Visual Systems by Tammy Johal

VISUAL SYSTEMS

Contents

Tammy Johal, BA (Hons) Graphic Design Level 5

Visual Synthesis

Initial Research ............................................................................................... 2 Skin Swatches Visuals and Designs ............................................................... 8/9 Glove Designs and Prototypes ....................................................................... 17/19 Final Outcome and Critical Evaluation ........................................................... 20/21 Development of Final Outcome ...................................................................... 22/23

Industry Visit

Companies I Wish To Visit and Key Questions ............................................... 26/27 Critical Evaluation ........................................................................................... 31

Wayfinding

Initial Research ............................................................................................... 34 Development and Initial Visuals ...................................................................... 38/41 Homepage App Visuals .................................................................................. 44/45 Font Selection and Development.................................................................... 46/47 Final App Designs..................... ...................................................................... 49 Critical Evaluation............................................................................................. 55

Subvert

Initial Research ............................................................................................... 58 Initial Visuals ................................................................................................... 64/65 Final Outcomes .............................................................................................. 66/67 Critical Evaluation............................................................................................. 68

Visual Crypsis

Initial Research ............................................................................................... 74 Homeless Research and Thermochromic Ink ................................................ 76/83 Final Ideas Visuals............................................................................................ 84/89 Final Outcomes and Critical Evaluation ......................................................... 90/97

Display Book

Sketchbook work and Prototype .................................................................... 101/104 Critical Evaluation ........................................................................................... 105

Extras

Type Book........................................................................................................ 108 Final Unit Critical Evaluation ........................................................................... 110 Bibliography ................................................................................................... 112/115

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Assignment 1 // Visual Synthesis For the visual systems project we had to create a portrait of the AUB campus. We were split into small groups where we had to map, analyse and recreate the data systems of our surroundings within a set of synthesised visual systems. This was a collaborative project between myself, Rob Cheeseman, Louise Donovon and Harriet Salmon.

Initial Research Synthesis implies the use of knowledge gained through research and testing of alternative production methods in the planning and formation of creative and innovative design. I created a brainstorm to reveal what I thought the Arts University Bournemouth was made of. I instantly thought of the variety

of people who make the campus so diverse and unique. As a group we created another brainstorm collaborating all of our ideas together where we decided we would split into pairs and gather data around the university looking at our two favourite ideas.

We photographed random students in AUB for an hour during lunch on a normal day. After collecting this primary research we realised we needed more variety in skin tones and shades. On our first initial primary research gathering we managed to capture lots of skin tones. I progressed by taking more photographs of a variety of skin colours around AUB.

Fingerprints Fingerprints are a unique form identification. A fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. Whilst looking into the diversity and individuality of skin tones, I thought of fingerprints as being diverse. My aim was to collect at least a dozen of peoples fingerprints by using ink as I wanted to look for the patterns and textures that were left imprinted on the paper. I photographed a handful of students fingerprints at AUB by getting them to press their finger or thumb into tissues soaked in ink I prepared earlier. I tried collecting my own fingerprints and a member of my groups before collecting students in campus and tried several different methods. I first tried soaking a sponge into ink and used that to press my finger onto, but realised the outcome was too watery and my fingerprint wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t show up on paper. I then tried using different coloured inks like light blue but found the fingerprint looked more visible and the ridges of peoples fingers showed better using black ink.

Skin swatches I personally liked the idea of looking into peoples skin colour and the diversity of tones and therefore with the images of the hands we took I swatched the colour from students hands. I took the swatches of colour from the part of the hand were girls use to test if the foundation matches their skin colour. I took the swatched from that point because I wanted the colour that would be closest to their face colour as I originally wanted to photograph students faces but realised people were more inclined to have their hands photographed as opposed to their faces. Above shows a collection of the swatches I took in a random order and on the left shows more swatches and the numbers associated with the colours that I swatched using the illustrator tool eyedropper. From this I then narrowed down the colours into three categories, which included: shades of brows, red undertones and yellow undertones.

Palm Reading Whilst trying to research different paths I could go down of creating a portrait of the Arts University Bournemouth, my group and I came across the idea of reading peoples palms in a tutorial. Palm reading, also known as palmistry is practiced all over the world. It has its roots in Indian astrology and Roma fortune telling. The objective is to evaluate a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s character or future by studying the palm of their hand. There are 4 major lines that are read these include: the heart line, the head line, the life line and the fate line which only some people have. We took numerous photographs of students palms around the university campus, which I then used to try and read the palms and collected a list of readings. From the 20 readings I did I found that (8/20) most common heart line was freely expresses emotions and feelings. (8/20) most common head line was creativity and (5/20) most common life line was plenty of energy. If I wanted to look further into this I was thinking of creating a typographic piece showing the most common readings.

Edited images that show a close up of students palms highlighting the 4 major lines.

Overlaying different palms on top of one another creating a collage of skin colours and palm lines.

Shoe colour Another aspect we looked into was students shoe colour around campus. I photographed 40 studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; shoes and took note of their shoe size, the brand they were wearing and the colour. From this I created a visual showing the variety of colours that students wore on their shoes by using the eyedropper tool on illustrator.

A visual that I created showing all the shoe research I collected

Brainstorm of ideas that I could use for my final idea.

Glove Design I wanted the glove to be simple and not too overpowering with its design. I really liked the pattern of the skin swatches I narrowed down and wanted to incorporate that design into the glove and so I wanted the entire glove to repeat that pattern. My group and I had various different views and so whilst I created this glove my group created another glove, which consisted of fingerprints and palms on their glove. I originally tried iron on transfer to transfer the images onto fabric but the images would not transfer properly and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t look how I imagined. After researching, I found that UV printing images onto fabric was very effective and so I went to a company called Micro Aces and managed to UV print all the designs onto the cotton fabric I purchased to make the pair of gloves.

Prototypes We decided to develop the skin colour idea and create gloves, as we wanted to relate back to the hand research we did in the beginning. Creating gloves proved harder than I thought, I bought plain white cotton fabric and researched how to make gloves online. Using my own hand as a guideline I drew out the shape I wanted and cut and sew the fabric but found the first prototype I created was too small and stiff. Our system for Visual Synthesis was that we portrayed the diversity within the AUB Campus and took images of 50 different hands. After collecting the images we then created different swatches of each hand to record all the shades and colours. Using all the shades I visually produced in illustrator, I divided the colours into skin categories of shades of brows, red undertones and yellow undertones

After I realised I created one too small, I added an extra 2 cm around the original design and created a paper mock-up that I could trace onto another type of fabric. I did the next mock-up on plain white t-shirt as I only had a limited amount of the cotton fabric. The result turned out better than I anticipated and was roughly a good fit except that finger slots were too close together and so I knew for the final glove to cut away on the finger area. I also needed to make the palm area less big as I made it bigger because in my last prototype I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fit my hand in the glove.

This was my final prototype before making the actual glove.

Left are the gloves that we created for our final piece.

The top of the hand glove I designed had big patches of colour which I think are more effective that the glove with lots of different swatches as they look too similar. As a group we also decided to have over lapping palm images that Harriet designed but it did not show up well on the fabric. Rob also created the fingerprint pattern for his input in the final design, which I personally think, looks plain.

Critical Evaluation For my crypsis brief we decided to look into skin swatches and the diversity of skin colour in AUB. This lead us to create gloves which showcased students skin colour and portrayed that AUB campus in a unique and creative way. I took inspiration and incorporated the fun theory, an initiative of Volkswagen into my visual synthesis final outcome as the idea of the gloves makes it interactive for people to try on the gloves and compare their skin colours. In our critique the majority of the feedback was that the gloves were conceptually cool and pleasing but needed to be taken further where it would communicate our message better. We were given the idea of possibly creating a tapestry or a rug, which would be named The Fabric of AUB, which I really liked the idea of. I found the brief visual synthesis very challenging and have learnt several things about myself throughout the brief. Working as a group is far more challenging than I imagined in this case as we all had such varying ideas and struggled to agree with certain things. I also learnt that doing idea generation by myself first then comparing with my groups ideas is a better than all trying to come up with an idea together. I found the system in this brief hard to wrap my head around but I believe I managed to create a strong final outcome. I realise that I am good at data collection and visualising it in a clear way that is visually pleasing. My main weakness I had was that I struggled creating the final outcome as I had hardly any input from my group and so I originally panicked when the iron on transfer I paid for did not work out as smoothly as I anticipated. But I managed to last minute UV print the fabric, which turned out better than I expected although some of the patterns on the gloves were unclear. Another weakness was that the gloves didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t look as professional as I hoped as so I need to create something that looks better and communicates my message. To develop our idea we could photograph a rug in AUB and Photoshop onto the rug the swatches of skin tones, which would be a more subtle way to communicate the campus and make it interactive.

Development of Final Outcome Following the feedback, I photographed the entrance of the Arts University Bournemouth and photoshopped a rug into the environment and my design onto the rug. I wanted to include more swatches, so I repeated various swatches over the rug. I did not want to include any typography on the rug as I think the plain swatches looks more effective.

I did a mock-up of the original swatch design on Photoshop but preferred the image with multiple, repeated swatches to the right.

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Assignment 2 // Industry Visits and Research For the industry visit brief we were split into groups where we had to research into different graphic design companies and contact a couple to arrange a visit. We chose to visit Graphic Thought Facility.

Companies I wish to visit: I chose Graphic Thought Facility as it is a London based Design Company who have an international reputation and have worked with big companies such as V&A, Frieze Art Fair, Design Museum, Science Museum and they focus on product, exhibition and environmental design.

1. graphic thought facility 23–24 Easton Street London WC1X 0DS info@graphicthoughtfacility.com Telephone +44 20 7837 2525

I also chose Why Not Associates, as they are a British Design Company who also have a global reach. They have had commercial success as their clients range from Nike, Virgin Records and the BBC but they also enjoy working on smaller commissions. I particularly liked the Blackpool Comedy Carpet they also worked on. 2. why not 22c shepherdess walk london N1 7LB t +44 (0)20 7253 2244 info@whynotassociates.com

I chose We Are Good as they are London based Design Company who focus on producing print, interior design work and digital work. They are an ethical company and have worked with big companies such as Scottish Power and design stunning packaging for bottles.

3. wearegood 5 Cowcross Street London EC1M 6DWT: +44 (0)203 394 1558E: hello@wearegood.com

I chose Bibliothèque as they are a London design company who focus on identity, print and digital design. They have also worked with big companies such as Adidas, Barbican, Design Museum and Google.

4. biblioteque 10–16 Scrutton Street London EC2A 4RU Phone +44 (0) 20 7377 8060 Email studio@bibliothequedesign.com

Graphic Thought Facility art-directed two series of images to create bespoke pieces showcasing Kvadratâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s colour saturated wool cloth.

Question I prepared for Graphic Thought Facility: 1. What are the main differences of how you worked as a student to as a graphic designer now? 2. What is your favourite graphic design book at the moment? 3. Who was been your favourite client? 4. What is your ideal/dream studio environment? 5. What has been your greatest graphic design accomplishment? 6. What would you consider as your greatest weakness? 7. What piece of work or project has been your favourite since working at Graphic Thought Facility? 8. What are the main differences between working for a corporate company like M&S or Habitat, to working for museums like the design museum or Tate? 9. What would you say is unique to Graphic Thought Facility?

We visited Graphic Thought Facility on 27th November 2014 and it was an unforgettable experience that fuelled me to do well as a Graphic Designer as it really inspired me. Their studio was a mixture of a relaxed but hard working atmosphere.

Andrew Stevens, the co-founder of Graphic Thought Facility sat the six of down in this relaxing area which was filled with books and pieces of work Graphic Thought Facility had produced.

Critical Evaluation We visited Graphic Thought Facility, a London based Design Company who have an international reputation and have worked with big companies such as V&A, Frieze Art Fair, Design Museum, and Science Museum. We were given a long talk by one of the co-founders Andy Stevens. I found this a very exciting experience as I have never visited a design company before and so I found it really interesting seeing the environment in which they work in. Andy expanded on areas they work on such as interior design, print, digital and told us how they spend a lot of effort in print production by spending time with the photographer to get the right shot as well as collaborating with people to help them our. He made in clear that you need to know all the things you are responsible for as a graphic designer. He talked about the balance they keep as they work with corporate companies as well as smaller design jobs as he made in clear that you shouldn’t always design like the product needs to sell as it limitates you as a designer. When taking on a design job he always makes sure he knows what the budget is, the timescale they have, the resources they need and who is making the decisions. He also picked up on that graphic design in a whole is about giving a sense of spirit. Andy also talked of how it is important to keep contacts from university, as you will need them when you become a designer as networking in important as he collaborated with Why Not Associates. He lastly answered some of our questions and talked about how you don’t need to be multi-disciplinarily, because if you’re good at one thing you can entice clients in. He commented that compared to him as a student to a graphic designer now, he doesn’t have much time for reflection because experience tells what is and what is not needed although you are not always right. Overall, I found the experience very rewarding and thought provoking, if I visited again I would like to ask more questions but I found that whilst Andy was talking for a little over an hour and a half, he covered a lot of our questions already.

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Assignment 3 // Wayfinding For the wayfinding unit we were split into groups to research and engage with a range of environments within which users will require a navigation system. We had to select one specific environment and produce a comprehensive and extendable wayfinding system for it whilst considering the viewpoints of the user. This was a collaborative project between myself, Will Curtis and Ollie Richings.

Initial Research Wayfinding design involves the development of visual systems of signage, landmarks and mapping to facilitate the navigation of complex environments. I created a brainstorm showing all the different pathways we could look at as a group and tried to think of problems people encounter on a daily basis. I first looked into car parking spaces and how shoppers can never find a space to park their car. I also briefly looked into how smaller restaurants donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have enough business and how we could make them more well known and bring customers into their restaurant. I thought that these two ideas had already been done

before and were quite clichĂŠ, which lead me to evaluate any problems I have in my life which could be the same as the general public. I instantly thought of a common problem I face, which is whenever I am shopping in a supermarket I struggle to find items I need quickly. As a group we discussed all the ideas we individually came up with and decided that my supermarket idea was strong enough to run with. We were all interested in designing an app that shoppers could use to efficiently shop around the supermarket that would make their journey quicker and hassle free, so we designed a couple of pages each to see what style worked best.

I developed our idea of trying to find supermarket products quickly and efficiently and to navigate around the supermarket easier. I began illustrating some initial designs.

Development

Above shows my development of what pages we need for the app and aspects we could incorporate

Target Audience The demographic we decided for the app was a wide audience that ranged from new students in an area, to shoppers in a rush who need to find their way around supermarkets quickly.

Interface We wanted to create an interface that was easy to use and not too complex so the older generation could benefit from the app. We wanted to create a setting where you could change the variables for a more personalised use.

Images Below are two initial designs I created. I wanted a section where you could calculate the quickest route and input your own shopping list for an easy experience.

Select Supermaket

ASDA Marks & Spencer Sainsburys Tesco Waitrose

Select Supermaket

I began creating basic app designs for how the user could select the supermarket option for which store they are visiting. This option would enable our app to become more diverse and branch out for many supermarkets to introduce it into SPECIAL OFFERS their stores.

SPECIAL OFFERS

Tresemme Shampoo Was: £3.99 Now::£1.99

Maltesers 121G Any 2 for £3.00

Fanta Cans Tesco Lean Pack of 4 Diced Beef 400g Was: £2.49 Was: £4 Now::£1.50 Now: 2.50

Haribo Trick or Treat Bucket Only £5.00

I particularly liked the aspect of having special offers to entice the customer to buy cheaper products that they may have not seen in the supermarket themselves. This aspect would change for each store, updating the customer on the newest and best special offers.

Yahoo Milkshake Any 2 for £50p

An example of Augmented Reality on an iPad

Augmented Reality Augmented reality is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. Augmented reality can augment the effectiveness of navigation devices. Information can be displayed on an automobile’s windshield indicating destination directions and meter, weather, terrain, road conditions and traffic information as well as alerts to potential hazards in their path. It blurs the line between what’s real and what’s computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell. Informative graphics will appear in your field of view. Augmented reality can be used on an application that uses the phone’s camera and gps capabilities to gather information about the surrounding area.

I created these app pages as a final design for the app. My group particularly liked the use of blue and the general design and so these initial designs were the basis for the final app design. I personally prefer the app homepage to the far left as it is simple yet effective. I think the symbols on my second design of the homepage are too distracting and cluttered. I also created a profile section where you could enable certain categories, which would be user specific. I chose the colour blue for my designs as blue connotes to a trustworthy company and is a modern, uni sex colour. Social networking companies such as Twitter and Facebook also use blue to create an image that they are trustworthy and can be trusted with all the information users give them.

Font Selection For my app designs I used the font Bebas Neue because I looks more professional than the font Playsir that we used for the final app design. I personally prefer Bebas Neue as the type looks user friendly and fits with our demographic. However, the Playsir is a playful and rather exciting font that does relate to students. Below is Playsir.

abcdefghijk lmnopqrstu vwxyz 46

Creating the navigation aspect of the app was rather difficult. I took inspiration from the augmented reality research I did and wanted to incorporate the bright colours with an easy interface that it easy to read and visually pleasing. I first used yellow bars that stood out from the background and used white text, but I found it too hard to read and that it looked rather dull. I then progressed by playing around with colours and designed the image below which I feel is eye-catching and looks visually pleasing. I really like how these app pages turned out as I believe it is easy to read and looks good.

Final App Design

These are the final designs of the app we created. We also made a video, which shows the app being used as we made a mock-up app on proto.io online so it was interactive.

Critical Evaluation For my wayfinding brief we decided to look into creating a navigation system for shoppers to find their products and their way around supermarkets as people always have difficulty finding specific items. This lead us to design an app that navigated shoppers around and find specific items and making their trip efficient and fast. In our critique the collective feedback was that they liked our app and that our design was very visually pleasing and communicated our idea really well. I found the wayfinding brief really exciting and engaging as it was my favourite brief out of them all. I found the wayfinding aspect of creating and visualising a navigation system challenging but enjoyable as I had several designs that turned out rather successfully. I have never tried designing an app so this was a first for me, which I learnt that I enjoyed and want to revisit and do again in the future. I also learnt that I can produce visuals quite quickly compared to other members in my group and once I have an idea I can draw from that and produce good quality visuals. We could have improved on our app design by creating more pages for different supermarkets as we only focused on Tesco and Asda so we could have experimented with the colour scheme more and try creating another page where the pop ups would jump out on the live camera feature. I have learnt that I work well in a team when we split the workload and have similar tastes in design, which makes experimenting with designs as a team easier and more approachable as we picked different aspects of everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s designs and incorporated it into one final uniform design we were all happy with.

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Assignment 4 // Subvert For the subvert unit I worked alone and we had to analyse and deconstruct the visual system of an existing brand. I chose to produce an outcome that subverts the brands key message and by re-purposing their design an modes of communication.

Initial Research Subverting a brand refers to making spoofs or parodies of corporate and political advertisement, it can destroy a brands image instantly. I created a brainstorm of the initial research I found on companies I was interested in and how they have misleading products, which make them dishonest companies. In the food and drink market I realised a range of companies lie and mislead customers of what their products contain and can do. I was rather shocked when researching about Pom Wonderful, a brand that sells beverages and fruit extracts such as pomegranate. In their adverts they falsely promised consumers they could literally cheat death if they drank their juice as they could apparently prevent serious health problems such as heart disease and cancer. The company Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Oreal also struck me when I researched into their claims that their makeup could boost genes and stimulate the production of youth proteins.

Above shows my initial brainstorm looking into misleading companies such as Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Oreal

Adbusters Research Adbusters is a Canadian-based anti-consumerist, pro-environment organization. Adbusters describes itself as a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. They subvert a range of brands successfully and have gained a huge amount or recognition for their work, especially their spoof ads. Their Big Mac Attack series was really clever and visually stunning, which inspired me throughout this unit.

Initial L’Oreal Research I initially researched into what L’Oreal makeup products had false claims, for example their Youth Code product that claimed that the Genifique product was clinically proven to boost genes activity and stimulate the production of youth proteins, which would lead to “visibly younger skin in just seven days. This was not proven and the Advertising Standards Agency agreed that a number of their products were exaggerated and breached its code of conduct, as their makeup was not representative of the results the products could achieve. This research interested me and I briefly looked into how I could visualise a spoof ad about ageing creams.

Extended Research After doing a few quick visuals into L’Oreal’s skin product spoof ads, I didn’t really like the way it was turning out and so I began researching into animal cruelty and came across that L’Oreal claims not to test on animals but found that they do outside Europe. Animal testing in Europe is illegal and a big company like L’Oreal test on animals outside of Europe in places such as China. I also researched into the Body Shop and they are a very ethical brand that do not test on animals but it is owned by its parent company L’Oreal, the largest cosmetics and beauty company in the world who

continues to profit from animal testing outside of Europe. In China, companies are required to submit samples of their products to be used for tests at local laboratories. PETA estimates at least 72 animals are used for each product, as China’s government requires such trials for every new beauty product that goes out on sale to the general public. Hundreds of thousands of animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in archaic product tests for cosmetics. I found this research a lot more interesting and decided to look into animal cruelty and subverting L’Oreal’s brand.

Initial Visuals

I first had an idea of what women have in their handbags as some of their makeup products are unknowingly tested on animals and so I created a basic piece showcasing that simple message.

I then liked the idea of using a photoshopped infected rabbit head in Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Orealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s adverts and simply put it on their models heads. I did not turn out as I anticipated and is not as strong as I hoped.

Final Visuals

I wanted to play upon Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Orealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s logo and change the tagline into something meaningful and clever so I decided to create an impact by incorporating the infected rabbit head into the logo and asking the viewer the question of is it worth it?

I produced two other final outcomes as well as the edited Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Oreal logo which were real images of rabbits being subjected to animal cruelty and in that environment and using these images by replacing some of the rabbits with a well known Disney character Miss Bunny. I thought this would appeal to all ages and create a more shocking image without the use of over used images of dead or infected rabbits.

Critical Evaluation For my subvert brief I looked into animal cruelty as from my research I found that high profile cosmetic companies such as L’Oreal test on animals in countries outside Europe slyly but tell it’s customers they don’t test on animals which is very misleading. I found the subvert brief exciting and was different as I have never tried depicting a brand and subverting their key message. I found the angle I took was enjoyable and think my Disney approach was more unusual and different which I was very fond of. In my critique I pined up my 3 final outcomes, which were the L’Oreal logo and the two Disney rabbits photoshopped into the cages. The overall feedback for the logo design was that it was a strong individual piece, which represented my message in a clear way and they like the fact I played around with the tagline. They also liked the idea of incorporating Disney animals into animal cruelty, as it is putting something innocent into a real life perspective. I was told that Disney idea was a strong idea, which I should work on, and possible have a range of Disney characters involved to create a stronger visual. One of my main weaknesses was that my ideas didn’t go together harmoniously. Following this feedback, I progressed with my Disney idea by using more characters that were still very recognisable and created two visuals. My first was numerous characters in cages but I found it was not powerful enough and looked too messy, so I created my second final visual of a range of characters in one big cage which I preferred and communicated my message in a more subtle way.

Smint Design - Subvert

Left is my final design which incorporates a blue background and a dark blue logo.

Left is another design I created where I have used a green background. I prefer the final design with the blue background.

I entered Smints competition of designing new packaging for a smint packet. They gave a brief as to what they were looking for which consisted of a fresh to impress design. I wanted chose to illustrate blue lips on my design as I associated fresh to impress which having fresh, clean breath and teeth. I made the centre of the lips to fade from dark to light. I first designed this design with a green background, but preferred the icy blue as my final design as it felt more Christmassy.

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Assignment 5 // Visual Crypsis We were split in creative teams where we could select on of our previous systems or create a new system and develop a pair or pairs of visual implementations that reveal and disguise each other at different points in time or space. This was a collaborative project between myself, Kieran James and Jeevan Panesar.

Initial Research

I initially created a brainstorm looking into all the different directions we could go into such as perspectives. After researching I also came across the aspect of hidden messages revealing themselves, which is something I found interesting to explore. I found the channel 4 indents visually striking when viewing them at the perfect angle. As a group we also wanted to explore a system that is controlled by the environment such as the rain or exposed environments by chemicals.

As a group we found the hidden messages revealing themselves interesting so we came up with the idea of having an image of ice reveal itself on sections of the pavement where it is icy and slippery. We wanted to work with something related to the colder time of year and so this simple idea would remind people of the danger of slipping and is a helpful concept. We also came across colour changing inks that reveals messages and wanted to explore that aspect further.

Photograph of homeless man in Bournemouth Town Centre we took

After researching pathways we could venture into, I came up with the idea of looking into homeless people and bringing more awareness to themselves as they face the cold situations of sleeping rough on the street. We realised homeless people are essentially invisible and blend into the environment. As a group we photographed around Bournemouth town centre and tried capturing the homeless where they naturally stay. We also photographed the locations we personally normally see them during the evening and benches as I often see them sleeping on the benches during the day.

These photographs are a few locations where we previously saw homeless people take cover and stay to sleep.

We photographed benches where we also saw them hang around during the day and evening as we though these photos may become useful when developing ideas.

Homeless Research After taking photographs, we started researching into homelessness in Bournemouth and tried to find statistics and any information we could gather. We originally wanted to create a campaign, which aimed at Bournemouth council to be more aware of the situation, but after researching we realised that the council already spend huge sums of money trying to deal with the problem. This led us to instead aim our campaign at the UK Government and specified our research and idea to Bournemouth. We wanted our demographic to be the general public.

I researched into shelter for the homeless in Bournemouth and breifly looked into the Big Issue, which is a magazine sold by homeless people.

Thermochromic Ink Thermochromic inks take advantage of thermochromism, which refers to materials that change their hues in response to temperature changes. There are numerous companies integrating these dynamic, eye-catching inks into their products to help grab their customers attention. Coors Light beer bottles are printed with a thermochromic ink called a leuco dye which cleverly is colourless at warm temperatures but changes blue when its cold. Below are a couple of examples that use thermochromic ink that I found interesting such as the gorilla that is painted with thermochromic black paint and when body heat or warm water is in contact with it, messages reveal itself.

Coors Light thermochromic beer cans.

After we narrowed our idea to looking into homeless people, I drew out the main ideas we wanted to look into. All of our ideas had some element of using thermochromic ink as this would be our system of blending into the environment.

I created a simple visualisation where I photoshopped stickers into environments where the homeless stay and sleep saying â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Home Street Homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

Development of Final Idea We moved with forward with the bench idea for our final idea as we felt we had more to work with and would enjoy looking into it. I extended on looking into how we could incorporate a bench into the homeless and thermochromic ink. We chose to focus on a bench as we initially were going to create three final outcomes, which consisted of looking into a wall, bench and floor space. We decided to only focus on the bench, as we did not want to over complicate the final visual and wanted a consistent style. We originally were going to have an image of a homeless man lying on the bench, which always appeared, and then when people sat down thermochromic ink would reveal statistics and quotes but we wanted something more subtle which blended into the environment. This lead us to just focus on creating the statistics visual that would show up on the plain bench, as this would surprise the viewer when they stood up.

Visuals of Final Idea

I gathered some hard-hitting statistics with my group and I created these visuals. We decided to essentially split the bench into three sections so when people sat down they would sit in one of the three sections and would be able to read at least one quote as we realised that a long quote across the whole bench would not work. I created the first visual where all the text was white on the bench as I thought it would stand out against a dark brown bench. I wanted to use different typefaces but I found it clashed too much, but I liked the quotes I chose, as they would grab the attention of the viewer.

This was my final visualisation I created for the final bench design. I wanted to incorporate some colour into my design and so I layered colour behind some of the text, which I think stands out to the viewer and gives an element of fun so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not overly serious but still grabs the viewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention and shows hard-hitting statistics. I took inspiration from the Blackpool Comedy Carpet artwork, which has coloured type layered behind. I placed this image into a bench image we took in Bournemouth and added a QR code as I realised we needed to something for the viewer to send them online to sign a petition or link them to the Crisis, homeless charity website and so the QR code is always showing so wherever people sit on the bench, they can still see the QR code.

Final Idea For our final idea we decided to choose Kieranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design of the bench, which looks more professional and is more simplistic. We decided that my design had too much colour and Kieranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design had more statistics and I like how he incorporated the bold text. The crisis logo and website would permanently show up and the white background and statistics would only show when someone would sit on a section of the bench. Our final idea was very successfully as it incorporated everything we wanted as a group and gets our message across in a more subtle way.

Above is the final design Kieran designed we chose. Right is the final design photoshopped onto a bench we photographed in Bournemouth Town Centre.

We photoshopped the design onto different benches we photographed to show what the design would look like on a range of benches in Bournemouth town centre.

Final Video As well as having this A3 visual as our final idea we also wanted to create a video showcasing the bench idea in action, so we created a video, which the group shot together around Bournemouth Town Centre.

Social Aspect We also wanted to show the final bench design online to get more people involved. I photoshopped the design onto the homepage of crisis, their twitter and their Facebook to generate more people to sign their petition.

Critical Evaluation For my visual crypsis brief we looked into raising awareness for homeless people and aimed our idea at the government to take more action and get homeless people off the street. We did this by involving the general public by revealing hidden messages on benches around Bournemouth using thermochromic ink. I found this brief very exciting as we were looking into new technology. In our critique the overall feedback was that our concept and context was really strong and we executed our idea well, and had project logic. They also liked how we explored using thermochromic inks as we were using new technology. They also mentioned that we chose an appropriate location for our final idea as the bench relates to homeless people. However they did point out a weakness that the image would only last for a couple of seconds and that maybe we should find away for the image to stay for longer when body heat reveals it. We could progress by looking into glow in the dark paint to reveal itself at night or make our design last longer with the thermochromic inks. I feel that our final piece turned out very successfully as the design is subtle and bold, which catches my eye and the idea of something hidden revealing itself was a fun aspect to work with. During this brief I learnt that you need to research an idea fully so you can understand the materials your planning to work with, as researching into thermochromic ink gave me a broader understanding into what we could achieve and gathered inspiration from products that use that technology.

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Assignment 6 // Display Book I had to produce a display book that communicates the journey of my Visual Systems unit using grids, typography, composition, hierarchy and colour etc.

Display Book Design Aspect For my display book, I chose to work with a 3x4 grid with 5mm gutter and 3mm bleed. I chose these settings as I have worked with these that exact grid before and so wanted to try breaking it. I chose a 3mm bleed, as I wanted some of pages to be full bleed and images across them. I also chose the size 210x210 because I wanted a standard square book, which I did not want to be too small or too big. I chose the fonts Helvetica Neue and Baskerville as my main fonts. Helvetica Neue regular was my body text and caption text, whilst Baskerville in Semi Bold was my header font throughout the book. I chose those two fonts, as I wanted a mix of serif and a sans serif. I knew I wanted to perfect bind my display book as I have done it several times and really like the professional outcome Left I decided what fonts I wanted to chose from, my grid and the point sizes I was going to use.

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18 Point size

24 Point size

28 Point size

30 Point size

I struggled picking a header font and size, but ended up picking Baskerville in point size 24 as I thought 28 and 30 were too big. I also preferred Semi Bold to Bold, as it was less bulky and subtler. I started drawing out the book layout but found I did not really stick to what pages I designated for what content, but it did help knowing how many pages I would have roughly.

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I tried drawing out page layouts for all the briefs I was going to include in book but for some briefs like wayfinding it was easier for my to layout the pages on InDesign first as I knew where I wanted everything exactly. However, for visual crypsis and subvert I had more trouble with layout. I created layout pages for crypsis but ended up putting a lot more in that I was initially going to.

Left I created layout pages of my crypsis unit for my display book.

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Prototype of Book When I had completed half of my book I printed it out and had a tutorial where I was told to change certain aspects I had incorporated into my design. I firstly discarded the red line I had going across all the headers in my book. I made my header Baskerville as I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t changed to a different font, I also made all my headers range left as I wanted a uniform style. I knew I had to work on my contents page as I just had a very basic style of what I wanted to achieve.

Using a binder clip, I briefly binded my book together to see how the pages looked.

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When printing my prototype on normal A3 paper, I cut it down using the guillotine and bound it with clips to see how my book looks with the 10mm loss of the book when bound, to see how images across a spread matched up. This page turned out very successfully and I like the pop of vibrant blue against the brown. I also made sure all my body text was the width of either one column of two columns and so had to change my initial research page for visual systems,

Grid screenshot of book, 4x3 columns

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Critical Evaluation Creating the display book was very engaging as I have never created a whole book, printed and bound a book before. I chose for my book size to be 210x210mm because it is comfortable size that I have worked with before. I personally like the look of a standard square book, which fits, comfortably in my hand. My font selection also worked well together as Helvetica Neue is ales harsh font that Baskerville. My strengths of my display book are the images I have used really bring the book alive and entice the viewer in, especially with the full bleed images. From creating this book, I have learnt how important it is to keep a time plan to try my best to stick to one as I struggled with the lack of time to create my display book. I also learnt that creating an entire book layout in the beginning would have made it a lot easier when putting content in and designing where everything fits nicely. Making the prototype of the book and printing it before hand made me see any flaws that I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find on my screen and good for my tutorial as my tutor could physically mark any changes that needed to be made, such as removing the red line. Overall, I think my display book turned out very successfully and I like the simplistic design I have adopted throughout by using black text and coloured images, the red captions also add colour without overpowering the book.

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Extra work // Type Book, Final Evaluation, Bibliography This section of my book showcases the type book we produced in small groups. I have also included my final evaluation for the whole unit and my bibliography.

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Type Book These two designs were my final design for the type book. In my critique they liked my use of colour and use of a varied amount of fonts which made me design look professional and commented that I used my the theme explore your fonts appropriately. I also created the vertical letters page, which I do not think, turned out as successfully as I had anticipated.

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This was the final book design page spread, which we designed a member of my group designed. After the critique he incorporated the various amounts of fonts I used into his design. I personally think the design is too simplistic, but I do like the overall appearance.

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Evaluation of Unit Visual systems as a unit was very engaging and exciting throughout the numerous briefs. I found through this unit that one of my most recurring weaknesses is that I always struggle executing my final design or outcome. I also found that I always get stuck with idea generation but once I have an idea I can produce visuals quickly and to a good standard, which I identify as a key strength I have. I also realised I am good at collecting and gathering research in a small period of time, which I demonstrated in my visual synthesis unit and the crypsis unit. I have learnt that working in a group throughout this unit had its ups and downs as I like working in a group because you can produce better outcomes when everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ideas come together seemingly and you learn things from other students. However, in my first unit I found working in a group very difficult as I did most of the idea generation, visuals and producing the final outcome and so I did not work very well with my group in that case. On the other hand, in my wayfinding group and crypsis, our ideas were all very similar, as were out styles and so we could work easier together and it was a lot more enjoyable. Overall, this unit was very exciting and rewarding and new for me as I have learnt may new skills and using certain programs that I would never have used before, I also enjoyed working as a group and alone which pushed me to communicate and talk about my designs better so we could incorporate aspects of my work in group work that I found very strong.

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Photography from Graphic Thought Facility

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