I CAME ACCROSS...

Just came accross this piece of design and thought that the quote was so accurate. As a piece of design itself I am not sure. It was created by Fabien and Frederic Barral. This poster was a limited edition, there are only 100 copies.

I LIKE...TYPOGRAPHY

Since last year, I have been quite interesting with the placement of typography in a piece...Playing around with letters, having more than one size within a word... Here are a couple of example I came accross today whilst looking through "Radical Graphics Radicals" by Laurel Harper.

"Best of Jazz" 1979 by Paula Sher - Pentagram (New York)
This piece contains 20 names, she created while being an art director at CBS Records. She had to create a piece promoting Jazz; the sole use of typography at the time was seen as something quite innovative and very unusual.

The Big A (1991) Paula Scher

This was created in order to promote Ambassador Arts. The "A" is a Cheltenham character typed on on a typewritter . It was then alarged several times with a photocopier until she managed to achieved the desired size.

BRIEF RELATED WORKSHOPS

TARGETTING YOUR AUDIENCE

Being able to relate to your audience correctly is one of the major factors. Effectively, if you are trying to communicate something which does not “hit” or relate to your chosen audience, often means that you probably will have failed in delivering a successful campaign. As part of our workshop, we went through a few methods which would ensure that we can successfully identify our target audience.

Research is the key: primary research (when the agency or yourself create tools such as questionnaires or survey...) and secondary (books, internets, magazines, museums...) where you put your collected facts together.

Once this is all done (although research is an ongoing process...), you will be able to “create” a profile of your targeted audience.

CLIENT

It is equally as important to research your client as it is to know your audience. Knowing your client will help you understand your brief even better. It enables you to knowledge yourself with other similar companies as well as their competitors.

As practice exercise, we had to research 2 companies and then place them on the chart. I chose Ikea and Pret-a-Manger.

Ikea: Privately held international company, with a great environmental impact mainly due to the creation of jobs worldwide, both directly and indirectly.

Pret-a-Manger: Also an international company, although it is mainly based in the UK, it has nevertheless outlets in the U.S as well as in Hong-Kong.

COMMUNICATE A MESSAGE
A message can be communicated to an audience/ people by different methods. Each method will have previously been designed so that emotion is felt. Those emotions have the purpose to try to get the audience to relate to the products being advertised.

• Innovation (advertising something new-never be seen before)
• Rational (logical, comparing)
• Emotional (luxury brand - newest car - often displayed by celebrities)
• Practical (down to earth, fact, necessity)
• Cultural (knowledge of life...)
• Money-Saving
• Sensory (using colours, flowers ie: M&S food adverts)
• Aspirational (Something or someone to look up to, wanting to make us "be" better)

Making sure that the "Message Communicated" is received and understood by your target audience will ensure a successfull campaign.

As a group, we drew how quick sketches of how to represent the following messages:

• Be More Confident
• Appreciate Culture
• Become Healthier
• Become Greener
• Educate Yourself
• Help Others

PROCESS WORKSHOP

Just going through gathering ideas for our current project, so I thought I'd look through my notes taken during the Process Workshop a couple of weeks ago. It is nice to read through them at this point. It is refreshing my memories and definitely helping me out with the whole proces of "coming up with ideas".

BECOME HEALTHIER - PROJECT

Just starting research on the project which is a local council, promoting to become healthier, targeted to 20-30s.

I have been going through a few related websites...

• http://www.5aday.nhs.uk/topTips/default.html
• http://www.healthierus.gov/
• http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/
• http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/html/healthy_living/lifestyle/exercise/exercise_benefits.html
  

So far, the information I am getting is not necessarily aimed at 20 to 30 years old but more generalised to people from all ages. My first thoughts on the 20-30s audience is that they have a fast paced life, have busy social lifestyle and maybe not much spare time.

I started doing some research as well as noting them down in my sketchbook. Firstly, I concentrated on trying to get a better feel of my target audience - Style Conscious 20 to 30 years old. As such, I created a quick questionnaires. I am also trying to compile a list of what they are most likely to read. I carried on my research by going through a couple of magazines (Company, Glamour) and cut out objects which I think relates to them.

I have gone through the "Ideas Generation Process" and applied the following: Consider all Factors, Dominant Idea, Concept Challenge, Reverse, Exaggerate, Distort and Wishful Thinking and finally the Stepping Stone. I must say, this does really speed up the whole coming out with ideas thing, although, I still need to practice some more to come out with even more and better idea in the future.


























I have also made annotations on cuts out I have pasted, it helps coming out with "slogans" and also take an idea a little further.

























24 November 2009, following a group work review session, where I saw a lot of interesting and inspirational things from the others (it is nice to see how the same message can mean and be interpreted differently by someone else), the feedback given is great as it is enabling me to take my research further. ie look into what would being fitter mean for your own benefit. I have therefore asked myself those questions which I will try to get an answer for:

• What does "fitness" bring to you?
• Look into benefits of exercising, what does it represent
• Exercise can make you feel... (happy, brings you more confidence, release "endorphins", energised, enhance your performance, becoming fitter makes you more aware of your body)

As a format, I had thought of doing "decking syle cards" - 7 - one for each days of the week, although I do think it is still a convenient way - this could eventually pose problems for the user such as losing them, getting them torn, forgetting them...maybe have something like an apps as now more and more phones have those features included.

29 November 2009, following my Group Work Review with Orlagh on Friday, I carried on with a little further research such as creating some moodboards. I also looked at some typography samples, mainly within the food range. Those also gave me a range of colour scheme to think about. I just started taking some ideas on the picture and I've kept a progress sheet; although it is good to do this for myself, and also for the need of the PDF, I'm afraid I am spending more time describing my actions than actually getting on with the works so I need to think of a faster and more efficient method to do this. Furthermore, a step by step guide might be just a little too much and may prove soporific for the reader...

Samples of typefaces found on food packaging.
























Just thought about the "Communicate Your Message" method




















Looking through typefaces I would mostly for my headlines.





















04 December 2009, my project is pretty much finished now - just checking through a couple of things to get it ready for print... if I am truly honest, I am not 100% happy with the final outcome. I went through quite a few drastically changes since my last group work review; mainly due to comments that were made. Not just that, but also there were a few things that did not seem to "work" so I modified them. Having gone through my whole sketchbook after doing the pdf, I realised that I sort of wonder why I did a sketchbook in the first place. Looking back, now I feel as though I have left out lots of things...?

Brand Museum

I visited the Brand Museum a while ago... It is amazing how many products have been collected over the years. Seeing the evoluction of the packaging design of everyday products that have been around for decades is really amazing...(for lack of a better word!). http://www.museumofbrands.com/

Artists whose work I like

Cassandre is amongst others, an artist whose work I like. Although originally a Painter; he started designing advertising posters as a mean to earn a living, before he thought, he could establish himself as a painter. His advertising work was mainly inspired by both cubism and surrealism. Having earned a good reputation over the years, he and some partners created an advertising agency called "Alliance Graphique". This poster was created for Dubonnet in 1932, a wine company.

This poster was designed in 1927. It was created to advertise the use of luxury transport. The text around the poster acts as a frame and it feels like you are looking at the poster through a window. He uses capital leters only and he has inversed the colours of the letters according to the background. The text has been translated in 3 languages, as the poster is advertising a product in 3 different countries. The design is very simple and inspired by cubism and futurism methods. The colours are yellow, blue, green and white. He has incorporated lines representing the railway.

JAN TSCHICHOLD (1902-1974)

Born in Germany, Jan Tschichold was a book designer, teacher, writer but mainly a typographer. He was trained in calligraphy, with his father being a sign writer. This gave him an edge and differentiated him from all other typographers as they mostly had a fine art or architectural background. During WWII, he took refuge to Switzerland where he spent most of his life. In his 20’s, he took a liking to Modernist after seeing a Bauhaus exhibition. He started publishing a magazine supplement as well as wrote his 1st book, where he clearly “did not like” all fonts except for the Sans Serifs ones. He strongly believed in the alignment of text. 10 years later, he slowly accepted the use of serifs typeface for body text. In 1947, Tschichold went to England in order to participate in the redesign of 500 paperbacks published by Penguin. He created the following typefaces: Transit, Saskia, Zeus, Sabon and a few others.

Casanova (1972)

This work is inspired by Modernism. Tschichold makes use of geometrical shapes. You can at first see both triangular and rectangular shapes. Mostly drawn, but also made by the composition of the letters. The main two colours are blue and white. Jan Tschichold uses a serif typeface for the title; very elegant, suggesting the film might be a romance. “Casanova” is written in red, the first 5 letters appear to be below the blue background, giving them this darker shade. The word “Casanova” seems to be pulled from under the blue shape and trying to reach for the top. The blue has a transparent opacity which makes the word appear of 2 different colours. Underneath “Casanova”, another name is written, however very hard to see properly, you can nevertheless tell that it a sans serif typeface is.
All the letters within the poster are written using capital letters, which is very characteristic of Tschichold.
Everything is aligned, per example the “C”, the beginning of the white shape and the text “Phoebus-Palast” with a surrounding border. Everything is also placed perpendicularly. Finally, in the middle of colours and geometrical shape, there is a circle with a black and white picture of a scene in the movie.

Penguin Paperback (1950)

Created in 1950, Jan Tschichold’s redesign of the Penguin Paperback ranges. He first started by a cover entitled “Selected Letters” by D. H. Lawrence. Jan Tschichold only made small changes and kept Young’s layout (the previous designer). He started by redesigning the Penguin logo. The use of typeface has also been “tidied” with the sole use of Sans Serif. The cover of “The Great Gatsby” then followed. Another few small changes were made. The layout stayed the same, however, this time he added orange lines on the beige part as well as between the author’s names, however those are only very small. Finally, a descriptive line was added.

HERBERT MATTER (1907-1984)

Born in Switzerland, he is the first designer to experiment intensely with photomontage. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Geneva as well as the Academie Moderne in Paris. Whilst in France, he worked with Cassandre. Having been requested by the Swiss National Tourist Office and Swiss resorts to design a campaign of advertising posters promoting skiing in Switzerland, he returned to Switzerland in 1932. His work requiring him to use photograph, he became also a photographer.

Advertising Posters for Switzerland (1934)

The Swiss tourist office, wanting to boost tourism in 1934 the first thing that you can see is the face of the young person. It seems to be pasted onto the poster. He has chosen a smiling person to represent joy, happiness and satisfaction. The poster is an advertisement to boost Switzerland’s tourism, emphasising on the skiing activities. The poster is monochrome apart for the use of a “splash” of red and the face of the young person. All the typography used is in capital letter. The white crosses splashed with red are representative of the Swiss flag. The background of the poster has a “Mountain” feel to it as well as people skiing. Although those are very small. Both block of text have been put perpendicularly.
The second one in the series is very similar. Matter chooses to use a monogram colour, grey and has added some text in red, to emphasize the red of the Switzerland flag. Once again, the people portrayed look happy.
This series of advertising poster communicate the well being felt on taking a winter vacation in Switzerland. The message is to get tourists to come over to Switzerland and ski.
This series of poster has been achieved by the manipulation of photographs.

America Calling (1941)

During the Second World War, Herbert Matter was commissioned by the Office of Emergency Management to produce posters, encouraging people to take part in the fight. This poster is very patriotic. Firstly by the blue and red stripes symbolising America’s flag.
Secondly by the positioning of the text and graphics following a strappy pattern. Lastly by using a picture of bald eagle, which is America’s national emblem? The eagle is also used as a symbolic representation of a plane, as it is a poster for the aviation army. The blue stripes can also be interpreted as wings (of a plane) simply by the way they are positioned.