Thursday 29 March 2012

YCN; self-evaluation.



1. What skills have you developed throughout this project and how effectively do you think you have applied them? 
I have developed my collaboration skills so my ability to work with other people. This has been applied very effectively because between us we managed the work load well and did our own parts to keep the project together. If it wasn't for team work, we wouldn't have come up with the concept that we did. I also feel that i'm starting to enjoy collaboration more so this is another sign these skills are developing. I have also developed a practical skill, laser cutting. Before this project I hadn't used the laser cutter and although I had a lot of guidance from my partner with this skill, I feel I understand how this works now. This has been applied effectively to one of our final pieces. My communication skills have developed throughout this project because I had to constantly feed back to my partner if there was something I was working on, on my own. This has clearly been applied effectively because the final solutions have come down to communication and joint decision making. I've developed some form of curating skill throughout the project too because I did a lot of the work on the exhibition so i've had to learn all of the ins and outs when it comes to working with a venue. 

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? 
A lot of final pieces had to be crafted in some way whether it be through a machine or by hand. Personally I have developed my hand crafting skills through creating our swatch booklet because before coming up with a final design I created a lot of test pieces, so I in a sense practicing. This meant by the time it came to creating the final booklet, I was careful as to keep the design neat. Laser cutting has also been a part of the design production and a new skill that I have learnt. They informed the design development because it meant we had to design so that the text could be laser cut perfectly without the counters falling out. This made us think logically about our designs and pay attention to detail. Overall the methods of design production have mainly been hand-crafted or generally crafted in some way so this has given a sophisticated high quality finish. 

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
My ability to research throughout this whole project has been a strength because it meant we were constantly being informed on what was out there in order to help us make our own decisions. The fact I was constantly feeding back to my partner on ideas I had was also a strength because the project could not move on without doing so. Development of ideas has been a definite strength because I have explored a range of ideas before picking one with most of the final pieces. The ability to design things alone within a collaborative brief and still have them linking to other final products my partner has designed has also been a strength. To capitalise on all of these things I will make sure that I continue to do them and also do more to push them further to make projects even more successful.  

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in future? 
It took me quite a while to get started on any designing and general ideas, I spent maybe a week or so researching intially so in future I will make sure that I begin designing as soon as possible and research along side this so one can inform the other. 

5. Identify five things you will do differently next time and what you expect to gain from doing these? 
1. Blog as I go; design decisions will constantly be evaluated and it may result in better outcomes. 

2. Speak to my partner every other day at least; sometimes we got a bit lost in other things we were doing so progress was intially slow. By communicating more, a lot more outcomes could be produced. 

3. Be more prepared for crits; we didn't seem to have moved on much everytime there was a crit and by being more prepared we could get better feedback to capitalise on that, that we did get. 

4. Use the library; some of the things we were looking at weren't very informed on the internet so by looking in books I may find something really interesting. 

5. Speak to people more out of crits; decisions could be made faster so more could be done. 

6. How would you grade yourself in the following areas: 
Attendence 5
Punctuality 5
Motivation  4
Commitment  4
Quantity of work produced 3
Quality of work produced 4
Contribution to the group 5
(1 being poor and 5 being excellent)


YCN; Confirmation of submission.


Confirmation of our submission to the YCN competition.

YCN; Final design boards for submission.


This is what our boards looked like after we'd made all the relevent changes discussed in the final crit. We managed to condense a lot of the text in the boards but keep enough so that it still made sense. It's clear that the white background is working a lot better so this was a very welcomed change. After being checked again, these boards are now ready to submit to YCN. 

Tuesday 27 March 2012

YCN; Submission crit.







We took our final submission boards to the crit to get feedback from people who didn't really know what we were doing for our project so really it was a first impression. This overall proved really useful because we needed to know if the boards told the story well enough to someone who is looking at it for the first time. The main comment that people automatically made was that the grey wasn't really working and we'd be a lot better off using white as the background colour. Other comments included, the order of our boards being changed to suit better, layout considerations and the amount of information included on each board. These are all things that we will revisit to get the best possible response for our idea. The general feedback that we were given was that people really liked the idea, the boards just didn't communicate it to it's full potential yet. 

Monday 26 March 2012

YCN; Final design boards.


These are the final design boards we have created in time for the submission crit with the intention of sending them off to the YCN competition. We decided to go with a grey background because we wanted to catch the audiences eye once we had submitted, most design boards have a white background so we felt ours may stand out more. With grey being quite a neutral colour it meant it worked with all the pieces we had to go onto our boards. Each board in turn tells the story of our concept and all ideas the audience would need to understand the idea as being real. We tried to keep the text to a minimum but when it came to the event we needed to explain quite a lot because it was important it could be understood properly as this was the main thing that made up our answer to the brief. We feel that the boards tell the story to the best of their potential and include all the relevent pieces of information about our idea.

YCN; Competition brief.

This is the final design for the competition brief that would be sent to anyone wanting to take part in our competition. Charlotte wrote the content for the brief and we decided to keep the overall look quite simple because the content is more important as this will communicate exactly what we want. This design will also work well when it is added to our final boards because the style links with everything else we have produced. The brief has a breakdown of everything we want people to do for the comeptition and gives an end date so people know how much time they have. 

YCN; Photo's of mock-ups.


These are all the photos from the 'professional' shoot we did so that we had images to put onto our final concept boards of our mock ups. We did a range of different shots so we had quite a few to choose from. Some of the images came out a bit yellowy but this could easily be rectified in photoshop. 


Saturday 24 March 2012

YCN; The exhibition.


Intially for the exhibition I came up with a few layout designs that weren't really based on anything in particular, this is because really an exhibition can have any layout that you decide if there is enough space for it. When we looked over these drawings we decided it would be best to go with something that will guide the guests around the exhibition. I then came up with a few more designs based on this fact. We decided on one that we both liked and I made a few changes to it so that more work could be exhibited at the exhibition. I then drew up a colour coded plan of the exhibition which I could work from to create a proper plan which could be used within design boards. I created the proper plan on illustration using shapes to identify different elements of the exhibition as well as colour and included a key. 


At one of our crits it was advised that we drew up some examples of how the work would actually look in the exhibition and how it would be displayed. There was also the suggestion of using stock to create the flooring or even placing it on the boards of the exhibition. I drew up some more ideas based on these suggestions. We had to make sure that we had a range of ideas for the display of the work because the submissions could be absolutely anything so we had to cater to this. I designed platforms that paper mock ups could stand on, ways to hang posters on the boards, string displays for work that needed hanging and coves that work could be put into. Once we were happy with these ideas I drew them up neatly so that they could be added to the design boards. 

YCN; Further information on chosen venue.



We thought it would be worth getting in contact with the people that hire out the venue we had decided to hold our event at just to see if there was any further information we could get to make the idea solid. We managed to get the price of the venue and the capicity intially. The capicity was really important because we wanted quite a large venue to hold as many clients as possible and the fact it is approximately 300 people should more than accommodate for our type of event so this was a good result. We then requested the floor plan of the location because we were at the stage in which we were beginning to design a layout and decided that if we could get the acutal floor plan then this would benefit us a lot more than just guessing. It would seem like more of a real proposal. 

This is the actual floor plan for the venue that we were sent. 

YCN; Poster design.


Usually to advertise an exhibition one of the methods is poster design as these can be seen by a large number of people and get the message out there. I started some intial poster designs based on this and experimented with making the gradient work on a coloured background but didn't feel the effect was as strong. I then tried to make the background a gradient too but didn't know if this made the logo and the background clash too much. I realised then that because our event would be invitation only we didn't nessecarily need posters to advertise because we didn't want 'just anyone' turning up to it. 


Charlotte then came up with the idea of finding a quote based on colour and making this into a poster design that could be limited edition and handed out to guests at the event. This idea would be really successful because most people appreciate a freebee when attending events etc. Due to the quote above relating to illumination Charlotte came up with the proposal that the ink the quote is written in could be glow in the dark, this would definitely add to this 'limited edition' look we are going for and would be something different. The idea of the quote having a slight gradient on it is so that it links to other elements we have created. This poster would be A2 size when printed. This is also where the colour and black colour scheme came from so that everything would link together because a black background works best for this poster. 


YCN; Swatch booklet design.


Intially for the swatch book design I created a few nets based on things i'd seen before and also the Fedrigoni swatch booklet I have posted on design context. I wanted to create something that would showcase all the various colours that would be found in each swatch booklet as seen with Fedrigoni's other swatch book. I also wanted it to be visually interesting in terms of design but not complicated. In keeping with the other designs so far, I automatically knew that the cover would work best if it was black. Once i'd created all the nets we decided on one we liked best, this was the circular design that was cut out in the middle. We agreed that this design would be better if it was more angular because this is in keeping with other things we have created. I then created the net for this in illustration so the shapes were exact. Each shape would be slightly off center because this makes the design a lot more interesting visually. When I created the new net for this design as a mock up I found that the last few shapes if we were to have ten samples were too thin so other colours couldn't really been seen through them. Seven samples worked a lot better in this sense and meant that the design could easily be pocket size because it wasn't too chunky. The idea is that there would be a range of different colours and a lot of different swatch booklets so every colour of the imaginative colours tool was covered, the clients could then take which ever swatch booklets were relevent to their company. They are credit card sized so could be easily stored. The intial idea was to laser cut 'Imaginative colour' on the front cover of the booklet but because this proved difficult even with larger text on the invitation design we decided this probably wouldn't work. I decided to cut out a small section so that all the colours could still be showcased. The first being a horizontal strip, although this looked good it could communicate a lot better. We then tried to create a shape that related more to serif fonts because this is a consistancy throughout, this worked a lot better and seemed to be more interesting. 


YCN; Invitation design.


I came up with some initial ideas for the invitation design but when we looked back over them most of them had been done before so we had to try and create a unique edge on one if not come up with a completely new idea. When we looked at the books for invitation design research there was one in particular that we liked, the long envolope type design. Charlotte came up with an inital colour and gradient design and layout for the invitation of which we created mock-ups which looked quite good. After this Charlotte also came up with a poster design that could be given out to guests as limited edition. Due to the colour differences between this and the invitation we decided one needed to be changed to suit the other. We felt that the black worked best for the poster so chose to stick with this for everything we created. 


To actually mock-up our invitation design we initially printed out black on white stock so the stock would be the same throughout all deliverables. We decided to laser cut the front of our invitation holder because this would showcase the gradient on the front of the invite best. The idea of this gradient was that it linked to the logo we created first. When we first laser cut the printed stock it was having trouble cutting through due to the thickness and the settings we had chosen. It was also leaving a really obvious burn mark on the stock which is something we didn't really want. Another issue we had was the fact the counters kept falling out due to the nature of the type so we had to alter this a few times so that they would stay in, although very delicate, it worked eventually! After having the issues with the printed stock we decided to use black card and this worked a lot better, although the colour isn't quite the same, this can be altered once we have taken photographs. We also created a range of gradients to see which would work best. 


I took a range of photos of our final invitaion design to showcase it properly and some of these could be used on our final concept boards. This was before we put it together but you get an idea of the affect it has and it works really well, it showcases the colour brilliantly. The other feature we added to this invitation design was the Fedrigoni logo on the back this was kiss cut on the laser cutter so it just scored the stock rather than cutting it out completely. This gives the overall design a really high quality finish. 

Wednesday 21 March 2012

YCN; Final crit.


At this crit we had to lay out all the work we had so far for the brief and go around the table in three partners writing feedback for each collaborative group. The work we left was the three intial concept board ideas so we could get a little bit of feedback. Before we began the crit we had to come up with five questions we wanted feedback on in particular. A lot of our questions revolved around the exhibition proposal as this was the one thing holding our brief together in terms of concept. We wanted to make sure we were doing everything possible to make this a really good idea. We also had concerns about the legality of using the floorplans so wanted to know if this was ok. Once we'd given feedback to the other two partnerships we were given the opportunity to present our ideas and ask any questions about the feedback. All of our questions were answered on the sheets and were extended when we sat down to discuss feedback. As with the last crit a lot of the feedback was really positive but some of the suggestions for us to take the work further were very much welcomed as they were good ideas we could really work with. The one comment we really had to consider was the fact that instead of having other peoples work on our boards we should utilise this space and make sure each board contains our own work, fedrigoni will want to see as many ideas as possible in order to understand our concept. It was reccommended that at least one board contains a detailed description of exactly what our exhibition entails because when we presented and spoke about our ideas we communicated this really well and everyone really liked the ideas, but when they looked at the boards it didn't seem to communicate. 


After the crit we knew exactly what we had to do to make our concept even better. We had a better idea of things we would propose and things we would actually mock up and knew that once this was done we had to focus on creating our boards so that they represented our idea as clearly as possible with a lot of visuals. We used the action plans on the back of the sheets so we could manage our workload and work out what we had to do in the week or so we have left. This has been the most useful crit overall because it has really clarified our ideas and the feedback we were given was really useful and very well considered. 

Tuesday 20 March 2012

YCN; Intial design boards.


These were the intial design boards that we came up with for our final crit. We had, the concept/problem, collaboration, and the exhibition because these were the elements we had secure at this stage. The concept board imagery was more for the purpose of the university module submission because tutors would need to know what the imaginative colour tool would look like but if we were to submit this design to YCN we would exchange these images for the logo we have created. We wanted to try and tailor the boards so they would fit both submissions. The collaboration with the ink company is also a main aspect of our brief because this makes the concept as it revolves around ink. Although the images are not our own, it shows and understanding of what can be done with ink in terms of design. The exhibition venue is a huge part too because without this there would be no exhibition and due to the fact we'd actually been able to get hold of the floor plans we could communicate these ideas properly. Each board inclues a small explination of what our ideas are/what we are trying to communicate through them. 

Wednesday 14 March 2012

YCN; Event logo.

We spent a while trying to come up with a unique name for our exhibition but realised we were maybe trying to make it too complicated. We thought if we simply called it Imaginative Colour, this would link back to the original product we are promotiing, a simple yet effective connection. 


To begin desigining our logo we printed off fonts to draw from so we had a starting point. We went for mainly serif fonts because these tend to be used more in print based work but also experimented with sans-serif just to see how this would look. The photo of designs is the designs I came up with for the logo. I experimented with a variety of colour because the imaginative colour tool itself has a range of colours within it. The serif fonts definitely looked better because they have this high quality and sophisticated look to them and some fonts work better than others. One of the things that seemed to be coming through these designs is a gradient design forming with a mixture of two colours. Charlotte took this gradient approach a little bit further and applied it to Times New Roman, this was experimented with until we came up with something we felt really worked. The final logo is that, that fades out in the middle with a mixture of two colours (green and orange in the issue document). This works really well because has a dream like effect to it which would represent the imaginative side of the brief. We then experimented with this logo but over a range of different colours and it still had the same positive effect. We also looked at the different ways we could present our logo to decide which would be best. We took note of the angles used for the gradient so we can apply this to other elements. 

YCN; Colour on colour experiment.


Due to the nature of our brief experimenting with colour ink on colour stock I thought it would be sensible if we experimented with different colours on a range of different stocks. I printed text and a simple image on to a variety of different colour stock to see what effect certain colours may have and whether or not they would give us the quality we were looking for. Although some of the colours printed worked on certain stocks to a certain degree I don't think this has been overall successful. The colours don't give the quality that we are looking for and look a bit washed out in some cases. We have come to the conclusion that to get the quality we need we will have to print any colours we use onto white stock but so that the designs communicate the idea of colour ink on colour stock. If this was to be printed professionally the colour ink on colour stock may work but we will propose this. 

Wednesday 7 March 2012

YCN; crit two.


This is the crit within which we presented our concept boards. Before we began this crit we had to come up with three specific things we wanted feedback on by asking questions. This was so that we could get the feedback we were really looking for and so that it would useful. The main question was just to do with whether we had a good concept and this was most important because this is the aspect that would shape our whole project. A lot of the aspects that were brought up in terms of the feedback were things that we had already covered but maybe we hadn't explained these whilst we were presenting our work but at least this shows we are covering all areas of our brief. Most of the feedback was quite positive and gave us pointers of where we can gather further research. Although answers to our questions can't be seen on the sheets, we did get the feedback we were looking for verbally through feedback discussion after the crit. The concept is suitable for the brief and could be really creative if we take it in the right direction. 

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Enterprise & innovation; end of module self-evaluation.


1. What skills have you developed throughout this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?  
I have developed a number of skills throughout this module. One of the first and main skills has been collaboration/group work and this has been applied effectively because we managed to produce all the elements needed for the module and presentation. Another factor that showed to effectiveness of this skill was the research we all did seperately because this was brough together to produce our business plan. Although the application of this skill wasn't constant throughout, we definitely managed to bring it together in the end. I have developed linear business skills throughout this module because I had to understand how setting up a business worked in terms of both the maths and proposal elements. These have been applied in the best way possible considering this is something I had no experience in previously, proof of the application of these skills has been shown throughout both the presentation and the business plan itself. Another skill I have developed throughout this module is my presentation ability. This has been applied very effectively because I said my equal part throughout our presentation in order to gain confidence and show my understanding of the work that we had produced. The final skill I have developed is a research skill because this informed the tasks I have completed for the module but also the business section of the module. This has been a huge part of the whole module because a lot of the elements were based on research and looking at what is already existing within the industry. This skill has definitely been applied successfully because I wouldn't have been able to finish the tasks or complete our business idea without the help of the research I found. 

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? 
One of the approaches I have developed throughout this module is the idea of building a concept starting with one element and moving on to another in a certain order, for example, coming up with a company name and what we are about and then researching into these types of companies to inform the next stage. Without using this method of concept building the project would have never come together like it did because one thing has to be done before another as each element informs another and means we as a group could move on to the next stage of building our business. In a sense we also worked a bit backwards with this project because we came up with the name after we had thought about how we would like our design studio to be. This has actually benefitted us in the long run because the name was informed via the type of studio we were going to have 'upstairs downstairs'. The logo also came after everything else but this is something else that informed our design development process well because it meant we concentrated on the main and possibly most important elements of our project first and then thought about these elements which meant we could have a bit more fun with it because we weren't worrying about everything else. I learnt that its sometimes better to work backwards because certain decisions inform others and its important that parts of projects are prioritised over others depending on how time consuming they may be. 

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these? 
The research element has definitely been a huge strength throughout this module because it has informed many decisions throughout the tasks and also within our business idea. In future I will keep up this amount of research that I did because I found that the more you had, the more informed some of the decisions were and it also meant you had a lot of back up for the decisions you were making. My general organisation has also been a strength throughout this module but more so toward approaching the deadline because i've managed to produce the work within the deadline and our own personal deadlines based on when we needed certain elements to be done by so that we could move on with our work. In future to capitalise I will make sure I start the module organised too because the pressure won't be as much and decisions may become more informed because i'm not pressured to get things done. General idea generation has been a further strength throughout this module because i've helped contribute to some of the creative decisions. To capitalise on this in future I will continue to come up with a range of ideas before settling on something. When it comes to the tasks a strength I have is understanding a certain area of the industry that I am interested in to a satisfactory degree. In future I will research even further so I become an 'expert' on the things I am discussing because I may actually learn something that I didn't know. 

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in future? 
My presentation writing skill has been a small weakness within this module because there was quite a lot of text which can be quite off putting for the audience as they feel a bit bombarded and may spend more time reading than actually paying attention. In future I will keep my presentation as minimal as possible and speak more about things rather than having it word for word on the screen. I will also make my presentations more visually exciting because although this one was, it could have been more so. Communication skills have been a weakness in terms of the collaboration because there was points in which we didn't discuss ideas for a while. In future I will make sure that I converse with people about a project as often as possible or when nescessary so that there is no confusion and everyone in the group is kept in a loop. 

5. Identify five things you will do differently next time and what you expect to gain from doing these? 
1. Refer to sources in the library more. 
They are likely to be more realiable than the internet and I may come across something that someone else won't have found or thought of. This may inform my work in a more positive way because i'd be seeing something new. 

2. Converse more when it comes to group work. 
There will generally be better organisation and the workload will be easy to keep track of and also keep on top of. We can also discuss if people have come up with new ideas to capitalise on the ones we already had. 

3. Work to personal a deadline before the brief stated deadline. 
This is more of a personal gain because I feel that I would be a lot less stressed about what was left to do and would take more time in completing any outstanding work. There would also be more time to go back and change elements if need be. 

4. Prioritise a brief just as much as all others. 
This means that the work flow will be steady and constant and won't seem as daunting. There will be more organisation through doing this and said brief won't be forgotten about so much. 

5. Blog as I go. 
Keeping on top of the blogging means it won't be so much of a task at the end and i'd be less likely to miss something out. 

6. How would you grade yourself in the following areas: 
Attendence 5
Punctuality 5
Motivation 3
Commitment 3
Quantity of work produced 4
Quality of work produced  3
Contribution to the group 4
(1 being poor and 5 being excellent)

YCN; concept boards.


Once we began researching into the ideas we had we came up with some intial concept boards for our second crit that began to explore our ideas in more detail. On these boards we included, the problem/concept, comeptitors and audience, the product, visual direction and promotion and distribution. We felt at this stage these were some of the most important aspects of our brief as we hadn't obviously started to design anything. These are all things we'd already identified and understood fully to communicate our initial ideas. They communicate an idea of where we'd like to take our work visually so we are able to get feedback on this in the crit. 

Monday 5 March 2012

YCN; Second workshop//briefs.


The second workshop was all about breaking down the brief and really understanding what the company was looking for. We had to identify things like the audience, problems stated within the brief and annotate on the brief things we identified as we were going through. We got a lot out of this workshop because it helped us understand more so what can be done about this brief and meant we could then go forward and re-write the brief based on the ideas we had and the fact it could be written in a way that was more ideal for us. Part of this workshop was also looking at the briefs that we'd chosen that we didn't really like or we also liked and coming up with reasons for liking/disliking each of the briefs so our decisions were justified. 

YCN; The problem//re-written brief.

The intial problem: 
Promote the Imaginative colours tool by Fedrigoni to the UK design industry by creating a fully intergrated campaign. 

Our concept:

Once we had an idea of what we wanted to do with the brief and the direction we wanted to take it we had to re-write the brief and also write a rationale to accompany this. The re-written brief would make it clearer exactly what we were going to do and is something we can refer back to at any point. The rationale is also really useful because it breaks the brief down even further so we know what we are trying to accomplish. It also gives an initial idea of the processes we might use for our physical design work. Both elements help us understand the brief more because we are questioning exactly what the clients wants and also what our problem is. These two elements may change as we go through the course of the brief depending on if we come up with better ideas in terms of our concept.

Saturday 3 March 2012

Image; D&AD brief.

Live competition brief set by D&AD. 
When I think of rain in the UK I automatically think of it being romantic because it can bring people together and the brief is asking us to be quite positive about rain. I also feel that romance would be a good starting point because this is something that can be enjoyed by all so everyone should be able to relate. 


I thought of the quote 'love birds' when thinking about romance so from there my concept became pretty straight forward and I drew some intial sketches for imagery I could use within my poster design. I didn't explore the imagery too much because I felt this was pretty straight forward and that there could be more experimentation done throughout the actual layout of the poster. I again took the opportunity to draw everything by hand because I knew I would enjoy this more. 

This was the intial design I came up with. I decided to use bright colours in the obvious places because the poster itself is supposed to be really positive and heart warming. The layout in general utilises all of the space the poster is given and looks simplistic yet effective. I did however think there was a bit too much blue going on in this poster so decided what I could do to rectify this. 

I went for this grey/blue/green because rain creates this sort of colour in the sky anyway but its not as negative as using a straight forward grey colour. I also think that this colour better compliments the other colours within the poster. 

Although I like the overall result I have for this brief, I definitely feel as though it could have been explored further.