Screen Based Communication

Today we were briefed a new project, to design and build our own online portfolio - I'm really excited about this project as I've been waiting for the opportunity and time to further my knowledge in web design because it plays an important part in helping me to move forward career wise and most importantly I take great interest in this subject.

As a freelancer I trade under the name of bubblegraphics as the title resembles both ideas and thinking along with personality. I therefore want to further develop my brand.

My initial idea was to express my personality through this project by focusing on the bubbles making my website more personal. With this in mind I wanted to be playful with my ideas and to create my own bubbles experimenting with different couloured inks, fairly liquid and water all mixed together. I LOVED doing this and was amazed by the outcomes and couldn't wait to bring them into photoshop and to place these vivid colours onto a crisp white background as a basis for my website.

With all the attempts of experimenting I chose the one image which I felt most resembled my personality and then refined the ink colour in photoshop to suit.

I used the colour from the bubbles for my logo and the navigation to keep continuity throughout.

I went through numerous ideas, designs and layouts of how I wanted my pages to look, feel and work. The first ones were more illustrative but I soon came to realise I wanted to keep the look and feel strong, bold and graphic which is where my true passion lies.

The fact that I have used a vibrant turquoise blue against a plain white background touches on the playful and creative part of my personality yet remains professional and concise but not too corporate.

Below are some examples from my sketchbook of initial ideas:




My final bubble picture - This one has so many interesting shapes developing, it has to be the one I use!!! - I can almost imagine each shape turning into a character of some kind, for instance the shape towards the bottom right of the page could be a snowman on a bubblegraphics christmas card....

Communicating Ideas - The Project

After watching the video clip several times and deciphering the transcript as part of my research as well as sketching the things that came to mind when he was talking, I came up with the idea of designing a campaign which would lead the general public to a website explaining in more detail the importance of this message.

I chose to disseminate this message through designing a Microsoft campaign as they are widely accesible and are the type of company that may get involved in helping to produce the intelliegnt machines of our future which Jeff Hawkins is working towards.

A sequence of advertising which gives examples through the use of text and image of how we use our brains to intelligently predict what will happen next for e.g

If you’re windroeng how you can sitll raed tihs, it’s baseuce it dsoen’t mtater in waht oedrr the ltetres in a wrod are, the olny inopatmrt tihng is taht the fsrit and the lsat ltteer are in the rhgit pclae tehn yuor barin wlil pidecrt the wrod as a wlhoe.

I chose a nice clean and clear font 'Helvetica' for easy reading and kept the background of the poster black to resemble a more scientific feel. The fine lines in the background portray both the framework of theory in a symbolic manner along with the lines of communication, with small circular nodes on each point resembling nerves which carry the relevent information to different parts of the brain.

Communicating Ideas

For this project I chose to respond to the video by Jeff Hawkins from the list of TED Talks links below that we had to chose from for this brief.

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_tan_on_creativity.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/john_gerzema_the_post_crisis_consumer.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_the_4_ways_sound_affects_us.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_time_off.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/mena_trott_tours_her_blog_world.html

We were asked to respond to the idea presented, and to communicate it visually by an appropriate means to the British public...

Jeff Hawkins urges us to take a new look at the brain - to see it not as a fast processor, but as a memory system that stores and plays back experiences to help us intelligently predict what will happen next.

I chose this talk because after watching all the video clips this is the one that really stood out and inspired me the most. As it is to do with the human brain and I find it fascinating as there is still so much about the human brain yet to be discovered.

Spam Spam Spam

Right, I have decided to aim my product at families as Spam used to be very popular within families during World War II. Therefore, I want to produce a fun and eye-catching package which will attract children and parents alike to consider buying Spam.

It would sit alongside other packaging aimed for the 'lunchbox' such as Dairylea, Munch Bunch, and Innocent. I have created some characters (after much drawing and playful sketches) which I want to put on the front of the packaging as characters are wide spread amongst Children's products already.

The font I have chosen is fun and playful to suit the individual monster characters designed for the rebrand Spamonster!

I am happy with the designs I have produced, I feel it looks so much more appealing and even people of my generation will want to buy it.

New from Old

On friday we received a new brief for this week, which is to rebrand and re-package a redundant food (taken from a list supplied).

Tapioca

Mushy Pea

Lard

Luncheon Meat

Spam

Rice Pudding

Tinned Pies

Tinned Vegetable

I have researched into each food individually online to get an idea of what is already out there. I feel really enthusiastic about this project. :D I have not really had a proper opportunity to do a packaging project before, and when I saw Spam's already existing brand history timeline, and other parts of the site that I found humorous, it inspired me to chose Spam as my project.

I think that out of all the foods given to us, Spam was the most challenging option as it has already been branded so well, and I want a challenge so this is perfect.

Monty Python - Spam sketch

I came across this youtube video this morning which made me laugh lots!!!

Sylvia Plath - The project

Sylvia Plath was a poet and author who lived during the 20th Century (1932 - 1963).

After a lot of research into who Sylvia Plath was, I discovered that she was a caring and creative individual who suffered with the monsters of mental illness throughout her life. This lead to her trying to commit suicide a few times, and eventually succeeding with a bottle of sleeping pills and a gas oven.

During this period typewriters were indispensable tools for many professional writers such as Sylvia Plath. Today, after searching for some suitable fonts, I found a logo-type font which I can use for the logo and body text called Hammer Keys, as I wanted to give the effect that it had been typed using a typewriter.

For the colours, I have decided to use a khaki/pink combination that was fashionable during the height of her life in the 1950's. It represents her femininity which I really wanted to bring out in the stationary. I also placed a darker rosy gradient over the top to show a hint of her more passionate, but disturbed side. To emphasise her passion further for being an author, I added some splotches of ink coming down from the logo (her name), a s if she had just taken the page straight out f rom the typewriter in the midst of a mad creative moment.

Here are some examples below of what I will present tomorrow;

Sylvia Plath

Today we all had to pick a name out of an envelope for our next project. I picked Sylvia Plath. We now have to go away and research our person to find out what they did, who they were, and produce a business identity for them in the next two weeks.

I am really enjoying the briefs so far and am looking forward to completing this one. It seems refreshing after producing very corporate based business identities as a freelancer in such a short space of time. This time round it's nice to have the time and freedom to research and experiment with ideas which ultimately will have a more creative outcome.

I think this may turn out to be just the change I needed! :D

First Tutorial - Thank-you Brief

Originally, I had been inspired by a flower/oragami like birthday card, and wanted to design my own symbolic representation of friendship, and essentially a thank-you, but in the form of a flower. I then thought about how I would go about making this appeal to a male friend (the friend in question that I would like to thank). I was really interested in the meanings of colours and how they can represent different emotions, and so wanted to use this within my project.

However, today I had a tutorial with Sally and she told me to take a step back, research some more, and take a look at a few books which might help me, such as Visual Signs by David Crowe. Sally also proposed really thinking about what qualities the person had, and what would appeal uniquely to them.

So, I have decided to keep the subject for my project; a friend of mine who was helping me through a tough time, and work on a different way to portray my thanks. In paritcular I want to thank him for constantly finding my car keys, which on many occasions I would leave on the wall outside work. I want to use the keys as a symbol of our friendship as they would be recognisable to him, and they are a simple representation of what he does for me.

I thought about the interests he has, and have come up with an idea that I think is relevant to what he would appreciate. As he likes photography and telecommunication, I have decided that my end piece should be photographic, which lead me to the idea of taking a picture of myself leaving my keys somewhere.

Basically, after a lot of consideration, quick thinking, and photography, I narrowed it down to either a photograph of me leaving my keys, or just an image of my keys on a wall as I think both would work as he will recognise my keys just by themselves after the amount of times he has had to pick them up and return them to me.

"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg, even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." Bernard Meltzer.

Inspiration!

I found this website that really inspired me, not necessarily for this brief though...
http://www.thankyou.dk/

My first day

Today is my first day, who will I meet? who will I get along with? who will I work well with? I'm feeling really excited about starting my first project but also quite nervous, as I don't really now what to expect or what they will expect of me...

Today we were given a few handouts outlining the projects throughout this academic year 2009/2010.... Our first unit handout: Visual Communication in Context 2 is aimed to extend our knowledge and understanding of the disciplines within the design industry, relating to identification and presentation. It consists of 3 different projects each with their own deadline.

Our first project is 'THANK YOU' it's a brillaint warming up project!! It allowed me to have complete creative freedom as it was so diverse, and having come straight from working in the design industy it was such an exciting change. We have 1 week to complete this project.

My transition back into education

After moving to Bournemouth in 2003...

I have been working as a graphic designer and became a freelancer for 4-5 of those years. This taught me how to liaise well with my clients, I was able to build on many good working relationships, some of which turned into very good friendships. I'm still in touch with these friends today.

After the credit crunch began in early 2009 I saw how it was starting to effect local business, which in turn was bringing about many changes within the graphic design industry and especially within print, there seems to now be a higher demand for new media. All these changes have encouraged me to re-think my career path.

After much thought I had made the decision to return to the Arts University College at Bournemouth to study on the Visual Communication (FdA) . I wanted to further develop my skills as a designer to allow me to progress to a higher level in my career.

I am very pleased to have been offered a place onto the FdA as a direct entry student into the final year. I hope to top this up to a BA by continuing through to next year.