Tag Archives: Design development

Assignment Five: Your Choice – Part Three

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Brief 1: Book Design

Penguin Books have asked you to design anew house style for a collection of books on design for children and young people. They are starting with three titles: Colour, Typography and Photographs. Produce three covers – front, back and spine. The designs need to be recognisable as a series and at the same time be appreciated for their individual merits. The book dimensions are 190mm wide by 225mm high.

In addition they have asked you to produce the one on Typography, called A is for…Create an introductory chapter of at least four pages.

Thubmail sketches for a book design

Sketch 4

I started by developing the book covers based on the initial sketches (sketch 4).

As there was additional pages design involved in the Typography book I researched the main Pop Art characteristics:

  • Repetition
  • Recognizable imagery
  • Bright colours
  • Flat imagery
  • Celebrity/advertising images
  • Hard edges
  • Mundane reality and irony
  • Influence by comic books, newspapers and photographs
  • Consumerism and mass consumption
  • Blocks of colour

From this I developed a range of symbols in Illustrator as well as sketching a basic layout.  The biggest challenge seemed to be the wording and content, more so than the layout itself! It took me a while to decide what I would include in the first few pages. In the end I went for some background to typography and what I hoped would be some attractive exercises. I was a bit concerned that I had used a pop art approach in a previous assignment but I felt like my skills had moved on since then and I could be much bolder than I had been, I hoped that it would show my development.

I was still a little concerned that the book title is ‘A is for…’, which suggests a younger age group and an alphabet type book. I decided to overcome it by not making an obvious link and using A as the starting point for a voyage into typography, rather than a direct link to the words. I still wonder if young adults might be put off but hopefully the pop/graphic novel style would be attractive enough.

The design of the pages went through four main iterations as it developed:

I was looking for the beginnings of a book that was dynamic and interesting. I have used typography, colour, and layout (in other words pulling together all the elements of GD1) to try and achieve it. It took a little while for my ideas to surface but once they had I could see the direction I wanted to take. I printed each version as I went as I found it helped me identify issues I had missed on screen, like the stroke around the text box on page two, version two.

Pop art cover for a book on typography

Final cover design

I think the final version has a good degree of consistency even though I have tried to mix the format up throughout the pages. I am pleased with the result, not so much from the design point of view but because I can really see how my worked has evolved throughout the course and how my confidence has built.

Rework

Following feedback from tutor, which suggested in the politest possible way I had fallen into a common novice trap I did some rework on the covers. He highlighted that my chosen design appeared to have been designed as if the front and back covers would be seen at the same time and that they needed to be more distinct yet still being connected. I have therefore taken elements of front and back and worked them up further.

 

 

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Exercise: Chance Housing Association

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Exercise: Chance Housing Association (Graphic Design One: pg. 119)

The Chance Housing Association has been set up to try and help first time buyers get onto the housing ladder and they want a brand image for their stationery. It is important to them that the Association is seen as being different from the other local housing associations – more modern, more helpful, and definitely welcome to young people wanting to buy a home.

They want to use their logo on their letterhead and office stationery and it will also be used somewhere on the sheets that hold the property details. It also needs to be reproducible in the local newspaper and professional trade magazines.

mindmap for a housing association logo

Chance Housing mindmap

I started the process by mind mapping and doing some research. Research into first time buyers brought up a number of characteristics:

  • 65% of first time buyers come from the top 40% of earners (2015/16)
  • First time buyers tend to be older as a result of the rising costs of housing
  • There are a range of schemes on offer to help first time buyers:
    • Shared ownership: Household income of less than £80k
    • Help to buy: starter homes (under 40s), get a minimum discount off market price
    • Rentplus: rent to buy

The brief for Chance Housing Association (CHA) suggests their client range is likely to fall within the Help to Buy age range. Younger buyers who are probably struggling to get on the housing ladder.

The mind mapping threw up two areas that I wanted to think about – the physical structure of buildings and the emotional aspects of buying your first home. A time of excitement but also of anxiety, marking a milestone. This reflects CHA’s brief about wanting to be seen as supportive and helpful.

I also researched the logos and brand identities of other housing associations and organisations involved in social housing, and several characteristics emerged:

  • Many use acronyms, usually where they do their name in full is also included
  • Some are just text but most include a symbol
  • Most are sanserif
  • The most common symbols seems to be a house or roof structure
  • The predominant colours are blue and green
  • Some include three or more colours, particularly if they are concerned with diversity

The colour schemes are interesting; I think the dominance of blues and greens is about projecting an image of safety, security and trustworthiness.

To be different the CHA logo perhaps needed to include:

  • Bright and warm toned colours
  • Not to include a building structure
  • Serif typeface
  • Be within a bounding box or frame of some sort

I did a lot of sketching, playing with type layout and exploring different symbols. Some of which conform to the sector characteristics and some that are less conventional. There were a couple beginning to emerge for a shortlist, I particularly liked the idea of some the symbols being the shape of arrows and houses, symbolising moving up as well as pointing to CHA.

I wasn’t sure I quite had what I wanted and went back to the mind map, from which I picked up the notion of architecture and structure. I then did some sketches developing the letters into what could be blueprints or floor plans.

That led me on to thinking about square typefaces and I found several that I thought could work that I downloaded from Dafont.

I then moved on to developing some of the sketches in Illustrator. I was really pleased with the ‘Cubic’ typeface (Logo set 1) but felt that ‘Squared Display’ probably looked too much like a nightclub logo. It was interesting to note at this point how much more comfortable I am now with scrolling through lots of typefaces and seeing them as a source for inspiration as much as images and layouts.

Logo set 2 is based on my own designs using the idea of a floor plan. I was pleased with how they developed and that the idea could be worked up. I think they look quite contemporary and are different to other logos in the sector but in the end I wasn’t sure how legible they would be.

Logo set 3 played on the house/arrow idea using strokes and fill and different colourways. Although they are very clean I am not sure these are distinctive enough and perhaps don’t have quite the right tone.

Logo set 4 were just experiments with different decorative typefaces, again playing on the notion of architecture and buildings.

I decided that Logo set 1 was the approach I would develop into the stationery and publicity materials. I was a bit concerned about the yellow and it was problematic when I photocopied the stationery so I added a grey stroke which seems to work fine. I like the way the ‘h’ of CHA echoes a house and they resemble a honeycomb, the hive as a home. I also think it is distinctive against the other housing association logos I looked at.

Chance Housing Association Stationery

 

CHA and other housing association logos

As I developed the stationery it really highlighted the issues that you need to address, the nature of the information to be included, legibility and readability, setting the tone and so on. I knew using yellow might be an issue so I photocopied the results at different points. This led to adapting the logo (without the box) so that it still works when printed or photocopied in black and white.

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Assignment Five: Your Choice, Part One

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Assignment Five: Your Choice, Part One – Idea Development

Brief 1: Book Design

Penguin Books have asked you to design anew house style for a collection of books on design for children and young people. They are starting with three titles: Colour, Typography and Photographs. Produce three covers – front, back and spine. The designs need to be recognisable as a series and at the same time be appreciated for their individual merits. The book dimensions are 190mm wide by 225mm high.

In addition they have asked you to produce the one on Typography, called A is for…Create an introductory chapter of at least four pages.

I started by defining the brief a little further. Children and Young People is a very broad market and it is unlikely a design for five years olds will work for fifteen year olds. I decided the market would be primarily Young Adult (defined as 12 – 18yrs; Young Adult Library Services).

I had already done some background research on Penguin Books, and having read ‘Penguin by Design,’(Baines & Pearson, 2005) I felt like I had plenty of scope for developing the designs. While they needed a degree of consistency, the cover designs could draw on a range of influences. Although Penguin is mostly associated with orange spines, it has used patterns and other colours so this didn’t feel too restrictive.

I then did my usual in terms of sketching ideas and thinking about the themes I might use to develop the designs.

I was a bit put off by the fact that the Typography book seemed to have a double title – both ‘Typography’ and ‘A is for…’ so in my sketches I played with some examples where they all had a title. But this also seemed inconsistent, why would you have a book on colour called ‘C is for…’ when the one on typography is ‘A is for…’? I was also a bit worried that the title might locate it in a much younger age group and could therefore be in tension with the age group I had chosen to work with. It seemed to me that this meant the cover needed to be eye catching enough to be taken off the shelf and explored.

During Section Four I found three books on typography that were both helpful and enjoyable:

  • Typography Workbook (Samara, 2004)
  • Playing with Type (McCormick, 2013)
  • How to Draw Type and Influence People (Hyndman, 2017)

The two activity books were particularly good for engaging me and were a bit more playful than some of the other resources I had found, which seemed to get very technical very quickly and I found a bit daunting as a non-specialist. I decided I would take a similar approach to encourage young readers to play with typography. I did a bit more research and found that Penguin do produce activity books so it would be in keeping with the brief.

I did more research around typography books for young people and found very little, apart from the truly delightful ‘Serif Fairy’ (Siegfried & Mann, 2007) I broadened the research to graphic design and found a few more titles, but not many – definitely a gap in the market!

Layout examples:

  • Typography Workbook – 230mm x 230mm, 3 column grid
  • Penguin by Design – 185mm x 220mm, 3-column grid
  • Playing with Type – 235mm x 235 mm, mainly 2 column grid
  • How to Draw Type… – 270mm x 230mm, layout is varied – single column to three
  • Graphic Design for Kids – 210mm x 230mm, two column grid

This seemed to imply that the dimensions I was working with were narrower than the other activity books I had seen. A challenge, but hopefully not insurmountable!

References:

Baines, P., & Pearson, D. (2005). Penguin by design: a cover story 1935-2005: Penguin Press.

Hyndman, S. (2017). How to Draw Type and Influence People: an activity book. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

McCormick, L. (2013). Playing with Type: 50 graphic experiments for exploring typographic design principles. Beverley, MA: Rockport Publishers.

Samara, T. (2004). Typography workbook: a real-world guide to using type in graphic design: Rockport Publishers.

Siegfried, R., & Mann, J. (2007). The Serif Fairy. New York: Mark Batty Publisher.

 

 

Assignment 4: Show Me (Part 3: Designs)

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I decided that I would work on two concepts for the final Show Me designs – a minimalist approach, and a Pop Art style.

Minimalist

I started with the Minimalist version and initially sketched out an alphabet to explore the minimum strokes that are needed to allow a letter to be legible. Fortunately, the word ‘type’ has capital letter forms that seem to lend themselves to this style – I’m not sure some of the rest work as well!

Hand drawn minimal alphabet

Minimal alphabet sketch

 

I then did a number of sketches of both the word ‘type’ and the possible layout.

I wanted to keep the cover sparse with a minimum of information. It features the title, symbols for the 3 sections and a bar code. I decided I would limit my palette to black, white and red, and I would use sanserif typefaces. I did a search for some minimal typefaces and looked at my existing collection. I then chose to use three typefaces – Infinity, Source Sans Pro, and Futura PT.

After looking at my sketches, and asking for some feedback from my family, I decided I preferred the version with the word ‘type’ descending across the page. Using InDesign I created the cover and began laying out the pages. This proved quite challenging in terms of how to provide the information and keep a simple layout with lots of white space. As a result I have gone with two double pages to keep the design consistent. I also elected to use a square format because it worked well with the cover typeface. I created three versions:

Version 1: I used a basic grid to set out the information, and added red to draw out particular elements and create breaks in the layout. Having initially tried the last page arranged vertically, I couldn’t get it to looked balanced so I moved to horizontal rows instead. I used Infinity for the large question mark because it echoed the cover typeface. I also created the visuals for the last page. I found several possible cats but decided on an outline version as it worked better with the rest of the format. I then adapted it in Illustrator to create more of a question mark tail.

(Click on cover image for slideshow)

Version 2: based on the first version but I changed the question mark typeface and went bolder with the red. I added tints behind the main body text, as well as more space between the headings and paragraph text on the final page.

Version 3: I reduced some of the red on the second page and changed the format on page four reducing the size of the question mark and putting the header across the top.

Pop Art

I used the same development process as for the minimalist version; some sketching and background research. I was particularly struck by Peter Blake’s ‘Dazzle Alphabet’ and looked at how I might create something with that influence.

Peter Blake images and Dazzle Alphabet © Peter Blake

Using Adobe Draw I sketched out an idea for the cover, I used this method because it is fast and I find this works well when I’m thinking things through. It is also really easy to use fill colour so I can see the composition develop quickly. I had originally thought I would use this as a base drawing, which I would then tidy up in Illustrator/InDesign.

However, I remembered some earlier feedback from my tutor about the final design losing some of the urgency and freedom of my original sketches. I decided to be brave and use this original digital drawing as the cover, this felt risky because its messy but it seemed to work with the Pop Art theme and I wanted to challenge myself to develop it. This proved quite difficult particularly having started with the minimal design, as soon as I used a grid structure in InDesign the layout started to tighten up again and there was a mismatch between the inside pages and the cover.

At this point I was close to dropping the idea and trying something else, but after researching some typefaces I thought I should carry on and keep developing it. I liked the contradictions of something being handwritten but now infinitely repeatable being used; it felt in keeping with the critiques underlying much of Pop Art about consumerism and mass production. I went on to develop three versions:

Version 1: uses bold block colours and lines drawn with the mouse so they are evidently hand drawn.  I decided on typefaces that echoed comics/80s advertising type text – Brush Hand New, From Where You Are and Lato. I also introduced repeating motifs, which was also a feature of Pop Art. I wasn’t sure this version pushed the concept far enough so decided to make changes.

Version 2: I changed the block colours on the inside pages and added a ‘whaam’ type motif with the 2000yrs. I also added black strokes to some of the typography to add to the popular culture type feel. This looked better but I thought the colours were still not quite right.

Version 3: For this version I went red on pages two and three, which I think works better with the splash motif. I also made the archetypal structures in the background a little more prominent.

I think overall the minimalist version is probably the most successful and I have a preference for its clean structure. I made a minor change to the last question mark (back to Infinity typeface), and removed the orphan from the quote on page one. I see this as the final version.

However, I am really glad I experimented with the other version, it is more fun and vibrant and in a style that is definitely out of my comfort zone. With each version I felt I was getting braver and I think this was important in terms of recognising some possible self-limiting assumptions I carry. It is hard to shrug off the notion of what ‘proper’ design looks like and be less constrained and more playful. I think I am starting to get better at experimenting and taking a risk on an approach that might not work out.

 

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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.

Assignment 4: Show Me (Part One – development)

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Mindmap show research for a typographic design assignment

Brief:

Design the font for use on the cover of a magazine called type and write a short article for the magazine using a range of typefaces, with typographic illustrations, drawing on all that you have learned in this section. The article should include sections on:

  • What makes a typeface interesting
  • How a typeface is constructed
  • Question marks
Mindmap show research for a typographic design assignment

Show Me mindmap

I began with my usual process of creating a mind map. A brainstorm of all the things that came to mind as I was thinking about the assignment. This raised a number of points:

  • The physicality of the production of type and how much of the history remains in the terminology we use
  • Its variety and the fact that typefaces are constantly evolving and morphing
  • A formalised anatomy and underlying rules for how best to work with type
  • How typography has been integrated into different artistic movements
  • Its role in conveying messages and therefore having a notion of ‘audience’

Three ideas emerged in terms of where I might take the design:

  • A minimalist approach
  • A Pop art/collage style
  • An approach based on the materiality of type and its origins

I had also been sketching, just playing with different approaches and layouts. I think it’s fair to say I’m not the most accomplished at hand drawn type but it helped me evolve the designs I would focus on.

I used a couple of online tools to try and help develop a typeface. One was based on my handwriting, which I deliberately exaggerated:

Example of a handrwitten typeface

Handwritten typeface

This was fun to develop but I don’t think it was ever going to be a serious option for my designs. I tried FontArk but found it difficult to use and it kept crashing.

I also went back to some of my earlier research, and examples in my visual diaries around Pop Art and minimalism. I continued collecting for my Pinterest boards and following feedback from my tutor for Assignment 3 I have started using my ‘Swipe File’ board as a more eclectic collection place, just pinning things that catch my eye rather than being organised into a particular theme.

I found a number of online resources like ‘Thinking with Type,’ that were really useful in terms of understanding type construction and design ideas. Alongside this I watched YouTube tutorials and did a lot of reading around the subject. I found ‘The Typographic Workbook’ particularly helpful.

I was starting to formulate my design ideas but realised I needed the text for the articles so I knew what I was working with in terms of content. I may not have followed the brief precisely but I decided to go with the aspects of typography that interested me. The first was around how typographic design needs to focus on both the micro and macro levels. This is important in relation to how we read and the fact that we don’t read letter by letter but scan and pause allowing time to process the visual information when we pause.

In terms of construction I suspect that was supposed to be about ascenders, decsenders, ligatures etc., but I was fascinated by the more fundamental construction. Western capital letters are based on five archetypal structures that apparently have remained unchanged for nearly 2000 yrs. This was intriguing and I could see how it might be incorporated into a design.

Alphabet laid out to show the five underlying structures

The five archetypal structures

I found a really useful thread on Quora about the origins of the question mark and this suggested some of the visuals I might include.

The research stage helped highlight a number of choices that I would need to make  as I approached my designs:

  • Tone
  • Style – serif or sanserif
  • Readability and legibility
  • Relationships and layout

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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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