OUGD406 Moduel evaluation.

When undertaking Studio brief 1 the secret 7” project i chose to create designs for the song clearest blue by churches, because when i looked at the lyrics and listen to the song i found that that song gave me the most ideas out of all the other songs. My final designs were inspired by the lyrics and the title and name of the band as i wanted to create a detailed but slightly obvious response as i thought that these responses were the most successful for me when i completed the first study task. I completed my designs using digital media as i thought this style reflected the already existing design style of churches and as this is very clear in their album covers, i also decided that experimenting with a geometric style appropriate as this is also reflected in their album covers. My final out comes were successful as they reflected the design style that i intended to create and they also fit the brief of not including the song title or name. If i was to re develop my designs i would experiment more with different media’s although i said i thought digital was appropriate, i would finish the other designs digitally. This would add more depth and interest to my designs.

When undertaking Studio Brief 2, Licence to print money i chose to create a bank note that was for the future, making sure that the note was secure by having numerous security measures. I also decided on the theme of monuments as the bank note was for the future i wanted to use monuments of today as in the future we do not know if the monuments will change and become irrelevant, so i thought that a good way of remembering them would be to have them on a bank note. My final pieces were inspired by the layout of are design of USA’s bank note were there is a white boarder around the edge creating a frame like boarder. I decided that i wanted to screen print my notes because the method had to be traditional and i that the it would be the best method at printing the intricate detail that my designs included. I also decide to print using screen print as i think my designs would really benefit from the finish that screen print gives, with its slightly textured surface. If i was to re develop my designs and re do this brief i would look into foiling as i thing the chip part of my design would have really benefited for the pure gold and copper finish that foiling allows.

When undertaking Studio brief 3, collaborative practice i was allocated the part of designing the wayfinding for our group. The theme we chose was futuristic as we though that it was an appropriate theme to base the branding on as we were creating theoretical bank notes. Unfortunately when presenting this idea for the first time the feedback we received suggested that our theme was slightly miss leading and suggested that it would be more appropriate the link our designs to the stock market. When designing the wayfinding for both themes i was constantly being informed and guided by the group as i wanted to design it in mind of how everyone in my group envisioned the wayfinding to look. My final designs were heavily base on the arrows of the stock market that i used to guide people to the exhibition with. If i was to improve and adapt the wayfinding i would create more floor guidance and improve my developments of the circles as i believe with a little re working and further development they would have been just as successful.

When undertaking Studio Brief 4, Reflective Practice – Speaking from experience, i chose to design a information leaflet about drink aware for student, this was influenced by originally wanted to create a publication about how students have dealt with the stress in first year, when collecting people responses it became apparent that most students drank alcohol to deal with their stress, as i could not create a publication that promoted drinking to deal with stress. When making design Choices i decided that the fold that i have use to be the most appropriate as the design is intricate enough to be engaging but not too intricate to be over complicated, and the sides that unfold one by one are a perfect space to put my content as then it is gradually revealed to not overwhelmed the target audience of students.

I decided to use the colours black, red and white because all the colours work well together and also contrast just enough that they are eye catching. I choose red particularly because of its association with danger and warnings. The typeface that i used was Helvetic Neue Bold on the outside as the fats on the outside were the first things hat the audience saw when unfolding the leaflet, and also the i didn’t want to overwhelm the audience with the content i want to make and impression tht the facts were important, i did this by using the bold text and using Helvetica Neue Regular for the facts on the inside as the text didn’t need to be as hard hitting as i had already got the audiences attention.

The choices i made when designing this leaflet i thought were appropriate for the style of design that i wanted o create and also were appropriate for presenting the information. If i was to re do this brief i would plan my time a lot more as i was unable to re print my design in digital print after making mistakes. Overall i am happy with the response that i create for this brief.

Final presentation, feed back and evaluation

Final presentation (created by nicky)

When looking back on what had been created in this project by our group i think that the designs and products created were appropriate to our concept and all worked well together. Unfortunately futuristic was not something that i was well informed on so had minimal knowledge on what style of products to produce.
Over all i think that the group worked well together communicating with each other and helping out with suggesting how to improve, i think that the group could have improve and possibly been chosen to present to first direct if we put more time into the brief as we put it behind all the over brief that we were undertaking at the time. When in group meeting we should have also asked simon for his opinion more on the concepts that we were suggesting as i think this would of guided us and informed us more on the style of work that they wanted us to produce.

Wayfinding changes

After receiving feed back we decided to adapt our ideas to fit more to the stock market. I adapted my ideas by to relate to the stock market by adding arrows which are commonly seen in the Stockmarket. Below are my developments: 

Above is my developed design that  crated to be a vinyl transfer on the stair case. I added arrows thats would travel up the stairs. I thought this was a good thing to add it relates to the stock market with the arrows ad also the arrows guid people up the stairs towards the exhibitions. My group really liked this idea and suggested adapting the small wall sign of stairs to a similar concept.

Above is my adapted design for the wall transfer. It was suggested by the group to adapt this design too so that the two designs still would work well as a pair. In my opinion i think this is the most successful design as it uses the arrows and transform them into stairs as if the symbol person is climbing to the stock market, similar to the audience climbing the stairs to our stock market exhibition.

After creating the two previous design i decided that i would experiment with them using the same concept just presented i a different way. The above design does work at guiding people up the stair but the small colour change creates an impossible like between the text and arrows. Changing the arrows to back did solve this problem but the text that is infant of the arrow was not visible. 

I then decided experiment with designing small floor vinyls using the arrows and typeface. The above design was scuffle at guiding but unfortunately the text was not visible on the green back ground as there was not a high enough contrast.

To over come that issue i decided to add the arrow through the circle in white to create a contrast that would hopefully make the text more legible. Unfortunately this did not work as well as i had hope as only the text in the white area was vivid and it did not improve all the texts legibility. 

To try solve this problem i decided to put the text purely in the white area. This did not look aesthetically pleasing as the font needed to be different sizes to fit nicely in the space, it also became hard to read because of the the changing angles. 

Out of all the development that i creates the first two are the most successful as the limited colour does not over complicate the design, and both work well together as the link of the arrow creates a strong bond of them both. 

Stock market research

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), sometimes known as the “Big Board”, is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York. It is by far the world’s largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at US$19.69 trillion as of May 2015. The average daily trading value was approximately US$169 billion in 2013.

The earliest recorded organization of securities trading in New York among brokers directly dealing with each other can be traced to the Buttonwood Agreement. Previously securities exchange had been intermediated by the auctioneers who also conducted more mundane auctions of commodities such as wheat and tobacco. On May 17, 1792 twenty four brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement which set a floor commission rate charged to clients and bound the signers to give preference to the other signers in securities sales. The earliest securities traded were mostly governmental securities such as War Bonds from the Revolutionary War and First Bank of the United States stock, although Bank of New York stock was a non-governmental security traded in the early days. 

A stock market, equity market or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers (a loose network of economic transactions, not a physical facility or discrete entity) of stocks (also called shares); these may include securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.

Feed back on presentation

After presenting our ideas to Simon and the first years we gathered some feedback in which we could reflect on to further improve or designs. The feedback consists of:

-the actual concept being not related to money necessarily and that a wall street approach may work more effectively.

-To strip back the design in order to focus upon the work

-Within the next presentation look less in depth at the type and more at the deliverables.

-“The typeface is strong and they like it.”

-The concept of using audio is interesting but exhibitions don’t usually have that they focus on the work.

-“How would we make the timeline work?”

-“Consider target audience and design packs and advertising could have a wolf of wall street videos as links to advertise it.”

-“We were told our concept was too ambitious so we need to refine it.”

other things we mentioned then receiving feedback:
Timeline.

Music.

Retro futuristic things like big boxy computers.

Use computer screens as the light thing, info point.

Put up walls - block out windows.

Recycling design aesthetics

Presentation

below is the presentation that nicky created

The whole group liked the presentation and help with the planning and order of the slides and what information should be included. Nicky kindly put all this together in a very stylised way in which really showed off out ideas and the chosen typeface that was to represent our theme.

Group developments

Below are development that the group have all been producing for the brief. 

invitation design (connor)

invitation idea (alex)

instagram mock up (nat)

invitation idea (alex)

We have all created relevant and appropriate presences to the groups intended theme of futuristic money. Though out the production of the above design we have constantly been informing each others work and giving feed back on what has been created, this feedback has been constructive and has helped everyone with their designs, because of this our designs work well together.

Way finding

When thinking of way finding for the exhibition i thought that i creating things that went along the walls and floors would be the best approach as the exhibition is on the first flood of the building so we wanted to quickly and easily quid people in the direction of the stairs and lifts. When speaking to my group about this they also agreed and suggested using the name of the exhibition so it was clear what they were following.

This is my first experiment of the way finding. This uses the agreed typeface and size with the arrows adapted to my them stand out as without them it would be unclear as to which direction the sign is pointing, After showing my group this design they really liked the idea and concept but suggested linking the letters so the the arrows are linked to the text and dont look as separate.

After receiving this feed back from my group it then produced the above design. In my opinion the arrow that linked to the 'L' started to look like a 'C' and confused the legibility of the name of the exhibition, my group agreed.

i then experimented with a alternative way of linking the letters to the arrows by creating a box around the arrows so that the no longer looked separate. the group linked the above idea, but when considering how this would be transferred onto the wall we decided that it would be too delicate and small to be applied as a vinyl. This made me reconsider my design.

When reconsidering my design i decided to research way finding and came across the image above to the right, this design i thought would work well on the stair as a one piece vinyl with the lettering cut out. I then created the design to the left. I then showed this design to the group and they really liked it as it included the typeface and made good use of it as well as the design being simple but still useful and would not detract from the exhibition.

Alex then suggest the style design to the left. The group liked this idea and thought that it would work really well along side the way finding that i had already designed. I then went on to design the design on the right. The design would be placed near the stairs as a reminder to which floor that they need to be on. the group really liked the design and thought it went well with the previous design.

I also though that the way finding would benefit from an other vinyl transfer at the entrance so people could clarify that they were at the right place as the building is not the usual environment for an exhibition, the above design would be placed at the entrance, the space of the design is supposed to represent the shape of a welcome matt as the design not only is to clarify it is to welcome people to the exhibition.

The above design is a map the i created as an idea to show the group as a suggestion on how we could lay out the exhibition so that it was welcoming and also included back ground information to the exhibition, as well as leading then smoothly round the large space. The group liked the idea of having a suggested rout to the exhibition as there will be a lot of work on show and a lot of background information that the viewer could take in. 

Group contract

Group members Alejandro Zorita Santana Alice Morris Nicky Hope Connor Hastie Katie Ayres Natasha Chan Roles Social Media: Alejandro Natasha Presentation: Nicky presentation design/with group discussion and contributed work. We discussed collectively target audience, the typeface, exhibition layout, poster design, wayfinding, the concept, invites and social medias. Wayfinding: Katie Alice Alejandro Invites: Connor Natasha General aesthetics: Alice Morris Poster: Nicky Contact: -Primarily through that of a group chat (Facebook) -And also that of email.

concept talk (group discussion)

Things we decided to do with concept:
Futuristic

Physical money deffo won’t exist.

Alternate future where money does exist - retro future.

Invite - secret ink thing with the light.

Lights

Lasers

Invites for studios 

Have an introduction explaining our ideas projected on to a wall for the side bit.

Some sounds/ dramatic music setting up an atmosphere.
Opening but with black and white text (Identity black and white)

It’s the future but we’re going back. Recycling everything How people at the past looked at the future but looking through a lens like technology doing this.

License to print money - license to print art.

Decide our style. Check current exhibitions going on.

Black and white. Contrasts with the work. Expect to see the typeface on money. Futures going to really be pushed digitally. Openly admit moneys going to be physical.

Fill the stroke, increase stroke to make it thicker - weights.

Make the typeface the key.

When discussing our work with one another it was clear that our designs correlated well, and worked along side each other. One Thing that we decided on was the link of sci-fi/futuristic approach as we found this amusing and created a strong link to all of our work. We found that our designs expressed sharp shapes and a similar typeface and the building that the exhibition was in. In order to keep our designs consistent we decided upon a strict format to which we would follow. This consisted of a typeface, colour scheme, and specific concept. 

-The outlined concept was that of the sci-fi genre.

-We decided that a black and white colour scheme would allow our design to appear informative and would not distract from the art pieces.

-The typeface chosen was that of sevastopol.

We decided upon sevastopol as it is a very angular typeface and thought that is expressed a very high technological approach which was often displayed in sic-if genres, in which we decided we wanted to loose base our theme around. As well as this we thought that the typeface also reflected the structural design of the building.

Stroke and line width was explored, with an agreement that the typeface should work purely in capitals as otherwise it appears extremely difficult to read. Helvetica was also decided on for body text as it created a hight contrast again the complex typeface of sevastopol, and also because it is a very legible and modern typeface.

Exhibition research

When creating things that are going to be supporting and exhibition it was important that we looked at a range of different exhibitions so that we could use them to influence how we intend to present the work in the room. Below are a few exhibitions that i briefly looked at:

plain white walls create an open spacious look and puts all attention on the work. The very simplistic/basic door has a modern look to it and could be considered to be futuristic.

Similar to previous exhibition with all white walls but a good use of tables to present work and angled tables highlight the work and create and interesting focus in the middle of the room.

 good use of lines leading up to the art work, this could be used to lead people round the room as the room is very large.

free standing work that is hanging from the ceiling looks modern and also could be considered futuristic. this would also make use of the large empty space.

From looking at the above exhibitions i think that having a white room would benefit the work as it highlights that colour work that will be the focus of the exhibition.