Tag Archives: Idea generation

A5: A Fairytale Rework

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My final rework has come about in response to feedback from my tutor about how some of my final pieces lose the energy of my original sketches as I move them into the digital packages. It is also a fun but reflective piece on my own journey through Graphic Design One and how sometimes I may have let Wendelin Witch get the better of me about the rules I should follow.

I decided for this last piece to throw caution to the wind and just let loose, I also wanted to work backward and forward between digital and analogue to see what difference that might make. I wasn’t too sure how to approach it but I was so taken with the Serif Fairy book that I thought about a much younger readership and a fairytale type approach. My tutor also suggested a ‘zine format could be a useful way of revisiting A5.

So I sketched a quick story board and Wendelin the TypeWitch was born!

8 cell storyboard skethces for a fairytale

Storyboard sketches A5 rework

I hadn’t decided if I should work in InDesign or Illustrator but in the end created a range of assets in Illustrator which I then printed and used to create analogue collages. It is designed to be an A5 stapled pamphlet and I have left it deliberately rough and ready, avoiding the temptation to tidy things up!

This process was great and I wish I had felt confident enough to do it earlier on. I know my tutor was encouraging it but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I guess I needed to feel I had a bigger toolkit before I could get there.

Family feedback seemed to think it was fun, but felt I was mean to melt Wendelin at the end!

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Exercise: Judging a book by its cover

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Exercise: Judging a book by its cover

Choose a book by an author you are familiar with. You are going to design two different covers for it, one using illustrations or photography and the other using just type. Design the whole cover including the spine and back page.

The hardest part of this exercise was choosing which book to work with! After a couple of false starts I decided to use ‘The Third Plate’ a book by Dan Barber. It has been published by Little Brown Book and Penguin in different editions.

The book that, perhaps more than any other in recent times, laid out the urgent imperative that to look after the land we grow our food on is to eat as best we can and vice-versa. It redefined nutrition, agriculture and flavour, and established Barber as the preeminent voice in food that is as ethical as it is excellent (The Guardian)

The book documents the research of Chef Barber as he explores the state of food production and the options we have going forward. He had been a proponent of the Field to Fork food movement (the second plate) but realised this was not a fundamental enough shift as it replaced high meat based diets with better meat rather than a more balanced diet which in turn creates more sustainable production methods. The third plate refers to the need to completely rethink our diets and move towards a more plant based focus. It is a fascinating and at times funny read, laying out the issues but doing so in a gentle tone. The book is divided into four sections – soil, land, sea and seed.

In terms of the brief I worked on the following parameters:

  • Non-fiction title
  • Paperback version
  • Based on the dimensions of the existing book
  • House styles of the published editions vary
  • The readership could be quiet varied – young people with an interest in environmental sustainability and food (probably 18-25yrs), chefs with an interest in the future of food, vegetarians/vegans, generalists with an interest in the future of food (probably 35yrs+ and female)
  • Sold online and in major bookshop chains

As usual I did a few sketches to start the design process.

Based on the above assumptions and sketches I created six designs:

  1. Literal representation of three plates against a wheat field (wheat is covered in detail in the book). Contemporary font against a photographic background. I decided to colour the title “Third’ green to reflect one of the premises of the book about moving towards a more plant-based diet. I took the colour of the sky and used that across the spine and back. (n.b. the black lines either side of the spine are just place markers and are not part of the design concept). I took the three plates and echoed them under the title on the back cover. Typeface: Myriad Pro (12,24,18,36,120 pt.).
  2. Same basic concept as version one but I wanted to make the ‘Third’ more prominent. I changed the typeface and extended it across the page. I shifted the plates down so more of the wheat is shown and added some drop shadow under the top plate (I suspect this might be a design crime from comments I have read online but I wasn’t sure how else to bring the plate forward!). I also used a lighter tone of blue. Typeface: Modern No 20 (150, 28 pt.) and Myriad Pro Regular (36, 18, 15, 12pt), Myriad Pro Regular semi bold (24pt)
  3. One of my sketches suggested a layered text approach to signify the three plates. I struggled to get the effect I wanted in Illustrator so ended up with a tiered version of different size characters in a chunky typeface to catch attention. They are red (meat based), white (farm to fork, to me a more neutral approach), and green (plant based diets). I used a lighter grey colour for the typeface on the back so it is a bit gentler. Typeface: TW Cent MT (12,18 pt.), TW Cent Condensed (48, 24 pt.), Rockwell Extra Bold (117pt)
  4. Another tiered typeface version, this time they are stacked like plates and I have added some drop shadow. I changed the cover to green and reversed out the rest of the text. I also added a large ‘Third’ on the back cover which might attract attention if the cover were face down on a table or shelf. Typeface: Rockwell Extra Bold (130pt), TW Cent MT Condensed (48, 30,15 pt.), TW Cent MT (24, 18, 12)
  5. This version was taken directly from one of my sketches. I wanted to make it quite loose so added watercolour effects in Photoshop to give the impression of falling soil and water. I initially used a san serif typeface in dark grey but wasn’t sure it worked very well so I went back to a serif font for the main title. The illustration is repeated on the spine. Typeface: Modern No 20 (24, 80 pt.), Source San Pro (12,15, 18, 24, 36 pt.)
  6. I changed the typeface for a more contemporary feel and ran the type in a circle as a metaphor for the plate. This was then set against an orange background to make it stand out. I took the circle as a motif and added it on the spine and on the back page. Typeface: TW Cent MT (12, 18, 24, 28, 75), TW Cent MT Condensed (28)

This was a great exercise for thinking about how design elements work together. Although I have noticed it elsewhere in the course working on this exercise really highlighted a need for attention to detail, which I am not always good at! It also showed me that small changes, different point sizes, adding tints etc, can have a big impact.

While I am still building my Illustrator and InDesign skills I am pleased to recognise that I am getting more comfortable with the programmes and have a better sense of what I can achieve with them.

For me versions 5 and 6 are probably the most successful because of their simplicity. Feedback suggested others preferred version 2 on the basis it was more likely to make them pick it up. I feel this one is a bit too ‘busy’ but could be wrong!

After some initial feedback I approached the Visual Communications Facebook Group. Their preferences were for both the image versions, and as ever they gave me some useful improvements. Suggestions included:

  • Reducing the size of the plates
  • Changing the plates
  • Lining the text up on the spine with the plates
  • Changing the font size of the sub heading on the illustration version
  • Making the green text slightly darker over the illustration
  • Rotating the spine text so it is more in keeping with convention!

These are the amended versions:

Rework

After the feedback from my tutor I have looked again at the relationship between the text and the images. Looking back I’m not entirely sure why I chose to centre everything, I think it was about the title being part of the plate but I don’t think it has been as successful as I had hoped. So I worked on several versions using the type in different ways.

I definitely prefer rework 4 because it gives the illustration room to breath and to attract readers. This has reinforced my learning about the value of feedback and creating different iterations. It has also shown the value of leaving something for a while and coming back to it. I found in doing this I was no longer so committed to the original versions and could more easily make changes. On a more challenging note it has also reconfirmed what seem like almost infinite choices (layout, colours, typefaces) and this can only be addressed by creating some boundaries (which I guess is usually fulfilled by the brief).

Assignment Two: Thinking of you

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The brief:

Create a set of greetings cards for sentiments or events that are worthy of a greetings card but are not currently catered for by card manufacturers.  The cards could be linked to other calendar events, obscure Saint’s days, sporting calendars or any other happening that is worth celebrating or commiserating. You may wish to explore some of life’s other landmarks that currently don’t feature in greetings cards, like getting your first grey hairs, being released from prison or any other personal landmark someone might want to share.

Design the cover of your card and the message inside. You may wish to include an envelope. Produce at least three finished cards.

Analysing the brief:

For me the key elements of the brief are:

  • Currently not catered for
  • Worthy of a greeting card

These were the starting points for developing my ideas.

Research and development:

My research process has been documented in my learning log, I worked through a number of phases:

  • Brainstorming ideas
  • Talking to friends and family for their ideas
  • Researching greeting cards and the greeting card market
  • Narrowing down options and developing visuals

Visualising ideas

Throughout the process I kept adding to my Pinterest boards (Swipe file, GD1 Exercises, Postcard Inspiration etc.) , I also developed sketches for a number of the possible ideas before I decided on a shortlist. I developed four cards based on different themes.

Card One: Nice Growing

Seven tumbnail sketches for a greeting card for gardners based on a lettuce

Good Growing sketches

This card was prompted by the lettuces I grew in the summer; with every lettuce I picked I felt a sense of achievement. I thought this would be a nice occasion to mark for anyone who has felt similarly – it could be for other gardeners, for allotment holders or even for windowsill growers. Rather than illustrate it I decided to use a photo. I then used brushes to add some dirt and make it look like the lettuce has just been laid on the card having been pulled from the ground.

In terms of the typeface I wanted something fluid and organic looking that was in keeping with theme. I envisaged that the cards would be bought by women, gardeners and possibly parents (whose children had grown something special).

Once I had decided on the cover I thought more about the buyer and imagined they would probably be practical people, possibly with an interest in environmental sustainability and as such there needed to be something else to the card. That’s when I came up with the idea of making the card do something more and using it as a planter in its own right. Inside there are faint markings for where to fold the card to create a small, environmentally friendly seed tray.

Card Two: Ssssnake

This card started more generally as a congratulations on a new kitten/pet idea and when I did some research it seemed like there were already quite a lot of these available particularly for furry pets. What I didn’t find was anything for reptiles and as a friend have given their son a snake a while ago it made me think this might be a better direction to take.

I did some online research and looked at photos and illustrations of snakes. Early on I decided that as this was likely to be a younger recipient it should be more interesting than a plain card so I wanted to make it a pop-up. Of the set this was the card that caused the most technological challenges in terms of my skills with Illustrator in particular. I did some sketching using Adobe Draw including the colour, which I was then able to transfer as a Jpeg to my desktop. Once I transferred it to Illustrator the colours were completely off, it looked the same in Photoshop but not in Illustrator and I was completely stuck about what to do.

Because I wanted to do the whole set as vectors in illustrator and I had set up the template I decided to persevere. Using the pen tool I then recreated the snake across the front and back of the card and added colour using fill and the brush tool. It was a laborious and at times frustrating process but it has helped me learn some of the features of the programme. Using a similar approach I created the inside of the card and the popup snake which I decided to leave blank so it could be coloured in and personalised to the recipients own snake. It took a little experimenting to find the right place to put the pop-up but in the end I was happy with the effect.

Card Three: Nice Ink

In America nearly one in four people have a tattoo, in the UK it is nearly one in five. They appear to have become more popular with younger people with one in three of 18 to 44 yr olds in the US having a tattoo (YouGov 2015). As an artform tattooing has also evolved involving more subtle and ‘watercolour’ type effects. As someone who got a Tattoo in her 30s I thought this was something to celebrate and while there are some cards available these seem to be mainly aimed at the Tattoo artist rather than the Tattoo recipient.

I wanted to create something that had a contemporary feel and was probably aimed at women. I therefore thought it needed to have a front cover with a more delicate Tattoo style.

I decided to add an internal border that had a reference to more traditional Celtic style Tattooing, also recognising that people tend to have more than one Tattoo. People tend to get Tattoos that are meaningful to them so I wanted the card to celebrate and acknowledge a new Tattoo.

The initial drawings were done with Adobe draw on my iPad, which I then transferred and developed in Illustrator. This took much longer than anticipated because I had to learn how differently the brushes behaved from those in Photoshop. After some consultation with my family members I decided to go with the two scrolls rather than a single central scroll.

It got a little busier as an image than I had intended, I was thinking along the lines of the rose Tattoo I found through my research (Tattoo mood board 2), but it seemed to need the balance of the additional Lilies and leaves   It definitely felt like something that I could keep adding to forever so I had to get to a point where I felt it worked well enough and to be disciplined enough to leave it alone at that point.

Card Four: When in doubt…

Six thumbnail sketches on the theme of baking

Bake Sketches

I was in two minds about whether to include this card as it was the simplest of the set and uses a stock photograph rather than one of my own.  I have a number of friends who work in the food industry and there is obviously a lot of food content on social media and TV so I thought a cooking/baking card might be fun. Something lighthearted, perhaps in the vein of the ‘Keep calm…’ themes. I did some early sketches, which I was reasonably happy with but then when I was looking online I came across this image, which immediately caught my attention.

I have used it in part because it posed an interesting debate for me in terms of being a photographer and being a designer. As a photographer I was uncomfortable about using someone else’s image, but as a designer I was looking for something that communicated a message. After all the brief doesn’t say ‘using only images created by you design a greeting card.’

It seemed to me it was too good an image not to use and it conveyed the idea of baking being fun; something you might do when things are getting tough; something to do with friends or your family. I experimented with using text inside and out and feedback suggested that having text on the front worked better. It was also an interesting experience in that sometimes simple solutions work as well as complicated ones as the section on Occam’s Razor in the course materials suggests.

 

 

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‘Job Well Done’ ideas

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Thoughts for a ‘well done on finishing your report/thesis/dissertation’ greetings card, based on quotes and sayings:

  • It always seems impossible until it is done. Nelson Mandela
  • You did it!
  • She believed she could, so she did!
  • The pride in finishing a marathon is much greater than all the pain endured during the marathon
  • The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it. Hemmingway
  • A job well done stays well done forever
  • Facing challenges with strength, determination, and confidence is what matters, and you have done it! Congratulations
  • People forget how fast you did a job – but they remember how well you did it
  • Put on your positive pants!
  • You did great
  • Pat on the back! The final full stop!

These suggest different sentiments that the card could convey visually; the effort, the celebration, a journey, attention to detail and so on. It is also possible that one of the designs could be just typography which is something I hadn’t thought about before.

Assignment Two Development

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I started thinking about assignment two ahead of time in late August; I thought it would be a good idea to give myself time for things to percolate. I also started talking to friends and families about what they thought were gaps in the greeting card market. This made me think about some of our recent life events and what sort of cards might have been appropriate. This led to a long list and I started doing some thumbnail sketches of the different themes:

  • Your first harvest (I had not long pulled up my first lettuce of the season)
  • Summer solstice
  • Your first kitten
  • Congratulations on eating your greens
  • Well done for getting active
  • Not checking your e-mails all weekend!
  • Baking your first cake
  • Your new pushbike
  • Finishing that report
  • Congratulations on your new pet snake
  • Congratulations on your first tattoo

Over the weeks that followed I gradually narrowed the list – partly by those that interested me and partly by those that were genuinely gaps in the market. Summer solstice and kittens seem to be well catered for and there are lots of generic ‘well done’ type cards.

The ones that immediately attracted me were:

  • Harvest
  • Greens
  • Baking
  • Snake
  • Tattoo

I started collecting and pinning different ideas, thinking about relevant markets and making some more thumbnail sketches.

 

Exercise: Book cover design

Gallery

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Exercise (p.40 OCA Graphic Design): Your brief is to design a stunning and contemporary cover for one of the 20th Century’s most acclaimed authors, HG Wells. When you have a range of ideas and have notes in your learning log, make some rough drawings or sketches to show your ideas.

I could sense a little hesitation when I first read through the brief, this sounds like ‘proper’ graphic design! Rather than worry about whether I could come up with an appropriate design I thought about the research process. I started with an overarching mindmap drawing out some keywords, identifying research needs, thinking about different angles on the brief and drawing out some of the decision process. This process helped me think about which books I might design the book cover for, secondary online research showed that the most common titles for this sort of exercise seem to be ‘War of the Worlds,’ ‘The Invisible Man,’ ‘The Time Machine,’ and the ‘Island of Dr.Moreau.’

When I looked at HG Wells’ bibliography I came across a number of short stories that I hadn’t read before and decided this was the direction I wanted to take, that way I could perhaps develop something more distinctive. The short stories are full of rich symbolism with a glorious sense of the Gothic; several of them reminded me of Grand Guignol plays. I then decided on the three short stories I wanted to work with and did a further mindmap drawing out keywords for each of the titles. As I did this I had a sense I was starting to visualise how the design might develop, I could see some layouts in my mind’s eye.

In parallel I looked at lots of other examples for inspiration and tried to analyse the designs in terms of what I felt worked and what I might have done differently. I am now deep into playing with typefaces and thinking about which designs I might develop.

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Assignment One: Introducing Myself

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Introducing myself – the final set

Introducing Myself – the process

Initially, on tackling this assignment I was thinking in terms of a coherent series but as I began developing different ideas I decided to use it as an opportunity to experiment with a range of techniques and approaches. I started with a mindmap and developed the ideas from there. After the minimalist sketches I worked on lots of little thumbnail sketches to develop more ideas.  I have created a set of five postcards that introduce different aspects of my personality, my interests and my life.

 Minimalist Books

As a starting point for the set I knew I wanted to try something very stripped back and quite minimalist. It is not a style I am very familiar with so I thought this would help me start to think in graphic design terms. I did some research online and started a Pinterest board for my postcard inspiration. During the research I found the work of Genis Carreras and that really helped me think about how I might communicate the essence of something important to me (particularly his Values and Philographics series).

Using a mindmap as a starting point I made four small sketches based on a notional ‘work, rest & play theme,’ these then developed into four postcard size ideas, of these it was Work and Books that I preferred. It wasn’t until I had worked on some of the other postcards that I then came back to this set and decided to go with books. I also felt it was something I might be able to try in Illustrator.

Johari Window

The brief made me think a lot about how best to introduce myself. Whether I should represent my work, my home life, my personality traits or preferences and so on. This led me to question how much it is ever possible to share anything that might go beyond the superficial. How can I introduce what I might not even know about myself?

I do a lot of personal development work and use a variety of models and was reminded of the ‘Johari Window’. I decided I wanted to include this as one of the postcards and quickly sketched the two by two matrix.  I did an internet search and found that almost all the diagrams used for the model are four boxes with text in each but I wanted something more visual and very simple.

I did an initial sketch using circles (like ‘minimalist books’ it was in part inspired by the work of Genis Carreras) and decided to go with that approach, I didn’t do any alternative versions as this felt right very quickly. I then decided that the simplicity leant itself to my first tentative steps to learning Illustrator.  I used the full circle for those aspects of me known to myself and to others, half circles for those elements known only to me or only to others and then a black rectangle for those hidden aspects. Where I did try alternative versions was with the colours but given the infinite variety available this felt a bit like falling down the rabbit hole! I’m not sure I got the colours quite right but I was really pleased to get as far as I did in Illustrator!

Smile

Two postcard size collages with people laughing, cats, cupcakes, pencils and a beach

Alternative Smile Collages

Smile was prompted by my enthusiasm to do something playful and built on some earlier collage work I had done for a previous module. I could have made it a Photoshop composite but I wanted to keep it as tactile as possible and preserve the cut edges. I simply thought of things that made me smile, collected some images from my archives and royalty free sites and played on the page. I created three collages and chose the bicycle version for the final selection.

I really enjoyed making these and was surprised how quickly they came together. It was a good reminder to play and not be too caught up with ideas of ‘perfection.’ The sunflower was printed just as my printer was playing up but I decided to keep it because I quite liked the effect. I’m not sure whether ‘Smile’ fits a graphic design label but it certainly says something about me!

 

 

Still life

An early idea in the formstorming was based on some of my recent still life work. I have spent some time researching the history of still life and particularly the Vanitas tradition. The Tulip for me has now become loaded with meaning – connoting beauty, wealth, capitalism, economics, life and death. I experimented with framing the the tulip in different ways and decided on the less cropped version. I wanted to show an almost ethereal tulip and to include the text ‘still life’. The words are arranged for the reader to read them in different ways – stillness, life, still life the genre, and still living!

 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This was the last of the ideas to emerge and came out of a desire to create something different in format. As the others were evolving I was trying to think of something that might have a more sculptural or ‘off the page’ feel to it. This was in part influenced by some recent photographic work on still life where I was trying to break the conventional frame of the image.  As I was continuing with collecting for my Pinterest Board I came across the book cover by Nina Jua Klein.

This was just the inspiration I needed and it got me thinking about what text I would use by way of introducing myself. I went through favourite books, articles and so on but nothing quite landed. A lot was happening around current affairs at the time in terms of Brexit, migration, horrendous atrocities and complex national conflicts and so on. It was also the time of the Olympics and Paralympics. I was reminded of the 2012 Paralympic opening ceremony (I have a connection to one of the two Artistic Directors) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) presented itself. I felt it was a perfect text to use in terms of my concerns for social justice, equality and human rights in general.

The UDHR also felt right because Article 27 enshrines the right to participate in the cultural life of the community and I know how privileged I am to be able to do so.

Article 27.

 (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

I experimented with a range of layouts, and after many hours of cutting up and re-positioning the strips I produced a sculptural version, I then photographed the final result.

All the postcard backs were produced using Publisher, I didn’t feel I was ready to tackle InDesign but that is next on the list. With hindsight it was probably a mistake to do it this way as I then needed to make some convoluted format changes to get them to a suitable state to upload. I should have been brave and done them all in Illustrator, which I think I would do in future.