Group Work
For this new brief, we were all put into groups. My group is number eight, and in my group is: me; Kirsty H; Mitch; Matt C and Mitch. We had to list skills that each of us had, and then bring these together as our group skills. We then had 30 minutes to create a poster that showed what our skills are within graphic design.
Poster 1
Our Skills
- Computer skills
- Ideas
- Hand made
- Typography
- Illustration
- Organisation
- Writing
- Primary research
- Screen printing
- Illustrator/photoshop
Design ideas
- Teamwork - each letter spells a different quality
- Yearbook style page with illustrations of each member of the group
- Recipe or sum showing what is needed to make a good team
- Diary entry with doodles and information about the group
- Typography only poster with speech listing our skills
- Illustration of each group member showing use of a different skill
- Word collective spelt out with images relating to our qualities making the type
Together we agreed on the recipe page idea with the ingredients for the perfect group. We decided on the word 'collective' to be our heading. As we are group eight, we have chosen 'Collective VIII' as a group name for now.
Poster 2
We were then given 10 minutes to either neaten or change the first poster. For the second poster, instead of just neatening up the first poster, we decided to go with a new design idea, of having our skills listed as the titles of books on a book shelf.
Poster 3
We were then given 15 minutes to create a poster which would sell our qualities.
Qualities
- Innovative
- Motivated
- Talented
- Creative
- Trendsetter
- Ultimate
- Fresh
- Reliable
- Outside of the box
- Mix of talents
- 5 Creative Genius's
- 5 a day
We decided to create a typographic poster showing five of these qualities, that we deemed to be most important, each in a different font.
Brief: You are required to produce a graphics response to your chosen task that engages with a specific audience. Your response should consider the context and environment in which you aim for it to be delivered. You should aim to identify, analyse and use existing means of distributions in order to select an appropriate method of communication.
Chosen task
Out of the list of tasks, the ones that we were particularly interested in were: - get people to try something new - get people to read more - get people to give more - get people to talk to communicate
We decided to think about each of these further before deciding which one we would choose to answer.
Notes
Get people to read more - Read more of what, books, blogs, or something else? Books are usually better than the film. Books may not be seen as 'cool' to a younger audience. Students do not seem to read as much fiction despite being intelligent people studying for degrees. US survey shows 1 in 4 did not read any books last year. We could find facts and figures as well as completing our own survey to find out information. There is a whole new world in between two covers (Stylist article). World book day has just passed, there was a scheme where volunteers signed up to distribute free books on to others to encourage them to read. Look into book clubs/ top book lists. Could recommend books. There could be a place at college to pass on books, where you donate your old books then pick up a new one. Relating to graphic design - how to get people to read your books, by showing the ideal number of words of a line and other techniques. Humorous list of how to get people to read more - by spending less time showering etc. Poster showing the benefits of reading. Competitions and prizes for book readers. Could encourage people to attend a book swapping event.
Get people to talk to communicate - Could be interpreted in different ways, such as getting people to speak out about bullying, and talk about their feelings. Or getting people to talk face to face rather than communicating via facebook. People have more friends on facebook than they do in real life and some post many status's everyday rather than talking to real friends. Another way this could be interpreted is looking at teaching people different languages and regional phrases. A card game would be a social activity that requires talking to learn about communication. Could involve interesting typography. An animation could be made to teach sign language. Adverts for a new language class or a social group for international people away from home could encourage people to talk more.
Get people to try something new - Try a new product - advertise this. Try a new career - advertise a job agency, encourage people to find their dream job. Learn something new - such as a new instrument, a new language etc. Get fussy eaters to try a new food everyday. Get people to listen to music/watch films they usually wouldn't. Try something new everyday and record it on a blog.
Get people to give more - Red nose day is coming up, could do something for this. 'Do something funny for money'. Could create invites/adverts for a fundraising event, such as red food only dinner party or red fashion show. It is currently RAG week at college so could look at how they are fundraising. Raising money for charity is difficult in today's financial climate, so could convince people to give time not money, and to become a volunteer. Could collect research by looking at facts and figures and asking people to anonymously tell us how much they donated last year.
We decided on the task get people to give more based on our initial ideas from our research.
Problem: People don't have as much money in today's climate so they may feel they can't give to charity.
We intend to: show people that it is not all about money, they can give blood/skills/time/clothes/love etc.
Method of delivery: Posters (around college), mailshots, website, advertisements for an actual event.
Audience: All ages, but particularly people who think they can't afford to give.
Week One
Initial Concept Proposal
We created these project proposal boards to show in our first presentation crit.
Ideas after crit [Friday]
'Give with your heart and not your wallet'
- Get everyone in the class to bring stuff in on the day of the final presentation which we can then take to a charity shop
- Get people from college to donate their artwork, which we can give away for free/ask for a donation for charity. Make a forum and send email out around college.
- Hold a clothes swap shop in college
- Posters showing the time things like giving blood or giving to a charity shop take, with comparisons to everyday activities
After the crit we thought about the direction this brief would take us, helped by the feedback from Amber and Jo. We decided that before moving forward, we each needed to do various primary and secondary research to help our ideas evolve.
Ideas after initial research [Monday]
We all sat down to talk about our ideas and what we had thought about over the weekend. We thought that instead of focusing on charities in general, which we found already had a lot of graphic design to help support them, we could try the idea of helping other students out, relating to the idea that charity starts at home.
-Have a charity bin in the student union where people could donate unwanted goods, as this is easier than going into town to the charity shops. An incentive to give could be free artwork.
- Hold a student orientated swap shop instead of a clothes one, this is more specific and unique. Students could also swap their work. Create promotional material for this.
- Posters relating to what you could have done in the time you have done something not as useful.
- Mail shots given to students in accommodation telling them ways to give more
- Signs for in queues where it says however minutes to go, in this time you could have done...
Mitch's Posters
Idea of free art
Kirsty's Poster
This is a poster Kirsty created trying to make giving blood seem more appealing to younger people.
Discussion [Monday]
Later on on Monday we decided to have a talk with Amber as we felt we were at a dead end with our ideas. After doing secondary research, we found that a lot of our ideas weren't unique. For example, Paper girl Leeds gives out free artwork and there is already a student swap shop website.
We discussed how we could change our idea to 'get people to give more to themselves'. In the long run, by helping themselves to live better lives, people will help the world. We thought about how we could get each member of our class to tell us something small that they wanted to change about themselves, and then try to give them simple ideas to motivate themselves. We have the opportunity with this to make this task light hearted. We could also link back to our initial idea of saying that in the time it takes to do this, you could have done that...
Joe: Getting a job
Charlie: Working
Sadie: Getting out of bed
Beth: Doing CTS and Exercise
Lisa: Putting pen to paper - Creative writing, writing up notes
Sarah P: CTS, Blogging
James: Tanning fags
Chris: CTS, More walking
Sam: More Cardio
Chloe: Fitter, eat healthier
Marty: Get a job
Kirsty F: Go swimming
Frankie: Go on an adventure
Liv: More adventurous with work / Save money
Mitch : Ride more
Steph : Not feel the need for reassurance
Kirsty H: Start running
Claudia: Stay in college longer
Fran: Learn a new language
Eddie: Grow a moustache
Yafat: Healthier meals
Sophie: Learn more - science
Liam: Get back into tennis
Will: Start swimming
Kirsty A: Swimming
Ben H: Acting in Leeds
Alex: Walk instead of getting taxi
Luke: Gym More
Lewis: Learn a new language (Japanese)
Niall: Listen more
Max: Go for runs
Chris L: Go to the gym
Baljeet: Get a regular sleeping pattern / eat veg
Charlotte: To not eat wheat
Sarah Roberts: Stop procrastinating
We realised that many of these goals were similar and could be categorised. We noticed the main groups to be: healthy eating, fitness, learning a new language, improving college work and taking on a new adventure.
Some initial responses to these ideas were: to create recipes, meal plans, and show food information and the benefits for healthy eating; to create a map showing the location of sports events, and the prices; to create a calendar to improve time keeping and to create posters and sticks to help someone learn a few words of a new language. We decided to look into motivational phrases, and then create a few design ideas for one category. The category I am looking at is healthy eating.
Next step: motivational posters
