The Swiss Booklet

The Swiss Booklet

My brief was to create a 32-page booklet, which interpreted the word “play”. I like the Swiss graphic design style and I wanted my booklet to have a Swiss feel to it. I chose to base the booklet around Switzerland and the activities that are on offer there, whilst involving the word play. The booklet is a Swiss travel booklet, which tells the viewer where to play in Switzerland with regards to what activities are on offer. I chose to use the word play as an instruction and direction as to where to play in Switzerland.

When I started off creating this booklet I was going use black and white imagery from Getty Images and create a red graphics overlay, but after much thought, I thought that it would look better creating everything myself. I starting by creating symbols for the word play and other activities that I wanted to put in the book.

The first symbol “Play” is an introduction symbol that introduces the viewer onto the four activities symbols. For each activity I created a symbol, one for Ski, Snowboard, Hike and Biking. In the beginning pages all the symbols are displayed under the symbol play, which shows what activities, are on offer. I created the characters with bigger heads then their bodies because I wanted them to be character like as well as symbol like. I didn’t want the symbols to look too formal. I wanted them to look fun and different.

I created the booklet first of all predominately using the colour red. After a few talks with people I decided that it would be better to introduce the colour blue with the red. I changed the tone of red that I was using and put it with a very light blue background. Designers Republic had done something similar in their choice of colours for their “buy me” poster campaign and it worked really well. The blue adds to the icy cold feel of the booklet and compliments the red, when the red is only used sparingly for headings and other graphics.

I created a graphic scene for each symbol across a spread.  For the skiing and snowboarding scenes I created very simple mountain graphics using the pen tool in illustrator. I then added some dot graphics to give the impression of snow. For all the scenes where I placed the symbols I just wanted simple graphics so it is obvious to the viewer. I am pleased with the overall look of the booklet and I am glad that I changed the colours, as I was not that convinced at first. The booklet has a simple feel to it and it is not complicated and that’s what I wanted to achieve.

Logo Manifesto

Logo Manifesto

For my Logo manifesto which is meant to represent myself, I looked at Chinese writing.  I cut up the words “designer and brand name” in Chinese and using illustrator mixed the shapes and symbols together.

I chose to create my logo in the form of Chinese writing because I am interested in branding and nearly everything is made in China. They contribute a lot to the brand industry in many ways. Also after  A recent a trip to China I am intrigued by their style which seems to be forming at a fast pace at the moment. Whilst there I took a lot of pictures of their products and found that they nearly always use powerful bright colours. This has affected my decisions in the colours that I chose, as I have gone for bright colours.

I experimented with the Chinese writing shapes and what shapes looked best together. I did this all in black first then I tried out different styles and colours. One of the other styles that I experimented with in illustrator was the 3D tool. I put my flat black logo through this process and aligned the viewpoints and angles (which took a long time).

I then created another logo in a different style using the bright colour pink for the inside fill and grey for the outside lines and markings.  I tried different ways of creating these markings using the original shapes and I am happy with the outcome. It does look like a modern Chinese logo.

My brand values for my own logo which is meant to represent myself are development, define and communication.  The order of these values is vitally important. In order for me to answer a brief I give a lot of time on the development process, which really kept pushing my ideas. My next step is to really define what my answer is to the brief. Does what I am proposing really fit the brief? The third value communication. Communication is very important because it is how it will be interprotated by other people. How is my idea communicating to other people?

I feel that I use the above processes as a designer and that is why I  have made these  my core values.

 

What I want to be?

The Poster

I have chosen to display the picture of the brain, as I feel your ideas are one of the most important aspects as a designer. My aim is to develop and fine-tune my thinking skills to be a better designer.

I look to become a multidisciplinary designer, attaining a good grounding in Graphic Design for print and Motion Graphics for screen. I feel that by having a good discipline in Graphic Design for print I will be able to transfer these skills to screen based design. I see myself in the future mainly designing for print, but also having in my portfolio examples of Motion Graphic projects.

I also have a strong interest in Symbols, Icongraphy, pictograms and typograms. I see myself in the future also researching more into these areas and getting into the field of branding.

6 Degrees of Separation

6 Degrees of Separation

After researching magazine layouts in our last project I thought I would follow similar suit to the examples of the spreads that I researched, but after thinking about what the content of the links is about I wanted to have a Non –format feel to it.  The Non Format “love song” exhibition is the first starting link and most of the links still have strong connections with the first link. The “Love Song” exhibition is about iconography, shapes, fashion and modular typography, so I wanted to create this feel in my magazine layout. I wanted a simple layout with the left page for content and the right page to display the images of the links but the background also to resemble the style of shapes. The right hand side tends to have a geometric feel to it with mainly black shapes displaying the imagery to resemble this style. I chose a modular looking typeface for the heading to go with the style of the layout. The paragraphs columns I wanted to make quite small so I set them to 5.5cm width, if I had set them any bigger I don’t think that would have worked. 

Magazine Presentations

Magazine Presentations

For my first few spreads I have chosen them from the magazine Grafik. The company Sea has designed the overall magazine layout.

The first spread is an article about a couple’s exhibition. There is a lot of imagery to display and I like the way the designer has done this without making the page too cluttered. The spread consists of small and large imagery, which has big imagery centered in the middle and smaller images around the side of it. This works because you are first drawn to the big imagery and then your eye wonders to the smaller imagery next to it.  It has been nicely laid out with 3mm spacing between each image. The paragraphs columns of text are at the bottom of the page. I like how the designer has created the headings.  The headings have the top line in bold and the bottom in regular, and it is aligned the left of a column with a big indent space surrounding it. I think the reason that they have done this is to create a good amount of space from the heading to the paragraph content. The viewer will now find it easier to read.

The second spread that I have chosen is a spread about a content of a book. The style of the layout is similar to the previous spread. There is big imagery placed in the 3 corners of the page with the fourth corner left for the paragraph content. The font size in this spread is 12 while the other spread was 10. I think the reason for this is because that this spread has bigger paragraphs and while the other spread, which was 10, has only 10. All imagery still has the 3mm spacing between them, which makes it look really nicely laid out. The font used for this spread and the previous one looks to me like Gothic Century.

The third spread is about typefaces. The background colour of this spread is a light pastel green, which really works well against the boldness of the paragraph content and the letter u. The letter u is spread across the right hand side of the page, it is bold and in the font Firmin Didot. The left hand side of the page has a wide paragraph column and the type is in bold. The heading is below the paragraph content and most of it is bold as well.  The reason it has been laid out this way adds balance to the page. On one side you have the form of the letter u which counter balances the boldness of the paragraph and some of the boldness of the paragraphs headings. I think this spread works really well, because it is such a simple layout.

The fourth spread is from the publication “icon”. The designers of this publication are Rob Timm and Emma Chiu. The spread is about the city of Shenzhen in China. The background of the spread is a picture of the city, which looks like it has been taken early in the morning because it has a layer of mist to it. The word Shenzhen has been laid across both pages in a very big type size. Underneath that there is a sub heading, which is in about 30-font size.  Then there is a small paragraph underneath the sub heading which sits above one of the skyscrapers in the background picture. The overall layout of this spread has been designed around the background picture. The first letter of the heading at the top “Shenzhen” has the letter s curved around one of the skyscrapers it is in the thin typeface so that it blends in more with the background. The designer’s have made all of their decisions based around the background picture because it is the main focus of the spread.

The fifth spread is from the Eye publication, which is number 59, volume 15 of spring 2006. The designer of this issue of Eye is Jay Prynne. The spread that I have chosen’s article is about advertising and globalization. I really like the bright vibrant yellow background colour that the designer has chosen. It fits in well with all of the advertising poster images and creates a kind of a pop arty commercial feel to the whole spread, this is why I think the designer has chosen to use this colour. The yellow background doesn’t go to the edge of the page there is a 1cm white line around the spread. I think the reason that this has been done is so that the images can be placed to the corner edges of the yellow background with the white line around them, so it frames the whole spread.. The images of advertising posters from around the world are laid out mainly on the right hand side of the page and are equally spaced out with a 3mm gap between them. On the left hand side of the page is the paragraph content, which is quite a wide measuring 10.5 cm. Next to the paragraphs are to advertising poster images and one above the paragraph in the top left hand side corner. I think the reason the designer has made the decision to do this is to balance the content of the magazine with the space.

My Own Development of Wagamama

My Own Development of Wagamama

I started by developing the Asian dolls as to how I thought they should look. Mamawaga still being the main character, and the rest of the four characters I changed a little. Each character still had it’s own personality as before, but they also had a description of what their favourite dish that they liked to eat. This would inspire customers of what to eat next time around and they would try new dishes.

After a lot of thought I felt that the Asian dolls were really only going to appeal to women and not to men, even though I had designed two male dolls. There was something not quite right. I just couldn’t see a 20-30 something male professional putting one of these dolls on his desk. So I started to look at adult collectable vinyl toys. I went on many websites, Amos toys being one of them. There was such a broad range of characters; some had animal or human based features. After a lot of research I started to look at what characters would apply to both male and female. Is there going to be a story behind these characters? How are these characters going to appeal to both genders? And are they going to appeal to all target market groups?

With all this in mind I decided that the story and the characters that I created had to be “one to all”. They had to appeal to everybody !!!

The story theme is based on the food on the take-away menu. The characters names are inspired from the names of the dishes like “King Udon the noodle king” is from the Udon noodle dish and even “planet Waga-Yaki” is from a Yaki dish on the take-away menu. Some of the characters have been designed from the sorts of food in the take-away dishes, like the seafood-based characters or the badies. Take for instance the “Pickled Warriors” or the “Chilli-men”.

The story – “The Chilli men are plotting to invade planet Waga-Yaki and steal all their noodles. Will King Udon and Queen Soba be able to save their kingdom from noodle starvation!”.

This story and the characters have a lot of growth. There could be a lot more follow on stories as to what happens next on Planet Waga-Yaki. This could be put into an advertising campaign via the internet or a poster. There could be animated stories on the Wagamama website of their adventures to stop planet Waga Yaki from noodle starvation!

My proposal  to this brief is that customers will receive a free collectable vinyl toy with their orders over £10 pounds. I have designed these characters to attract all groups. They are meant to be “one to all”. The characters will have the Wagamama logo on them and also they will have a serial number which will indicate what number toy they are because their will be only so many made. Which will make them more collectable!!!

I envisage that business professionals will put them on their desks, which will remind them of the Wagamama brand and the “Take-out service”. Students will also put them on their desks while they are working. Families will love them for because they are such fun characters! My strapline is “Eat out and take me home”.

Vinyl toys Research

I have researched a lot into vinyl toys and found that there is a big growth in the market. The market in vinyl toys is worth over a million. Adults and teens are prepared to pay from anything from £15 onwards for their vinyl characters. Some even pay over £60 pounds for their collectables. The Vinyl toy characters market attracts the age groups from 12-50. Some of our lecturers collect these vinyl characters and have them on theirs desks! So I know that these characters will attract the older generation as well! Another good thing about vinyl toys is that they attract both girls/women and boys/men. Even though these vinyl toys are adult collectables children will love them as well.

Wagamama as a Team

Wagamama as a Team

 After much debating as a team we chose the Wagamama brief. Wagamama is Pan Asian inspired restaurant and their brief was to increase revenue in their restaurants via growth in eat out (Take-away) sales.

We first looked at what food that they were serving and who was their target market. With these questions answered it would help us define what it was that our take-away customers wanted.

We each contributed our ideas as a team and then chose the strongest idea. We decided that to get people to buy their take out service there had to be a free Wagamama gift. The gift wouldn’t be like a happy meal take-away. It would be  more of a upmarket version that fitted in with the target market criteria.

We looked at all different types of toys and concentrated on Asian style dolls. We thought about when would people be buying these take-outs? Is it going to be at lunch time or on their way home from work? Of the whole target market groups which ones  are  most likely to do this? What are the locations of all of the restaurants ? Are they always in the centres of a city? 

With all of these questions answered we decided that our main target market was business professionals, backpackers and students. This is because all of these groups live or work in the city centres and are more likely to use the take-away service at certain times like lunch or dinner.

 Our toy needed to appeal to an older and younger audience. We all so wanted to incorporate the Wagamama logo on the toy for marketing proposes and to reaffirm the Wagamana brand to our customers.

We thought about what business professionals, backpackers and students do. Business professionals and students have a desk and we wanted to come up with a toy that they would instantly put on their desks. The free gift would be Asian inspired dolls and each would have their own character/personality, which would make them more collectable.

We envisaged that the business professionals and students would collect these dolls and put them on their desks with the Wagamama logo and brand name on. Also on the back of the dolls would be the Wagamama telephone number so they could call and place their take-away order in the future. All of this would make them buy more take-away’s.

The backpackers would fit into the category of using the take-out service at certain times of the day like lunch and dinner. They wouldn’t necessarily put theWagamama toy on their desk, but we were sure they would be happy of a free toy.

As families don’t tend to live in the city centre of town they would use the take-out service less frequently than the other groups.

The product still had to appeal to backpackers and families even if they would be using the take-away service less. By doing so we have created these characters to fit into the existing Wagamama brand and their values. We have made the characters fun and each one has it’s own personality that people can relate too.

Our assumption was that from all our groups only certain ones who live close to town will use the take-away service more frequently because Wagamama don’t deliver. This meant that the free gift was designed to meet there needs mostly.

What’s great about the character’s is that they can be put into different types of media. There could be advertising banners on the Wagamama website or animation with the characters in. The characters could also be used in advertising campaigns.

I really enjoyed working in a group more than I thought I would. I really wasn’t happy with the final outcome of the look of the dolls as it wasn’t what I envisaged when I first came up with the idea. To me they look too western.  Mike suggested that they look generic because of the conflicts with some Asian countries, which we all agreed with.  So we didn’t want the dolls to look too Chinese or Japanese.

I just feel that the faces could have had an Asian feel to them and still have been generic.  With all this in mind that is way I chose to develop the Wagamama idea more myself.