O O
By Oliver Villalonga Roman
Hello my name is Oliver Villalonga Roman. I am a second year BA (HONS) Graphic Design student at London Metropolitan University. When it comes to design and art I love working with neat geometrical shapes and bold text. Along with it I have a passion for simplicity and negative spaces. On this Collection book you will find a recopilation of all of my work done during this second year at university (2016-2017). The book presents every project done explained through the stages of research, development and outcomes. You will also find included the Hot House talks, workshops, visits and one out of the three essays written for Critical and Contextual Studies.
1 2 3 MODULE/ STUDIO AND VISITS AND TALKS.
THOUGHTS OF THE WEEK
PASTICHE 1560
4 5 6 MARKET READY
KICKSTARTER
CASE STUDY
Module/Studio
MODULE STUDIO INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION The Graphic Design course at London Metropolitan University leads in the realm traditionally taught graphic design fundamentals embracing and exploring the potential applications of visual communications nowadays. Emphasising on thinking and making to explore themes as audience, context, tone and effective methods of visual communication. Subjects as Creative Industry Practice allow the students to gain experience and understanding of working practices within the creative industry. Through working on projects that reflect real-world situations, we consolidated both disciplinary and creative skills, developed professional confidence and navigated individual and collaborative approaches to working. The projects provide the opportunity to explore in-depth professional ways of working, encouraging us, the students, to foster creative immigration and critical judgment, and to develop individual and team-working skills to real-world problems and opportunities. The aim of the module is to give the student social and professionals skills and confidence for collaboration, negotiation and decision making in individual and team working contexts through the recognition of relevant ethical concerns. Skills such as project management,recording, communications and presentation are developed trough situations where a problem is presented and needs to be solved.
Dialogue is a multi-dimensional, dynamic and context-dependent process of creating meaning; an educational interface between the user and curator. The studio offers a series of practical briefs that will allow the students to explore the dialogue between the designers and culture, between analogue and digital approaches, user and experience. This studio helps the designers to understand their own position in a more clear way in order to help shape this dialogue with others, to develop a series of visual dialogues that prevent ambivalence; to understand judgment, choice and experience, psychologically and linguistically a series of chosen and given mediums.
orkshop
Along with each project there has been a group of workshops, visits and talks to help generating ideas and developing them. The following spreads are a collection of my favourite workshops and the ones I think they have influenced my work the most.
"The world is my grid" The workshop consisted of leaving the studio and pay more attention to our surroundings with the aim of finding grids in them, which could be anything from natural to human buildt. We were given text and had to place it on to the grids spotted. This workshop helped me to be more aware of the world we live in and its small details.
"Applied arts Marathon" This workshop was a quite stressful one as we had to design 50 outcomes in one day. By looking at shapes, colours and analysing the components of images we had to come up with our own representations of those. My first image is a poster for the movie Spider-Man 2 and the second poster is for the movie "The Name of the Rose".
"Hands on type" One of the latest workshops where each one of us was given letters of the alphabet and had to recreate them with the aim of doing a whole new typeface at the end of the lesson. What you can see are scans of the work produced on the day modified on Illustrator. I combined the letter A and W into one.
"Narrative Mapping 1-2" Probably the most helpful workshop I had for the first project. The workshop made me understand the concept of mapping and helped me understand my surroundings and the dialogue between humans and the city we build and live in. We had to set locations and connect them however we wanted to with the aim of creating a personal map of the city of London. As an extension of the "Narrative Mapping" workshop we had to scan our hand and put the route on top of it. I added some cut outs of a magazine that I was reading on my journeys and could relate to the map. My journey was based on tube stations that I have visited in London.
Bu i l di n g s
POLLUTION
th a ts h ap e t
h e c ity o
of L n
nd o
Th
e S t
re e t s
NOISE
"The world is my grid"
"Applied arts marathon"
"Hands on type."
"Narrative mapping 1.0"
"Narrative mapping 2"
alks and isits
This years' talks were more appealing to me, the style of the designers and illustrators brought in has been more of my interest. As I have changed a lot and defined more what I like along this second year I found so many things in their work and process that I loved. We also went on some visits to the Barbican, our local gallery the Whitechapel gallery and the Science museum. One of my favourite talks was from Russell Weekes who is a designer that works a lot with lines and light colours. He creates images with negative and white spaces. I really enjoyed this talk, the way he described how he sees things and how he represents them is amazing. My favourite visit was to the Science museum where we visited an exhibition called "Our lives in data" for the second project. The exhibition was about collecting any kind of data to create visuals and showed a wide range of ways of doing that. We were quite lucky to have a talk by Kath Tudball, the designer of the logo for the Science museum. The fonts for this logo and the way the designer played with it and applied it to different fields really made me think of the ways my projects would be presented for my portfolio. With this years talks and visits I realised how big the impact of design in society can be and how a very simple project can have thousands of hours behind it. Complexity it is not always good.
tudio rojects
Persona/ Map Of Me. The aim of this project was to create a dialogue between the persona and its surroundings and understand the experience. We had to examine ourselves through individual and group workshops in order to create "a map of yourself" using analogue, digital, motion and print techniques. A narrative process was then be used to visualise these outcomes via a user-centered app prototype.
Data visualisation/ Engage. Using a supplied or a chosen set of data-streams and/or information as base material, we explored innovative ways of visualising dialogue on a variety of subjects, particularly the representation of gender, culture and ethnicity in the design industry amongst other key trends and topics to create an impact in society.
Design geometry/ Movements. The final project required us to look at the history of design and its movements. We had to pick one and design a leaflet. The content was created in class through workshops and then all put together on a A2 sheet. The leaflet had to have all the workshop outcomes plus a poster on the back.
Persona/ Map Of Me. My app consisted on a reflection of a journey I used to do in Spain applied on the map of London. This route was my journey to school for over 10 years and I used it to explore the City of London. The application is for the Apple Watch as I think it is the most useful device to have when exploring. It has a display and does not keep your hands busy. The app is personal but can be used by anyone. It is an exploratory route so anyone can use it and can be applied to any map. The user can choose a destination and by repositioning the route and rescaling it they will be given a journey. The journey might not be the fastest one but it will take the user through new places. The app facilitates another exploring technique where the user gets a completely random destination. The journeys can be shared on social media as Facebook, Instagram, Wordpress and Twitter. The app can even be used to get home from the users location through the route. It is a simple application that can help the user understand its surroundings by interacting with it in a more fun and efficient way.
Data visualisation/ Animal houses. Social change was the aim of this project. Introduced by Grand Visual we were asked to make a campaign of a subject we felt that had to be changed in society. I chose climate change and decided to make my target audience the young generations as they are the people who will live on this planet when climate change hits. Through DOOH screens (Digital Out Of Home) we had to present a motion graphic campaign with visuals on the subject chosen. I made my project based on climate change caused by humans and picked pollution, deforestation and global warming as my main subjects to try and make the audience understand that we share this world with animals and we are destructing it. I named the project "Animal Houses" and designed a series of three posters and three animations along with it. My final product is a little world where I have put the three matters in it. The world rotates and at the same time you can see how the trees disappear, how the earth melts and how the factory produces smoke. The aim of the project is to raise awareness towards these problems by making kids interact with those screens and then make them realise that we are not alone in this world. By the end of the interaction they should realise that humans are being selfish and destroying their world.
Design geometry/ Movements. For the last project we had to choose a movement that we are interested in. I picked De Stijl as I love geometrical shapes and bold text. This is one of my outcomes and it's a poster composed with the colours from this movement's colour palette and its grids. This project has been very useful as now I have a wider knowledge of the 20th century design movements and can see the evolution of design in a different way. The final outcome is an A2 booklet where we have reflected the workshops we had along with the project in eight sections at the front and a poster on the back. The piece on the left is the poster on the back. We have done two typography workshops, one playing with letterpress and another one on fonts. We have also done a moving type workshop on After Effects and a Screen-print workshop.
Thoughts of the week
(Massimo Vignelli). The way this designer managed to introduce type as an image to the world fascinated me. Overlapping letters and playing with the colours and opacity of those ended up creating amazing design pieces from type.
(Unit Editions). Knowing about this publishing design studio has given me a lot of inspiration for the layout of this book. The way this group of designers work with negative and blank spaces is stunning. The page can be half empty and feel full of content because of their layout.
(Natasha Jen). The typographic work of this designer inspired me for my third project. She created a font made out of lines which inspired me to create my own font out of shapes.
(Kate Moross). Discovering this designer boosted my inspiration and creativity. The way she works with colours and shapes is just outstanding. Her compositions and layouts when working with type are incredible. I really liked how she places text and how plays with its volume.
3
Pastiche 1560
The pastiche1560 was a project with the aim of researching artists and designers that we like. The outcome had to be a 15-60 seconds moving image that reflected the way we see the artist and their style. After going through four artists I decided to do my project on Frank Stella, a minimalist American painter who has most of his collection at the MoMa in New York. The video had to include a moving image along with sound. The moving image had to be a representation of the work the way we see it as designers, highlighting the skills we found interesting.
esearch
RESEARCH TEXT
As part of my research I included a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I had the amazing opportunity to enjoy the biggest exhibition that Frank Stella has. The exhibition included paintings, sculptures and sketchbook work so it gave me a better understanding of the way the artist works. I took the photo on this spread. Thanks to this visit I started to look more into shapes and 3D forms. Another thing that surprised me was the use of colours and the way the artist designs his own canvas for each piece.
evelopent
The first stage of my development for the project was to find a font that matched the way I see Stella's work and a colour palette for it. Below you can see both. The colour palette was inspired by his work and a quite geometrical font that reminds me of his work and style.
The image on the left is a first idea for the video where I thought I could do a camera following one of Frank Stella's paintings. The second image is a storyboard for this concept.
UTCOME
GEOMETRICAL MINIMALIST COLOURFUL
Market Ready
Market ready was a project brief where we were put into groups and had to face a real life industry situation. We were asked to come up with a brand and a product to sell on the Christmas Market at the Old Truman's Brewery in Brick Lane. Our group came up with the concept of "Neat" which is a stationery products brand. The main product was the "Neatbook" which was a personalised notebook where the costumer could choose the pages they wanted inside to fit their needs the best. There was only one stall available on the market so each group had to pitch their brand in front of a group of industry practitioners and Neat got selected. To bring the brand to life we had to distribute roles and organise ourselves very well. My role was to create the visuals and promote the brand. With this project we have all experienced how a design studio/team works and now we have a more clear idea of how it will be once we finish our degree and we are out there.
esearch
The research stage for this process was quite extensive, first we all decided to look into what a brand is and how a brand is made. Looking at other brands helped us developing our own and got us started with the logo and visual identity. A part form that we also had to do research on the fields we wanted to enter, in this case, stationery and then see if this kind of products were good for the audience at the market. We also visited the market a couple of times to analyse its costumers and the price range for the products sold there. Then we had to work out how much our products should be and how much the cost of them should be. It was important to be aware of the money we were going to be spending to make sure we could make a profit out of it, and we also looked into social media promotion techniques. The general research was done in group and then each one had their own bit, always consulting it with the team and informing them.
The mood-board on the left hand page is a mood-board based on my taste and the colours and shapes I wanted for the brand at the beginning. The second image is a first approach to what was needed for the project in general. I looked at some other brands and took notes on what I thought made them successful.
evelopent
The first stage of the development for this project was to decide the colour palette. At the beginning we found it a little bit tricky as we were a group of six and everyone has different tastes but we ended up finding a colour palette that we all liked and thought it would suit our brand the best. You can see the colours below. We decided the products we wanted to sell together aswell.
development image
The group started by creating a logo for the brand, we all knew that we wanted a circular clean shape with the word Neat in it and applied to the colour palette. These were my first mock ups but the font was not as neat as we all wanted so we had to come up with our own one. By retouching an already existing font we managed to come up with what we wanted and our logo. The second image is further development as we had some posters and covers with the words "That's Neat" and I was in charge of creating the word "That's" for it.
UTCOME
5
Kickstarter
The Kickstarter project was the last project of the year and consisted of adjusting the previous brand created for "Market Ready" to a Kickstarter campaign. For some groups this meant that they had to change most of their products or brand as theirs were Christmas directed. As we were selling stationery products we were able to focus on the campaign more than the products. The category where "Neat" could be placed suited the market and the audience found in Kickstarter. This project was more about developing the brand further than creating it. This included the promotion of the brand itself and the presentation of it in a more detailed and professional way to make the audience engage with it. For the campaign we had to come up with a promotion video where we had to make the viewers engage with us, the creators of the brand and the products.
esearch
The research done for this project has mostly been looking at other Kickstarter campaigns to spot the small details that made them successful and non successful. We also looked at storyboarding techniques for the promotion video and ways of filming. Looking at other kickstarter campaigns was very useful. We researched on how the campaigns are set up, the process from zero to the launch of the product paying attention to all the stages the creatives had to go through including their research. We also looked into statistics and analysed the kind of costumers that this website has and the kind of products that are the most successful. It has been a good experience as Kickstarter is a very good platform for creatives who want to gain a slot in the industry. Now we know how to set up everything so if one day we want to do it it will be easier to be successful.
FILM AND VIDEO
ART DESIGN FASHION COMICS PHOTOGRAPHY
DANCE
Looking at other campaigns we realised that there is a huge process that is divided into stages and without completing all of those it would be very difficult to succeed with our idea. We also checked which fields where the most common on the platform. The research stage gave us a general idea of how to prepare our campaign and who to direct it to.
evelopent
Developing the Kickstarter project was more about organising the team and distributing the tasks than anything. We already had the visual identity we just had to present the project in a very nice way so people engaged with it. We all made storyboards for the promotion video and met to film a stop motion. Here you can see the colour palette for it.
The stor yboard I made for this project was quite simple. I realised most of the kickstarter campaigns make it ver y personal so people engage with it. I thought that in the examples on the video we could put people interacting with the Neatbook. The stor yboard is basically an explanation of how the neatbook is made, which products do we also sell and then we all agreed that we should have a part where we talk and appear on screen. This is not the final stor yboard, we made a final one all together in class.
UTCOME
6
CCS Case Study
Critical and Contextual Studies is a subject we have outside our studio. On this subject we learn to analyse the world we live in and see things from a personal point of view. Each term we are given a brief with a topic that we have to respond to. I included my first essay where we had to come up with an "alternative souvenir". My souvenir was air bottles from London. In these bottles you could find air form different zones in the city. The labels on the bottles determine how clean the air from the area is, ranging from clean to nearly toxic. I designed the labels of the bottles and mocked them up. I actually ended up buying the bottles and printing out the labels to see how would they look.
London Pollution. “ We might say that this capacity of objects to serve as traces of authentic experience is, in fact exemplified by the souvenir. The souvenir distinguishes experiences. We do not need or desire souvenirs of events that are repeatable” The fact of being unique and related to a specific place is in my opinion what makes something a souvenir ,this something can be anything from a physical object to a memory. Conventional souvenirs tend to be physical objects, like a miniature of the Big Ben or a red phone booth which are directly related and tied to the City of London. Official souvenirs are normally representations of memorable places and objects from a location. They can portray a reminder of a place or even a proof of a visit or trip. On the other hand, alternative souvenirs are based on personal experiences including the way a person visualizes a place and the
memory of it. I believe anything can be an alternative souvenir if the subject, has a link to a memory or relation to it. The object is tied to the place and brings up a unique memory that is the subject’s. In my memory of the city, in its movement and the busy background, objects look stressed out. My perspective of London and in the way I visualize it, pollution is a predominant feature of it. The city of London has one of the highest levels of pollution in the EU ”Each year in the UK, around 40,000 deaths are attributable to exposure to outdoor air pollution which plays a role in many of the major health challenges of our day.” Therefore my alternative souvenir naturally becomes pollution, representing the levels that the City of London suffers from and relating it to my personal experience as a subject of the city.
This non-official souvenir will consist of a pack of five glass bottles (1/2" Tall X 3/4 Inches Diameter) each one related to a different location in the City of London with different pollution levels, ranging from natural to toxic. The pollution levels will be represented in the labels which will have different colours going from green, the most saludable, to brown being the least favorable for your health. (Alternative Souvenir document attached ) Pollution levels are measured in NO2 (NO2 stands for Nitrogen Dioxide which is a toxic gas produced by combustion vehicles). Each bottle will come in a box, coffin shaped, with a description of it inside explaining what the colour represents and the description of the air quality where you purchased it. The coffin shape is to create a visual impact on people and try and make them relate pollution to death. The intention of the labels should have the same effect as advertising on tobacco
packages, the aim is to make the viewer aware of the dangers of breathing in the air of that specific location and therefore raise awareness towards air contamination and its risks. The souvenir is based on my personal experience of the city and that is why I think it is an unconventional souvenir. Upon arrival to London, I had noticed the thickness of the air and it’s dirt. I felt the difference in the air quality in comparison to where I come from (Menorca, Balearic Islands, Spain) because London’s air had a texture and a feeling of smoke flowing through my nose and throat. After my first journeys on my bicycle around the city I could feel the difference of the air quality depending on where I was cycling. On some occasions I would feel more tired than others times and it would always be when I cycled through main streets. According to the article Air pollution
guide: London air quality ”Road transport is estimated to be responsible for about 50% of total emissions of nitrogen oxides, which means that nitrogen dioxide levels are highest close to busy roads and in large urban areas.” In my investigation I wanted to choose various locations to assess the air quality of London in a larger range. I appealed to the London City website which contains a live map with the toxicity levels in the city. This map is a live representation of the conditions in where the air is found at the exact time you check. I have also done a study on how individuals are affected by the quality of the air and this will be included as a description with the bottles. Adam Vaughan writes for The Guardian: “Nearly 9,500 people die early each year in London due to long-term exposure to air pollution” After reading this I ask myself if I really want to live in this city, if it’s worth it or not. I believe it is time to raise awareness about this subject. Collectively as subjects
of the city and tourists, anyone that steps into this city that we have to take action to prevent destruction of it or we will destroy it and therefore the city will destroy us. This souvenir has been produced to take action on this concept. It will assist in helping people realise that climate change and pollution are very real and that is happening. Not only will it affect us affect us it will also affect the future generations that will breath in this city. We must take action now. London has been evolving and growing nonstop that it has become crowded and artificial spaces we live in. Take into consideration London’s underground system and Shannon Mattern’s writing in Infrastructural Tourism where she says that, “London’s public transport systems, once so innovative that they were admired and copied by other cities around the world” and are today a maze of tunnels filled with more people than what it was designed for, making your chest hurt
from the polluted air of this overpopulated city. Through the understanding of the colour palette of the non-conventional souvenir you will be able to know how pure the air is that you are inhaling . The locations have been strategically chosen to try and cover a large surface of central London and show a variety of air conditions taking into consideration the zone and its characteristics. The green zone,which is the closest to natural air,cannot be found anywhere near central London. To breathe in clean air you will have to venture into the residential areas outside the city and into suburbia where there are fewer train station and traffic congestions. These tend to be open space areas typically closer to the countryside and a close proximity to nature environments. Yellow zones represent acceptable air quality areas. They are based between central London and the countryside being not very harmful for your health unless you
are exposed to it for a very long period of time. These are normally the secondary freeways that connect to the city, they do have traffic but not as busy as central London or main motorways that connect other cities to London. As seen in Figure 1 the contamination of the air is only allocated around the highways. Orange areas are the ones that connect separated crowded places like central London and Stratford and big motorways that connect other cities to London. Central London is a red area being the most busiest place, where all the traffic accumulates,it is full of combustion engine powered vehicles producing NO2. � The City of London has an on-going problem with poor air quality and the main cause is emissions from road vehicles.“ Brown/dark red areas are the most commercial and visited touristic areas in London. The more people there are the
more requirements for transportation there is therefore creating contamination and pollution by combustion. An example of this pollution can be seen in one of the busiest shopping streets in London ,Oxford Street, a recent article highlighted that ” Oxford Street has the worst nitrogen dioxide pollution in the world.” The souvenir is an unconventional souvenir as it’s based on my experience when moving to London. Apart from reminding you about the place you visited, its purpose it's to raise awareness towards the pollution levels in London and their repercussions. It will help you to understand the actual situation we are living in through the specifications on the labels. Also it is not your typical souvenir targeting tourists, as most conventional souvenirs ,it is a souvenir of everyone for everyone physically in London, breathing in this polluted air. It will help to create the change that has to be done by everyone to be able to
move forward towards a cleaner and more natural air environment. “London Pollution” could be developed further with help of mobile apps that already exists to check the air quality and could even become a symbol against NO2. To be able to purchase it you will have to travel to the locations selected on the map. Also you will only find the one that relates to the air quality in that place. As a graphic design student I feeling like everything we produce as creatives has to have a functional part. Our task is to show the world a different perspective of visualizing concepts. This project fits my expectations, it is a functional alternative personal souvenir. It is based on a personal experience to raise awareness on a complicated subject as it’s pollution in the city.
O O