OUGD603 - YSS Posters - Finals & Evaluation

In the end I produced 14 unique posters, and a roll up banner with pretty much unique designs on each of them. I’m really pleased with the playful element these posters bring, with the use of the bright colours and simplified illustrations. I tried my best to replicate the unique environment of each of the courses and I think I have been successful in this.

Strengths & What I liked

I really enjoyed illustrating the scenes from each course, trying to get the character of each course into their individual posters. It made me realise that I have a certain style of illustration when it comes to vector illustration.


Weaknesses & What I didn’t like

Like I said before I have struggled with the scale of posters in the past but because this used illustrations as the main element I just focused on this and added the text around it. I also felt like I had bitten off a bit more than I could chew with the timing of this brief, as I was at Hallmark all day doing designs and then came home and had to do more designs for this brief.


Time Management

I had to turn around quite a lot of posters in a short period of time, while on placement. This was exhausting but I managed to push through in the end.If I had more time I would have used some more unique assets in order to differentiate the posters better.


Final Outcome

I’m really pleased with the playful element these posters bring, with the use of the bright colours and simplified illustrations. I tried my best to replicate the unique environment of each of the courses and I think I have been successful in this. Additionally I feel that they will really stand out on the noticeboards because of the use of bright background colours, hopefully encouraging people to fill in the YSS.

OUGD603 - YSS Posters - Development

After I submitted the first poster design concept I was given feedback to change it around as it looked too much like the research I had done. So at this point I decided to separate the imagery of what life meant at LCA. I thought that I could create a unique illustration or scene for each course to make it feel more personal like in my initial ideas.

So I moved onto creating illustrations of desks that one might find in the college. To make the type match the outlined style of the illustrations and make it stand out more I decided to add a coloured drop shadow. I think the 3D effect this creates makes the type stand out from the background and demand as much attention as the illustrations. I also created an outside scene of the college building to represent the college as a whole. I was also asked to change the text used slightly and add in more relevant links. I think that cutting off the colour to highlight where to go to take action is a good idea as it makes it easier to understand and read at a glance.

I heard back from the SU that I had been chosen to complete the posters! They gave me some really good feedback and a big list of things to do. This meant I had more designs to complete as I had originally thought but I was able to plan accordingly. However I do like a challenge so I cracked on with developing my ideas.

I particularly struggled with some of the courses that might not necessarily be desk based, like photography, fashion and fine art however I managed to create a scene away from a desk that I feel suits them. Additionally I tried to add pictures in frames to the walls that would represent the course as well to further strengthen the connections. 

OUGD603 - SU Elections - Evaluation

Strengths & What I liked

I enjoyed being able to work with a client on this brief and getting really good constructive feedback for my designs. Being part of the student union has really helped me progress my communications skills between clients and also in getting files ready to print. I think that it was a fantastic thing to do in order to get some professional hands on experience.


Weaknesses & What I didn’t like

I’m not overly keen on poster design as a whole and often struggle with the scale of text. However I overcame this fear of posters and managed to create some successful designs.


Time Management

I did these designs alongside working on finalising my dissertation as well as working to a pretty short deadline before printing so I think considering this I managed to keep well organised in regards to time keeping.


Final Outcome

I am really happy with the final outcomes of this project. I feel like it does answer the call to action that the SU were looking for with bright and in your face designs. The designs themselves are not necessarily my usual style of design but I feel that they really encompass the theme and concept that the SU gave me so they are successful in that respect. The collaboration with Adam was really beneficial as it meant that I could complete more of the design while he provided me with illustrations. Again, having that feedback from people who I’d not really show my designs to was really encouraging.

OUGD603 - SU Elections - Finals

I am really happy with the final outcomes of this project. I feel like it does answer the call to action that the SU were looking for with bright and in your face designs. I also received some really good feedback from other students and senior management about my designs. It was nice to get feedback from people who wouldn’t ordinarily see my designs. Also, the collaboration with Adam was really beneficial as it meant that I could complete more of the design while he provided me with illustrations.

I did these designs alongside working on my dissertation as well as working to a pretty short deadline before printing so I think considering this I managed to keep well organised in regards to time keeping.Being part of the student union has really helped me progress my communications skills between clients and also in getting files ready to print. I think that it was a fantastic thing to do in order to get some professional hands on experience.

OUGD603 - Penguin - Design Rethink

I had lots of ideas to begin with that I fleshed out digitally. Most of these ideas I felt were strong at the time. However I got bogged down into doing my dissertation and lost track of the designs that I was doing.

I decided the best course of action was to start again in January with a fresh idea after my dissertation was handed in. Looking back at these designs I felt that they did not fit the strong typographic outcome that was asked for in the brief. Therefore I sketched a more typographic design using the red socks that Adrian wears in the book which gets the attention of his crush, Pandora. I feel that this design is a lot clearer already and a lot more original than my other ideas.

OUGD601 - CoP Practical - Design Boards

OUGD603 - YSS Posters - Initial Submission

My initial design heavily played off the creative typography that I researched, using a similar colour scheme and style of illustration. The colours I felt were really bright and eye catching so they could stand out against other posters on the noticeboards. I also think that the colours remind you of a summers day with the yellow for the sunshine and blue for the skies. I wanted to sum up life at LCA in lots of different icons. I wanted to create an overall scene that could sum up LCA as a whole. I sent this off to the SU, so I will wait to hear if I have been chosen or not.

OUGD601 - CoP - Evaluation

In this module I feel like I have learnt a lot. Not only about my chosen subject matter but also about how important time management can be. I found that reading and researching well in advance really helped me with being organised within this module as it meant I could spend more time writing as I had completed some of the research already. In the written part of this dissertation I felt that I have greatly improved my writing and analytical skills which I will try to take through to use in other modules writing on my blog and design boards. However I did often struggle with getting thoughts down on paper and as a result I believe my essay is shorter than it should be. Although I feel that it does successfully answer my question.

For the practical side of this module I feel I could have given myself a bit more time. Though I do feel that I managed my time well through out I wish I could have achieved more. The resulting designs that I created I am quite proud and feel like the concept behind them is excellent. If I were to have more time on the project I would develop the brand of sprout further, perhaps creating a full campaign to raise awareness rather than just an info-graphic. Also if I had more time on this project I could have experimented more with different more innovative materials, where as I just chose an easy solution.

Also I think that the synthesis between the written essay and practical project merges together really well because it fulfils Coles (2003) definition of packaging as well as agreeing with other writers such as Papanek (1971, 1995) and Klein’s (2015) ideals of changing the consumers views and life style first rather than trying to tackle the big corporations head on. Though my proposed design solution is not perfect I believe it is a good start.

Overall, I am really proud of both outcomes of this module and hope that it provides a basis of my work to follow throughout the rest of this year. I would like to use my newfound passion for sustainability through as a thought for all my other designs.

OUGD603 - YSS Posters - Initial Ideas

After looking at the previous years design as well as research into successful poster designs I decided to start sketching. I played with the idea of using hand writing to encourage people to write on it, as this will be an interactive poster after all. Maybe if the call to action is in a hand rendered font, it might encourage more people to engage with it. I also still really liked the idea of creating text like in the Creative typography I research, using objects illustrations across the text, but not too many so that it is still legible. Additionally, I thought about doing a scene of the college, stylising it a bit so its not picture perfect, but still resembles the building. Building on from the scene idea I wanted to play on the idea of create a working desk scene for different courses. Additionally, I thought about prompting words again in hand-rendered type, then leave a space at the bottom for people to add their own word onto it. However I feel that because it already has words/answers on there people might not want to write their own answer on.


I think my favourite ideas have to be the icon typography and the working space scenes. I feel they represent the brief best and get the message across clearly. As well as being eye-catching and different they also stand up to the concept of encouraging interaction in my opinion.

OUGD601 - CoP Practical - Final Website and Motion graphic

Final Website

To back the packaging I wanted to create a small online presence in order to further spread awareness. I decided to keep it online as print collateral would cause unnecessary waste and most likely end up in the rubbish too. The website itself is kept minimal to portray a no-nonsense message and to be as clear as possible for all audiences. This is only a small snapshot of sorts of the whole website. If I had more time working on my practical I would have created more pages. 

Infographic

Sprout Infographic from Hattie Windley on Vimeo.

Additionally, I created a short infographic motion graphic animation as seen above. Considering this is my second time fully using after effects I am pleased with the results. The infographic explains the packaging concept as well as a few statistics that I found from my essay. Once again, like the website a simple and pared back approach has been used in order to portray the message as simply as possible. I didn't have much time to develop this motion graphic any further although I am still happy with the outcome. 

OUGD603 - YSS Posters - Research

The previous design had a really strong concept, the type choice and colour combinations didn’t inspire me. So I started looking at an exciting way to do typography. I found this typography and loved how active and alive it looked. All the little icon illustrations represent something within the design process, which is really relevant. I was thinking I could use icon illustrations to represent each course like this. Also the simple colour palette highlighted by the use of outlines really grabs your eye. The only thing I would say about this design is that it might be hard to read from a distance because of all the illustrations over the type.

I looked more into icon illustration with figure 3, I really liked the simplicity of the illustrations yet they are so accurate. Also the positioning of it is visually interesting, almost like it has been taken out of a backpack and spread neatly on a table. I believe this type of layout is called knolling. Again the colour palette that has been used is limited to 3 main colours.

Figure 4 once again uses knolling to arrange objects in an interesting manner. I really liked this illustration because it reminded me of what my desk might look like when working on a project. I thought that I could recreate people from different courses’ desks in illustration form to represent the design process of LCA as a whole.

I like the way in which the illustrations are broken up by text in figure 5, leading your eye logically downwards. Also I really liked the use of simple outlines contrasted with coloured shapes making a really graphic effect. The colours used here are really eye catching contrasted against the off white, I think using multiple colours like this would make the poster stand out on a noticeboard.