NVL: Final magazine by Joshua Juhasz

Form follows function Issue 1

CONTENT

elcome to NVL! In this the first issue of many more we will be exploring a new visual language and how form follows function. In total we will explore 4 different set briefs that challenge the idea of form following function and A New Visual Language, Earth Artefact, Type Transcript and City in Flux will all be walked through final design, thoughts on the brief and how different initial ideas were generated early on at the start of the brief through research.

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New V i su a l L a n gu a ge An exploration of a new visual language. This page focuses on some initial research of mine into the two types of Modernism and how form follows function. Learn more about A New visual language on Page 1.

Earth Artefact Earth artefact was an exploration of how contact could be made in different ways to an extra terrestrial species. This brief was an exciting and visual take on the phonograph records! Learn more on Page 5.

Type Transcript Type Transcript was an exploration of typography focused on creating a new interesting type face inspired by a particular artist. This brief was made to test us on our skills with creating a font! Learn more on Page 11.

City in Flux This was my first brief. It was an exploration of how a city is constantly changing over time, we could choose to express this in any which way we wanted to! I chose Architecture. Learn more on Page 13.

NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE PRESENTS:

THE PERFECT FONT

GEOMANIST “I suppose it’s like Helvetica but better”

*****

9 weights

Sans serif

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there isn’t anything left to remove.

“

NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE

“

(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

Brief 1: 11/05/15 New visual language

his is the first set brief that we are going to look at, the brief is called “New visual language” and focuses on creating a magazine in the style of a post modern or a modern ideal. I chose to create my magazine in a modern ideal because of my interest in Grid systems and structure; a post modern design wouldn’t offer this structure that I am interested in therefore this style of magazine would have been totally illogical. The brief extract says that... “You are to submit designs proposals for a new graphic design publication entitled, “New Visual Language.” The first issue will focus on Form follows function an exploration of Modernism and Post Modernism.” I understood this and began my research, I started to research into different Modernisms which allowed me to gather a better understanding of how to start to create my magazine. After researching into different modernisms and the history of the movements I researched “Good masthead design” and “Classical magazine layout”. This gave me a better idea of what my magazines aesthetic should look like, and overall gave me a better starting point for my initial thumbnail ideas. I looked at designers such as “Build” and “NON FORMAT” because of there structured layouts and beautiful font. After looking at artists like these I discovered that a lot of modern styled magazines are very minimal in there style; I took this inspiration and started to create my initial thumbnail ideas for my cover and masthead. I didn’t want my cover to be too overcrowded with information I felt that this would only bring my design down and a minimal design which is more focused on appearance is the way forward when creating a modern style.

Once my research was completed I could start my initials. I started by sketching initial ideas for mastheads on paper and chose a few I liked, I chose to create an abbreviation logo because of it quirkiness and how much better it would look on my magazine, I felt that a longer masthead would be distractive and useless. A shorter masthead is much better for grabbing the attention of a consumer which is what swayed me into creating an abbreviated masthead. The rest of the development process of this brief was quite standard: Going through colour and font choice on every page and focusing on layout and how type could be manipulated and made to be more visual. The publication would be split into sections for each brief that the user would read about. I organized this by creating a contents page which displayed where different briefs were and the numbered pages that they were on. In conclusion I was happy with how each page looked, the information of each brief was well presented in a modernist styled magazine which had evidence of the grid and bold but intricate typefaces which worked well as body text and headers for each section of my magazine.

Overall this brief is a good representation of how a form follows a function. The visual element is a lot clearer and the exploration of modernisms is clear in the final product. Research was very important into the different Modernisms and the choice of Modern is clearly reflective in this magazine. This was a great brief to work on because of how structured it was, there weren’t too many unknowns and opportunities were there to try different layouts and explore a whole range of traditional and contemporary design.

The aim of this brief was to produce a new magazine entitled “New visual language” with a post modern/modern styled influence which doesn’t look like a slavish reproduction. I feel that I have done this well and this brief was a good demonstration of how I can use type and layout in a visually styled magazine. Form following function is a big part of what this brief was set to achieve, the phrase can have different meanings to a lot of people. For instance form following function could reference how for is always a part of how the product functions. When we look at an object the function is only seen by the form and how we perceive the object to work.

Design through structure and beauty

modernism

11/05/15 I Modernism New visual language

(Modern Cubism)

Cubism was a big art style during the Modernism movement. Cubism revolutionized painting and sculpture and also influenced literature and music! It was a very important step in defining a modernistic world and we can still see cubism being used to this day in vector.

“The modern artist is working with space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.” (Jackson Pollock) (Art Deco:2007)

The style “Art Deco” often uses rich colours, bold geometric shapes and ornamentation. It first appeared in France and was popular during the Modernist period, I like this style of design because it fits in with what I am interested in. Bold and simple geometric illustration.

(Expressionism)

Expressionism is a focus on visually demonstrating how a person or situation is feeling. It was a very important stage of the Modernist movement because it was one of the first that combined emotion with graphic language.

(Bauhaus:2007) To me Bauhaus was the single most important in the Modernism movement. It was essentially the birth place of modern Graphic design and combined all of the crafts into one school. The Bauhaus was the trend setter and was considered to be a new way of thinking about design. All Bauhaus designs uses the grid and simple geometric shapes, it seems then that without Bauhaus we wouldn’t have the modern style of design that we love today.

Inspiration

11/05/15 I BUILD New visual language

(Build.co.uk) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Buildâ&#x20AC;? is a graphic design company. They specialize in anything from print, web design and moving image. They class their work as being a mixture of Post modern/Modern style. However I feel that their work is mostly of a contemporary/Modern style. The clean and professional style is very inspiring, the negative space creates more room for the design to breathe making a much more modern and professional looking piece of design. All of builds publications are great and the prints are always of good standard. The inspiration I gain from build is from the layout of there designs. They are quite minimal and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have too much information and as a result their style appears to be very modernised and clean. This is something that I have tried to replicate in this magazine, by not adding too much information and text the whole design in visually pleasing and relaxed.Their use of the grid system is obvious and as a result the whole piece is well measured and balanced, I love their work.

initials through to final design

development

11/05/15 My Initials New visual language

(Initial layouts) Overall I am happy with my cover. The cover is of a minimalist style which I feel works well within keeping within the idea of a new visual language. The modernist style is obvious and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s influences are directly based on minimalism and colour; Primary colour is used well with bolder colours like white and black to offer more contrast which gives emphasis to certain features on the cover. Abbreviated language is used in the form of circles, each half circle and quarter circle making up the letters NVL standing for a New visual language. This shortened version has worked well and has kept the whole design simple and clear to understand. The use of the sub-header on the bar code is ironic. The fact that the bar code is being used as a solid background for my sub-header (Form Follows Function) is demonstrative of form following a function in itself. I think that this use of a play on words with irony has worked well and was smart. My initial layouts were very simple to create, I used them as references when deciding where everything would be placed when I was creating my cover layouts. I found that I liked the minimalist style of the layouts more because I felt that this represented a modern styled magazine along with a grid system which I also used in development.

New Visual Language

A b b re v i a t i o n l a n g u a g e : T h e M a s t h e a d

For millions of years man lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

AN EARTH ARTEFACT

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

(Stephen Hawking)

Brief 2: 11/05/15 Earth Artefact

Earth Artifact is the second set brief we are going to explore, the briefs focus is to create a new spin on the phonograph records in order to be able to communicate with extra terrestrial life. This brief is very wide spread and the creation of a new set of phonograph records can be made to be anything from Infographics, Data visualization or animation. I was more focused on creating a set of infographics even though I explored more than one of these in my development process. I felt that I could express phonographs records more visually and understandable to alien life through posters and print; even though I originally thought that animation was a great idea I found that time was against me with the deadline of the brief only being 6 weeks away. I didn’t feel that I was experienced enough at this point to create an animation and illustration was the best visual way forward. My main focus when completing this brief for me was to create a set of infographics/ posters about the Human race to give alien life a misinterpretation of who we actually were. The range of posters are from a company I invented called “Project Green” a set of environmentalists who’s mission is to save the world at all costs. The humans are destroying the Earth with there technology and slowly destroying themselves and ultimately life on earth. My posters represent all of the bad things about the Human race in the hope that extra terrestrial life will help terminate the human race for good to save the Earth. In the next few pages you will see the posters that have been created, read on to see my initial ideas, the inspiration I had and the completed posters about the Human race.

EARTH The Brief

A R T E FA C T

“Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future with the technology at our disposal - the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking”.

designers that inspired me in the process

inspiration

11/05/15 Funders & Founders Earth Artefact

Funders & Founders

Characterized Illustration is something I’m interested in I have tried this style below.

Funders and Founders are a design company who mainly create inspirational and motivational infographics using illustration. They gave me the inspiration to create the posters/infographics because of the style of the infographic and how things were iconized. I decided to create my infographics using icons this would not only make the poster easier to understand for alien life It would also be a quick and simple way of visually describing something. I tried to create my own icon of a well known character inspired by Funders & Founders, I created an illustration of The Queen of England using the pen tool and different methods. Funders and founders style are very recognizable for their geometric styled vectors of famous people and their start-up guides that inspire so many people to try something they have never tried before. The fact that their illustrations also inspire so many other people is part of why they inspire me. In my finals they will inspire me to create my illustrations in a simple style.

“We are startup evangelists and infographic authors our mission is to inspire everyone from engineers to moms to do a startup.”

***** “Inspirational”

development

HUMANS ANS HUMANS TAT HABITAT HABITAT ERE AND THERE AND THERE HABITAT TAT HABITAT 11/05/15 Development Earth Artefact

Icon development

My development process was mainly done on Adobe Illustrator, I created small illustrations like these as icons to add to my bigger poster. I was very happy with these illustrations and they represent what I want them to represent well. The gas mask is a representation to how Humans are all bad, the mask almost looks alien in a sense. I have tried to give a mis representation of Humans which is evident in most of my illustrations I have done. Icons like these were created on illustrator using the pen tool, first I made the outline of the icon as well as using a reference image to help me visualize what the icon should look like. After I made my outline I experimented with different colour & type for the icons when I was happy with the colour I added shadows to give the icon more depth. Once happy with all of these factors I added the icon to my final piece. I created a range of different icons, these icons would do different jobs and represent different things on my outcomes. Icons were a quick and simple way of being able to identify something. Overall I was happy with the outcome and how the icons looked on my final pieces.

PROJECT GREEN

VOYAGER PRINTS

10 metres

Project Green is an operation designed to protect planet EARTH from species that endanger itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exsistence by polution, violence and other forms of destructive nature. Mankind is the biggest cause of this the population of this species has grown way too high our mission is to fix it.

120 degrees

20 metres

Delta v=v\e

The VOYAGER spacecraft holds information of the HUMAN race and there habitat, the biggest human threats to EARTH and how to destroy humans without putting earth at risk. Aerodynamic wings push air down the craft which allows for a more stable flight path.

Blast defectors

THRUSTERS need max intake of OXYGEN

(Blueprint outcome)

This was my first final outcome, the outcome is based on the blueprints of the rocket that will hold the new phonograph records which I have created. I created the outline of the blueprints and the grid which the blueprints sits on in illustrator. I then moved the design over and added my text on InDesign because of how much more you can do with font on InDesign rather than on Illustrator. The point of this design was to create a blueprint of a rocket which will go into space to find alien life. It also tells us a little more about the company Project Green and gives us a better understanding of how things are going to work with this set of posters.

HUMANS AND THEIR HABITAT HUMANS like to feed off of animals and living things they hunt and kill to survive. They rely on suplies and natural resources to survive and will attack anything that stand in their way.

FACTFILE

Loves- Killing Hates- Aliens Eats- The Living

Destructive, Vile, Controlive, Smart

“HUMAN”- A weaponised

species that thrive on killing living things. A dangerous and unforgiving species that love to see the pain and anguish of any living being.

Where the species populate EARTH- a spherical planet that habitates life such as Humans and living things.

Humans live on these parts they call them countries. Pieces of land the humans have claimed for themselves.

These parts are called “Water” 2/3 of the world is this substance.

Our sample point, 38° 57' 33.804" N, 95° 15' 55.739" W, is located in Zone 1501, "Planet Earth"The position is speciﬁed as "Zone X Y" as follows: 1501 636973.515 73077.180 (meters is assumed) 1501 636973.515m 73077.180m (meters) 1501 2089808.121ftUS 239754.527ftUS (US Survey Feet) 1501 2089803.941ft 239754.048ft (International Feet)

We need to the

A big rock that orbits the earth called the Moon

(Humans & Habitat)

This was my second final outome and was one of which I was most happy with. I made all of the elements seperately and added the icons and text together and experimented with different layout and colour until I got to this stagewhen I was happy with my final outcome. The aim of this poster was to give a wrong impression of what the Human race is actually like, by using fake definitions and facts I have advertised the human race in the most ridiculous and horrid way possible. This is to ensure that the alien life will attack and help us save the earth from the humans.

THE

(Deadliest Humans)

DEADLIEST

HUMANS Power

BARACK OBAMA

Alien Hate

Danger

Alien Hate

Power

QUEEN ELIZABETH

Alien Hate

Power Danger

Alien Hate

Danger Alien Hate

Power Danger Alien Hate

BARACK OBAMA:

MAHATMA GANDHI: DECEASED, highly dangerous.

QUEEN ELIZABETH:

The most powerful HUMAN in the UK.

NEIL ARMSTRONG:

Quite Dangerous, went to the moon in search of aliens to kill.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: DECEASED, Former President, Highly Dangerous.

JOHN LENNON:

The current President of America highly powerful.

DECEASED, Not dangerous or threatening, his music tortured.

JOHN LENNON

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Power

NEIL ARMSTRONG

Danger

MAHATMA GANDHI

Danger

Power

This was my third outcome in my set of posters, this page was inspired by Funders & Founders you can see this in my illustrations of the characters which are very simplistic in their design and style. The aim of this poster is obviously to describe the biggest threats to the survival of the earth. I have used important public figures so the aliens destroy the most important people on earth; the power bars also work well in ranking the characters from the most deadly to the least deadly.

HOW TO DESTROY

HUMANITY PROJECT GREEN CREATIONS

PROJECT GREEN CREATIONS

The Green chip is the most powerful it infects the DEVICE.

The RED chip is the most dangerous it sends the high frequency waves.

The BLUE chip is the fail safe if it goes wrong this chip will solve everything!

The ORANGE chip confuses the HUMAN for a short period of time.

The GREY chip must never be used, the results woul be catastrophic.

Infection process

Infected waves

Human Skull

T C

JE O EN

Mobile device

RE C S

O TI A

The INFECTED waves from the device penetrates the skull and enters the brain the frequency causes the brain to boil and fuzz KILLING the HUMAN within minutes.

The CHIPS have different powers and should be used sparingly to ensure the complete DESTRUCTION of the HUMAN species no damage will be caused to the EARTH.

(Destroying Humans)

This was my fourth final outcome, I created the sim cards using the pen tool and using different colours for the cards I made seperate cards which do different things. This is the penultimate poster and describes how to destroy humans, it seems that a fitting ending to a set of posters which finally gives up the secret of mankinds destruction. This poster finishes off the set nicely. Alien life will hate us by the point they get to this poster and will be ready to attack.

Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form

“

Type Transcript

“

(Robert Bringhurst)

Brief 3: 11/05/15 Type Transcript

This is the third set brief, Type transcript in which we had to create our on font inspired by a particular artist. I was inspired by artists like lizzitski and his use of shape and form, after looking at various works of art by him I started to sketch some ideas down on paper keeping in mind his style and way of thinking I quickly started to form letters out of some of the shapes that where re-occurring in a lot of his designs. After I created my font on paper I then turned them into vectors on illustrator and used a grid system to tweak any changes or rough edges by alphabet had. After I was happy with the vector of the alphabet I had created on illustrator I then tried my letters with different words and sentences this seemed like a good test as it tested my alphabet of letters in a real life situation. I really enjoyed creating this alphabet, the process was labourious but rewarding in the fact that I came out with what I find to be a successful looking alphabet. It was my first attempt at making any sort of font and for this I am happy with it the font is inspired by lizzitski and is a play on his unique style of art and design.

my inspiration for creating my alphabet

inspiration

11/05/15 El lissitzky Type transcript

El lissitzky

El lissitzky is a Russian artist who’s life’s work was laced with the belief that art could be factor of change in our world. He was also a teacher and taught in a number of different schools in and around Russia. A lot of his work used weird looking geometric shapes and lines to create an unusual composition. I describe his work as being Bauhaus influenced mainly because of the triangle, square and circle which always seem to feature somewhere at least once in his artwork. I found his work interesting and inspiring because of the amount of different styles of shapes I could find in his work.

I researched this sort of artwork from him and from these pieces I was able to spot several letters already. M’s and L’s were particularly visible in a lot of his work I looked at because of his attention to angles of different shapes against each other. Overall Lissitzky’s art has influenced both shape and the form of my alphabet and I enjoyed researching his art work.

Outcome

11/05/15 Development Type transcript

My Alphabet

This is my completed alphabet. The type has been vectorized and put into a grid to ensure that each letter is the same size, the type is inspired by the artist Lissitzky and so the new font has been appropriately named “Lissitzky”. The diagonal attitude of he letters are inspired by the bold lines which cross the page in a lot of his artwork. I have used bold and straight lines to make up each letter, this has been inspired by Lissitzky’s bold and angled style which is evident in his artwork. I have also used reflective techniques, this can be seen in some of the letters in my alphabet. (B, D, S, Z) I think that this makes the alphabet more rounded and alike. There wasn’t much point making any more letters than I needed to because this would only make the alphabet confusing; on some letters I even added or took away certain lines to create new letters. This as a whole made the letters more alike and made the piece as a whole look like a completed typeface.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

City in flux

We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvellous; but we do not notice it. (Charles Baudelaire)

(Charles baudelaire)

Brief 4: 11/05/15 City in flux

“the life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects”

This is the final set brief. The brief is called “City in flux” and focuses on the every changing style of a city across time, culture, social and any other type of change that makes a city flux. In this brief we had to visually demonstrate a city in flux, we could do this in whichever way we thought would be beneficial and which would describe a city in flux the best. Showing different changes throughout the city is also a choice whether it be through architecture or time. This is a very open brief and has many possible outcomes; animation.

Data visualization and infographics could all be explored as ways of showing how a city has changed over time. In this brief it was best to research into the language of a city and how data and sinage bombard our senses with visual messages and experiences chose to create mine through illustration combined with a tourist book of various popular architecture and landmarks in Perth, Scotland. I want to show change in a city over a period of time.

City in flux the inspiration I used in a city in flux

inspiration

loulou&Tummie 11/05/15

Loulou&Tummie

Loulou & Tummie is a Dutch illustration duo who spend their days building an ever expanding empire of colourful graphics and characters that can be found in a lot of print. Children’s stories, posters and magazines are some examples of where their work can be found. Their style is very much of their own, the playfully cute illustrations have become much more of a theme throughout their graphic design projects. The use of the pen tool on Adobe illustrator to create scenes and characters is something that has inspired me a lot in this project. The iconized style of most of their illustrations has influenced me to create my own iconized illustrations in my architecture influenced tourist book about Perth. The colour of their designs is also projective of their bright and poppy style which I like. They have set a certain target audience of a younger generation we can see this in their “child like” characters which are mostly every day objects with human facial expressions to offer a personality and a little bit of fun into the style.

http://loulouandtummie.com/

“Lead by their crave for toys, happiness and all things cute or robot-like. They abuse their computers to split out designs”

http://loulouandtummie.com/

some of my layouts and development

development

11/05/15 City in flux

Cover initials

There are some initial ideas I had for the cover of my tourist book. I chose to create an illustration that would sit in the background of my cover and is of relevance of what you would expect to find inside the book itself. I experimented with different type and layout focusing on how I could make the cover reflect what was inside as much as possible. I was happy with the choices I created for myself because having an aray of different visuals to work with meant that I was never stuck on what to develop. At this stage it was about playing around with some layouts and colour with type setting to get the best possible outcome.

Welcome To

Perth The Architecture The Beauty The History

Welcome To

Perth

Welcome to

The Architecture The Beauty The History

Perth

Welcome

Perth To

The Architecture The Beauty The History

Welcome

Perth Perth To

The Architecture The Beauty The History

After I made my initial layouts I picked three to develop forward, once I had these three and developed a couple of them I refined the cover designs down to one singular design and this was to be the cover of my book. I made the back cover in the same way; creating a few different layouts and developing them until I found one which I was happy with.

The Architecture The Beauty The History

City in flux some of my layouts and development

development

11/05/15

Pages/outcome

I started out by going to Perth itself and collecting some primary research like photographs, flyers and general information about the city from different people. This helped me get to know the city more and it also helped me understand how my book should reflect the city itself.I created the inner fold out pages by using a combination of Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, I created the illustrations of the buildings from reference images I took while I was in Perth. This helped me illustrate the buildings and landmarks as accurately as possible. Once I had made each illustration and I was happy with them I made the background and added the facts onto an InDesign document. Indesign was the best tool for measuring distances between buildings and making sure that the facts were above the correct buildings. I created the pages in sections, I found this easier than making the whole thing at once because it broke up my illustrations into 4 which made the whole process more managable and simpler.