Folk Art Meets Philosophy

Preparing for the final show I had in my mind that I would like to return to my illustrative ways and produce some large scale pieces that draw on the folk art tradition and the work of the much admired Sanna Annukka. However, I wanted them to have an edge and be idea orientated. A long-term passing interest in philosophy offered some direction here and I decided to attempt a series of decorative posters that would draw on the messages contained in Alain de Botton's book "The Consolations of Philosophy". In the current climate I believe these bite-sized nuggets have much to offer the contemporary mind.

I had also been pleased with my previous attempt in this area, one that had been well-received wherever shown. This time I wanted to rely more on my own drawing efforts and less on found pattern and I was also keen to achieve more of the flow that Sanna achieves in her work. To a degree I think that I have captured both of these elements but I'm wondering whether my work is too much of a clone now and as a consequence of these moves has lost some of the distinctiveness that set it apart.

I am quite pleased with the compositions although I feel that they follow a very similar pyramid-type format. Perhaps it's the portrait mode that has wrought this. I do need to find the stamina to try different compostions and formats. I made a number of preliminary drawings but they were thematically similar. Part of the difficulty here is not being secure in my appreciation of the stylistic features and icons at my command. I do't know the folk art visual language sufficiently well enough to manipulate it effectively at present. I try my best to produce pleasing compositions but seem to run out of stamina sometimes when it comes to exploring alternative ideas. As ever there is an interplay between ideas and becoming more conversant with tools and techniques. I believe each feeds the other and as time progresse I feel that my work in this area will bcome more accomplished and distinctive.

I think the colour palettes chosen are appropriate for the kind of northern European look that I am after but it could be argued that they are safe as much as calm. I find, like a number of other elements, that colour selection is something that is quite problematic; whenever I alter a colour-way the immediate effect can be revelatory, and then I start to have doubts over its quality and whether I wasn't just taken with the novelty of it all. I would like to be a little more dynamic in my selections but at the moment do not have the time nor stamina to leave and come back at a later date.

Sand Rose Commercial Website

In these uncertain times The Sand Rose Project are currently considering the possibility of commercial letting to support their charitable work. Angie has commissioned me to produce a site that will market the cottages to this specific market.

I wanted the site to have a strong coastal theme with slightly relaxed and quirky elements to contrast it with the dross that makes up most of this market. The project raises potential new technical issues for me: incorporation of an online booking system, for instance. I have made attempts to compose the site without the use of tables but at the moment have encountered insurmountable difficulties - I need Liz's help - and have fallen back on old methods again. Nevertheless, have made great progress in my understanding of HTML and CSS and how they work together.

Have adopted the two design approach with a more and less formal style presented to the client. I must say that I prefer the vibe of the less formal, the client, however, begs to differ.

Crisis - Direct Mail Campaign

The Brief
Create an innovative piece of Direct Mail that raises public awareness of homelessness and the work of the homeless charity Crisis.

Target Audience
Permanent residents in urban areas across the UK, mainly time-poor and cash-rich professionals aged between 30 and 50. It’s important to remember that the general public are familiar with the homeless problem and have been asked to support it over many years. They are likely to be busy going about their own lives and so are difficult to attract and engage with.

Tone of Voice
The communication must be intelligent, informative and thought provoking. It should not feel corporate but must feel authoritative. It should feel real, gritty and iconic. The end result should inspire support and action from the target audience.

I hadn't identified this as a brief that I was particularly interested in pursuing but had second thoughts following conversations with Timm, he had taken his own angle on it, and the realisation that I would like to tackle a project with a worthy cause at its heart. After considering a number of ideas I finally decided to pursue the notion of a card door hanger, now found everywhere but originally a stalwart of the hotel environment. I like the idea of this little device, normally associated with a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, having its focus turned to support the homeless. In addition to this, doors are incredibly symbolic of shelter, security and well-being, so there is a further association.


Initially I wanted the typography of the piece to have a slightly distressed hand-finished style to it, possibly because the brief insisted on a certain grittiness. However, I found that in beginning to pursue this end the piece lost an amount of impact. In adopting the final American Typewriter typeface the result is perhaps more corporate, to be avoided according to the brief, but the impact is preserved and coherence with the reverse of the hanger is enabled.


Some have pointed out that the original message - I Have No Door to Hang This On - implies that this is a personal message from a homeless person, and that this should be supported further on the reverse. I appreciate this view but believe that the reverse statement works with the initial message to explain that Crisis is an advocate for people who find themselves in this position. I did experiment with variations on the message and tried different formats to enhance interactivity e.g. tear-offs that could be actioned in some way by the recipient and that modify the message when removed. However, these often appeared trite, clever for clever's sake, and what you gained in some respects, you lost in terms of immediacy of message and mystery. There is something slightly surreal and intriguing about a door hanger that claims, I Have No Door to Hang This On.






The final boards submitted to D&AD. I always intended to enhance the power of the piece by taking it into the environment, especially those types of locations where homeless people may gravitate or sleep rough in, and photograph it in situ. I also photographed it in counterpoint to typical middle-class urban doorways. However, I eventually settled on a photograph which catches the hanger displayed against a background of domestic normality as my key image. Beyond the appealing balance within the composition, I also feel that there is a heightened sense of incongruity which adds power to the device.

Prudential - TV Advertising

The Brief
Compel people to take time out to address their savings gap and plan for the retirement they want. Create a 21-40 second TV commercial and demonstrate how it might also be rolled out online. Both executions should drive consumers to the Prudential’s online retirement planning tool.


Another brief that I hadn't intended to take on - it all seemed a bit dull and open to cliche. What really changed my mind on this one; the several group brain-storming sessions that we undertook. Working as a group of 6 -8 sparked some imaginative ideas, if not while in session together, then some time after. I can't recommend this type of approach enough, we all seemed to develop and spark ideas off each other that I feel sure we would not have had individually. A practice we should have made use of throughout the course.


This idea came to me later, after a session where Timm had raised the idea of saving for your pension being akin to putting a bit aside whether it be food pushed to the side of your plate for later or a dog burying a bone.


Once I had storyboarded the idea I thought that production of the piece would be fairly straight forward but I think that I underestimated the time that is required to get the right shots, to overcome the technical issues involved in adjusting the final shots and just the logistics of getting people and equipment together in the right place. At this stage the project hasn't even gone beyond a basic animatic. What I have learnt is that taking still images in this way helps to identify issues ahead of movie production, what is drawn on the page in an instant is not necessarily readily achievable in real life. Being uncertain of video production and editing techniques as a whole, I find it difficult to anticipate how long it would take me to realise this as a video production. Others, mainly those in the know, say 'not long' but that's easy for them to say. I find it less than comfortable to learn in this 'cart before horse' way. I much prefer to have organised direct tuition of knowledge and skills in advance of applying them in a project rather than learning them in an adhoc way on the fly.


I am of course much indebted to Matthew and Timm for their assistance in this project. I think we all had great fun - well I did anyway. Matthew particulalrly helped out tremedously with the technical side of production, couldn't have done it without him. It felt odd to be directing them so strongly when I was so indebted to them for their help.


I was reasonably pleased with the results. Having shown it to any number of people it seems that the piece is very clear and direct in the message that it conveys. Giving it a little bit of distance I now realise that I should have allowed much more time to realise the project in a more professional way. I think it's a reasonable idea that might hit part of the target market (mainly male) but it could have been made so much better by taking rudimentary steps such as re-reading the brief afterwards prior to submission. Information such as the need for the piece to also work online and for it to drive clients to Prudential's web-based planning tool could have formed a more explicit and humorous part of the presented piece.

Kingswood Website

Rachel phoned to apologise for not sending through all the agreed content. Circumstances dictate that it's unlikely that she will be able to assemble all required information in the near future. The project is therefore on hold until she is able to create time and space to proceed.

Homebase - Packaging

The Brief
Create packaging and point of sale for Homebase’s ‘Grow Your Own’ fruit and vegetable range for novice gardeners.

Proposition
Homebase know how to help you to grow your own fruit and vegetables – they make it easy.

Target Audience
Our primary target audience are gardening novices. They could be male, female or families with kids. They are adults, but without a specific age range.

Tone of Voice
Simplicity and clarity. Growing your own fruit and vegetables made easy. Easy to understand copy and information for the novice gardener. Natural, earthy, organic. Tastier than the supermarket.

I really wanted to tackle a packaging brief, I find it an interesting area of design and feel that it is an aspect that the course has not allowed us to do justice to. Left to my own devices, of all the ideas generated for this brief I would probably have gone with a decorative based style similar in feel to the current Seeds of Change campaign. I like its simple organic handcrafted feel, it seems right on brief.
However, reviewing initial ideas with Adam he persuaded me that the strongest was the notion of dot-to-dot. It is strongly conceptual, has elements of wit in its combination of imagery and has much potential in terms of in-store application - floor graphics and point of sale etc. It also conveys the idea of ease and fool-proof use required by the brief. However, I have found it incredibly difficult to realise. Maybe it's one of those ideas that Alan Fletcher describes as being better in your head than in actuality.

I think the piece has improved as it has progressed from the clumsy cartoon-style beginnings towards a look that draws more heavily on the classic kids dot-to-dot image. The focused fruit or vegetable needs a context to appear in for the piece to work. However, I still have doubts about whether the message is clearly conveyed by this means and overall I do not have a sense of ownership over the project. It does not feel like me and more importantly is not developing as the kind of packaging that I would find especially appealing. Maybe that's not important but at the moment it feels so.
For the time being I am going to set this aside while I concentrate on other more fruitful briefs. On coming back to it I know that I should think more carefully about the following:

• design as a 3-D object rather than flat, face by face, images
• standardise type and layout devices across the range
  

Faber and Faber - Cover Design

The Brief
Use typography to create a series cover design for Faber Film’s range of books that reflects Faber and Faber’s long history of typographic excellence.

Considerations
- The Faber Film range of books covers a variety of genres and includes screenplays, technique guides and film history books.
- Faber and Faber will be offering this range for sale through the ‘Print on Demand’ service (PoD), which is exactly as it suggests, copies are made available on the basis of a single customer order.
- The cover designs should reflect the already high profile of Faber’s film list attracting both film enthusiasts and professionals alike.

I seem to have a natural affinity with book cover design. There is something about it that attracts, possibly the chance of the interplay between narrative and visual design. I originally wanted to tackle this brief using typographic visual puns playing on the title or subject matter of the book. However, on further investigating the existing faber Fiction Print on Demand series I began to deviate from this course and finally, perhaps, confuse myself. This existing series uses generative processing to create unique covers from a palette of decorative strokes. It also utilises a custom made typeface, a kind of modified version of the faber logotype. I wasn't sure whether the accompanying documents appear to allude to this a useful model for this brief. Anyway, I decided to experiment with film symbols that could be processed in a similar way. Although perhaps a little hackneyed, the great variety of shapes found in film spools was most interesting. Playing with these silhouette shapes began to produce some pleasing clean designs but in what way were they typographic solutions? There was little time for me to design a new and sympathetic typeface to support the designs, even if I knew how to begin to do that - which I don't really. Adam also opened a further field of ideas by skimming over what I'd achieved so far, suggesting that I should look more into processing and the language associated with film. I did experiment with this but the results seemed old hat, not very inspired and missing the mark for this genre of book.

The design has obviously gone through many incarnations and my personal favourite is the final shown here. I like the balance between the scale of the various elements and the way in which some advance and retreat according to their colour values. I think the overall effect is fresh, organic and clean. The idea is to produce each category of film book in a different colour theme. For the time being though I am putting this to rest while I concentrate on areas where ideas are flowing a little more successfully. My prefered design does not fulfil the typographic element of the brief and I see it as futile to continue at the moment.