Core Concepts Learning Log Assignment 2 by katiesmithdesign

Assignment two

exercise: working to a brief Brief 1: Create packaging for Quaker’s new ‘Chilled Creamy Oats’ product for young women looking for a truly delicious healthy snack. The target audience is young women juggling many jobs and priorities everyday. They like to eat well but also love treats and hate feeling hungry. They like the idea of oats for their natural goodness but find the idea of eating them bland and unappealing. - Here I am being asked to design the packaging for a well known brand and a new product they are releasing. It has to be specifically designed for young women highlighting the natural benefits of oats whilst also showing that these aren’t going to be bland like oats can be. - In order to judge whether I have produced a successful outcome, the client will be looking for the packaging to follow the Quaker identity that has already been established within the market whilst still distinguishing this product out from the rest of the competitors with similar products. It will also highlight the benefits for consumers, particularly young women, in having something that is filling and full of natural goodness. - Keywords: ‘delicious healthy snack’, ‘natural goodness’, they won’t be ‘bland and unappealing’. Questions that I would need to ask: - What size does the packaging need to be? What quantity is going to be inside? - What company guidelines do you already have in place for anything that is released with the Quaker name on it? - What ingredients are inside that make it less bland and boring compared to other oat products? Need to know this so the packaging can place emphasis on this element. - Will I need to source printers and manage budgets for this project? If so, what is the budget for this work? - What kind of graphics do you have in mind? Do you want the product (if it is a bar) exposed through the packaging or would you rather photographs and illustrations of the products? - Who is my main contact for this project? - What deadline am I working to? (variations depending on if I am sourcing the printing). 4

Brief 2: Most of us have experienced a long rail journey - we witness the dramatic contrasts of the changing landscape, the inter-connections at various points along the way; various people embark and disembark; the dynamic is ever-changing...finally we reach our destination. This brief challenges you to take a metaphorical journey on the theme of connections. Explore the theme as broadly as possible and take us on a journey that might link, amongst other things - people, events, philosophies, theories, objects, movements, inventions, history, literature, etc. Your journey is only limited by your own imagination and the quality of your research - surprise us with the juxtaposition of your selected themes but be sure to communicate to the viewer the ‘connectedness’ of the thinking within your design. Define your market and how you will target it. - With this brief, I am being asked to explore the theme of connectivity through change. There is no specified format, market or how I need to target the audience so it is a very open ended project by which I have also been given a very open ended topic. I need to not just think of the connectivity of the rail journey, but there needs to be emphasis on the connections between people, events, philosophies, theories, objects, movements etc. - As the project is so open and broad, it could be difficult to work out how this project will be considered successful by the client. However, there are two key aspects that need to be included - connectedness and juxtaposition. How well these two elements are combined will be a clear way of assessing the success of the project as well as how well the advertising targets the specified market. - Keywords: ‘inter-connections’, ‘rail journey’ (specifically rail), ‘juxtaposition’. Questions: - What format does this need to take? A poster? Leaflet? Postcard? - Is this to be designed for print or for digital use? - What I am trying to advertise? For me, this would be a really hard brief to receive as it is hard to work out when you have created a successful marketing tool for the client. It could continuously change as you try and work out what they want you to do yet they haven’t been specific enough, it’s almost like they would want you to read their mind. Equally, it isn’t clear about what they specifically want advertising.

Brief 3: To raise awareness of the risks of underage drinking and contribute towards a cultural change in society’s attittude towards alcohol. The purpose of the Department of Children, Schools and Families is to make this the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up...to make sure children and young people are healthy and help them to stay on track. With a core proposition of ‘Alcohol leaves you (or your children) vulnerable’, the campaign will urge parents to talk to their children before they consider drinking, to help avoid vulnerable situations. The messages to young people will get them to think of the effects of drinking. Creative ideas should use the campaign identity ‘Why let drink decide?’ to entend the campaign’s reach and specifically target young people aged between 13 and 16. We are open to ideas about the media or format you think is most appropriate to reach the target audience. - Here I am being asked to design some kind of media, the format is open to discussion, that targets both parents, children and young adults to open up the discussion between them on the effects of drinking alcohol and the vulnerable situations it can put you in at a young age. The campaign’s identity is ‘Why let drink decide?’ which will need to be focused on heavily within the design, alongside the proposition for parents saying ‘Alcohol leaves you (or your children) vulnerable’. - The client sounds like they have a very specific idea of what they want although they sound open to suggestions with the format. Therefore, in some ways they may judge how successful a project is based on how close the design is to their original idea, however, I think if this idea cannot be realised, they need to judge the project based on how well it targets both adults and children in opening up the discussion about underage drinking. Using focus groups for this could be a really helpful part of the design process as there are two very different target audience’s for this. Equally, using posters as well as TV campaigns will target both the children (through social media) and the adults (who are more likely to see it on the news or TV adverts). - Keywords: Both logans that have been menioned, ‘cultural change’, ‘vulnerable situations’. ‘effects of drinking’. These are more keywords to involve within the campaign. Questions: - What logos of organisations need to be encorporated? Any contact details of places to gain advice? - Are there any design guidelines set out for the Department of Children, Schools and Families? I know some insititutions have guidelines that have to be followed much like a company’s identity. - Who is my main contact for this project? - What deadline am I working to? (variations depending on if I am sourcing the printing). 6

My main questions are usually about formatting. Due to the open offer to investigate various formatting styles, I think it is mroe about experimentation of different methods for me at the start of this project and then having the discussion with the project leader to look over the initial ideas. Their responses will then highlight what kind of formatting options there are. Equally, you would want to establish early on whether there can be two styles of advertising, one for parents and one for the children. Or whether they want to go for the shock value with this campaign.

which would I like to tackle out of these? Out of these three briefs, I know that I would struggle most with the second brief. For me, it is too open ended. Although I can already think of some ideas of designs, I am unsure whether they would be what the client is after or whether they would advertise whatever I am supposed to be advertising clearly. It is clear from assignment one that I do like to experiment, which this project would let me do, but I like to experiment within boundaries so that I can look at a design and know clearly whether it fulfils the criteria. The other two briefs are similar yet different in their own ways. Brief 1 would already have a brand identity and guidelines that I would need to follow so it wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t allow for as much creativity as perhaps brief 3 would. However, it is clearer to see what the client is after. Brief 3 conveys a very different message, it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t about selling a product but sparking up conversation about quite a serious topic and you have a wider range of people to target with this advertising. For this reason, I think the final brief would be the one that I would like to tackle the most as it would offer me the chance to try and spark up conversation about a different topic and in a very different way. It would challenge my design skills with a very different style and also, with the suggestions I made on how to target the different audiences, it would require me to look at consistency across different mediums.

Research point: what have i collected so far?

All of my sketchbooks from the past 4 years have been kept and stored so that I can look back on artists, research notes and visual structures that have inspired me. I always know which sketchbook something is in which also really helps! Although storing these can be a pain, it is definitely something worth doing. I have a book of artists and designers who inspire me, I try to keep this up-to-date adding in any extra people or companies I find. It is also important to keep looking at the work being produced by each one instead of just looking at the work I have shown in my book. I wanted to keep all of these because I know that at some point there will be something I know I have read before and need to look back on. Also, I always forget names so keeping the book of artists and designers close to me can often spark up new ideas, help with the development of projects and whenever someone then asks me the work that I like I can show them the varied styles of the people who inspire me.

Exercise: Book Cover Design Initial research points: What is the traditional size of a book? Who is HG Wells? What book covers have there been? How did the style flow between these? How was a style enforced over other series of books? Notes from previous knowledge: If I am doing a full bleed colour as the background, remember to make the document size bigger so that the colour isn’t left with a white border.

Who is hg wells? A Science Fiction writer who influenced the way in which we thought of the future. But he was born in 1866 so designing these covers 150 years later will look very different. Also, although I haven’t read the books, the way in which we now think of the future could also be different to how he portrayed this - but is this something to consider when designing the covers? I don’t think this will effect it. He seemed to write quite a few novels that covered various topics but also various genres. It would make sense for me to pick 3 covers of linking books to create the series for. What started as science fiction novels soon turned into comic novels and then changed again later in his career to be discussions based around social and political issues at the time. This was less about a novel and it’s literary content but more about the issues he could see within society. The idea of Utopia was something that featured mainly in his earlier works.

The same book can go through multiple reprints, with each one giving the book a completely different look. The first edition of the book represents a time when it was harder and a lot more expensive to print illustrations on coveres, however, since then each edition has had images. The main illustration is of the ‘tripods’ that Wells has imagined as part of this particular book. As the years go by, the illustrations and visions of these ‘tripods’ adapts, becoming more up-to-date to continue the impression that this is the future. With this cover design, it would make sense to continue to use these tripods within the design somehow. It doesn’t have to be the full pod as making it more abstract would be putting my own style on the work. After more investigation into these ‘tripods’ I found the original drawing that was in the book to bring them to life for the viewer. Below is just a quick idea of a cover based on this image. The text is not the correct style but this can be worked with depending on the other covers.

Compared to the previous book coveres I looked at, the theme for ‘The Time Machine’ doesn’t have something that is continuously shown on each cover. These covers have a lot more variation, the time machine itself doesn’t feature on every cover. Equally, there is no link between these covers and the covers of the previous book. Some look similar but the layout structures aren’t the same or the fonts, therefore, I am beginning to think whether these need to link or not. Since the book was written, the concept of a time machine is also going to have changed. The design shown in the bottom left cover on the opposite page will only be identifiable to those who have watched the Big Bang Theory. In one episode, the guys buy a replica time machine that looks exactly like the one on the cover. Also in this time Doctor Who has aired and the Tardis is perhaps more associated with the ‘look’ of a time machine compared to anything else. This is proven by the below screen grab. When I googled images for ‘Time Machine’ both devices came up, so it is now about creating something that encorporates both ideas.

The inside of the Tardis always reminds me of a time machine compared to the outside, the technology is obviously going to be very different to what Wells could imagine but editing it in the way I have has eliminated the main element of the technology. I feel like this cover has been very hard to design hence they vary to much. I am starting to like this font more than the previous one used though.

As none of the books are actually connected I feel like there shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be a style that features on all three. I could do the same fonts just to provide this kind of link however, I feel as though doing the same kind of editing would make the books seem like a series when they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.

By using the same font I may come across the issue that can be seen above - the font works with one cover but not the other. I would therefore have to very carefully select the typeface that is used because what could work with one book, it may not work with the other.

Having looked at previous covers for Wells’ books, I thought that it would next be logical to look into book covers that I like to identify the style that I would want to apply to these covers. It is fair to say that upon first glance, these all look very different however, when looking closer, there are some key elements that draw out an individual style. Firstly, the typography, especially in the above two examples. Interestingly, ‘The Idiot’ is a Serif font, with a smaller Sans-Serif, and the ‘How to Murder your life’ book uses a combination of two Sans-Serif fonts. Although it is the font that attracts me to the Cat Marnell book, it is more about the tones and effect these tones have on the appearance of the font. Equally, with ‘The Idiot’ book, the textures and tonal contrasts appeal to the eye and using purely harsh Sans-Serif fonts with this would contradict the soft merging and blending of the tones. ‘The Queen of Hearts’ book is slightly different however. Using block colours alongside an illustration that intertwines with a strong font creates less textural and tonal interest. However, the eye is now drawn into the texture of the illustration. The detail in some of the flowers is

particularly NICE so using a Sans-Serif font at this point means that there aren’t too many intricate details that the eye can become engrossed in, the title is the title effectively. Compared to the other book covers created for Wells’ books, there is less of the textural and tonal contrast that can be seen here. This could be something to experiment with as it is important to stand out on a book shelf when the audience is deciding what book to purchase. Updating the appearance of these covers is always something book lovers want, especially if they are intricatly designed.

The Penguin Clothbound Classics

Once I mentioned the intricately designed covers that book lovers like, I thought of this series of books that Penguin released. These carefully redesigns of the classics provide a collectors edition that reimagines each book. Although the books have no relation to each other, the covers bring them together to create their own series by using the same materials and appearance to each cover. By using different tones and illustrations, Penguin have given each book itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own identity. But the consistent appearance and layout of each book (the title and author is always in the same place and in the same font) means that the audience can immediately identift that these books belong together. What is actually a really simple design is elivated by the printing method. Foil printing is used on to tacile cloth which provides a new sensory experience with the book cover. You want to cherish it and look after the book so to help do this, they are only printed in hardback copies so that the spine doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t break depending on how you read a book. Looking at these, alongside the examples on the opposite page, I now need to consider what approach I want to take with the covers. Do I want to create a high-class cover like these in order to produce a collectorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edition? Or do I want to update the covers in a different manner whereby they are encouraged to be read and passed around, like a usual paperback is?

Looking at other series’ that have been successful, I thought it was clear to look at the Harry Potter sequence. These are the original covers, covers that were used when the films started being produced. Unlike the Penguin Classics Books, these all have the same author and start of the title. ‘Harry Potter’ is always emphasised on each book, each one being the same font and size, just the colour varies on each one. Harry also features within the illustrations of each cover. In my personal opinion, I wouldn’t say these covers are particularly strong or attract my eye. But because of the name provided by both the main character, and the author, you are lead to believe that these covers are the most successful book covers you can come across. There are elements of the designs that bother me slightly as the consistency, although it appears to be strong across the designs, elements of them do not. For example on the covers of ‘The Goblet of Fire’ and ‘The Order of the Phoenix’ elements of the creatures overlap with the top banner. Yet on the covers of ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’ and ‘The HalfBlood Prince’, elements that could be continued, such as the wing of the mythical creature and the light from the wand, are not continued into the banner. Equally, the bottom section of colour that is then put on to the spine varies depending on the colour way. However, ‘The Goblet of Fire’ and ‘The Deathly Hallows’ have the same colour on the bottom section. After looking closer it can be seen that the first four books have a black strip on the bottom of the book that has some extra details on it. However from books 5-7 this band changes colour to be the same colour as the top band. Similarly, the position of the author’s name changes between the first two books and then it remains consistent from books 3-7. Although these are only minor details and the series can still be identified to be the same set of books, these small details change the look of consistency between them. The Penguin Classics didn’t have any differences like this appear throughout the sequence but this may be because the Penguin books already had a defined series when the covers were designed. Whereas, the Harry Potter sequence had covers designed as the series developed so they were going to make small design changes like these as they went along. 18

Although I liked my initial design, I felt like the edit on the work had made it to abstract. The title does help in shaping the way the image is viewed, but there is still an issue that this could only be perceived to be the tardis by some people. Equally, this isn’t a Doctor Who novel so I don’t want the audience to be expecting a Doctor Who story when this definitely isn’t one. Despite this not working, using a block colour to highlight the title, like that used in the Harry Potter books, has worked to my advantage here. The background definitely isn’t right but using the blank space highlights the important part of the cover, the title and author.

Instead of using the Tardis image as a base, I decided that the cogs could be a good alternative. It doesn’t specify a time machine but that is where the title comes in to explain. Various edits helped or hindered the image but I quickly found that I preferred the central image of these three as the colour highlights the forms in their complete sense whereas, the other two lost or gained extra detailing that I didn’t want. 19

The process of cleaning up an image. In the first image, the cogs on the wheels were not even at all so I went round each one making sure they were the same size and neatened up because when printing, the last thing you want is for the execution of the work to let you down. As I cleaned it up, I realised that the black and white image wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working as well as I had hoped, it was a little too strong in terms of the contrast. Therefore, I went back to the blue tones that I had liked from my trial idea for â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The War of Worldsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. This softened the cover a bit more however, I still think that something is missing from this cover. Looking back on my analysis of other book covers, there needs to be more textural and tonal contrast within elements. At the moment, there are only two tones and the image is very flat, there is no dimension, texture or contrast in order to elevate the graphic. This needs to be developed and added into the cover for it to be more successful. 20

Having struggled with inspiration for this cover, I again tried experimenting with some different aspects. I really like the idea of lines surrounding the text, like on the example on the left. Although the spacing isn’t quite right between them at this point, I think this could be something that gets encorporated within one of my designs. The gold lines also work really nicely, they send the eye around different points of the frame. As an audience you are constantly led back and forth between different points without there being too much dominating the frame, it feels like a natural movement around the frame. Despite this working, there wasn’t something quite right, it didn’t seem to fulfil the function of a book cover, it looks a little out of place. The cover to the left however, works more effectively. The simple image on the front (this was taken from a search engine just to see the effect) grabs the reader but doesn’t reveal too much and it encourages the reader to find out more. Even though they do have some points that work with each cover, they aren’t quite right. The cover doesn’t achieve what I hoped they would which suggests that I need to do more experimentation. 22

As I liked the encorporation of the time machine from the movie, I thought that it would be best to look at how this is portrayed within the film. When the time machine is actually ‘working’, the back panel spins around. The pattern on the cover to the left is from this panel so I quickly applied a radial filter to this pattern to see what effect this would have. To me this was a really successful response. The pattern can still be identified slightly but also, if the audience hasn’t watched the film, they can still understand the motion. This indirect link works in favour for both audiences, whether they have watched it or not. Although I do think it is successful, there isn’t something quite right, the cover needs some kind of colour.

As the other covers hadn’t worked, I wanted to look for some more direct influences. I knew the book had been made into a film so I started to research into this and what the time machine had been made to look like. The patterns on this time machine were really intriguing so I wanted to see if these could be used on the cover. As can be seen from the cover above, they weren’t what I was expecting. The way I had to draw them turned out really pixelated as they did have to be quite precise. This contradicting the very sharp font that I was using. Although this font can obviously be changed, I thought that this would occur with each font that I tried. So I wanted to play more with these patterns because there would be more that I could do rather than just copying the pattern.

Images taken from http://colemanzone. com/Time_Machine_Project/Bromham%20Time%20 Machine%20sale.htm no specified details of photographer, owner or artist. [30 October 2018].

Although I had liked the illustration on the last cover, I worked out that maybe it was a little intense in the central region, it needs to be a little more spread out as this will make the title easier to read and position within the cover. On the previous cover, it was a little difficult to read and although this is still quite difficult to read, it is improved but this will work well as a base image for now. Despite this working better, there was still the issue that there needed to be some colour within the cover. At first I tried using the colour of the large dial at the back of the time machine - this didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work quite as well as I had hoped, I thought it needed something a little bolder. It was at this point that I decided that it would perhaps be best to try adding in some more colours from the time machine. From watching the video, the lights were also an important aspect of the motion so adding these in on the right hand cover started to bring this idea more to life. It didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite work in terms of balance though. The tones clash too much and the base patttern cannot be seen. Without this the lights seem a little confusing and would bring up more questions instead of encouraging anyone to read the book. The inclusion of different tones does work but this could be done slightly differently and in a more successful manner. The lights donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to be shown in order to represent the tones. These could be shown on their own so that the base pattern can be seen more. 26

Trying to add these tones to the cover in a different way was not responding in the way I thought it would. Creating gradients and then changing the blend mode, a method tht normally works well, wasn’t bold enough. The colours aren’t clear therefore, the reasoning behind using these colours isn’t clear. To solve this, I could just use bolder colours within the gradient however, this will then cover up the base image too much. For this reason I carried on with trying different blending options, ones that I usually don’t use but this cover waas requiring somethign a little different. The second option I tried was doing individual gradient segments. In a way this did work but having such dominant colours at the top seemed to throw the balance. Having such dense colours at the top, along with a denser title, creates a very top heavy display. Instead of letting the eye naturally work it’s way down the cover, I find my eye stopping at this point because there is too much visual information to read. As a result, the author’s name is missed out and considering there are other books titled ‘The Time Machine’ I think that this does need to be highlighted instead of missed out through the design. As this also wasn’t working, I went back to the first method I used and made the colours a lot bolder. As predicted, the patterns appear even more blurred and it is harder to make out any kind of pattern or make the link. The yellow tones also aren’t visible so the connection may be harder to make due to its absence.

Despite wanting to try and include all three tones, it really wasn’t working. Therefore, I decided that it would be best to just include the one but I wasn’t sure which one. After looking back at the motion of The Time Machine, I realised that when the back panel is spinning, all of the lights go red. This therefore, seemed like the appropriate colour to pick. By using a continual tone, the base pattern works better. There isn’t too much to focus on in terms of the pattern, tonal changes and title, now it is just the title and the pattern. It also still achieves the aim of not linking to the film too directly. The connection can be made in order to understand the cover, however, if someone hasn’t watched the film it doesn’t matter because they can still understand that there is a link between this pattern and the motion of a time machine moving from the title, and later on the book.

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Picking a font for this cover didn’t quite work. Previously, I was able to work out what style of font would work well by trying out a couple of different variations before finding what style would work best. However, this wasn’t the case with any of these fonts - as can be seen by the amount of fonts I tried! Number 4 was one that I really liked but it was a little too thin. Having a thin font does work well in some examples however, it is then hard to pair with another font for the author’s name. I didn’t want to use a thicker font as this then makes the cover out of balance visually so although it could have worked well, I knew there needed to be a little more investigation. Number 6 was also a contender until I realised that perhaps it was a little too stretched vertically. I did try and change this within the character settins however, it then seemed too squashed. I was really struggling at this point to work out what kind of fonts were working well and what weren’t. I knew I didn’t want a heavy font as this would be too contrasting to the light pattern in the background. Equally, having something so thick in front of this section of the pattern made the remainding pattern seem a little odd. It would be really hard to identify. Although this could be changed through the text positioning, I concluded that it worked well here and maybe needed something a little lighter in terms of font thickness to make it work how I intended. After using an italic font for numebr 10 I realised that maybe what was missing for numbers 7-9 was the italics. I rarely play with this but it worked really well for number 11. Having some kind of motion within the title mirrors the motion of the background graphics however, it isn’t so strong like the radial blur of the background that it cannot be read. Using italics on quite a light font also makes it easier to pair with another font for the author’s name. It adds something a little different meaning that I can use a very similar font for the author’s name whilst leaving it at a standard height. It may be that I find a font for the author’s name that suits the title better as this font on number 11 could also be used for the author’s name.

As I had suspected, using a thicker font for the author’s name (as shown on the right) doesn’t work as successfully as I had hoped. The two fonts fight against each other instead of working together to create a visual hierarchy on the cover whereby your eye flows down the frame. Something like the font on the left would work more successfully. It is slightly taller and thinner but works well to create some contrast as it uses purely capital letters. Doing this makes the author’s name stand out without making it too dominant on the cover. Although I do like the current fonts on these two, as suspected on the last page, I want to see if the fonts look better if switched. If the title is kept in italics it will still work, I just am currently unsure on the height differences. Personally, I think that the height of the characters on the title should be higher than they are on the author’s name in order to create a way in which these should be read on the cover. 32

Like I had guessed, switching the two fonts works a lot better, it is interesting to see how different the font looks now it is in italics as I had tried it for number 7 in the previous trails and I had rejected it. This balance works so much more effectively that I can now start experimenting with the positioning of these text elements against the pattern. I wanted to try using the lines once again as this was something I liked on other covers and I figured that maybe it would work well here as well in order to eliminate elements of the pattern from distracting the eye away from the title. I will be trying this though with an element of caution as I don’t want to get rid of the main aspects of the pattern as like I mentioned before, it will leave a slightly confusing pattern for the background. Originally I did think about just using a black text box for the title (the middle design), however, I thought it odd to leave the author’s name without this. I soon realised why I had once I tried it. By putting the white lines around this text box, it draws the eye down to this when there is no need to. Naturally the eye falls down to this part of the cover anyway but when your eye is immediately drawn down to these white lines, as an reader, you would question why your attention is being drawn to this first, why is this so important within the visual hierarchy. It doesn’t seem out of place around the title because the white lines are needed in order to provide a break from the pattern. However, at the bottom of the frame, the pattern isn’t as present or dominant therefore, it isn’t needed. This is why these lines stand out and in a way it separates the two elements. The title needs to be seen in conjunction with the other elements instead of as something entirely different, it is almost like the title doesn’t link to the background when it does.

Once I had established that the author’s name didn’t need a black surround, I questioned whether the title did. I liked the effect the white lines had for separating the elements but I wasn’t sure that I wanted the pattern to be blocked as this was proving to be an important part for the cover, especially this aspect. The lines really do have an impact here as they highlight to the reader that this is an important aspect but it doesn’t obscure the rest of the view, we are able to still see the pattern but it helps to focus the eye on a cover that does have quite a lot of movement. Having this static element helps to ground the work. Although I did like it, I wanted to see if the black text box was really not going to work. Trying different positions obscured more of the pattern and I was able to work out that there did need to be more space between the title and the author’s name. This means that there is a point of interest in each segment of the cover whereas the second half of the cover is slightly odd. The pattern left could be quite confusing but it is helped by showing the more intricate pattern that is being covered by the black text box. Looking at it now, it may be worth be getting rid of this circle at the bottom of the frame and switching it to be the circle like at the top of the frame.

As this wasn’t looking right, I went back to the original image that I was using and edited this to get rid of this line coming out of the circle. However, I had forgotten how I had edited this image - that will remind me to save everything at each step! The black and white edit did bring something slightly different to the black and white version that I previously had. But the motion now wasn’t as effective as it was before. The pattern is still visible and this is important however, instead of looking blurred, the top section looks like it is intentionally got these dashes, it doesn’t look like movement. I think it is safe to say this isn’t because I have put a different motion blur on the image but instead I have posterized the image when I didn’t before. I thought I had due to the drawing that I first did but this wasn’t the case for the new base image. Turning this red made the situation even worse. It goes back to the edit that I did at the very start and I thought that the cover required more detail than this cover provides. Even though the black and white cover does work, it does need this element of colour from the red. It helps to make more of a connection to The Time Machine film and although this isn’t expected of a film and book, in regards to they don’t have to link, I thought it would be benefical as there have been multiple outside references to film which could bring more readers for the book.

Now that I had worked out how I needed to edit the image, it was about repositioning it to make sure that there wasn’t too much visual noise as the motion blur does create quite a lot of information that the auience needs to digest. I had originally changed it so that the circle could feature within the cover however, I am now questioning whether it is needed. The sudden change in tones where the white features draws your attention to this point where there is no focal point here. The white is also a lot starker to the title and author which makes these become second thoughts. On the previous cover, the title was the main focus and then your eye was led around other points of the frame, whereas, with this cover these white tones become an unintentional focal point. Due to its positioning, your eye is then led around the red pattern and then you realise that you haven’t read the title so it becomes the last thing you even contemplate. For some covers this will work but due to the red that does feature in the cover, the title isn’t very easy to read either. As the positioning and red tones weren’t quite right, I thought it best to play around with these. Finally, I was able to make the white tones less stark and the reds deeper. This made the title the focal point once again as the darker tones were darker, highlighting the contrast between the two elements. Also the positioning of the graphic now in comparison to the title means that the pattern is only partially being blocked. This makes for a smoother reading and allows the audience to read the pattern a lot clearer. 36

Analysis Having really struggled to get any ideas with this cover, it has been interesting to learn how I solve these problems from a graphics perspective now instead of a photography perspective. The elements of digital experimentation still exist but the focus on typography that I now have can completely transform a design, I especially found this with making the font italicised. Finding inspiration from the film really helped me and encouraged me to find inspiration both from closely linked sources and more further afield ones for generalised book design. I have a habit of over complicating everything but having to design a boook cover encouraged me to pair it back. There is no need to have a lot of content on the cover, you need to create a simple visual hierarchy to lead the audienceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye around the frame. I quickly learnt this from this cover, focusing on what the audience need, want and will understand. Making these connections between the various elements of the cover needs to make a strong first impression to encourage more people to pick up the book from the rest on the shelf. I believe I have achieved this with this cover.

As there is quite a lot going on for the cover, I thought that the spine should perhaps be a little bit simpler. However, after trying just two block colours, I was able to conclude that this wouldn’t work. The contrast was too much against the cover and although when printed fully it wouldn’t look like this, the cover still needs to be able to work as a spread, not just singular elements. My next alternative was using the pattern but in black and white or in half segments. Once again I wasn’t sure about this. By using half an image, the spine became too intricate when normally this would be a very simple element. Yet when I increased the width of the remaining image it still didn’t work. There needed to be a full continuation of the image if there was going to be one. 38

Keeping the spine red does work however, in this format it looks a little odd as the spine image is stretched and the main image isn’t. In many ways I wanted to correct this however, there is no need for the image to be fully viewed over both aspects. Although this concern isn’t part of the brief, I am still concerned that the backcover would also need the image on and it isn’t big enough for this to occur. This break therefore does add some room to add something a little different on the backcover but it still doesn’t leave much room to consider something else. Reducing the saturation of the spine does help in some ways but the contrast isn’t enough, it instead looks like a printing error which is not something I want to occur.

Originally, I did want to try adding in different colours so as the red wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working on the spine, I considered adding these colours in on this space. However, as the green proves it really did not prove effective. Although I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think that block colours worked before, I had no other choice other than to revert back to this. This time I did add in the lines as it added something to the spine without it just being a block colour and it links to the cover without using the base image. Using white lines was too close to the cover for my liking, for this reason I changed the lines to a deep red tone. By doing this, the focus is on the title still instead of the whole spine. The spine has quite a small surface area so trying to create something so big and dominant like the white lines does becomes too overpowering. The red lines on the other hand add an element of balance between the spine and the cover. It also opens up more posibilities for the back cover. Instead of now feeling like an image is necessary, the back could just be black with red writing on. This would work really effectively without taking any attention away from the front cover. This proves that each element cannot be thought of individually, it does need to be thought of as a whole spread, whether this be printed as a paperback or a hardback book.

Some last final changes that I decided to make included getting rid of the word ‘by’ as well as adding in a small black square on the bottom left of the cover for the publisher’s logo. These small changes get the book ready for publishing and were small things that I noticed I was missing. The one thing I do notice now is that by having the publisher’s logo to the left of the cover, the name of the author no longer seems central. I have double checked this and it is central however, because the main drawing of the background also is off centre, it is hard to view everything as central. I may have to play with this positioning as it does also make the cover quite bottom heavy now.

By repositioning the base image so that the spiral graphic was central, everything else still seemed quite skewed. Equally, the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name hit the patch that was lighter than the rest. The positioning of the text would therefore have to change and once again it would throw the visual hierarchy and the order of everything. I think that it would be easier to move the position of the publisherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s logo somewhere else. Ideally it would be the upper part of the frame however, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want this to throw the balance once again.

The final composition of the cover and spine creates a balance between all the elements, one that works effectively and brings influences from the film. As can be seen from the last few changes that I have made, it is important to include all elements from the start. These canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be an after thought as it is harder to combine them and add them in. Designing the cover first was important though as the proportions change slightly. Although I have argued that they need to work together as a spread, it is also important that they work well individually, which they do effectively.

I had originally said that doing a set of book covers wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work and I still stick by that opinion. However, I did find these whilst doing more research and I thought they were important to look at. The cover for The Invisible Man I think works the most successfully, but I am currently struggling to make a link between the covers of the book and the story line of the book inside. The War of Worlds cover in particular is one that I struggle with. Having seen many other covers that feature the tripods, this one stands out for not having them. The pattern therefore, seems to be one that is almost forced on to the cover because nothing else would work. This may be an unfair comment to make for a company as big as Penguin, however, using silhouettes, like that used on The Invisible Man, could have been a lot more effective. A silhouette of a Tripod and the silhouette of the time machine could have worked really effectively on these covers. But instead, the company opted for patterns. These do have a tendancy to work more effectively, take their clothbound classics for example. The difference is though, that the clothbound classics had a clear theme, here the theme is changing, the consistency isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t there like it is with the other series that I looked at before.

The Penguin covers on the opposite page also miss out on portrayig what genre the books are. These books by the Folio Society hint at more of an old classic, Sci-fi theme. Whereas, the Penguin books have tried to take a different approach and have disregarded that these were Sci-fi books when they were first written. This set all has the same structure on the front. The gold detailed features on every book, it is just the title and images that change. It is this element of consistency that gives these three books a sense of belonging together. Even the title and author’s name are in the same position. Despite seeing how successfully this layout works for the set, I still don’t think that it would work for the way in which I want to portray the books. The stories do not link in any way apart from the author, there is no story line that runs between the books. If there were, I would see some logic in using the same style covers (like the Harry Potter books). However, as these don’t share a link, they need to be viewed individually and the best way to do this is to design each cover individually without considering how the next one will be designed in the same way. It may be that whilst designing, one font works for all three, which is fair enough and would help in showing that these are all published by the same publisher. But what does need to be taken into consideration is the individual identity of each book, so if the font doesn’t work for all three, then this isn’t an issue. It is about making sure the graphics are strong on each book and give a sense of what to expect within the pages contained.

Having looked at the covers that I created for The Time Machine, I decided that designing a cover for The War of Worlds was perhaps not going to test me in the way I had hoped. Most covers feature the same drawings and therefore, redesigning this would go against all of the research that I have done. Equally, using this drawing has referencing implications and the image itself contradicts the modern approach that I am aiming for with these covers. I want to look at a title that perhaps doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the same limitations and will let me experiment with different styles that I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t normally work with in order to develop my skill set and knowledge.

Although The Invisible Man does have a tradition in terms of what is portrayed on the covers (look on the next page for examples), the graphic used isn’t constantly the same. Different aspects of the description in the book are amplified and done in various ways. With The War of the Worlds, the graphic is always very similar, more similar that The Invisible Man. I wanted to show that these covers only show a small way in which the presence of a person can be shown on a cover. Whereas, with the other cover that I originally was going to design, trying to reimagine the tripods would have been influenced by new Sci-fi films that create even more complex creatures in modern day. These would be far out of the league of anything Wells could have imagined and therefore, would be quite misleading. The story line of The Invisible Man goes like this: “The Invisible Man starts with a stranger arriving at the town of Iping. He’s a private guy, which is a problem when you live in a town where the major export is gossip. The stranger doesn’t get along with the villagers, especially the people who own the inn where he’s staying. He spends most of his time trying to do something scientific in his room. But eventually – after the villagers (rightfully) accuse him of robbery – the stranger snaps. He takes off all his clothes and reveals that he’s – wait for it – invisible! (Yeah, we know, it’s in the title.) The Invisible Man fights the village and flees, leaving his important scientific notes behind. To get them back, he forces a homeless dude named Marvel to help him. They go back to Iping and get the Invisible Man’s stuff, but the villagers attack and craziness ensues. The Invisible Man beats them to a pulp and wreaks some major havoc. At another town (Port Stowe), the Invisible Man steals money and drops it into Marvel’s pockets. Like the lousy sidekick he is, Marvel runs away to Burdock, money in hand (or in pocket, we guess). The IM tries to kill Marvel, but a bunch of people at a bar fight him off; one person even shoots him, but it’s just a scratch. The Invisible Man takes shelter in a house that happens to be owned by an old college friend named Kemp, and this is where we learn that our not-so-hero’s name is Griffin. While staying in his digs, Griffin tells Kemp his back story story, which is several chapters long (and we mean long). Here’s the gist: he was poor and he wanted to study invisibility (as most young people do), so he stole money from his father, who then committed suicide (we’re not entirely sure why). Finally Griffin figured out the invisibility thing and proceeded to do a few things: (1) burn down his landlord’s building; (2) wander around London; (3) steal from a department store; and (4) put on a ridiculous outfit from a theatrical costume shop and go to Iping to work. Turns out Kemp had alerted the police to Griffin’s whereabouts when he arrived, but when they come to arrest him, he escapes. (Remember, he’s invisible, so it’s not too tough.) Kemp works with the police to catch Griffin, who in turn, tries to catch Kemp. In the end, a bunch of people in Burdock gang up on the Invisible Man and kill him. As he dies, Griffin loses his invisibility and we get our first glimpse of the Visible Man. Finally, in the epilogue, we learn that Marvel still has Griffin’s scientific notes, which probably have all sorts of cool inventions in them.” Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Invisible Man Summary.” Shmoop University, Inc. Last modified November 11, 2008. Accessed November 17, 2018. https://www.shmoop.com/invisible-man-wells/summary.html. 47

Much like The War of Worlds covers, the covers that have been printed for The Invisible Man have all featured the same style of graphic. Obviously each one is going to feature this invisible man in some manner but it never feels like you are reading a different book. This is evidentally going to be benefical as nobody wants to start reading the book to find it is the exact same, however, I find them a little uninspiring that each one has to feature this manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presence in the same way. There are alternative ways in order to show the presence of this man without having to show the fact that continuously appears, one wrapped in bandages. The final cover on the top right of this page starts to play with it a little more however, the imagery does require some reading to obtain a connection between the graphics and the title. Something that highlights this presence but not becoming too ambiguous will work effectively for this cover. Maybe encorporating a couple of the other elements mentioned within the summary could add intrigue to the title, something that is currently lacking in my opinion.

How can you show someone’s Objects lying presence around can suggest that without there has been someone there. If them these are untidy and looked used actually this will help. being there?

Shadows. In order for a shadow to appear, there needs to be an object. I could create a shadow but not show ‘The Invisible Man’. This will suggest something is there and show that it is a person but it gives away nothing more about the story.

Footprints. These will show that someone has been around but it doesn’t suggest anything. Whether it is a man or woman, doesn’t give a description at all which allows for Wells’ work to build up an impression that will be different for each viewer. 50

As with my other designs, I wanted to start doing some really rough ideas by using other graphics to see what kind of effect I could achieve before I designed them myself. The idea of shadows has worked really well, especially with the manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shadow. However, there is no hint that this man is invisible. If the shadow appeared out of nowhere on the cover, this would be more believable. For example, if I were to use a doorway with a shadow on the floor but eliminated the actual subject stood in the door way, it would make the audience question where this shadow has appeared from and then the title would help aid this. But with the format this currently takes, there is no way that someone would view this man to be invisible. As I did like the simplicity of the cover, I decided that maybe a different silhouette would work. Having read the summary once more, the glass bottles that appear seemed significant within the story line so I used these instead. The effect wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t effective in the slightest. It is really hard to make the connection between the title and the graphic without reading the story so instead of encouraging the reader to pick the book up to read it, instead they may struggle to even read the first page as nothing is suggested apart from the fact that it could be a difficult read. This middle cover was also very simplistic. The shadow and the title both are the same colour and look slightly dull so I wanted to create more of a focal point from the title. Layering up the title in multiple ways and changing the positioning slighting allowed for an outline to be created. Then adding shadows to this mirrors the silhouettes and shadows that I have already started to use. On this grey cover, the colours donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work as well as I would like but I may also have to be careful with balancing these elements on a different cover. If I do experiment using the shadow in the empty doorway, this title composition could become too much of a focal point and ruin any visual hierarchy created so I will need to experiment with balancing these elements. 51

The shadows and silhouettes on the previous covers worked well, they needed to be added to the typography, however, they weren’t quite right. For this reason, I got some graphics off of the search engine in order to see what the effects would be to have a shadow forming in an empty doorway. These graphics are not ones that I would feature on the final cover however, I wanted to use a quick way to see if the effect would work in the way I imagined. As is demonstrated by these examples, the typography has a large impact on the way that these covers are viewed. It also gives a different impression on how the shadow is interpreted or how significant it is on the cover, this all contributes to the visual hierarchy. Although it isn’t common to have the author’s name at a different orientation, I felt like this worked best. The title itself didn’t sit well anywhere else apart from at the bottom of the frame which meant that, in order to have the author’s name at the size I wanted, it did need to change orientation. Leading the eye down the cover in this way, having block colours at the top of the frame and then more interesting blending options towards the bottom, helps the positioning of the various elements. Having more content towards the bottom of the frame does 52 require more balancing and by having less dominant colours for these segments works well. I do think that the shadow needs to have less clean edges though as a shadow never has this.

Trying to create the silhouette on Photoshop was something that I really struggled with. I was conscious that the proportions had to be exactly right but at the same time, due to the positioning of light, these proportions wouldn’t be as expected as they would be slightly distorted. Here, the main issue I had was the shoulders and head. These clearly aren’t correctly proportioned but I wanted to see how they would sit within the file that I had created. It was quickly established that the edges did need blurring for the silhouette, I didn’t want them to be too sharp as I wanted to keep an element of curiosity. The way in which the silhouette forms depending on the amount blurred does change therefore, it is going to be a case of trying out various methods. Although I did like the sharpness of the silhouette on the opposite page, I quickly realised that the block colours and harsh lines were too much. Therefore, I would have to look at other silhouettes to use for the cover as the positioning would be different and the formation would cause for a different reading. Once I had established that I wouldn’t be using such harsh edges, I wanted to try different silhouette positions. In order to give a sense of scale and make this invisible man seem of power, I wanted to create a very tall shadow which meant cutting off the head and shoulders. This wasn’t done because these areas were causing me the most issues but I wanted to see what this sense of power would give to the graphic. Although I do like it, it is slightly difficult to determine what the shadow is. Equally, it is hard to imagine that someone that would create such a tall shadow, would be able to stand in that doorway! 53

As with everything else, I did quick drawings to see if the form would work before I made sure that it was done properly. The broad shoulders on the original draft seemed to work really well and from the drawing that I had done, they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem broad enough or in proportion. So, in order to see if this would work, I quickly extended the shoulders of my drawing to see what would happen. At the moment, it looks very much like a bat! However, the proportions would be sorted out later. In order to sort the proportions out, the body would become very bulky and the legs would look stick thin, and this would be before any distortion was created when the figure is actually put in the doorway. By this I mean the shadow may have to become larger at the top compared to the bottom, depending on how I decide to position the light source. Although the light source will not be visible it is important to understand the positioning of these extra elements so that the audience too can position them for themselves without having to actually see anything. This is the main idea of the cover, I want the shadow to make people position the invisible man in the doorway. Although he is invisible and they shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be able to do this, it gives the person an existence from the start, before they have even read the book. This perception of the figure may change throughout the book but this is why the shadow is the only subject as it is left ambigious for the audience to fill in the gaps. 54

Although aesthetically I liked the shadow being blurred, I wanted to work out why this was the case. What actually makes the shadow blur the way it does? Looking at artwork created by Tim Noble and Sue Webster, each piece had very strong a definitive lines, even when the shadowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original form was rough materials. In order for this to occur, the light source had to be very close to the artwork. My initial reaction was that it had to be so close that it would be seen in this photo however, that would have created some distortion in terms of skewing the perspective. This light source had to be the same height as the structures and shining straight on. The most common way in which we see shadows is on a sunny day when we are outside. On this occasion, our shadow is always blurred. This is because the light source is the sun and due to our distance from the sun, the edges of our shadows blur. The effect of this can be simplified down if you use a light source and move your hand closer and further away from it to see how sharp or blurred the shadow is. Although I am not showing the light source in my front cover, I felt it important to understand this and understand where the light is coming from. The one issue with using this example of a hand from a light blub is that one side of the shadow is going to be more blurred than the other. Holding your hand at one angle will cause the base of your hand to be more in focus than the tips of your fingers whereas, if you now rotate it 90 degrees it will be the other way around. This suggests that the shadow that I am using needs to be more in focus at one end than the other. From looking at other shadows of someone standing, it is clear that the top would need to be more blurry than the feet but also in its formation, the shadow would need to become wider at the top. As the light spreads out around the person blocking the light, it distorts the figure both in terms of perspective and blurriness. 55

Now that I had established the exact way this shadow needed to form, I was able to work on more of the details. I tried to create the shadow enforcing this perspective change that would need to happen however, the drawing seemed very out of perspective and I concluded that perhaps it would be best to draw it normally and then use the perspective transformation tools on Photoshop. For now it was about getting the right position and base shadow to use. I struggled with the feet massively. In all other reference drawings, due to the positioning of the feet in relation to the light source, the feet were never overly apparent or identifiable. The only way that you would assume they were feet, was due to the body that came after it. Therefore, I wanted to look at cutting the feet off at the joining of the to door elements. This really wasn’t successful as I tried to cut them off too cleanly. Doing this made the feet seem more out of place rather than identifiable, there was nothing to identify! Therefore, I decided to use the feet. I concluded though that they did need to clearly be feet otherwise they would look rather out of place considering there isn’t a silhouette in the doorway to help with the identification. The next issue was the shoulders. I had struggled to get these right from the start. I didn’t want them to look really broad as this wasn’t a quality shown on the other covers. There was the aim to have the most generic body type I could create in order to allow the audience to build up their own image of this mysterious figure. The shadow created always had shoulders that were too round. And then they became out of proportion with the rest of the body which created the issue of a top heavy body type. It’s going to be a case of making small changes from here on in to the shadow and seeing how these work. Making too many changes at once could make me think that something was wrong when it fact it was something else.

Despite concluding that I did need to include feet within the shadow, I decided that the closest body type that I had got should be worked on and then I can add feet once it is done. The white lines in the first image appeared because instead of using the rubber tool I used a white marker which wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a good idea as I then had to go back to resolve it. But in doing so, the shadow worked better, although the shoulders are still quite broad, they are more in proportion to the legs, even if I have cut them off too short. This was something I could easily resolve though as I had started using the warp tool. By doing this, I was able to get the perspective of the shadow to be correct in regards to where I had decided the light source would be. Making the shoulders and the head a little larger and broader was an effect needed for this so I need to think that maybe they do seem a little broad but when put fully into perspective this wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be the case.

Adding the feet does add a couple of issues which at this point I struggled to address. Here, the legs seem too long which doesn’t give me the space to make the shoulders and head bigger and broader in the way they should be. Although it is important to balance the size of this shadow with the title and the rest of the cover, the shadow now seems too small. The proportions between this size shadow and the last one aren’t quite right, it needs to be somewhere in between. This way the title won’t seem too overpowering (like in this example) or too small (like in the previous example).

The shadows current proportions weren’t working, it had little impact on the cover and seemed to have the wrong body proportions. The first image on this page is the ideal proportion and size that I wanted for the shadow. It creates impact and doesn’t make The Invisible Man seem like a timid character. Although this is not a quality that the shadow necessarily needs to portray, he needs to look mysterious and having a smaller, timid shadow for this does not achieve this aim. As can be seen by the middle image, the shadow didn’t fit with the current proportions of the cover. It was too large and had to be put behind the text. In some ways this would work however, it becomes a lot of elements to read towards the bottom of the frame when the top is very blank. Equally, as there are multiple layers to the typography it just adds one too many layers. For this reason, I tried putting the title at the top of the cover. It needed a black background for this segment otherwise the text has to change colour in the middle where the white door appears. This added a lot of difficulty to the composition of the frame as the empty door is now blocked. There is no way to tell that this man is invisible, it lacks any sense of intrigue that the audience may have. This design works really well for representing what I want it to, however, as a result it is quite difficult to arrange. There isn’t enough room for every element. I could make the title smaller however, then this is giving the shadow more impact and making this seem more important than the title. Creating this kind of visual hierarchy for the cover is not what I wanted to do, it needs to be well balanced and these two elements need to be equally sized. 60

Trying to make these two elements fit in their current proportions was a complicated task. I really liked the typography that I had been able to ceate and the impact it had was lost once the orientation was changed. Having the author’s name at a different orientation worked well, it wasn’t too dominant but the information was there are easily accessible. This effect changes when the title is put at a different orientation. It seems like there is a lot more information to process and it isn’t easy to read as they are all at varying orientations. With the first image, the shadow now seems too large because it is the same height as the text therefore, maybe it could be worth trying to make it smaller and achieve a balance between the two elements like I said before. An option was changing the font however, as can be seen in the below images, this didn’t work very well. The font doesn’t have the impact that the previous one had. Also, trying to fit it into the small space of the door has the same issue as before, the door being left blank creates more impact, you question where the shadow is from whereas if the space is occupied it doesn’t spark the same questions. Having the author’s name with this orientation at the bottom of the frame seems a little oddly positioned as well. When it was next to the door frame, having the two orientations line up works more effectively, it doens’t seem so out of place whereas, being this orientation next to a slanted door way creates too many angles on something that has a very blocked style.

I did hope that a different font would work but it still wasn’t getting the effect I wanted. The sharp edges of the original font contradict the soft edges of the shadow and give the figure this sense of power once again as the font demands attention. The focus may not be on the shadow but the font is describing this figure so they work together in conjunction to give this sense of power. This sense of power is diminished by the first cover. Equally, by not having the font the same size as the original, the impact is lost. It needs the size so that when the outline is exposed, the font is still legible whereas with the size it is in the middle cover, this wouldn’t be as effective. (NOTE: These edges are only rough and need tidying up but whilst I’m experimenting and constantly changing the size I didn’t want to keep redoing it.) The positioning of the doorway was always central, I never considered doing it any differently but I thought that considering I am struggling to fit everything on the cover, it may be worth shifting it. As soon as I did this, I understood why I always kept it central. In the centre, the figure demands more attention, it has more impact whereas when positioned to the right, it seems more of a side thought, something that comes second to the title when they really need to be considered equally.

No other technique was working so I had to resolve to making the graphics smaller. Although this isn’t what I wanted, doing it in proportion instead of just shrinking the shadow worked better. It enabled me to make the text larger and the author’s name could go back in the original position. This worked much better as there weren’t so many juxtaposing lines. Letting each one lead into the next works better, especially with the door opening as this naturally leads into the title. This didn’t happen when the title had a different orientation and as a result a more successful cover is created. The visual heriarchy that is created works well at this point but now I am struggling to balance the thickness of the font. I don’t want it too bold but it needs to create a bold impression that balances well with the shadow. 63

Adding in the spine to this cover was a lot easier than for the previous cover. There were no patterns to balance and instead I was able just to continue the background colour. This also makes it easier the back cover, even though Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not designing this, it is something to consider. Keeping the spine simple reflects the front cover and continues the theme from the font. Trying to create any detail, or even putting the shadow on the spine would become too much. Personally, I find intricate detailing on the spine too much as this isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the focus of the book. The focus is on the cover to grab attention and then the main focus is the actual writing. Therefore, keeping the spine design simple works effectively.

More so on this book than any other book, the covers vary so much! Normally there was a theme between each one however, with this particular book there is no theme apart from the colour red. This is expecting however, even this features in different quantities. This may be partially because this is a short story that was never seen in a full book form like The Time Machine was when Wells first published it. The story line of the book goes like this: “It follows a confident young sceptic—the unnamed narrator of the story—as he attempts to spend the night in an infamously haunted room in a castle. Owing to the black and red décor of the room the narrator finds it necessary to light several candles to see his way around, but a draft keeps extinguishing the candles faster than he can keep them lit. Eventually, the candles go out, he loses his sense of direction and trips over the furniture. He freaks out, falls down, and knocks himself out. In the morning, the narrator concludes that the room is haunted by no ghost, but by fear itself. The ambiguity of the narrators ending is the story’s enduring legacy—is the room haunted by a supernatural force of pure fear, or did the narrator simply spook himself in the dark?” Sparknotes.com. (n.d.). SparkNotes: The Red Room. [online] Available at: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/The-RedRoom/ [Accessed 17 Nov. 2018]. Without giving too much away, the potential for this cover allows for a lot of experimentation, how much can you do with the colour red? A lot of the covers keep it simple for this reason, to highlight the red, however, I feel like there needs to be more than there is in the 3rd and 4th covers, the simplistic design creates no interest and the tones are kept very minimal. Although the final cover doesn’t highlight the red, there is still some kind of interest created through tones and textures.

Whenever I start designing, I find it easiest to start with a really basic idea so that I know what I want to achieve out of a cover. From these four very quick designs I established that I didn’t like just having one single illustration on the front cover, it didn’t work. Equally, layering up different shades of red wasn’t creating the depth that I wanted. From here I know that I needed to create depth through something different. It couldn’t be tonal changes in block form like this, it would have to be textural changes. I had also established that trying to put any kind of illustration on the front wasn’t going to work. This gave me a clear direction to now go in on how to achieve the perfect cover, textural elements layered up that create depth through texture and tonal changes that occur. Giving depth to the red tones will elevate the cover as at the moment these seem a little flat. But it cannot be in the usual way that I add texture, it can’t be pixelated noise, it needs to have more of a structure than that.

Usually I would go for a pattern like that on the left hand cover, bold and geometric. However, with this cover it isn’t going to work. Although it adds obvious depth, the image itself isn’t going to layer up to create any more depth than it already has. I also don’t need to focus on patterns that already have red featured in them as this is something I can change later on. This is exactly what I did with the pattern on the right. This didn’t start off as red but it is easy enough to change. It is better to layer up the textures first and then alter the colour afterwards. This pattern, for me, already has more depth, both tonally and texturally. I want to try and avoid my usual style, not only because it doesn’t fit with this cover, but also because I want to challenge myself. Trying something different, working with new structures, will test my perception as well as my software skills as I usually just use the same few options. 69

After establishing that textures were going to be the focus of my cover, it was important to think what I wanted to achieve from the textures that I was going to layer up. As hinted by the title, it has to have red featured on the cover in some way. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just want to have one shade of red though, the geometric pattern from before did work slightly but there needs to be more depth to these textures instead of just using one. This will add additional shades as well as additional textures. The texture to the left will work as a strong base texture to the others. The way in which other patterns will blend with the lighter patch could be really interesting to experiment with but it is also going to prove slightly difficult as the edges will be a lot darker. Balancing these is going to be important and something I cannot predict so better to work it out through the process.

Initially, I really like the way these patterns have layered up on the right however, the yellow tones that feature contradict it too much. Any texture within the red segments are overpowered by the yellow. When I look closer, there is actually very little texture in either of these segments. The only texture is created by the blending of tones. Instead there is a lot more textural details around the edges. It may be important here to change the textures. The edges acting like a vignette would be more interesting instead of creating more of a focal point.

I had hoped that after adding in the textures on the opposite page that maybe there would be some possibility to add in textures to one of my previous covers. The multiple shades of red were lacking any kind of tonal depth let alone any texture so maybe it wasn’t the best cover to select from the start but I wanted to try if they could be so easily added. It was clear they could be added but they would require balancing in a different way. The tones couldn’t be done first and then the textures. The textures would have to be done first and then an overall change to the tones could happen after. Trying to layer up multiple red textures also doesn’t work on the right hand example. The red tones don’t know how to interact with each other and create moer noise than anything. When there is this level of noise created by pixels, it blasts out any texture. It gets lost in the process and as a result, so does the depth that once existed. Although there were no textures created underneath this one, it is clear that it is better to build up the textures like I started to do on the left hand page. This allows me to have control over the textures, building these up and then adding the tones afterwards. Tones can easily be changed in photoshop whereas adding textures and building these up takes more time.

Although I had said that I didn’t want to focus on the tones at this point, in order to establish whether a texture coud work, it was important to add the red tones to it in order to see how they would interact. Sometimes the texture changed a lot, the red highlights some aspects that weren’t previously. Therefore, it was important to establish this at each stage. Each one of these covers heavily features horizontal lines. This encourages the eye to go back and forth, from left to right on each cover. Some have more interesting features than others. The first cover turns into more pixels adding textural variation. This could be built up a lot more with other textures, this would add more depth with each layer and add more interesting red tones into the mix. The second cover creates too much noise that is integrated into the horizontal lines. No shapes are created as part of the process like the first image. The cover seems too bland, it is an easy read from top to bottom, the eye is never interrupted from this methodical progression that we always make. Although a book cover shouldn’t have too much juxtaposition, there needs to be some points of interest and adding various forms to this will help. The third and fourth covers begin to do this, the fourth more than the third. Disregarding the change of tones of the third cover, once again there is this combination between the pixelated segments and the horizontal lines, however, this time the lines are more pixelated. In some ways this could work, but it would have to be a layer with less opacity and therefore, it would need combining with other textures. It couldn’t work as a base texture though. The final cover on the other hand could work as a base image. Although it would work, it would need carefully layering up as it could create too much visual noise once again. These experiments have started to make me realise how this cover will need approaching however, I don’t think that any of them could act as a cover on its own. They will need layering up or they could be used as a layer as part of another composition. The previous image that I used would be the most effective for a base image as it already creates an intriguing shape (one that I have continued here on designs 1 and 3) so building these up could prove successful. 72

Despite deciding that the textures perhaps needed changing, the texture that now features on the top left does the work no favours. It demands more attention in the foreground instead of focusing on the textured details that are created throughout. For this reason, I got rid of this pattern and started trying to bring more red tones within the image. The way I did this has not proved effective in any way, the textures are once again dominated by the tones and the intriguing pattern of the red through the image is altered. Instead of creating a slightly altered line on the vertical plane, it now seems like a paint splatter, or a big puddle of blood. If the red needs to feature more, then it needs to be done more delicately throughout the layers, adding in more textured reds instead of using a red layer and altering the blend mode. This flattens all the tones to be one complete colour instead of creating depth within the textures through the additional tones. I also did try using a different colour to the red. In a way I did prefer this to the other designs on this page but I think this is more for the fact that the red tones at no point seem to be what I want. The green therefore offers something different. However, it does seem odd to have green on the front cover of a book that has â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;redâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the title. 73

The importance of texture within graphics and photography With this image by Alexey Kljatov, the primary focus is the snowflake. The texture of this subject is obviously important but so is the strands of fabric that feature at the bottom of the frame. For some, this may make it seem untidy or take away from the detail of the snowflake. However, keeping these in focus on just part of the frame is really important for the scale. As Kljatov has managed to capture these so close, closer than the human eye could focus on, our immediate reaction as an audience has to be that these aren’t real. However, by keeping in these strands, Kljatov is juxtaposing this by making us see something else that is real, therefore, the snowflake must also be. Although this isn’t the way texture is perceived on my book cover, it is significant for my research to show how texture can change perceptions but most importantly, add depth. I am wanted these covers to have a lot of depth and this is going to involve balancing a lot of different elements. The way in which Kljatov balances them, is by having a shallow depth of field that brings your focus on to the main subject. Because there is no main subject of my background, I didn’t want there to be when I also wanted to create a striking font, a shallow depth of field, or blurring aspects or the texture, may not work. However, changing the order in which the textures feature means that naturally, some textures will block out aspects of others, creating a shallow depth of field in a slightly different way.

These examples taken from Niessen & de Vries’ portfolio highlight exactly what I have been trying to do; combine texture and colour to portray a message. The continuous layering that occurs on the top example builds up an intriguing, but slightly caotic, example of type. On the home page of their website it states that “Instead of straightforward concept, Niessen & De Vries seek longevity through richness in layers, to emphasize the materiality of the work and avoid references”. By repeating, altering and deforming various other images, the studio is completely reinventing what was originally used. This reappropriation of images reflects the current state of the internet, however, it is never completely reappropriated, just no one can now find the original source of the media. Mixing so many bold colours and textures isn’t the aim of my work however, it works effectively here. Instead of focusing on the tonal changes, I need to focus on the textural changes that I can employ in my work. Each line of the typography has a different focus and when combining patterns, the studio hasn’t focused on trying to use different horizontal and vertical patterns away from each other. There is a combination of diagonal lines with dot work on one line. However, the next line, features both horizontal, diagonal and vertical lines. Theoretically, this sounds like it would be too much. However, with this example, it is clear that it has been carefully structured. In order to break down the vertical lines and horzintal lines that feature on the A and V, there is a block colour. The strong black tone here separates the two. This could have also been solved by changing the stripe pattern. Instead of using red and white on both letters and patterns, this could have been changed to a different colour to add more of a break. However, Niessen and de Vries do not take the easy option and decided that visually boldness and texture could be added differently and perhaps more interestingly by keeping the tones the same. Therefore, I need to not just take the easy option of changing the tones so that they aren’t the same (or using a complentary colour) and instead play with how I could balance this in other ways. 75

Compared to the structured chaos of Niessen and de Vries, Shepard Fairey abadons this chaos for a more structured portrait. Here the combination of texture and block colours is event. Texture is mainly added through horizontal lines to the left side of Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face. This simple technique, where all the lines are directed the same way, allows the audience to focus on the rest of the graphic. These lines are the only blending that occurs between tones, otherwise, there are only block colours. This approach is very different to anything I have employed or looked at in regards to my own work. The block colours I use are always broken down and in the covers that I have designed so far, this seems to also be the case. The texture is particularly important within these covers and therefore, I am not sure employing this method would benefit them in the way I had hoped. However, it is important to look at other ways that depth and texture can be created within a graphic as this could go on to influence what I later produce.

Mishka Henner

This work by Mishka Henner portrays satellite imagery of secret bases and locations which have then been blurred out. The technique is obviously employed by every country, however, the Dutch government were more concerned than others. Despite this concern, they blurred out the segments in the most obvious way possible. Yes, the space is now hard to identify what it could be, but if you were to come across this space, like Henner did, then it is obvious that you are looking at something you shouldn’t. Other countries make it more subtle so that the textures between the urban landscape and the secret location is more obscure. The imagery is paired alongside other land alterations that are taking place in order to show how the landscape of a place can change so much. I wanted to look at this project for the effect that the textures have. Having something so digitalised against something so natural creates very opposing textures. With this work, it is obviously about highlighting these differences instead of balancing the textures like it is with my work. However, what I can take from this piece is that using varying tones will not help the textures to blend, nor will it help to use juxtaposing forms. The varying tones make the contrasting segments stand out which goes against the aim of what the government were trying to do. Equally, with my work, I don’t want one texture to stand out more than the rest. They need to work together in order to create a mysterious cover that gains the attention of the audience. I don’t want one texture to stand out more than the rest and for the wrong reasons. This means that if use all vertical patterns and then just one horizontal, the patterns won’t be balanced. This is where the juxtaposition between forms also comes in. There needs to be equal attention on both the horizontal and vertical planes or just one of them, not an uneven mix between the two, doing this will create an unbalance for the eye. 77

Lewis Bush

This series entitled â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Metropoleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; looks at the ever-growing state of London and the dominating presence of the High Rise Buildings. By using double exposure, Bush is able to create a disorientating perspective of these buildings whilst mainting the ability to highlight their fullness and power over the landscape of London. Layering up textures in this way is something that I have been looking at. Admittedly, I will not just be using two layers, but the way in which these images have developed created depth to the photos. You are never quite sure as a viewer which way the building is facing. Juxtaposing each layer between the next works well in this manner as both the horizontal and vertical planes are played with but also crossed over. With my work, there needs to be a more structured balance between them. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to portray the same sense of disorientation and perhaps this is why I am taking a slightly different approach. But the way in which Bush so carefully layers these two images is something that I also need to focus on to make sure the layers work together instead of clashing too much.

This design for the cover of the Life of Pi is something more intriguing from a graphics perspective. The use of just three/four tones, yet the designer’s ability to create something with so much depth is something that I need to focus on in my work. In order to create depth there doesn’t need to be loads of tonal contrast, it just needs to be carefully integrated. Here, two separate images are created whilst being created inside of one another. By doing this, the eye is constantly able to intertwine with both images and there isn’t too much differentiation apart from the tones. The constant reading of both images that therefore occurs is subtle yet effective. Although texture isn’t the main priority here. Through the shapes formed some element of texture has been thought about. This small consideration transforms the cover as it no longer seems like a flat image but you can picture the rest of the creature, extending beyond the cover. Being able to do this, proves that the cover has been designed successfully and with a lot of consideration to the few elements that have been used within the final selection. 79

Interestingly, the examples of texture that I have selected for the covers use minimal tones whereas, Niessen & de Vries in their graphics example use something a lot more intense within their colour choices. Fairey also uses a more limited tonal range but this highlights that texture can be created with as many or as few tones as you would like. For a book cover, I do think that it works more effectively to have fewer elements of contrast and instead to build up this texture. A book cover should never be too overpowering and it should be easy to understand. Trying to fit so much into such a small space makes it harder to read and therefore could lose some viewers before they have even read the first page. Even with this limited tonal range, as can be seen from this book by Carol Ann Duffy, enough texture is created from the limited colours. By switching the colour swatches around for the lines within the star, a definite shape is creates that distinguishes from the background. Also, by having lines of different lengths all layered up, the emphasis is placed on the blank space, which is where the key information has then been placed. By doing this, every line is now leading back to the centre as well as when the eye wants some blank space to contemplate the pattern, it also goes to the important information. This has evidentally been carefully constructure to always lead back to the same point creating a very simple but very effective visual structure.

Adding in more textures had to now be very carefully selected. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want too many details added as this will cause confusion, or in the case of the cover on the top left, adding in spirals to textures that already play with the vertical and horizontal planes, becomes too confusing. Your eye doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite know where to go and instead of starting to read the book, getting intrigued to learn more, the eye gets caught up in just trying to interpret the cover. The middle pattern on the other hand, highlights the details on both the horizontal and vertical planes without dominating or creating too much cross over. The hints of red appear only on the vertical plane whilst the more dominant patterns feature on the horizontal plane. I felt like this was finally getting somewhere but the red tones werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as strong as I had hoped. Once again it was about playing with how to add this red without it ruining the rest of the depth that had been built up. On the top right, the pattern was destroyed, the red featured on the horixontal and vertical planes which highlighted too many details in my opinion. It looked too much of a mess. The final design on this page also struggled with the balance. The red was blending right and eliminated the fading that had been built up previously.

As the method had worked previously, I decided to try adding another pattern, a pattern that this time, already had the tones that I wanted. The geometric pattern in no way fitted with the textures that I had been building so this didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work. But by adding this, it also showed me that the red needs to feature down the centre of the frame instead of being dominant around the edges. Doing this loses a lot of the texture and the tonal interest that I had been able to create which makes the cover less effective The bottom one on the other hand started to get this balance. The textures that are so intriguing around the title were highlighted in their original darkness, the red tones start to blend out from here, which is fitting to then have the title positioned here. The red tones are also more dominant at the top of the frame and blend downwards which means that the entire book cover is read, from top to bottom, there is some piece of interest for the viewer. Whether this be the red tones at the top, the text in the middle, or the slightly darker more dangerous textures at the bottom. By dangerous textures I mean the pattern that looks like it could be scratches. It makes you wonder what this red room is and what happens inside it. Without giving too much away, the connotations of red are danger and using this on the front cover along with these texture selections sparks enough interest within an audience to question what happens and want to know what happens. This desire will make them pick the book up. Compared to the very first cover I did for this, there is so much more interest and depth to this cover. The typography still needs work however, as Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure the type face or sizing is correct for the cover. It is set in gothic times so maybe exploring gothic fonts could add some interest. This may be giving too much away or set the book back in terms of trying to create a modern cover. Therefore, exploring different font styles will be really benefical and add to this cover.

This is just the final cover, in terms of the background blown up. These textures are a lot clearer here. The yellow tones that featured in the base image still feature slightly however, they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as dominant now and here, they appear more red so work in conjunction with the rest of the textures instead of contradicting them.

Note: I did go on to make the red layer a little darker which worked well against the fonts.

Trying to find the right font was something that took a lot of experimenting. Whether this be with different weights, different heights or different spacing, I even went between Sans Serif Fonts and Serif Fonts. I concluded that perhaps it would be best to use one type for the title and one for the author, one Sans Serif and one Serif. The left font was too tall and although I could change this, there was something not quite right about it, the weight was ok but I thought that it seemed a bit half hearted, and for a title it needed to be bold for the right reasons and not the wrong reasons. The middle font is closer to the mark. The balance between the weight and height of the font is better however, I still think the font is too bold. Although in may be more proportional and the boldness is reliant about this, I get the impression that the font and the background arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working together here. Instead of seeming like they are portraying the same theme, this cover seems like two separate elements have been forced together. The cover on the right doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have this issue. The font fits well with the background and equal focus is dispersed across the frame. Previously the title was the main focus and then you would look at the textural elements. Now it is a 50/50 chance of where the eye will first be attracted to. Either way, the eye would be equally distributed and lead around the frame whereas, this wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the case with the middle design. Although I did want a heavier weighted font, the one on the right works well due the Serif nature of the font (the others are both Sans Serif so a bit harsher). It creates a focal point not just because it is a title but also the details on the tails of the font encourages the reader to reader right to the edge of the word. Reading the title fully like this means you are then encouraged to read the cover in the same way. Similarly, if your eye runs off of the edge of the letter, like on the R, it is immediately taken to the textures. This brings the two elements closer together instead of appearing separately, the title and the background have to work together. 85

I did go on to try some more middle weighted fonts as these were what I thought would work best. However, I just couldn’t find a font that worked as well as the last one on the previous page. The varying thickness of the second one here only appears on the ‘M’ due to the title which makes it seem a little lop sided and uneven. This effects the reading of the graphic as the background now, instead of looking like a gradual effect, it also looks lop sided. The title should not effect the viewing in this manner. This doesn’t occur in the same way for the cover on the left. However, the uneveness of the fontbegins to challenge the hoizontal plane that everything else is situated on. For a cover that already has quite a lot of detail, I think it is important to keep the title straight. Trying to alter the horizontal and vertical planes on the title will cause for a difficult reading between the foreground and background which isn’t what I am after! 86

For some reason, I really wasn’t convinced by the title that was my favourite. It reminded me of another advertising campaign and I couldn’t work out which one, therefore, I went with my first font. Trying to pair this with another font was easier due to it being a Sans Serif. Personally, I don’t mind seeing two Sans Serif fonts next to each other, but I do mind seeing a two Serif fonts together, it doesn’t quite sit right. This gave me more options to experiment with. Each font was altered slightly, whether this be the spacing or the height, but I found that the taller fonts worked best, in particular the two in the middle column. Although I do like these fonts, I began to realise that 87 the title font just wasn’t working. I was struggling to make the right choice that complimented the background.

As none of my previous choices had me convined, I decided to take on the gothic setting of the book and try to incorporate a gothic font on to the cover. I continued to experiment with various weighted fonts that were all a Serif typeface. Nothing seems to fit still and I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work out why. The clean edges of some of these fonts contradict the roughness and unpredictable nature of the background. Although the font that I previously liked was also structured, the weighting of the font was minimal and it flowed into the background instead of looking like an entirely separate element. The last two out of these options are too ornate. Whilst the first two are once again too dominating for the eye.

Now that I had concluded on a title font, it was time to play with the author’s font. As I had used a Serif font, I wanted to use a Sans Serif for the second type face. On a couple of examples, you can see that I tried another Serif font however, these didn’t work well and reduced the impact that the main font was having. As the primary font isn’t very weighted, it was difficult to find another font to compliment it that wasn’t too weighted either. Although the author’s name is important for the cover, I wanted to create a visual hierarchy whereby the title was more dominant but the author’s name was still visible enough to read afterwards. 89

For some reason, I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find a Sans Serif font that I liked. At this point, I realised that perhaps the spacing between the two type faces would need to be increased in order for the fonts to work better together. As can be seen on the bottom 3, this started to work well, however, due to the nature of the backgrounds design, the red was too intense at the bottom to have a lightly weighted font. This would require something bolder and I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to have a bold feature at the bottom of the cover, why draw attention to something at the bottom instead of at the top, when the audience can let their eye wonder down the frame, not up. Due to the design, the name had to be brought up and the new positioning works a lot more successfully.

Creating the spine for this book, like for The Time Machine, it was difficult to balance the pattern on the spine. Everything had been carefully positioned so that it looked right on the cover. I thought that designing the spine separately would be ok but the images were made for the exact size of the cover. Therefore, when I did try and add them, they had to be stretched, this makes everything look out of proportion. Equally, there would be the same issue as the previous cover where I begin to question how the back cover would be designed. Although I do like the pattern on the cover, I think it should just be on the cover. Putting it on the spine loses the effect that I was able to build up on the front cover. The tonal contrasts that I created would not be present on the spine. Despite saying this, one of the patterns does work and this is the top left. It is quite dark so the pattern isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too dominant and the scratches on this texture add some interest to the spine. The spine isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t supposed to be a focal point but I wanted to try something a little different to the others and have some kind of interest on it. 92

It was worth looking at how block colours would be on the spine. From previous experience, it was a bit of a hit or miss situation, it worked sometimes and other times it went very wrong! Here is another case of where it really doesn’t work. Although the black spine could work, it seems a little dark in comparison to the rest of the cover. I don’t want it to be so dark and distract away from the cover but it does dominant the space and highlights the dark tones of the title. The title had been chosen because it wasn’t too thick, therefore, it didn’t compete with the patterns on the book cover or dominant over the textures that I wanted to build up. By having the black spine, it completely defeats this point. Even though it isn’t ideal to stretch a texture. The segment that I selected does work well on the spine and it works more effectively than a solid colour does so I think I should start experimenting with text on this. Instead of dominating the cover, continuing the image just extends the vignette that has naturally occurred with the textures.

Even though I had decided that I wanted to use the image for the background of the spine, I still designed both to have text, just to compare and make sure I had made the right decision. This is definitely still the case, although the red text isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite right, there is a better balance between the spine and the front cover if the tones are closer. Using a complentary colour on the spine could have worked however, there was still the issue that I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want too much contrast on the spine as it would distract the eye from the main focal point, the textures. Similarly, combining both textures and block colours needs to be managed and blended well whereas, going straight from one to the other in a contrasting colour would almost flatten the the textures again instead of adding extra depth. Although not much extra depth is created by using the image for the spine, it is more successful than I had originally thought as it has the opposite effect to the block colours.

The red text was too red in comparison to the actual book cover and using a red that was closer in tones would have meant that the text wouldn’t be legible. For this reason, I decided that maybe it was best to go with a completely different colour. I didn’t want anything too bold and grey fitted really well with the colours. It wasn’t too dominating and it wasn’t too close to any other colours that it wasn’t legible. After concluding on the colour, I needed to work out the type face. I did want to use the same font for the whole spine however, neither font on the front cover looked quite right. I needed something that was all capitals (I could have just done this myself however, if the font is always in capitals it often appears stronger) that fitted with the title font. The title font didn’t work for the author’s name on the spine so I went for a font that didn’t have the ornate edges in the same way (again using a Serif and Sans Serif Font) but it also wasn’t as tall, it needed to be more condensed which is exactly what I got with this font and the balance worked more effectively. I did contemplate changing the font on the front cover so they were the same however, this font didn’t work on the front so I had to continue using 3 different fonts which isn’t ideal but in the small quantities that two of them are, it balances out.

Having really struggled with these designs from the start, I now believe that these designs have reached the point where I would be happy to see them on a shelf in a book store. Each one has its own identity that highlights what the book is about without giving too much away. An element of intrigue is created for each book and a successful visual hierarchy is created that leads the customer’s eye around the frame so that they can establish a strong first impression of the book.

I did consider creating these books to all have a similar identity. Possibly something as small as having the same font across each book. Although this was something that I tried, the fonts never worked well across all three covers. One font would be really strong for one selection, however, with the next, it would give the wrong impression, it wouldn’t portray what the cover needed to portray about the book. As I was playing around with the fonts, I worked out how much this could change the perception of the book and the way in which we infer what the book is about. Furthermore, the books are in no way linked, they link in terms of the author, and that is it. With such a small connection, I didn’t feel it necessary to make each cover look similar. Some authors do adopt this style as they think it is easier to identify their books. However, with an author as well established as HG Wells, I thought it would be important to focus on the design, instead of the way they flow between each other. The other covers between Wells’ books didn’t link in any way and this was another driving force for why I separated the designs.

Compared to the other two designs, ‘The Invisible Man’ has a very different style, it isn’t about the texture and tonal range that is built up, instead it is very harsh in terms of colour however, this is what I wanted to portray. Having read the summaries for each book, I created a cover that I thought would best potray this and with the cover of ‘The Invisible Man’, there needed to be some kind of presence of this figure on the book. I didn’t want to continue the trend that the other covers had, but I wanted to leave the figure ambigious so that the audience could build up their own perception of the figure over the course of the book. Not everyone’s perception is going to be the same which is why I wanted to keep it broad. From the previous covers, it is clear that the figure has bandagaes over his face and wears a hat with a trench coat. This would be the description that Wells gives inside his book however, I wanted this to be more of a surprise, bandages across the face would be hard to portray within a silhouette and the hat and coat were something where details would get lost within the silhouette. This is why I went for this design.

With the other two covers, the interaction between the image and tones was really important. Each element needed to balance well and then the text had to compliment this. They needed to be viewed as separate elements on some occasions but also as an overall element on others. Doing this took a lot of time to balance (as can be seen earlier in my learning log) as each layer had to interact with the next layer effectively.

I do think that each cover works successfully and would complete the brief successfully as outlined by the client. Designing for book covers was a slightly different challenge for me as everything needed to be really simplified in order to get the necessary information across to the audience whilst also create a strong visual hierarchy that would create interest for the elements that I do use. I have a tendency to overcomplicate these kind of designs yet slowly I was able to establish what I needed and what wasn’t needed in each design so that the customer can find more interest within the covers rather than confusion. This success alongside the other elements outlined before, make these covers effective for their purpose. 99

exercise: visualising your ideas Notes: - Leaflet - Client is an organisation targeting people to volunteer for a task. - Needs to include title and 4 sections of text that are 120 words each. - Additional space is needed for contact details. How can you get someone to pick up the leaflet? How will the leaflets be presented? Racks? Handed out? Sent in the post?

I was told in the exercise that this brief could be made more specific so I want to try and create a leaflet that encourages volunteers to help with a local charity. I want to create more of a blueprint that could be used by anyone, instead of for a specific charity but it needs to be appealing and encourage participation. The leaflet will be sent via post but also handed out within certain spaces and placed within display racks. This means it needs to cater for every eventuality.

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I decided the best place to start with researching was by looking at other volunteering leaflets. Through a very quick good search, it soon became apparent that there is a style that emerges across all of the leaflets and there is always a lot of information. The one on the left is about joining the Police Support Volunteers and there isn’t much to catch the eye before throwing a lot of information at the audience. I can imagine this is actually folded into a leaflet with the far left section being the front. This would help in appealing to the eye by not showing all of this information straight away. However, I can see this leaflet appealing to people more as a way of finding out more information once there is an interest from them to join the Police Support Volunteers. Whereas, from this brief I get the impression that they are trying to spark new interest from the get go so there needs to be an element of appealing to the eye in order for them to read the information and then enough information that they want to find out more and volunteer. Perhaps this is done more successfully by this second leaflet. From the structure there appears to be no folding involved with this one so it was really important for the designer to create a strong visual hierarchy. The top segment in my opinion is really strong, simply highlighting the topic of volunteering and saying ‘We want you’, very quickly outlines the aim of this leafley. If it were to be placed in a rack with other leaflets, this section is the section that someone would see first which is perfect because once you have their attention, more is revealed and this is the important part of the role. Compared to the other leaflet, this one uses a lot more colour, you have bold capital text along with lower cases to highlight the key themes of the role and the charity, and there are more graphics on here. This appeals to the more text based readers and the more image based readers. Personally, I find this much more effective, it is going to appeal to a wider audience in this manner and there is enough information on there without it being in large blocks of text and the reader getting bored. With the brief I have been given, it’s going to be important to balance out the text so that it never 102 seems like too much. Although 4 x 120 words doesn’t sound much, that is 480 words that have to be included.

Once again, this leaflet uses colour and different typefaces in order to stand out, however, I don’t think it has been done as effectively here. I understand why the hands are used but they look a little odd and add too many tonal variations on to the one leaflet. They would have been better to use the questions in the centre, as this stimulates a thought process within their audience, along with a different graphic. Or, they could have just put ‘Want to make a Difference?’ on one side of the leaflet and then put more information on the other side. This would then become something that could be posted through people’s doors. Of course this could be posted as it is, but if it is double sided there is this idea of a postcard instead of a leaflet coming through your door. Leaflets immediately get thrown away, by most people, whereas, postcards, because they are usually from a loved one, there will be more reading involved which is needed with something like this.

All of these designs seem very simple and almost predictable. The layout of a leaflet seems to be the same from one to the next, rarely with any variation. So when it was mentioned that the leaflet needed to fold within the brief, I wanted to look at more origami structures as these can provide so much more interest and will create a completely different visual focal point to interest the viewer. The image on the right shows a structure that I have used before. It folds out revealing different information at each layer. The changing of folds can provide a really good way to introducce some geometric designs, like they have done above where each section has a different colour yet there are still elements that bleed over the folds. This also provides an easy way to divide up the information without it being in one block like the policing leaflet. If printed on the correct size paper, this would easily fit the 4 sections of information that is requried by the brief, alongside contact information, brand logos and some images. 103

Looking into more origami structures was taking me in a slightly different direction. These are less like leaflets and more like invites. These could work if you received them within the post however, if you were to pick this up from a rack many members of the audience would be confused as to what they had picked up. If the block colours were changed on this top example to show the logo of the organisation then this may work more successfully for my leaflet purposes and it shouldn’t look like an invite as much as it currently does. It is very similar to one of the structures that I originally sketched out which shows how much the design of the structure can actually change the audience’s perception of what they are reading. The below image however, is very much an invite. Opening up an envelope seems like an interesting idea, after all these were part of my first sketches, however, like I mentioned before, they need to be designed carefully in order to portray what is required. Although people are being invited to volunteer I think taking the form of an invite isn’t the approach that I want to take with this project.

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These designs by the V&A Musuem has always really intrigued me. The form of them seems to make no sense if they weren’t decorated yet, but because of the design that has been placed on them, they become a really interesting focal point and encouraged visitors to engage with the information that is being portrayed to them. Unlike my leaflet, these are part of a series and each one represents a different person but I was more looking at them here in terms of how they would be displayed. As they are such a unique form, it wouldn’t be right to just put them in a rack at the front door, which is why, a whole other display and focal point is made through the collection shown together (below). Being able to see the whole design, unlike in a rack, allows the audience to see exactly what they are getting. Similarly, this design wouldn’t work if it were to be put in a rack as you wouldn’t be able to see who was on each information pack. Instead the design would have to be rotated 180 degrees, along with the writing, so that you could see who you were about to read about. With my leaflet, I don’t need to consider it as a series just yet, however, I do need to think how it will be displayed. Hanging them up in this manner is unlikely but this doesn’t mean they can’t be displayed in something more unusual than just a leaflet rack. If this were the case, the leaflet can easily get lost with others when you want it to be easy to find and stand out.

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How did these actually fold out?

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The easiest way to design these is to design each square individually and then fold them up, consideration obviously has to be made for which segments are going to be revealed and hidden. Although this design is really effective, folding up to something quite small but having a lot of surface area to put information and graphics on, it is almost too big to be a leaflet. The ideal size, I personally found, was A3 for when folded up but when unfolded this is quite big to be a leaflet. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m thinking this needs to be something that a reader can easily pin on a notice board or leave out on a table to remind them to contact the company, however, the way this is folded means it can often open up on its own. Similarly, putting it on the noticeboard means it canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be too thick that it canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be pinned but putting it on the notice board unpinned and open would take up a lot of room. I think the same thing can be achieved with a different design that is perhaps more user friendly. Although it would work well for a design and be able to fit everything on there that the company want, it also needs to be easy for the consumer to look at and get the details quickly without having to muddle around with the size of it.

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This was a structure that I used before and loved so I wanted to revist it to see whether the structure could work here. However, lookinig at the space available for text, it has quickly become clear that this wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work. The space available makes the inside too linear and in an attempt to break it down by introducing block colours, this worsens the issue. Equally, there would have to be 3 images to use before the audience came across any text. Although this could be a really great approach to have images received before any information, the images are going to be broken up and not make much sense when the text can be viewed. In my previous work, they worked well due to the kaleidoscopes being in such a repetitive nature that you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel like every segment had to be individually analysed however, with the purpose of this leaflet the same cannot be said. It is also quite a complex structure so trying to fold it back up could be hard for some audience members.

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I prefer this design a lot more compard to the others, there is much more room for the text to be in blocks along with room for contact details, imagery etc. The idea of an envelope encasing all the details is a lot more personal however, there is the issue that if this were to be picked up from a rack, it may seem a little odd to have an envelope presented here. There are also two large sections for text, however, I am unsure whether the other two sections will be big enough for the rest of the text. It may be benefical for me to make a digital mock up of this using 120 words in each section just to see how well it works. Because these sections are also odd shapes, this could make it more difficult.

For it to fit into the largest section, the font needs to be size 11 so there is little chance of it fitting into the smaller sections at a legible size.

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How much does 120 words really look like?

Using Lorem Ipsum, 120 words would look like this: id nibh tortor id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl condimentum id venenatis a condimentum vitae sapien pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas sed tempus urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit dolor magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus gravida quis blandit turpis cursus in hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit amet volutpat consequat mauris nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris a diam maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget sit amet tellus cras adipiscing enim eu turpis egestas Having this at a legible font size will take up quite a bit of room so the previous designs could struggle for space and any bigger, the larger the paper would have to be and the larger the envelope to post it in. May have to revisit some of the less interesting designs as this will allow me to fit all the information on and be the most practical for posting any promotional material. Also, the more folds created, the smaller the space to work with so these need to be kept at a minimum.

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When looknig for more ideas on how to create this folding leaflet, I came across this booklet designed by Yulee Harris Design. The folds create an interesting geometric structure for the booklet that has then been utilised with the typography inside as well as the fact it opens up to reveal something bigger inside. However, loking at the text, it is very minimal, there is less than 120 words in each section and there is a lot more focus on the form of the booklet compared to the actual text. For my leaflet, there needs to be more focus on the text but not entirely on this as there needs to be an alternative focal point. This example is too booklet like but for any additional promotional material, as long as the design fits with what I produce as the final outcome, this could prove interesting to use.

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With this design I started to like it then I started to not like it and now I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make up my mind! The way the text is arranged becomes too block like and instead of having a break down of information, this comes up with too much for the eye to digest, like the policing leaflet. Also because of the way this unfolds, text 1 is central with the other two arranged above and below which means the way you would normally read the text wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make sense. Reading this leaflet would therefore get confusing. Equally, when unfolded, the design on both the front and back are quite boring. There is no interesting geometrics to be made by the folds and instead it becomes very linear and boxy. I think there is definitely something more interesting to investigate than this structure. The confusing way that it would be read means it would be easier or more sensible to do the regular leaflet folds as this way, the information will be read in the correct order and it will look better than this currently does. Playing with shapes that are more than just triangles and squares could provide the results that I am after but this would create smaller spaces to fit the words in.

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The digital mock up of this has far more potential than the others had. The 120 words fit into the spaces at size 12 with room to spare and the text would be in the exact same spaces on the reverse of this leaflet. This layout could actually work really well as there would be a good balance between text and images and when unfolded both the front and the back have interesting layouts instead of just being very simple and linear like the previous layout was.

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When I was creating the digital version of this, I realised that the folds were very similar to the previous structure however, this time, the lines that were causing issues and going to interrupt blocks of text were no longer in the wrong places and instead I was able to include more within the space. The more intriguing layout is created on both the front and back without having the linear structure that I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like on some of the other folds. Although the folding is very similar to the last one, not only is there more uninterrupted space, but here, due to the way the spaces form, I can create a visual hierarchy through the sizing of the text. In order to show what is more important within the large sections of text, this is a really simple way to make it look more appealing to the eye. This is also helped by the changing angles that the text appears. Also, this folds to make something a bit bigger than the other folds which means that it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t so small that it will easily get lost but it also isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too big that may as well just be a piece of paper. 121 I think I have found the structure that works best!

Why would I pick up a leaflet? - Bold colours and interesting patterns - Grabbing Title, not something generic - Intriguing layout (only something that I have been focusing on since my own interactive work but you don’t realise how much this effects someone’s interaction. If they are having to change the positions of their hands it becomes more interesting as it isn’t just a quick flick through, you are being forced to engage with it, change the orientation etc) - Strong font - It needs to be different to the rest but still fulfil the role

Why would I put a leaflet down? - Looks like too much reading, suddenly hit with a large volume of text instead of it being slowly revealed to you. - Nothing interesting on the very front, looks like it won’t interest me or effect me. - Spelling mistakes! - If it doens’t look professional I will still give it a chance but if they don’t look to have taken their advertising seriously, how do they expect me to be serious about volunteering with them.

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Colourful but not too overpowering

Make sure that the folds are easy so that they can also fold it up when finished.

Interesting images and graphics (doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just have to be photography work)

How can I make this Leaflet more appealing so that people pick it up to read? Balance out the reading Bold and interesting title (not my choice of title with this brief but the positioning of it will be important) What if this wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just a case of unfolding something....what if there was another component like different paper types combined?

and graphics. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want them to be hit by too much reading or too many images at once. Slowly reveal new information with each unfolding instead of all at once.

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ail em

id nibh tortor id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl condimentum id venenatis a condimentum vitae sapien pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas sed tempus urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit dolor magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus gravida quis blandit turpis cursus in hac habitasse platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit amet volutpat consequat mauris nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris a diam maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget sit amet tellus cras adipiscing enim eu turpis egestas

the back once it is opened up

VOLUNTEER WITH US id co nib vi nd h tri tae ime tort s fa ti sa nt or ph me que pie um id a id liq q ar s a s n ip uis etra c tu ene pel ven uet el sum he p rp ctu len en lec se it p d ndr hare is e s e tesq ati tus n u s a pr eg e el olo eri tr ge t tri est ctus lent r si t do a m stas net e h con oin b sti as et esq t a lo as se us ab di nib di land que int net ue me r m sa m d te et itan me h n vo ctu it m ege us h t co ag a m m t ntu isl vi lut ms turp agn r e et m abit nse na ssa pus ales mor m t se ae pa t q is a ge ale an ct eg ult u ua bi te d e sus t co uis cur sit a t al sua t m etur et e rici rna da llu ni ci ns q su m iq d o a st es e s c m pit eq ue s et ue a fa rbi di lo m t ra ut te ua sa in pu t n m t pis rem i s a se llu t m gi ha ru ib es ris ci di m s m au tti c h s g h ac tiq ng pi viv a r s t sc e u is pu abit rav pra urp ue in rr ris nu ru as id es is g e a a a n s se a en ni liq di c c si pl qui t m ue am on t a s eu t e m gu am tea g e tu et ae n et rp si ce isi is t a na eg m s es et ta s

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once opened up

I really liked the way this last structure had turned out. It doesn’t have too many folds that interrupt the text and there is enough space to be able to play around with different variations and layouts so that the text that I need to include never seems too much to read. Alongside the layout I had tried originally, I had wanted to try a couple more. When drawing up ideas, it can look very different to how it is going to be printed. I had to start with the physical copy as I didn’t want to design it and there be too many sections of text close to each other. However, just writing ‘text 1’ on this copy, doesn’t emphasise how much text there is really going to be, hence the digital copy. I will print some of these final suggestions out as once again, it will look quite different between the digital and physical copy. The first text that I want the audience to come across is the ‘About us’ section. However, with this layout, this section would have to be the smallest font out of all of them, when really, it needs to be much larger. It really depends on what text the client has. If there is an introductory section, this doesn’t matter about being small and the large middle section once the leaflet is opened up could be this ‘About Us’ section. Equally, there is a large space on the back of the leaflet that I haven’t used. This section does not appear as the leaflet is opened up, so I didn’t want to risk someone missing out some important information. Once the leaflet has been opened up to an A4 piece of paper, the audience is less likely to turn the page over so there needs to be something that makes them turn it over, whether this be when they first pick it up, or once it has been unfolded. Obviously this isn’t the final design, I’m not happy with the images and colour balance at all, but these are images I have sourced as generic volunteering images in order to get a sense of having the combination of text and graphics within the leaflet.

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The physical copy of this design seems to work really well. There is a good balance between elements and there is still room on the back if I decide that there needs to be more information or a slight reordering of the information. However. as can be seen on the previous page, when this is put into a digital file, it looks very different. Instead of just saying ‘Text’ there is now 120 words there which can make everything look a little cramped. I had chosen this style of leaflet as it didn’t fold into a really small format. And as a result, there were less folds created. If I were to print this on A3 paper instead, it would become too big when unfolded to be classed as a leaflet. Equally, there would still be the same amount of text, it would just be printed bigger so the balance between the elements would stay the same.

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id id nib h v h ac abit ene tor m tu an na tor ip ass rpis t m tis id h sum a u eg orb a aliq l ac abi d tr es i tr co ue m tu tant olo icie tas isti ndi t le a ha gn rpi m r s s m sed que me ctu o i s c vo h a e rb t a i q te se nt s p te lu ab sit ges i tr me uis mp ne um ro eg llus tpat itas am tas isti t co he us ctu v in n et m c se et in qu n nd ur s e ita ib sit au on pl pu teg e s sec rer na t n e h n am ris a sequ atea rus er e ene tetu it d et p etus sap isl et di at di gr ge ctu r a olo har et ien con te am m ctu avi t al s e dip r m etr ma p dim llu m au m da iq t n is a a le el u e c g p s le e r s s cr aece is n t qu qui et tus ing na har uad nte ntu as n u is s ni et e eg et a sq m ad as s nc qu blan bh m lit p et e ra fam ue ip ed co e s d pr ale el st ma es isc e n ag it ae su le lo ss in nim gue itt tu sen ad nte re a g i r a s m en ut nis s pu pis t tr fam que c i im sem i v ru u sti e eu vi itae s si rsus que s tu verr su t am in rp a sc e is ali ip t eg qu it es et ta s

Although it was an advantage to have some text larger than the rest, it was leaving no blank space within the leaflet for the audience to have a breather as such. Therefore, I wanted to reduce the size of this central text and despite it now having a better balance, I feel like this could still be reworked to provide something more functional yet intriguing.

Once I had estbalished that this layout wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to work due to the text arrangement, I soon realised that my second variation wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to work either.

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This one was another structure that I experimented with before but I wanted to look at alternative layouts. With this specific one, I had hoped that once the leaflet was open at it’s first stage, it would reveal a whole image. However, I quickly realised that when fully unfolded, this would look quite odd, but also it really limited the possibilties due to the quantity of text that needs to be included. The text was no longer spread out throughout the leaflet, instead it all seems to hit the audience at once when they unfold the paper. For this reason, I don’t think this structure would work effectively. Once it had the audience’s attention, it would quickly get lost at the realisation of how much there is to read. It is really important within this structure to keep it spread out, so at no point does it seem like there is a high expectation of reading for this leaflet.

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I always love working with different paper types as it can be really interesting to see how the change of paper transforms the imagery and the project. One paper type that I always love to work with is acetate. I didn’t want to experiment with photo papers as such because text rarely prints well on these and photo paper for a leaflet is just a no go! Acetate can be really fun with projects as it is like tracing paper and you can see through it. I thought this could be a really intriguing addition to a leaflet if someone were to pick it up. The initial thought was to try and combine both the regular paper with the acetate. However, trying to fold two pieces of paper together, with the acetate being quite a difficult paper to fold well, didn’t work. Equally, there was never a balance between the two. It was either fully acetate or fully normal paper. I had hoped that on the front cover, there would be a mixture of the two but this wasn’t the case. Even if I were to put half of the acetate on the front and half on the back, it didn’t work with much success and folding the paper at this point became even harder. If I struggle to fold the paper, then an audience member will struggle even more and this will make for a difficult viewing experience. Similarly, with the weight of the paper, it now doesn’t fully close so trying to put these in a display rack would be difficult. The idea of the acetate could still work, despite these less successful attempts, as long as the acetate features in smaller quantities. With manufacturing this, as I do need to think of the bigger picture as a designer, it would be difficult to combine both the acetate and whatever other paper choice I go for (to be experimented with later). However, if the paper element can be manufactured in one way, and the acetate another, it would be easy to combine the two elements if the acetate were to slide over the paper for example. The idea of a folding leaflet isn’t quick to manufacture anyway, this would be a process that needs doing by hand so adding a couple of extra steps to make the leaflet more appealing could really benefit this project.

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Having found the versions with acetate too bulky, I tried returning to something a little smaller. This structure starts off looking like a booklet but it soon folds out to the structure that can be seen on the left. Here, there is no issue of trying to balance what can be seen on the front and back as there is only information on one side. In a way this is slightly worrying to think that all information can easily fit on one side of this leaflet but I am struggling to get it all on 2 sides with some of the other structures. However, this is the way that it needs to be done if I want to create something a little more interesting for the audience. In my opinion, this structure has been a little overdone, it is something a bit different compared to a usual leaflet yet it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too complicated. Despite this, the main issue I do still have is balancing the text and image elements. On one side, there is going to be too much text, I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t allocated a space for the contact details and this is a very important section to include. However, if I were to include it, there would once again be the issue of too much text. I would rather explore another structures that have more interesting elements, based on the folds created, instead of going with a simple structure that still doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work. 132

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Adding in acetate in this manner, originally worked well. I like the fact that it encased the whole leaflet and the opportunity to use block colours behind it, without them being too dominant, had real potential. However, once the leaflet was opened, it was clear there isn’t enough room to do this and have all the text evenly balanced throughout. Similarly, there aren’t enough images if I use this front cover for a block colour. There could be a mixture of the two on the front, as breaking one image down on the folds could look a little odd, espcially when the smaller triangles feature later on and they wouldn’t have much visual information on. Due to the way this structure is done, the contact details end up featuring too late. You want these to be at the front of the leaflet and easy to find, which they aren’t in this example. It is only once the audience has read everything that they come across them. Ideally, they would be on the front cover. So maybe, there is too much acetate, or the design doesn’t work how it is supposed to with so much acetate. 134

Making the acetate was an obvious first move to make with this next version. To give it the correct proportion, I made the acetate half the size of the leaflet. I still don’t think this is quite right but I need to sort out the layout underneath first. Having the contact details on the front resolves the issue of them appearing too late, however, now, due to the position of the acetate, they aren’t clear and can quite easily be blocked. The logo also needs to feature on the front. This is better positioned and as a result of having these two on the front, it now means the inside is better balanced in regards to image and text. I think the inside is now arranged exactly how I want it but the first impression of this leaflet isn’t quite sorted. I had thought about putting the contact details on the acetate. This will free up the front cover and resolve this issue. However, putting them on acetate will mean that these two parts of the leaflet always have to remain together. It could be quite easy to lose the acetate if it isn’t tight enough roung the leaflet. Equally, if it is too tight then it will be hard to put back on, and again get lost. Another issue with this would be with the contact details being on the back. I would have to make sure that the audience turn this over which could be difficult. However, if they were on the acetate, the audience may see that there is writing on the back and turn it over. This still doesn’t resolve the issue though of the acetate getting lost. If it gets lost, at least the logo and details will still be on the leaflet so nothing important is lost. At the moment, it is just acting as a way to get people to engage with the leaflet. 135

Simple changes, such as changing the logo and contact details around, can make a massive difference. And with this design, I think that is slowly becoming apparent. Not only do they look better here, but once the first unfold is made, the contact details can be seen alongside the ‘Who are we?’ section. This makes it really easy for initial contact to be made to the charity expressing an interest to volunteer. Then, if the reader wants to find out more, they can continue to do so by opening up the rest of the leaflet. Although I do like this switch, I now think the acetate could do with some work. It seems like it is too high and you can’t see both sections at the same time, you have to make a choice. There is also another issue, the acetate itself. I do like the fact you can see through it, and if the elements underneath are balanced correctly it could look really effective. But, being able to see some of the details through the banner interrupts what I am trying to say. So the title instead of being bold and grabbing (obviously this title isn’t and would be changed), it is instead being confused with the writing underneath. Merging these two messages isn’t the best start to the leaflet as the reader will question the balance between other elements within the leaflet, something we don’t want them to do. Therefore, other than making the banner smaller, it could be interesting to try different materials. Something more textured that acetate would make for a nice change.

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Once again, this small change had a great impact on the leaflet. It is starting to look more successful in my eyes. One thing I may say, is that, although the size is more appropriate, in these photographs, it makes it seem a little out of proportion and that the leaflet is really big, when in fact it isn’t. I still want to explore different materials and thicknesses of paper as I think this could benefit the work more. It is clear that the ‘Contact Details’ title interrupts the acetate as you start trying to work out what it says instead of focusing on what the acetate says.

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I think that now, it is less about the hyperthetical approaches of mock-ups and now I need to start printing on to different materials. Although I do like this on card for the ‘Volunteer with us’ strip, I think to see whether this really works, both examples need to be printed in order to compare them effectively. The fact you can’t see the ‘Contact Details’ Title isn’t too much of an issue as you can see the email and telephone underneath which makes a very clear suggestion as to what you will see when the banner is removed. The logo is also well situated for this.

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There were two main paper types that I wanted to try as part of this. One was a heavy card but not as heavy as the other paper type I had been using in experiments, whilst the other was more of a poster paper card type that would have folded easily and stayed closed. (For reference the top photos on page 139 are going to be paper 1 and paper 2 is the bottom paper type in both photos on 139 and 140). Paper 1, although being a thicker card, seemed to fit the purpose better. It wasn’t going to get ruined in someone’s bag after receiving the leaflet (possibly being handed out on the street or in leaflet racks) whereas paper 2, would easily get ruined and the effect of the design would be lost. However, paper 1 is slightly off white, paper 2 is stark white. Although this shouldn’t be an issue, I had wanted to create this band around the design that highlighted the name of the organisation. By using an off white card, it becomes harder to match and I wouldn’t want to use card for this band, it needs to be a thinner paper type, like paper 2. But as outlined before, paper 2 wouldn’t need the banner, it stays closed and it wouldn’t have the same design effect that it would have to have the banner around a thicker card. This is where it is beneficial to have created the mock-ups but it is important to translate these designs to digital elements so that you can see if it works in practice. I think using paper 1 would be more effective for this client. They want something that can be posted and handed out or displayed in relative spaces. Havnig something that is flimsy will not fulfil this purpose, instead it needs to have some stability to it and this relies on using a card. Although I did look at the different card types, they were often too thick. So thick that they wouldn’t go through my printer, or too thick that the folds became messy and the overall success of the design therefore diminished. Although paper 1 is off white, I don’t think that it will need the banner around it. It has enough space for all of the information without the text being too small but also the banner becomes something that easily gets lost. It is quite difficult to make this stay on without making it so tight that it doesn’t come off. There are bound to be a couple of issues within production for this, and therefore, I think it would be easily to avoid this element as it wouldn’t add anything to this design. Equally, it the name of the organisation is on this banner, and the banner gets lost, although the name will feature in other elements of the text, it needs to be clear on the front where the leaflet has come from. The reader will not want to try and find the name, it needs to be easy and accessible. This means, it needs to be on the front cover.

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The final designs can be seen on the previous pages. As I discussed before, I didn’t think that it would work out to use the white band around the leaflet to hold it together. The design works well without it and it is something that could easily get lost with some important information on it. There were some slight printing issues with this as my printer wouldn’t allow borderless printing, this meant that not all images or text went right to the edges on the inside of the leaflet. This is something that would be adapted with printers, making regular changes to suit the exact printer used. As I didn’t know what printer this would be, I kept the full size version but made note to myself that if I were to ever print this again, I would need to consider this once more. This brief was an interesting one for me. I have always loved playing with more practical elements of design, as evidenced in my first assignment as well as my photography degree. However, being tasked with designing a leaflet was a little different for me. It had to be read in a certain way and function as a leaflet, previously I didn’t have the same concern, the paper folding element came into my work naturally instead of being a feature that had to be considered from the start. Despite this, I was able to start experimenting with more unique ways of creating a leaflet. I didn’t want to do the bulk standard folds as these are often quite boring and don’t stand out when they are being displayed or when you receive them in the post. Doing a more unique fold like I have done, provides a different focal point. It also enables for a more interesting read as the designer can control the exact way that the information is read. Although on a four fold horizontal leaflet there is a clear way to read the information, this leaflet plays with the folds in a more interesting way, making the reader read the information from a triangle instead of a simple rectangle or square. As another layer of information is revealed, the information will clearly build up on the amount of detail as the leaflet is opened more each time. Doing this, without it being like a book, works well and creates more attraction to the cause, wanting to see how you could help out. The paper also works well for this. It isn’t a thick card (the shop didn’t tell me what thickness the paper was but less than 300gsm) but it isn’t as thin as the poster paper that I tried. This would have been easily ruined in the post and I wanted something that would be sturdly when held and read. Overall, I do think this design works effectively as the information clearly fits on the design without having to be too small in font size but also there is enough room for extra details, images and at no point does it look over crowded. The design is playful and intriguing which creates a strong focal point and is different to other leaflet examples that I looked at. And for this reason, it will stand out when received by potential 144 volunteers.

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How do you approach being self-critical? What issues does it raise? Do you have friends, family, colleagues or a group who will critique your work for you? Being self-critical isn’t always easy because I often like a design but deep down I know it isn’t the best that I could do or it doesn’t fully fulfil the brief. Therefore, I try to look at it from a different perspective. I make myself the reader and decide whether this will work for the purpose that it is supposed to be for. If it doesn’t fulfil the brief, appeal to the right people or the client will not view it as successful, I rework elements so that this all works. I do have a group of friends from my degree course that I can ask about these elements and see if they think it works. Sometimes this is really helpful because they will make effective pointers in terms of things to try and why something isn’t working. What I have found though, is they look at it in a photography perspective instead of a graphics perspective. They will say something looks great but I know a couple of things still need changing to that the images can be read and understood properly. Once they see these changes, they agree but they do give me helpful pointers that often change the way I’m looking at my work. If I am adament that it looks good, yet they say I’ve overcomplicated it, I believe them and realise my errors.

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exercise: too much or not enough information At this time of year there are a lot of events going on so I had a lot of choice of which one I used for this exercise. However, I wanted to look at one of the exhibitions from my local gallery so I decided to experiment with this task using the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Shadow Artists: Risingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; exhibition. There were some photos and information on the Modern Art Oxford website which is what I used for these posters. I could have used a lot more of the information but I chose to just use the introductory 3 paragraphs about the work instead of using all of the artist biographies as well.

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Although on occasions exhibition posters can all look very similar, this approach works. Having one single image and the details surrounding it shows you everything you need to know about a potential show that you could go and visit. It is important with these to create a sense of visual hierarchy through the size of the text as this emphasises the important pieces of information for the audience. On the opposite page are a series of posters that I designed for an exhibition. It is clear that these are part of a larger advertising campaign yet each exhibition is given its own identity within the umbrella identity. This is the same with the posters on this page from The Photographer’s Gallery and the V&A. The V&A obviously has to appear on each poster. But because the logo itself is so well known, the designers have the ability to change the colour of ‘V&A’ on each poster so that it fits in with the tones better. For The Photographer’s Gallery they do it slightly differently. With the logo, they invert the colours and use a very monotonal range for their posters. Occasionally they will use a colour other than black for 148 the background but the image is normally the only element of the design that has any colour on. But this means

that through the typeface, we are able to identify which gallery this is for. Each gallery has built up this identity across all of their advertising which means they can be easily identified by any member of the audience. This is something I will need to consider when designed for Modern Art Oxford.

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Looking at other singular posters, these seem to play a bit more with the structure and layout. There are no guidelines that they have to follow in order to fall in line with gallery guidelines however, they do still have to communicate clearly the main details of the exhibition and what the audience need to know. The poster to the left works really well in terms of using the graphics to reiterate the information. Although it only says 2016, it brings the focus on to the text as it is clear what the graphics are saying and doing so you have the time to digest the information instead of spending ages digesting the imagery. Similarly, using the same typeface throughout but changing the weight and size creates a really clear visual hierarchy that is easy to follow. With the important information at the top, it works effectively in making sure that even if you have a quick glance at the poster, you get the main information and aren’t distracted by other elements of the poster, unlike the top left poster on the next page. This poster for the OSU Design Exhibition appeals to me for its design but when I realise what I am actually looking at, I am mainly looking at the geometric form that is taking over the poster. It is only once I realise that I don’t know anything about the exhibition in order to go that I begin to read the other information. It is a tough balance to achieve as the top right poster is interesting, it grabs your interest but I don’t think it has enough content on there for me to be interested in going to the event. The middle image on the bottom row however, has my interest. There is the same amount of information as the other poster however, the broken text for the title, the text within the graphics and the limited colour pallete, muted but with an acent colour, is really appealing to me. This is partially because this is the design style I like but I feel like I know more about what I can see at this exhibition whereas, the ‘Explore the Hidden Interest’ poster doesn’t quite sit right for me.

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Looking at previous exhibition posters for the Modern Art Gallery in Oxford, it is clear that there is no style that is repeated over multiple exhibitions. The first two hinted that there could be a theme however, it was soon discovered that this isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the case. This highlights that no two exhibitions are going to be the same. It also makes it easier to follow for the audience members as if they saw the same poster but different backgrounds, it is going to be harder to remember what exhibition they have been to or want to visit. Similarly, some posters have more details than others however, it seems to be two different ends of the spectrum. Therefore, it will be interesting to see what the poster will look like at the different stages of this exercise.

I thought it would be interesting to use the style of the logo to create the poster however, I quickly established that it looked a little odd considering that the logo would also have to feature on the poster. I wanted to try something more interesting and unique instead of creating this style.

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The Shadow Artists The Shadow Artists

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

Rising

Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. A group show across two venues, Arts at the Old Fire Station and Modern Art Oxford, this exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts. The exhibition alongside two

features a new ﬁlms

series of dynamic produced by the

new wider

works by the core Shadowlight Associates

Rising

group, group.

Mark Hemsworth’s prints represent a move into large-scale works, reﬂecting his obsession with collecting images; while a new installation by Richard Hunt expands his painting practice into the realms of multimedia installation. A new animation by Tom Breach merges autobiographical experience with fantasy; and Lucy Skuce’s video installation blends her obsession with construction and the domestic environment. Danny Smith’s new ﬁlm expands his interest into ancestral memory and the cultures of prehistory.

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

In order to see the real difference between having a lot of text and minimal text, I decided that each poster design should have these two options in order to compare them more successfully. On this occasion I think that neither works particularly well. The title seems too cramped at the top and having ‘Rising’ separately gets lost because you don’t know what this actually links to any more as there is so much other text around it. Having very little text apart from the dates and where is a bit too minimal in this case. There needs to be some more text explaining the project and who The Shadow Artists are as this is really important to the exhibition. Having a couple of sentences of text could really transform this design however, I am cautious of what I said before. I liked having a design in the background instead of an image but with this exhibition, it is hard to put more design elements in as this isn’t something featured within the exhibition whereas, the Design 2016: Student Portfolio Exhibition featured this a lot more. 154

The Shadow Artists: Rising 19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

The Shadow Artists: Rising

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. A group show across t wo venues, Arts at the Old Fire Station and Modern Art Oxford, this exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the groupʻs creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

I find the minimal text option with this design works a lot better than it did on the previous poster. The fact the image takes up the whole page helps with this as there isn’t ‘blank space’ as such although there are empty sections on the page. The one limitation of this design is that it doesn’t look overly exhibition like. Using a drawing as the background may seem like it isn’t something to be interested by and it would take the audience a while to realise that this is an exhibition in a highly respected gallery. Another downside of using the image for the whole background is when even more text is added. In order to fit all the text in, the image has to be blocked out and it can get a little confusing what the drawing is actually of. The large amount of text here just doesn’t work.

The exhibition features a series of dynamic new works by the core group, alongside t wo new films produced by the wider Shadowlight Associates group. Mark Hemsworthʻs prints represent a move into large-scale works, reflecting his obsession with collecting images; while a new installation by Richard Hunt expands his painting practice into the realms of multimedia installation. A new animation by Tom Breach merges autobiographical experience with fantasy; and Lucy Skuceʻs video installation blends her obsession with construction and the domestic environment. Danny Smithʻs new film expands his interest into ancestral memory and the cultures of prehistory.

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Mark Hemsworth’s prints represent a move into largescale works, reflecting his obsession with collecting images; while a new installation by Richard Hunt expands his painting practice into the realms of multimedia installation. A new animation by Tom Breach merges autobiographical experience with fantasy; and Lucy Skuce’s video installation blends her obsession with construction and the domestic environment. Danny Smith’s new film expands his interest into ancestral memory and the cultures of prehistory.

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

The exhibition features a series of dynamic new works by the core group, alongside two new films produced by the wider Shadowlight Associates group.

The Shadow Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018

The Shadow Artists: Rising

19 October -11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. A group show across two venues, Arts at the Old Fire Station and Modern Art Oxford, this exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

The exhibition features a series of dynamic new works by the core group, alongside two new films produced by the wider Shadowlight Associates group.

The Shadow Artists: Rising

Instead of just featuring one image, I thought it would be interesting to try and feature multiple imags. Convieniently all the photos were landscape which worked well for the arrangement. Weirdly the poster actually looks better with more text in my opinion. As the text is broken down it doesn’t look as overhwleming in this form whereas without the information it looks a bit empty. The only thing I would say about this design is that your eye is drawn to the blank space in the spacing of some of the text. As this blank space is unexpected the eye is drawn to these areas and notice the error of it instead of reading the text. With the final posters I will need to consider this text allignment as I cannot be having these unexpected breaks. Equally creating shapes with the text could be interesting considering that all the images are the same orientation, it would provide some variation.

Although I did like the poster on the opposite page (more specifically the one on the top right), I thought that using the 4 main advertising images gave too much away so I wanted to go back to using one single image. This time, instead of doing very block like segments, I thought this needed some variation in the way the eye was guided round the frame. Simply changing the orientation of the text solved this issue, it frames the artwork, maknig this a particular focal point whilst still showing the main details clearly. I decided the dates and address were the main thing that needed to be horizontal as this way the exhibition can still be visited even if the audience don’t remember the title because it had a different orientation.

The Shadow Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP The exhibition features a series of dynamic new works by the core group, alongside two new ﬁlms produced by the wider Shadowlight Associates group.

The Shadow Artists: Rising

In regards to more or less text with this one, additional text is definitely needed to explain the exhibition however, there shouldn’t be so much that the text also has to change orientation. By doing this it is hard to read quickly and as a poster. Equally, having everything with one orientation and the title the other way, it now makes the main details get lost and the title stands out so creating the right balance and visual hierarchy between elements will be important with this design perhaps more than others. 157

Personal Critique Personally, I think that using one image works best, this allows for a set of posters to be created that all advertise the same exhibition but use different highlighting images in order to attract a wider audience. Having all the images on one poster didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work very well and would give away too much. If a set were to be created, this way, the work will be seen as a collection but also as individual works as there are multiple artists within the exhibition. In regards to the text, I think there needs to be a bit of information about the exhibition and who the shadow artists are as this is an important bit of information that the audience needs to know before visiting the exhibition. This small bit of information will transform the posters that needed something else whilst also minimising those that became too overcrowded with information. Creating a set doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily have to have all the same designs. There could be two with one style and two with another, as long as they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t overly contradicting or contrasting in styles. So, as all the images are landscape, having some designs on landscape and some on portrait could be a nice way to add variation between them.

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Critique from others There needs to be some information but not an overwhelming amount. If people want to find out more information they can go on the website.

Using an accent colour with the black and white works really well but the font on a couple of the examples needs considering. You don’t want the image to be overpowered but there needs to be enough text for people to understand what the exhibition is about.

Definitely doesn’t need to be as much text as the full text version shows. Try and cut it down. The logos seem to be quite large in comparison, espcially when put next to the images on the 4 picture poster. I don’t think this works as well as the others, there isn’t potential to create a series and it feels like you’re trying to reveal too much.

Colours work well but logos need to be on a different background. Too much text but you need a little more than the address and dates.

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The Shadowlight Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

I decided that, from my own critique and others, that these two designs worked the best. The image is made the main focus on both but the details are all clear alongside the small selection of information. In terms of the layout there are changes I would have to make, especially with the sizing of some of the text. Also if these designs are going to feature alongside each other, the typefaces should be the same and the sizing of the text should also be the same. This way, there is an identity created across the poster designs instead of audience members expecting two different exhibitions. 160

The Shadow Artists

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

Rising

Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

In order to avoid the white background against the Modern Art Oxford logo, there are three things I could do. One, change the background colour however, I do think the black background highlights the work better for some examples. Two, change the Modern Art Oxford logo to a different colour. Looking back on other posters to see if this is something they do. Or, three, the option I think would work best, is to create a white stripe across the top and bottom of the poster, this would allow me to create a two tone title at the top, and then the logos would also stand out at the bottom. However, I don’t want them standing out too much as this isn’t the main focus of the poster. First, instead of focusing on the layout of individual posters, I need to focus on them as a set, if this is what I am thinking will work best, so that they can be worked on collectively before making individual tweeks.

161

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

The Shadowlight Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

The Shadowlight Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

As these will be a set, it is important to consider how all of the graphics look together. Some of the graphics look better on the black background, and some work better on the white background. which is making me think that if all the fonts were alligned and other small changes made, I could include 2 of each of these sets so that the work is showcased at its best. There is no point making it look average otherwise people won’t visit.

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The Shadow Artists

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

Rising

The Shadow Artists

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

Rising

The Shadow Artists

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

Rising

The Shadow Artists

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

Rising

163

I would have said these posters worked really well however, after rereading the brief, it became apparent that I have done the very generic idea for posters and I wanted to do something a little different so I think more development is needed. “Posters generally, have an image and one main line of text, most often the title, followed by additional essential information.” This makes me think that in order to engage more with the audience, the posters need to be a little different. I want to experiment further with some of the ideas however, I did previously conclude that all four imiages on one page didn’t work. Like the posters I designed for the Exposure Photography Festival, it could be intriguing to use snippets of different images and build them up to produce a new focal point for the work. Doing this will create something more interesting, however, this may not feature in the rest of the exhibition so the link could be missing. This link is vital to have between marketing and the actual event. Similarly, I don’t view this exhibition to have the potential for a geometric design on the poster, it would look quite odd with the style of work, therefore, creating a focal point like this on the posters should be avoided. It would be helpful at this point to know why the exhibition is called Rising, however, this isn’t something I can find out very easily so it may be best to not create a design based on this in case it is wrong. Note: If this were a live brief I would have the opportunity to ask these questions, which is something I would do to hopefully develop my designs.

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Time to try and change it up a bit...As I Can’t play with the term ‘Rising’, I thought it could be fun to play on the term ‘Shadow’ as part of ‘The Shadow Artists’.

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The Shadow Artists

Rising 19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

Rising

19 October 11 November 2018

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

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I had been worried that on these posters, the full work could be seen. As a member of the audience, you would know exactly what to expect. In some ways, this is benefical as there would be no disappointing surprises when you arrive. However, it also means that you may have already seen the main works advertised. These images are obviously available online, so if an audience member were to look up more about the exhibition, they would find these images. However, I still felt like too much was being revealed. Hence I started using geometrics again. Instead of making really bold choices and creating alternative focal points with the work, I wanted to obscure the artwork using these geometrics. The circles could have worked, however, I felt like the black and white tones weren’t working as successfully together as they had done separately on the previous designs. Despite knowing that I’m supposed to be looking at the image, I find myself focusing on the joins of the circles and the effect this has on the typography. The fact I have noticed this from my own looking, suggests that others would also do the same. The strong element of contrast doesn’t work to my favour here as it is distracting from the work. As I mentioned before, the work doesn’t strike me to be bold and geometric which means, this design, leads people to expect something that they won’t find. The other issue with the circles is that the work and everything else is looking very 2D, which obviously it is, but it doesn’t create any interest.

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30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October 11 November 2018

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The white band on the poster on the opposite page, works well to an extent. It creates some element of contrast, however, due to the positioning of it, the poster looks like it is in two halves now. There is now blending and after looking at the image you transfer from black to white. This is why with these designs, I wanted to play around with this. I quickly established that having a massive white block underneath the image wasn’t going to work, and if I were to have a white segment, it needed to be at the bottom in order to blend the ‘Modern Art Oxford’ Logo. This I liked. It gave the work a clearer sense of identity by highlighting these logos for the right reason, instead of the wrong reason, which was the fact the background didn’t match and Rising the logos could never be seen clearly. 30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

I also wanted to play with the way the word ‘Shadow’ was portrayed within the posters. I created a reflection of the image to start with, this continued the image in to the text and didn’t make it look like there were two definitive sections, they could blend into one another and it would encourage people to read the text whereas some may usually ignore it. Also, adding a reflection on to the title worked, but as can be seen on the fifth example, it had to be balanced well as I didn’t want it to stand out too much, it had to be subtle. If it were too strong it can seem badly done or tacky. With the sunset image the reflection works really well, however, I am unsure whether it will work on the other images. The other images may present themselves better like I previously tried. However, even if I don’t go with these designs, I did play around with the font so that it is a little heavier. The light font would make it hard to pick up the key details quickly if someone were to walk by. You need to be able to see these details from a distance and with the new, stronger font, this is definitely the case. 167

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19 October 11 November 2018

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As I had suspected, the other images don’t work as effectively with the reflection. Here, there is a definitive line between the two and making the gap smaller doesn’t fit with how it is supposed to look. The sunset images work with this idea due to the geometric nature of them, it doesn’t seem out of place for them to continue and have the gap between the original image and the reflection. With this work however, the gap stands out more than the actual image and instead of reading more about the exhibition, I find myself questioning the gap more. I did also try using the shadow effect on just the word shadow however, this caused more issues for the design. It looks very out of place and instead of remembering the whole title I find myself focusing on ‘Shadow’ too much. 168

I started to experiment more because I didn’t want to just feature one image and do the stereotypical poster design yet everything I have designed so far did exactly that. So, I decided to try and blend the images together through the reflections, each one going in a different direction. This very much confuses the reading of the poster. Even though I know where I need to focus on, I am getting confused about which part of the poster I need to read, let alone which bit I need to read first or which section will have the important information. I do still like some of the other designs that I did. It may be worth looking at these again and making some small changes, like the white band at the bottom, as this is working really well. I also like there being something behind the text but I don’t know what this could be changed for. 19 October 11 November 2018

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Turning the graphic into black and white definitely helps with the reflection issue on this image. It also helps to place emphasis on the title and the information. These look a lot stronger and you feel like you need to read this information. The image then backs up what you have read and from this point, as a reader, you are able to decide if it is an exhibition you would visit. Although I like this, I still feel like something is missing and I can’t quite work out what it is.

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The Shadow Artists

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The Shadow Artists

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If I wanted to keep an element of the work hidden, turning all the images into black and white would be the perfect way of doing it. However, there is hidding elements of work and then there is this. Obviously the drawing isn’t effected however, the first and fourth pieces of work are completely transformed, and not in a good way. These posters don’t highlight the good aspects of the work and instead they reduce it to something that it isn’t. Keeping these in colour will definitely show case the work a lot better so I don’t think I would even ask for people’s opinions of these.

The Shadow Artists

19 October 11 November 2018

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The Shadow Artists

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The Shadow Artists

Although I do think this design works, it may be a case of me over complicating it again. I wanted to avoid the usual structure of a poster and by adding in the reflection, there was a little something different but it didn’t crowd the poster with images as I knew this didn’t work for this style of exhibition when the work is so varied. In some cases the reflection works better than others but looking at them again now in comparison to the other posters I have designed, I feel like these are very block like still. There is no variation between them and having the text with different orientations on one of the other designs actually adds something a bit different and encourages the reader to view the work at all angles before they have even stepped into the exhibition. Think I may have talked myself back into one of the old designs.

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The Shadowlight Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

The Shadowlight Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

The Shadow Artists

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

I thought merging these two different styles could work, however, when viewing them like this, I prefer the reflection ones. The white posters are still a strong contender for me, I think these may be my final design, but when 172paired with the black posters they lose the effect.

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I think it is clear from my other annotations that these are more successful. Comparing the others to these, although this does fit to the generic idea of a poster as laid out in the brief, for this exhibition they work best. As the work is so varied it is hard to try and combine the work without it looking too crowded so it was best to create a set of posters that each show a different work. It is clear that these are a set though as everything is the exact same apart from the image so a clear identity is created across them.

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

The Shadowlight Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

The Shadowlight Artists: Rising

30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BP

19 October -11 November 2018 Film Oxford presents the latest work by The Shadowlight Artists, a group of six artists with learning disabilities based in Oxfordshire. This exhibition showcases work spanning installation, painting, digital media and theatrical production. The exhibition celebrates the group’s creative growth since their formation in 2009 with an artistically ambitious body of work that re-frames disability arts.

Whilst proof reading, I realised that they are called THE SHADOWLIGHT ARTISTS and not The Shadow Artists so I corrected this! 173

final Critique from others These posters are brighter and more eye catching because the tones are generally lighter. The colour choices of red, white and black flow well. The simple font works better and the landscape is different to what ‘normal’ posters are.

Flows better. Seems more established. Successful set of 4 without revealing too much before visiting the exhibition. The varying orientation works better and the text works better with it being landscape, seems more credited.

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Reflections look effective but would be more effective on something else, almost too artistic when you’re trying to advertise something instead of creating artwork. The final designs achieve this aim a lot better. They advertise the event and the work that can be seen without trying to create artwork out of another piece of artwork.

The fonts don’t stand out so much this time, they are an addition instead of a focal point. The orientiations of the font make it more interesting and encourage more engagement with the information, therefore, someone is more likely to remember it.

Research point: Identify the software you have available to deal with desktop publishing, image manipulation and graphics/ illustration. How familiar are you with it? What do you need to learn? I am fortunate enough to have access to the full adobe Creative Suite and I have been able to experiment with different programmes during my time at university. I am very comfortable using Photoshop, Indesign and Lightroom for desktop publishing and image manipulation. However, I am not as comfortable on Illustrator. This is a program that I want to be able to develop my skills in as vector graphics remain at higher quality to a file created on Photoshop. Although it is possible to create high quality imagery, it can be difficult and easy to reduce the quality by editing it in the wrong manner, therefore, I need to learn how to create the same style imagery on Illustrator. I am not familar with any other desktop publishing, image manipulation or illustration programmes. As a minimum, I have always had Photoshop to experiment with. I know it is common for companies to now use MacBooks and the Creative Suite however, if I were asked to create something using a different program, I would struggle so this is something I need to develop. Even if it is just the basics, this is all I need to get started.

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Exercise: Point of Sale Display Brief: Your local green grocer has asked you to produce a point of sale display to go above the fruit and vegetables in their shop. They want the display to be seen from the street through the shop window to attract passing shoppers in order to boost their trade. The shop is in a small precinct which also houses a baker, a newsagent, an independent shoe shop and is on the route to and from a well respected primary school. Either take photographs, create illustrations or use a combination to develop two images - one of fruit and one of vegetables. For each range, you may choose an individual piece, dissected or partly sliced sections, or create a group of several pieces.

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Analyse the brief What am I being asked to do? Produce 2 A1 landscape POS displays that have to have some kind of photography or illustration. One display needs to be for fruit and one needs to be for vegetables. It has to be designed for people within the local area which contains other shops but also a well respected primary school. How will the client judge if I have been successful? In regards to the text, the client will judge if this is successful as customers should be able to see it from the street. It will need to appeal to the correct customers and if they can see if from the street, it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just be regulars coming in so the owners will be able to see an increase in people shopping and the type of people shopping. The tones will need to be appealing as this can quickly change anyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perception of the food. There will be enough information for the audience to know what they can get but not too much that they feel like they need to spend time reading this POS. Keywords: Attract, boost trade local well respected school

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The M&S food adverts have taken a new turn within recent years, the style of advertising is so clear to identify on video adverts and I wanted to see how this style is then employed within stores. A lot of the time the TV adverts have moving food elements showing the food coming together as well as a stark black background that highlights the bold, colourful tones of the food. By doing this we want to eat this food, it looks tasty and appetising which will drive sales.

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Walking in to my local M&S store, I decided to look at how this style was put into practice within the fruit and veg section.The style does resonate in some ways however, the colour contrast doesn’t seem to be as impactful. These images show this slightly, but the images in store did have more impact. There are various different styles that are used for the advertising which works to the companies advantage. Some signage has prices on and wording, whilst others have purely images. These images are enough to guide the eye as to where they need to go. In some cases this wouldn’t be enough, however, because there are other signs with words and phrasing to lead the audience around, it works well to have signs that work for different types of readers. Some prefer words, and some prefer images. This is something that I will have to consider. Obviously as I am only designing one sign for each, I do need some text. Unlike these signs, I don’t think it needs marketing phrases or prices, it just needs the words ‘Fruit’ and ‘Vegetables’ because this will guide the reader where they need to go, too much writing would cover the image and would therefore, make it really hard to navigate the shop. This doesn’t make for a pleasant shopping experience. 179

Insted of just looking at Point of Sale adverts generally, I wanted to start specifying the fruit and veg theme. Everything I found, seemed very similar, and I found them quite dull. In a way, the main function of these is to guide the shopper around the store. Although it is important to seell the product, it isn’t as important as it can be for other shops. Food is something we will always need so it is more for guidance than selling. Despite this, it is still important for the food to look appetising as you don’t want to be buying into the idea of something not being tasty. The two designs on this page perform this exact function. They tell you where everything is, and they make the food look appealing. With the image below, it is obviously important to show the variety of products that are available to the consumer. If just one piece of fruit was used, it would suggest that that section didn’t have fruit in general, perhaps just apples if this is what the picture depicted. Interestingly, these both use illustrations compared to photography. This isn’t to say that photography shouldn’t be used but with illustration, it is easier to show the ‘perfect’ apple for example. Trying to find one, or often multiples, that all look perfect in terms of shape and tones can be quite difficult so by using illustration, this eliminates the issue.

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The caption to this image summarises this advertising well “Old-fashioned? Sure! But clear and attractive”. It is very clear that in this store there is going to be a wide range of fruit and veg for the shopper to purchase. It all loks appealing with the photography highlights the bright and vibrant tones of fresh produce. Originally, I was concerned with photography trying to portray the perfect food and although they have evidentally carefully picked what goes in this photograph, they all slightly cover something else which makes it less difficuly to construct the image. The style of food photography that we now see in advertising, the first thing that comes to mind is the M&S food campaign, it has a very different style. This style will be something that I explore later on but the clean cut, minimal but creative shots is now what kind of photography companies strive for instead of overcrowded images like the one above. Although it is functional and does the job, I don’t think this is the kind of advertising this client wants or needs. Due to it’s location, it needs something more considered, simplistic and appealing to their customers, this would perhaps attract different customers to what the shop has.

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Photography - slices of different fruit and veg on a lightbox used as the backdrop with the text in front. Would work nicely with fruit but veg wouldn’t have the same efcect, there isn’t the same opacity.

Need to show a variety of produce in each POS, would like to look at illustration and this is a skill I want to improve but think this may take more time to develop and could be a complex task to try and do with illustration.

Need to remember to highlight the tonal differences that make each fruit different.

There have been multiple campaigns recently to get every piece of fruit and veg into the shop, not just those that look perfectly formed. Therefore, I don’t need to focus on this within my images, although I need to consider how I construct the photograph or illustration, each piece doesn’t need to be perfectly formed. If I later decide that this needs changing it is something that I can easily fix.

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Just experiment with the different methods and see which work best for creating texture

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Polly Lindsay

Lindsay describes herself on her website as a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Paper Illustratorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, she takes something very flat and basic and transforms it into something more tangible, 3D and much more visually interesting than it originated as. Depth is very clearly added to each piece through the spacing between the pages, however, the limited tones also are benefical for this. The tonal changes as you get further into the piece, help add to this depth, even though the colours have a very limited palette. In order for each one to stand out in the way it does, Lindsay selects the opposite colour on the colour wheel. By this I mean, for the above piece, she uses the green and opposite to this, is pink. Although variations occur slightly between tones, by using this theory, she is able to make sure that all her pieces have the highest amount of contrast. The other way to view this selection is that the colours with the highest contrast are actually complementary colours. Therefore, by using these colours, Lindsay is complementing her complex paper illustrations whilst also creating another element of contrast which adds to the depth. The depth created throughout these pieces it obviously very important and the proximinity between the pieces of paper plays a huge part in how successful each piece is. Each one has to be slightly different which would make Lindsayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s job difficult as the paper then needs to be positioned so the thickness is correct at each stage. However, this proximity is relied upon not just for the way each piece is viewed but also it helps to build up the contrast between each sheet of paper.

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Although every composition is the only thing featured on the page and there is little chance of getting distracted by anything else, Lindsay still positions everything centrally within the frame. In part, this would make it easier for her to create each piece but it also makes for an easier viewing. The emphasis is in the middle of the frame, which may be considered the basic option but it works perfectly for this. By doing this, it maximises the impact as everything builds outwards and allows the audience to easily focus on the contrast, form and structure that Lindsay has carefully constructed. In relation to this brief, it could be quite difficult to produce something like this that would be effective for the POS. As I outlined before, part of the success of these illustrations is the fact that only one image features on each piece. If I were to feature more than one on each page, there would be difficulty with creating the space that each illustration needs as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;breathing spaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; but also trying to select a complementary colour for various pieces would not work. Despite this not being something that I could apply to my own work, there is still a lot to learn from Lindsayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work. The depth that she creates through something simple means that I too, should be able to create this level of depth. Having this on an illustration would make it seem more life like without 185 using photography. This is definitely something to consider, alongside being careful with my colour choices.

nanna prieler Prielerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work would definitely be considered more traditional illustration however, it is still digitally designed. Her methods, in my opinion, create less depth although she is using a method with far more potential. Firstly, I notice the background colour of these two pieces immediately to the left. Instead of using complementary colours like Lindsay, Prieler has used the same colour as her main piece but in a different shade. Although this still works and highlights the illustration in the foreground, there is less contrast created and therefore less depth. For the radish, this is almost worsened. The dots in the middle of the raddish are the same colour as the background. This begins to drag the foreground and background together and lessen the elements of contrast. It is imperritive to have high contrast elements in every illustration however, the contrast helps in many ways. It draws your attention to the foreground, something you need in these pieces; it helps to highlight texture and contrast on the main parts of the illustration and it creates more of a visually stimulating piece. On this second fully coloured illustration for an example, each leaf is given varying textures, however, because of the background sharing a similar tone to the foreground, this texture is not as significant until darker, harsher lines are used on the leaf. I found that my eye was immediately drawn to these black lines on the leaf. This shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be the main focus of the illustration and instead the background should be an alternative colour in order to make the whole cabbage the focal point, not just two leaves. 186

By having no background on these two illustrations, Preiler is allowing the audience to notice more of the textures. The tonal changes that occur within the rhubarb become something to focus on because these small textural elements aren’t overpowered or blended in with any background. Although I feel like in some ways I am contradicting what I said about the other illustrations, these tonal changes back it seem like there is more depth to the subject now. This simple change of not having a background greatly helps with this as blending in a similar tone would blend everything together. Whereas, having very small tonal changes on a white background, emphasises these small changes more because they still stand apart from the background. Due to the natural colour of the rhubarb, it would be difficult to pick a background colour with this one as the green is already considered a complimentary colour so whatever background Prieler used, would have had less contrast and therefore, not worked as wel as a complentary colour to the subject. This shows how different methods can create depth in different ways. Previously, limited tones but successful complementary colours created depth really successfully. Whereas, here, depth is created through the texural changes and the tonal changes that are used as part of this. They don’t necessarily always have to have a background other than white, it depends on how depth is being created in each individual graphic. Something that I will take note of from Prieler’s work relates to this lemon illustration. Instead of having 3 fully coloured lemons, she has instead used an outline for one of them. This doesn’t need to be coloured as it is clear what the subject is based on the other two coloured lemons. However, by doing so, this breaks down the graphic. It isn’t too overpowering and instead allows us to focus on the line, form, and texture that has been created. 187

alice wardle

So far, the illustrations that I have looked at all featured a single piece of fruit or veg, however, I have already established that for these signs to work, they should have multiple on there, otherwise, it would suggest that the store only has what is on the POS. Although Wardle’s design perhaps wouldn’t work on this POS it quickly shows that the positioning of everything is going to be very important. And, like Prieler’s last couple of illustrations, instead of using a complementary colour for the backgroud, Wardle has kept it simple by using white as there are already quite a lot of colours to balance. Instead tonal changes are used to bring some life to the illustrations, they don’t seem flat like some illustrations appear. The depth created by this is very subtle however, there is a lot to balance within this one frame. For my work I am going to have to consider this. It would probably be easier to use a white background or something quite dull so that it doesn’t juxtapose the rest of my work too much, however, it does need to showcase the work or most importantly, make people want to buy the produce. As I haven’t done digital illustration before, I am slightly concerned about making everything look perfect however, Wardle doesn’t seem too bothered by this. The apple and pepper, for example, aren’t the perfectly hshaped pieces of fruit that you would normally think of, but the everything else indicates that this is still a tasty piece of food. As long as it is identifiable I think this could work in my favour. Especially as there has been so many changes about this in supermarkets now. there has been encouragement to sell the less perfectly formed pieces of fruit and veg so this 188 could be played with a little.

jessica fisher

Other than just looking at illustrations, I realised how important it is to look at the inclusion of text. With this piece by Fisher, the text isn’t viewed as a separate feature, instead it is intertwined with other elements so that the whole graphic is viewed as one. The choice of font here is also important. It isn’t a block font which works really nicely as it also creates it’s own texture within the work. The dot method of adding fading and texture here is then repeated within the veg used to mimik the way texture is created. The association of green being healthy is particularly emphasised however, it would have been nice to see some more bold tones. Although green and brown are complementary colours, perhaps the font could have been green and some alternative veg could have been used to add colour. The more I consider the elements, maybe this is actually a graphic for a recipe. I cannot find a definition for the word so maybe this would better explain it. Either way, I am starting to like the use of brown as a background colour. Although it is often overlooked, the association it has with fruit and veg as very natural. To some it would suggest dirty but it is actually highlighting the origins of the produce. It came from the ground, it’s fresh. This could work really nicely, however, as can be seen above, it will need to be balanced well. This time, as the brown does appear quite flat, it highlights the texture and depth of the subjects. The tonal variations, which have been very carefully considered, help to bring depth. This shows a combination of the methods used by Lindsay and Prieler and through the combination it means it could get more complex to balance so many tones whilst adding depth but this is something I will have to consider within my work when I start designing. 189

Emma dibben

On the main bulb, colour has been used to create the texture through tonal variations, whereas, on the leaf, texture has been added the leaf lines. Usually, leaves donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have red lines like these so instead of using a different shade of green, Dibben has used a darker colour that matches with the raddish bulb itself. Although this does work and is quite effective, I think that some tonal blending on the leaves could have added some more depth, it would have created a nice balance between the two methods. Equally, the harsh lines that this creates is quite dominant, and, despite the fact they are softened slightly by the watercolour splashes in the background, the stark contrast between these two elements becomes difficult for the eye to balance. This kind of contrast doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feature within this pepper illustration and the level of detail on the inside texture is really something that would take me a long time to create something half as good. However, the one thing I think of when I look at this pepper is that it may be a little shrivelled. All my graphics need to make something look appealing and having something slowly going off isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the most appealing product to be showcasing. 190

This is a very different style of illustration to the others that I have just been looking at. Dibben uses more of a watercolour approach to her illustration that creates amazing depth in the blending modes. The additional splashes of colour break down the intense colours and add something diffferent to what would otherwise be the usual safe option of having a white background. Something that has really interested me with this raddish drawing is the different ways Dibben has added texture.

Applying her style to a book cover, this definitely has a different viewing now, as the purpose of the graphic is to tell the cookbook and make the food seem appealing in order to sell. The design elements donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem to have as much detail on this cover as her individual illustrations have. Despite this, there are numerous, interesting textures created upon each subject. The focus on this within the design process was obviously very important. Personally, I find that the cover could have had some more interesting tones on. At the moment, it is very limited. The outlines of some elements works well however, they do need to have more tones. The front cover seems to only feature any orange tones and the back cover only has green. Although this does work, I think for something to be appealing it needs to have a little more than it currently does as it seems a little boring and you want this cooking process to seem more exciting in order to sell the book. 191

Georgina Luck Luck’s style is very similar to that of Dibben’s in terms of her watercolour, freer designs. Although they both do use these paint splatters, Luck takes this style a little further. The designs in terms of the paint are very rough, there is minimal blending and instead, she uses a fine liner over the top to add extra details. By doing this, she is building up the mediums as well as the textured elements that help to identify what she is portraying. As a result, depth is created in some ways, however, as these products already exist, the colour choices aren’t exactly her own. This means that the elements of contrast are minimal. Although other artists don’t get to chose the colour of the fruit, the combinations that the use for tones and background colours is. Here, there is minimal blending between tones due to the way Luck has chosen the media in which she uses. Similarly, she hasn’t used any background colours. The blending that she has used on the images opposite obviously add more depth. The raddish’s have to look 3D and life like, which they do due to the tones used. Whereas, the marmite jar is a little different, there isn’t the need to make it look as life like in this illustration. Compared to the leaves on the radish by Dibben, these seem much more realistic. There are the leaf lines, some darker than others, and blending of the green tones of the leaves. As both Dibben and Luck have similar types, it is unclear why Dibben didn’t go for a more realistic depiction, however, the green tones may have been a little too dark in comparison to the purple tones she has used for the raddishes. 192

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As mentioned before, the style difference between photography and illustrations of fruit and veg is very different. These examples here want to highlight a variety of different types of fruit and veg and most of them use a wooden background to portray the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wholenessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and earthy textures in regards to the origins of the food. Using these tones within illustrations could be really benefical and begin to tie the two styles together. However, as can be seen from these examples, the shade can vary a lot and this would have to be something I experiment with.

I knew from the start, but balancing all these tones is going to get complicated. The bottom left image on the opposite page balances them really well with a slight accent in the silver of the knife, however, this doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stand out too much as dirt has been added to the kniife so that it balances with the other brown tones of the image. The image top right of the opposite page however, shows a lot

more in terms of varying tones, they all link slightly and have varying shades of the same colour however, I think the layout here doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do it any favours. It needs to be more considered in my opinion. The top left image on this page shows very limited tones but the lighting that has been used does add some interest as it highlights the different textures between each piece. 195

Remember to consider the style of shop and the audience whilst creating these POS displays. It needs to fit with the type of client and what they want to see whilst also guiding the customers around the shop.

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As can be seen from the visual research that has been undertaken, trying to balance everything within one frame it going to take a lot of work. Balancing the tones and the different forms whilst still creating something that showcases the work is doing to be a complex task. Making sure that each piece also looks good and the textures are all correct is going to test my illustration skills. What I liked about the illustrations is that they seem to have more to them, the textures and tonal differences highlight the unique qualities to each piece. Whereas, the photography tries to show too much within one photograph. I established early on that whichever method I use needs to show varying produce in order to show that a range of products can be bought instead of just the oe piece that is on the sign. With the photography it is already proven that this works, whereas, the illustration struggles with this. This is something that I can explore through my development. When you photograph something there is the element of death. What you see in the picture will never exist in that exact form ever again. The element of death is something associated with photography and the illustration doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have this link. Although many viewers wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand this link, I think there is some association. It is clear in the advertising I have seen for other food stores that this isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always the case however, I do think that illustration would work more successfully for what I am trying to achieve.

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After looking at the other artists, it was clear what kind of illustration I was liking and what approach I would take however, I wanted to experiment a little with some more detailed and some less detailed approaches. Although I do like the textures that the more watercolour approach takes, I like the more playful nature of the geometric design. You can make the segments as big or as little as you want which means the tonal changes can sometimes be shown in more detail than others. However, I was slightly cautious that this may just be my personal preference because this is the style that I like which is why I asked others for their opinions. They also said the geometric pattern could grab people’s attention within a shop. It adds depth despite being flattened and the tonal differences that are shown throughout, no matter how small, add some intrigue to the work. The watercolour option, as can be seen above, has been done a lot and there isn’t much chance of making them seem different. This was definitely something I discussed before and it becomes clear here. Some people were keen on this very random drawing at the front of the frame however, this was not a style I wanted to work with as it is hard to build up textures with the photoshop brushes and I thoguht that it could be difficult to identify some of the fruits and vegetables that I would draw. Once I received this feedback and worked out what style I liked, I concluded that the geometric style would be something that I would like to play with more. The one thing I’m going to have to be careful is how many segments I cut each fruit into and balancing the colours. As each one is going to be displaying a lot more tones, balancing each display is going to take some doing as I don’t want everything to be bland but I don’t want anything to clash either.

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Once I had established that I would be doing the geometric design, I wanted to spend some more time carefully designing each element. These two show the smallest elements, the leaf and stem. The effect this had was a lot more impactful than I thought. Originally I was really concerned about how complex the process would be because examples that I had looked at seemed to create so much depth and it seemed effortless. However, once I started for myself, I realised that once you have a base image, the tones are already sorted because you go off of what there is naturally based on light and everything else surrounding the object. Equally, even if there is little difference between the tones of two adjoining segments, this doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter as it adds depth to both segments.

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The main concern I had with the main body of the apple was how many segments to create. Although the tones seem very even, when you look closely they do change a lot so I wanted to represent this by doing more segments. However, as can be seen, these segments become a little too much. The constant shifting between tones means the eye doesn’t know which way it is supposed to look or what shape is actually being created by the shapes. Although it is clear what the subject is and how the audience is supposed to view it, the constant shifting does through the audience’s perspective into question. With the less segmented apple, this isn’t so much the case. The main tonal differences are highlighted and the main shape is portrayed. I think one of the things that threw off the tones in the more segmented apple was the natural specles that appear on the apple. For this reason, I think the left hand example works best, it is easier for the eye to read and it doesn’t require too much reading unlike the right hand example whereby it requires more reading, it is almost like the audience is expected to read every segment and understand the difference between each one.

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Before I took my own photos for this, I wanted to make sure that I knew what kind of photograph I was requiring in order for this to be successful. I used one of the image that I had previously used and applied the geometric effect to it. By doing this, I was able to see how to effectively make the pattern work. I was getting to grips with how I needed to treat the lines and what kind of fruit would work more effectivelu. I was able to quickly establish that I don’t think the flat lay style of imagery would work, there is too much going on and the background wouldn’t work with the geometric design - it would try and send the eye in even more directions than it is already being sent. Once this had been established and I knew that I didn’t want to have a full flat lay, I looked at the effect that cropping the image had. Having more concentrated splashed of colour help to highlight the form of each individual fruit and bring the design together. I think when constructing each image, it is important to look at both the form and colours that I will be grouping together. I don’t want too many elements sharing the same colour as it could be hard to distinguish what fruit is which. Equally, as the flat lay approach isn’t working, I will need to look at other ways of doing product photography. It may be benefical to find a white surface that I can use like a studio. This way there is little option for the background to contrast the foreground. Keeeping it clean will instead draw similarities between this and the clean cut edges of the fruit. From here I will be able to decide whether shadows should be kept in the image. These may cut the image too harshly, or if I use a reflective surface this may help to soften the edges a little. This will also be something that I need to address with the font. I don’t want the font to be too harsh against the rest of the graphics but I don’t want it to soften the overall impact.

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An issue that I had during shooting was that I often cut off edges of the fruit, when I then placed the image on an A1 document, I realised that the proportions that I shot in, did not line up with the proportions of the required document size. Therefore, the image I had hoped to use needed adjusting slightly.

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After photographing the fruit selection, I decided that I needed to make some quick Lightroom adjustments in order to get the colours and tones right. As this piece will rely so heavily on the tones, they needed to be right from the start. Easy adjustments like this donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take long but can make a large difference to the final impact of the POS. And this is what will drive sales.

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I wasn’t sure how many pieces of fruit needed the geometric design applying. I started withe the pear and started to work my way out, making sure that I picked contrasting fruits. It wouldn’t have worked to just do the pear and lime to start with, which is why I started with the pear and orange as I thought this would create some nice contrast. However, it is hard to tell that the orange has been disected as it has lots of small segmenets. It is easier to tell in the final version but trying to pick it out of the original photo is quite difficult. As I kept working through the image, I thought that the geometric design wasn’t having the same impact that it had during my tests. Therefore, I decided that it would be best to complete the whole image in this style and due to the layers that I was using for each individual fruit, I was able to switch between which fruits were and weren’t in this style. Although I did play around with this, the impact was never as strong as it was when all of the fruit had the edit applied. The individual tones and form of each fruit was now made into its own focal point and there wasn’t any normal pieces of fruit obscuring the eye. This may be something that I decide to change once the font is added but at the moment, as a single image I think it works best to apply the effect to the overall image. This will probably remain as I don’t want the font to contrast different elements of the fruit because it is in different styles, everything needs to work together in order to draw customers in.

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I treated the Vegetable image in the same way. Adjustments were made in order to balance out the image, make sure the tones were correct and that the image was the right proportion. I can change the positioning of the image later on if I decide because of this clear background. If I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have kept the background as clear as this and changed it to something like one of the other flat lays, I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have been given this option and creating an A1 image on a camera without this preset would have been difficult.

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Unlike the fruit image, the veg image was harder to just isolate one single piece of fruit, I had to work my way around knowing that in order for this image to work, I needed to turn every element into the geometric design. Single items in this geometric style were not working effectively due to the variety of colours and forms that featured. With the fruit image they were a lot closer together and the majority were round whereas, here they varied so much that there already was quite a lot of elements to try and balance. In order for the image to work, each individual element had to be carefully outlined. The red onion was possibly the hardest, with so many different layers, they needed to be outlined and identified individually which worked to a point but due to the angle of the onion in the photograph these started to blur together.

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In terms with the font, I wa struggling with different styles. I liked the geometric font as this mirrored the style of the edit however, I wanted the font to create an element of contrast not to draw similarities. In a way this worked but I wanted to explore alternatives in order to see if this was the right choice. The outline font that I used in a previous project did work to an extent however, in the positioning that it is, the outline gets lost in the fruit image. It needs to stand out in order to be visible from far away in the shop. If a sign isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t visible, even if the image is and the text isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, this isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t effective signage, it needs to be fully legible in order to direct everyone around the shop. For example, it someone is colour blind, this may be hard to identify as fruit, therefore, they need the text. For this reason, I filled in the text. Pink seemed to be a bold choice and it worked effectively next to the colours featured within the photo. 210

As I had worked out previously, the positioning wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite right. Each font needed a different position but collectively, I think it works best above the image, there is no way that the two elements can obscure each other but the geometric font doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work when positioned here, it is too similar. In a way, it works best by leaving some of the pieces of fruit in their natural form. However, thinking about the two images as a set, the vegetable image needs to be fully edited, therefore, I cannot use this font. I will experiment with the vegetable image as this seems to be the harder one to match.

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As the fonts seemed to work on the other POS display, I wanted to try them on the vegetable image. In this image, I started by increasing the height of the text yet this still didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work. The larger quantity of text alongside more subjects within the image makes the geometric text seem too much. The balance that was once achieved between the image, text and blank space is now interrupted. Despite this font working with the other POS display, I decided that this needed to be the same across both designs and therefore, this font couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be selected. I continued to experiment with different fonts and positions however, I was struggling to get the balance just right between the different elements.

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Although I liked the font on the top left example, I concluded that the curvature of the lines and the lower case lettering, was too much for this image. It broke down the harsher lines of the geometric vegetables too much and softened the overall design. Instead of doing this, I wanted to highlight the form and tonal differences, something these softer edges doesn’t highlight. Therefore, I decided to go to a different font, one that wasn’t fully capitals but wasn’t all lowercase. The GoBold font started to work well here as it allowed for this combination and the non-capitalised ‘a’ helped to soften some of the harsher edges from other letters. Once I had established this, and made sure it worked on the Fruit POS, I was able to play around with different colours. I was almost certain that I didn’t want to use green as there is already enough green on this image. The pink on the previous image had worked well as a contrasting yet complimentary element, the green here was too similar but I couldn’t find an alternative colour that would work. 213

Continuing to experiment with different colours still didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work as well as I had hoped. As there are so many different tones within the image, it is quite hard to pick one single one that will compliment each individual vegetable. Having resisted the obvious choice of using green, it turns out that this actually works quite well. It brings the title together with the image but it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too close that it is too much, whilst also contrasting with other elements within the image.

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Instead of just considering these two individually, I thought it best to decide on what colours to use when the two designs were next to each other. I asked for some feedback from peers and they said that maybe it would work best to try red and green. Although these are considered the typical colours, there are associations with the colours that works to my advantage when creating POS displays. A lot of the time, it is important to utilise the stereotypical connections that we make to various signs and symbols. When red and green are next to fruit, it is obvious that they are meant to be healthy, and they are. Using any other colours now seems like a suggestion that wouldn’t work and would be contradicting this usual assumption. Instead of reading and enjoying the display, some audience members would now be questioning why fruit is in pink. What connection does it have to this colour? Although I was starting to like the colour combination, the shade of green isn’t quite right. It needs to be darker so that it is closer to the original image. It also needs moving up a little. The distance between ‘fruit’ and the image works well as there is just enough space to have a little blank space between the two quite intense elements but it also gives the image space to ‘breath’. Vegetables on the other hand, is too close to the image that it is almost touching the highest point on the broccoli. This needs to be given more space as there is a lot of visual information that the audience needs to digest instead of it being layered up so quickly.

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This exercise was really interesting as it encouraged me to look at something I see everyday in a different light. As the high street is becoming less popular, with a lot of shopping being done online now, it was intriguing to go back to stores and have a look at the Point Of Sale Displays that they create and how they try and attract customers. Of course these could also feature digitally, but these designs also need to guide customers around the store. They need to stand out and show exactly what a customer can expect to find in this section. Although my original intention was to try and create a traditional illustration of this, I quickly found that this wasn’t working in the way I had hoped. A lot of the designs were very similar and I wanted the client to be able to have displays that stand out for being a little different. The designs do exactly that. I needed a base image to use for these images and it was best to take my own because I would be able to change elements as and how I pelased. The way the visual hierarchy was then created would be entirely in my control and I could constantly reposition elements to see what would work and what wouldn’t. By taking these photos, I was able to quickly establish that doing a flat lay style image wasn’t going to work and I liked the way the shadows and reflections form on this surface. By photographying them in this way, the reflections and shadows soften the harsh edges that feature on the rest of the display. As I had decided on a font that was quite strong and forceful in some ways, I thought that it would be best to keep these elements in from the original photo in order to soften the overall look. I didn’t want the wrong impression to be given with this display. This style of work isn’t typical for a POS display, having looked at others, I was sure that using an illustration would be enough to make it a little more interesting. However, the style of illustration I had tried, lacked any depth and it had been done so many times before that it would be expected of an illustration. Therfore, combinining the photography and illustration in a slightly different manner, creates more intrigue to the work. From afar this work would appear to be some very nice food photography, however, once the work is looked at closer, it becomes more interesting. I believe these designs work successfully, even if a little unexpected. The designs are appealing and a little more visually stimulating than other displays I looked at. There is a variety of fruit and veg to look at, it isn’t suggesting that only a couple of varities are available. But at the same time as the edit does still look like its original photograph. From afar this will look like a regular food image, which still works as a POS design, but once the customer walks into the shop, they will notice that this is a little different and hopefully they too will start to appreciate more about the ingredients. Here it is about the tones and forms of the fruit but for the customer, hopefully there will be more appreciation for this form and the way it can be used in their cooking. For this reason, I do believe I have fulfilled the brief, and the client will judge it as successful. The pair of designs work well together but can easily be separated at different parts of the shop. They do not have to be seen together to work successfully as both clearly identify the subject and will direct the customer to the correct place in the store. 217

Assignment two

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The brief: Create a range of cards for sentiments or events that are worthy of a greetings card, but are not currently catered for by card manufacturers. The cards could be linked to other calendar events, obscure Saints days, sporting calendars or any other happening that is worth celebrating or commiserating. You may wish to explore some of life’s other landmarks that currently don’t feature in greetings cards, like getting your first grey hairs, being released from prison or any other personal landmark someone might want to share. What am I being asked to do? With this assignment I need to identify a series of events that do not currently have a greeting card specifically designed for them. From here, I need to design a greeting card for this occasion, both the front and inside, that someone could send in order to celebrate the day whether it be a public occasion or something more personal. How will the client judge if I have been successful? The set of cards that I create will identify an area in which the market currently doesn’t cater for. The first point in which my success will be identified is if I have picked events that the client thinks are needed to be catered for, whether people will actually look for cards for this event. From there, the designs have to be strong and highlight the event and associations made with this event. The inside needs to leave enough space for a personal message to be written, but equally, the client won’t want to see a card that doesn’t relate the front and inside. Keywords ‘Worthy of a greetings card’ ‘personal landmark someone might want to share’

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Congrats you survived freshers! You just ran your first exhibition - quite a limited audience though. Passed your first uni assignment You survived your first girls/boys holiday! Have you shrunk your clothes yet? One to check up on University students. You haven’t burnt the house down yet then? - Again checking up on University students. Loosing your hair/going bald Being fab at being you - cheering someone up who has had a bad day. Happy Travelling! Loosing your first tooth Happy Half Birthday! Surprise

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What I’m thinking with some of these cards is that the results could be very generic. In order for these cards to stand out, there needs to be something a little different about the,. There needs to be something that will contrast to the rest of the shelf. For example, on the ‘Surprise’ card, the graphics are very limited as it is so generic but also the graphics that I could use would be very predictable. I want to create a set of cards that are a bit more playful and make people want to celebrate these occasions that aren’t currently catered for by other card manufacturers.

What events are currently not covered by card manufacturers?

In order to see what card manufacturers actually cater for, I thought it best to visit a few card shops in order to get a better idea. Many of the shops are split into sections to make it easier for the buyer to find the card that they are after. A lot of the ideas that I had come up with were not catered for within these card shops, however, there were some that were already being designed. It was important for me to see what kind of styles are already out there. Many are very stereotypical and I want to create something more interesting. Something bold and graphical that will fit into this area that isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t currently being catered for. By making the designs in this way, it will make these cards stand out and will therefore, make people want to celebrate these occasions when previously they may not have thought about them.

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This double page spread has some very stereotypical card designs in my opinion, however, it does also show a range of different ways in which cards are presented to us. Recently I have seen more motivational quotes appear on the cards. The way these are done with multiple fonts and an idealistic background has got to the point where it is overdone in my opinion. Although this isn’t a motivational quote, it applies the same style. If I do design the card in order to cheer someone up, I am going to avoid this style! It does obviously sell, otherwise the designs wouldn’t still exist, however, there needs to be something a little different as you don’t want to receive multiple versions of this kind of card. Similarly, with the above photo, there is more detail and texture created with different patterns and tones being used. But, with this design, I don’t understand the connection between the stamps and the text. If an image is going to be used, there needs to be a clear connection, not just something that looks nice and is a little different for the occasion.This issue is something similar for the card to the left. Marble patterns also went through the trends and became something that everyone loved, you could get anything and everything in the pattern. However, how does marble link to ‘thinking of you’? Although I am unsure on the link, I do think that by using a surround to the pattern, instead of making the image full bleed, the balance is more effective. There is a better break between the elements and a blank space to add thought before the receiver reads the inside message.

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These cards employ more of an illustrative style, although they seem too cliche for my liking. Emphasis on the typography that links a word and image together is very generic for a card, the pun isn’t funny and it doesn’t require too much effort. In some ways this is benefical, however, I know if I got this card that I could receive it 10 times over. There are some really thoughtful cards, something that sounds more personal than this. Obviously as a receiver, we understand other people will have this card, but with all 3 of these designs, well actually all 6, you know that this card, although the intention is there, that maybe it isn’t the most personal choice. The words inside a card are the aspect that makes it personal, but sometimes it is nice to receive a card that doesn’t look this generic or expected. 223

In order to avoid some of the more generic illustrations on cards, some manufacturers just focus on typography. Combining different fonts, with different embellishments can also make for an effective card. It clearly portrays a message, and the illustrations don’t interrupt or confuse this message. However, by doing this, the card can have a lot of text. Even something like the bottom right card, it does seem very simple, however, if the sender wants to put a lot of text in the card, then suddenly it can seem quite a lot. For this reason, the text embellishments work well as they break down the text. This is espeically effective for the card on the right. The extra details are the last thing you focus on as you read down the card so when you are met with more text inside, it doesn’t seem like there is so much. It isn’t like you have gone straight from one lot of text to another.

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Some cards may be generic, however, they bring a smile to your face because they use humour! Both of these cards have a very well established style, the card manufacturer is known for creating humerous cards around a wide variety of events. In some ways this means that you are quite likely to receive at least one card from them each year but this doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter! The simple ways that they add humour are something that I need to focus on, even if the card itself isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t supposed to be humerous. The effects of the phrasing are going to be really important. Keeping the reading simple, yet effective is ideal as you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want too much writing when the sender has the option to add this inside. You want the personal message to be longer than the generic one, therefore, making this the most simple and effective that I can is something that I will have to play with.

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Mood board for card idea 1 - Well Done you survived Freshers! We need your rent money for next Friday. You mean that student loan actually is for rent and not Freshers Week?

Summary of Freshers Week: Lots of alcohol Freebies Take outs Bonding with flat mates Freedom Lots of student promotions No Text books

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Who would send this kind of card? A parent wouldn’t want to admit to their child drinking a lot, they would often send a ‘Good Luck at University’ card. So maybe this is aimed between friends. It can have more humour and they will know more of what has happened during the week. A teenager isn’t likely to tell their parents what happened during that week!

Inside message ideas: “I will take the events of this week to the grave with me, no one will ever know the mess that you were!” “You survived...just....crawling over the finish line looks like you right now!” “I think your liver deserves a break...for a matter of 5 hours before it all starts again!” “The drunk friends you made this week will forever remember the day they met the human we all love” 227

I was a little concerned about the message that these cards could portray if I do one based on surviving freshers. It could be a good alternative to use phrases like this. Simple but humorous cards like this, that make references to broader events would be subtle enough without just having alcohol bottles on the card. Although this would be a very simple design, I can play around with different variations. The one issue I currently though, is that I don’t want to have something too specific that it is hard to relate to. Some people won’t drink during freshers week so this card maybe wouldn’t be for them, but it is something that I will need to consider when designing the card.

My initial concern for this card was the colours that I would use. If I were to just do a block colour and typography like the card above, it would be important to select the colours well. Everything that I tried, didn’t look right therefore, I decided to look at University’s freshers advertising. The colours on these portray a sense of boldness and freshness with the new year ahead. Equally, some others give a sense of the nightlife that comes with this time. Combining these colours within my design could really help. Although they don’t need 228 to be the exact same shade, taking variations from the same colour combinations will work just as effectively.

From the various posters that I found, many used block colours, it was only when there were night out promotions that the vibe began to change. These needed to portray something a little more exciting and not as flat. With my card, I made it clear before that I don’t want to place a massive emphasis on the alcohol aspect. Although this is a part of it, for some people ‘surviving freshers week’ could mean the first week away from home, cooking their own meals and having to do their own washing. For this reason, I want to focus on using block colours instead of creating the effects that can be seen by the bottom two posters. I can apply these kind of tones however, I don’t want the focus to be on someone having to go to a club during freshers week.

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Despite my initial intention to not focus on the alcohol aspect of freshers too much, the first few ideas that came to me involved this. I thought it was beset to take on these ideas and then I can slowly work on getting the alcohol aspect out of the designs. Even if a student doesn’t drink, getting £1000+ dropping into their bank account causes for some spending. Whether this be on alcohol and going out, or just a whole new wardrobe, a lot of students forget that the money they are given needs to be used for different things. Having this on the card would therefore, be something that could have the potential to be relatable by many students. The colours are nowhere near what I would want them to be however, this is something I went on to experiment with, once I had a structure that I thought could work. In the second design, alcohol is a more dominant feature, the line of bottles is a very student thing. Often you can walk into a house and there will be a line of all the alcohol bottles that the owneres have drunk from. This may seem like quite a shock to the system for some people. Equally, having so many alcohol bottles on the card suggests that this is the expectation of students, they can’t just have a couple of drinks to enjoy the night. This doesn’t seem like a big deal but as a student who didn’t do freshers week when I was a fresher, and I didn’t drink, receiving a card like this may have a more negative effect than was intended. I would feel like I haven’t met the expectations of a fresher and although I wouldn’t want to, I would feel like I needed to go out more in order to be classed as a fresher. 230

The previous two designs did have my reservations, I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to be encouraging a culture that can actually be quite damaging. Despite this, I wanted to start working on what colours I would use on the card. The details of what I included would develop as I started to experiment more with layout and colour so I continued to use this as a base. Taking the green from one of the night out posters, it was quickly clear to see the difference it made to have this tone as a solid block. It did nothing to elevate the card, like it did in the poster. This is understandable as there is no variations in tones, subjects or pattern. If this did feature, the green tone would have more interest. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want the background to become too much of a focal point, I thought it would work best to keep this solid and then add more intrigue through the typography and graphics. This is something that they did on the more generic freshers logos. There was nothing too overpowering in the background and instead the more playful element was in the fonts. Something that I had played with previously was using the title repeatedly in order to create a new kind of typeface that would seem more interesting than the solid block font that I had selected. I used the tones from one of the posters that is on the previous page. They were bold, fresh and added the colour and depth that I needed to start focusing on. I usually use this method in order to create a glitch effect, therefore, the text elements would be everywhere and anywhere. However, with this example, I wanted them to all line up. The effect was neater but it is also ore effective in adding the depth I wanted. The glitch is known to be very flat therefore, this wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have added the depth that I know this card needed.

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After adding in the effect to the title, it was clear to see that the green wasn’t going to work. The background needed a deeper tone that was going to compliment the title and make it pop. Fresher’s week advertising never needs to much going on, everyone always knows there will be a party but having something eye catching to create the interest in the first place is important. Although this isn’t advertising, I wanted to employ the same methods to the card. Something everyone seems to do, is use the bold funky colours in the foreground, and the background is darker. It suggests there are two sides to fresher’s week, which there is. In this next design, I utilised the colour wheel once more. The yellow font is the most dominant and for this reason, I wanted to find the colour that had the most contrast, and would therefore be it’s complimentary colour. This turned out to be violet which featured in one of the other posters! I experimented with various tones but I knew I wanted quite a deep violet so I was quickly able to settle on the tone that you can now see. Now that this was established, it was important to start considering the way in which I position other graphics and whether or not the alcohol bottles are doing to be a dominant feature. To start with, I used a similar tone to the background in order to colour these bottles. This worked well as it didn’t become the main focus of the card. However, it still wasn’t quite right. Equally, making the bottles even larger and more prominent did not work out. The way these were balanced draws the attention to this failure instead of the font. Despite not liking the bottles lined up at the bottom, the use of a lighter tone was really benefical. It lightened the background a bit and gave depth to the whole card instead of just the title. 232

Even using one single bottle was not adding anything different to the pile that was on the last design. It is a little easier to identify but this is about it. Similarly, there was no depth to the card apart from the typography. I wanted to have this depth mirrored throughout the card otherwise, having two completely juxtaposing elements, along with a flat background, would mean that the title would lose some of the depth that I had been able to build up. As the alcohol bottles werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working, I needed something else on the card. In order to eliminate the focus on alcohol, I added more text. This was using the same font just without the extra effects. This doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take too much away from the title but I do think that it now has too much writing. This line could be a good one to include inside the card instead of on the exterior. 233

Design wise I hit a bit of a brick wall at this point. I wasn’t able to add the depth that I was hoping for apart from in the title. So, after revisiting old designs, I realised that using another colour within the background helped to break it down. With the addition of more colour, it didn’t seem so flat. Therefore, I wanted to add the lighter purple tone in that I used on the line of bottles however, I didn’t want to colour any graphic. This is when I realised how effective it can be to just add a square around the card to act like a border. This focuses the eye in on the typography and any elements featured inside the square. It also reduces how much the eye focuses on the block colour surrounding the text, meaning it doesn’t seem so overpowering now. Just having the text on the card is too much. Although some cards have a long message on it, or even a poem, based on the audience that this card would be aimed at, I don’t think that they would want to read too much. Equally, if the sender wants to put more text on the card, they have the option to make it more personal inside by writing a longer message. (I continue to use the text throughout the designs as on some if needed this text whilst others it was too much.) The text needed something alongside it so my immediate thought was to go back to putting an alcohol bottle next to the text. This made the card seem lopsided as it had more content to the right than left. 234

For this reason, I started to try and balance out the elements. I didn’t want to use another bottle so I started to use pizza boxes. A takeaway is something that we all grab after a night out so it seemed fitting to have this along with the comment about the bank account. However, it was difficult to try and balance the elements out still. The pizza box on the left hand card was too small. Although it started to perform the function, it didn’t have the height that was required in order to make sure the balance was achieved. I then started using larger piles of pizza boxes however, these now made the card seem too cramped. There wasn’t enough space around the text to allow the effect to be as successful. It seemed cramped and forced into a space that it wasn’t designed for. To solve this, I could have made the text smaller, however, the size was working well and I didn’t want to focus too much on the alcohol aspect. By making the text smaller instead of the silhouettes, this would be changing what I was trying to focus on. Therefore, I wanted to start working with other graphics as the pizza boxes were just too wide and difficult to make out what they were when the pile was so high.

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Adding in more alcohol bottles to the card was not something that I really wanted to do. It seemed to focus on this element of fresher’s week too much. However, I did need to create this balance between elements. Having two bottles the same didn’t seem to create any balance. It was predictable and boring, two things that fresher’s week definitely isn’t! Trying to think of something with the same height was a little difficult however, I quickly realised that I could use a pint glass. I was really conscious that the tones that I had used would make it seem quite feminine however, by adding in the pint glass and having a spirit bottle, it would cover what both genders would stereotypically drink. Obviously this role can be reversed but it covers all drinking options whatever someone drinks. After adding this in, the balance was beginning to be achieved. It no longer seemed dominant on the right hand side and the eye noticed the differences so began to take in more of the form. However, there is still the issue that I didn’t want to focus on the alcohol element too much. I think that I need to do a little more experimentation in order to obtain the right balance between these elements.

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Although the bottles still feature on the left hand design, the fact that they no longer feature as single silhouettes means that for me personally, they become less dominant. I had wanted to try and create multiple versions of the typography to almost mirror the effect that alcohol has on sight. This would be a subtle hint to the use of alchol however, it wouldn’t be too dominant. However, in this form, it didn’t work. The title was too perfectly formed on each bottle and didn’t create multiple versions. I guess I had wanted to create a kind of glitch with this which didn’t work and therefore, makes the card seem a little odd and out of place. Why would you send a card like this? Because of all of this, I went back to the basics of just using the typography. I liked the fact that this time it expanded outside of the square and the square wasn’t constricting the information. However, it did still need something more. Just having these two elements on the card weren’t working in the way I had hoped and the details needed building up once again.

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Despite saying earlier on that I wasn’t keen to try this effect with the text, I thought it would be worth experimenting with now that I’m struggling with what graphic to add in. Using so many bold colours made it really hard to view the sentence in full. Therefore, I had to dull down the text for this second attempt. However, this still didn’t work effectively as I used the black text as my dominant one. Instead of recreating the effect that alcohol has on sight, this is just a mess! There is no logic to the way in which the text is structured or arranged with each other. It was worth trying this, however, it is safe to say that I should go back to the awy in which the text was structured before as this is more effective.

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Feedback from others

I asked a few people for opinions on what they thought about this card. They didn’t share the same concerns as me in regards to the alcohol bottles however, this is something that I still think needs working on. Something that they did bring up within their feedback was that the font worked really well but maybe the phrasing needed some work. For an occassion card, very few use rhetorical questions. Some do inside the card but it was suggested that maybe I should change it to a ‘Congratulations’ theme. This way it seems more positive and there isn’t the association of alcohol already. Someone had said that by suggesting that fresher’s got too much, it implies that a lot of alcohol was consumed. Whereas, by saying congratulations you survived, it can mean not just making it through the week of alcohol but also living with new people, cooking, cleaning and washing. Once this has been pointed out, the card made more sense to me. I was able to once again play with the typography more and I realised that, the way I had arranged the font methodically was going to work best. On the right, I tried to change the positions of the other coloured text however, I thought this was a little odd. Although it does create an effect when you look it, the more structured approach of the text works better in my opinion. This is something that I would like to gain some feedback on though. This is something I will do towards the end by creating two final versions and seeing which is preferred by my peers as the effect on the right may be a little too much for some viewers. 239

As the full card of text didn’t work last time, I wanted to try it again. This time, the text was of varying heights, allignments and size so that the same component wasn’t constantly fighting with itself. I also made sure that I didn’t use a black font for the main one. By using the yellow, it is easier to read the message before letting your eye run through the message several other times on the background. Although this works more successfully than the last attempt, I still don’t think it is as effective as some of my other experiments. This is why I went back to the structure that had two bottles either side. Here, it is clear that the linear use of text works better. The colours are bolder and centralised whereas, with each line of text being in a different place in the middle example, the card once again doesn’t seem balanced. However, I still don’t think that the two silhoeuttes are the right choice. There needs to be something else that I can use to balance the card out, without making this obvious link to alcohol. It does work more effectively than last time though. Previously, the wording alongside the silhouettes suggested too much in regards to alcohol. Whereas, now that the phrasing has been changed, the link to alcohol isn’t so dominant so this could work in some respects, after a few changes.

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Going back to using the row of alcohol bottles seemed like a sensible choice. However, the proportions of this now make the card very top heavy. The bottles and the second row of text are about the same size so the visual hierarchy that is required has been reduced down to two elements. By doing this, the reading of the card becomes quite difficult. Although I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want the alcohol bottles to be too dominant (like they have turned out in the right hand example) there does need to be something else on the card that isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just text.

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The amount of alcohol bottles that were shown on the last page was too much. However, elimintating the alcohol all together made the card look a little empty. I did try adding in the same effect on the surround that I had put on the text but this still didn’t solve the problem. Therefore, I did add in the spirit bottle alongside the pint glass to the design. It worked better visually this way instead of having the text centrally as the alcohol becomes an afterthought to the text whereas, previously with the text being surrounded by alcohol the thought was constantly there, there was little chance of getting away from it. This second design though shows the alcohol, acknowledges its presence within freshers week but it doesn’t dominate. I had asked some other students about what else I could include and their first thought was the alcohol. Some universities focus on other elements, organising a lot of events for freshers week but others did say that often people are too hungover to go to them or they aren’t a part of freshers week that they take part in. Therefore, despite not wanting to include alcohol bottles, it works out that these fit best with the theme as long as they aren’t too dominant. Having an alternative text that didn’t create such a strong focal point would have struggled as the focus would have been on the alcohol from the very start. 242

I wanted the design of the inside to mirror the design of the front of the card in some way. I had already established what phrasing would go inside as it was something I eliminated from my design for the front. This phrasing isn’t too alcohol specific. Freshers week for anyone is an expensive time, you have to start buying your own food and you realise how much this can cost. As the text on the front of the card had been so interesting, I had hoped that using the same effect inside would also work. So that the text wasn’t the exact same, I changed the order in which the colours appeared however, using the pink tone as the highlight colour didn’t have the same impact as the yellow. The tones needed to get darker as it went to the back instead of getting darker in the foreground. Equally, trying different methods of completely separating the text weren’t working. On the front, the effect worked, it had the dark background to highlight the foreground, however, I wanted to use a white background on the card, as it makes it easier for the sender to write a message on, and by doing this, the effect wasn’t working as successfully. Although it could have worked, I think overusing this effect would also lose the effectiveness of it. It would have become almost expected. Similarly, it reflects, in part, the effect alcohol has on your sight and doing this on the inside of the card as well as the outside would have made too many connections to the presence of alcohol. Therefore, I think it is best to avoid any effect on the text. I could still keep the effect on the surrounding square, just to bring a connection between the front and inside, but this is the only connection that is needed.

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Once I had got rid of the effect on the text, I realised the benefit of making it a lot simpler. It makes it easier for someone to write text in the blank space, without the central phrase taking up too much room. I decided to put this in grey instead of black because black seemed too heavy against the other tones within the surround. Black didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feature anywhere on the card, apart from in the silhouettes and I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want the connection to be made between these two elements. I did also try to add in the line of bottles again however, this made it very bottom heavy. There is no need to add more references to alcohol consumption when I had eliminated them from the front of the card because there were too many. Adding them in again makes the sender feel like they can only talk about alcohol whereas, the inside space needs to be kept relatively clear so that a more personal message can be written. For this reason, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think using this line of alcohol bottles works. Although graphically, in some aspects it does, for the purpose of a greetings card, it does not.

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The Final Design

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Mood board for card idea 2 - Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re fab! No one is better at being you, than you

- Connotation of Yellow being for happy and cheerful occasions -Focus on typography and the phrasing instead of any overpowering illustrations - Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want it to be condescending

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All of these cards seem to be very nonoffensive, there is nothing overly bold about any of them and instead they seem like they are trying to tred carefully in case they could offend the person they are being sent to. Although it is nice to have cards like this, sometimes, for something to make an impact with the reader, it needs to be bolder. I want to make something that challenges this to see whether I can make it work. It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always have to be botanical either, this makes it seem very feminine. There should be cards that can also be sent to men to say the same message. The phrasing of these cards also seem a bit cautious.

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From the outset of this project, I was really cautious of what phrasing to use again. I didn’t want it to be patronising because this wouldn’t help the cause, but I wanted something that would make the reader feel more positive about themselves. There was also the issue that everyone who receives this card won’t be in the same situation so it couldn’t be something specific but I didn’t want something too generic whereby the reader would think the card was sent for the sake of it. After having these thoughts about the card, I realised that I would also need to feature the colour yellow on the card. From my research, this is supposed to be an uplifting colour. I remember seeing a quote from somewhere saying something about creating your own light and being your own sunshine. I thought this could be an interesting quote to play with by bringing in some graphics. These really simple designs display exactly what I wanted, but there isn’t something quite right about them. It seems very basic, quite a boring card. It isn’t inspiring the viewer to act and try and improve their current situation.

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I was unsure whether changing the colours would help with this. Introducing the blue to represent a blue sky did as often this is something that makes people smile during the day. However, it made the design seem very child like. Whenever the sun is drawn by anyone, this is how most people would do it, but to me, there is still the association of a child drawing the sun in the corner of the page and putting lines around it. The phrasing of these words also isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite right. It suggests that the only way to be happy is through yourself. Which in some ways is true, but it can also be very issolating. If I were to change the wording, then the graphic would no longer make sense. For this reason, I think perhaps to avoid both the slightly childish design, and the incorrect phrasing, this design should be restarted. One thing I will remember from this design is the white highlight of the text. Instead of repeating the text like I did before, I think this is a strong way to highlight the message on the card. However, it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the element of depth that I was able to create on the previous example. Therefore, it depends on the needs of the design as to whether this could be used or whether it would have to be disregarded.

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After deciding on the new phrasing that would feature on the card, I decided that before I added any graphics, I needed to decided on the font. Although this is something that I can change later on, I find experimenting with the fonts, can often help more than trying to come up with a graphic first. The yellow tones that featured on the other cards was something I also wanted to use. Therefore, I immediately put it as the background. The text on its own seemed very lost and because it had worked at grounding the card before, I decided to start using the square again in a conplimentary colour. On Photoshop, the colours seemed better suited, however, after proofing the colours and trying different exporting methods, I realised that this was the correct colour and not what I was being shown on Photoshop. For this reason, later on, I will need to experiment again with getting the right colours, but for now, I will continue to try different fonts. As I only had the font on the card, I decided that it needed to be bold and somethign quite interesting in order to create some element of interest for the card. The bolder fonts worked most effectively as they contrasted well with the other elements and grabbed the eye. The lighter weighted fonts didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do this in the same way. They didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t demand the attention of the reader and therefore, they would be less likely to take notice of the wording and the effect it could have on them. I did try using a more detailed font than the bold edged ones, however, these were a little too rounded and inconclusive. The fonts themselves, I do like, however, I do not think that they work well within this setting.

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The Bebas Neue type face is one that I always find myself using. It has the strong bold lines that I love using as part of my geometric work but it is never too heavy. Equally, due to the quite simple nature of the font, it is easy to manupulate the font to be wider or taller without it looking out of proportion. Although it works, I wanted to find something a little different, one that still had these same qualities but it wouldn’t make every card that I design look the exact same. Creating a set of cards is one thing but constantly using the same features can get a little boring. Bold colours, interesting typography and the square are all qualities that are being reflected in the last two designs and I don’t want the typeface to be the same as well.

Bebas Neue GoBold Beer Alegre Sans

All of these do look slightly similar but they do have their differences between them. Although the GoBold font has thicker lines, it also has more height. Every letter is in capitals but the actual capital letters do have more height to them which adds a bit of variation to the Bebas Neue font. When I downloaded each of these fonts, I did try them with this cover but the GoBold font had more fonts to experiment with. There were so many variations including the option to just have an outline of the lettering. This did work in some aspects but the reason I was using a bold font was because it grabbed the reader’s attention. Without the block lettering being filled in, the impact was lost and the writing becomes an afterthought, second to looking at the tonal contrast. With everything becoming so block like on the card, using an italiscised font worked really well in the third example, it starts playing with the perspective and this is something I want to carry on doing with this card. It’s aim is to cheer someone up and therefore, they need to change their own perspective of something that is happening. So it seems suitable to change the perspective of the reader from the start by playing with these aspects. It may be that this doesn’t work alongside the graphic but it is something that I always forget I can do and by choosing the GoBold font, I have so many variations to chose from whilst maintaining the same font style that works for this format. 253

When trying to think of what graphic to use, for some reason, the idea of a lightning bolt came to mind. It seemed appropriate, it can cause sudden change and represents the loss of ignorance. However, it can also mean negativity. Despite this, I still wanted to use it as part of the card because I thought it could instead be turned around to represent the loss of negativity. Using the lightning bolt as a yellow symbol didn’t work, it needed something a little different. A connection that everyone can make to the lightning bolt is in regards to David Bowie. As an innovative musician who changed the way in which visual representation was used within the music industry, it seemed appropriate that his lightning bolt could be used. Making reference to this, makes reference to a strong individual who inspired many, was himself throughout and continuously changed people’s perceptions. If this wasn’t the right symbol to use on the card then I don’t know what is! After creating the lightning bolt, I decided to go back to the font that I previously dind’t like. The outline of the font here, changed in to the bold version on the right, worked a lot better considering the graphic was very strong. Just because the font doesn’t have the fill now, doesn’t mean that it isn’t focused on. They work well together for the striking compairson however, I think there is a lot more to be done with this rather than just sticking with my first idea. 254

Although I did like the outline being used for the font, I felt like the lightning bolt should be central to the frame. For this to be done effectively and to stand out, the font needed to be filled in. This wasn’t quite enough though, the issue presented itself that the font and the lightning bolt are too bold together which meant that I needed to reduce the opacity of the lightning bolt. The text still wasn’t quite right, some of the letters were harder to see than others. Which is why I went back to placing the lightning bolt on the right hand side of the frame. I still don’t think this looks right but at this moment, I am unsure on how to make the other design work. Also, the black outline works a lot better than the purple. Despite thinking the purple would be best due to it being a complimentary colour to the yellow, it just added in another colour that wasn’t needed. It worked when there was only the text to balance it with, but now that there is also a lightning bolt, there are more tones to balance out. The lightning bolt needs to have a bold impact and to do this, the other components should be black.

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Having quite liked the black surround, I decided that perhaps this was a little too heavy, especially with using such a dark font. Therefore, I switched to using the same blue for the imddle lightning bolt. This seems to bring each element together but the bolt no longer had the same impact. Previously the bolt had a strong impact as it contrasted with the other elements and the black surround along with the text also created impact for how bold it was. Now everything seems to be working together too much. The text doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stand out because of the links made between the other elements either. I tried to reintroduce some of the impact that the card had previously be making the font a bolder version of the original however, the lines now seem to harsh. It is too bold that the balance between the thickness of each element is slightly thrown off balance. Using the original font works a lot better and the way this font has the lower case letters at the same height as the capitals means that the tails of letters create extra height. The bold version on the other hand is fully capitals and it seems too harsh against the rest of the lines on the card. Having everything so harsh doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t encourage the reader to fully understand it and therefore, they wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand why this card is being sent. 256

Although I liked the height that the first text option provided, I wasn’t keen on some of the lower case letters. As they did vary, it would be quite obvious to put a capital letter in the middle of a word or sentence. This is why I decided to look at other fonts within the same font family. The ‘extra’ font as part of the GoBold family worked effectively for this. Everything was in the same case but there was a little variaton in some of the letters. The ‘B’ depending on whether it was supposed to be upper or lower case changed, as well as the A not have a cross on it. These small changes add something a little different to the font and a little bit of interest without making the whole phrasing a dominant focal point (like the last design), I wanted each element to balance well together. Although I had struggled to get the layout right when having the lightning bolt centrally, I decided that I needed to try again as this was the best positioning for it. I also remembered that I wasn’t keen on the shade of yellow. On Photoshop it looked great but when exported the colour seemed very different and without this balance, it looks a little out of place. I need to fix these during the next developments.

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The pixelation of the bolt was annoying me so I quickly fixed this as I moved into my next designs as these would start taking shape more and everything needed to be in its final state for this to be effective.

These two designs were both working for very different reasons and I couldn’t pick out which was working best. I personally preferred having the bolt in the middle, but the font was quite difficult to read. These issues were resolved for the right hand design. The bolt was bold and striking and so was the text. It fitted nicely around each other so the elements were balanced and not competing with each other. Although this was the case, I wasn’t convinced that the design on the right was the right one. Therefore, I asked some others for their opinions. They too preferred the layout of the left design but thought the text wasn’t clear enough which makes you think that the design on the right should be the final one.

Feedback from others

As both my peers and I weren’t convinced, I thought it would be best to continue experimenting with just the left hand design. Trying to make sure that the text was visible is my highest prioirty. Every letter needs to be clear and defined.

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The white highlight around the text that featured earlier was my first attempt at trying to make the text more visible. It works to an extent however, it was blocking out too much of the lightning bolt. Therefore, I went back to using the method I used on the first card. Using white again worked to an extent but some of the letters, especially those outside of the bolt, were difficult to read. I wanted to use the yellow as this seemed an important colour to include but once I realised that it maybe didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work, keeping all elements black and white whilst leaving the bolt in colour created this striking contrast that I had been after. Despite the contrast being there, the yellow was missed. It elevates the design to a level that the bolt canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do on itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own. 260

I have to say I was persistent in trying to get the yellow background to work! Even making it lighter so that the white text, with the black shadow, could be seen, was an attempt made but this still didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work. There wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the contrast that I had managed to achieve previously. The yellow needed to feature in a different way. The example on the bottom right starts to achieve this. When I first designed this on the opposite page, I did like the contrast however, the white wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t providing what I thought it should. By adding in the yellow instead, it starts to have more of an impact, however, I still prefer the white text. The yellow needs to be there somewhere so there is only one other element where it can be added, the surrounding square.

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Finally, after having to try one more variation of using yellow in the background, I combined the yellow text with a yellow surround and the result was a success! The striking colour combination brings each element together whilst still including the yellow tones that I wanted to include from the start. The black drop shadow on the text separates the lightning bolt to the text and gives it the depth that had been missing. Although depth could have been added other ways, or to the bolt, leaving the bolt in itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original form was important so that the links could be made between this and my reference to David Bowie. Having thought the yellow surround would be too much, it works effectively to break down the background and bring the focus into the foreground. If this square didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist, the card would seem very different and I would still be struggling to find the right balance between each element.

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As with the last card, I decided that this one needed to have a white background on the inside as this would make it easier for the sender to write their message. I didn’t want to leave the inside blank as sometimes this can be daunting for the sender as they don’t know where to start. Using the same quote on the inside of the card didn’t seem to fit. It suggested that, as the designer, I didn’t know what else to say which then makes it difficult to know what else the sender should put. Instead I want this card to help spark up conversations and by repeating the same phrase, this won’t help as much. Therefore, I started to look at what else I could put in the card. Although I said when researching different cards, that I hate having motivational quotes, as in very stereotypical ones as part of a design, I ended up picking a quote like this for the inside. It wasn’t the quote that I finally went with but it was intriguing to see how the text effect worked when the text was smaller and there was a larger quantity of it. This seems very dominating within the frame. I want to try and avoid using the same colours or colours that now, because I am using a white background instead of black, no longer have the strong contrast. Ideally, the yellow would still feature, however, this doesn’t matter so much on the inside as it doesn’t quite work at this point with the white background.

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As the yellow and black text was a little too much, I decided to instead use the tones from the lightning bolt and provide a background to the text. Once again, the effect wasn’t as I had hoped. It was just too much! In order to find a way around this, I started by reducing the amount of text. Changing the quote was a lot punchier, and easier to read. However, it wasn’t easy to read in terms of the design. The blue panel will look odd when someone writes around it. Every other card I looked at didn’t do this as they wanted the message to be integrated with the other, more personal, hand-written message. The way in which I first presented the message seems more appropriate. There is still the message to help prompt the sender, however, it isn’t too dominate and won’t interrupt their own message. I will go on to try this and see if I can make it more successful by changing the colours that are used in order to balance out each element more successfully.

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It was difficult to find a colour combination that worked well, I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want something too dark as it was too different to the bold contrasting front. Once again I relied on playing around with existing colours before I found the right colour combination. Keeping the square a lighter colour made this more effective and I managed to keep the yellow within the inside design however, it just couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be a main focal point, instead I used it as the drop shadow to make the red pop a little more.

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The Final Design

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Mood board for card idea 4 - happy travelling!

Think it is safe to say that this card is definitely catered for by card manufacturers therefore, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think it would be suitable for me to design it as this would not be working towards to brief. However, I do have a few ideas that I would just like to play with and visualise.

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A lot of people go abroad for a year of study, for a year of travel, or just because why not?! I thought designing a card for this would be ideal however, I quickly established that maybe card manufacturers already cater for this audience. I wanted to try out some different designs though to see what I could create and there was nothing unique, everything that I designed seemed to be very generic and not have the intrigue or back bone that my other designs had managed to achieve. I tried to use the purple tones from the British Passport as some kind of point of interest tonally and this didn’t have the depth I had hoped. The gold embossing on the passport obviously helps with this but it wasn’t something I wanted to put on the card. I also used destination icons or my own photographys to see if these could spark up any interest and they didn’t achieve this. They all seemed very flat and didn’t capture the excitement that the receiver would currently be experiencing about spending a year abroad. With my other designs, I had managed to develop a style, one that was bold, unique and experimental whereas, I was struggling to encorporate this style into this design. This would mean that I couldn’t create an identity for my designs or series which is something I was hoping to do. If I were to continue this design, it wouldn’t fulfil the brief but this was something I wanted to try as I seemed to have the most ideas for this design. Everything just seemed too generic, it didn’t have the potential that other designs had been able to succeed with. 270

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Mood board for card idea 3 - Happy half birthday!

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The visual representations of half are very generic. There isn’t much that can be played with in terms of how it is represented. Using this within my design will be important, however, I shouldn’t feel like the element of ‘half ’ should dominate the card. There are other ways to include this including representations of 50%. Although cards are available for this occasion, they are not in any major card retailers. The only ones that I could find were from an online company. This suggests that the occasion isn’t one that main card manufacturers think worthy of any money hence why, I want to create a card for this occasion that could start to question this.

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I struggled with where to start on this project as the representation of a half is so narrow minded. The most basic idea that I thought of was using a person and playing with the way a half was presented with this. Using a male silhouette obviously comes with its difficulties, sending this to a woman may seem a little out of place. This was something I would have to try and figure out how to avoid, but for now I wanted to play around with this idea. It seemed out of place to just have the text at full opacity when the subject was at half. Therefore, I tried cutting the text in half but by eliminating half of it, it became really hard to read the text and the background gives no indication as to what it could possibly say. The tonal choices at this point are uncertain, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like the current choices but I think using the square surround could work again. Having featured this in the last two designs, it makes sense to continue it in the third so that these cards can be seen as a series. This simple way of tying together such elements works effectively without being too dominant. Some cards obviously are from the same manufacturer as they use a bold colour in the background and then have the same font, saying something different, on each card. I wanted to make my series seem more interesting than that which meant I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have too many similar elements on each card. So far, the fonts have varied, yet they still look alike in some ways which means that they can still be linked.

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Continuing to play around with the representation of a half still proved unsuccessful. I did reintroduce the other ‘half ’ back into the text, like I had done with the person from the start, so that the audience would still be able to read the message. What I didn’t like was that in doing so, the bottom half of the frame became less dense than the top, there was a definite imbalance that needed to be resolved. One way that I thought about doing this, was by changing the patterns so that there was a vertical split instead of horizontal. Obviously, this was still going to make one half seem heavier than the other, its the nature of the design, but I wanted to try and balance this out by selecting tones that were closer together. As can be seen on the grey design, this didn’t work too well, the left side now seems too heavy, heavier than it seemed when the person was split horizontally. Although this is a quick and effective way to represent the half, I don’t think this design would encourage anyone to start celebrating their half birthday. This is the aim of these cards, they should be occasions that people want to start celebrating and this very basic and ineffective design, does not fulfil this aim. As it would be unsuccessful for the client, I need to find an alternative way in which to design a card for a half birthday., one that will sell

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I couldn’t think of another other way to highlight the ‘half ’ other than to completely separate the card. What I had learnt from the other design, was that the tones needed to be close together as this brought about more contrast but allowed the two halves to blend together at different points. I thought it quite funny to mention a loading error, to say that the birthday aspect was in 6 months time. This can relate to people who both celebate and don’t celebrate half birthdays. The text elements of this were important to get right. Instead of just having the colours to separate the halves, I thought it would be effective to also have a text element that went over the two halves. This allows them to join together but also be separated. The eye is able to blend the two sections together instead of feeling like they are completely juxtaposed and need to be read as two separate sections. Having half of the text obscured in the left hand example didn’t work. Once again, it was the same issue on the previous designs, whereby it was difficult to work out what the second half of the text was in order to understand the message. Similarly, the effect that I had used on previous designs for this assignment weren’t proving successful. Adding the drop shadow and having the text in grey, means the message is harder to read on the top half. This creates no focal point for the first half of the card and therefore, creates an imbalance that I tried to avoid on the previous designs. This needs to be solved before I can develop the design itself. Sorting the typography out is an important element when I have so far, not included any kind of graphic. 276

The text element still wasn’t working within the halves. Having the text slightly visible in the second half of the card does work in some ways however, it is still quite difficult to read. Equally, the bottom half of the hard is still too heavy both in terms of colour and content. As these weren’t working, I thought it best to start looking at outside inspiration. Loading screens are something that we all hate and with the growing amount of technology that we have, loading screens and the ‘spinning wheel of death’ is something we all dread. On the next page, you can see examples of different loading screens, ones that I wanted to take inspiration from to see if adding in any elements like this could strengthen my designs. Although I did say that we all dread loading screens, I think that adding in these elements could give more validity to the designs. Whether the half still features as tonal differences on the card is something I cannot predict, it may not work and therefore, I will have to play around with other elements in order to find ways to represent this.

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Every loading screen had a different loading symbol but in order to break down the very linear lines of this card, I added in a circle loading symbol. This has the potential to work effectively, however, I am not sure that in its current state that it will. Despite this concern, I started working on how the text will interact around this new addition. I still wanted to try and split the text however, splitting it in the ways that can be seen above look too out of place. They become confusing and as a result, they become a focal point for the wrong reasons. The text now needs to be viewed as a full element to avoid this and the best way for this to work is to perhaps no longer split the card in half. It doesn’t work with the way in which this hard now needs to be designed so adding in the ‘half ’ elements needs to be reconsidered.

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Getting rid of the two halves works so much better! In order to highlight that this is a half birthday, instead of doing a random percentage, I thought it worked well to use 50% and emphasise the 6 months pending element. Creating this visual hierarchy with the different typefaces and colours leads the eye around the frame however, after creating the first example I realised that it needed some kind of containing. This worked really well with the other designs as I was able to reintroduce the surrounding square. This time, having a thinner line did not create the impact I was after and therefore, I had to make it thicker. Although this then suggests that the cards won’t be viewed as a series, the concept still remains and each font is mirrored to another font on one of the other cards. This works to my advantage as these can all now be viewed as a series even when they all use very different elements and celebrate different occasions. At one point, there did seem too much text, having three elements on the page fitted better therefore, one of these elements would have to be taken inside the card. Originally, I didn’t want this element to be the ‘Happy Half Birthday’ however, I soon realised that this would read better inside the hard compared to any another element. The phrasing that is left is now able to create some intrigue as to what the card is celebrating. Equally, the arrangement and visual hierarchy that has been created is now more balanced without having any element too dominant. 281

I did look at changing the phrasing from Happy Half Birthday, however, these still didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t explain what the card was celebrating clearly enough. Therefore, I went back to using this phrasing and using one of the fonts from the front of the card. This created an element of continuation. Equally, keeping it red worked best as using a white font, or grey, wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have shown up as well. I had hoped to keep the square at the same thickness however, it was too dominant on the inside of the card in comparison to the front. For this reason, I reduced the thickness back down to the same size that it is on the other cards. This still has this element of continuation between all of the series. 282

The Final Design

I ended up changing the phrasing again a little as I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think that it made sense. If the front of the card doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make sense then no one will send it so I thought this needed resolving.

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These cards, like the covers, were something that I struggled with to start with. I always pick cards that I like and I never consider the elements that make the card successful in terms of design that make me want to pick it up. Starting with initial research was really helpful for this as I was able to look at the designs in a different manner. I was able to quickly establish that I liked cards with big bold graphics and typography, I didn’t want anything dainty as cards can often air on the side of caution instead of creating a bold impact like I wanted my cards to do. After conducting this research, I found I had some starting point for my designs. One of the pointers within the brief was to consider pop-ups or another form of card. I did have a brief discussion to myself about this however, I soon concluded that a pop-up card would not suit the occasions that I had decided to design for. I always like pop-up cards to be quite childish designs and although this could be challenged and overcome, I thought that the traditional set up of a card is better suited to the purpose of each card and it is easier to display. At university for example, you don’t have much space so it is easier to display a regular card instead of trying to put up a pop-up card. The three occasions I decided to design for were: ‘Congratulations you have survived freshers week!’, ‘Happy Half Birthday!’ and a pick me up card. The freshers week card has not been catered for by any card manufacturer however, the other two have to a degree. Although I know that the brief said that they needed to not be covered, I did realise that there were still some gaps in the market despite these being catered for, to a ceertain extent. The half birthday card is only done by an online retailer, these cards do not make it to card shops and are not made by major card retailers. This suggests that they do not think that the occasion is worth celebrating and I wanted to challenge this. There was only one design style available for this and I wanted to design something a bit different, something that played with the idea of a ‘half ’ more as it is an occasion you want to celebrate and the card needs to reflect this. It needs to encourage a change of perspective on this over looked event.

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Similarly, the pick me up card in some ways has also been covered, however, these are very feminine. My research shoes that current card retailers do not make a card that could be sent to men as a pick me up, they were very dainty, flowery and sympathetic. In some ways this is effective however, I wanted a card that would promote action, encourage someone to start taking the first steps to change. I think this is a society expectation that men don’t need a pick me up and something that has been covered a lot in the media recently. I wanted to change this expectation with just a small step and my way of doing this was to design a card for the occasion. Using references to David Bowie seemed an appropriate reference to make as his character and persona was always bold and someone that everyone admired as he didn’t worry about what others thought as he continuously test the boundaries.

Encouraging the receiver to be the same through these references is just a small step in the design. The designs of each card do create a series, I wanted there to be a link between each card. Using similar fonts was something I wanted to do, I didn’t want the font to be the exact same but the similar style brings together an indirect link. A more direct link is brought in through the addition of the square. The square in each design brings something different to the background. Initially the background seemed very flat because I decided to use a block colour, however, with the addition of the squares, it doesn’t make the background seem as intense at this point, it also creates a smaller space to contain all the information so the remaining space isn’t so vast. I believe that each card works successfully and encourages the audience to start celebrating these occasions and sending the cards.Through the 3 designs I have been able to create an identity that can be carried on for designs for other occasions. One other pointer that was made in the suggestions was about designing the envelope. This was something that I did consider however, I decided that envelopes are never too bold because the writing needs to be clear in order for the card to be delivered to the right place. Equally, the envelope is never kept as they can be torn and ruined so easily, it is part of the purpose after all. Therefore, I thought it would be best to use a single coloured envelope for each card. I did think a black envelope with a white text box would work effectively however, the ink stamp that gets put on the postage stamp wouldn’t be visible therefore, I concluded that it would perhaps be best to leave the envelopes white. Although this isn’t as bold and impactful as the card, this isn’t the purpose of the envelope. The purpose is to keep the card protected and provide a space to write the address on.

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With these references, I did struggle with a few to find the original designers of the covers. As some of the images were so old (mainly the book covers from the HG Wells exercise) it was hard to find this information but also copyright laws were different then and the information wasn’t always provided for the audience. Despite this I have still given the website where the original image was accessed. Page 10: (top left) Can’t find the original designer, accessed the image from https://scififantasylitchick.wordpress. com/2014/04/14/book-review-the-war-of-the-worlds-by-h-g-wells/ [23 October 2018] (top middle) Gorey, E. (2005) ‘Untitled’. The War of Worlds [online] available from https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/188559/the-war-of-the-worlds-by-h-g-wells/9781590171585 [23 October 2018] (top right) Can’t find the original designer, accessed the image from https://www.amazon.co.uk/WarWorlds-H-G-Wells/dp/1604502444 [23 October 2018] (bottom left) Can’t find the original designer, accessed from https://www.amazon.com/War-Worlds-TorClassics/dp/0812505158 [23 October 2018] (bottom middle): Wells, H. (1898) The War of Worlds. United Kingdom: William Heinemann. [image] Available at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds#/media/File:The_War_of_the_ Worlds_first_edition.jpg> [23 November 2018] (bottom right) Unknown (1927) Title Page, 1927 Amazing Stories Reprint [online] available at <https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds> [23 October 2018] Page 11: Stevens, L. S. (1951) ‘Untitled’. Famous Fantastic Mysteries. [online] 12 (5) available at < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds#/media/File:Famous_fantastic_mysteries_195107.jpg> [23 October 2018] Correa, H. (1906). ‘Untitled’. War of the Worlds, limited French Edition. online] Available at <https:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3066374/Original-drawings-depicting-iconic-Martians-HG-Wells-ssci-fi-masterpiece-War-Worlds-sale-350-000.html >[23 October 2018]. Page 12: (top left) Hardy, B. (1895) The Time Machine First Edition Cover [online] available at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine> [23 October 2018] (top middle) Can’t find the original designer, accessed from https://www.amazon.com/Time-Machine-HG-Wells/dp/1936594110 [23 October 2018]

(top right) Can’t find the original designer, accessed from https://homeshopping.pk/products/The-TimeMachine-By-H-G-Wells-Price-In-Pakistan.html [23 October 2028] (bottom left) Edens, J. for Penguin Random House (1990) The Time Machine [online] available at <https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/202370/the-time-machine-by-h-g-wells-adapted-by-lesmartin-illustrated-by-john-edens/9780679803713/> [23 October 2018] (bottom middle) Can’t find original designer but was designed for Science Schools Journal, accessef from https://www.sfsite.com/04a/hg317.htm [23 October 2018] (bottom right) Can’t find original designer, but was part of the Scholastic Classics series, accessed the image from https://books.telegraph.co.uk/Product/H-G-Wells/The-Time-Machine/20995432 [23 October 2018] Page 13: Tardis image taken from http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/TARDIS_control_room. Still taken from the episode entitled The Unearthly Child. Page 16: Reinhart, C. (2018) ‘Untitled’. The Queen of Hearts. New York: Berkley Unknown (2018) ‘Untitled’. The Idiot. Vintage. Unknown (2017) ‘Untitled’. How to Murder your life: A Memoir (Hardcover). New York: Simon & Schuster. Page 17: Bickford-Smith, C. (varied dates) Penguin Clothbound Classics. London: Penguin. Page 18: Designers vary, image taken from http://www.ibs-b.hu/student-life/blog/v/harry-potter-book-series-movies/. [30 October 2018] Taylor, T. (1997) ‘Harry Potter Staring at the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9 ¾’. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury Wright, C. (1998) ‘Harry and Ron Weasley inside the Flying Ford Anglia’. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury Wright, C. (1999) ‘Harry and Germoine Granger riding Buckbeak’. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London:Bloomsbury.

Greenfield, G. (2000) ‘ First Task of the Triwizard Championship, with Harry on his Firebolt being chased by a Hungarian Horntail’. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London:Bloomsbury Cockcroft, J. (2003) ‘Phoenix rising from flames’. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. London:Bloomsbury. Cockcroft, J. (2005) ‘Albus Dumbledore and Harry inside the cave, surrounded by a ring of fire created by the former’. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. London:Bloomsbury. Cockcroft, J. (2007) ‘Harry, Ron and Hermoine breaking into the Lestrange Vault in Gringotts’. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. London:Bloomsbury. Page 19: dyvision (n.d.) Gear cogs rotating system gearbox blueprint mechanism [online] available at https://www. videoblocks.com/video/gear-cogs-rotating-system-gearbox-blueprint-mechanism-oe9e68q [30 October 2018] Page 44: Bickford-Smith, C. (2012) The Penguin English Library Edition of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. London: Penguin. Bickford-Smith, C. (2012) The Penguin English Library Edition of The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. London: Penguin. Bickford-Smith, C. (2012) The Penguin English Library Edition of The War of Worlds by H.G. Wells. London: Penguin. Bickford-Smith, C. (2012) The Penguin English Library Edition of The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells. London: Penguin. Page 45: Original source of image unknown. Obtained from http://www.publishing.stir.ac.uk/tag/folio-society/ but no photographer name. H.G. Wells Classics by the Folio Society. Page 48 and 49: (top left) Can’t find the original designer, accessed the image from http://www.loyalbooks.com/book/invisible-man-by-h-g-wells [2 November 2018] (top middle) Can’t find the original designer, accessed the image from https://1001bookreviews. com/2012/04/06/the-invisible-man-h-g-wells/ [2 November 2018] (top right) Can’t find the original designer but designed for Scholastic Classics, image accessed from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books/the-invisible-man-by-h-g-wells/ [2 November 2018]

(bottom left) Unknown for Penguin Random House (n.d.) The invisible Man [online] available from https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/188554/the-invisible-man-by-h-g-wells/9780553213539/ [2 November 2018] (bottom middle) Can’t find the original designer but this was the first edition of the book and the image can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Man [2 November 2018] (bottom right) Can’t find the original designer, but the image was accessed from https://macaronsandpaperbacks.net/2017/09/13/the-invisible-man-by-h-g-wells/ [2 November 2018] 49: left Can’t find the original designer, accessed the image from https://www.amazon.in/Invisible-Man-Illustrated-H-Wells-ebook/dp/B00M5FRZ4C [2 November 2018] middle: Can’t find the original designer, accessed from http://www.paperkingdom.com/novel-november/2017/the-invisible-man.html [2 November 2018] right: Can’t find the original designer, image was accessed from http://www.feedbooks.com/book/34/ the-invisible-man [2 November 2018] Page 55: Noble, T and Webster, S. (2009-2010) Wild Mood Swings. [online] available at <http://www.timnobleandsuewebster.com/wild_mood_swings_2009-10.html > [7 November 2018] Page 66: (top left) Can’t find the original designer for the cover, image was accessed from https://www.abebooks. co.uk/9781501009495/Red-Room-H-G-Wells-1501009494/plp [7 November 2018] (top middle) Couldn’t find the designer for the cover, but it was part of the Duke Classics series. The image was accessed from https://www.overdrive.com/media/786945/the-red-room [7 November 2018] (top right) Couldn’t find the designer for the cover, the image was accessed from https://www.amazon. com/Red-Room-H-G-Wells/dp/1499306229 [7 November 2018] (bottom left) Can’t find the original designer but the image was taken from https://www.goodreads.com/ book/show/38902341-the-red-room [7 November 2018] (bottom middle) Can’t find the original designer. Image was accessed from https://www.abebooks. co.uk/9781519734075/Red-Room-H.G-Wells-1519734077/plp [7 November 2018] (bottom right) Couldn’t find the original designer but the image was accessed from https://www.alibris. com/search/books/isbn/9781787245754 [7 November 2018] Page 74: Kljatov, A. (n.d.) Real Snowflake – Slight Asymmetry New. [online] available at <https://alexey-kljatov. pixels.com/featured/real-snowflake-slight-asymmetry-new-alexey-kljatov.html> [12 November 2018]

Page 75: Niessen and de Vries (n.d.) Selected Portfolio examples [online] available at https://www.grainedit. com/2011/09/16/niessen-amp-de-vries/ [12 November 2018] Page 76: Fairey, S. (2008) Obama Hope Poster [online] available at <https://medium.com/fgd1-the-archive/obama-hope-poster-by-shepard-fairey-1307a8b6c7be> [12 November 2018] Page 77: Henner, M. (2011) ‘Staphorst Ammunition Depot, Staphorst’, Dutch Landscapes [online] available at <https://mishkahenner.com/Dutch-Landscapes> [12 November 2018] Page 78: Bush, L. (2014-2018) ‘Untitled’, Metropole [online] available at <http://www.lewisbush.com/metropole/> [12 November 2018] Page 79: I couldn’t find the artist for this cover but the image was accessed from https://www.google. co.uk/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi1joO61PTeAhWKgVwKHYRZBRYQjxx6BAgBEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chapters.indigo.ca%2Fen-ca%2Fbooks%2Flife-ofpi%2F9780676973778-item.html&psig=AOvVaw14cnjRGqyP71NyS2ANME9A&ust=1543411075692460 [12 November 2018] Page 80: Duffy, C, A. (2018) Sincerity. London: Picador Page 102: West Yorkshire Police (n.d.) Volunteers Leaflet [online] available at <https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/jobs-volunteer/volunteers-policing/downloadable-leaflets-and-posters/downloadable-leaflets-and-posters> [14 November 2018] St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth (n.d.) Volunteer with St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth [online] available at <https://www.stlukes-hospice.org.uk/volunteering-poster/> [14 November 2018]

Page 103: Moulton, S. (2015) Brereton Million Volunteer Leaflet [online] available at <https://www.behance.net/ gallery/29051617/Brereton-Million-Volunteer-Leaflet> [14 November 2018] Szczepaniak, J. (2016) Origami Leaflet [online] available at <https://www.behance.net/gallery/44719439/ Origami-leaflet> [14 November 2018] Page 104: Wondereight (2013) Origami [online] available at <https://www.behance.net/gallery/8227391/Origami> [14 November 2018] Goeteborgs Tryckeriet (n.d.) Profilmaterial for Eric Salmonson [online] available at [https://gbgt.se/inspiration/profilmaterial/> [14 November 2018] Page 105: Johnson Banks (2011). AS Byatt Map, V&A and me [online] available at <https://www.johnsonbanks. co.uk/work/v-a-maps> [23 October 2018] Johnson Banks (2011). Tom Dixon Map, V&A and me [online] available at <https://www.johnsonbanks. co.uk/work/v-a-maps> [23 October 2018] Johnson Banks (2011). V&A and me, 10 'designer maps' display stand. [image] Available at: https://www. johnsonbanks.co.uk/news/postmodernism-at-the-va [23 October 2018]. Pages 106 and 107: All images sources from Johnson Banks (2011) V&A and me, untitled images [image] Available at < https://www.johnsonbanks.co.uk/news/va-and-me-2011> [23 October 2018] Page 115: Yulee Harris Design (n.d.) Origami Editorial Booklet [online] available at <http://www.yuleeharris.com/ portfolio/origami-editorial-booklet/> [23 October 2018] Page 148: Top Quality (n.d.) Untitled [online] available at <https://www.postermywall.com/index.php/art/template/ b7ef4963fd33862901f25e65801bf583/art-exhibition-flyer-template#.W_Cw05P7Qxd> [23 October 2018] Burtynsky, E. and The Photographerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gallery(n.d.) The Photographerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gallery Identity North [online] available at <http://www.typetoken.net/typeface/the-photographers-gallery-identity-north/> [23 October 2018]

McMurdo, W. and The Photographer’s Gallery (2017) Media Wall Commission, The Photographer’s Gallery, London [online] available at <https://wendymcmurdo.com/media-wall-commission-the-photographers-gallery-london/> [23 October 2018] V&A (n.d.) The Fabric of India Exhibition Poster [online] available at <https://www.vam.ac.uk/shop/ the-fabric-of-india-exhibition-poster.html> [23 October 2018] Baker, S. and The Photographer’s Gallery(n.d.) Shirley Baker Print Sales Exhibition [online] available at <http://shirleybakerphotography.com/shirley-baker-print-sales-exhibition/> [23 October 2018] Page 149: Smith, K. (2018) Exposure exhibition Posters [online] available at <https://www.katiesmithdesign-portfolio.com/graphic-design-examples-1> [23 October 2018] Page 150: Januchowski, A. (2016) Design 2016 Student Portfolio Exhibition [online] available at <http://www. alexa-januchowski.com/design-2016/> [23 October 2018] Page 151: Wilson, E. (2017) Ohio State Design Exhibition [online] available at <http://www.erinwilson.design/ ohio-state-design-exhibition/> [23 October 2018] Fotojet (n.d.) Funny Exhibition Poster Design Template [online] available at <https://www.fotojet.com/ template/poster/funny-exhibition-poster/> [23 October 2018] Collector & Co (2010) Still Life Exhibition Poster [online] available at <http://collectorandco.tumblr. com/post/101034608505/life-still-exhibition-poster-2010> [23 October 2018] Ciszewski, T. (n.d.) Isometric Exhibition Poster by Thomas Ciszewski [online] available at <https://weandthecolor.com/graphic-poster-designs-by-thomas-ciszewski-for-isometric-exhibition/24219> [23 October 2018] Unknown (n.d.) Theatre Poster Design [online] available at <http://www.webdesigndev.com/exhibition-posters-designs/> [23 October 2018] Page 152: Muggeridge, F. (2016) Kaleidoscope, The Vanished Reality Poster [online] available at <http://pleasedonotbend.co.uk/client/modern-art-oxford/> [23 October 2018} Muggeridge, F. (2014) William Morris and Andy Warhol Love Is Enough Poster [online] available at <http://pleasedonotbend.co.uk/client/modern-art-oxford/> [23 October 2018]

Unknown and Modern Art Oxford (1966) Space Place: Constructed Space Participation Poster [online] available at <https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/archive-space-place-1966/> [23 October 2018] The Shadowlight Artists (2016) The Shadowlight Artists Creative Bridges Poster [online] available at <https://www.filmoxford.org/shadowlight-artists-modern-art-oxford-11th-16th-october/> [23 October 2018] King, D. and Modern Art Oxford (2016) David King: Designs for Oxford, Kaleidoscope: Views from the Past [online] available at <https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/event/david-king-designs-oxford-1979-1985/> [23 October 2018] Treesholm Studio (n.d.) Poster Design for the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford [online] available at <http://www.graphicdesignfalkirk.com/portfolio/exhibitions/> [23 October 2018] Nineteenpoint (2018) Julia Meijer at Modern Art Oxford gig poster [online] available at <https://thedots.com/projects/julia-meijer-at-modern-art-oxford-gig-poster-238352> [23 October 2018] Images for the Posters: Hensworth, M. (2018) Still from Collecting of Memories [online] available at <https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/event/the-shadowlight-artists-rising/> [23 October 2018] Smith, D. (2018) Production Still from Time to Leave [online] available at <https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/event/the-shadowlight-artists-rising/> [23 October 2018] Breach, T. (2018) Still from animation Revenge of the Penguin [online] available at <https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/event/the-shadowlight-artists-rising/> [23 October 2018] The Shadowlight Artists (2018) The Shadowlight Artists group production, film still from LRRH [online] available at <https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/event/the-shadowlight-artists-rising/> [23 October 2018] Page 178: M&S (n.d.) Untitled (Great for on the go: Superfood wraps) [online] available at <https://www.marksandspencer.com/s/food-to-order/healthy-ways-to-feel-wow> [27 November 2018] Smith, K. (2018) Still taken from M&S Food: Adventures in Rhythm TV Advert 2016 [online] available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BVzv45eD1E> [27 November 2018] Page 179: My own images. Page 180: Lukeruk (n.d.) Retro Fruit Poster Designs [online] available at <https://www.dreamstime.com/ stock-illustration-retro-fruit-poster-designs-collection-vintage-signs-set-promotional-messages-image42217563#res170862> [7 November 2018] Sharrison Studios (n.d.) Untitled [online] available at <http://www.sharrisonstudios.com/signs.html> [7 November 2018]

Page 181: Unknown (n.d.) Old-fashioned? Sure! But clear and attractive [online] available at <http://www.soniceffect-blog.com/?p=629> [7 November 2018] Pages 184 and 185: Lindsay, P. (n.d.) Veg of the Day [online] available at <https://www.pollylindsay.com/veg-of-the-day> [7 November 2018] Page 186 and 187: These images were all taken from Prieler’s project called ‘Fresh Food’. Unfortunately this images can no longer be accessed through her website, only through Pinterest. I understand that this isn’t the most reliable website but it is the only way to access these images and they are an important part of my research. Lemon - https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/235664992975654717/ Rhubarb - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/15551561190691864/?lp=true Selection of veg - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/334884922283633104/?lp=true Radish and cabbage - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/257268197439165915/?lp=true All accessed on 7 November 2018-11-27 Page 188: Wardle, A. (n.d.) Fruit and veg illustration [online] available at <https://alicewardledesign.co.uk/ fruit-and-veg-illustration> [7 November 2018] Page 189: Fisher, J. (2015) Sofrito [online] available at <https://jessfishart.tumblr.com/image/116477935941> [7 November 2018] Page 190 and 191: Radish: Dibben, E. (n.d.) Food [online] available at <http://www.emmadibben.com/food/kcz1xmavbnec4el7wq9o02hx5vjmta> [7 November 2018] Pepper: Dibben, E. (n.d.) Food [online] available at <http://www.emmadibben.com/food/fm2plbwi3gj5dvgf11nqldzzs7sosi> [7 November 2018] Book cover: Dibben, E. (n.d.) Books, Savoury Preserves [online] available at <http://www.emmadibben. com/books/> [7 November 2018]

Page 192 and 193: Berries: Luck, G. (n.d.) M&S Smoothies Packaging Artwork [online] available at <http://www.georginaluck.com/filter/food/filter/Food/M-S-Smoothies-Packaging-Artwork> [7 November 2018] Onion: Luck, G. (n.d.) Vegetables [online] available at <http://www.georginaluck.com/filter/food/Vegetables> [7 November 2018] Marmite and Tabasco: Luck, G. (n.d.) Packagings [online] available at <https://www.behance.net/gallery/297003/Packagings> [7 November 2018] Lemon and image in Bottom right: Luck, G. (n.d.) Fuit [online] available at <https://www.georginaluck. com/Fruit> [7 November 2018] Radish: Luck, G. (2018) Observer Food Monthly [online] available at <https://www.georginaluck.com/ Observer-Food-Monthly> [7 November 2018] Pages 194 and 195: (also on 202:) Annabelle Breakey Photography (n.d.) Vegetable and Fruit Still Life [online] available at <http://www.annabellebreakey.com/gallery/natural-light-food-photography/naturallightfoodphotography-fruitvegetablestilllife/> [7 November 2018] Pixabay (n.d.) Untitled [online] available at <https://pixabay.com/en/italian-cuisine-food-vegetables-eat-2378729/> [7 November 2018] Picjumbo.com (n.d.) Untitled [online] available at <https://www.pexels.com/@picjumbo-com-55570> [7 November 2018] Edgbert, T. (n.d.) Healthy Farmers Market Vegetables [online] available at <https://www.shutterstock. com/image-photo/healthy-farmers-market-vegetables-carrots-beets-523995211?src=4yAikM4O2LY4dGTQ8EoIJw-1-0%3Fpl%3DCONTENT-blog&utm_source=CONTENT&utm_medium=Freshproduce&utm_content=Freshproduce&utm_campaign=blog> [7 November 2018] Persson, R. (n.d.) Systembolaget [online] available at <http://www.rolandpersson.com/> [7 November 2018] Sung, E. (n.d.) Untitled #10 [online] available at <http://www.evansung.com/#10> [7 November 2018] Page 221: My own images from displays in WHSmith and M&S in Coventry. Pages 222-225 are a selection of cards taken from these shops. Pages 226 and 227: Alamy (n.d.) Have your hangover busting kit ready for your first week at university [online] available at <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-life/11057320/Preparing-for-Freshers-Week.html> [16 November 2018]

Alamy (n.d.) Wandering around a freshers fair is like being a very popular kid in a sweet store [online] available at <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-life/11061380/Freshers-week-by-day-the-essentials.html> [16 November 2018] Woodmansterne (n.d.) Good luck at university card (7669) [online] available at <https://www.rockstarpromotions.co.uk/fresh-festival-2018-is-nearly-here/> [16 November 2018] Redrakoon (n.d.) Good luck at uni card [online] available at <https://redrakoon.com/Good-Luck-Unicar> [16 November 2018] Lovely Day Designs (2018) Good luck at university card [online] available at <https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/lovedaydesigns/product/good-luck-at-university-card> [16 November 2018] Pages 228 and 229: Unknown (2018) Fresh Festival 2018 [online] available at <https://www.rockstarpromotions.co.uk/freshfestival-2018-is-nearly-here/> [16 November 2018] Rogers, T. (2015) Freshers’ Week 2015 [online] available at <https://trogers-design.co.uk/freshers-week2015-uoe> [16 November 2018] Keele SU (2018) Untitled [online] available at <https://keelesu.com/ents/event/3822/> [16 November 2018] The Bath SU (2018) Untitled [online] available at <https://www.thesubath.com/media/1449amurb/urbsguide-to-freshers-18/> [16 November 2018] Pages 246 and 247: Hawker, J. (n.d.) Ray of Sunshine Card [online] available at <https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/joannehawker/product/ray-of-sunshine-card> [16 November 2018] Justwink (n.d.) A Pick-me up [online] available at <https://www.justwink.com/cards/life-etc/cheer-ups> [16 November 2018] Of Life and Lemons (n.d.) ‘Positive Pants’ Cheer up Card [online] available at <https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/oflifeandlemons/product/positive-pants-cheer-up-card> [16 November 2018] Etsy (n.d.) Pick me up cards [online] available at <https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/278263536/pick-meup-cards-etsy?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pick+me+up+card&ref=sr_gallery-1-21> [16 November 2018] Treatbox (n.d.) 10 Botantical Pick-me-up cards [online] available at <https://www.treatboxuk.com/products/10-botantical-pick-me-up-cards> [16 November 2018] Beauty and the Button (n.d.) Just in Case no one told you – pick me up card [online] available at <https:// beautyandthebutton.co.uk/products/pick-me-up-card> [16 November 2018]

Pages 268 and 269: Mustgetlostco (n.d.) Bon Voyage Card – Mon Amour card – travel card – handlettered adventure card – good trip – happy travels card – airplane card – fun card [online] available at <https://www. etsy.com/uk/listing/632981972/bon-voyage-card-mon-amour-card-travel?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=happy+travels+card&ref=sc_gallery-1-4&plkey=5affba17388c68a6dd27d91652bf505f9644e0bd%3A632981972> [16 November 2018] Moonpig (n.d.) Bon voyage card – going travelling – world globe [online] available at <https://www. moonpig.com/uk/personalised-cards/bon-voyage-card-going-travelling-world-globe/ljb105/?utm_ source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=GGL|Shopping|UK|NB|Cards|Miscellaneous&utm_content=Cards%20-%20Miscellaneous&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz9XIntLj3gIVAkPTCh1twQW0EAQYAyABEgI80vD_BwE> [16 November 2018] The Green Gables (n.d.) Personalised ‘Happy Travels’ Card [online] available at <https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/thegreengables/product/personalised-happy-travels-card> [16 November 2018] Allvectors.com (n.d.) Travel Graphics [online] available at <https://www.freevector.com/travel-graphics> [16 November 2018] Lantherblack (n.d.) Bon Voyage card/Gap Year card/Travelling card/Leaving Card/Travel Card/ Emigrating card Wanderlust/Tales of Wonder and adventure [online] available at <https://www.etsy.com/ uk/listing/504787277/bon-voyage-card-gap-year-card-travelling?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_ type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=happy+travels+card&ref=sr_gallery-1-4> [16 November 2018] Pages 272 and 273: Kbolino (2006) Half Star Blue [online] available at <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Half_Star_ Blue.svg> [18 November 2018] The Half and Half (n.d.) The Half and Half logo [online] available at <https://thehalfandhalf.com/> [18 November 2018] Someecards.com (n.d.) Happy Half Birthday to someone who for some reason celebrates their half birthday [online] available at <http://gotta.cmediagroup.co/half-birthday-card/happy-half-birthday-greetingcards-best-happy-birthday-wishes.html> [18 November 2018] Justwink.com (n.d.) drink up! [online] available at <https://www.justwink.com/cards/birthday/half-birthday> [18 November 2018] Linzyjoy (n.d.) Happy half-birthday sis. And yes, I DO expect serious kudos for remembering this [online] available at <https://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/happy-half-birthday-sis-and-yes-ido-expect-serious-kudos-for-remembering-this--e1ad9/?tagSlug=birthday> [18 November 2018] Etsy (n.d.) Happy Half birthday greeting card [online] available at <https://www.etsy.com/listing/67131447/happy-half-birthday-greeting-card> [18 November 2018]

Pages 278 and 279: Smith, K. (2018) Still taken from Loading Screen, HD [online] available at <https://www.shutterstock. com/video/clip-308644-loading-screen-hd> [18 November 2018] Unknown (n.d.) Loading Screen [online] available at <https://sagamer.co.za/2015/03/25/whats-in-a-loading-screen> [18 November 2018] Smith, K. (2018) Still taken from Windows XP Loading Screen [online] available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dkWy9aGEQA> [18 November 2018] Smith, K. (2018) Still taken from Loading Screen Animation [online] available at <https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=BuQnk6qEIZE> [18 November 2018] Smith, K. (2018) Still taken from YouTube loading screen video [online] available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otHnRgZUs2I> [18 November 2018] Smith, K. (2018) Still taken from Youtube loading screen video [online] available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBBDMqZKagY> [18 November 2018]