My selected briefs were chosen to help me explore the relationship between type, image and layout. This is prominent in both the club promotion brief and London Jazz Festival brief. In both of the design directions, the visual quality had to remain consistent throughout the dialogue between image and text. The idea of consistency seems to have underpinned everything that I have done throughout the module. Harmony and synthesis of a particular direction across a range of media has been an important aspect of these briefs. Setting up rules and brand guidelines for each brief’s identity has enabled me to work consistently with their respective art directions.
Another thing that was of importance to me over the past module was my visit to Generation Press in Brighton over reading week. As I’ve mentioned in many evaluations before I LOVE PRINT, but it was especially insightful to visit a renowned printers. I was blown away by how small and humble the operation was. Now is not the time to review my visit but I will mention that it has informed my practice greatly. I have always been somewhat of a go-to-guy for people in the class with questions about printing and always want to know more. My visit to GP inspired my screen printing quote poster brief as I just wanted to get my hand dirty and explore print process but unfortunately the project didn’t quite go to plan. As I’m sure you know screen-printing can be a lengthy process and by the time I’d set up my screens etc I had found a new visual direction for the project based on research done post screen set up. Because of time constraints I had to digitally print my final ‘new’ designs and screen print the silver over the top. More of a simulation of screen printing as the digital images use halftone and overlay. Not wanting to waste the already prepared screens I carried out the original printing as an exercise but the results weren’t quite as good as I had mocked up in Photoshop. I found that I was having to put down two or three pulls of ink of each colour to get the smaller text to show through and this meant the intended transparency wasn’t working. Because of this unfortunate printing I set myself a quick turnaround screen print brief (Type Faces). Again as practice, this time I wanted to achieve the crispest print I possibly could. I also took the opportunity to disregard all screen print etiquette and use multiple colours on the same screen as an experiment. This brief’s screen-printing turned out much better.
Collaboration is something I have done quite a lot of in this module. Jonny and I used a small brief to bring together our respective skills in a pilot of a collaborative idea we have for FMP. I also collaborated with third year Surface Pattern student Sarah Milton on the LCA Newsletter brief. The best collaboration however was with American photographer Kelly Knaga. It was great corresponding with her about our ideas and her photography, me eventually using her photos for the whole of my club promotion brief. I’ve learnt what a difference it makes to be designing using interesting photography at the right resolution. So often have I found myself struggling to find photographs for projects that I could actually use. This happened in the London Jazz Festival brief and the lack of photos slowed me down in the projects initial stages. I guess the moral of the story is to actively look and contact people to see if you would be able to use their photography. I will definitely be using this technique for FMP so I have good photos to work with.
Something I wasn’t expecting to happen was my new found ability to really think about how a user interacts with a piece of digital design. When proposing iPhone Apps and websites over the module I found myself really thinking about how they were going to work rather than just making them look pretty. A good example is the YCN Warp brief. I chose it to push me out of my comfort zone. The brief was concept driven and it focused on digital distribution. Whilst designing the site though I got really in to the navigation and user interaction. With all the digital proposals I mocked up over the module there would always be a point where I would think ‘I wish I could bloody well make this move!’ Although I am predominantly a print designer, and always will be, I have a gained a new respect for digital designers and would like to continue learning about the discipline so I am not a complete novice and have the ability to work closely with digital designers in industry. It would put me in good stead to be able to comprehend what they are talking about.
Over the course of the next module I aim to source better photography to work with. This will require good planning to request the photos in plenty of time. Another thing I am keen to do is collaborate. Not just because it can be extremely fun but you learn a great deal from it and more often than not produce some truly creative work.
As with this module, during my FMP I think it important to produce a range of briefs for different budgets to demonstrate your abilities to potential employers and clients. Also through my FMP I want to have more fun. One of the best bits of feedback I received this term was anonymous and was a comment on my Type Faces print. It just said ‘Very Ollie.’ To a certain degree I think that everyone (myself included) came back from summer and thought ‘Uh oh, third year, I’d better grow up!’ This is reflected in the sophistication and standard of everyone’s work. But I think in doing so the fun has been driven out of us a little bit. I want to get back to the root of the fun for a couple of briefs as well as producing the sophisticated stuff.
