ITAP Design Canons - week five

This week's lecture was about typographer Ragunath Krishna Joshi and about how using language in design was so important to him and how he used it in his work. He was described as an energetic man who never stopped working. He always had something new to show and encoded hidden messages in his work that only people who knew him well would understand. I looked at examples of the work of one if my favourite typographers, Luke Lucas, in order to see how the language used in his work changes it's feel. 


His work is mainly illustrative typography. I find some of the ideas behind his work really interesting and clever. He has influenced me in previous brief work. I think this is because his work is quite commercial and i am looking to go into advertising as a career. Below are some examples of his work.

This caught my eye because of how the typography has been designed in what the word says. Lucas has a very literal thinking process, he takes something and designs it exactly as it should be.

In this design, the typography is describing the taste of the image.  He could have just written the word  'wine' or something  in that typeface and put that in the glass, but instead he has written about the taste of the wine. This piece was used in a magazine article. Using illustrative typography in this way would have lured the reader in and made them able to relate to the article.

 This piece is similar to the hair piece in how the type is make out of what the word is. This is slightly different though as 'Crush' is the name of the yoghurt, If the type actually said yoghurt it would be the same principle. The two hands on the side of the type are doing what the word says by trying to 'Crush' the type, but this is a different meaning of the word crush. 

I think it is really clever how Lucas interpreted two meanings of the same word in his design. I would like to be able to design this sort of thing when I leave university. 








Hearing about Ragunath Krishna Joshi's design journey got me thinking about my own design journey and where it is going to take me. From my inspirations and design heroes it is certain that i am aspiring to work in the area of advertising. I find it interesting though how so many designers completed education in an area they thought they would work in and then ended up doing something completely different. 


To finish, a quote from the lecture that stood out to me was that 

'written music is a language'. 

As a piano player i can read sheet music and it had never occurred to me before that others who can also play were reading the same language as me. Although we may not be able to understand each other, we can understand the same sounds and music we hear and can have and share opinions on it. This has showed me the importance of looking at things from a different angle and thinking outside of the box.  

ITAP Design Canons - week four

This week's lecture was about The Creative Revolution, and the massive effect it had on Advertising. The lecture was based around 2 art directors who were pretty much the reason for the creative revolution. One was famous Art director Bill Bernbach, who was the founder of advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). The other was Helmut Krone, art director and graphic designer who is mainly known for his inspirational Volkswagen Beetle adverts that came about in the 1960's.  Between the two of them, they created one of the most famous advertisements if all time, The Volkswagen Snow Plow advert shown below. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABcckOTVqao&list=PLD20BE6EACC9EDD70&index=12&feature=plpp_video

The creative revolution  (1954-64) was basically when the idea of having a concept came into advertising and when standard advertising rules such as 2:1 picture:copy were thrown out of the window. Another art director who had an impact was George Lois. He is well known for his work on the Esquire magazine covers. American magazine Business Week once quoted 

'Every industry has it's stars, and in the world of advertising George Lois is a supernova, the original Mr Big Idea.' 

Below are a couple of examples of his work that i came across in which the concept stood out to me as being particularly different or revolutionary.

This is one of Georges famous pieces. This stood out to me instantly because of the simple reason that it is unusual to see a women shaving. Immediately, George has captured an audience because they will be wandering what that is all about. Esquire is a styling and grooming magazine so the image suits the magazines purpose. George could have just had the beautiful women on the front and people would still have bought the magazine thinking that it could teach them how to look like that, but instead he has put a twist on it. It is twists like these that have gotten him recognized for influencing the creative resolution. I noticed also how the razor looks like a standard, relatively cheap razor. I think he has deliberately used this to make the audience think they can afford to be that beautiful .

These are a couple of advertisements George designed for vodka.  These attracted my attention because of the revolutionary and clever use of white space and because of the wit in the quotes. The first advert is implying that the vodka is chatting up the tomato but by doing so it's saying that the vodka is better than others. The tomato agreeing makes you think that he has scored and therefore must be the best.

The second advert has the same concept but this time the orange questions him about the tomato who he's already scored with. This makes us laugh and also gives the impression that the vodka is a bit cheeky which we can all tend to be after drinking vodka. There are probably a few people who read this add and think 'I've been in that situation!' which would mean that they can relate to the advert. George has cleverly used emotions and humour here to lure his audience to buying the vodka.

The most important breakthrough elements I think that George has added to the Creative Revolution are :

Revolutionary use of white space

Use of puns and humour

Allowing the audience to relate

Use of little but convincing Imagery

I belive that using one or more of these in your work would make you stand out from the crowd and therefore become a more noticable designer. 

ITAP Design Canons - week three

This week's lecture was about Great Art Direction and the importance of Simplicity in design, especially Advertising. I found this lecture particularly inspiring and learnt about people who i aspire to be like. There were many quotes that stood out to me and got me thinking about the logic behind advertising. I have decided to look into a couple of these in more detail. The first of these is that 'Simplicity is rare'.
So what is simplicity?

One dictionary definition says that it is the property, condition, or quality of being simple or uncombined. This i think is a very literal way of looking at it. A second definition says that it is the lack of sophistication. What i found interesting about this is that Leonardo Da Vinci, who is well known for being a an incredible artist once said that 'Simplicity is the ultimate Sophistication'. This completely contradicts the dictionary definition yet Da Vinci was extremely talented and successful in his work.This says to me that simplicity has different forms and therefore can't really be defined, which establishes to me that it must be very powerful. As for the word rare, we all know that this is something that doesn't occur or isn't seen very often. You can tell from just walking down a street that detail and complexity is everywhere and we are bombarded with it everyday. The idea behind using 'simplicity is rare' in design is that because it is so rare, it would stand out and make us stop and think wow, that's unusual. It would be more noticeable as it would be a change from what we are used to seeing. 

Another quote I found interesting was about John Webster saying: 

'What was he doing that no one else was? Well, precisely that. He was doing what no

one else was. Purposely.'

I love this quote because it's saying that being different is a good thing. People who are different are often portrayed in a bad way and looked down upon, but when it comes to advertising, it seems the crazier and braver you are the better. John Webster has proved that having some self confidence and using it in the correct way, can go a long way. Below is a link to one of his most famous pieces, the original honey monster Advertisement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_5-DhV1gE&list=PLD20BE6EACC9EDD70&index=2&feature=plpp_video

An art director that has inspired me is Sir John Hegarty. Having being inspired by his Levis advertisement, I decided to research into him in more detail. Below are a couple of screen prints from his website. On the actual website the rabbit appears first and then as you scroll down the page the hat appears and the rabbit jumps in. This looks like moving graphics which i thought was incredible. I have never seen another website that has done this before. 

The second screen shot shows what it looks like as you are half way scrolling down a page. The black sheep is the logo of his agency BBH. The black sheep comes from one of his Levis adverts showing a black sheep in a group of white sheep, standing out from the crowd. This shows Hegarty has worked with a similar notion to John Webster, in the way he knew that different was a good thing. 

http://www.hegartyonadvertising.com/

ITAP Design Canons - week two

This lecture was about Information Design. 
Information design is the practise of using text and image to prepare a visually appealing representation of complex or unstructured information, in order to make it clearer and easier for the viewer to understand. There are 7 main principles to think about in information design. These are Grouping information, Consistency, Typography, Grid structure, Graphic elements, Spacing and Visual Hierarchy.


To begin I am going to look at the work of information designer David McCandless. I was inspired by his quote that 'Information is beautiful. Below is a screen shot of thumbnails of David's visualisations on his blog 'informationisbeautiful.net'. You can see his work is mainly very simple, yet most of it has been designed from complex information. I think it's incredible how he has come up with so many ways of visually interpreting information.

A piece of his that particularly stood out to me is the one shown here on the right. It is a composition of many different countries of the world, all in scale, placed into an outline of Africa in order to show how big the continent is. This is really good example of how he has taken what probably started off as figures and distances etc and turned it into an attractive, appealing piece of design. It has a larger effect on the viewer presenting the information in this way as the viewer finds it easier to relate the the content. By this i mean that figures written down would probably not mean much to someone who didn't know much about distances, but by being able to visualise the distances it has a much higher impact. 




Another part of this lecture i found particularly interesting was the work of Airside.
Airside is a creative agency working across many design disciplines, including anything from graphics through to moving image. Below is a link to an information graphics video they have designed, explaining the importance of communicating information when trying to get aid to people in the world that need it. It explains how when a natural or man-made distaster happens, communication systems can fall apart, leaving people confused and scared. Airside: InfoIsAid: http://vimeo.com/26668253

Having found this inspiring I looked into other information films created by Airside. I came across a series of 2 videos that they had been asked to create by live earth in order to warn people about climate change. The two films were designed from different points of view. The first was from the point of view of a penguin and what could happen to him when climate changes. 
Live Earth: Penguin in a pickle: http://vimeo.com/18994031

The second is aimed at educating humans who don't know much about climate change in order to show them how easy it is to make a difference.
Live Earth: A beginners guide to climate change: http://vimeo.com/18992999

The graphics shown in these two videos are funny and interesting to watch and also manage hold a powerful message behind them. Watching these videos is more likely to make you react to climate change than reading a few bullet points on a sheet. This is really good example of how showing information through design can make a difference.  

ITAP Design Canons - week one

This blog is the first of a new collection of blogs that I will write over the next 8 weeks on our ITAP part 2 - design canon lectures. In this lecture we looked at many different areas of practice within graphic design and the importance of the 4 main principles on which our 4 briefs for this module 'Developing Practice in Graphic Design' are based on.
These 4 principles are:

Target Audience and Context

Creative Strategies

Visual Language 

Design and Composition

I am going to look at the 2 areas of practice that most inspired me in this lecture and that I feel are weaker areas for me and therefore spending time researching them would be beneficial. These were Expressive Graphics and Illustrative Typography.

An illustrative typographer that has caught my eye is Craig Ward. I think his work is incredible and he is an inspiration. Below are a couple of examples of his work.

This piece stood out to me because of how it appears to play tricks on the eye. When you first look at it you see the illustration and then on your second look or longer stance you begin to make out the words hidden within it.

This piece caught my eye because of the detail within it. The typography itself is just plain white text, in a simple font such as arial but then there is an incredible amount of detail in the glass smashing. It almost looks as if the image is moving, you can imagine the shards of glass flying outwards. Seeing his work has inspired me to want to use more illustrative typography in my work.


Another illustrative typographer whom I used for research in the previous module that has inspired me is Luke Lucas. His work is similar to Craig Wards only he uses a lot more 3D modelling to  create the typography. Below is an example of how he uses a 3D model to create a typographic logo design. I found his website very inspiring : http://www.lukelucas.com/

Expressive Graphics is design used to express, debate and opine.It's a way of expressing emotions, values and ethics using graphic language. The example of this we looked at in the lecture is the I♥NY sign. It started off as a rough sketch by Milton Glazer in a taxi on the way to his pitch and is now one of the most copied idea's in the world. This was used as a poster campaign across New York after 911 to make the people of New York stay there and fight for the city. The dark left hand corner is meant to symbolize the twin towers burning. It wasn't until now that I knew there was such a deep meaning behind the design. 

To finish I am going to leave you with this quote that the lecture began with. I found it very interesting and relevant:

'The creative process is not performed by the skilled hand alone, but must be a unified process in which the head, heart, and hand play a simultaneous role'.