London Through The Eye Of A Designer - Icons, Symbols & Pictograms

This workshop reminded me about the Isotype one.  Both were about the use of images/symbols to communicate a message. In Isotype, we made up our own 3D Isotype to communicate figures/statistics.  Icons, Symbols and Pictograms was different in the way that we had to use images/symbols to create a Crest/Coat of Arms

A few examples:

• Nunavut
• The Vatican

• Bahamas

 
 

We formed a group to create our own Coat of Arms.  Both myself and Ewa live near Askew Road.

Askew Road, W12 is a long mainly residential road, linking Shepherds Bush to East Acton.

This symbolises Askew Road, linking Goldhawk Road and Uxbridge Road.

This road has a Chinese Take Away, A funeral Home, A pub called the Orchard another called Angel (hence the snake...Adam & Eve... a bit far fetched...but hey!)

This is our final design.

The chinese take away box has become the crest and the postcode has been made up of iconic symbols representing Askew Road.

London Through The Eye Of A Designer - Communication and Texture

This workshop was about describing London, using different methods.  We went through several ways such as:

• Non - Visual
• Non - Aural
• Non - Verbal
• As Time
• As Sound
• As Words
• As Space
• As Smell
• One Word
• As a Personality

It is quite amazing how people perceive the same city very much different from one another.  I guess that depends on how long you have lived in London, if you were born here, if you know you are only here for a specific goal ie: studying.

Personally, I know that my views of London have changed within time but that is most definitely because my circumstances have changed from being an Au Pair to actually living here and building a life.

  

Near the end of the workshop, we had to pick a word that described London and do a collage of what it meant to us.

London Through The Eye Of A Designer - Isotype Workshop

Isotype stands for International System of TYpographic Picture Education.

Those were first created by Otto Neurath around 1935.  They are symbol or a set of symbols representing a communication which would be understood by everyone, whether they are literate or not.  They are really developed now and can be found for many purpose.

Here are a few examples:

In this workshop, we were asked to create our own 3D Isotype, relating to homelessness statistic.

We worked in a group of 3, we chose to represent our statistic using one of London's landmark, the London Eye; as it doubles up as a pie chart.

Each colour represents a percentage

We finalised it by putting a legend

An example of another group's 3D Isotype

Hmm, Yummy Jelly Beans!

London Through The Eye Of A Designer - Contrast Workshop

This was about highlighting the many differences London has to offer.

We were given opposite paired words ie: black/white, long/short, smooth/rough, transparent/opaque...

The aim of the workshop was to create a little booklet which would sort of tell a story using 1 or 2 words.

We worked in pair; I chose transparent/opaque and Amna had smooth/rough.

We went around the college and starting taking pictures; I was quite amazed how much texture is out there.  It was nice to actually have the opportunity to take the time to notice it.

The booklet could only have black and white pictures, using the crop tool only as well as contrast adjustment.

 An example of rough texture

and smooth

This shot was taken through a window; the thing with transparancy is that everything behind it is at full opacity.

Our booklet, combination of Rough/Smooth and Transparent/Opaque

A few sample of what the rest of the group did

London Through The Eye Of A Designer - Mono Print Workshop

This workshop was really fun and easy...really does what it says on the tin: quick efficient way to make a black and white picture/design.

The process is very easy and surprisingly not too messy; bonus: the ink is waterbased...

For the purpose of our books; we worked on A5 portrait size.

First of all, the plate needs to be prepared by taping a frame around so that once you start inking, you are sure to have a "clean" border, although it does not necessary have to be straight.

The ink needs to first be spread in order to get an even coating (or as even as possible).  Too much ink or uneven coating can lead to unforseen outcome...all part of experimenting...

Collage Extension - Final

Finally all done.

Putting the actual box together was actually much harder that I had anticipated. I'll need in future to practice this skill.

Collage Extension - Development and Experiment

I really enjoyed doing this; but I was using Illustrator which I am not all that familiar with.  In the end I went through a lot of tutorials online.

First, I experienced with bottles, the outlines and also creating halftones, which I tried to use also for the type.

I really tried to emphasise on the type, applying Jo's clipping mask.

Very similar, but just changed a few things.

Collage Extension

I have chosen this one, Juxtaposition.

I am going to try to expose the danger of alcohol abuse graphically and typographically.

• Institute For Social Marketing
• Binge Drinking  
• Some Packaging Example
• Packaging Website

 

 

 

Somehow, I would like to include something similar to this on the packaging.

Re-rearranging The Furniture...

Just started taking a look at a project in particular that I dit last year, it was pretty big; it was entitled "Rearranging The Furniture", oddly enough but in fact the brief was to redesign mastheads for the ES Magazine (the evening standard friday supplement); 4 in total - Style, Sport, Entertainment and Homes & Property.  We also had to redesign the logo; had to keep it ES though.  We also had to do one feature of 3 pages, as well as a content/edititorial pages.  

As it has been a year and that trends do change tremendously and because I just thought why not...I am now in the process of updating a few things so here is the before: 

and the after:
Now that I am looking at it from this angle, I can see that the ES is way too big

Still too big and awkward with the big "hole" on top.

Nope, looks too crowded now.

Better, although there is too much space between the letters (tracking), ES and Magazine, too fart apart from each other. The date put too closely underneath ES.

I think this is better, I have closed up the gaps between the letters as well as brought up closer the space between ES and Magazine.  I have aligned the dates with Homes and Property, this way it gives more breathing space for ES.  I just need to decide now whether I should put Homes and Property in a different colour, as there is a different issue for 3 other titles.