Project report 02 by Jasper Lee

Jasper Lee Level 05 Responsive OUGD503 Project Report

Other Briefs; Secret 7â&#x20AC;? Dialogue SSC Logo

Main Briefs; D&AD New Blood : National Trust YCN Student Awards : Royal Albert Hall

RAW Layouts & Logo Charity Football Match Posters Snow Society identity & Promotion Ongoing Briefs

Contents;

D&AD New Blood : National Trust

01_02

YCN Student Awards : Royal Albert Hall

03_04

Secret 7â&#x20AC;?

05_06

Dialogue

07_08

SSC Logo

09_10

RAW Layouts, Logo & Promotion

11_12

Charity Football Match Posters

13_14

Snow Society Identity & Promotion

15_16

Ongoing Briefs

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01_02 The D&AD New Blood : National Trust brief was to encourage a younger audience to visit National Trust locations. The original target audience was 25-40 year olds, however, I believed it should also include younger people so I aimed mine at 18/2135, specifically young professionals with a disposable income. The brief asked for a, ‘integrated campaign that considers all communication channels’. For my response to this brief I came up with a interactive concept where a bench in a city location (in an area likely to be populated by the audience) would be painted with National Trust colours and a unique pattern. A bench in a near by National Trust location would also be painted with the exact colour and pattern. The bench in the city would have a plaque attached to it, detailing the exact whereabouts of the other bench as well as telling you to go and find it. The plaque would also contain the National Trust logo, charity registration number and hashtag #takeaseat which brings together both parts of the campaign. As well as this interactive element of the campaign I also produced a series of posters. I produced a variety of different styled posters but the idea I eventually decided to run with were my location designs, as it tied in well with the ‘twinned benches’, and encouraging phrases designs. The location posters had the exact address of National Trust locations on them and the average time it would take you to get from where the poster was to the National Trust location in a car. The phrase posters just had a variety of different phrases on them, encouraging people to visit the National Trust. I followed the National Trust guidelines quite specifically. Using their allowed collours, fonts and layouts.

The strength of this project is in the concept and experience. The concept is very strong as it is something that not only fulfills the brief but also is something that will really engage the audience and the public. The concept is also an idea that is growing in popularity at the moment amongst advertisers and promoters. The idea that you adapt or change the regular city landscape with something unusual, intrigues people and gets them talking which is what the brief required. The experience is a strength for me as a designer as I have done things with this project that I have never done before, such as create a .gif and go through the online submission on such a big scale. The weaknesses in this project lie in the limited design experimentation due to my decision to follow the quite strict brand guidelines of the National Trust. I see this as a negative as it did not allow me to exhibit some of my skills and meant that the posters looked very much like that of the national trust. This is not a weakness in terms of the submission of the brief, however, is a weakness in terms of my development. I am very pleased with the outcome to this project and the brief has given me the opportunity to get my work out there and be judged. If I was to spend more time on the project or do it again, I would see how the campaign would work with different colours and patterns as well as different medias for the adverts, such as; magazine pages/ spreads, billboards and web advertising. As a personal project I am very happy with the outcome, however, I am not sure how well it will compete in the competition. I believe it can win but there are skills that I think could have been improved, skills that may give others an advantage. These skills are my ability to render and my board layout, that may have let me down slightly.

Each poster contained the contact information and the information on how to donate to the Hall. The promotional material would be placed predominantly around central London. The mailshot was designed as a monthly postcard that informed the reader of the shows and events on the next month as well as all the contact and donation information. The shot would be sent out to all members of the Hall and anyone who is signed up to their mailing list.

For my collaborative project I worked with Priyesh Desai on the YCN Student Awards : Royal Albert Hall brief. The brief asked us to produce an omni-channel campaign raising awareness of the Hallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s charitable status and getting individual donors to donate. We originally chose the brief as we thought there could be a lot of variation and experimentation with it as it had so many possible outcomes. When we dissected the brief, however, it became very difficult to find something to build our design from. After a visit to the Royal Albert Hall, we decided to produce an advertising campaign, promotion at the Royal Albert Hall, a mailshot, an app and to redesign the website. We split the work in two; I designed the print side of the project whilst Pri focused on the digital work. Although the work was divided between the two of us, we established some guidelines so that the work was consistent and worked together. The guidelines that we followed involved colour, typefaces, point sizes, layout dimensions and imagery. The design for the print combined duotone images with phrases that gave people a reason to support the Royal Albert Hall and how important it is to the public.

The digital work focused on a redesign of their website. The existing website was confusin, had poor functionality, was not aesthetically pleasing, all making it difficult to donate to the Hall. The redesign simplified the website right down using a much more structured grid. The redesign breaks the information up so that it is easier to find and navigate around. One of the major problems with the existing website was that to donate to the Hall you have to navigate through multiple pages and even then it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t clear. To rectify this issue an additional tab was added to the navigation bar, which took you straight to the donation page. The app was an easy portable way to donate, find out what was on, arrange a visit and contact the Hall. The app and the websiteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s designs were very similar but the app was a more simplified version. The aim of the app was to make donating to the Hall much easier and quicker. The strengths of this project are the design, the variety of work produced and the experience. The design was clean and consistent across all media. It also fitted with the aesthetic of the hall whilst appealing to as many of the audience areas as possible. We produced quite a variety of work for this brief, which shows a range of skills and gives a strong outcome. The experience on this project was a key element as not only did it give us more competition experience but it also gave

03_04

us the experience of collaboration. It gave us the experience of working with another creative, not just relying on yourself and having to make decisions and agreements together. The collaboration is also a strength as you have two creative minds and two pairs of hands, meaning you can bounce ideas off each other and get twice as much work done.

The weakness in this project was the lack of impact and concept. Although the project fulfilled the brief and was a omni-channel response it did not have any major standout concept that would really encourage people to donate. I do think the project was strong but I also think it lacks the edge that I like in my work. The reason for this is probably to do with our initial struggle with the brief. If we had longer on the brief there are quite a few ideas we would have liked to take forward. I would have liked to produce more adverts in different formats, such as magazines, larger billboards and digital advertising. I would also have liked to make the mailshot more substantial by adding more elements and information as well as an envelope for it all to be held in. I also thought about some custom designed donation boxes that would be located around the Royal Albert Hall as this is something they do not have. Regards the digital work I think we would have liked to produce more pages on the website and all the features of the app. The problems that this project could face are it simply not working through at lack of engagement from the public and donors. The hashtag gives a platform to analyse whether it is working but it provide sufficient evidence. Another problem this project could face (in terms of the competition) is if there is a campaign with a more powerful concept that is really likely to get people to donate.

05_06 Having it as a vector I was able to resize it and manipulate it in any way I wanted to – a way that would fit the photo. I also ripped and scanned the photo to add a more rock and roll element to the work, enhanced by the illustration being crudely placed over the top. To me the song has quite a sexual element and that is what I chose to focus on, using an iconic sex symbol and making her more risqué and racy by adding suspenders and black shoes. As with the song, the outcome is more suggestively sexy rather than directly sexual. The combination of the beauty and elegance of Monroe and the provocateur addition of the stockings also echoes the lyric ‘dirty sweet’, which is repeated throughout the song. For my Secret 7” entry this year, I chose the T.Rex track Bang a Gong (Get it On). I focused on the lyrics, ‘Well you’re windy and wild/You got the blues/I’m your shoes and your stockings/You’re windy and wild’. With this in mind, I chose to use arguably the most iconic image of wind in pop culture (Marilyn Monroe in the white dress). The reason I chose the specific image over others of her dress blowing up was because it has more leg showing which makes the illustration I added more prominent. I then proceeded to sex up the image by adding illustrated shoes and stockings – in keeping with the lyrics. To produce the stockings I printed out the image of Marilyn Monroe and drew over the top of it using tracing paper. The illustration was then scanned into the computer, taken into Adobe Illustrator and finally turned into a vector.

The strengths of this work are its strong connection and inspiration from the original song, which in turn creates a strong concept and therefore the overall outcome and aesthetic are appropriate and clear. The weakest part of this work is probably the technical aspect. Although there are some technical design features, such as the layout, the tearing of the photo and the illustration, it is not ultimately that technically challenging or interesting. The project works with all of the limitations of the competition, as is also quite a powerful image, making it stand out and be recognizable. The only major problem with this work is that if the judges do not like it then it will not be accepted into the exhibition. My design was chosen and used in the Secret 7” Exhibition and then sold in aid of War Child on 19th April 2014.

07_08 I came up with a few ideas and began to sketch and write them down. Out of these ideas, looking at language, symbols and sounds, I chose to focus on phonetics. With my concept, I needed to decide on what the phonetics would say. I wanted them to have a dual meaning, reflecting the theme of dialogue. The phrase I decided on, was ‘Making language visual is not always as easy as it sounds.’ This sentence played on several elements of dialogue, its language part, its visual aspect and its verbal characteristic. With my phrase, I experimented with typefaces and layouts. My options were quite limited, as many font families do not have all the characters and glyphs required for the phonetic alphabet. I decided I wanted to use a serif font as it was much more aesthetically interesting than a sans-serif. I also made the decision to left align the work as this was more balance and worked better on the page.

Dialogue was a blind collaboration screen print exhibition organized by Yoke. The brief was to produce a single black and white design on the theme of dialogue. The work was then screen printed on top of, alongside and with other people’s designs. Yoke chose the colour and scale.

The strengths of this project lie in the concept as, although it looks fairly simple, the idea behind it is well thought out and as multiple meanings. The weakest part of the project was probably the layout as it is quite basic and there is not much to it, although specific design decisions were made.

I started this brief by researching into the dictionary definition of the word ‘dialogue’ and all its possible forms.

The work can be used on its own as well as with other designs; it can also be produced in multiple colour but is equally as strong in black and white. The design can also be scaled infinitely and can therefore be used for multiple proposes.

With the research done, I proceeded to put all my thoughts down on paper so that I could quickly see my thought process and all the possible options.

The design does not have any other function other than what it is. It is, in effect, a piece of art and therefore, other than display, has no use.

09_10 Once both sides had agreed all of the above, I proceeded to produce some initial ideas. I started out by sketching out some possible designs before digitizing them so they could be sent off to the client for their opinion and feeds back. They chose a design, which I then slightly adapted it to how they wanted, experimenting with different fonts and colour arrangements. I then sent this back off to the client as another development stage. Along with the designs I also sent the client a selection of fonts that they could choose from. They returned to me with a few other amendments and changes that they wanted making and a change in front. These amendments were made and the font was changed before sending it to them for any final adjustments. The strengths of this brief were the experience and the process I used. This was the first live brief I had undertaken for a client that was not a friend or family. This meant I had to work professionally and structurally. I had to manage my time much more specifically and meet every deadline. This was very important for future work as I learned a lot.

SCHOOL SPORTS

COACHING Aspire Believe Achieve

I was asked to design a logo for a School Sports Coaching company. I initially contacted the client setting out all the contractual agreements so that everything would run smoothly throughout the project as well as cost and development process.

The weakness in this project is that the outcome is not that aesthetically strong and it was neither conceptually challenging nor technically challenging. This is only from my point of view, however, as the client was very pleased with the result. The number of variations of the logo means that it can be used across multiple platforms for branding and identity. This project was on the whole successful although not the most interesting project I have undertaken.

11_12 Whilst working on the layouts of the boards I was asked to develop a logo as her existing logo was just her name in Times. For the boards I produced several different possible designs. Each used a different grid structure and layout to provide a variety of options so that when I took the design to her we could discuss which were the best options and move on from there. After a discussion with the client, we made a decision that using the 4 column grid worked well, leaving the 4th column free for the logo and any written information. The final layout, however, used a 12 column grid as a guide and filled the space accordingly with the content. I wanted to break the content up so that it was all visible and each board had impact, however, I didn’t want to overcrowd them. To create impact without overcrowding or making the boards look bare, I aligned all the content to the left and limited how many columns the content could fill so that there was breathing space around the logo as this was also important information.

I was asked to design some presentation boards for a Surface Pattern designer. She had a collection of work that she wanted presented so that it could be sent to possible employers and clients. There was a maximum of 10 boards and they had to be A4 landscape. The client had already decided on the majority of the content so I had to lay it out. We initially met up and discussed what she wanted and I began to make some initial sketches. We also decided on the pages, their order and their contents.

After some initial discussion about the logo, we set some restrictions, specifically on the content and what needed to be said. The logo itself could just be her initials (RAW) but she also wanted her full name (Rachel Anne Waring) and Surface Pattern Designer included. I wanted to produce something that was sophisticated, could hold its own and stand out in the industry, whilst also reflecting Rachel as a person and designer. I began the process by sketching a variety of different options, making them as different as possible. From the beginning I had a concept that I wanted to push.

Rachel’s initials spell out ‘raw’, which was something that I thought was fantastic. Not only did this make life easier on my part it also already had an energy and impact that a logo requires. Another element of her initials that was very useful was the ‘A’ and the ‘W’. When written in upper case, the angles are very similar – if not the same – and this is something I wanted to play with. I had a personal favorite amongst my sketches and when discussing the logo with Rachel, this was fortunately also her favorite. I tested and trailed several variations of each letter before I was happy with them. I did all the drawing by hand before digitising the logo. With the logo now complete I needed to find a typeface that complimented my hand-drawn type for Rachel’s full name and occupation. The font that I chose was Futura. The strengths in this project were the connection/contact made with the client and the logo design. Making this new connection is helpful in several respects; if I ever need a surface pattern designer I have a contact and also her family includes a graphic designer/advertiser, which is helpful for experience, work and contact. The weakness in this project, I think, are the boards. Although they do what is required, they are not incredibly designed. This is partly to do with the restrictions and preferences of the client but I know it is not my best work. This is still an ongoing project and I have recently been asked to produce a business card for her and other printed collateral and identity. This gives the project a great deal of potential.

13_14

I was asked to produce some posters for the LCA Staff Vs. Student Charity Football Match. This was a very quick brief with a quick turn around time. I had quite a bit of freedom with this project, the only limitations I had were the colours used and the information displayed. I produced a series of four posters for the match with a very simple design. Each poster contained all of the information needed for the promotion of the match as well as a title piece. The title piece/motif was a coloured circle with text inside. The posters came in two colours – green and blue – and one poster was supporting the staff and one was supporting the students. The other two posters told that it was ‘the biggest game in LCA history’ and the other asked the question ‘who will you support?’ These posters provided an edge of competition and audience participation. This is not one of the strongest projects I have worked on. Its strengths lie in that it is functional and works as a poster. The weakness in this project is that it is not a strong design and layout and is quite rushed. The work was displayed around college prior to the match, providing some publicity of my work.

15_16

It then became apparent that a logo for the society would be needed. The logo was chosen from the poster, using the mountains as a motif and enclosing them within a circle to be in keeping with the other societies logos and the Student Union. The logo is now used on everything we produce, give/send out or use. This now includes posters, society cards, t-shirts, beanies and any printed matter associated with the society.

snow society

Another element of the society that had to be designed was the society card. Again the inspiration was taken from the initial poster and logo, whilst also making space for the required information. The design for this is on going a the Facebook page is updated and regular posters are produced.

As co-founder and co-president of the LCA Snow Society, I have produced the societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity and promotion for the society. The inspiration for the aesthetic was taken from retro ski posters and modernist shapes. Initially the project started out as a poster design. For the original poster I chose colours, fonts and the aesthetic. The posterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s purpose was to promote awareness of the society and get anyone interested to come to an initial meeting.

The strength of this project is its wide application. The project is spread over many different medias and platforms, meaning that the design has to function correctly across all possible options. This is also an element of the project that can be exploited. The identity of the society can be spread across everything, skiing equipment, leaflets, and flyers, anything that is required. The specific colours also mean that the society can be identified from these, which is an advantage, both inside and outside of college. This project also gets my work out into the public which provides some publicity. There project requires brand guidelines setting out so that when I leave there are guide for the next society members to follow.

17_18

Ongoing Briefs

I am currently working on an identity and a website for a fashion student. This is a project that has been in the pipeline for a considerable time; however, it has only just been confirmed. The project consists of designing all of his identity, from a logo right through to clothing tags and look book. The other side of the project is creating an online presence for him. For this part of the project I intend on setting up a cargo site for him, which allows me to create a custom website, whilst saving time with coding and building. This project will not be completed in time for the submission as I am only meeting with him two days before. The foreseeable strengths of this project will stem from my real interest in fashion and designing for fashion. The weaknesses will be based around the website as that is not my strongest skill area.

Another on-going project is the logo design and business cards for a creative advertising student. Similarly to the fashion student, this is a project that has been talked about for a while, however, has only just properly started. This should be quite a quick project, however, it could develop into quite a substantial project if he wants a whole identity designing. As with the other new brief, this project will not be completed in time for the submission.

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Ongoing Briefs