Thursday 31 January 2013

OUGD405: End Of Module Self-Evaluation


1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I have gained a wide range of skills throughout this module. We have been required to balance a range of different length briefs. This was challenging when deciding how to prioritise my briefs. I have benefitted from the amount of research in helping me collect a wind range of ideas and information. However, I am aware that I could have presented my final outcomes more effectively at times.

2. What approaches to/methods of design have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
The majority of my design processes have been digitally based. As the main focus of this module was to carry out a wide range of research, most of my processes have involved watching videos and reading articles and books. I think the research process was both helpful for informing my project but also made it difficult to refine my ideas at times. The development process of my ideas could have been more thorough and consistent, had I had more confidence in my initial research findings.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I feel asthough my work has developed in quality and structure through feedback given to me during crits and tutorials. Therefore I think the work towards the end of the module reflects more strength and confidence due to my development skills improving.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
I feel although my time-management could have been better during this module. The time spend on certain briefs could have been more effectively used on others. I would still like to develop this further, as I feel that at times I have not been up to date with briefs - particularly on my blog. If I can improve this I believe my outcomes will be stronger, more detailed and much better justified. I will achieve this by being more active and motivated at the time of the briefing as opposed to taking time on one idea.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
1. Read the briefs more thoroughly to ensure a greater understanding of the tasks required.
2. Concentrate on time-managagement to ensure i remain on top of my work.
3. Try to keep my work more organised.
4. Use my blog more effectively to convey developments, research, ideas and inspiration.
5. Ensure to create more design sheets with annotations to develop stronger and more justified outcomes.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas?
Attendance - very good                  
Puctuality - very good
Motivation - good
Commitment - very good
Quantity of work produced - good
Quality of work produced - good
Contribution to the group - very good

Wednesday 30 January 2013

Colour Theory Part 4

-Small areas of high-contrast colours don't read comfortably. This reduces the readability.
-The same colour can be read in two completely different ways depending on the surrounding colours determining the variation in contrast. For example grey on green can appear as a light lilac whereas grey on lilac appears slightly green.


10 Questions About Colour Theory 
_______

1. What is it that makes someone who's colourblind to perceive colour differently?
2. We have three types of cones. What happens if one of the cones stops functioning?
3. Is there a further term for mixing colour beyond tertiary?
4. Can complementary colours ever work well together?
5. How is the chromatic value recorded?
6. Why/how does our brain perceive simultaneous contrast - why is is sometimes hard to differentiate between colours?
7. If orange and blue are placed together, is this contrast of temperature, complementary, or both?
8. What happens when metallic colours are placed together?
9. Is the same theory used for fluorescent colours?

As a group we agreed on our 5 best questions for another group to research and answer.
These were:
1. What is the maximum number of colours you should use in a design?
2. Should colour be chosen in natural light or the most appropriate context in which it would be used in?
3. Is it ever appropriate to use complementary colours (and why are they called complementary colours)?
4. How can colour theory be applied to metallic colours?
5. Should a different colour theory be applied for on-screen/RGB?


-CMYK in print is usually paid for as four separate plates: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
In other words this means thats CMYK uses a 4-colour process.
-When using a linen tester, CMYK appears dotted.
-Formula based prints = no dots
-Each plate (CMY+K) are all very different from one another as shown below:

Cyan

Yellow

Magenta

Black

C+M+Y+K


_____________

5 Questions to answer as a group:

1. Why do colours force out complementary colours?
2. What is the simplest way to balance colour?
3. Is it always a case of contrast of and hue working together?
4. What is the recommended amount of colours which can be used?
5. If everyone perceives colour differently does this mean we perceive contrast differently?

5 Questions answered:
1. When two colours are mixed together, they produce a pale grey.
2. The simplest way to balance colour is 10%, 60%, 30%
3. Yes tone and hue always work together.
4. You can use as many colours as preferred, however there is a greater chance of using too many rather than too little (too many colours looks too busy).
5. No people don't necessarily perceive contrast differently?

OUGD405: Software Workshop in Photoshop: Postcards

Brief:
Produce a set of five postcards that explore your given shape:
Circle/square/triangle/cross 
Using your shape as the theme photograph areas of the college to base your manipulations in Photoshop upon.
Try to be creative and watch the Channel 4 idents as part of your research. Research what contexts the format of postcards can be used in and how this can influence your design.
Background / Considerations
Not all your investigations should take place on the Mac. Digital image capture methods such as scanning and digital photography allow you to import media from a range of sources (photographs, photocopies, drawings, tracings, found material etc.)
Once you have imported this material how can you manipulate using the tools and capabilities of Photoshop (cropping, selecting, layering, repeating, colour changes, reversing out etc.)
After experimenting with different images and layers I decided to work with the image of the back of a chair in the Graphic Design studio. Below are a few of my initial experiments in Photoshop:






From the image above I thought about different contexts which could be applied to my postcards. In order to ensure they worked as a set I wanted to use a strong, consistent idea. Through experimentation with applying colour I thought the image started to resemble a paint pallet. From this I worked with different colour experiments. Finally I decided to base my postcards on Itten's colour contrast theories:

I worked with two main layers throughout my postcards: the original, manipulated image and the the new, colour layer. I then converted all the colour layers into 'lighten' mode to make the layers more transparent:

Initial colour layering:

Red alone - before desaturating

Simultaneous Contrast

Contrast of Temperature

Contrast of Saturation

Contrast of Extension

Extension Development

Final Contrast of Extension



Monday 28 January 2013

OUGD405: Typogateaux: The Contest

Typogateaux: Lizzy Gosney. Issy Tanner. Rinesh Mistry
for this task we looked at existing cake designs, particularly ones involving the use of type.

As a group, we decided to recreate the Adobe Suite using four main programmes: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and Dreamweaver. In order to do this effectively we decided it would be best to split our final outcome into four separate squares to represent each programme individually.

The main ingredients used were:
eggs
butter
flour
sugar
vanilla extract
butter icing
food colouring

We began by baking two large square-shaped cakes. These were to be placed on top of one another as we wanted to make a victoria sponge. The cake was then dived into quarters. Each quarter was intended to represent a software programme in a simplistic yet easily recognisable way. Therefore we agreed that the best way to do this was to focus on the colours and letters used on the Adobe icons. All four icons use different colours and abbreviations of their names:

Photoshop: blue: Ps
InDesign: pink: ID
Illustrator: orange: Ai
Dreamweaver: green: Dw

The information above was our main structure for designing our cake. When we began making coloured icing we liked the pastel shades as it was subtle and gave the cakes a more unique finish. As a fun extra, we attempted to colour match different types of jam to accompany the butter icing centre. The closest we came to this was

Photoshop: blueberry jam
InDesign: rasperry jam
Illustrator: marmelade jam
Dreamweaver: lime jam

Finally we cut out letters from white icing to place on top of each cake. Here is a documentation of our process:


























The chosen name for our cake was
'The Adobe Sweet'

We were very pleased with the final outcomes. Although the colours did not completely resemble the original logos, the type was clear and simple, making it easy to understand our idea. If I was to carry out this task again I would consider using a different type of icing to make the finish neater and more sophisticated but otherwise we felt that this was a success.


Tuesday 22 January 2013

Colour Theory Part 3 - Colour & Contrast

R+G+B = C+M+Y = K



Ittens's 7 definitions of contrast:
Contrast of tone
Contrast of hue
Contrast of saturation
Contrast of extension
Contrast of temperature
Complementary colours
Simultaneous contrast

Contrast of Tone is the juxtaposition of light and dark values. It could be described as monochromatic.
-The highest tonal contrast is black and white.
-Perception is based on contrast.
-Red and orange have less tonal contrast in comparison to red and blue.

Contrast of Hue is the juxtaposition of different colours.
-For example blue stands out most compared to yellow and red on a white screen.
-Yellow stands out most on black compared to red and blue.
-High chromatic value and high contrast colours next to one another are distracting and and it can become hard to define where one colour ends and another begins.
-Tone and hue work together to generate a perception of colour and saturation.

Contrast of Saturation is the juxtaposition of light and dark values.
-Colour and optics
-Lighter/darker shades generate different ideas of, for example, the bluest shade.

Contrast of Extension is formed by assigning proportional field sizes in relation to the visual weight of a colour.
-Also known as the context of a proportion.
-Different amounts of a colour we see effects how well we can see and visualise colours.
-For example striped violet on yellow is less comfortable to look at than the same balance when placed block-on-block.
-Colour has a spacial quality.
-Equal use of colours doesn't always create a visual balance.

Contrast of  Temperature is the juxtaposition of warm and cool colours.
-The association between temperature and colour.
-Red=hottest
-Blue=coolest
-Moving from red to crimson is a cooling of temperature

Contemporary Contrast is the juxtaposition of complementary colours.
-For example orange+blue or red+green
-The colours fight for attention.

Simultaneous Contrast is formed when boundaries between colours perceptually vibrate.
-If a colour is absent, the brain attempts to visualise it.
-For example green and yellow subtly merge into one. The yellow will then become slightly more orange because red is missing.


Task:
-Bring in 5 pieces of printed graphic design, covering a range of colour processes.
-Come back next week as a pair with a presentation/study exploring/explaining the relationship between high and low contrast.
-Individually document 10 different studies into colour and contrast (e.g. saturation/hue/tone/temperature) - find out what happens to colour when you deal with it relatively?



Thursday 17 January 2013

OUGD405: Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT

 From collecting a wide range of research I originally came up with the idea to create a short publication celebrating the history of previous guests at the Chelsea Hotel. As the hotel is currently shut down due to change in management and economical issues I wanted to base my theme around the re-opening of the hotel. My initial title for the publication was 'Inside Hotel Chelsea'. The concept was that the target audience - new tourists/artists/musicians would open up the publication to learn a bit more about life inside the Chelsea.

These are a few of my initial design sheets. I contemplated looking at existing hotel packaging for inspiration on aesthetics within information packs and similar epherma. 

I began thinking about how I wanted to arrange my publication. Below is one idea where I thought about using the front of the hotel as the main image inside the publication, using each window as a flap to reveal particular residents and information about them. Another idea was to lay each page out as an individual guest's story/experience. The publication would be structured chonologically in terms of dates of each event. 

As the hotel is referred to as both 'The Chelsea Hotel' and 'Hotel Chelsea' I experimented with both when deciding on a title for the publication. I wanted to use either 'Inside the Chelsea Hotel' or 'Inside Hotel Chelsea'. 


Once I chose my favourite of the two titles - 'Inside Hotel Chelsea', I began doing sketches of potential typefaces. I also gathered a few examples of inspiration from dafont shown below.


Font 1: Sex Pistols

Font 2: Cheatin'

Font 3: Anonymous Clippings

Font 4: Absudans

Font 5: Random House 

Font 6: Fabienestem

Font 7: Subtext


The main hotel hotel residents I decided to focus my publication on were:

Leonard Cohen & Janis Joplin
Bob Dylan
Dylan Thomas
Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungen
Andy Warhol & Edie Sedgwick
Arthur Williams

I began by drawing my own illustrations of each icon. Below are the initial sketches:

Janis&Leonard


Dylan Thomas


Sid Vicious

Arthur Miller
Image Source

Nancy Spungen
Image Source

Marilyn Monroe (divorce with Arthur Miller)

Although these were initially rough sketches, I liked the way they shared a similar rugged style, similar to the guests themselves. Therefore I decided to keep these images and experiment with ways in which I could effectively use them to generate a consistent set of info graphics.













After the feedback session on thursday with Amber and Simon, I decided to approach the brief in a new manner. As the publication was not as visually engaging and informative as I had hoped, I thought it would be best to simplify my outcome and focus more on the content, layout and concept. As my main collection of information was based on dates I decided to create a timeline.

I gathered all of my information together and organised it into the correct order of the key events concerning my chosen residents between the opening and closing of the hotel.



Here are the screenshots documenting the development of my final timeline: