New Values From the Past remastered

This is my newer version of the field poster and project ‘NEW VALUES FROM THE PAST’. Feedback from my previous design pointed out that the design looked too contemporary and that it portrayed a wrong sort of meaning. So what I have done is make an original poster in the style of the retro screen printed posters that were popular in the 1960’s onward. I have added a modern twist with the typography at the top, using a modern font in Bebas Neue and modern layout to suggest that these are the values we wish to bring forward to the modern day.

By using filters and original screen printed ink I was able to create an authentic background for the whole design, coupled with the title at the bottom I feel makes this poster look as if it has been screen printed in the 1960’s. In addition to this I have used a limited range of colours like they did back in the day when these posters were being first created.

In my previous poster was very busy and now looking back, overcrowded. Now I have sort have taken a minimalist approach with the use of negative space on the right had side.

The figure head for our campaign was famous actor Charlie Chaplin and decided we would like to bring him back from the past because of his inspirational scenes in acting and on the big screen, hence the reasoning why he is on the poster.

Essentially with this design I has modern elements included but in the style of an old fashion screen printed style, which I am very happy with, especially comparing it to my previous design.

Research for New Values from the Past

This is just some of the key inspiration I am using for the development of my New Values from the Past poster. What I wish to take from these designs and include in mine is the retro fonts, limited colour pallet and screen printed style from the 1960’s.

Design has the Power… (Final)

This is my final version of my typographic poster. There are only a few tweaks to make it a visually eye catching poster, which are the changes in the typographic layout and the colour of the flexed arm.

I believe the playful and different typographic layout give the text a better sense of pace, and just simply makes it more visually stimulating for the audiences

The new flexing arm, in the teal colour, in a similar sort of style as pop art coupled gives the poster new depth, instead of being bland, one colour and having a 2d feel.

The final and small change I made was the size of the text at the bottom of the poster. The only reason behind this is because when the original version was printed off the context was far too big and too easy to read from a distance. It is only meant to be visible for when people go close up to find out more, so I reduced the font size to 10 point.

Overall I am very pleased with the expressive typography and new additions to the poster.

Design has the Power…

This is my final design before my amendments. The positives from the feedback was that the statement was bold and powerful, as well as being punchy, making it memorable for audiences and the expressive typography was very visual and carried its expressive meaning, in particular the words “Changing” and “Design”. People liked how each character in the word changing was in a different font, and the kerning for each letter was different as well, so the word was quite literally changing. What I and other peers found interesting about the word design was the typographic element of it. The characters were made up of words that I feel are some of the key and important elements of design and what graphic design involves.

The imagery of the flexed arm was also commended because of its relevance to the statement and because of the use of the halftone effect, making it look a pop art piece. But to enhance the design further I could change the colour of the arm to make the nature more visually interesting and more like a pop art piece.

Some of the critical feedback that I received was that the layout could be more experimental to express the pace of the statement and in addition, “FUTURE” needs to stand out more compared to the other elements of the design because it looked too quiet compared to the rest of the design.

 

 

Developing Ideas

After my initial ideas I developed them further and started mock ups on inDesing and Photoshop. By doing this I was able to get a sense of what the whole design could look like in terms of scale and colour.

I was happy with the way the design was going, but after some discussions I decided to change the main statement to something more specific, punchy and catchy. I came to a decision that the new statement would be ‘Design has the power to teach the future’. For this I created some new expressive type forms for the words POWER and TEACH,  I wanted these words to stand out from the rest of the statement

With the word power I thought the W could be replaced by a crown to represent power, but after discussions with other peers we felt that it gave off the wrong sort of meaning, almost like a dictatorship, which is not how we saw graphics in the future, which means I have to go and rethink my design.

For the word TEACH I believe the pencils add to the expressive type, but I feel it could be stronger, or I could choose a different word. At this point in time I am thinking of changing it to the word CHANGE, like in one of my previous blog posts as I felt that th expressive type in that design gave a better visual of the word.

Now I am going to focus on pushing this design further, by giving it context and finding relative imagery.

Experimentations

This design is just an experimentation with filters and typographic forms. My favourite element of this design is the expressive type, CHANGING and SHAPING. They both express the word very well, giving the audience a good perspective of the words. For the word changing, by choosing different fonts and having each letter sit on a different baseline, helps give a true meaning of the word. In addition to this, the collage of images gives the whole piece additional meaning by showing how fashion has changed over the past few decades.

After discussions I have decided to change the statement to something more memorable, punch and that I will easily be able to find context for and help give the design more meaning.

If I was carrying on with this design and perfecting it I would change the expressive type, ALWAYS. There is too much going on and it needs to be simplified, the way to do this would be by either carrying on the ‘s’ or by using the word multiple times, not both.

Initial Ideas

This is just a photograph of all of my quick sketches and ideas for my design. With the quote “Like fashion, graphic design is always changing and shaping the future,”.  Most of the expressive type is similar throughout most of the designs, it’s just the layout and composition which are slightly different.

The word ‘fashion,’ I decided to make it look fancy by composing it in a different style to the rest of the statement. By using a serif font or handwritten font I believe this will give the word fashion a fashionable look compared to the rest of the expressive type on the page.

The next significant part of the expressive type is the word always. What I plan to do is duplicate the word a couple of times just to simply emphasise that the changes ‘always’ happening.

The next bit is the word changing. For this word all I simply did was was change the baseline, kerning, font and rotation of each letter to emphasise the change happening in graphing design.

For the word shape, all I did was composite the letters into a triangle. This was just to give the word a bit more meaning and context with in the whole design. Hopefully it makes it more interesting on the eye for the audience as well.

In all of the different layout trails I would then stick the collage of images in the design depending on the composition of the words. I’m not sure how I should scale the design, if the image should be big or small, that will depend on when I hit the computer and fiddle around with it a bit.

Research

Our brief is to create an expressive type poster with an image and block of text referring back to the expressive type, while also giving it context. The brief was set relating to the future generations and how graphic design will have a role in the future. After reading the manifesto and doing further research I decided on a quote/statement. I came up with “Like fashion, Graphic design is always changing and shaping the future,”. I wanted to come up with something personal because then I feel it would have more meaning. I believe this quote also shows that graphics is like a moving object, always changing and evolving, changing the way people view the world in everyday life.

My thoughts on graphics in the future were informed on a few articles. I think that graphics and clients are realising that branding isn’t all about the professional logos etc because audiences now want more, searching for an engaging experience. This is where I think graphic design can change and shape the future.  By becoming more engaging design in itself becomes more interesting, making it a powerful learning tool, helping design teach the future.

Also when doing this I stumbled across a nice poster with a simple colour scheme of black and yellow. I like these two colours together because they both stand out from each other, also making the design look dangerous as such, making the audience drawn even more. 

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/illustration/future-of-graphic-design/

London Four Designers

During the Four Designers conference in London, from the four designers that spoke through out the day I managed to compile a load of tips to help me as an undergraduate succeed and break out into the design world.

These were:

Be authentic, Lead with your heart, be enthusiastic, stand out, attention to detail, go on placements, research the industry, put passionate design and work in your portfolio and live with a purpose

London trip (Doodle man)

while on the trip in London many things stood out for me such as the four designers conference and the talk in the Moving Brands design studio, showing me all of the great possibilities for a designer like myself, but the thing that stood out for me the most was the Doodle Man street art and his gallery.

The street art that I came across was just complex doodles all intertwined into each other in a walk way tunnel, making one long design. Looking closer there were lots of funny details. This was very similar to his studio. The walls were covered in these black and white doodles covering the whole studio space. In addition to that these doodles were all over the tables, chairs and on his clothes. I feel it was a just a really fun piece of design that seemed to never stop giving.