/ Year two / Project: Book Covers

This Brief was to design a series of covers for at least 4 books from a list of book sets provided. We were to consider the relationship between content and audience, and begin to work in a more self-directed manner.

I found this project to be quite challenging, mainly because all of the books in the sets have very strong visual ties and it is hard to avoid these clichés, but also because I am not a huge fan of reading and many of the books are still on my “to read” list. For the concept behind my design I chose three colours for each book inspired by their narrative. I then used acrylic paints to create unique abstract paintings for each cover. From studying the other book cover designs on the market I noticed that they often use the book title as the main element. At first this seems like an obvious design choice but I think that it is not all that necessary. When books are as iconic and well known as the ones listed, I believe that people who are familiar with the books will recognize them from the quotes I have used, those who are not familiar or have pre-conceptions about that title will be intrigued and pick up the book off the shelf and find the title on the spine.

I am pleased with how my book cover deigns turned out. I think they work well as a set and I like how individuals will interoperate the abstract paintings in different ways.

/ Year two / Project: Police Campaign

For this first project back after Christmas, A live brief was set by the Greater Manchester Police to re-invent their campaign to reduce crime against students.

For this project Adam Brandon, Jack Boulton and myself decided to group together to come up with an interesting concept as we have worked well together in the past. We began by generating concepts that we thought would capture out attention, as we are part of the target audience. Our concept centred around the fact that most robbery’s are committed by opportunist criminals when students give them an easy access route to their property, e.g. an open window or a door not being locked. We decided that a moving image piece would be a better way to capture students attention as it could be distributed on and around popular video sharing and networking websites. The idea behind our motion piece was that a students belongings in their flat/home are given labels of their worth in price and sentiment, then as the student pops out briefly, (i.e. for milk) all it takes is those few minutes for all of their valuables to be gone.

I was fairly happy with our final concept and I think it would genuinely work as a campaign aimed at students. However I think the way we have presented out idea does not fully show its potential.

/ Year two / Project: Interpretation

My fourth project was about Interpretation, I was given the quote “Go to where the silence is and say something.” by Amy Goodman. Using my interpretation of the quote I was required to design one of the following; an a2 poster, a2 spread, 2 a3 spreads, a4 booklet or a5 concertina books.

I began this project by generating as many ideas as I could to capture my interpretations of the quote. I then went on to research about Amy Goodman and the context in which the quote was said. After finding out that it was in reference to the duty of journalists and the media I decided to go with one of my original interpretations as I thought it would be more fitting for this brief. The idea behind my set of beak books was to take the quote in its literal sense but show it in a subtle way. I am happy with the final result of this project and how the books are presented. I found it was an interesting exercise for me to make the presentation box for the books, as I have not done this before.

 This project gave me the opportunity to enhance my interpretive skills and develop a more subtle approach to solving design problems.

/ Year two / Project: Magazine Spreads

For my Third project I was asked to design four spreads taking inspiration from one of ten selected words. The word that I chose was “Zero”. I was also given certain limitations such as colour; only two colours and stock were allowed. Typeface was also limited; only three variants of Helvetica were to be used.

This project gave me the opportunity to work within set guidelines, which emulates the design limitations most companies will have in the industry.

When I began working on ideas for this brief I struggled to come up with many motivating and intriguing designs. After further researching the word “Zero” I came across the concept of “Zero Point Energy” which I had only heard of in computer games. I decided to challenge myself and investigate the blurred line between science fact and science fiction. In my layouts I aimed to give the reader an insight into “ZPE” and how science has influenced computer games.

During this project I was able to improve my researching abilities, practice my typography skills and get used to working within set limitations. I also learned not to set an overambitious goal for myself, trying to fully understand Zero point energy and quantum mechanics when I only have limited knowledge on the subject was probably a mistake. The amount of time spent trying to get a reasonable level of understanding meant less time for experimenting with layouts.