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OUGD406 DESIGN PRACTICE- Communication is a virus evaluation


1. As a group what problem did you identify and why in response to 'drink tea'?

We didn't really identified a problem as such, we just wanted to give people more of a reason to drink tea rather than, it tastes nice or the health benefits or because it's british. We wanted people to drink tea for a good cause, therefore we decided to tie in the concept of charity, and proposed a tea stall to raise money for Comic Relief. We chose the name 'Charitea' for the concept, playing on the words 'charity' and 'tea'. The people we targeted already drank tea because we didn't go out of our way to promote the benefits or why you should drink tea, we just wanted people to drink tea for a good cause.

2. What methods did you use to gather evidence to prove this was a problem and what forms did it take?

Primary:  Beth and Danielle were in charge of sourcing tea and the required items needed, this meant going to tea shops to enquire about pricing, as well other stores to purchase the equipment needed. Laura had emailed Comic Relief and they sent us fundraising packs for the day, including balloons, stickers and a form to fill in for our donation. Laura and I carried out a risk assessment with colleges building reg team, this entailed us researching power points, water points and the risks involved.

Secondary:  We used online supermarket stores to find relevant tea flavours we may of not seen in store, and to help compare prices. I researched infographs related to coffee and tea to find influences, whilst everyone else researched their own personal jobs as well on the internet.

Quantitative: We researched into the costs of the products we were sourcing, as well as competitors costs with the cafe, so we could sell our products for a reasonable cost, raising money, without spending too much initially, or putting people off buying tea from 'Charitea'.

Qualitative: Websites were used for qualitative research, along with on going feedback from our tutors and other students, as well as constantly critiquing each others work for the brief, ensuring we worked together and resolved the problem at hand.

3. What methods of research did you find useful and why?

The primary research on costs proved most vital because all proceeds went to charity the less we spent the better because we didn't want to spend £40 on printing and equipment and only raise £40 because that would have been a massive failure. So by finding out where was best to source cups, tea etc.. was the key component to the success of raising the money we did whilst spending so little.

4. What research could you of carried out that would have proved more useful?

I think focus groups on flavoured tea could have proved more useful because some of the flavoured teas sales figures were terrible and could have easily been improved if we simply asked people what their favourite flavoured tea were instead of trying to find a flavour to suit that specific celeb.

5. How did you manage the workload as part of a group?

I found it difficult to rely on a couple of group members at times especially through the important times like preparing all the cups and belly bands for the stall or going for a drink of water and coming back an hour and half later that really frustrated me because I felt like a couple of us put in the serious hard graft doing all the tedious boring jobs because people didn't turn up.  This time round I found it a lot more difficult to work in a group compared to previous tasks, I don't know why this is. I found it great to work with laura because we have similar mentalities where we don't want to let the rest of the group down even if they're not in so I found Laura and I worked together perfectly towards the end, I feel we powered through the boring nitty gritty jobs like health and safety and asking for permission.  It was difficult to rely on peoples time management as well when they're supposed to be bringing in something we needed to progress but turn up 3 hours later meaning we have to sit around and try and think of other jobs to do as opposed to getting on with the important jobs at hand. At the tea stall I felt like everyone did work as a team and I was just happy to see the end of it to be honest even though I did enjoy the design side of things, the stress and frustration was too much.


OUGD406 DESIGN PRACTICE- Indesign seabiscuit

Below are a set of design sheets I have created based on the research I did into layouts and spreads;



They're pretty simple and straight forward to follow, the majority revolve around functionality and ease of read as opposed to some crazy looking work of art layout, i'd much rather it be functional than unreadable. My favourite and the one i'm going to develop further is the one on the bottom right, second image. This because of its clearness and and simplicity, I feel it has a happy medium of white space, it isn't too congested nor is it too simple making it boring. It's uniformity enables me to layout images perfectly in a grid which I feel will add to the aesthetic i'm striving to achieve.



I have decided to go down the route of using black and white images because I felt it suited my subject matter better because it's from the 1930's meaning the majority of the photographs were black and white to begin with anyway. But I also chose to use black and white pictures because I love the tones you get from black and white images. I feel sometimes it offers a better quality than coloured images because it's all uniform and you don't have multiple images that are highly contrasting colours. Another factor that influenced my decision was costs, printing in black and white is 4p as opposed to colour 50p, it just made sense to me because of aesthetics and price.



Above and below are just experiments between the height of the text, I prefer it higher rather than lower because when it's low down it leaves too much white space above. But when it's higher up there is still the same amount of white space but because the large dense image is below as opposed to a lightweight stroke it makes the white space seem less domineering.



And below is my final spread printed off black and white onto bulky news print. The stock choice is just personal choice because the quality is a lot better than printer paper because it's smoother but also has a higher GSM. I also chose it for aesthetic reasons because it is ever so slightly off white which I feel adds to the black and white images and the mass white space.



OUGD404 DESIGN PRINCIPLES- Self evaluation



BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN
LEVEL
04
 Module Code 
OUGD404               


 Module Title
DESIGN PRINCIPLES


END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION

NAME
HARRISON PARK



1.     What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I have developed an abundance of skills during this module including; typography deconstruction and reconstruction, precise typographical drawing, colour interpretation and publication design. I believe I have thoroughly applied these skills throughout this module through several tasks like birth of a font, where a few skills come together collectively to assist me in completion of the task, the reconstruction and precision drawing came into play the most as the majority of the work consisted of creating hybrid fonts from existing fonts and precisely drawing onto trace. My developed publication skills came in handy as well towards then end of the module when we were set the task to create 10 double page spreads.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I have developed a traditional approach to design through learning about Fibonacci sequence and how to apply that to design by creating our very own page formats, I also developed cannons and grids which are also traditional methods, these have all been applied to my final DPS informing me on how to create a unique layout and page format.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

My design skills have especially been useful and one of my strengths during in the ‘10 things’ task where my design and content work in harmony to simplify the things that graphic designers should know. My precision and obsessiveness was another strength when it came to laying out body copy and creating layouts.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

A major weakness of my has been my work load and leaving things to the last minute, these massively affects the quality of my analytical ability and also my design ability because I’m just rushing through my work to finish. I will address this by keeping on top of my work when it is set and blogging after every session as opposed to letting it all build up and getting stressed.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

·       I would keep on top of blogging after every session this will allow me to devote more time to the tasks as opposed to rushing through them.
·       Next time I will do more development for design tasks because I feel I have only done the required amount. This will give me more design options in future and strengthen my final designs.
·       I will go into more depth with my analysing because it will give me a greater understanding of the subject at hand next time.
·       I could do more further research outside of sessions which will also give me a greater understanding and enable me to boost my views and opinions.
·       I could also practice more of the skills required like precision drawing or binding techniques. This will massively improve the aesthetics of my final designs in future.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
(please indicate using an ‘x’) 

5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

1
2
3
4
5
Attendance




X
Punctuality



X

Motivation


X


Commitment



X

Quantity of work produced



X

Quality of work produced



X

Contribution to the group



X

The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

OUGD404 DESIGN PRINCIPLES- 10 things a graphic designer should know

The task is to create a publication consisting of 10 double page spreads using the information from the '10 things' task as content. I will be using my knowledge on grids and layouts which I have learnt over the past few weeks to the test in creating a readable, functional publication that informs and educates other designers like myself.

Below are the two layouts I have created for my publication following my experimentation over the past few weeks with grids and layouts on graph paper as well as indesign. The reason for selecting such simple designs is because I want the book a simple clean aesthetic, a modernist attitude where the function is key.




I have used Fibonacci's sequence to create a paper format for my publication, it is 120mmx160mm. I wanted to create something that wasn't too large and could be held easily and read without straining ones eyes.


Above is the default layout for each double page spread, on the left will be an image or illustration that will visually represent the subject and content on the opposite page. On the right hand page I kept it extremely simple with a headline and two columns that are offset slightly to the right of the page. I have left a large margin down the the sides of the page to accommodate for the publication to be held and not cover up any vital information. 


The double page spread above is used for terminology pages and the contents page. The long horizontal bar at the top is again the headline and the boces below are for titles and content. The boxes vary in height depending on the amount of text that is input but each text box is online horizontally with the text box on the opposite page. Like the previous double page spread layout it follows a simple layout mainly focused on functionality. Each page is the same width as the previous DPS layout to keep everything uniform and tidy, however the headline runs across both pages which could prove difficult lining up the pages is the word does spread across both pages. I still need to decide on position for page numbers but that can added on further into the process.

Front page

The front page will in keeping with the layout and the aesthetics, it will be functional more than anything else; stating the title of the book and an image to visually represent the content of the publication, more than likely the number 10.










Below are variations of different layouts based on my sketches of layouts from the previous task. I prefer the double column page because I feel it fills the page a lot better than the singular column, it also reads easier because your eyes flow along the lines due to there being less words on the page, but not too little.



Now I've decided on the columns I experimented with different colour variations. The all black page with white text looks aesthetically the best but I believe readability is affected because the text is so small. There for I think the plain white page works best or the opposite page black just to break things up a bit. The choice of stock will play an important role because of the lack of colour.

The opposite pages are filled with small illustrations that visually represent the content on the other page, they're only going to be simple as you can see from the subtractive examples;






This what my terminology layout looks like, it doesn't look to exciting but the grid works well and it is completely functional and easy to follow which is my key concern. This is where my stock choice is most important because of the vast white space.


Final printed version





I think the stock really adds to the final finish, if I just used a standard white stock it would probably look boring because there would be to much white space. But the stock I chose to print onto is off white which makes it less boring, adds depth but also the texture is completely different to white stock giving it tactile quality.




OUGD404 DESIGN PRINCIPLES- Publication layout feedback

In todays design principles session we presented our responses to the questions proposed in the last session, we also had a peer feedback session which consisted of moving around the room and giving small feedback on the layouts and development of the '10 things...' publication.

The 5 questions proposed were;

  • What is DPS and does it do?
  • What is golden ratio?
  • What are picas, points and pixels?
  • Explain what rulers, boxes, folio numbers and drop caps are
  • What are grids, columns, margins and gutters?
Our group was responsible for answering 'What is DPS and what does it do?'

DPS stands for Double Page Spread and is two pages of the same article running across the spine of the publication. What it does is down to opinion, the list is endless and there's no specific answer. But research has brought up a few points; a double page spread enables the designer to use an image and relative text. Larger images are said to be more engaging to viewers and helps maintain interest, as a designer this is key because our job is to get entice viewers and get them to read said article.

A double page spread can be used for functionality because it allows the designer to have relevant information next the image, as opposed to have them on separate pages which breaks up the flow. But a dps can also be used for aesthetic reasons as it allows you to apply an image that is spread over two pages and overflow text. In my eyes this doesn't serve any purpose or functionality.

The feedback

I received feedback from my publication layout today, I only received small bits of feedback and nothing was suggesting what could be changed a lot just said it was simple and they liked it which didn't help me too much. So i'm going to have ask around the class to see what people think and seek suggestions. I only received suggestions on layouts but it was just experiment with more variations and include more imagery in my publication.


OUGD404 DESIGN PRINCIPLES- Cannons and grids

Cannons and Grids

The Van de Graaf canon is a historical reconstruction of a method that may have been used in book design to divide a page into pleasing proportions. 

This method existed long before the computer, the printing press and even a defined measuring unit. No picas or points, no inches or millimetres. It can be used with nothing more than a straight edge, a piece of paper and a pencil. Below is an example of the cannon;



The main boxes are where the main content should be, in the case of photographs the focal point should be positioned within the box. The large margin on the outside of each of the boxes is so that fingers don't cover up vital bits of information when holding the book. Below shows the stages of how to create a cannon;


A grid can then be applied to the cannon to aid and assist you in applying text and image to the page.

This is an example of when text and image has been applied to the cannon using a grid, as you can see the focal point of the image (Tom Sellecks face) is perfectly positioned in the area.




 

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