Design is about doing. Letter, Word, Sentence, Paragraph.

Brief: 

Competition Brief

This brief is a live competition brief. You are required to submit a series of three typographic posters that focus on the word "opposites".

Dictionary Definition

I began by defining the word opposites, to really understand what it meant, and to help find inspiration from this meaning.

- Being on the other side

- Completely different

- One member of a binary pair of opposites cannot be the other

E.g.

Adjective - opposite directions/side

Noun - hate is the opposite of love

Adverb - [object] is the opposite to my [object]

Keywords

Incompatible, pairs, across, other, dissimilar

Initial Ideas

Research

I have written down some initial ideas, which I then collected some research for, to help me to decide which idea to choose, as this is only a one week brief, I do not have time to lose by changing my mind at a later date.

- Words (Eww, Yuck, Gross) spelt out with food combination that don't go well together, for example, cereal with mince. The letters could literally be cut out of food (such as the cakes made in typogateux) or could be placed together with different foods.

- Similar food idea, this time 'Eww' would be made out of food which is typically known for being disgusting, such as sprouts. This word would be placed next to a word like 'Yum', which would be made out of popular food, such as cake.

- Colour opposites, as found in the colour wheel, placed next to each other - e.g. blue and orange

Each word could be the colour of its opposite.

- Ambigram of opposite words, e.g. love and hate. (An ambigram is a design that may be read as one or more words from the form it is presented but also another viewpoint. The words can be the same word, or different, such as the opposite form)

- Quotes about opposites e.g.

1. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. If you hate someone, you still care.

2. The opposite of good is not evil, but apathy. 

3. Opposites attract

4. Hate is the opposite of love. Hate is a strong word, but then again, so is love.

(More on research page)

- The grass is always greener on the other side; people always want the opposite to what they have. For example, people with curly hair may want to have straight hair, someone who is busy may want to relax, but if you did have what you want, you wouldn't want it anymore. Sentences regarding this thought.

-  The letter forms could be doing the actions of the words they display, but they would be placed next to their opposites. e.g, run/still, stop/go, start/finish.

- The letter forms could have personality traits / physical attributes, and they would be placed next to their opposite. e.g, fat/thin, young/old, shy/confident, big/little, tall/small, clever/stupid, nice/horrible, pretty/ugly

- The writing could be reversed, such as displayed being reversed in a mirror.

- The letter forms could have contextual meanings, showing opposites such as in class or wealth. Rich could be next to poor, and each word would be adorned with decoration relevant to its meaning. For example, rich could be wearing pearls, where poor could have scruffy rags. Also, dirty, which would be dusty, could be next to clean, which would be sparkly. (Text with image)

- Opposite sides of the world. A map of the world could feature 'you' and 'me' and opposite places, to suggest a long-distance friendship/relationship. Could have a quote underneath to explain situation. 'You took my heart to the opposite side of the world.' Also, the text could be made out of the flag of the country where it is placed.

- Relevant illustrations could replace letters in a word, but allowing the word to be readable still. Day could be placed next to night, but the a could be replaced with a sun, and the i could be replaced with the moon. (Image as text)

- A series of photographs from day could be arranged to make up the word day, with obvious daytime activities/weather situations etc. This collage would be placed next to a night one.

- Changing the quote 'opposites attract' with the idea of a broken heart being shown through text.

- There are two opposing sides to a story, or to a person. A good and a bad conscience exists. There could be an illustration of a person with good on one shoulder, bad on the other, but each word would represent what it means, such as a halo on good and devil horns on bad.

Idea

Opposite - Yuck & Yum, Mmm & Eww and Tasty & Gross. One refers to disgusting food, the other refers to delicious food, in my opinion, or to stereotypical taste.

Concept - I will create the letter forms of the opposing words out of the delicious or disgusting foods, and then photograph these.

Possible foods I could use:

Pizza (easily cut), cake (baked into shape), chocolate bar (pieces snapped out), bread (easily cut), roll out icing (easily cut)

I did some primary qualitative research by asking my friends what foods they liked and which they disliked.

'yuck' foods - baked beans, fish, nuts, custard, turkish delight, pickles, prawns, mushrooms, hummus, pineapple, sprouts, spicy food

'yum' foods - pizza, lasagne, chocolate, pasta, peas, cheese, ham, bread, bananas, spaghetti, duck, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, chocolate pudding, carbonara, noodles, sweet and sour chicken, yoghurt, pancakes, grapes, apples, steak, ribs

my opinions

'yuck' foods - sprouts, baked beans, eggs, turkish delight, nuts, fish

'yum' foods - cake, chocolate, strawberries, pasta, pizza, oranges, yoghurt, tomatoes, sausages, bacon

New Idea

After pricing up how much it would cost me to buy the food for my initial idea, I decided to change my idea, as each poster would have at least 6 letters on it, and I needed to create three posters, so this could become quite an expensive brief. Also, I have worked with food before, for typogateux, and know that it takes a long time to turn food into typography, and I thought that I didn't realistically have time for my initial idea considering this is a week only brief. So, I decided to go along with one of my previous ideas, which is similar in the sense that it will still be 3d, as I will be photographing objects.

Opposite - Blue & Orange, Red & Green, Yellow & Purple

These are opposite colours on the colour wheel

Concept - I will spell out the name of a colour with objects that are the colours opposite. I will do the same for the opposite colour, and include this underneath so the idea is obvious.

Photo shoot

I gathered many items of different colours to arrange for my letters. I took quite a few photographs of each letter to ensure that I would get a good shot amongst the blurry photographs.

Thumbnails

These thumbnails show possible typographic poster designs for my colour opposites idea. They are just quick designs I created during the week, with some ideas being from before my photo shoot and some after, helping me to decide how I will lay out the final posters.

Initial Poster Layout

These are the posters I presented in my crit at the end of the week. They are not completely finished; I would like to neaten them up before actually submitting them for the competition.

  

Final Posters

These posters do not look much different to the original ones, however they are a lot neater, as I have made sure each letter is the same size and aligned correctly, and I have also removed the background. 

End of Module Self Evaluation

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I have learnt how to create a moving image, something which I enjoyed greatly as I have never done anything like this before. I haven't put this new skill to full use, as I decided not to make a moving video for my Collection 100 product, but would like to create a video in a future module.

Through the photo shop workshop, as well as through my own experimentation which followed, I have learnt a lot about photo shop. Previously, the processes I had been using to edit my images had been destructive, meaning that I couldn't go back to the original image if I needed. This workshop has been useful, as I created all of the dinosaur pages in photo shop, so I had the opportunity to apply the new things I learnt to my Collection 100 work.

I have learnt about different book folds and binding. This practical research process inspired me to create a concertina book for my Collection 100 final piece. The prospect of creating a book previously had always seem daunting, so I had always stuck to flat pieces. By doing something different to what I would usually do I feel much happier with my final piece. 

I learnt how I can translate data into graphics through the task of plotting life events into a graph, as well as researching info graphics in the What is Graphic Design for Screen brief. I haven't applied this new skill to my work for Collection 100 as I didn't think info-graphics were relevant for my target audience, although in hindsight, simplifying the information I gathered may have been possible with the use of info-graphics.

2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

In this module I have learnt a lot about research, from why it is important to different types of research. I have done a lot more of it, and made sure that it is relevant. Previously the only research I really did was secondary research of images. For this module there has been both primary and secondary research, as well as qualitative and quantitative research. I have used the internet and books, as well as other approaches, such as setting up facebook groups, questionnaires and actually testing out my product.

In particular, in the What If group brief we did a lot of research, not only of graphic design, but with our audience to make sure there was actually a place for our idea. Through this research I have learnt that what I think is needed or is a good idea may not actually be the best idea, the only way to know which idea would work the best is to find out what the target audience are looking for and to test the idea. Therefore, I think the primary qualitative research which I gained through methods such as questionnaires and responses to a facebook group has been the most informative to help with my design process.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I have realised that when things don't go right this is not a weakness, in fact, mistakes and wrong decisions are useful, and that is what this module has been all about. Unlike in the previous module, in this module I haven't just gone with my first idea, no matter how good I think it may be. Instead, I have thought of many ideas, tried out different things, as well as letting my ideas develop and change because of things that have inspired me, things that have gone wrong, as well as comments I have received in crits. 

Learning about type and grid in a visual language session has made me ensure that there is a visual consistency with the grids of all my products. This was especially important when creating a book with over 100 pages. Previously I wouldn't have made sure my measurements or layout were exact. 

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

Despite a lot of progress, I haven't improved on all the things I wanted to in the last module. I think the quality of presentation is still a weakness in my work. I haven't really experimented with different stocks and paper sizes as I had wanted to. I think creating stickers to go with my book for Collection 100 could have made it more exciting. 

A weakness is not making sure that my product is understandable earlier on. Through this module, I have learnt that the ideas and thoughts in my head may not be what other people see. Especially if a product has to do the talking for itself, its important that I regularly ask for feedback from tutors as well as asking the opinions of others, in particular the target audience. 

I think I should have thought more about the content of my Collection 100 book before starting to actually create the pages. I did initially plan to make cards, so when I decided to make a book instead I should have thought more about the content, instead of straight away turning my ideas for the cards in to a book. I created 100 dinosaur colouring pages as well as activity pages and introductory pages. If my idea had been 100 pages instead of 100 dinosaurs, I think I would have had more time to concentrate on improving the quality of each page. Also, I could have included more activities and this range would have been a better way to keep the readers attention. 

With a book you have to consider how the pages work with each other when placed next to each other on a double page spread, but as I had initially planned to create cards, I hadn't put much thought in to this. There were some pages I had to re-design after not considering this until later on in the project, and there are still some pages I am unhappy with. If I was creating the book again, I would create more mock-ups before making the final piece, so I could ensure that all of the parts of the pages were where I wanted them.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

In the next module I would like to learn how to use different software, as I feel that there could be a better programme to edit book pages on, instead of photo shop, which is more useful for the manipulation of photographs, as can be seen through the postcards I created for the photoshop brief. I think if I knew of a better way to arrange the pages on the computer before printing, I would be happier with the layout of the final piece.

Next time I think I will create more mock-ups of my product, and print these on different stocks and at different sizes. This is a similar to how in the previous module I wanted to ensure that in future I was not rushing in with my first design idea. I need to not just choose the simplest stock or size, or the first one I think of, but to experiment. I think I will be able to create much more exciting, eye-catching pieces if I was to do this differently next time. 

I think since the last module the way in which I work has improved, as the PPD time management sessions made me realise the amount of time I spent doing things. However, I am still not managing my time as effectively as I could be, especially during stressful times. There were a lot of things going on at once at the same time as this module, such as the critical studies essay and visual language work, and at times I have struggled with completing my work. If next time I kept more up to date with to-do lists, and planned ahead about what needed doing, I wouldn't need to rush to complete anything but could ensure every piece of work was the quality I intended it to be.

I think I need to consider what is the most important part of the module. I realise I have spent quite a while on the photo shop brief as I found it the most enjoyable and because I found I was learning a lot through my experimentation. Yet, due to the time I spent on this, my Collection 100 work suffered slightly.

Next time I will consider the cost of the product I am making before I start to make it. I was aware that the costs would affect the product, and I feel like I have limited my designs because of this. In future, if I can plan ahead for what I will need to print, I could have the best quality printing and good stock instead of choosing the cheapest stock in the end as I had so much to print. With about 30 a3 sheets for my Collection 100 book, this would have been quite expensive to all print in the digital print room.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas
(5= excellent 4=very good 3=good 2=average 1=poor)
Attendance = 4
Punctuality = 5
Motivation = 3
Commitment = 3
Quantity of work produced = 3
Quality of work produced = 3
Contribution to the group = 4

Collection 100: Dinosaurs - Final Piece

Front Cover

Introductory Pages

Back Cover

100 Dinosaur Cards

Photographs of Final Book

Packaging

Primary Qualitative Research

I decided to collect some primary research on whether or not my product actually works and makes sense for the intended audience of 7-8 year old girls and boys. I gave a few children a sample of a few colouring pages, and the responses I received were positive. The comments I received were about the illustrations, which were described as 'cool'. By actually showing my product to the intended audience I feel a lot more confident about my product.