Displaced by Ion

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This is a project called 'Displaced' by Ion from Behance online portfolios. I think it's really cool, the dissected parts of the letters work really well with the chosen typeface, I can't imagine this effect working with a thin serif font for example. I'm going to steal this effect and try and apply it in a different way in my current project, I want to see if I can make edges for the header and footer of some of my backing paper designs.

Designing Backing Paper for Frames

We now have our first studio brief of the second module 'Design Process'. The first brief asks us to design a set of 3 backing papers to go in photo frames, as seen when bought new. There are a few limitations, the sizes must be either 6x4 inches - 7x5 inches - 8x6 inches, or A5 - A4 - A3. Also, all vector artwork and Typography must be created in Adobe Illustrator and the final design and photography must be handled in Adobe Photoshop.

To start me off, I've been out today photographing what's already on the market to give me an idea of what I've got to compete with.

The backing papers for these wooden frames from Debenhams have a simplistic and minimalist feel to them, they get straight to the point. I think this is important, it puts focus on the frame itself which is essentially the key, it's a classic case of form follows function, which tends to make me think that I should go down this route when designing my images. At the end of the day, the target audience is the customer looking to buy the frame, and the intended reaction is for the customer want to buy it. Flashy and in-your-face imagery would only hinder that procedure. One thing to remember is: The customer is buying the frame, not the backing paper.

These three frames are also from Debenhams, however the design of the backing paper takes a different approach completely. The designer has chosen for the style of the frame to be complemented by imagery of a similar nature, for example: The first image shown compliments the rustic feel of the frame itself, I suppose this gives a good indication to the buyer into what kind of image would look good in the frame, I can imagine a photograph of a dog in this frame, but it wouldn't be appropriate for wedding photographs. Something else to consider when approaching my designs, even though it is a slightly different approach.

Here are some more photographs I took in other locations including Next & Clas Ohlson:

Neue Grafik Reissue

Lars Müller Pub­lish­ers are releasing re-prints of Neue Grafik, the graphic design journal that ran from 1958 - 1965. By Josef Müller-Brockmann, Richard Paul Lohse, Hans Neuburg and Carlo Vivarelli, this is essentially the essence of international Typographic Swiss style. There are still originals about but they're quite pricey, maybe the reissues will be a bit less, and if so it would make a lovely christmas present...

Type Journal:

Name: Akzidenz Grotesk

Released: 1896

Designer: Gunter Gerhard Lange

Style: Gothic

Classification: Grotesque

Suggested Origins: Lead

OUGD403 Module Evaluation

I’ll sum up my experience throughout this module by saying I’ve learned a lot. In terms of techniques, I feel as though I’m already so much more experienced than I was 2 months ago. I do think that as a designer I’ve not expressed my full potential yet, but I recognise that this module has been about collecting knowledge and techniques to apply, and I’m sure it will show in my future projects to come.

I’ve been properly interested in Typography for a while now, so it’s only natural that I would enjoy this module. I feel as though I’m familiar with the processes I must go through to create Typefaces now, and I’m hoping to have a good collection of them by the end of the course.

I can’t say I’ve found anything especially challenging, in comparison to a foundation diploma the workload is higher, but I like that, it’s what gets me excited. I like that there are a lot of things going on at once, and in reality it’s good to get used to this now as it certainly won’t slow down in the future.

I’m really looking forward to the next modules, where I can apply what I’ve learned so far.

Analysis of Akzidenz Grotesk

Akzidenz Grotesk is a grotesque sans-serif typeface designed by Günter Gerhard Lange in 1896 for the Berthold Type Foundry. It’s widely regarded as one of the original san-serif types, and still remains a popular choice for many designers. Personally it’s one of my favourite fonts, I prefer it to Helvetica, which incidentally enough is believed to be inspired by Akzidenz. For me, it achieves a similar effect to many other san-serif grotesque types by accomplishing total neutrality. This is the basis of minimalist typography, because it strips the connotations carried with a typeface down massively. For example, when one looks at ‘Impact’, the connotations associated with it are headlines, newspapers etc. because that’s where it’s been contextualised to us. When we look at a grotesque sans-serif typeface I believe you look past the connotations, and start to focus much more heavily on the denotations, what the thing itself physically is and represents.

In Akzidenz’ case it is a clean-cut modernist grotesque sans-serif typeface, we know this because of it’s uniformly weighted non-serifed strokes, this is clear to see once compared to a humanist sans-serif (for example verdana or Tahoma) which do incorporate more ‘human like’ strokes that vary their line weight. Another piece of anatomy that declares Akzidenz as a grotesque, and not neo-grotesque is the end of the curved terminals, they are angled and by no means parallel to the baseline which is often the case for many neo-grotesque typefaces like Helvetica.

Triboro Design (AisleOne Design Blog)

I don't really have to say much about this. It's absolutely classic Swiss style contemporary design. The mixture of grotesk fonts and meticulously placed grids does exactly what it's meant to.

Post Grotesk by Josh Finklea (AisleOne Design Blog)

Post Grotesk is a new contemporary Sans Serif Typeface from Josh Finklea that comes in 4 weights. Upon first glance it strikes me as a resemblance to Arial and Akzidenz Grotesk, what with the non-parallel terminals in contrast with Helvetica. It's always nice to see a double story lowercase 'g' too, that's a nice touch and adds a friendlier feel to most Sans Serif Typefaces.

Name: Post Grotesk

Released: 2011

Designer: Josh Finklea

Style: Gothic

Classification: Neo-Grotesque

Suggested Origins: Lead

Monoprint Induction

On Friday I had my induction into the Monoprint facilities. I really enjoyed the time we had there, and I think I'll probably make the most of it in future projects to come.

With Studio Brief 5 just having been set, it's got me thinking about the different production methods possible, and after Friday I'm thinking that Monoprint could be an interesting media to work with. Especially as the posters we are to design are meant to be high impact; I'm pleased I now have options in terms of what media is open to me.

Illustration Lecture

Today we had a lecture on the chronologies of Illustration with Matt Hudson. I thoroughly enjoyed it, Matt spoke with the passion the subject deserved. Loving to draw from a young age one of the reasons I'm studying the creative arts, I can imagine it's similar for a lot of people in this field. One thing that I picked up most of all was a point that Matt stressed heavily, and that is that Illustration isn't simply drawing. It needs 3 very important things before it gets that status:

Context: It needs a purpose, something to give it reason for existence whether that be a client or an audience etc.

Image: It has to have a form, whatever that may be, it's visual & aesthetic production is very important.

Concept: There must be idea and meaning behind the work, if not it just gets classified as a random drawing.

Another good point Matt made was that a well rounded adaptable Illustrator should be able to reflect the works tone of voice in the media being used either by aiding it, or by contrasting it to strike a juxtaposition within the piece. A good example that was shown that demonstrates this principle is this piece by Jillian Tamaki. It is clear that the illustration connotes emotions of sympathy and sorrow, it suggests this through the use of black watercolour.

I do follow certain design blogs where Illustration work is regularly posted, so I'm aware of some famous Illustrators, I particularly like Shepard Faireys work, I like the way he utilises colour schemes within his vector artwork to transcend the meanings he wants to get across. I also like that he uses the Typeface 'Gotham' by Tobias Frere-Jones which is one of my favourites. This lecture brought to my attention countless other Illustrators who's work I'm sure I'll enjoy, examples include:

Adrian Tomine - He does the front covers for The New Yorker magazine, I really love the way he makes you understand the subtleties within a piece, his work really makes you think. These below are some of my favourites:

I also found a homage piece that's been done, perhaps to mock one of Tomine's more famous pieces of work, I'm not really sure what it's about but I enjoyed it all the same:

I've also found the artist Malika Favre, who's vector artwork is absolutely gorgeous. Sleek, stylish & sexy.

It reminds me a bit of Jasper Goodall's Illustration work which I also really like:

Illustrator Processes

Here's a quick insight into the techniques I've been using as part of studio brief 2 where we have to create a vectorised typeface. I've already shown on here a new process I'd learn in our Adobe Illustrator tutorials, the patherfinder tool. These photos show how they've made a difference to my project; the typeface I started with was Century, and above you can see how I've used the patherfinder tool to remove parts of the glyphs in order to make it a sans serif typeface. The process is really quite quick, and with the combination of the 'edit pen' tool you can achieve some really accurate results.

I think I've already mentioned how I'm not a massive fan of century, so I found it surprising how much I liked it without the serifs. One big difference I made was the S, there's quite a lot been taken away from it, in that sense it's now quite minimal. I actually really like the new stylised version, but I'm aware it's not in keeping with the other characters.

I'm pleased I've learned these techniques and processes, because it means I can now take them and apply them in my own way.

Today's Poster Brief Crit

Today's group critique was a bit different in terms of format, the group was split in 2 and we took it in turns to walk round the other groups work and leave post-it notes as feedback. 

I got some decent responses actually, a lot of people seemed impressed with the ingenuity of combining 3 posters layered on acetate to create an overall design, with the option of different variations. One really important thing I picked up was that my tag line could be improved, originally it was "Don't let it go, over the top of your head", since then it's been improved to just simply "Don't let it go over your head". Which is a lot snappier and still transcends the message I'm trying to get across.

I think I'm going to play around with the colour scheme too before the final crit on Friday.