OUGD403 STUDIO BRIEF 4 - MESSAGE & DELIVERY - DELIVERY BRIEFING

This brief was to produce a set of three high impact posters portraying a message from our chosen newspaper article in Studio Brief 3. The three posters should work as a unit as well as individually, and be visually consistent. The first poster design should be produced solely using text, the second only using image, and the third using a combination of the two. 

When designing my posters, I must choose a particular message to portray, and ensure this message is portrayed clearly, so there is no confusion. I should undertake a broad range of research into poster designs before undertaking this brief, and also during as well once I come up with a range of ideas, to help develop them further. I must also produce a wide range of experimentation with layout and content of my posters, before choosing my final three. My posters must not be offensive, and must be factual, statistical, informed and specific. 

I have only two limitations in this brief. The first is that I am only allowed to use two colours plus the colour of stock I choose to print my posters onto. The second being that my posters must be A3 scale and 2:1 format.

OUGD404 DESIGN PRINCIPLES - STUDIO BRIEF 1 - TASK 3

Last week we were given a specific colour, either red, yellow or blue, and were told to each bring 5 items of that colour into this session, and wear one item of clothing in that colour as well. 

We had a set of tasks we had to complete using our different items, and the first one was to organise our items in a line from dark to light colours. This proved a lot more difficult than I first thought to do, as you not only have to consider colours in general, but shades and warmths of colours as well, which gets a bit complicated.

We had a bit of trouble figuring out which was the lightest item, as although one shade might be lighter than another, the saturation of that colour might be darker, which gets confusing. Here we were puzzled over the blue tac and the nail varnish. I think that although the nail varnish is a lighter shade than the blue tac, it's saturation is much greater so it's in the correct position.

This is what the majority of the group decided on as out final layout. I disagree with the nail varnish and blue tac, although I can see what other people mean why they chose to put it in this order.

We then had to rotate tables and my group went to the yellow table, and we had to look at how they had organised their coloured items, and see if we would change anything about it.

This is their original layout.

We thought that they had put the sponge you see here too far up the darker end of the scale, and instead we thought it worked better next to the banana, as although the shade itself doesn't fit in here, the colour saturation does, as as a colour it is quite light and similar to the banana.

This is our finished layout. We didn't change much, the sponge was the main obstacle we came across.

Same layout only from the dark end.

We then went back to our own table and looked at how the red group had changed how we had organised our items. This was interesting to see how other people see colours, in the way they had changed our organisation.

One thing they had changed was the laptop case and the canvas bag. The canvas bag is darker in shade, however the laptop bag us darker in it's saturation of it's colour. I feel that the red group were right to make this change.

One thing I was very happy they changed round was the nail varnish and blue tac. They, like me, thought that the blue tac was a lighter overall colour than the nail varnish.

This is the changed layout of our coloured items from light to dark.

 Our next task was to arrange our coloured items from warm colours to cool colours in a circle. This task we were really confused about what a cold colour looked like and what a warm colour looked like, so our tutor gave us this method of figuring this out, using yellow blue and yellow pieces of paper. If they item looked more blue then it was a cold colour, but if it had more yellow pigments in it then it was a warm colour.

How we decided if a colour was cold or warm. This cup is a warm colour because it has a lot of yellow in it.

We started off by separating the items into cold colours, warm colour and mixed colours. We found that a lot of our items were in the mixed or warm category, which was strange because initially you think of blue as a very cold colour.

We then arranged our items into a circle, so they went from warm to cool to warm again, from the warmest to the coolest. At the top end of the photograph are the warm colours, and at the bottom are the cool colours. We found it a lot easier to organise them once we arranged them in a circle, matching one item against a variety of other items in that part of the circle to see if it fit in.

We then had to take one item from our colour circle and take it to the red group and fit our blue item into their red circle going from warm to cool, based not on colour but how warm or cool the item was.

This was the red groups initial colour circle. They had arranged it in lots of different circles, so on the outside circle were all the cool colours, and on the inside circle were all the warm colours.

This is a great example of how a blue calculator matches pretty much perfectly the warmth of this book, even though they are two completely different colours.

This Nivea hand cream also fits in really well against the scarf and lipstick, having a lot of red in it's colouring.

This is how we put all our items into their colour circle. I feel we managed to fit them in without too much difficulty.

We then went back to our blue table to see how they yellow group had fitted their colours into our colour circle, and I think they have matched them really well.

We then had to take our warm to cool colour circle and join it with the yellow and blue colour circles to make one giant colour circle going from yellow to red to blue.

Red and yellow end of the table, going from warm red to cool red to cool yellow.

Blue and yellow end of the table going from warm yellow to warm blue to cool blue.

This is the best shot of the whole table I could manage, as the table was very long and it was really hard to get everything in stood so close to it. I think as a group we have all managed to combine our colour circles with the other two and manage to organise everything correctly.

I think that this task today has really helped expand my knowledge of colour, and how one colour might look really similar to another, but in fact it would have a completely different effect. This will help me a lot when choosing colours for my studio brief outcomes.

OUGD403 STUDIO BRIEF 3 - NEWSPAPER INFORMATION SEMINAR

Yesterday I had a really interesting seminar informing us on the different types of newspapers, such as broadsheet and tabloid, and what makes a broadsheet newspaper for example a broadsheet, why not a tabloid or a compact.

I found out that there are four different types of newspapers:

1) Broadsheet

2) Berliner

3) Compact (Broadsheet compact)

4) Tabloid

Broadsheet newspapers are typically 75cm X 60cm, which is extremely large, and is impractical for reading on-the-go. They tend to have a more academic tone, and the articles have a high word count. Examples of broadsheet newspapers are The Daily Telegraph or The Sunday Times.

Berliner newspapers are typically 31.5cm X 47cm, which is smaller than the broadsheet quite significantly, but still bigger than a tabloid or compact newspaper. Berliner newspapers are quite uncommon in Britain, however most newspapers in France, Italy and Germany for example are of the Berliner style. They are used as an alternative to a broadsheet newspaper, as still have the serious content, but are much more practical in size. An example of Berliner is The Guardian.

Compact newspapers are also known as Compact Broadsheets, as they have a broadsheet newspaper content, but are tabloid newspaper size (43cm X 29.5cm). These are newspapers that used to be broadsheet newspapers, but were adapted to better suit the place where they were read, which was typically on the Tube or one some form on public transport as people were travelling to work or education. Generally, especially compact newspapers, newspapers tend to have a political stance, for example The Daily Mail is a compact newspaper and tends to have conservative views on articles. The Independent is left wing, and The Scotsman is upmarket centre. What political stance the newspaper has decides what angle each of the articles is aimed at. Another interesting thought to do with newspapers political stances, is that not many compact newspapers support the labour party, this, very stereotypically speaking now, could be because labour is more of a working class party, and the working class typically read tabloid newspapers such as The Sun or The Daily Mirror, rather than more academic ones such as The Independent. Compact newspapers are also however a sub-genre of tabloid newspapers.

The final type of newspaper is the Tabloid, which is the same size of the compact newspaper. Tabloid newspapers have less body text of a larger size, they have a lot more adverts, as often the adverts pay for a lot of the newspaper. Tabloid newspapers have a lot of images, often overlaying headlines, and the headlines themselves are often very large and in bold font. They are often called "red tops" due to the masthead of Tabloid newspapers often being red and white. The vocabulary use is often simple, with no technical vocabulary, as they are aimed at the working class, and articles and headlines themselves are straightforward and to the point, often about trivial of celebrity topics. Examples of Tabloid newspapers are The Sun and The Daily Mirror.

There is also some anomalies in newspaper types, as the Metro and the i newspapers are free newspapers that don't really fit under any category. The Metro is paid for by adverts, and often has whole pages dedicated to adverts, and you wont find one whole page without an advert on it. Companies also pay vast amounts of money to have the front and back cover of the Metro with their advertisements on it.

I also found out that there are actually very few companies that distribute newspapers, there are only about 1 or 2 companies which own all the newspapers you can buy. This results in the same article only slightly tweaked in several different newspapers. Newspaper companies often own film companies and TV channels as well, so this will also effect what content is shown in the newspapers, or what is being shown on the TV channel as well.

OUGD403 STUDIO BRIEF 3 - STUDY TASK 3 - NEWSPAPER LAYOUT CRITIQUES

This morning we presented the work we had undertaken last Friday afternoon, where we had to research our given headline, my groups being the ban on term-time holidays, and produce a layout for a publication that fitted with the theme of our topic.

To recap, this was our final page layout design: 

We got some interesting feedback from our peers and one of our tutors. Someone said that it was aligned to the right, however people naturally read left to right, so it would make more sense if it was aligned to the left, making it easier for people to read. They also pointed out that everything was aligned to the right, except for the body text, which is a mistake my group must of missed when putting this layout together. It would of looked a lot more effective if the body text was also aligned to the right. 

One of my peers also questioned why the image annotation was to the left of the image, and said that it looked kind of out of place and like it shouldn't be there, yet had no suggestion as to where it would look better placed. I think it would work a lot better if the image annotation was directly below the image, spanning the width of the image, then the white space would be left undisturbed.

Another of my peers asked why there was so much white blank space. They said they felt like something was missing, it just didn't look right, it didn't flow well. We however intended for there to be so much white blank space, to achieve the modernist and minimalist appearance we were aiming for, however maybe this was a bad decision, or perhaps we could of ensured the blank space was in an appealing place on the page, so it didn't look like something was missing form the page.

Someone said that they thought that the image overpowers the headline, that the headline should of been in a bolder font, so that it stands out more, instead of the image being the first thing you see. I think this is a positive suggestion, as although the image is supposed to be bold and stand out on the page, the headline also has to spike the readers attention. They also suggested that if we were aiming for a newspaper article layout, we perhaps should of used a serif font for the headline as well as for the body text, as you find most compact newspapers, such as The Independent, use serif fonts for their headlines, as these are more gripping and easy to read due to the serif's. This perhaps would have increased the similarities of it looking like a newspaper article, however wouldn't of matched the minimalist appearance we were aiming for, but we should have experimented with this nevertheless. 

Another peer said that the page didn't have a "nice flow", and that they didn't know which column of body text to read first, due to it aligning to the right. This is a great problem for us, as the whole point of a newspaper article is that you can find your way about the page in the correct order with ease, you shouldn't have to find yourself considering which column goes before another, you should be able to tell by the page layout, and if you can't then the designer has done a bad job. They also said that they liked the empty space, however it didn't aid legibility and needed to be moved someplace else where it contributed more effectively to the page. 

My tutor suggested that we produce a questionnaire on the old layout vs. the new layout, and what things people thought worked, and what didn't, to help us come up a more effective layout at a previous stage. They also commented on how they liked how simple it was, how there was no nonsense, but went straight to the point.

This feedback has been really useful to me, and I will use it in future tasks and briefs to ensure I produce a higher quality publication next time, and make suitable improvements to this project following the feedback at a later date.

OUGD403 STUDIO BRIEF 3 - RESEARCH

I found this YouTube animation that shows the negative effects of plastic surgery, is glorious gruesome detail, which is a very interesting and unique way of looking at the plastic surgery industry, and the effects that can happen if you do too much to your body, and it eventually gives up.

This is the video.

OUGD403 STUDIO BRIEF 3 - MESSAGE AND DELIVERY - RESEARCH (SO FAR) AND CRITIQUES

The article I have chosen for this brief is titled "Woman dies in Thai cosmetic surgery clinic", which was taken from The Independent newspaper on Saturday 25th October 2014. It is about a 24 year old woman who died during having corrective cosmetic surgery on her tailbone in a cosmetic surgery in Thailand, where the doctor undertaking the operation, Dr. Sompob Sansiri, wasn't fully qualified to undertake the operation, and is now facing charges of causing "reckless death".

Since choosing this article to research, I have carried out research into the composition of the article, Google reviews, I also found out that Dr. Sompob Sansiri's SP Clinic website and been removed from the internet following this recent incident. I have also looked through Dr. Sansiri's SP Clinic blogs on blogspot and wordpress, and researched statistics and facts on so called "surgery tourism" on a very useful website called Patients Beyond Borders', where I also found out what certain countries specialise in cosmetic surgery-wise, and on average how much you can save by having surgery abroad rather than in the UK, even when you factor in transport and accommodation costs.

Initial research presentation

Today I have had a critique session with a group of peers and one of my tutors, where I had to present my research to the group. I got some really interesting feedback from this. One of my peers said that Pippa Middleton initially sparked an increase in the number of women getting bum implants after her appearance at the Royal wedding in her famous slinky dress shown below.

Pippa Middleton at the Royal Wedding.

I could research into how much the actual increase in people getting bum implants was after the Royal wedding. 

My tutor also suggested I could research into people getting tattoo's or piercings abroad, as this is a similar kind of thing as cosmetic surgery, only on a smaller scale in some cases, as people travel all over the world to get the best tattoo artist to do their latest tattoo. Or people getting tattoo's or piercings abroad on a whim on holiday, not knowing fully the hygiene of the place they're getting it done, or how qualified the person doing these tattoo's or piercings actually is. 

One of my peers also suggested I could research into how people from the UK and other European countries often travel to the US to get specialised medical treatments done, as this treatment may not be offered in the UK due to how expensive the equipment and training of medical professionals is, and how few people it would be beneficial to. 

The recent article on a woman getting bum implants, who actually had concrete injected into her bum was also raised, as an example of cosmetic surgery really not being worth your money, and how so called "professionals" in foreign countries can get away with this due to less stringent laws on cosmetic surgery and other medical rules they must abide by. 

The group also suggested I could look into how the presentation of the article in The Independent differs to that in the "i" and "The Sun", as all three have the same photograph, but differ vastly in layout, especially in the case of "The Sun", this could be a really interesting thing to analyse.

Renee Zellweger before and after surgery.

Renee Zellweger's plastic surgery was also mentioned, as her face has changed dramatically since her part in Bridget Jones' Diary back in 2001 and the sequel in 2004, and now. The question has been raised as to whether there will be another Bridget Jones film, after the recent release of the new book "Mad about the Boy" as Zellweger looks nothing like her old Bridget Jones character, as shown in the photograph below. This shows how plastic surgery can so vastly change people's appearances, and questions why people do it.

Josie Cunningham was also suggested as a point of research, as she has managed t achieve breast implants under the NHS, research could be done into the morality of this, with the NHS paying for this unnecessary boob job, where the money could be much better spent elsewhere.

Jaw surgery in Korea.

Another peer also told me that Korea is massive in cosmetic surgery, especially with jaw surgery. I could research into the market in Korea, and other Asian countries, as this is where the market seems to be. I was also told about an article of a man

Korean man sued wife for ugly baby.

Smile surgery in Korea.

suing his wife, as their children turned out really ugly, as this is what she looked like before she underwent massive cosmetic surgery on her face, of which the husband wasn't aware of. Korea is also known for it's "smile surgery" which turns a previous downward smile into an upward one. 

This has given me a lot to think about in terms of what direction I will conduct my research in, although I think I will research more into facts and statistics of what specific countries are best for, the money people can save, and stories of plastic surgery gone wrong, rather than the more scientific risks of cosmetic surgery and what different kinds of surgery there is available to you, and what each one involves.

OUGD403 STUDIO BRIEF 3 - STUDY TASK 3 - NEWSPAPER LAYOUT

For this task we were split up into groups of 4 or 5 and and given a newspaper headline that we have to briefly research and design a publication layout, this could be in the form of a newspaper article, magazine article, or online article, that was suitable for our headline.

My group was given the headline "Term-time holiday ban", so our job was to research the current ban on term-time holidays, and produce a publication about it, not including body text though, as we were only given the afternoon to complete it. 

We started off by researching current articles on the ban on term-time holidays, and found a really useful one in The Guardian online (Ban on term time holidays article), which gave us a lot of the basic facts we needed to help us produce our page layout, such as how much the government is fining parents, and exactly why and how they are fining them. What I thought what was incredible is that they are fining each parent of the child £60 per child per day they are on holiday, which could cost the parents an extra £2500 on top of the cost of their holiday in fines. This is frankly ridiculous, hence why the public is trying to overturn this new ban, as it simply doesn't take into consideration family situations.

We then thought the next best move, now we know a little bit about what our topic is actually about, to create a mind map of all our idea for the layout, including thoughts about which typefaces we could use, and the imagery included as well.

Mind map, brainstorming ideas.

We then moved on to experiment with layout, drawing up a few mock up layouts, using a similar grid system to that used in The Independent newspaper. We wanted our layout to be kind of ironic, making people wish they could go on holiday, when in fact the article is all about how they can't. 

Grid system we created, based on The Independent newspaper's grid system.

Here we tried to take a very minimalist approach to make it kind of look like The Independent, and to give our photograph the space it needs to breathe and stand out well. We also didn't want the page to appear overwhelming, as the people who will most likely read an article on term-time holiday bans would be parents themselves, who don't typically have the time to sit down and read a lengthy article. The left side of the image and the subheading and body text all line up nicely, however, because the image carries on further to the right, it looks like it's been centrally aligned but it's gone wrong, so looks a bit odd, especially with the image caption just chilling on it's own to the right.

We then tried having it all aligned to the right, which gives it a much more even appearance, it looks as if that's how it's supposed to look, although I feel it looks slightly right side heavy, like it might topple over at any given moment.

Here I attempted to give it a more even, balanced appearance, with a block of body text at the top below the headline, something to start off the article, with a long image filling up the whole of he left side of the page, and body text and a subheading on the right hand side. Perhaps the subheading is in the wrong place however, as the article has already started above it previously. I do feel this layout looks a lot more balanced, and it still has the white space we are aiming to achieve at the bottom, perfect for some kind of footer. I made the suggestion of having the body text descend further, so that it is the same length as the image, however ends further down, instead of in line with the foot of the image. This gives the page a quirky kind of quality that's interesting and unusual.

Here we tried again with the body text at the top of the page, only this time the image spans the width of the page pretty much, with the image caption below it. The bottom third of the page is then occupied with a sub heading and more body text, which in retrospect, the subheading is in the wrong place again, it should ideally be at the top of the page, or at least where the body text actually starts. I think this layout works quite well otherwise.

As a group, however, we chose this design as the one we were going to use for our article, as we thought it was the most modern looking, and we thought the white space running down the left hand side work effectively to create an appearance of mystery, so people thought what was supposed to be there.

We then started experimentation with our image and the general layout of the page digitally, using a random image off the internet that would be similar to the image in our final layout. We thought about making the image look like a postcard, to lure people to read the article, and also subconsciously make them want to go on holiday as well. We looked at a few 1950's postcard designs, as we liked the idea of having a script typeface on the postcard, which is very typical for 1950's postcards, as you can see in the two examples below.

We used the font Brush Script for the caption that goes on the photography, which is very similar to those used in the 50's. We also made the font white as we thought this would make it stand out more against the palm tree's and the deep blue sky. 

We tried using the wish you were here text as a headline for the page, as we thought this would engage the reader, and also tease them as well, suggesting we're on holiday somewhere glorious, but they can't join us. I think this looks a bit too weak however to work as a headline.

We then experimented with a different font, Cooper Black, to make the headline stand out a lot more. Uppercase lettering looks a bit harsh however, like we're shouting at the reader. It should be calming instead of angry.

We then tried the text on top of the image again, only in black this time, to see if this has a more powerful effect, however it kind of disappears in the palm tree's and shrubbery.

In the end we stuck with the text in the top right hand corner, in white, where it is small and understated, letting the image do all the talking, kind of as an afterthought, as the person sending the card is having too much fun on holiday to concentrate fully.

We thought again about a headline for out article, although thought this font wasn't bold enough to stand out against the bold, colourful image. The headline itself however is to the point and informative.

This is our final page layout, where we have used a bolder font, Avenir Book to make the headline stand out a lot more against the photograph. A mistake we made in the experimentation of this layout was that we used a random image, not one we were actually going to use in our publication, as the colours vary massively, so this changes where we should put the text. In this case however we were lucky we could still have the text at the top right of the image however. The elements all line up to the right hand side of the page, giving it a measured appearance, and the expanse of white space makes it appear minimalist and tranquil, the type of atmosphere you want to create when you're secretly trying to lure someone into going on holiday. The body text and image caption use the font Minion Pro, as being a serif font it is easy to read. Most newspapers use a serif font for their body text, so we thought using a serif font in our publication would stay in fitting with the general appearance of typical newspaper articles.