Fine Tuning

Strangely, I’m in a very different position and mood from what I anticipated to be in on this Tuesday afternoon. As despite falling behind last week I feel I’m almost back on track! This is due to sacrificing a beautiful day of sunshine on Saturday to get on with my CD artwork, now if that’s not dedication I don’t know what is. Having the creative freedom in this part of the project has really lifted my motivation and drive, which had started to lag with all the corporate identity elements. So finally everything is coming together and the focus is now on making sure everything is finished to a professional standard. A demand which I now realise was somewhat lacking from my previous courses, especially in terms of technical considerations for commercial printing.

As you can see I’ve already found myself starting to reflect on the year and the progression I’ve made. A class discussion about the second year of the course, and my personal development session with Steve all helped to solidify this thinking. I certainly feel I’ve learnt a great deal over the course of this year, particularly surrounding design principles. This is something which has been most refreshing to me, as things which I have been doing intuitively for years have now been explained and fine tuned. This fine tuning will hopefully allow me to reach my full potential in the design units next year. In terms of the structure of the second year I have to say I really can’t wait to begin. I feel it presents a superbly balanced programme, both in terms of creative and technical challenge. However, before I become too involved in thoughts of next year I better focus on finishing this one though!

So, for the remainder of this week I need to concentrate on finishing my Digipak to a professional level. I’ve decided to develop design #1 [see previous entry] although please still feel free to continue to add to the feedback. Ive been looking at the design of the cd inner and cd body today[see above]. Also I need to check all of my work against my corporate style guide, to ensure all the corresponding elements are consistent. I’m hoping to have all the work completed next week, which will be the first time ever I’m in this position! I’m sure something will go horrible wrong in the meantime but I’m hopeful!

Targets

1. Refine cd outer
2. Develop cd inner and cd body
3. Check all work for consistency against style guide
4. Complete Pre-flight document
5. Design poster for 'The Wire' magazine
   

CD Artwork

#1 - I've been working on the concept of mans impact on our environment for my this cd artwork. The music had an uncomfortable mix of natural and synthesized sounds, woven together in a multitude of layers. So, this is what I've tried to reflect on the cover.

#2 -This image is based on the concept of internal unrest. The music evoked feelings of anxiety, confusion, vulnerability and deep distress. The repetition of the image reflects the magnitude of the emotion as it becomes overwhelming.
#3 - This image is designed to reflect sudden movement, a shift in focus, confusion and a delusional state of mind. I felt the image is intricate and strong enough to speak for itself. However, I believe this artwork may not fulfill the specified criteria because the manipulation was created at the point of capture.
#4 - This is a multi-layered image of photographs I've taken, it is based on the same concept as the above image.

As always some feedback would be great, thank-you!

Business card feedback please

I just created a few business card designs and some feedback would really help, thanks!

Newgo

This will be a rather short entry as illness has rather impeded and is still impeding progress. However, I've got the revised logo design nearly complete just need some feedback on its final layout and colour scheme.

So variations with the border;

Equally colour scheme 'a' or 'b'? [see below]

These are obviously high-tech versions the standard design is shown below;

I'd greatly appreciate any feedback so I can get the logo finalised and applied to the promotional material. I will also, hopefully, be posting some artwork ideas nearer the end of the week.
Targets

1. Complete Style Guide
2. Push development of Artwork for feedback

Nogo

As the title suggests the productive flow of creativity and development I had almost became accustomed to came to an abrupt holt this week. As my logo became a nogo the inevitable frustration crept in and what seemed to be a strong concept fell apart at the seems. Okay, possibly this is a slight exaggeration but to act on the constructive criticism I was receiving about my logo meant to alter the fundamental concept of the design. Equally the originality of the logo was severely lacking as the idea of emitting waves had been utilised in most of the groups designs. However, I did attempt to incorporate the suggestions into a refined version but the original spirit of the design was lost, as was I.

So, as the new week commenced I already felt behind schedule as I was lacking a rather important element. However, I knew it was important not to waste time so I decided to crack on with the CD cover artwork. After spending the morning creating some ink sketches, to overlay with my photography, I regained my focus and felt more positive about the task in hand. Once again it was important to step back and regain perspective. Even though the design of the logo was an important element of the current project, it was not the crux of my universe, so I had to look at its creation objectively and simply fulfil the project criteria. After looking back over my initial ideas and a discussion with Steve I decided to move forward with one of my former ideas.

The new logo idea had evolved from looking at emissions at their basic level, around the concept of molecular reactions. The logo is designed to replicate a molecular structure, it is suggestive that the brand will create a reaction, that is experimental and it consists of only fundamental elements. The placement of it’s elements is based on the formation of dots for the Braille representation of the letter ‘E’. It also has the addition of a lowercase ‘e’ within one of the circles to emulate the copyright symbol. I have chosen to develop this design as I feel it has an original concept, good presence and will be easily recognisable.

To be continued..

Feedback Again Please!!!

Here is a development of my final logo idea. I've spent a lot of time creating each letter from scratch and this is around version #10, so I'd be really grateful for some feedback before I go completely insane!

I'm pretty happy with the outcome and it works well at a variety of different scales and equally as purely black text with no background fill.

Learning Spiral

Dare I say it but I’m still really enjoying myself! Pushing forward my logo ideas in A7 is proving to be really interesting and luckily I’m not stuck for ideas…yet. Hopefully I’m now coming close to being able to select my most successful designs for refinement and then selection of the strongest.

It’s certainly true what Steve said about our method of learning. It definitely isn’t linear and I have to keep making a conscious effort to analyse my designs against everything I’ve learnt since beginning the course. This is particularly tricky to remember when you're introduced to a fancy bit of software that allows you make a myriad of marvellous creations at the touch of a button! These effects may not impress Steve but they did rather impress me, it’s just shame they don’t equate to any level of skill that’s all. Of course I am referring to our introduction to the drawing applications of Freehand /Illustrator. Overall I’m finding the transformation of my sketchy designs into crisp vectors rather satisfying, yet often tinged with the occasional outburst of frustration. But as with everything else I’m sure practice will make perfect. Once again though I feel I’m improving my chances of employment as my skill base widens and refines.

On the subject of employment another former student, Mark Feather, paid us a visit on Monday. It was really good to see how someone with a similar, creative, background to myself had successfully evolved their talents for a commercial output. Once again a real boost for motivation and focus, with a particular emphasis on self initiated learning to prepare myself fully for the requirements of industry. Equally, it made me appreciate the creative freedom I currently have in exploring my ideas while I’m at college, something that simply won’t be possible in industry.

Therefore, over the next week I intend to fully exploit this freedom and have some fun experimenting with some new techniques which may have possibilities for application in my CD artwork. Mark’s work and experiences have really inspired me to create some new ‘artistic’ work for my own portfolio. This is mainly in the interests of self indulgence but it might also help me get a job? Who knows!

Targets

1. Select final logo design and refine
2. Generate a concept for the Corporate Identity using the logo
3. Continue to develop Illustrator design skills
4. Experiment with some new drawing techniques

Emit Feedback

These are my strongest ideas created in Illustrator, I'd really appreciate some feedback so I can go on to develop a couple with variations in element positioning and the addition of colour.

Thanks for your time!

Logos so far...

7th Heaven

Sad as it may seem I am in A7 heaven and the last two days have been an absolute pleasure. Thinking…..sketching….thinking some more is just bliss for me, so to indulge in this for the next few weeks is a truly wonderful thing. Even better than this I get to wander around taking crazy photographs and then have some fun playing around with them. Now if I truly could get paid for doing something like this the course will have really been worth every penny! So, all in all I’m an ecstatic bunny, bouncing off the walls.....well up until now when I must calm myself to write this blog.

Developments over this week have included a visit by Jonny Haynes from www.technophobia.com. He gave us a very honest and insightful look into the design industry. Similarly to ‘The Design Mechanics’ visit he presented us with the reality awaiting us when we finish the course and once again boosted my motivation to succeed.

Also rudely disrupting my thinketch sessions have been a series of ‘logo’ lectures. Despite my obvious frustrations they have actually been rather interesting and informative (luckily for Steve!). So when you think logo, think SPWC [shape, presence, weight, contrast] not a very catchy slogan but useful none the same. Our understanding of these lectures was nicely tested by our old friend the timed task which, initially, was greeted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm by myself but actually turned out to be rather enjoyable. The task was to re-design the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in an hour. It was a really nice introduction to ‘part’ of my new ‘Alpha’ seminar group and I was pleased with our final solution. Our solution (see start of entry) centered around the original ‘semaphore’ inspiration used for the logo. It quite simply repositioned the two symbols of 'N' and 'D' and gave them a more fluid appearance. The new positioning also reflected the shape of a bird (a dove, symbolic of peace) and was presented across a circle which was representative of unity and the earth.

Apart from that A7 progress has been good I have currently designed around 40 initial logo ideas and I will be posting the strongest ones for feedback shortly. I have also started to create some images for the artwork and this will also be displayed in a separate post for feedback.

Targets for A7

• Effective time management and documentation
• A disciplined approach to all tasks
• Constant reflection in light of feedback every week