Studio Brief 3 - Research

Message & Delivery - Research

For this brief we have to create a body of research in response to a news story, issue or theme found in the national press.

I picked up a few different newspapers to have a look at including The Guardian, The Mirror and The Daily Mail. After reading through the newspapers I chose a story in The Guardian headlined, 'How to save the planet? Stop having children.' 

Design Principles - Colour Theory

Colour Theory

For this session we were asked to bring in five items of a certain colour, my groups colour was blue. The first task was to order the colour of the items from light to dark.

Study Task 02 - Grids

Grids

A grid system is a rigid framework that is meant to help graphic designers in the meaningful, logical and consistent organisation of information on a page. Versions of grid systems have existed since the medieval times but a group of designers inspired in ideas from typographical literature started buildinfga more rigid and coherent system for page layout. The core of these ideas were first presented in the book Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller Brockmann.

Grid Terminology

Format
The format is the area in which the design sits. In a book it is the page or on a website it is the browser window.

Margins 
Margins are the negative space between the edge of the format and the outer edge of the content.The proportions of the margin help to establish the overall tension or lack of tension in a composition. The smaller the margin the more tension is created.

Design Principles - 3D Type

In today's design practice session we had to build a 3D letter out of cardboard using 4 different planes. Our group chose a Helvetica B. We cut it into 4 sections, the stem, cross bar and 2 bowls. We had to hang each part so that they aligned to make the letter. We also had to make a viewfinder to look through to see the letter when it is aligned as from other angles it just looked like random hanging shapes.

Studio Brief 2 - Vector Type

I have chosen to base my typeface on this letterform as I feel it reflects my word the best out of all of my letterforms and it received the best feedback in the crit. 

I have created a grid for Futura which I found quite difficult at first when I started doing it by hand as it started getting very complicated pretty quickly. I decided to have a go at producing a grid for Futura in Illustrator and found this much easier than doing it by hand. I tried to keep it as simple as possible to make it easier to work with. 

Design Principles - Lonely Hearts

Lonely Hearts

For this session we had to bring 3 different typefaces, I chose Avenir, Baskerville and Brush Script Std as these are three very different typefaces. In groups we had to pick one of our typefaces each so we had a collection of different typefaces, I chose Brush Script standard as it was quite different to the other typefaces chosen. We then had to pick one letterform from our typeface and describe why we chose it. I chose the C from Brush Script Std because it's a simple brush stroke and is quite informal but easier to read than some of the letterforms that make up this typeface.  We then had to create a lonely hearts style advert for our letterform describing it and what it is looking for in another letterform. 

Studio Brief 1 - Final Designs

Studio Brief 1 - Initial Ideas & Interim Crit

To begin with I wanted to design a letterform that still somewhat resembled my chosen typeface (Futura) and to make small changes to it but so it reflected my word (aggressive). So I decided to cut off the cross bar to make it look sharp. I was also bearing in mind that we will have to eventually create the whole alphabet in this style so I wanted to keep it simple to begin with. The feedback I received about this letterform in the interim crit was that people liked it because it reflected my word effectively in a simple way. 

Studio Brief 1 - Research

Alphabet Soup

For this brief we have chosen a word from the randomiser and have to produce a set of 10 letterforms which explore and communicate our interpretation of the word using the typeface we chose from Vignelli's 6 basic typefaces in study task 1 as a starting point.

I chose Futura and the word I have selected from the randomiser is aggressive.

aggressive
adjective
ready or likely to attack or confront; characterised by or resulting from aggression: he's very uncooperative and aggressive.
behaving or done in a determined and forceful way: we needed more growth to pursue our aggressive acquisition strategy.

To make a start I have created a mind map of words and things that I think of when I think about the word aggressive.

OUGD403 Study Task 1

What's My Type?

For this study task we had to look into the six type faces that Massimo Vignelli refers to in 'The Vignelli Canon'. According to Vignelli to create good graphic design you only need to use six typefaces throughout your career.

These six typefaces are Garamond, Bodoni, Century Expanded, Futura, Times Roman and Helvetica.