OUGD406 STUDIO BRIEF 3 - INITIAL DESIGN EXPERIMENTS

To get ideas starting for this brief, I came up with some ideas on my own to put forward to the group, based on my perception of how the library should be branded and work of others.

This initial idea was taken from the branding from a past year book for Graphic Design, where every individual had their own shape determined by their own characteristics. I thought this could make the exhibition quite personal, so came up with a graph of my own where such shapes could be generated, using their first and last initial as two scales, and then their two main colours of their outcome the other two scales, relating them as an individual to their work. I created this shape for myself, and experimented with how it would look on name cards and exhibition plaques too. I also experimented with different dots on each corner, joining the points together, and the colour of the dots the colour of the work, making it even more personal. The whole joining the dots theme I am developing at the moment was based on something we discussed briefly at the beginning of the brief, how graphic design theory books are often hard to understand because of the complex language used, so sometimes you have to piece together pieces on information to get the whole image, or joining facts together to come to a conclusion, the main structure of theory books in general. I tried seeing how it would work on arrows for signage as well, using the dot as a pivotal point fro where the arrow would move. I also chose a dark blue shade for the name plaques as I thought these designs looked a little star like, and thought that blue would be appropriate for this. In the bottom right design, which is a darker shade than the others, I found a textured pattern on the internet and uploaded it onto PhotoShop, then changed it to greyscale to emphasise the pattern and to ensure no colour is added to the blue background. I then uploaded this new pattern onto Illustrator and created a clipping mask of it in the shape of this name card, changing the opacity so you only get a hint of the texture, but it darkens and adds depth to the blue background.

I experimented further with this idea, producing more arrows using dots as pivotal points, these being a lot more linear and delicate. I think these work really nicely, except with the large employment of dots they are a little complicated. I applied this textured background to the exhibition plaque as well, to see how it would look on a larger scale, and I think it works really effectively. Again using the dots to form a rectangle around the information, the bottom two being different colours reflecting the shape that was created for the name badge. I also tried different patterns for the name cards, using just the pattern in one case, which I don't think works well at all, it's too grey. I also tried a more subtler texture, so that it didn't look quite as sci-fi, however with this pattern you can hardly even tell it's there.

 I then moved on to making posters:

I called the exhibition "Connect", as I thought this suited the aesthetics and message behind it. I went for a quite simple joining the dots effect, using varying sized dots to make it look less flat. I only connected a few of them up, only enough to hint at a structure, as I wanted the text to stand out the most.

I then experimented with a much more complicated and busy pattern, where each circle has several connections, to create a much clearer distinction between the different sections. I also made connect on two lines, so that I could have a link between the two perhaps, and also so that it fit into a much similar, larger shape than the date and location below.

I decided to try out a whole new direction, as these designs were getting a little too futuristic for my taste, and a little bit dark as well, I wanted to try something that was a bit more cheerful and colourful.

I found these two photographs on Grafik, by Neil Whittington, which are basically just erasors made into very nice patterns. I like the geometric yet colourful and soft appearance they have, so I tried producing them myself using the pen tool and the hexagon tool on Illustrator, then changing the colour and composition slightly to make different shapes. I really like this, however I do feel like I'm just copying Whittington's work digitally.

The sphere:

I found this sphere image on the internet (you can glimpse it on the right), as I thought this could be quite a nice logo for our exhibition, and fits this joining the dots pattern in a structured way within a shape as well. I made sure I included a dot at every intersecting point, to keep the theme joining the dots, otherwise it's just a mass of lines. I tried filling in the shapes as well to look in a similar colour to the original sphere, as due to the nature and positioning of the lines a sphere rounded shape is created, rather than just a circle.

This is the basic shape of the sphere, without the dots. You can see it is built on a horizontal and vertical axis'.

With the dots it has a lot more presence, and appears much brighter as well.

I took this outline shape into illustrator and added a brush stroke pattern beneath it, using similar green and yellow shades as the original sphere, just to put a background on it. I think this makes it look a bit too artistic however, and it works better as just an outline.

Using this sphere design I then produced a few posters just to see how it would look in context, rather than just a logo. I used the typeface Enzo OT on these poster designs as I thought this was a rather rounded, friendly typeface, but the thin quality of it reflected that of the sphere too.

I went for a very simple layout, the sphere taking centre stage, then with the size of the text representative of the importance of each piece of text itself. I chose to centrally align everything as the circle would look odd if it was left or right aligned, as it would be just off centre due to it's size, so to match this the text is also centrally aligned, to keep the balance.

I tried the same design in black. I think this looks a lot more space age, like stars in the sky, it being closer to their actual colour.

I tried it in blue as well, the same shade from some of my previous designs. I think this works very nicely, only again it looks slightly space age.

I then tried a whole different composition of the poster, changing the size of the sphere, so that I could fit the title down the one side, so that Re-Connect was on three lines, making a neat little rectangle. I thought the sphere might look as if it was balancing on the right rag of the title, adding interest.

Here I tried making the date stand out the most, being bold at the top, in just numbers to give it a much more regular appearance. The title and sphere are still balancing on one another, only this time in the bottom section. I really like the date and location of the exhibition at the top, however I just think that the rest is a little jumbled.

Another member of my group thought the sphere idea worked really well, so they produced a typeface inspired by this joining the dots idea, and this was an "R" from it, which I took and put in a poster. I'm not sure about one letter as the logo for the exhibition however, as this is grouping the exhibition under one letter, which I don't think it follows. Although I do really like these letter, I think they fit in really well with the rest of the aesthetics I have created with the sphere.