OUGD406: Branding Exercise

Rebranding a Company

For this short one day brief we were asked, in groups, to rebrand a company whose image and style looked a little out of date.

Our group received the Airline and travel company monarch, we made a radical change of the brand by  taking the usually regal connotations of the word Monarch and instead using it to represent the Monarch butterfly. We felt this was a better way to represent the company giving it a more elegant feel with closer relations to flying.

It also meant we could come up with a new set of catchy and interesting tag lines to promote the company including:

'Monarch butterflies migrate up to 3000 miles to warmer weather in the winter. They know a thing or two about winter holidays. And do we…'

OUGD406: SB3- Alternative Movie Posters

'Fooling' Around

For this brief we had to produce an A4 two colour screen printed alternative movie poster based on a film chosen at random.

When it came too sketching ideas I had really wanted to watch the film first, however amazon failed to deliver on its promise and the goods in time. This meant that I was relying heavily on plot synopsis's, trailers, reviews and screenshots of the film in order to come up with my initial ideas. I read several reviews including ones from the New York Times, Rotten Tomatoes and one written by an independent blog site named Roger Eburt. All reviewers gave the film a positive and good review, stating specifically that this was Paul Newman's shining success as an actor.

Trailer: Nobody's Fool

The consistent theme throughout all these reviews was redemptions: A man (Sully, played by Paul Newman) wasn't a good or relevant father to his own son; he drinks and lives in his eighth grade teachers basement. He only manages to redeem his childish character when he meets his grandson and finally finds a reason to grow up. His redemption as a father figure and a human being and transformation into an adult is the main and constant story. So taking as many key themes I could identify I decided to map out some ideas and words to get some inspiration.

I'm not going to lie I was a little bummed out at my movie, it didn't seem like a film with any iconic visual ideas unlike Star Wars or the 5th Element and so as far as idea generation was going, I found it difficult to generate any strong visuals. It's also a very unknown movie, after asking many people about the film the response from all of them was the same and unhelpful 'No idea' (I mean even my dad hadn't heard of it and if my dad hasn't heard of it then it begins to really make me worry). I feel that this caused me to disengage slightly from this project and unfortunately this shows in my later work. 

So I decided to attempt to represent him before the redemption, the initial poster for the film depicts Sully looking sideways and speaks very little about the plot and his character. And I used this to inspire a design as well as a few screen shots I had gathered during my research; Sully talking to his son, Sully leaning at the bar, Sully sitting in his arm chair with a beer.

All in all very literal representations of the film, but I did attempt to find imagery that I felt in some way conveyed the themes of childishness, alcohol, redemption or father and son. 

I took these sketches into the crit and received some useful feedback, a lot of comments said that they liked the idea of a man at the bar best and the representation of alcohol as this best summed up his character (at least at the beginning of the film)

I also had one minor hiccough in that I had done some designs in landscape where the brief asked for portrait- lesson learnt: READ THE BRIEF ROZ.

Sometimes I feel like I'm so absorbed in my own ideas that I forget the rules and regulations applied to my design; this is certainly something I need to work on in the future. 

So I went forward and attempted to digitally mock up these ideas, but then I hit a problem, they just didn't seem to work. I was heavily relying on photographs and screenshots and when attempting to prepare them for screen print, none of the photographs or screen shots were of a high enough quality or a large enough image to create a decent dots representation of it. 

So I revised my ideas, went back to my feedback and did a little more research. People had mentioned that the idea they liked best were the ones representing alcohol or beer,I felt this would be the strongest way to move forward. Upon my further research I also found the book cover for Nobody's Fool, originally written by Richard Russo and published two years before the film was made. 

I also managed to find a version of the DVD case with a different tagline to the original poster stating 'Older doesn't always mean wiser'. I was inspired by the imagery on the book front and this tag line and so decided to produce a design that reflected both.

I took the imagery of the beer and pretzels and created a vectorised image of it, I felt that this managed to convey the tone of the film without being a literal interpretation of a screen shot. However attempting to add the tag line into the beer image didn't really work out too well, it made the image appear crowded and the simplicity that came from a vector image was completely lost. However I was still inspired by the tag line and so attempted to find a font that looked similar to the one it was written in. 

Now it was time to find the strongest arrangement of text and image and so I produced three varying layouts so I could better visualise what the final design was going to look like. 

Arrangement 1

Arrangement 2

Arrangement 3

For the final design I chose the third arrangement. I felt it looked the strongest and most like a movie poster, it was also the one that received the most positive reaction when it came to getting feedback from my peers. (However on later reflection I wish I had chosen the first arrangement... looking back it looks much better and the text due to it's colour and shape looks like the bar that the beer and pretzels are resting on)



Producing the Positives and Screen Printing

The next stage after the design had been completed was to produce the positives in preparation for screen printing. Unfortunately when transferring the vectorised image of the beer and pretzels produced in illustrator over to photoshop some pixillation occurred meaning that the positives lacked the curved and neat edge that I had originally designed and instead had jagged and pointed curves. This really annoyed me and no matter what I tried to do the pixillation remained (however on reflection perhaps exporting the illustrator file as a PDF may have reduced this- lesson learnt.)

This pixillation transferred into the final prints as well, they too have jagged edges and look rather bitmap/paint. Which is a shame. The prints also turned out rather awfully and not one of them seemed to be 100% correct, I blame this on the rushed printing job I did when screen printing the designs. I had my job to go to that evening and instead of leaving the first colour to dry properly and returning to the print room the following day to finish them I attempted to get all four versions completed that night. This caused smudging, double printing, patchiness and off alignments- part of me felt that this actually tied into my concept of the unfinished and rough character of Sully... another part of me thought that was a horrible excuse and that I had really messed the posters up.

Another part of this brief was submitting our designs to alternative movie posters, as of yet I haven't heard anything back from them, but I sincerely doubt my design will make it up there with all the others.

 How did it go?

Not well, I really thought I'd enjoy this brief and unfortunately I didn't. I can blame this on my selected film (which about 40% of me is) as for so many other movies I had such wonderful ideas and visual images that just popped into my head, yet with my own movie I felt little to nothing for it. I really wish I had gotten a film I liked, when I care about something it shows in my work and I always managed to produce something successful 

The other 60% of blame is me. I want to be a designer and not every subject I will design for I will like, this is something I'm going to have to improve upon over the next two years if I ever expect to be a professional. I need to find a way to make myself care. 

I also resent rushing the printing process, the final posters when compared to my peer's designed looked so empty and awful in design and in production. I really didn't want to submit my design to alternative movie posters out of shame for it- I hate having to announce 'I designed that'. 

On the positive side this brief may have not been a success but it has been informative, I've learnt a lot about myself as a designer and a lot about my weaknesses, all issues I can address for the next brief. 

OUGD406: SB4- Speaking From Experience

For studio brief four the initial task set was to write our own brief and decide what product we would want to give to the first years. I decided to create motivational posters depicting messages I would've liked to be reminded of throughout my first year.

Brief

To produce a set of four posters that will deliver an inspirational and motivational, yet personal message to the next generation of first years. 

The four posters should work together as a set and carry a similar 'look'. 

Background/Considerations

Make them specific to the target audience- either to the world of graphic design, to students or to the course/course content itself.

Consider use of image, is it necessary? Why?

Keep it simple.

Keep it informed.

Consider the tone of voice, how can motivation be achieved? Through humour, honesty, uplifting?

Make them memorable.

Make it something not only practical but physically beautiful, an object someone will want on their wall.

Tongue and cheek are good, but make sure it is NOT OFFENSIVE.

Sketches and Development

After researching motivation posters I decided I wanted to produce my final product in a 1950's style, I feel that these types of posters has a formal and yet friendly feel to them, the messages they convey feel optimistic and as if someone friendly were speaking to you and this matched the tone of voice I was attempting to convey in my final designs. So I researched and gathered a few examples of 50's posters in order to draw inspiration from the designs.

I also managed to decide upon a theme for all four posters as well as choosing the topics to convey in each of the four designs. The theme I went for was it: Your blog- do it, This course- you're on it, Your craft- enjoy it, Your work- love it. I also wanted to add some extra text, almost like a sub heading or an explanation to each 'title'  that explained the title in a bit more depth: e.g. This Course- You're on it: Over 3000 people applied for this course and only 60 of you got in, trust me you deserve to be here.

So using my images as inspiration and with theme in mind I decided to sketch out some ideas, the key thing I saw from the 50's posters were a mis match of fonts (script coupled with block) and bright colours with simple patterns. I then made some more detailed sketches and mocked up a couple of designs digitally. I took these with me into the crit. 

Feedback and Development

A lot of people agreed that the tone of the design was appropriate, however they didn't like the extra text used at the bottom, saying it made it look too crowded, I still wanted to keep the text on there as I felt it set it apart from the usual motivational poster designs. They did like the mixture of text and the colours that I used and definitely agreed it looked 1950's so I decided to go onto developing these designs further.

Another thing I mentioned was that I wanted to use a mixture of mediums to really make the designs feel personal as well as aged (digitally printing these designs would look a little empty). People agreed that I should try some different methods out- I'll talk about the successes and failures of that a little later on.


So I went through a few developments and variations of designs before I came to a comfortable choice. I began by trying block colour designs in order to create the strong impact that I wanted and using the small personal crit group made up of a few members of our course I posted my designs to get regular feedback on how they look and what changes I should make. 

Initially the feedback for the shapes was good however it was suggested that I add some patterns into the designs like I did with my initial mock ups in order to makes them more 1950's style and more visually interesting.

I added a few more patterns based off of 50's design, however it was suggested to me that the stripes looked the most visually interesting and so i should try and add stripes to all the designs and after doing so i agree that the stripes looked the best, it was simple yet not so simple as to be boring and certainly less visually overpowering than the block colour on its own. 

After I had mocked these versions up I still personally felt that something was missing from them, they still looked a little awkward and clunky. Referring back to my initial feedback from the interim crit I decided to try some versions without the subtext, after mocking these up it became apparent that the titles on their own looks an awful lot better than attempting to cram unwanted text onto the page. In the wonderfully helpful crit group they also mentioned aligned everything centrally as it felt off having the text strewn about in all different arrangements, this, along with loosing the subtext produced a stronger looking design. 

 I took these designs to another personal crit session with Simon, he informed me that if I was intending to digital print these designs it wouldn't be enough work for the brief. I informed him I intended to do a mixture of mediums for the final designs and so booked a print slot for the backgrounds and exposed a screen to print the text onto it afterwards.

He also suggested changing the colours and format of the DO IT poster, saying that these schemes didn't work well together and that the words Do it looked as if they were blending into one entire word. 
I fixed and tweaked these problems before preparing my positives for the screen printing session and exposing my screen.

The horrible attempts at mixing mediums

Before I settled on the idea of screen printing I had, had my heart set out on trying a new printing technique, however both new techniques I attempted proved horribly unrealistic and produced very sketchy looking results.

The first technique I tried out was lino print, I bought about 8 blocks of lino and attempted to try and cut the printed background into the sheets. I had intended to go down to Rossington street and use their letter press to print the text over the top afterwards. For this technique I knew I had to scale the designs from A3 to A4, so I began cutting out the lines from the 'Love it' design.

The results speak for themselves, I was so very shaky at lino print and left the print room feeling disheartened and deflated, the result was so patchy and awkward, printing these designs proved incredibly difficult indeed. 

The second was producing a wood block of the text, possibly to use on my lino print backgrounds (if it hadn't gone belly up at the first hurdle) and in order to get the lines as clean as possible I wanted to use to laser cutter to produce this. I booked my slot and had a few third year graphic students assist me in setting up the document for print, however they also informed me if I really wanted to make these wood blocks then I would be there for a very long time.

 'Nah it can't take that long surely!' I said.

'Well, yes, it has the engrave the design about eight times in order for the cut to be deep enough for a suitable wood block and considering the size of your design, you'll be here for a very, very long time'

And they were right, it took forever, I only managed to get two blocks done, and one of them due to a slight mishap with the laser cutting machine didn't even engrave deep enough to produce a suitable wood block and even after scaling the design down again from A4 to A5 it still took around 4 and a half hours to produce one and a half wood blocks. This method was certainly not suitable in the amount of time that I had left and I didn't have the luxury of sitting around with the laser cutter to myself for a long amount of time so I decided to abandon this idea I favour of the ever reliable screen printing method. 

But now there's certainly a lesson learnt here, both these printing techniques take up a lot more time than estimated and if I ever want to produce a successful lino or wood block print I need to dedicate a lot more time and effort into the production of them. 

Final Designs

For the final designs I produced the four backgrounds in digital print and screen printed the text over the top at Rossington street print room. To make sure the text would be legible I did a few test prints on some previous digital prints and on white paper.

When the text didn't seem to come out legible I printed over it again in order to make it stand out stronger from the page.

The final prints I am very happy with. They do look incredibly interesting and I certainly think the friendly tone is covered through the bright colours, yet the bold text means they don't loose their impact. I am a little disappointed with the readability of the DO IT poster and the colours look pretty awful together, it's my least favourite out of the four. The ON IT poster is my favourite, it has the highest impact, the best colour scheme and layout wise it's always, in my opinion, been the strongest.

The important thing is though that they look nice on the wall. And I think they carry the message appropriately and effectively. 

So how'd it go?

I enjoyed this brief, even with the hiccoughs in production and print methods I still found it very enlightening and enjoyable. I learnt a lot about different print methods, time keeping and the importance of good and consistent  and constant feedback.

I still feel like these posters haven't quite reached their full potential, there's still something missing but I'm not sure what… either way they do look 1950's and are currently my favourite piece of personal design. 

I hope next years first years enjoy them as much as I do.