Project 2….DONE! Shelter Campaign
So here we have the final designs for my Shelter Campaign. Campaign One is an Adshel bus shelter poster and Campaign Two would be in the form of an A2 leaflet. Within the last stages of my development I had a chat with an industry professional ‘George’ (nice guy) and we decided to go with my strongest idea which focused on displaying a message on a mobile showing a vague text definition of a relationship breakdown….I’m sorry it’s not working. (Relationship breakdowns are one of the many causes of homelessness.)
To construct my designs I took a photo of my mobile and played around with the image on photoshop. I decided to display a simple statistic below my image to explain the above text. I studied different types of font to use and decided the most appropriate was Silom, since it had strong similarities to the type displayed a mobile phone.
In conclusion I feel my outcomes were successful, however I feel I could have pushed myself a little further to create a more professional looking poster. To be perfectly honest I am still getting to grips with In-design however I must make my studies more challenging! (It’s an ongoing battle with myself you see!)
Final piece…Introduction to Visual Communication book
Our first project Introduction to Visual Communication was drawing to an end and the way in which we had to summarise this first project was to create a book explaining the processes we had learnt and activities we had took part in during this time.
I personally included photos of my trip to Poole quay that focused on exploring public space. Pictured also within my book were my first attempts at editorial illustration, Type and Type (One day group project), letterpress studies and development, sketch book shots and finally how I created my book. (Book-binding)
How I actually constructed the layout of my book was through the programme In-design. At the beginning of this course I totally freaked out when attending the introduction to the In-Design programme! However, once I had got to grips with it I appreciate its aid! When I created the layout for my book this was the first time that I had relied on In-design. Since using this software I have realised now the importance between discovering the relationship between text and image.
Statistic Project continued…In this particular critique session I had to present my animation storyboard. I decided to focus on statistics that revolved around animal testing for cosmetic purposes. So after breaking through a painful barrier of thought process, (What the hell am I going to do) I came up with a storyboard that involved a following a rabbit on his daily routine at work. The poor bunny was then subject to various experimentation methods which included getting burned and pouring irritant liquids onto his fur. (awwww) In the end sadly he dies and I recommend that people buy cruelty products, with a happy bunny waving next to this recommendation.
Now I thought this concept wasn’t a bad idea since my story could have gone down the graphic and gory route, however I decided to lighten the mood by creating humorous illustrations. Although…my tutors must have thought differently, because I think they weren’t keen on my idea. They felt that I didn’t have to focus on actual animal experimentation and suggested I animate a couple of rabbits maybe opening gifts, revealing cosmetic products and having a discussion. Time to think again I guess…..
Now I never thought this would happen to me….I completed my statistic project animation (finally). Rendered and burned onto CD I confidently strolled into uni and handed in my project. Although a few hours later alarm bells were ringing when one of my tutors informed me that my animation was not loading up properly. I said no problem, all my work is on my memory stick…so I made the journey back home and put the memory stick in my mac. To my HORROR, instead of Flashdrive appearing under the memory stick logo….this is what I saw….*(&$*@$&……Er ok ….don’t panic…I clicked onto this ‘code’ and saw my Animation! Clicked on it…and… file cannot be opened. I might as well jump off a cliff now.
This trip was organised to prepare us for our up and coming brief. Although the brief and task outline hadn’t yet been revealed yet, we were to observe and take note of the uses of type within signage and how it aided out sense of direction within the museums. (Rather than just looking at the exhibitions) So during my visit to the The Tate Modern, Natural History Museum and The Science Museum I took photos of various signage….including exhibition titles, toilet signs, exit and entrance directions too. So fingers crossed I’ll be prepared for this next project…..
Storyboard…Group Project
For this particular group project we had to create a thirty frame (minimum) story board that explained a current newspaper headline. (from which we had selected at random) The headline we had to display through method of story boarding was….’Parental leave system puts unfair burden on Mothers’….We decided to first write up a ‘plan of action’ for the day which would help us manage our time affectively. It was as follows….
- RESEARCH
- BRAINSTORM & IDEAS GENERATION
- TARGET AUDIENCE
- NARRATIVE & THEMES
- CREATIVE PRODUCTION
In no time at all we discovered the details of this headline. Fathers were to be given any unused maternity leave that Mothers had not taken. So we had a few ideas…the first was to make a comparative of a baby in the UK to another European baby, France for example…we wanted to show how other countries laws compare to our own. Another thought was to make a story board that involved interviewing babies…to get their point of view across about having a Father figure around more during the early stages of their life. (this would obviously take the humorous route)
But towards the end of our brainstorming session the strongest idea seemed to be this…. keeping the concept of the child’s view but quite literally. We thought that the basis of the story should be that of a child looking out of a crib and recognising its Mum but having unclear visions as to the identity of it’s Father. (as relating to the headline, some Fathers are not around during the beginning as they are working) As the story progressed then the Father would become clearer to the child. (as he is around more) To bring the headline into context we thought a few scenes should involve a zoom in shot at the family breakfast table on a newspaper displaying the actual headline.
The next step (after taking about 2 minutes to decide our target audience…30-40 year olds by the way) was to write down scene by scene the details of each frame.
….Worms eye view of cot….
….Mum comes in looking tired and stressed….
You get the idea. So after writing our story in text it was time to begin Creative Design. Instead of delegating the job of illustrating to one person we decided that we would illustrate about five frames each. A possible problem in doing so was that once all our frames were pinned up then there might be an obvious difference in the style of our artwork. To solve this we decided to keep the scamps simple and stick to similar/basic facial features and the like. Another tactic was to make sure that we all drew them out with Sharpies…brilliant.
Once our individual frames were complete a final few touches had to be made. The Scene Number, Frame Number and Frame time all had to be noted on each illustrated frame. As we did this, all of the other groups began flocking in to mount their storyboards also. When the 3pm deadline hit we had the opportunity to view and discuss each others work.
I feel todays project will without a doubt contribute towards aiding my individual work processes regarding our new brief. It has taught me how storyboard illustrations should flow, tell a story without the need of giving too many unnecessary details. The illustrations need to be simple and should be the basis and structure in building the animation process that will follow. Overall…an enjoyable task.
New Brief……Statistics
I am skimming through the brief right now and I feel the relevant text to type is this….
…Through this work you will have the opportunity to develop Motion Graphics…
Perhaps I have plucked out this particular section of the brief because this concept is totally new to me and as soon as I set eyes on these words……I freaked out. However, since attending our first introductory session to Adobe Effects I am pleased to admit (and actually still trying to understand …HOW …I understood the software!) that I flew through the basic tutorial and soon after gave myself a well deserved pat on the back.
So to back track a bit I should say that this brief will allow us to explore the relationship between media, message and context. The process in which this brief will be tackled is by firstly, discovering and then researching a statistic (preferably a reliable one!)…then through a series of learning tutorials, including …Adobe Effects, group projects and critiques…the outcome will hopefully be a 30-90 second stop motion clip. This short animation will not only have to state/display our chosen statistic, but should also have an affect on our target audience. (which is quite a broad spectrum…..the WHOLE of the UK….generally speaking) The kind of affect in which I speak of is that of a Rhetoric affect. This means it should be persuasive and give the audience reason to believe/reconsider the subject area. Other vital statistics that the clip must include are….
- Must be clear and universally understood
- persuasively communicates a statistic ( um…I guess this is what I mentioned above…)
Okay, I’m going to quit with the bullet points now and show you my instant reaction and thoughts relative to stop motion in the form of…well….an actual stop motion clip. I would like to refer to a personal inspiration of mine….Tim Burton….please enjoy the clip above.
Black Box
I have to be honest, this day was one of the longest that I’ve experienced at uni.sigh. Although, I have to say that I am rather glad to have completed todays group project, the reason being that it has slightly altered my mind set and encouraged my train of thought towards thinking like a REAL designer.
The day commenced by huddling into our groups of five and running off to the canteen with our secret envelope that we had selected from the Black Box. The concept was that we had chosen a branded product at random that we then had to create visual clues for so that another group could try and guess what the product was. Points would be deducted for slight hints given (when requested) and also for guessing a wrong answer.
Our product was….(drum roll)…..Dorset Cereals. After a short discussion (thankfully as a group we seemed to get on like clock work), we decided that we were not going to give the other team an easy ride….so after thoughtful and careful planning we decided that our selected images would be….The Jurassic Park Movie logo (linked to Dorset…the Jurassic coast…fossils…get it?), Jack the Ripper (Not only was he originally from Dorset but he was a SERIAL killer…clever uh?) and finally we used an image of a freaky scarecrow from the film Jeepers Creepers.(Now not only was this guy also a SERIAL killer but for a bit of the film he was stuck in a field of wheat….WHEAT…CEREAL…hope you’ve got it by now…because I am not explaining again)
So anyway in the end, we didn’t win the war…(the other groups were much quicker than us at guessing each others products)….but I guess we won the battle because our rival group did take a while to figure out our clues. But anyway, now we had a new dilemma , we had to now figure out our given product, if you check out the white, blue and red image above (with the freaky cartoon face) you will see what we were dealing with. What product was this? We were all really stumped and even had to ask for a clue…which was a stick. What was really embarrassing was the fact that whilst we were ripping our hair out in the library trying to figure out what product these clues represented, it was actually RIGHT in front of us the whole time…..a bloody Pritt Stick.
Now that we had resolved this puzzle, the second part of this project was to come up with a new/unique advertising campaign for Pritt Stick. Even though our pride and egos were bruised ( yes, we all felt really dumb) we began our brainstorming …Pritt Stick is….quick easy washable…safe and solvent free….not messy…..After a while our brains began to stop working efficiently and I think in the end a member of the group made a joke of saying that Pritt Stick is spreadable. We worked with this and thought hey…spreadable…not edible. Fantastic. We all agreed that this was a catchy theme to go with so we proceeded to snap photographs of glue getting spread on some bread, which was different, I must say.
To conclude the day we presented our work to everyone and explained our thought processes behind it and our development of ideas. Today I have learnt that the positives of working within a group are that there is a combined selection of talents from each individuals that contributes to creating awesome ideas. However I guess a negative way upon looking at this project is that sometimes I felt a tad restricted in expressing my ideas (although I suppose that is just a confidence issue that can be fixed!) Overall I still agree with my original statement that this was a LONG day…but to add to this I was satisfied with our outcome and felt we worked brilliantly as a team…a great way to end the term. Now its time for Christmas!
Shelter brief
So our new brief is upon us….Shelter. Shelter are an organisation that aim to prevent homelessness. Our brief is to launch a new advertising campaign to raise its own profile. To design a series of posters for an ‘Adshel’ bus stop site. In addition, we have to design a second dimension that targets an audience of younger individuals (18-35) wakening awareness of homeless and social issues.
So where to start…so far I’ve researched Shelter, homelessness and also the different ways in which products, in general, are shown and portrayed through the media of advertising. I tried to spice things up by not only researching other charities (RSPCA, PETA) but also looking at the other side of the spectrum. So I looked at Nike, Apple iphone and M&S, to name a few. I viewed televised adverts and made notes, this exercise proved to be helpful in a way that adjusted my mind set to, “Right, now how can I get peoples attention?”
So after a painful thinking process, which also entailed annoyingly reverting back to and from my sketch book then to research to sketch book ideas..back and forth…back and forth….
Here above we have my first born ideas into this brief…..
I tried to focus on the reasons why homelessness occurs and to try and make sure that people are aware of the fact that there are multiple reasons why this happens. I’m thinking if people can relate to the reasons why homelessness happens then maybe they will consider donating.
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