVELOPMENT I spent a lot of time developing my typeface with the most important stage possibly being the first. In this original stage I began a huge amount of sketching. These sketches were a vast amount of different ideas I could pursue in creating my font. I looked into a range of different sources of inspiration which led me to create a spectrum of different styles. As this was my first ever time creating a new font I wanted to make sure it was something I would actually enjoy doing, thus trying all these styles was key. Sources of inspiration could come from anywhere. Other fonts, designs works , art works or even architecture! This idea of getting inspiration from anywhere is something I am incredibly fond of and is something I use in my daily design work! I sourced most of my inspiration this time however from artworks. By identifying different shapes and patterns I could then begin to create different letters! The letters took many forms and often were more images than letters! However with refinement

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and more sketching I moved away from the more comical type faces and began setting on a rounded minimalist type alongside two art deco styled pieces. As confidence grew I began reverting from pencils and working in black ink to define each individual detail. Slowly I was becoming more and more happy with each font and layer by layer they were refined and redeveloped. One art deco font become very loud and bold while the other one mirrored it, becoming slim and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;quietâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. And finally the minimalist spherical font began developing into a completely new style. The concept around it was that each letter would start as a circle and the shape would be bent and moulded into the next letter. This premise worked for most of the letters although some obviously had to disobey the rule, otherwise they would be unrecognisable. The next step was to start developing these fonts in a vector format so we could see what they would look like on a professional scope.

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Typography

FINAL TYPEFACE This is my final minimalistic typeface. In the computer development stages the font went through a lot of refinement! When I drew these on the original paper documents despite trying my best with accuracy it was clear in the computer a lot of changes had to be made. Sizes of letters in comparison to others were very important and a range of examples proved that there was a lot more to consider than I had originally thought. Thus with primarily trial and error I slowly refined my font, adjusting angles of corners and the length of straights. While creating this font I had never had it in mind as replacing Helvetica as the king of body copy. Instead I took the approach of what an independent chain of coffee shops would look like, or maybe a modern pub? Thus I consider this a very one off font. As you can see that primary objective of making each letter look like a rolled out circle is still very much in play and overall I was very happy with all of the letters. Despite this however there were a few I still don’t think work in this particular style. This is due to a range of reasons such as their initial shapes. Letters such as ‘s’ and ‘i’ have very little in common with a circle and because of this they were very hard to translate into my chosen style. Thus they don’t seem to fit into the alphabet too smoothly. However I feel this can be overlooked due to the fact that of the original intention of either this or the art deco fonts being used as shop signs or titles , over the idea of them being body copy. The final additions were made in Photoshop. To allow the font to stand out and represent it’s sleek modern sense I transferred each letter as a smart object away from illustrator and into Photoshop. Here I was able to apply a range off effects which didn’t disrupt the overall aesthetic of the design, but allowed it to stand out and speak for itself. Once it was finally laid out ready to be presented to an audience I finalised by creating a few words as example text of how the font would work in the real world.

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FIN. YEAR ONE

â&#x20AC;&#x153; After an incredible year of learning new skills and making new friends it has sadly come to an end. The two of these covers host some of my very best work from that time frame and are just the first step in a whole road to come! â&#x20AC;?