OUIL503 Responsive SB1 - Individual Practice Boards

OUIL503 Responsive - Humans of Leeds

Humans of leeds is a blog group online that works much the same way as Humans of New York do. They take photographs of people walking around leeds ask them to tell them a little bit about themselves. The site is well frequented and viewed by people from around the city, and they recently put a call out for creatives to create their Facebook Branding. The branding is planned to change each month to showcase a different variety of creatives in the city.

The brief was to create an identity that focused on the city and the people living in it. There were no constraints in terms of the colour scheme - only that the eventual dimensions of the images had to be suitable for use as a Profile Picture and a Cover Photo.

This was the intial pitch board I sent to them for the ideas. They were really impressed with what I sent over - and liked the idea of having the colour scheme suit the various sports teams within the city, but asked me to tweak them to be more in key with the true colours. They liked the speech-bubble profile picture, and the idea on the first page with broadcasting tower in the background - but asked me to add more iconic buildings into the background the skyline. The final end product looked like this:

I preferred the original colour scheme, but Z (the person who runs the group) was really happy with it. This all should go up on their page from May onwards.

I really enjoyed doing this actually, because it was nice to do something that was themed around leeds - I also think that this is probably one of my better and most refined all-round project i've done to date, and I felt much more in the 'swing' of designing it than I have in project previously. It should be definately nice to see it in situ!

OUIL503 Responsive - Staff and Student Representative Awards

As part of the communications role, every year we get asked to create the certificates for the annual Staff and Student Representative awards. Me and becky created the first certificates for last years awards, but the SU wanted me to make an update version of them that were more in fitting with the existing brand material for the awards nominating process:

^

My inital submission to them for the staff posters looked very graphics orientated, which definately looked more like the other branding - but the SU wanted something that still managed to incorporate the more illustrative tone of voice that I have in the posters, so asked for a revision of something more like that. This was the end point we reached:

This is also the end result for the student representative certificate, which again matched the branding that is used for all the correspondence student reps get in the college:

This brief marked the last of my substantial briefs for the SU, which quite sad really as i've enjoyed working as the Communications Officer! 

The role this year has helped shaped things better for the person in the role next year - Whilst the SU staff are lovely, and their best to try and help you out the best they can they have a tendency to ask a lot of work in a short space of time, and often ask for a lot of revisions on work that is done. Towards the end of my time in the role this improved a lot, and last minute asks for revisions or additions became less and less frequent. 

The experience however instilled the importance of always writing up briefs for exactly what work you're planning to do for a client - because it can be very easy to end up doing almost double the work you initially intended without being compensated for doing so. If the SU had been a paying client, I would have been much more reluctant to do the amount of revisions they asked without extra payment - so its something to keep an eye out for upon leaving uni when I start to work outside. 

OUIL503 Responsive - Secret 7"

Digital Witness - St Vincent

 Let Forever Be - The Chemical Brothers

Born Slippy (Nuxx) - Underworld

These were my entries for the Secret 7" exhibition. My original intention was to enter a cover for every song, but due to time constraints this wasn't acchievable. 

It was surprisingly difficult to visually represent the songs - especially as one cover. I was happy with the outcome of the Underworld and the Digital Witness covers - not so much with the Let forever Be one, but I think I just didn't like the execution for it as much as the others.

Sadly my entries didn't get picked - But its something i'll definately be entering again next year!

OUIL503 Responsive YCN MOO! Business Cards - Final Presentation Boards and Submission

Here are the final submission Presentation boards that I submitted alongside my video. It felt very good to submit this! largely because there was a large chunk of time where I had no idea what direction I was going with the project, and it felt good to reach a point where I had something finished and presentable.

I think i've managed to acchieve a happy medium between something that suits MOO as a business, whilst still keeping something of my own voice in there too, which I think will make my submission stand out above the others. Now all I have to do is wait and see what the verdict is!

OUIL503 Responsive YCN MOO! Business Cards - Idea finalisation and production

As part of my idea generation, I started looking at the actual business card itself, and how simple changes to the look of the card could represent lots of different businesses (and therefore show how 'Design Works Wonders'!) 

I had worked a previous idea about giving the business cards little identifiable items related to their businesses - flowers and shears for a florist, tools for a builder etc....and decided to come up with as many identifiable business card symbols as I could. The idea was I could draw these up and compile them to create some form of an animation, where the professions change as the video progresses.

The colour scheme for the backgrounds are the colours provided in MOO's style guide, keeping it consistent with their brand. I wanted to make something that was in keeping both with the sort of work I like to do, whilst still trying to working in MOO's signature tone of voice which I think these do quite nicely.

The other thing I needed to work out was the music that was going to be used. I wanted the video to be shown to be suitable for use on social media (like before youtube videos) whilst also having the possibility of being used on TV. 

I was really keen on using a song from a band called Lullatone - who's music tends to get licensed by advertisers a lot for how cheery and happy it sounds. I thought their music would suit the tone of voice of MOO quite well. This is the sort of music they produce:

Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to use a Lullatone song in my example due to Licensing restrictions - so I thought I would try to find a similar sounding thing that was Royalty free for the purpose of submitting the video.

I found this song by Kevin Mcleod, which had a similar tune to what I was orginially looking for whilst still being free-for-use. This is what the video looked like when it was all put together:

I was quite pleased with the outcome of this! I think ideally I could have animated a lot of the elements a lot more to make it more engaging, but due to the time constraints I was faced with I just didn't have enough time to do it. All that was left from this point onwards was to assemble the presentation boards to submit alongside it and it was ready to go.

OUIL503 Responsive - Student Union "Stay Safe" Posters

In response to an incident with some students walking back from college, The SU wanted us to create a poster that reminded students of the importance of staying safe whilst out and about in the darker winter months - and also to raise awareness of the free personal alarm system that they have from the office.

Becky Firth created the header type, and I did the illustration and the rest of the copy type. These posters have been well recieved within college - having been placed around a lot of places. Most people have seen them now, a lot of students think that the person in the illustration looks a lot like either Fred or Duncan from Printed Textiles, though this is merely a (pretty funny) coincidence. 

OUIL503 Responsive - Student Union Elections work

 

As part of the communications officer role in the Student Union Executive, I create a lot of graphic design and illustration work for various Student Union events that go on. This was technically a collaborative brief, being one of the last few briefs I worked on with Becky Firth when we shared the role. 

The collaboration was not the best, not out of any malice in any manner - Becky had a lot of external commitments which made getting together to work on things difficult. Eventually these commitments became too much to juggle, which led to her stepping down around March-time. 

This was a brief for the Student Elections. The SU wanted me to create a set of vector-based illustrations to represent each role of the committee - that could then be put on the posters so people could see what roles would be available for next years executive.

Over a number of our executive board meetings, everyone decided that they wanted a social media theme for the elections, as it would be something people would be familiar with, and would represent the roles well - which is how the idea to recreate the emojis came about. They also wanted a heading, that could be used on banners and on the top of posters that looked like the GUI of the current iphones. These are the rough initial plans we sent them: 

The SU liked the Impact font choice, but thought it needed to be more like the iphone interface, so here was the end product

I was really happy with how these all turned out, because I don't usually work in vectors very often and I think the emojis especially look really nice. I felt the Graphic Design that was eventually done for it let it down a little bit, though this was because of time constraints on the SU's part, and was out of my hands. 

OUIL503 Responsive - YCN MOO! Business cards - Initial Presentation Boards.

My initial presentation boards for my first ideas about what I was going to do with the brief. These weren't particularly very good - poorly laid out with hardly any visuals as to how my idea would actually work. I think they were good to show the overall tone of voice I was trying to communicate, however - and especially important for figuring out exactly what I needed to do to put accross MOO in my own work.

OUIL503 Responsive - Hyde Park Picture House presents 'Scott Pilgrim VS the World' Poster Competition

This was a poster entry for Hyde Park Picture House's showing of Scott Pilgrim VS The World. They wanted a poster that showed what Scott Pilgrim was all about, whilst still staying in keeping with the tone of voice of the picture house.

At the time of doing this poster I wasn't too sure whether I liked it or not but in hindsight, I thinks its quite good - it definately gives off a good pilgrim vibe without it falling into the typical visual pitfalls people think of when they think of the series.

Sadly I didn't win the competition - but I'm pleased with the outcome. Below are some development thumbs I did for the poster:

OUIL503 Responsive - Don't Panic! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 50th Anniversary Poster competition.

This was an entry for Don't Panic!'s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Poster competition - celebrating the 50th anniversary of the book coming out and also in support of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Musical that was on the West End.

The brief wanted a poster that communicated the essence of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory whilst also promoting the Musical. The only other mandatory was that the logos had to be on the poster - so it was a pretty free reign brief.

The prize was VIP tickets to see the show and meet the cast afterwards, so I figured it would be a fun thing to do. Sadly, the winner was chosen by who had the most votes, and you had to sign up to an account on Don't Panic! to do that - So my poster didn't end up winning. I was pleased with the end result, though I definately think it meets what the brief was asking for. 

OUIL503 Responsive - YCN MOO! Business Cards - Initial Ideas development.

Initial ideas were to have something that was multifunctional - something that worked as a still (that could be used as a bilboard) but then could then be animated and turned into something a bit more dynamic for use on advertisements and social media.

The ideas played on the idea of good design doing amazing things - turning a regular dog grooming into AMAZING dog grooming. I also came up with some slightly more O.T.T idea, like setting up a Rube Goldberg machine. Original plans for the animated ideas was to set up something with stop motion and paper - but I think that would have ended up being time consuming to complete.

OUIL503 Responsive - YCN MOO! Business Cards - Initial research

Initial research into MOO as a company and further analysis of the brief, trying to identify what it was they were wanting. I also Identified competitors to MOO, looking at what they might be up against and what they might be doing that MOO weren't.

I think the key to this problem is that their brand feels a bit too 'special' - too trendy and artsy to attract in a wider audience the likes of Vistaprint have. They probably aren't trying to appeal to that customer? but I think marketing their bespoke service to a wide range of folk would bring in more custom - and also fit with the friendly, playful and reliable ethos they're trying to instil in their brand.

OUIL503 Responsive - YCN Individual Brief -MOO! Business Cards Project Proposal

The Problems I aim to solve are…..

1. MOO's audience range - far too small and niche when other companies like Vistaprint do a similar service much cheaper

2. Awareness of the company and the brand

3. The fact that many people don't know how good design can improve their business

In order to solve these problems I will…

1. Create a solution that appeals to not only their core audience, but to new audiences they previously might have overlooked

2.  Promote MOO as a company and the services they provide

3. Create something that shows viewers all of the things well designed products can do.

I will be aiming to communicate (identify 3 specific messages, ideas, moods etc.)

1. The message of 'Design works wonders'

2. Fun & Friendliness

3. Reliability and open-ness

To an audience of ….. (name 3 characteristics)

1. Small service-sector independant business owners

2. Creative practitioners

3. Young entrepeneurs. 

OUIL503 Responsive - Lessons From Thoughbubble/Performance Evaluation

(Hollie and Rowena fighting the good fight and manning the table at thoughtbubble)

Overall I made back £20 in sales from thoughtbubble, which made me roughly a £10-15 quid deficit after production costs. It was definately still worth the experience, even though if I choose to do another convention , there would be a lot more that I would do differently:

- I will definately get external printing done over hand-printing everything myself. Whilst dealing with the printing myself knocked the cost down, and was my only real option given the short time frame I was producing everything on the printing outcome wasn't brilliant and could have come out a lot better.

- Definately get everything ready at least a good 2-3 months before the event if possible to avoid last minute production and panic.

- Assess the quality of products on sale and then choose to price everything accordingly. £4 was definately too much for the quality of cat god, people were selling considerably better printed books for less (though cat god sold the best out of all of my books)

- Understand the core attendee of the convention better. Even though it is a 'sequential arts' convention, the main audience of Thoughtbubble is comic fans. I didn't end up selling any running on empty, and nearly all of my purchases came from Cat God, the only actual comic I was selling. I think I would definately create more small things to go alongside the comic - badges, postcards, bookmarks as they were particularly good sellers through the weekend too. 

OUIL503 Responsive SB1 - Zero to Thoughtbubble in a week.

So Hollie Smith and Rowena Sharp had a table space at Thoughtbubble, and asked if I wanted to contribute some stuff to sell with them. Having wanted to secure my own table, though simply not having the funds to secure one at the time, I was super excited about the idea of getting some work on show and agreed to get some things printed in time.

However, Due to work on other modules going on at the same time as this, I hadn't put much thought into actual content I was going to display. I knew I had a book that i'd done in first year for my Visual Narratives that I was interested in selling - 'Running on Full/Empty', but I was at a loss as to what else I could take.

I decided to make two new publications to take with me, one Hot Dog book, One comic. The hot dog book became 'Blue Vines' -  A book I created following the day-to-day routine of a girl called Blue.

I was pretty pleased with the outcome of the book because It was drawn entirely with markers, and its rare i've ever managed to make something somewhat refined using analogous media before. I also made a pattern to go on the inside of Hot Dog Books, so the white wouldn't shine through the paper when it was folded up.

Because of them both being in colour, Running on Empty/Full and Blue Vines ended up costing me the most in productions costs - and ended up selling the least on the day. Collective printing for both came about £15, as I printed 15 copies of each.

As for the comic I decided to make as well, I developed and wrote a short, six page story called "Cat God" - about Sehkmet, Goddess of Warfare in Upper Egypt (Paralleled with Bastet, the God of warefare and protection from Lower Egypt) - trapped in the body of a domestic housecat in 21st Century britain.

I trialled with lots of different ways the story worked - I originally planned for them both to reincarnated as cats before settling on just the one cat, seen in the above development sketches - largely as I didn't think 6 pages would be sufficient to develop it front to back.

I knew I definately wanted the comic to be in Black and white, largely to save further costs on printing after printing Blue Vines and Running on Empty/Full.  I made the comic with this in mind - digitally using a greyscale texture I made to add depth and values to the lines, so it didn't look too plain (kind of in a similar manner to how traditional comic & manga artists used screentones to help add depth to their pages)

I printed 25 copies of "Cat God", which even though were printed in black and white - still came to around £6 to be printed. I wanted to cover the comics with a slightly nicer stock than the printer paper to add a bit more value to them, which ended up being the total price of production to nearer £15.

All production took about a week. I was still folding comics pretty much up to the wick of friday night before the convention - which was definately not professional practice, but I ended up rocking up to the con with 15 copies of Running on Full/Empty, 15 Copies of Blue Vines priced at £3, and 25 copies of Cat God priced at £4.