Speaking from experience - Week 5

This week I have completed all my designs and printed everything. It has been a busy and tiring week... It always takes longer than I expect... and something always goes wrong! This time I could not print alot of my prducts out on the stock I wanted. The third years are all going crazy about their final pieces (understandable!) but it means that even though I booked a print slot I could only print 3 out of 10 of my things... and 2 of them had to be printed on different stock because they ran out of transparent stickers. It turned out ok though as I managed to hand render some things onto larger sized paper, photocopy some onto transparent stock and use double sided tape to make stickers... all instead of printing!

Rule #01 Fred time. 

Rule #02 There is never enough print credit.

Rule #03 Never pull a face at Amber.

Rule #04 A break is not a holiday. 


Rule #05 PICTURE

Rule #06 Posters don't always work. 


Rule #07 PICTURE

Rule #08 9:30 means 9:15.

Rule #09 PICTURE

Rule #10 Green and orange make Amber see red.

Speaking from experience - Week 4

10.05.10 - Never use white type on a black background
Over the weekend I dug out a book I got given when I left my last job to come to uni "Never use White Type on a Black Background and 50 other Ridiculous Design Rules". It is full of loads of stupid and funny graphic design rules, which creatives in the industry will find amusing. This book will help me with my design ideas and act as a bit of a starting point.

Never Use White Type on a Black Background and 50 other Ridiculous Design Rules. 















The book and my crit on Friday have given me the inspiration to take a different approach to the design and this has influenced the choice of product. Previously I was set on producing a range of stickers and having everything looking really similar with a set design style. However now this has all changed! Today I have been sketching out more ideas and expanding upon the feedback from the crit on Friday. Now I am thinking up ideas on how to demonstrate the rules visually. I intend to make 13 products in total. Each rule will have a corresponding product which will reflect the content and be placed in an appropriate location, making 12 in total. The 13th product will be something which can be distributed amongst the new first year students (either by mail or electronically) and will contain the rules and photographs of the products. The products alone may not make sense at first but will once teamed with the information (mailed or digitally distributed) it will.

Starting point sketches of ideas generated form Fridays crit with John.



















11.05.10 - 12 become 10
After my initial sketches yesterday and some idea development I think 2 of my rules are pretty weak in comparison to the others. I will be removing #9. Don't eat the cakes at the tea party and #12. 4pm is not home time. I am unsure if there will be a tea party next year and do not want to scare them by saying they must stay after 4 all the time. I think my range would work best if I have 10 really strong products bought together in some way rather than using extra rules for the sake of it.

I have been creating mock-ups/digitalising all my ideas today with the intention on beginning the design the products properly over Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sunday, all ready for the final crit on Monday morning.

Digitalised ideas printed off for skecthbook.











13.05.10 - 4 day headache
From Thursday through to Sunday I have been designing... Here are the deisgns from start to finish. I really wish I had of started this earlier, but am really happy with my ideas fr each product and it has all come together since last Thursday.

Rule #01. Fred Time

Location of product.

Initial designs working with Rolex and military font. 


















Rule #02. There is never enough print credit.

Location of product.

Variety of designs for sticker to be placed over balance window on Mac screen.











Rule #03. Don't pull your face at Amber.

Location of product.

Hand draw illustrations, traced and coloured in Illustrator.

Mockup of stickers in location.

Rule #04. A break is not a holiday

Variety of designs. Concertina book of photographs from the studio. 

Design of concertina photographs of my holiday in the studio. 


































Rule #05. Type is sexy

Location of product.

Selected designs to choose final from using Malika Favres typeface.





















Rule #06. Posters don't always work.

Location of product.

Typeface development for poster design.













Rule #07. There is never time for time management.

Designs. Measured typeface of original and selected different possible typefaces to compare. 







Rule #08. 9:30 means 9:15.

Location of product. 

Range of designs for selection of final. 


















Rule #09. Haribos make Freds world go round.

Haribo logo edit to incorporate 'Fred'.

Initial net design.

















Rule #10. Green and orange make Amber see red.

Location of this product would be anything green from the walk from reception to and into the studio.

Initial designs for orange and green.

















16.05.10 - Grazed eye
Well its been a hectic few days of designing and about 10 days of mad thinking... finally all the designs are final and ready to go to the final crit. I always expect some issues to be raised in crits and I like to see the flaws come to light, but not this time. I am really happy with the way everything has gone with this brief and even though I was not as convinced by some of Johns tips, I have built upong alot of what was said and as a result I believe the project is much more appealling, humerous and effective!

Speaking from experience - Week 3

04.05.10 - Why use 30 when 12 will do?
Looking over my feedback from the crit on Friday, I felt I should tackle the language and appropriateness of the unwritten rules. I wrote them out and developed them by re-writing them in different orders and sentance structure to find the one which best suited my concept. Such as...

Rule #16. Posters aren't the answer to everything
Graphic design is not just designing posters - Posters are not the be all and end all - Posters. Do they work? Discuss. - Posters will not change the world - Posters don't always work.

In this example I thought that 'posters don't always work' as it seems more informative and may be the truest statement. 'Graphic design is not just designing posters' doesn't sound quite right and 'Posters. Do they work. Discuss.' is a bit vague and does not indicate that they are not everything.

From these rewritten unwritten rules (tongue twister!) I was then able to select the most appropriate ones. I believe I should get rid of any rules which are offensive, derogatory or simply will not make sense to any one outside my year group. Also I did not want to overwhelm the new students with a long list of jokes thy do not understand. I think a more compacted list of the best rules would be more suitable and less daunting. Some which have been eliminated are 'never draw a penis', 'lonely drinks cans magically grow faces', 'blue biros are illegal' and 'snakes can eat people'. My finalised list of unwritten rules is...

1. Fred time
2. There is never enough print credit
3. Don't pull your face at Amber
4. A break is not a holiday
5. Type is sexy
6. Posters don't always work
7. There is never time for time management
8. 9:30 means 9:15
9. Don't eat the cakes at the tea party
10. Haribos make the (Freds) world go round
11. Green and orange make Amber see red
12. 4pm is not home time

I hope these rules seem funny and informative to the new students and not too serious. They will get to understand these rules as the course progresses and hopefully my products will have a long life. 

06.05.10 - S**t hot

As I intend to design and produce stickers which will be placed in appropriate locations for each rule I began looking into different materials and paper which I could use. Transparent stock seems like a brilliant medium to use. The rule can be read clearly but also shows the context behind it. Before I started looking into design and placement of the stickers and other products I researched whether I could use a transparent stock!

The digital dungeon has loads of stock and James had some transparent stock which could be laser printed on. He also had some which is sticky on one side. The unsticky stock has a blue tinge to it, however when held against a light colour background, this isn't visable. In reply to my question of "How good is the print quality on this stock" his reply was "s**t hot". I can't really argue with that now can I? 

Transparent stock demonstrating the blue tinge when viewed infront of a dark object, and completely clear when against white.

Since finding some cool transparent stock I could use I created some mock-ups of my proposed idea. I find it really hard to explain things and describe anything so I find it easier to visualise my ideas. These mockups are very basic and the type is very basic. My final piece will not be based on this design but the stock and placement should be pretty similar in looks. 

Mockup of transparent stickers in use.

07.05.10 - Concept, context and method of delivery
For this Fridays crit I made 3 boards to help explain what I was doing, where I was going and why. I fund the feedback quite conflicting with my ideas and had some issues raised which I need to address. Such as is it funny enough and is purely type the best way to approach this brief. Another thought is whether or not to introduce colour. I am quite keen to keep my designs monochrome for the moment with the possibility of adding colour at a later stange once the design is completed. All of these issues and my response is posted on my PPD. These are the boards I produced and feel that these were more effective than the one I made for the last crit as they contined more relevant information.

Design direction boards shown at Fridays crit. 

Speaking from experience - Week 1&2

19.04.10 - So many scotch eggs

The brief I have created is aimed at the 2010 first year BA (Hons) Graphic Design students at Leeds College of Art. I hope to create a range of graphic products about the unwritten rules of the studio, course and tutors.

22.04.10 - The unwritten rules...

Part of my primary research was to collect the unwritten rules of LCA Graphic Design. I did this by asking students through emails, Facebook and face to face in the studio. Here they are!

1. Spare time only exists in Hollyoaks
2. Never draw a penis
3. Don't draw with a pencil. Fred will snap it... and then give you a Sharpie
4. Fred time
5. If you have better shoes than Fred, then you're not spending your money wisely
6. If they ask for 100, they mean 100
7. If it is in your head, it doesn't exist
8. Don't pull your face at Amber
9. There is never enough print credit
10. Never use hyphens, widows or orphans
11. Pica ems, ems and ms will make your head hurt
12. A break is not a holiday
13. If you want to be lazy go to Leeds Met
14. You can never listen hard enough
15. Type is sexy
16. Posters aren't the answer to everything
17. Students aren't always a valid audience
18. There is never time for time management
19. Fred is right, so don't bother arguing
20. 9:30 means 9:15
21. If you're not a Labour supporter, your opinion does not count to Fred
22. Never use green and orange together
23. If you leave a coke can in the studio, Amber will draw a face on it
24. Never eat the cakes at the tea party
25. No news is good news
26. Dogs, hats, or dogs in hats is the best subject matter for a project
27. If you don't come in, they will kill you
28. There is no colour called purple, only violet
29. 4pm is not home time
30. Colour theory will make you afraid of colour

26.04.10 - Product

Today I tried to decide upon one product which I could create a range from. I needed this starting point to get the ball rolling. I have found that I need to be more decisive, critical of my work and also create work which I like!

Initials brainstorming sketches of ideas.

Through my brainstorming I seem to have a strong idea of creating individual pieces for specific objects. Here are some examples...

Rule #4. 'Fred Time'

Create a sticker which goes over a clock face on a watch or clocks around the college simply stating the rule in a clear typographically appealing way. Clearly aimed at GD students through the standardised style and 'Fred Time' phrase.

Rule #20. 9:30 means 9:15

Design and produce another sticker to go over level 1 inside the lift near the GD studios in a recognisable style stating '9:30 is 9:15' as students are most likely to be using the life when they are going to the studio and rushing, due to being late.

Rule #3. Don't draw with a pencil. Fred will snap it... and then give you a Sharpie

A sharpie costume for pencils which makes them unrecognisable so that Fred cannot snap them. However if you do want a real sharpie do not use.

30.04.10 - Type

Over this week I have been looking into how I can balance the interests of my audience with my ambition to use primarily type in my design. I created a questionnaire which a limited number of Foundation students completed. I asked the Foundation students to answer this as I knew some of them going into Degree level in a few months and it would be quicker to get their views rather than finding outsiders who were coming to degree from other areas. I found from my questionnaire that illustration was a big interest along with a preference of handcrafted over digital.

Due to these findings, I believe that handcrafted type would be ideal. I can deliver a message clearly whilst having a prominent illustrative feel. I have researched hand crafted type and currently am pretty interested in using woodblock type, manipulated after printing by hand and then digitalised, to create my own typeface. It would be created by hand but would need to be digitalised due to production requirements. My favourite illustrative typographers which I have looked into this week are Lodma, Justin Thomas Kay and Geoff McFetridge.

Back in Black. 
Justin Thomas Kay.

I created a crit information board which should have given others an idea on what I intend to produce. This was not as clear as I hoped as I didn't include my sketchbook alongside. Comments have been posted to my PPD blog. The board included mock-ups of my strongest original ideas for my products (which were created before my design research).

Mockups created of potential stickers... photograph of location, sticker created on Illustrator, then overlayed in Photoshop. 

Crit information board.