As I will be finishing my foundation degree soon it is time to look into what my plan is for next year. It’s a scary thought but I am sure I am going to continue on with my studying and progress onto a third year top up course. I feel that this is a better option for me and I would like to spend another year within education to complete a full degree and gain more experience by completing a series of work placements. I have began looking into universities which do this course, and found a few, I could continue at Newcastle college to study Creative Practice, or move onto Sunderland University to study  a top up year in Graphic design. I am going to apply for both and see what happens.

 

I have began researching into some editorial design which I like and think works well. Here is a selection of some of the designs I found, I like simplistic spreads and clever use of colour, as shown in these designs. This is something I will continue to research and possibly take forward into my design.

In my SWOT analysis i identified time management as one of my weaknesses, so i decided to try and develop on this by creating a time plan. This is a weekly plan which will guide me on what needs to be completed each week we have to complete this module.I have used time plans before but as time keeping is such an important part of working in industry, meeting deadlines etc, i feel this is something i need to get in the habit of doing and using on a regular basis.

I will include a copy of this in my PPD folder..

For this project i have created a SWOT analysis before i begin the project properly so i know what my strengths and weaknesses are as well as what oppurtunities i have within this project to develop and on my weaknesses.

This will help me to approach the project in a way which i know is going to help me progress and develop and make the most of this module.

I will include a paper copy of this analysis within my PPD folder..

We were briefed on a new project today, alternative techniques. This brief is going to be very self directed, aimed at broadening and extending skill sets. This brief gives us the oppurtunity to reflect back over the areas we have worked in so far and picking a preferred area of expertise to work in again for this brief.

I have thought about this brief and feel confident that editorial design is the preferred area I am going to chose for this module. I really enjoy this area of Graphic Design in previous projects and have produced strong work, like my design for the typographic circle supplement.

As i decided to create my design from an a3 size page all of the page layouts are on one side oof the page which leaves the other side blank. i decided to create a poster for the other side which recievers of this leaflet could stick up as a kind of souveneir of there time at V festival. i chose a selection of photographs of artists and created a collage on photoshop using blending modes to create this effect. i chose to have the images all in black and white with only the V logo in colour, i think this work well and fits in with the design of the inside paages of the leaflet. i included empty poloroid shapes to encourage people going to the festival to use this poster to document their own experience of the festival. overall i am very pleased with this.

This is the almost finalised design for my project. i decided to created a folded leaflet rather than a booklet which made creating the document more complicated than first anticipated. I needed to think of a way of putting this together so it would work the way i had planned. i created an a3 document in indesign and after making a paper mock up of the way this would fold the design became a lot easier to make. Making a paper mock up meant that i had something to refer to whilst putting my design together, in future if i create a similar document i will definitely use this technique again as it saved a lot of time and ensured i was putting pages in the correct place on the computer design.

 This is the final illustration i have created for my design, i experimented with colouring a few different areas but decided that colouring the hair and lips looked best.

This is the original scan of my Olly Murs illustration aswell as my final edit for the design. i selected a few areas of the image (hat and collar) to colour as i did with the previous image and used the same techniques to make the images look similar. This will ensure a continuous style throughout the piece.

This is the final edit for the Rita Ora illustration, i chose to only use colour on the hair and lips. i think this works really well and i will be happy to include this in my final design. It is quite a simplistic image but this will fit in well with the look i am aiming for for my final design.

here are a few of the edits i created as part of my development work for this project, i like the idea of a very simple colour scheme so in all of these edits i have used a limited selection of colours. i have adjusted the levels to make the drawing clearer and experimented with using a skin tone over the face as the only colour. i am not completely happy with these edits though and wouldnt feel confident using them in my work so i am going to continue development until i produce somethikng i am confident with.

I began my illustrations for this project by creating this pen drawing of Rita Ora, one of the performers at the festival. Once i had scanned the design into the computer a lot of the quality was lost so before i add the image into the final design i will need to edit them on photoshop to increase the quality. 

These are some examples of layouts i have collected from the internet. i liked these mainly due to the minimal use of colour. i think that by staying with a mainly monochrome scheme with simple hints of colour the page looks very attractive despite simple designs. this is something i would like to carry through and experiment with in my own work.

research into festival programmes
This link will lead you to an example of the research i collected into past festival programmes, i seen this design and decided i didnt want to create something as complex and busy as this one. i want to create a leaflet which is a lot more concise with a select amount of information, this will look better and not be too long to keep the reader interested.

As we have been given the oppurtunity to create our own brief for this module I have decided to do a editorial based project again as I really enjoyed the typographic circle brief. As I have so much freedom with this project i wanted to make sure it was something I really enjoyed so I wouldnt lose interest during it, as we have quite a long time to produce the work. My final project is going to be a pre festival guide for v festival. Originally I planned on creating a programme for a festival but once id thought about content ect, i thought that a guide to send out with tickets before the festival would be a better idea and something that hasnt really been done previously. I plan to include things like information about artists performing at the festival, with illustrations, festival camping tips and many other things. I feel like this would be more useful to a festival goer as they will be provided with essential festival info before they're there.

Typographic circle..

These are my final spreads for the typographic circle magazine supplement. In order to get to this point with my design i needed to complete a vast amount of research into past circular magazine designs as the brief specified the work i created must fit with the style of previous publications. After designing the front cover i decided to continue the vertical lines throughtout each spread to keep a theme going throughout the design, i think this works well and adds a visual point to my quite simple design. i chose these colours as i thought they would compliment eachother well and from my research i noted there was little restrictions for colours to be used. In my design i kept everything central in the page and didnt use the outer 2 columns in any of the spreads, or put anything except the vertical lines in the upper or lower parts of the page. Overall, i am very pleased with the outcome of my design and feel i have produced something which fits the outlines of the brief well and would fit with previous typographic cirle designs. My work was voted the best in my class by my classmates, which has gave me more confidence in my work. During this project i have gained a lot of knowledge when using indesign and decided that editorial design is somthing i am very interested in and would like to persue in future projects.

Made Thought..

My current brief is a live one for Pentagram, i have been asked to create a supplement for the typographic circle magazine. This is for a competition from D&AD, in which entrants are required to submit a series of three supplements with the subject of past speakers for the typrographic circle. For my design i chose to include the design company Made Thought. I chose the work of this company as i loved the continuous style throughout their work for the many clients they have. The design of this work is heavily type based, with very simple, bold typefaces used in many of the pieces. Alot of the designs are full of constrast, contrasting colours, grey pages with gold edges for example, sharp edges with bold text contrasting with soft colours.

2nd level bistro..

This is the logo i designed for a brief we were given by the staff of newcastle college. I kept the design very simple and sophisticated as i felt this would fit well with the space we were designing for. The bistro is a staff only area, with no student access on the second level (which is where the name came from.) I also created a letterhead using this design to show that the logo will fit with a selection of things. Looking back on this design i am not completely happy with it and feel there are a few changes that need to be made to complete the design in a way which i am happy with. However, i feel like this project has helped me to begin developing my software skills which is an ongoing target i have set myself for the year.

Penguin..

This is the final design I created for a brief from Penguin books for 'One flew over the cuckoos nest.' I originally played with the idea of a number of faces, showing the same expression, with one contrasting. However, after development i felt that this worked better and overall i am very pleased with the outcome. I feel that the colours complement eachother very well and the thick lines and simple shapes makes it contrast to alot of covers i have seen previously for this title.