Creative ads...

Simple but effective...

in other words...

I feel I have neglected my blog for a while, being busy with assessment and getting back into the new term - over the past week or so I have been searching high and low for a new set of briefs to get stuck into. After assessment and getting my feedback, I know there are areas of my work to develop on, and there are areas I need to spend less time on and this is something I hope I can put into practice in this final term.

Typography and layout have always been areas of interest to me, it is always the typographic pieces that seem to catch my attention - having experimented with photography last term and in second year I have come to realize that is not one of my strongest areas and only having one term left I have decided to focus on other areas within my work. Don't get me wrong, I love photography and working with great images, but I am just not the person to take the image, I like to think once I get into industry I can work alongside a photographer and then wor with the photograph adding the type, working on the composition etc - they do what they are good at and I do what I am good at. I think having been on this course for the past two years, I am definitely not a concept and ideas led person....I get much more satisfaction from designing and presenting the final piece - I am all about producing the perfect finished design and making it "look good," so it truly reflects the idea and creates a great final piece. Maybe this is where I lose time during a project, spending too long making minor alterations and refining my idea - this was a criticism on my feedback that I over-refine my ideas which can cause the concept to get lost - although I am going to try, I can't help wanting my final piece to be as perfect as I can get it, thats just the way I am!

Getting back to the title of this blog entry, after reading through many, many briefs I finally came across a past istd brief that caught my eye...

"A celebration of language in it's local forms, how we use words to communicate, expressing the way we speak through typography - accents, dialect, the spoken word."

Being purely a typographic brief it is something that will give some diversity to my portfolio - everything I do from now on is all about my portfolio, what do I want to be in there??
The main element within this brief, is looking at how we use words to communicate effectively - looking at typography as a form of visual communication, representing vocal sounds through type, pronunciation, phonetic spellings and variations. I feel in some ways this links into my dissertation, although not directly as I looked at the use of shock within advertising, I was looking at the topic as a form of communication, how we as designers communicate with our target audience and the effect the use of such tactics can have. This brief is continuing elements of this in looking at how we communicate with words locally, and how this can be taken into a more commercial piece of design to communicate with the target audience and the response from them.

Having done my research (trying to keep this stage short to allow more time for experimentation) I am spending the whole next week experimenting with words and phrases so will post some of this up soon....

Tea ♥

'Tea Revives You', a hand-pulled screen print inspired by a fantastic 1930's advertising slogan.

Helicopter or vending machine?

On Friday I had my feedback session with Clinton to discuss the work I handed in for assessment. I was really pleased with the grade I was given and was glad my many late nights and hard work had paid off. Discussing the feedback Clinton had given me I did agree with the majority of it. I do spend far too long on my sketchbooks and this is definitely an area I can cut down on....however being a bit of a perfectionist this may be hard as I spend far too long making them look 'nice.'

The main aim of this next term is to produce work that I want to produce, what do I want in my portfolio come June?

- I need to pick briefs that enable me to learn and get where I want to be,

- make professional decisions

- be more decisive and make decisions quicker - not spend ages doing research!

- question myself - what am I trying to do? why am I doing it? how do I know when I get it right?

It's scary to think that this is the last term of university life and I do want to make my portfolio the best it can be, and showcase me as the best designer I can be.

As Alan Fletcher said...

Basically there are two kinds of designer:

Helicopters and vendingmachines.

The helicopters fly around the landscape,zooming in to investigate, backing off to get a better panoramic view.

On the other hand vending machines tend to be insert until someone shoves money in the slot.They then produce a lot of buzzing, whirring and clanking,until out pops a product.It is invariably the same as the previous one, and will be the same as the next.The only difference is the next is usually staler.

It is ok to have a certain style of work as long as I ensure I answer each brief individually and not take a previous design and apply it to the next brief. I like to think I produce something different for each brief I am set.

so which one am I?? hopefully the helicopter!

Alan Fletcher: Fifty Years of Graphic Work (and play)

After the trip to Urbis we walked down to the Cube Gallery to look at the Alan Fletcher exhibition.

" Alan Fletcher was the most prolific graphic designer of the 20th Century and his legacy continues to influence global trends in graphic design. This will be the first time that Manchester and beyond will see such a vast and important retrospective archive celebrating fifty years of the designer’s work (and play). "

Fletcher was a unique figure in graphic design, his visual brilliance has ensured his work has survived the many shifts in graphic fashion and won him an international reputation. I really enjoyed this exhibition as the work was of a style that appeals to me and the typographic pieces were very inspirational. There was a wide variety of work around the gallery from collage pieces to poster prints, including original sketches, objects and archive footage spanning Fletcher’s work from his student days at the RCA to the playful and more personal work he created after leaving Pentagram in 1992. He is described by Peter Saville as having had an ‘open-minded, panoramic view of the world, which always allowed him to see when something was good, regardless of its provenance.’

Technological Graveyard, 1996 - 'Working at the offices of Phaidon Press, Fletcher asked to boroww a pencil. That no one was able to supply such a thing inspired Fletcher to create this collage of redundant technology. The pencils were found in his studio and collected from friends and colleagues.'

I love how the piece below is a celebration of the age old 'pencil' something so simple but that is truly becoming less and less used in the design world - I have to admit I do always struggle to find a pencil in my pencil case - it's just something I don't use very often... but maybe I should?!

Filling a full wall within the gallery the piece above really caught my eye - it shows the 'Alphabet Gates,' 1990 - The gates were designed to replace pair of ordinary wrought iron gates that stood at the entry to the Fletcher family house. The alphabet used was derived from a late 19th century condensed wood typeface, amended to work in metal. The gates opened between the letters M and N.

I love the simplicity of the piece above...using type to spell out the shape of the object - created a very effective piece.

The Cube gallery is a great space and was a great setting for the exhibition - as we are soon to put on our own exhibition I found myself looking at the way in which the work was displayed to best showcase it - there we lovely additions around the space such as the divider above containing a piece of work itself. Creating a nice environment to showcase the work does make it more appealing and pleasurable to look at.

Not being a big lover of exhibitions I did really enjoy the Alan Fletcher work. It is a style of work that really appeals to me and has given me some inspiration for my upcoming projects - I definitely want to experiment more within the field of typography and layout and seeing such great work and spurred me on to do so!

Urbis has left the building...

The time has come for us to say goodbye to Urbis and I do feel this is a real shame as Urbis has always been a great place within Manchester to hold exhibitions and a place I have visited many times over the last few years.

(We did notice that our very own Mr Graham Jones was featured on the list!)

A brilliant advert - Sony Bravia (2007) - considered by D&AD as one of the best TV adverts in the world - the ground breaking Sony Bravia commercial saw an entire Glaswegian estate dramatically covered in explosive colour.

There was also an short documentary showing how the incredible commercial was made which was really interesting to watch.

(Apologies for the poor photographs I had to take them on my iphone as I am yet to buy a new camera!)

The exhibition was a retrospective on the best of the work from the past 6 years of exhibitions and it was good to see a whole range of work, a lot of which I remember seeing at past events. I have to admit I wasn't overly impressed with the exhibition, but I am glad I went to see that last ever exhibition!

Goodbye Urbis!

Owen Gildersleeve

Whilst looking on the ycn website, I noticed some nice paper cut out work by Owen Gildersleeve,a designer and illustrator based in London, his work explores a range of 2D and 3D styles. I always have an appreciation for hand crafted work and the detail that can be achieved and I wish I had the skill to be able to do this....although, now we have the laser cutter at uni this could be something I could explore with more...

Lovely type...

Came across some lovely typography by illustrator and designer Jessica Hische, below are some of my favorite pieces...

Dissertation....DONE!

So today was deadline day for my dissertation...I have to admit I won't be sad to say this was my last essay but I have enjoyed looking into my chosen topic area - controversial and shock advertising - although not something that has an obvious connection with my own design practice, there are definitely areas of it that I can take forward into my own design work - thinking about how the consumer/audience can interpret your design from the brand identity to the advertising, and how this can reflect on them personally if interpreted wrong. I chose the topic as at the time I was working on the police campaign and we were receiving feedback on our designs, and were surprised to hear how people could have very different interpretations to our designs - ideas very different to what we as the designers had intended people to see/understand, things that we had not even thought of! As our campaign was quite cheeky and a bit controversial this led me to look further into the subject at other infamous so called controversial campaigns, asking questionnaires for my primary research and contacting design agencies.

I didn't want to overly design the essay but still wanted the layout to be a reflection of my design skills...using simple double page spreads with the text and images. I chose to bind the essay into a 'book' style with the unibind system in the paper store and created a simple wrap around cover to hide the glued spine.

- fold out timeline, putting the images in context -

D&AD

Added a few books to my ever growing collection....

After receiving an email from d&ad with an offer for 3 of their student annuals for £20 (usually £20 each) I thought it was quite a good offer - although they are annuals from previous years they still make good research tools and a place to look for inspiration!