Saturday 29 October 2011

Proverbally Yours Crit

This crit again was very different to the last two the class has had. This time we were again split in half so that one group marked the other group in the morning and then the same thing happened again in the afternoon.

Within each crit the work critiqued anonymously by two seperate people and no verbal disscussion took place. The group all had to sit in silence and fill out two forms about two seperate pieces of work. This meant that there was no bias discussion plus the person recieving the feedback would have two original points of view.

Having two feedback sheets this gave me two different perspectives on how successful and unsuccessful my work was, some points that were made I believed were quite similar and some differed a lot.

The feedback sheets I recieved are scanned in copies you can view below.

Feedback Sheet 1



Feedback Sheet 2






Alphabet Soup Typeface Crit

The brief for this project involved designing an alphabet for another persons personality.  The criting system for this two week brief changed from the last so therefor we were put into small groups to talk about our ideas at the end of week one. In my crit a lot of people were struggeling to define their partners characters because we all had to work from a questionaire that no one felt was very useful. I had some away from the personality of my mine partner and was making a typeface that either illustrated his happiest in the park with his friends or tried to show openmindedness that he expressed in the interview. I like others felt lost and ened up decorating letters instead of experimenting with the type anatomy. 


For the final crit at the end of the two weeks, the class were split into two large groups where all of the alphabets were stuck on the studio wall with each partners next to one another vertically. Then in pairs we were asked to present what we thought the meaning of eachothers alphabet was and did it communicate eachothers personlities. This soon lead on to a group discussion about how successful the work was.


My alphabet I designed for Luke went down really well and I dont think I had much feadback that made me think I had to go away and improve it. The class liked the 3D cube name badge I designed for Luke because it went with the net theme I illustrated in the alphabet about open mindedness and thinking outside of the box.  

Alphabet Soup Crit

The class was given a typographical brief to produce a set or series of 10 letters that explored various visual variations of the same letter. We all had to explore and communicate an interpretation of a word that we picked from a randomiser pot. The class were restricted to working with an existing letter form and a format of 15x15 centremetre square. We also had to work to the strict colour scheme of black and white.


In the final crit all the class's work were seperated into groups of the same word for example my word was "Extract." We all placed our sets on the same table and then swopped with the opposite of our word which was "Expand." We then went on to crit the opposite's group anonymously. 


At first we discussed the work on the table in general but then went onto a deeper discussion about what works and what doesnt communicate the word the letters were trying to illustrate. We discussed what sets works because people designed there letters to work as a series of 10, however we also had to mark the crafting of the letters individually. This meant that some letters were not as strong as others and the message was less clear.


As a group we talked about what criteria we should mark the letterforms on and the whole class discussed this with our tutors. The next task was to narrow all the sets down to 5 of the strongest letter forms that communicate their word. The whole class all agreed that this was a harsh way of criting because some peoples sets were eliminated straight away. Despite this we thought the elminination process worked because the 5 that were left worked really well and those who kept their ideas simple were the most successful.


Towards the end of the crit each group got up and presented their final 5 letters and discussed to the class why they chose them. Some letters worked under different criteria for example one letter may be the most legible but another may have been the most creative.


The work I created in response to the brief was a range of different ideas exloring the word "extract." I managed to get one of my letters up on the final board despite me thinking it was my weakest and less successful idea. The group that presented it said it was simple and very legible. This made me think that sometimes the similiar the better! 







Friday 14 October 2011

Blog Group Research project

Window display/ Visual merchandising Research

Top Shop Sketchbook window display

Louis Vuitton

Mulberry



Creative Walls: How to Display & Enjoy Your Treasured Collection book




http://www.thewindowshopper.co.uk/page/6/
Studio XAG

Christian Louboutin By The Seaside




Smudgetikka blog 



Topshop - Put the kettle on display




Harvey Nichols, Brompton Rd


Selfridges, Oxford St, London


Selfridges, Oxford St, London

Liberty of London, Great Marlborough Street, London

Matthew Williamson, Bruton Street. 

Burberry, Regent Street


Thorne's Food Brighton


Onward display.com - Add some colour

Dri Dri by Elips Design


Mister Close by George and Russell

John Lewis



Urban Outfitters



Anthropologie 



Saturday 8 October 2011

My recent promotional work

This weekend was the private view of my friends exhibition at Nottingham Castle. The exhibition was called Stirring The Swarm, where she made 10,000 beetles to cover a staircase. I was asked to design the promotional work over this summer to help her spread the word of her beetle madness! I designed the layout and the imagery for the brochure that folded out into a poster, the typography for the wall of the exhibition and some invite cards. If you want to look at Anna's work feel free to check out her web page http://www.annacollettehunt.com/ 


Brochure Design
Layout design
Fold out poster
Invite cards

I managed to capture some pictures from last night, the image below is not the best quality but it shows a boy and his father interacting with both the bug installation, as well as my brochure. This makes me happy because I feel that my work, links in with the exhibition. Anna also said to me last night that "Your design work has branded my work really well."


I went with the theme of the "swarm" and used my shutter spead settings to capture the "buzz" of the crowd.