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'.

ITAP - Week nine

This weeks lecture was about how an image can be changed by factors such as typography, history, place and positioning of the frame. The factor that really interested me was typography and how the use of it can completely change how we look at an image. To start I am going to look at the work of Gillian Wearing.

Gillian Wearing - Photographer

Below are a couple of examples of Gillian's work. Gillian is known for using typography in her work to give it an interesting edge. She gets the people she wants to photograph to hold up a sheet of paper with hand written typography on it. As you can see from the images below, the text she puts on the paper contradicts the look of the person in the photo. In the first example, the man looks well dressed and has a smug look on his face implying that he is well off and happy with his life. On the paper, it says 'I'm desperate' which is the last thing you would be expecting to come out of his mouth. This makes us think deeper about the meaning of the photograph.

In the second example, there is a police officer holding up the word 'HELP'. This is a sight you would never see in real life as police are meant to help the public, not the other way round. This makes you ask questions such as whether he is happy with his job or if he is scared of what people can be capable of. Gillian uses typography to get you thinking deeper about what would otherwise be a plain, boring image. 

Keith Arnatt - Photographer

This is one of Keith's most famous pieces. He has used a similar style to Gillian in the fact that the words contradict the image again. This is an image of Keith himself who is a photographer, holding up a sign saying 'i'm a real artist'.

Here I have chosen a couple of photographs I took as part of my L4 visual Communication work and have added typography to them to try and demonstrate how it changes the feel.

This is a photo of some graffiti I took in Digbeth. In the first image I have written the word 'Art' in a white simple font. When we see this we instantly know that this image is trying to portray that graffiti should be classed as a form of art. Using text that is lighter than the image helps give it a fresh look and feel. 

In the second version I have written the word 'CRIME' all in caps lock and in black. This gives the image an edgy feel and makes us think about the law and how graffiti is vandalism and is illegal. I have deliberately used the same font in both images to show how simple changes can have large effects. 

This is a photo of the plant on my windowsill. In the fist image i have written the words 'Raindrops on roses...' in a pink, curly font. This gives the image a girly look and feel. It looks like the sort of image you would see on the front of a poetry book. 

In the second version I have written the words 'Cold Light..'. This gives the image a dark, eerie feel and brings out the bright light and dark shadows in the image. It now looks like the sort of image that you would see on the cover of a murder novel.

ITAP - Week eight

This weeks lecture was about production in visual communication. There are 5 main aspects of the design process. These are the problem, the ideas, the visualisation, the layouts and the production. Production is the final section of the design process and consists of the part where an image, film or whatever is being designed is finalised and produced at a professional or commercial standard.
There are 5 main principles we can look at in the production of design. These are:

1) The history of production

2) Essential milestones

3) The design workflow

4) From novice to expert

5) The experts

The two that I have chosen to look at are essential milestones and the design workflow.


Below is a Design Workflow Diagram that I have drawn showing the production of my L4 visual communication work that I am producing at the moment. We are in the production stage of the project now so I can easily look back at my work and analyse what I have done to produce content for the magazine that we are designing. 

Essential milestones are occurances and inventions that have happened in history that  have influenced the way we design today. I am going to chose ten of these milestones and explain why I think they are most important.


•3500BC - Sumerians use cuneform alphabet on clay tablets
This is the earliest evidence of production in the world. I think is is important because it may well have been the start of the series of events that is production. Other people probably found these later on in history and were inspired to try something similar themselves. 


•AD105 -paper invented in china by Ts'ai Lun
•1798 paper making machine invented by Nicolas-Louis Robert
Paper is obviously a very important in production, billions of pages are printed everyday worldwide. Without it we would have to print on alternative, expensive materials making it difficult. The first paper making machine links to this as it meant paper could then be printed in bulk.

•868 Diamond Sutra - First ever printed book
The first ever printed book marks the beginning of marketing in production, meaning that people from this date started considering paying for printed copies. Also, as the Diamond Sutra is a religious book, it would have been heard of and admired by a wide range of people. 


•1839 - negative/positive photograph invented by Fox Talbot
•1861 - first colour photograph produced by Clerk Maxwell
Photography is widely used in production today, before photography everything had to be drawn which took a lot of time and skill. A photograph could be taken in under a second and somehow produce a beautiful, detailed, realistic image that was way beyond the quality a human could produce.  


•1860 - Principle of color separation by filters demonstrated by Clerk Maxwell
•1890 - Four colour separation process invented
Colour separation is the reason why we are able to produce thousands of colours on a computer screen and in printing today. Before thing there was no such thing as RGB and CYMK


•1971 - Email invented by Ray Tomlinson
Email meant that designers could share their creative design ideas over the globe in just a click and that designs could be created in one country and sent to another to be produced. 

•1971 - Project gutenberg began aimed at collecting as many texts as possible in electronic format. 
This meant that different forms of typography could be used in design and publishing and could be printed and shared worldwide.

•1976 - Inkjet printing announced by IBM
Inkjet printing is a simple, easy way of printing. Many people could afford and own an inkjet printer meaning you could print at home. This put printing on an enormous scale.

•1982 - Adobe Systems founded
Adobe is one of the main inventers of computor design software. The software is used globally covering many areas of production, publishing and design. 

•1984 - CD-ROM & flash memory invented 
This meant that people could transport computer information easily from one place to another, making you able to work on a computer design in more than one place easily and be able to share work with others. 

ITAP - Week seven

This weeks lecture was based on film and moving image.  
The five principles were:

1) Story development - Three act structure.

2) Story development - The hero's journey

3) Pre-production Character Design

4) Visual Development -  Visualising information

5) Future Film - Digital storytelling 

The two principles I have decided to look at are the Three act structure and Character Design.

So what is the three act structure?
Basically, the three act structure is the under laying foundations that plots of films or books can be based on. It consists of three parts; an establishment, a crisis and a resolution. There is usually a 30:60:30 time frame, meaning that the establishment would last about 30 minutes, the crisis would last about 60 minutes long and then the resolution would last about 30 minutes. Evidence of this can be seen in many films today, though not necessarily in that order. Below is a diagram I have drawn to demonstrate how the structure works. I have backed it up with evidence of films that use the structure, one being Walt Disney's 'The Lion King' for an older example and the other being 'The Hangover' for a  recent example. 

You can see from the events I have written in the boxes that both these films follow the structure. Films with this structure tend to have a somewhat happy ending, although a character may have died earlier earlier in the film such as in the lion king, the resolution usually turns out happier than the crisis area, just maybe not as happy as the establishment. This structure is widely used because it is so versatile. It can be used for films with many different audiences, purposes, age ranges and genres. It is a strong foundation in film making. 


Secondly, I am going to look at pre-production character design. There are four main aspects of character design to think about when it comes to film production. They are as follows:

The protagonist: The main character

The antagonist: The cause of conflict

The Dialogue: The speech 

The Stereotype: Anything oversimplified

Within these aspects, there are 3 main areas you need to look at. 
They are APPEARANCE, ACTION and INTERACTION. 
To explain this I am going to use the example of mean girls. 
Mean Girls is a chick flick set in an american high school. The main character is just an ordinary girl who moves to the high school. She is the protagonist. She then gets dragged into and becomes part of the stereotype. The stereotype in this film is the mean girls themselves who are the girly, slutty, popular clique of the high school. The antagonist in this film is one of the popular girls ex boyfriends of whom the main character ends up falling for. This then causes a conflict between the protagonist and the stereotype.


Thinking about the design one of the stereotypical female characters you would have to cover the three areas mentioned above. For example:

Appearance: Fake, pretty, girly, skinny, lots of make-up

  Action: Bitchy, Selfish, Rude, Think they're better than everyone else

Interaction: Sweet, Secretive, overly friendly

This is a simple and easy way of knowing what you want from a character before you start to design them, therefore this is frequently used in film production. 

Mean Girls (2004)
Lindsay Lohan, 3rd one across is the Protagonist.
The other three girls are the Stereotype.

ITAP - Week six

This weeks lecture was about 'Production and Outcomes' in Visual Communication. The five principles were Interpretation, Delivery, Medium, Testing and Methodology. The two principles I have decided to look at are Interpretation and Methodology. 

Interpretation - An explanation of the meaning of another's artistic work .

Methodology - A study into the way in which we solve a problem .

To begin I am going to look at the use of 'zeitgeist' to interpret an image. Zeitgeist is the ideas and spirit of time; how time is expressed in creative matter. In the lecture we were shown many examples of different artists takes on Alice in Wonderland, ranging from 1865 through to present day. Being inspired by the idea of looking at children's books, i decided to look at the famous Aesop's fables to see how these have been illustrated differently over time. The one particular fable i looked at was 'The lion and the mouse'. Shown below are 3 illustrations created by different illustrators in 3 time periods. 

Lion and the Mouse
Milo Winter - 1919

Lion and the Mouse
David Wenzel - 1990's

Lion and the Mouse
Jerry Pinkney - 2009

The first image is the earliest of the examples. You can tell this without looking at the date from the tone of voice of the image. The colours are dull and faded and the image looks slightly dated. As you scroll down through the 3 images you can see them getting stronger, more colourful and more detailed. Also, the lion itself appears to get more lifelike, as if to say the two later illustrators knew more about what lions looked like than Milo winter back in 1919. 
What's interesting is how all 3 illustrators have taken a different approach to this design problem. Milo winter has used a simple, traditional approach by drawing the whole image. David Wenzel has gone for a slightly more abstract approach, drawing as if he was on floor level looking up at the lion and using the final image as a long rectangle shape. Jerry Pinkney has gone for a front on, close up effect which makes us see more what the lion is thinking, rather than whats actually happening. This shows how different people's creative brains work in different ways providing evidence of Methodology.


So what's the importance of methodology?
Methodology enables an illustrator, designer or photographer to be able to follow a thorough and versatile design process, which then enables them to be able to work independently and professionally. The designers with a strong sense of methodology shown in their work are likely to do much better than those who have no structure or system to help them along. Employers are also more likely to employ someone who can show evidence of a design process in their work, than those who just have one idea and one final outcome because it shows they're able to constructively critisize they're own work in order to produce a better final income and are therefore hitting high and professional standards.