Day 4: Type Play

All authors own

Experimenting with fonts and layouts was an interesting process. I was able to be playful with words and strengthen the mean of each word by portraying it in a communicative way. "Busy" is situated amongst repetitions of itself, "thin" uses thin lines and narrow spacing between each letter and "pinched" is situated between two fingers that are pressing together against the P. I would have liked to have used more colour, but I feel it would be most appropriate when using adjectives that are emotions or temperatures. I was surprised to find that so much planning was put into the presentation of words e.g. colour, type face, size, layout and context. I have a new found respect for typography as it's own art form. 

Day Two: Laser Cutter

Laser Cut/Etched Design

Photo is authors own

www.google.com (searched: poplar tree, arkansas flag, slave trade posters)

I attended a 3D workshop that included an induction to the laser cutter machine. After this induction I was asked to produce a piece of work on InDesign, using text as a basis for my design. I chose the poem My Arkansas by Maya Angelou, which is a poem I studied in A level that I particularly enjoyed. My design was based on the themes and imagery present in the poem. I used New Times Roman font because many of the slave trade posters used a similar font, the shape of the text is reflective of the form of a Poplar tree (seen at the bottom of the piece), the title is placed in a diamond to relate to the Arkansas flag design and I chose to put the design on a piece of wood to work with the heavy natural imagery found in the poem.

Day 1: Illustration Book Cover

Mindmap of things associated with illustration

 Research into the context/range of illustration

Illustration with text/existing book cover designs

Experimenting with cover layouts

Experimenting with cover designs/titles

Using Illustrator to digitally draw the text

Font experimentation

Using indesign to create the final book cover

Final book cover design

All photos are authors own

This was the first in 6 one day projects that I completed over 2 weeks. Starting with the my chosen topic of illustration I proceeded to do research in an effort to produce a book cover design. I really enjoyed this project because it gave me an opportunity to learn more about illustration and it's diversity. It was also a chance to create a more illustrative graphic's piece, as it fitted well with the concept I was working with. It was challenging to come up with a concept, research, ideas and final piece all in one day, but it encourage a more efficient work approach.

I am pleased with my final book cover design. I think the pencil mark background I created by dragging a graphite stick across the page is in keeping with the typical associations with illustration e.g. personal, hand drawn marks. Also, small design choices such as, the handwriting type face in the corner of the front page to represent an artists signature, help the appearance of the piece. However, I'm not sure whether the image on the front cover is clear. My idea was that it would relate back to an earlier illustration I did, but was shaped to look like a question mark and the teeth spell out "Illustration". The title of the book being Illustration? 

Final 'New' Poster

I made some adjustments to the poster to make it look more presentable. I used Photoshop to cut the main image out and placed it on a clean, white background in Illustrator. Here I reapplied the music stave to the image and added text that was neater and placed in a more balanced position to the rest of the design.

The process of using Adobe definitely aided the final presentation of my poster, plus it completed tasks fast, helping time keeping. I was glad that I was still able to use my hand drawn design too, as it personalises something that could otherwise look quite cold. Because I photographed the original design instead of scanning it there is some discolouration to the "E", which does bring the quality of the image down. However, I do believe that the message trying to be communicated is still graspable.

Graphic Design: Project 1

This is an informative piece of graphics work, designed to explain visually (in the large square image) and using text what it is that I aspire to achieve when studying Graphic Design and in the further future. I found this project to be quite straight forward because I am fairly sure of the path I wish to take in Graphics. However, it was hard to decide what to include in my image and in the end I opted for a more simple design that reflected my interest in illustration and animation. The image was supposed to relate to character design and breathing life into a character. I conveyed this message by using the pun, "I'm Alive.", which is said by an obviously dead/lifeless character. Although, the character is dead it is my job to animate it.

When designing this piece, my attention was brought to font size/choice, lay out and effective visual communication, which I will find really helpful in designing future graphic pieces.