OUGD 406 Evaluation

For the stamp brief I started off by illustrating endangered animals. I used ink and water to create different shades and tones. By scaling down my original scanned in images I found that the drawings gave them a higher level of detail. I rendered them off the white stock I used which made them feel a lot cleaner to look at.

I tried to mimic a Chinese/ Japanese ink painting style. I found inspirations in the ink paintings and wanted to try something different. As I have highlighted throughout the year I want to continue to try different media, stock and techniques to become a contemporary designer who can produce any 'style' of work. This means that I have to find new inspiration all of the time.

I brain stormed and by categorising it usually informs me of the approach I am going to take. Then I started gathering primary and secondary research from different blogs and web sources. 

 

For 'Communication Is A Virus' we decided to choose How to be creative/ recycle.

We thought of an idea we could run with pretty much straight away. I was carrying a 'juice purse' on my person and when I said we could make juice wallets and purses everyone took it with a pinch of salt until we pondered over it more and decided that we could in fact brand and create and identity for juice purses created out of juice tetra packets.

I was given my juice purse as a small gift which cost nothing and anyone in theory could make. The juice purse is just quite a catchy little quirky purse. We thought that they were perfect as a concept to sell.

We did some research online and found that although their were different template nets their wasn't any kind of brand that visible to us. So there was an opportunity for us to be the first to brand the juice purse tetra packs. We thought that juice purse answered the brief by being something a bit different that also followed 'How to be creative while recycling'.

Although we didn't find anyone else who had branded juice purses we did find other Eco business's that were doing the same thing with different products for example Ecoist, tree hugger, great green good and many others. These company's have a set of products that are made from recycled items such as coco cola cans and made into hand bags and other sorts. This identified to us that theirs definitely a market and an audience for this type of product which gave our idea credibility.

We started off making loads of juice purses from which we found quantitative templates and got quite a lot of primary research from different members of our group and also people from around college generally other students. What kind of existed as a gimmick in our minds seem to impress people. So we began secondary research of what makes a successful brand and trying to create a brand for Juice Purse. Juice Purse was also the name we decided to use as it made sense by directly describing the product as well as being a tag online for the tetra template which made sense as we thought this is what people would usually use as a search term through a search engine.

We found looking at any other contemporary products which are sold on the internet serves as good secondary research for branding and identity. We looked at websites and products we thought worked and ones wee didn't and we discussed in a group why and how they were successful and unsuccessful in our opinions. This was useful as it gave us a bench mark for our own product. We considered the amount of resources we had at our disposal and also the amount of time we had on hand which would directly effect the end result of what realistically we could achieve.

In the final crit promotion was raised. According to Jo and Amber we needed to promote our product more as the concept and the way we had approached branding the product was great but unless we physically got it out into a live context how would people know about it. From there we decided to make a Facebook page and twitter page in which people could view the Juice Purse.

I think the group worked really well as a whole and the product and work we produced was very successful. Juice Purse has been one of my favorite briefs. I think it was enjoyable because we tried lots of new things for example the video and also the homemade embossing.

I still need to book print slots earlier so that I am not struggling to print. When printing in college it is a good idea to book in advance which I did for most of this module. Luckily this didn't effect me massively but it still impacted my work slightly. I would of liked to have printed my Middle Earth poster bigger and with a silk satin stock. This made my map slightly faded because of the paper I used. In the future I will make sure that I am prepared for anything and that I have sufficient time in the printing rooms.

 

Its Your Brief - Middle Earth Finished

Here is my attempt at Middle Earth with Frodo's route to Mordor. I havnt marked the routes of the rest of the fellowship because I think from the original route they all took until the fellowship divided makes it easy for someone reading LOTR to find the route. 

Also it gives them something to do. I decided to change the typeface for each area to Linux Libertine Capitals, Blanch wasn't working at didn't fit with the theme. Although I didn't want the typefaces to be too obvious because of the style of the original LOTR I feel it needed a serif typeface somewhere on the map.

I am pleased with the end result and hope Tolkien fanatics like what I've done. I have only read The Hobbit and The Fellowship Of The Ring so I will admit I am not the most informed LOTR fan but if there are any mistakes ill try to correct them. 

My intentions to create a Graphic version have been fulfilled I think although I think it was hard to distinguish this map from the old map because the old map was successful. I have come to this conclusion after trying to me my own map.

 

Its Your Choice - Compass Designs

 

This is the first logo I quickly made for the crit on tuesday. I used Lobster 1.3 and Lobster two to create the North, East, South and West. 

The bottom bits of text are called Roadway.

 

This is Lobster Two which is basically Lobster 1.3 without the Italic.

 

Here I was messing with the tracking of - THE REALM OF. Which I didn't think worked.

 

  

I duplicated the NESW logo and startedp laying with the stroke of the multiple layers which gave it this 3D shiny gloss look.

 

 

 

I really like this one and it fits the style of my map and also works as a compass. A simple one I guess. I used the same effects on the Middle Earth text but I faded the transparency of the bottom layer which was white to give it a popping effect.

Its Your Choice - Mountains and Hills.

I started looking at what the scale I could make the mountains and trees. The problem with making them even the slightest bit detailed is at the scale required for Middle Earth they look odd and don't resemble what they originally did when they were 3:1 for example.

It was pretty tedious placing all of the mountains in groups around the map. I placed them from one perspective. As I was placing them I was aware that the map still resembled the original map.

 

Here you can see how I managed so many layers. By colour coding them and grouping them it allowed me to work with so many. This is the first time I have done something with so many and actually used this technique. I think I will do the same in the future as it made it a lot easier to work.

Its Your Choice - Lakes, Sea, Marshes and Compass

Its Your Choice - Designing Trees

Designs for the trees.

 

Here I began simplifying them on illustrator so that I could then transfer them onto Photoshop. People ask me why I am doing it on Photoshop and the reason is I like some tool and ways of working of Illustrator but sometimes it takes me too long to get the desired effect I could get on Photoshop fast.

 

Filled Black. This makes the trees more graphic.

Its Your Choice - Designing

Mountain designs

 

 

 

 

Below is my starting point.