Tag Archives: Design

Exercise: Magazine Pages

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Exercise: Bike Magazine (Graphic Design One page. 107)

For this exercise I looked at ‘Bike Magazine,’ which seems to be based predominantly on a two-column format. Where there are exceptions these are full-page images, full-page data tables or three column reviews. I was surprised to see the prevalence of quite large images, although given that much of it is about different bike models, I probably shouldn’t have been. The typeface throughout is serif, and variation comes from different weights and sizes.

I took the two-column grid and large photograph format and created five variations based on the headline, ‘You are what you eat.’ Although I had already noticed it in other exercises it was fascinating to see the different tones set by the layout, images and typeface choices.

  1. Fruit image, Sanserif heading and body text: Has a slightly neutral tone, and I would imagine the article to give me some broad information about the benefits of a healthy diet
  2. Fruit image, Serif heading and sanserif body, three column layout: gives a more formal tone and I would imagine would probably contain a science based approach to diet
  3. Burger image, sanserif heading, subheading and body text: I think this one is interesting in that I can imagine the article could equally be talking about the issues of junk food and obesity, or promoting veggie burgers, or gourmet burgers
  4. Burger and Filo parcel, text all sanserif: this could be a comparator piece between junk food and fine dining, or extoling the virtues of the variety of English cuisine. I could imagine this in something like Good Housekeeping
  5. Filo parcel, script and serif heading, subheading and body: lots of white space and the cool blue tones speak to me of fine dining. I could see this as an article talking about a particular restaurant, dish or ingredient in glowing tones

It is really helpful to see how even small changes can change the tone and possible message a design is communicating. This is both rewarding and a little daunting, in that it can feel a bit overwhelming when faced with so many possibilities. I suspect this highlights the importance of a clear brief and good relationship with a client.

Assignment 4: Show me (Part 2: Type behaving badly)

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he word type wih the letters cut out so they are hinged

When I was researching protest typography for my Pinterest board I was really intrigued by the idea of typography and power. Having read an article by Co.Design and its focus on power and the role of DIY typography I found the work of Emily Schofield’s and her Situationist Typography.

“Typography is a tool of communication and it has to abide by these rules to be efficient,” explains the graphic designer, “so on what level can a letterform express protest? Can it break out of its supposed structures?” Initially, the designer experimented with many forms in print, playfully obscuring and dissolving letter but her move to digital type brought a broader application: “Can it be a typeface that actually acts, that doesn’t work? That’s what the digital can do, you can create action in a typeface.” Projects of protest

Schofield created an online programme that took a word you typed in and then morphed and disrupted it. This got me thinking about type behaving badly and how I might develop an alternative design. Rather than work digitally I started by cutting up the word ‘type’ and arranging it differently.

I then thought about cutting out the letters but in some ways that would simply produce a similar effect to reversed out text online. So rather than cutting the letters out completely I decided to try them being hinged. That got me thinking about what might sit behind. Initially, I was going to use a flat colour or possibly some texture. Then I thought I might put the word ‘type’ repeating behind. Thinking about the origins of typography in the West I eventually decided to use a copy of some pages of the Gutenberg bible.

I used a slab letter typeface (Myriad Pro) and decided to put the hinges in different places so the letters all sat at different angles. I made a prototype with just paper (version 1), I then repeated it with a heavier weight card (version 2). I then offset the letters, defying the rule of type being orderly and conforming to the rules.

I really liked the results but was a bit stuck on how I might use them as part of a design for the assignment. While they photograph reasonably well their sculptural nature doesn’t really translate to the 2 D page or monitor view. Maybe this is anti-type and no-one else gets to read it! Time to move on.

Exercise: Abstract Cities

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Four abstract arches to use for a city guide cover for Madrid

Create a series of ten abstract designs in which you balance blocks of subordinate, dominant and accent colours. These designs are going to be used as covers for ten cities. As part of the process explore your DTP packages further by creating the artwork in different software packages.

I think it’s fair to say that compared to previous exercises I have made a complete meal of this one! I made a fatal mistake at the beginning, which was to do the maths –  ten designs at four to five different iterations, that’s at least forty images! Oh, my that’s a lot of ideas and uploading. I think at this point I became a bit overwhelmed by the task and wasn’t sure how best to approach it. This triggered quite a lot of procrastination and longingly reading and re-reading the next exercise about Photomontage.

I collected the odd image and started thinking about how I was going to approach the exercise but the inspiration was slow in coming. Some of the cities I knew so had some initial connections and my own perception of colours and shapes. I did some wider research online to collect images of the different cities. This then prompted some initial sketches to start the process of thinking about composition, having decided I’d work on composition first and then work with colour.  I was reasonably happy with some of the ideas but not wildly excited by them.

Six thumbnail monochrome sketches for travel guides

Panorama based sketches

Unusually for me I also then looked at other student’s work for this exercise. I wouldn’t ordinarily do this as I have found in the past it can be a bit intimidating when I see the quality of other peoples work. I am also mindful that sometimes you can take on subliminal ideas that may then appear unintentionally in your own work raising concerns about originality. With those caveats in mind and being as stuck as I was I thought it might help. It was certainly useful in seeing how others had approached the exercise, and especially helpful in looking at how others had assembled their palettes and the use of Adobe Color. I also noticed some motifs and images were used by a number of students and that these were very similar to the images I had found.

The next step was some quick research on other travel guides. The ones that stood out for me were the Louise Vuitton and the Luxe guides. It was particularly the Luxe guides that caught my eye, I really liked the idea of taking a small detail to represent the bigger concept. My first sketches, and other student work seemed to be more panoramic in nature and I wanted to focus in more.

At this point I decided to refine the brief and think about them in terms of guides for art lovers in each city, which meant I could focus in on a particular theme. As I did the research this also helpfully showed that many of the arts buildings in these cities are quite iconic. Finally, I had a way in and something that interested me!

Abstract Cities – stage two

Having decided on the approach I wanted to take I set out some dedicated time to work on all ten cities together. I  worked on them in batches rather than city-by-city, in part to think about consistency but also to keep the energy going.

I created what I have called a mood board for each city in which I brought together arts, architecture and public art examples.

I put all the mood boards into Adobe Colour and used that to create a basic colour palette for each, based on their bright or custom themes. In some cases these were adapted further when I worked on the design. The Colour Palettes PDF shows the initial colour schemes.

I then started a new set of sketches to work on the compositions. These were developed in Illustrator.

Abstract Cities – Stage three

Madrid

Abstract designs for Madrid travel guide

Madrid

Based on contemporary art in the city I tried to do the exterior of the Museo Nacional Centro de Art Reina Sofia but I was struggling with Illustrator and it started looking too fragmented. The second idea was based on a piece of public art but wile I like the idea it felt too derivative. I finished by using an aspect of the exterior of the Matadero, which I think captured the wider iconic arches in other parts of Madrid as well as the Spanish colours.

Managua

Four designs for Managua city guide

Managua

I had thought I would use some of the city’s public art but after more online research I found that several of them had been demolished. In the end I went with the iconic trees (although these seem to have mixed appeal in Managua itself!).

After learning how to make swirls in Ai I used Adobe sketch and transferred the result to Ai. I was struggling to make the colours work and was painstakingly using the pen tool to map areas and apply colour. In the end I used the trace function and decided to use a thick stroke to paint the curls. I was going to tidy the edges but decided I quite liked them a bit sketchy.

Marrakech

Four designs for a Marrakech city guide cover

Marrakech

Based on the exterior of the Marrakech Museum for Photography and the Visual Arts. It was one of the earliest sketches and I was happy with the composition so concentrated on the colour combinations. I used variations from the colour palette, which were evocative of the city as a whole. In the last two versions I added the drop shadows under the windowsills but I didn’t feel they really added to the design. (I have just read the Museum has closed while it seeks a new location so would have to rework this for a guide now!).

Manhattan

Four designs for a Manhattan city guide cover

Manhattan

This design uses the iconic interior of the Guggenheim museum. As with others I started with too much detail so after the two early attempts I decided to simplify it and make it more abstract. I didn’t like the all caps typeface and tried to find something that was stylish and cultured.

Malmo

Four designs for a Malmo city guide

Malmo

These compositions are based on the exterior and interior of the Moderna Museet Malmo (MMM) and the Malmo Konsthall (MK). I kept the exterior ideas very simple and abstract. The all orange example is from the interior of the MMM and plays with some of the architectural features. The MK interior is very minimal reflecting the perspective in the gallery. The typeface is modern and simple.

Manchester

Four designs for a Manchester city guide

Manchester

These designs are based on the exterior of the People’s History Museum and as with the other designs they incorporate colours from across the city. I was reasonably happy with the composition so worked on various colour palettes. The first two didn’t feel well balanced and the interaction of colours wasn’t working. I decided to use white for the background, which lifted the colours and made it more dynamic.

Mumbai

Four designs for a Mumbai city guide cover

Mumbai

Initially, I thought I would use the exterior of the Bombay Arts Society but when I started working with the shapes it wasn’t coming together. Instead I used the interior staircase design that is very distinctive. Once I had got the basic layout I worked with different palettes until the final version, which I felt was the most harmonious. Again I chose a typeface that felt in keeping with the destination.

Marseille

Four designs for a Marseille city guide cover

Marseille

This started with the night view of the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM)  but it looked too busy and fussy so I moved on to the aerial view and created something much simpler. The colours draw on the wider palette of the city and are not specific to the centre. I added some texture in the final version to evoke the amazing external structure of the building. I kept the typeface clear and modern.

Melbourne

Four designs for a Melbourne city guide cover

Melbourne

My initial ideas were to use the distinctive façade of the Australia Centre for Contemporary Art and while I liked these I thought perhaps they were a little too abstract. The second set of ideas take public art in Melbourne as their starting point. The colours are reasonably close to the original works but also encompass the sunshine, red earth, and blue skies.

Montreal

Four designs for a Montreal city guide cover

Montreal

This is the iconic façade of the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art. The original building only has one red window but this has been extended to three in the final version to reflect the presence and importance of the colour red in the city. The overall palette was kept relatively muted to reflect the city’s architecture.

Final selection

Having done the original sketches and then working up the designs in Ai I selected the final ten which I felt were probably the most successful. Some are more successful than others but I think there is some sense of them working together as a series.

 

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Exercise: Seeing the Light

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Twenty different designs using three elements- a block of yellow, a light bulb image, the words light bulb

Using only an image of a light bulb, the words ‘light bulb’ and a block of colour of your choice create different designs that explore visual dynamics. Think about your composition trying each element at different sizes and cropping your photo. Create as many different designs as you can. Edit these down to about 20 designs that you feel represent the breadth of different approaches you have explored.

I did this exercise over several months as I could easily sketch different thumbnails as I travelled and as ideas came to mind. To start with I used a tablet and created random compositions as ideas came to me, this was followed by drawing thumbnails in my sketchbook.

Finally, I tried to be more methodical using a grid that I initially used for sketching and then collaging. I realised as I was collaging that most of my previous compositions had been portrait so I then worked in landscape for the final ideas.

In total I developed 64 designs and by the end, although they were more neatly contained within the grid than my thumbnails, they felt like they were getting looser in terms of composition. I also played with the notion of what the ‘block’ of colour meant, cropping it for different shapes and using triangles instead of squares or rectangles. I was surprised about the number of designs that emerged and I could probably carry on developing them for the rest of the course! The challenge by the end was trying to make sure I wasn’t duplicating earlier versions.

Twenty different designs using three elements- a block of yellow, a light bulb image, the words light bulb

Twenty designs

The final 20 designs I have selected show the breadth from hand drawn to collage. Some are quite formally arranged while others are more abstract with more random relationships between the three elements. It showed me the value of sketching a wide range of ideas before committing to a final design. It also reinforced the influence of composition when using the same three elements – how the interrelationships between the elements could convey weight, movement, light and so on. In some compositions I noticed my eyes were making a relationship between the light bulb and the colour as if the light was being cast by the bulb. In others the relationship was more random.

This felt like a very valuable exercise and followed well from my research into more minimalist design approaches. Having the constraint of the three elements was really useful in helping explore composition and showing it still leaves plenty of scope for creativity.

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Exercise: Visualising your ideas

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Two white sheets of paper folded for leaflets

Exercise (p.41 Graphic Design One): You have been asked to design a leaflet for an organisation, inviting people to volunteer for a task. In addition to a title the information has been broken down into four chunks each of about 120 words. You will also need to leave space for contact and address details.

Working with a sheet of A4 paper or larger if you prefer, and ignoring the actual words and subheadings, explore the different formats for leaflets that are possible. Consider and experiment with options for final size and types of paper. In your learning log describe how you found turning ideas into visuals. Did you discover anything unexpected?

This was an exercise that was more layered than I had originally imagined.  I began with a single sheet of A4 paper and simply folded it in a number of different ways. When I had folded as many I could think of I did a bit of online research and found a number of diagrams of different folds and their names.

Following the folding I started to think about layout given the information in the brief – space for a title, four chunks of information and contact details. Initially I just started to sketch them roughly but found I was then thinking about placement and what might make the leaflet attractive. I started to think about the visuals and again did some online research.  I found I was thinking more about what sort of leaflet I would design and the notion of a hand or hands came to mind. When I did an image search for volunteering it seems that ‘helping hands’ is one of the most common visualisations! I often find my first ideas are the most obvious so wasn’t too worried that this was the case; I guess I have to start somewhere.

I noticed I had been thinking of the information in blocks, but then started to play with how the text might have different layouts. How a leaflet can be made appealing, and the importance of the cover. I became particularly conscious of the contact details, assuming that this needed to be some sort of tear off strip that could be removed and handed in. This made the layout take on a new dimension as it meant the contacts section would need to be removed leaving the important information on the leaflet intact.

What emerged from this exercise was a series of problems to be solved, not all of which were immediately obvious at the outset. Working with the physical folding helped me ‘see’ what was needed as I developed my thinking.

 

 

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Getting Started – Paper

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Piece of paper

I want to be an Origami sheet

They can make a boat of me

Then make a rose of me

For the friend to cherish me.

 

I want to be an art sheet

The artist can paint on me

Sketch their mind on me

Craft something new on me

For the world to adore me.

 

I want to become a plain sheet

For a writer to scribe on me

To open their heart on me

To recite a poem on me

For the readers to review me

Neeti Tibrewala, 2016

If I have learnt anything from my first two OCA courses it is not to be afraid of the blank page. I feel like I am facing multiple blank pages at the moment – GD1 is a new direction (my last two courses being photography based), I have had to set up a new blog and I have a new sketchbook – I needed to find a good place to start.

I am a little apprehensive because I also have to learn Illustrator and In-Design quickly. I am pretty familiar with Photoshop and have used Inkscape, PageMaker and Publisher in the past so I am hoping that will at least help me get going.

I like that the course starts with some of the basic building blocks and talks about paper, so I set myself a small exercise of exploring the different types of paper I had in the house. My new sketchbook is now adorned with an amazing variety from natural and handmade papers to photo and coloured tissue paper. It feels good to have taken a first small step and I actually quite like the collages too!