Year Two Digital Archive

Tom DAvIdson U1250806 TID1162

TAXONOMY []

PORTA

RATIONALE j

I decided to take on this brief with a photographic approach, collecting photos of interesting looking doors I came across. I began photographing doors over the Summer of 2013 when I was on holiday in the beautiful town of Parga, situated on the North-western coast of mainland Greece. Taking the photos helped me to satisfy my curiosity with the unique culture surrounding the town, by coming across interesting looking doors and photographing them, it gave me a sense of fulfilment knowing I had captured a part of Greece.

Back home in Manchester, I roamed the streets in some of the more desolate areas with my camera. I have always found it to be amazing, mysterious and disconcerting that a great city can find itself in such great distress, all the while surrounded by prosperity. The doors I found here were often abandoned or no longer in use, which is evident in the photos. In our nation’s ‘throw away’ culture, there was no way these doors would be found on the high street or even in residential areas.

Some (not all) the doors I documented in Parga were also used and abused, but in a way that made them beautiful and ornate. These doors were however situated in the main parts of the town and were often at the side of shops, part of houses and restaurants. The idea that these doors were in current use and half falling apart says a lot about the Greek culture - that perhaps if it is usable, it will stay.

I am happy with the book I got printed. It effectively shows my collection in a way that compliments the idea and is a nice little archive of my chosen taxonomy.

EXECUTION u

To design the contents of my book, I used the typeface ‘Pegasus’ – which, as you can tell by it’s title, is very Greek inspired. The typeface is sans serif and is quirky in that the letters are different sizes, and missing certain strokes. The fluency of the font reminds me of some of the shops and restaurants I saw whilst in Parga. The font however did not include accents, and one was needed over the ‘o’ to make the grammar correct for the word – pórta. Subsequently, I used an apostrophe and rotated it to make it into accent form. The shape of the accent then inspired me to create a little quirky aspect to my book – I used the apostrophe on multiple pages, and on my door imagery created for the quote page, I used it to represent a door handle. I wanted a clean, legible typeface for the rest of the information in the book. I used ‘Univers 45 Light’ which I felt gave the book a nice contemporary and professional look to it. Once aligned with my baseline grid and page headers, the book as a whole looked a lot more finished. For headings I used a larger point size, but other than that the type is consistent throughout the book.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENTz Some layout and front cover ideas I sketched out for the brief.

I looked at some books that had a particular focus on the layout of photographs to give me some inspiration for my book layout. The books are: Double Take: Portraits from the Keith Medley Archive by Mark Durden & Ken Grant, Alfons Mucha by Josef Moucha & Jiri Rapek and Edward Steichen by William A Ewing. Some of them used a lot of white, negative space, where as other pages had full bleed to the edges particularly with the Double Take book.

There were some captions but the majority of the focus was the photo which covered most of the page.

I was directed to a tutorial to help with the layout and design of my book. It states how simplicity and structure is more important than an outrageous design style – something I think I can apply to my project, as the main focus of the book is the photographs. However the layout of the book will help to maintain a professional and more finished output.Choosing a font and font size was the first step. Once this was decided the number of columns was chosen – as my book will consist of mainly photographs I set this only for the pages that included text (I did however use a grid system so that all my photos were in the same position and aligned properly). I set the margin to 10mm – margins give a page more structure and make it easier to read when it is full of information. I then added headings to my pages, of which I assigned a leading to so that the text and headings would be in line with eachother. Aligning it to the baseline grid that was set up allows the text to not overlap the grid so everything will look smoother when viewed as a pdf.

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Further research & develop can be found in the appropriate subject folder on my archive.

Behance Project

https://www.behance.net/gallery/12131013/Porta

Final Document

http://issuu.com/tomlucasdav/docs/porta Reserach & Development Document http://issuu.com/tomlucasdav/docs/taxonomydevelopment

DATA VISUALISATION []

BIBLIOFILE

RATIONALE j

This data visualisation project is based on data taken from my collection of books.

I collected a range of data on different aspects of the collection and created the visuals The title ‘Bibliofile’ comes from the term bibliophilia - the study or collection of books, and the notion of filing a set of information. I created a set of six visuals.

After many different designs and development, I feel the designs are a good way of visually representing my data. To do this I used a different technique for each poster that I felt was visually. I came up with a title for each design and used a specifically chosen colour scheme through so as to be consistent. I am much happier with these designs than the original ones I came up with; I think they look more detailed and sophisticated compared to my first attempts.

I also added an interactive element to one of the posters - this was developed from one of my previous ideas which I incorporated into one particular poster where you can scan the barcodes to find out my most read books in the data set. The final poster is a series of web designs which I had the idea to create as an off shoot of the amazon book section of the website - a book cataloging service. I think overall the outcome is exactly what I wanted to create - it just took a lot of process of elimination to decide what would make the final cut and to best decide what content would be the most effective for this project.

EXECUTION u

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENTz

Here are screenshots of a visualisation technique I used for one of my data sets. I created these polar grids in Illustrator. Each stem on the radar represents one of 97 books I have read from my collection.

Nicholas Felton is a New York based designer and Product Designer at Facebook. These designs are selected from his annual personal reports regarding several aspects of his life. The designs are incredibly intricate and detailed and have inspired me to delve further into my data to pull something visual like this from the information I collcected.

Whilst doing research I came across these wonderful data graphics from the 1930s. They take information about certain aspects of speciďŹ c books and present them in this way.

The graphics use a very limited colour scheme and what appears to be hand drawn visuals and typography. Each piece is very detailed and intricate.

Although the style is quite outdated, I very much like these designs.

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Further research & develop can be found in the appropriate subject folder on my archive.

Behance Project

https://www.behance.net/gallery/16394945/BiblioďŹ le

Reserach & Development Document http://issuu.com/tomlucasdav/docs/datavisdevelopment

COMPETITION []

D&AD XL RECORDINGS

RATIONALE j

For this entry I chose to represent Tyler’s award-winning in a typographical outcome, by using quotes from his acceptance speech (which are quite explicit) and layering imagery that I deemed appropriate to represent Tyler’s character within the type. I used a tie-dye texture, because he wore a tie-dye t-shirt to the ceremony - making a bold statement, a donut texture (for which I set up a miniature photoshoot) to relate to Odd Future, and a cat, to do again with his clothing choice and the strong use of cat imagery surrounding Odd Future. A childish-looking font was used, again to represent Tyler’s character.

Tyler’s speech was as follows:

“Yo. I’m excited as fuck right now, yo. I’ve wanted this shit….since I was nine. I’m ‘bout to cry. Uhhh…this is for my lil brother Earl, he’s not here right now. Um…I can’t…I really can’t believe I’m here right now. I didn’t write a thank you speech… but…uhh…I don’t know…to all the kids watchin, to all the kids that’s watchin, you can do this shit yourself, be yourself, fuck the system, Golf Wang. Thank you.”

I like my outcome because I think it is perhaps not the standard way of approaching a brief like this. A lot of responses I saw were simply vector illustrations of Tyler. I think taking some context from the actual event and producing the typographic solutions is what makes this project stands out from the others. I love that I was able to incorporate photography into my designs as well.

EXECUTION u

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENTz As one of the potential outcomes for the competition brief was a typographic solution, we were directed to this interesting typography artwork. The work belongs to a publishing company called Unit Editions – a London based design studio which focuses on producing books on graphic design and visual culture. I visited their Tumblr and picked out some of their works that I found inspiring.

Above: Three photographs done as visual research, which contributed to the final piece. The images were incorporated into the typography to tie down the imagery of Tyler, The Creator. Below: A Tyler, The Creator Mood Board done in my initial research to gather an overall impression on Tyler’s lifestyles and the imagery suurounding him and Odd Future.

I started to draw out an interpretation of Tyler and work into it in Illustrator. The drawing is based on the jump he does when he wins the award and I’ve tried to get across his personality in facial expression, etc.

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Further research & develop can be found in the appropriate subject folder on my archive.

Behance Project

https://www.behance.net/gallery/15419131/XL-Recordings-Tyler-The-Creator

Six Page Presentation http://issuu.com/tomlucasdav/docs/6pgpresentation Reserach & Development Document http://issuu.com/tomlucasdav/docs/d_adr_d

PROCESS OUTCOMES []

ROC BY CIROC

RATIONALE j

For this project we could choose a brand of alcohol and reinforce the brand by creating an aftershave or perfume packaging that had the same core values as the alcohol. I chose to do the French Ultra Premium Vodka brand Cîroc and create this aftershave packaging. Having researched into the core brand values of Cîroc I chose to have a focus on brand endorsement (Meek Mill, a member of the Maybach Music Group who frequently sing and rap about the vodka in their song lyrics), a reinforcement of the French authenticity and its Hip-Hop connections.

Creating the final product for this brief was challenging but enjoyable. I love the imagery and advertising surrounding the brand. It was endorsed further during the turn of the year in 2013 when many celebrities tweeted their fans asking “How are you going to #CirocTheNewYear?” They also targeted large events around the time of New Year such as the ball dropping in Times Square.

Overall the brand has a luxury aspirational element to it, a range of flavours and an array of celebrity endorsements. On my recent visit to New York there were Ciroc advertisements in bar windows, on taxi cabs and billboards. The brand has successfully integrated itself to a very high up and recognisable position within society. This is all what influenced my final product for this project.

EXECUTION u

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENTz

Here I looked more into some brand values that will come across in the aftershave. I looked at some of the existing packaging used for the Ciroc vodka and some of the ways in which the brand are promoted. I then researched into Diageo, the owners of Ciroc, and some of their concepts.

In terms of a USP for my aftershave – I incorporated many of the brand values of Ciroc in the packaging and use celebrity endorsement of somebody from MMG (Maybach Music Group – Rick Ross’ record label) but one thing that made the product stand out from others would be another kind of incentive – a free Ciroc shot glass with every aftershave bottle purchased. This was advertised on the packaging.

Left: Some development sketches and some paper samples I looked at for inspiration.

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Further research & develop can be found in the appropriate subject folder on my archive.

Behance Project

https://www.behance.net/gallery/15115405/ROC-by-Croc-Aftershave-Packaging

Reserach & Development Document http://issuu.com/tomlucasdav/docs/ciroc