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First Year Show - Graphics Final Piece.

For my final graphics projects we were given a self directed brief in which we had to show ourselves by telling our 'creative story' through a piece. This included trying to get across my work ethic, personality, inspiration, values and our truth. The main thing i had to remember with this piece of work was that it was not a cv but to express myself in my truest form. 

At first I found the idea of this rather hard as expressing oneself also means to knows oneself and I feel people tend to change a lot depending on the time, So i tried to focus mainly on what my ideals are and what inspires me. As such I came up with the themes of glitch art as it not only inspires me its the form of design and art I enjoy working in the most. The random elements to this form also creates interesting and unique patterns and style which can be manipulated in ways otherwise not thought of. This coupled with my design ideals that design doesn't always have to be perfect / legible as long as the main idea is shown somewhere in the work, whether that be indirectly or though a message etc.

With these ideas in place I went to work experimenting with what I wanted to make an in what style, Did i want to make a short video a selection of prints, business identity a product etc etc the list was endless. However since this project was to express out creative story, my end goal is to work for myself freelance, so i went with the theme of making self promotional products, this included business cards, a poster and leaflets. I looked at such companies as Bibliotheque and Cartlidge Levene as the way in which they present a brand identity was really interesting to me and helped me have an idea of how I wanted to layout my products.

I'm really happy with the way the business cards and poster came out keeping them in the same style and theme. To create the main body of the poster i used photos from my previous years work (mainly the final project images) and then manipulated to the extent of no longer being legible. This was done through a wide array of different glitch / pixel art techniques from scripts to editing in word pad. I looked at the works of David Carson and omocat for further inspiration on layouts, style and logos. As I wanted a simple block based logo which would't over power the rest of the design. Not only does this tie in with the theme of my creative story and moving forward onto the 'next idea' the tag line 'Next Idea' was also born. This tag line no long fits in with my end goal but also with the style of work, as glitches are random and expressive as such the next idea is just round the corner. I also believe you cannot have a good piece of work without a good idea before hand.

                  Leaflet Front                                                                             Leaflet Back

With my poster and business cards all set up printed and ready to go for the exhibit all that was left was to wait for my leaflets to arrive on time but due to the bank holiday the week before which I forgot about my order got delayed, As such I didm;t have them up in time for the exhibit. I printed them out on basic stock card but the effect and shine of the card just didm;t look right on them so I choose not to exhibit them. I feel this was the best choice as I was not 100% happy with them but I would use them again in the future given the opportunity too.

Overall I am really happy with how this project turned out and it was really nice to see the final products up and displayed on a wall where they should be. The strong colours which were perfectly printed really set my work off and allowed it to be easy to see and very eye catching. I'm happy with the end design, with the logo being really simple but effective and having my peers agree made it all the more worth while.

Cranbook styled Blade Runner Poster

Moving on from my initial research of Cranbrook style and mainly focusing on the work of David Carson, I started to collect imagery from the film and cutting and pasting it by hand into new piece of work. Focusing mainly on layering of the same images and matching similar and very different pieces to see what type of effect I;d create. With a few of these then pieces I worked into them further by photocopying them flipping and rescanning them to get myself a collection of wacky images which fit with the themes of the film.

After having a small body of collaged images I moved into photoshop and started to manipulate these images further with digital means focusing on the style of David Carson, using his unique anti formative design style, moving away from grids and focusing on free forming work. This ended up with me producing a poster which I wanted to have a free feeling to it. So it doesn't technically have a correct way to be presents. I tried to make ti so by having text shown at different angles and not giving it a main focual point. With Blade Runner being a very futurist final I always wanted to use something spacing for the main ascent, hens the multi edited earth in the background, but the main story is set within a metropolis so I tried to also form the credits text in the space of a skyscraper this links back to the idea of showing the poster any which way. As if you have it in the normal frame with the blade runner as the focal the credits / tower is up side down. If you have it on its side it would upside down or just on its side, this has a nice effect due to the angle the credits are vectored which has a nice effect I feel.

Final Poster
Poster Final took a lot of different tweaks and editions due to not wanting to over crowd it or use to many strong colours which could be distracting to the overall aesthetic I was going for.
I ended up going for a white strip effect over the colour renditions for this very reason, its not as harsh on the eyes and doesn't distract unlike the multi colour versions.

Information Graphic for Blade Runner
As for the info graphics I wanted to focus on things outside of the film, such as other flops, as Blade Runner in terms of box office takings made less money then it did to make. Other such films were The Thing, Poltergeist and Tron. I wanted to showcase information like this, which relates closely to Blade Runner itself as such I also listed some of Ridey Scotts other fan favourite films.
However this being an info graphic thats going alongside a poster for Bladerunner I thought i should share some facts retaining to the film, such as the upcoming sequel in 2018? and the most popular discussion to the film, is Deckard and nexus? Since this question is widely debated I wanted to give it the most pull on the left side of the leaflet. I also made sure to use the less legible style to give it more intrigue about the discussion. Having the type face in a computerist style also gives the question a sense of irony I really like.

Overall I am really happy with the way my Poster and info graphic came out, it links back nicely to the cranbrook style and is heavily influenced by David Carson and the like. I feel if i didn't enjoy this film, the source of the book and the style I would;t have had so much fun as I did. I feel these 3 elements went really well together not only in final outcome but also in what my own personal inspiration and likes are.

INTRO: Semiotics - The Study of Sign

Icon - Something that resembles the actual object it represents

Index - Where the signifier and signified are 'linked'

Symbol - Where the viewer has to learn the connection between signifier and signified.

Context - Where, when and by whom a sign is viewed.


Using this in groups we were tasked with turning a basic fairy tail into road icons to retell the story (in our case we chose Cinderella). At first we wrote out the basic story in order, shortened to the key points to give us a starting point.

























With that we then turned each key line into an image to see what we had to work with in terms of scale and action going on within the story.

























Since we were tasked with using road signs we decided to try and keep the story as close to original road signs as possible to tell the story. Such as we didm;t want to make out own signs with the basic of what the original are. Such as triangle signs are mainly warnings, square inform and circle order.

And here if our final story. Due to timing we didn't have enough to add every signs as a road sign as such had 2 one with the glass slipper and the slipper being picked up. But overall the story really worked. We used motorway signs to give a sense of travel while the dance a walking stop sign. It really worked and people were able to determine what story it was when prompted to guess.

Editorial Design

For this brief I was tasked with designing a 16 page documents showcasing different forms of design from pc to mobile and print. This would include a Double page spread, a responsive design mock up, a storyboard as well as a set of scrolling device designs.

Follow Harry's board Swiss Design on Pinterest.

During the first week of this brief I set to work researching what was already out their and getting my head around the layouts off different mediums that were used. Such as how newspapers layout their stories but then how the same story was shown on their own website.

Follow Harry's board Publication / Layout on Pinterest.

Following this the next week I started to jot down my different ideas and working them out. As such taking some of the ideas into photoshop and illustrator to work with them. This including doing some photo manipulation to see if I could craft something from photos already out their and also to creating my own images from scratch such as tennis and baseball pitches.

 

With the main focus being on a sport I went with tennis as I had a firm grasp on the rules and environment which made the ideas much easier to work with.

Double Page Spread:

Scrolling Devices:



Responsive Design:

Storyboard:


Reflection:

I enjoyed making this multipage document, I found working on my own little zine to be really interesting and engaging especially when I started to do a side project away from this using my own photos and working them into play.

As for this piece based on swiss design, I found the overall completion okay. I wish I had more time and ideas around the sports based medium in which I had to design with. Due to this I feel my design work in Illustator and photoshop fell a little flat, as I don’t think I was doing the Swiss Design justice as I could tear into the stripping away of elements of the game of tennis without losing the sense that it was still tennis being represented.  However I feel the storyboard and horizontal scrolling devise do really work with this style, I just wish that idea could have been seen throughout all of my designs. Given another chance I’d like to try more type styled designs and move away from the over thinking of the game I was working with.