Week 4; Grid & Composition

In this weeks lecture we learnt about how important grid and composition can be in visual design, such as in magazine and newspaper articles. The grid is what helps organise the layout of a page and to keep it in a structure, although I also learnt how breaking the grid can have more of an impact. The case studies below show two examples of how effective making and breaking the grid can be.

Week 3; Colour & Image; CD Cover

CD Cover Evaluation

In this brief evaluation I will be critiquing the front cover of a CD that I have created myself by using InDesign, firstly I will begin to discuss the image itself in terms of licensing. To obtain this particular image I used the stock image online library Flickr.com, whilst searching for an image to use I had to follow the Creative Commons Licensing that Flickr has as I needed an image that I could edit in terms of modifying and adapting the image. Therefore I had to use the advanced search where this was applicable, without this is was difficult to search for an image that I could use for my CD cover.

Before I began to look for a usable image I researched into unsigned artists and bands, this is where I came across an R&B singer called Dick James. After listening to some of his songs I began to know what type of music he produces which led me to the image that I have now. Some of his songs were sad and focused of loneliness such as the song I chose to use as the album cover’s name, “Don’t Need Nobody”. It was this particular song title that made me use an image of an emotional looking man who is sat alone, I believed that this image was appropriate as after listening to the song in my mind I had a visual image of a man all alone which I wanted to portray on the CD cover.

The original image was bigger than the one I use as I decided to trim it down so that the man covered the majority of the cover, whereas the original copy showed more of the background, I still wanted to keep some of the background ad it added to the setting of a lonely man I thought. I chose the image to be in black and white as it made the impact of loneliness more dramatic and obvious to its audience as colour can sometimes create emotions. I wanted to avoid the use of using more emotions than the one I had already created and another reason was due the fact of the genre of this music, as R&B covers make use of the impact that black and white can create.  This also had an influence on the colour I used on the font as I used black again as it fit in with the man’s clothing and stood out against the light background. The font I chose for the text also suitable for the R&B genre as they often use thin looking serif fonts on their CD covers, which I wanted to follow this “rule” so it would be associated with this type of music. I wanted the artists name to be central and above the image of the man as this also follow’s the convention; however as the name was quite short it never looked quite right so I changed the tracking of the letters increasing the space between the letters. Although I did use this same technique with the album’s title, I decreased the tracking so that the letters was closer together to make it look visually better. I chose to emphasise on the sizing of the text to add to the visual design so I made the first letter of each word bigger than the word that followed, I used this technique as I wanted this text to stand out and look subtly eye catching. 

Week 3; Colour & Image; Case Studies

This weeks lecture was focusing on colours and image, what I found interesting was when we focused on how brands some how own certain colours that represent their company. The presentation below shows two case studies that represent this ownage of colours, also there are two other case studies that show how photography can be incorporated in advertising.

Week 3; Colour & Image; Sourcing Images

Report on Souring Images

In this brief report I will be discussing how to source images as there are millions of images on the website, however when using images there are certain rules that need to be followed due to copyright obligations. There are numerous stock image libraries that people can use images from for their own reasons and there are licenses that you have to permit to use them; depending on the image they are different ones, such as on Getty Images there are two licenses.

These licenses differ as the royalty-free license is based on the size and it means that you have unlimited use of the image you want once you have obtained the license. The other, is a rights-managed license which is based on usage of the image and it means that these images are from the premier collections and have a high production value. Both of these licenses also differ in terms of pricing, as the pricing for the rights-managed license is based on the usage specifications whereas the royalty-free pricing is decided on the particular image you use.

Another stock image library that is often used is Flickr; once again they also have their own Creative Commons licensing which need to be obligated to. There are 4 licenses, attribution license allows people to use your image as long as credit is given to the owner and the non-commercial license again gives permission for usage for non-commercial purposes.  The no derivative works license prevents people from editing/changing your work and only use the exact copy of the image unedited. The final license is the share alike, which allows other to distribute copies of the image but is overseen. Flickr is an easy website to use as the advanced search engine allows you to have the option straightaway of using images that use the Creative Commons license and allows you to manage whether they are to use commercially or to be used and edited.

Week 2; Shape & Form; Bright Ideas Evaluation

Also, as part of our shape and form DS we had to continue from the previous week focusing on business cards, although this week we were given a brief to follow as we were creating it for a client, 'Bright Ideas'. Underneath is an evaluation of my final design for them.

First Draft

Final Design

Evaluation of “Bright Ideas” Business Card

In this short critical evaluation I will be critiquing my final business card that I created for the company ‘Bright Ideas’, before I began to create my initial design I read through the brief that was given and I learnt that the company  was a new, fun and quirky business. This message had to be expressed through the design of the business card; therefore I wanted to use vibrant colours in the design that stood out that reflected the company’s image they want to represent.  

Throughout the whole business card I chose to use just three colours of yellow, white and orange, I purposely chose to do this as I didn't want to overcrowd the card as I wanted the logo and brand name stand out. I used these three colours for one simple reason, as I wanted to incorporate an image of the sun within the card therefore I used three colours that are mostly associated with the colours of the sun. I used these colours majority for the text that I had used, the font that I finally decided to use was a plain sans-serif font as I wanted the text to be legible due to the size of a business card. However to make the text not look too bland I changed the tracking so that some letters were tightly spaced whereas others had a lot more space, this can be seen more clearly on the company’s name on the business card.

My initial design of the sun wasn’t made clear that it was an image of a sun, therefore to add further into the funky design that ‘Bright Ideas’ want I decided to add words coming off the sun to. I would change the shape of the words so that they would appear as the rays coming from the sun. My first design of the business card I had the company name as the rays of light from the sun, however after having input from other people it was clear that maybe I should change this as I already had the company’s name on the business card.  I then changed the words to what message the company wanted to give to their clientele, so I had phrases like “funky”, “unique” and “quirky”. I had these phrases and many more going round the sun, I thought that this second design was a definite improvement as it makes the card more eye catching and makes you want to read the phrases.

Week 2; Shape & Form; Case Studies

In this weeks lectured we were focusing on the shape and form, the meaning that is conveyed to it's audience by using particular shapes and designs. This weeks DS is continuing on from this as I had to find three interesting case studies of use of shape and form, underneath is a presentation.

Week 1; Type & Typography; Case Studies

This week was an introduction to the module Visual Design and we was focusing on the type and typography of images and so on. We analysed a few images together and was asked to complete a presentation as part of our DS looking at a case study of our own focusing on the typography, underneath is a presentation that I created on this.

Week 1; Type & Typography; Business Card

Also, as part of this weeks DS we had to create a personal business card that we could use for ourselves, underneath is an evaluation of my design.

Final Design

First Draft

Evaluation of My Personal Business Card

In this short critical evaluation I will be critiquing my final business card that I created for myself, although firstly I want to discuss the reasons that led me to the final design and why I changed the design I had previously. The first draft of my business card was possibly more creative than the final one; however I felt as if it was too creative with the logo and that it made the business card on a whole not reflect on it being for a television producer. I wanted the card to resemble television in terms of the credits which is what led me to change the design into a much more simple looking design that also focused mainly on the information being given.  I designed the card to emphasise on a television screen as that is my chosen career, so I arranged the text to look like the credits by having the name as the biggest size text on the card with the job role underneath by name.

I chose to have the job role in a smaller size font with a line separating it from the name as this is often seen in television, as well as films, I thought this would make the emphasise more visible. For the contact information I also tried to highlight on this factor by using white text against a black background as credits are majority seen with the use of this. This black background also reminded me of a banner that is used on television to show the names of presents, this is often seen on the news. However I wanted the text to stand out so I added a purple outline around this white text, I also used the purple outline around the main text in the center   Even though the main background colour was also purple I think that it still stands out subtly, which the design that I wanted to change to.

Overall I believe my final design of my personal business card is successful as it fulfills the expectations of what you expect to see on a business card but is also made personal due to the reasons of particular aspects of the design.