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.

Kingswood Website

In consultation with the client have selected the folk style design as most in keeping with the centre's ethos. The design of the home page has been opened up by removing the boxes that served to constrict it - must keep an eye on that in future. Have begun to assemble this in Dreamweaver as a functioning page. I have fallen back on tables again as a positioning device and am not sure this is good practice any longer but have learnt a lot about the use of live type, images and background images in concert to produce overall design/function effect.


Have now progressed to bring the Kids' page more in line with that style. What you lose in terms of the hand-drawn edginess of the original, you win in terms of coherence and calm.

Have also worked up a specimen Teachers' page, a portal to various documentary information. To keep my Flash hand in, I've experimented with a little movie that could substitute for one of the static panels on this page.
Client is now keen to incorporate the feel of the design into an identity that stretches across points of public contact. As a result I have been experimenting with the logotype plus accompanying graphic as a means to realise this. Need to work up a variety of examples.

Kingswood Website

Still waiting for main content to come through from Kingswood but have pushed on with a few preliminary designs for the main site. I have tried to incorporate features from the mood boards that Rachel and I both appreciated. I have come up with three quite different ideas that trade off different looks. The first is photographic led, the second vector oriented and the third has a folk-art feel to it.

This design has a fresh vibrant feel to it that can be updated to reflect seasonal change - an important feature of working life at Kingswood. It's a bit of a shame that the photographs of the children are split on gender grounds, it would be nice to get a mixed shot.

The vector based design utilises calm natural colours, a feature that Rachel was keen to include over the ubiquitous primaries associated with children. It's a restful pallette but I just wonder if it's a little too flat and dull. It will be interesting to see how text and photographs work to lift it - I included the photographic image of the frog just by way of experimentation in this respect. My other concern with this design is just how cliched it is.

The nordic folk art design is a real wild card. I like it for its ornament and feel that it's close to the mark in terms of the great outdoors. The colour scheme is quite rich and earthy although I'm prepared to accept that some might find it a little formal/dowdy. I enjoyed playing with the type and found the development of multiple mood boards to be of great assistance.

My concerns with web design are that I don't fully understand the technical side of site construction (again) and I find it difficult to pursue an ideas based approach. My efforts always tend, in my eyes, to be style led. I also find it difficult to play with ideas on paper, I always need to involve the computer early on.

Meeting with Rachel over Christmas she did concede that it might be appropriate to think in terms of an all embracing identity, so I've been playing around with logotype ideas. They all play around with the notions of 'king' and 'wood' and incorporate crowns and trees into the type through various devices. Generally I think that those that contain both symbols are a little too fussy. I prefer the simplicity of the single idea unless the crown takes the place of the dot over the i. When it is removed from the double o trees it tends offer more breathing space to each idea and the design consequently works a little better. I think the Swiss Black font works quite well in this design, it offers the chunkiness that is required in order to manipulate the image whilst at the same time projecting a degree of informality that is inviting and warm.

Playing with colour combinations.

Kingswood Kid's Page Drafts

Having met with Rachel and gone through mood boards and example sites from the web I began to get a good feel for what she was after. I am much more prepared for discussing such issues with clients and now have a number of strategies for eliciting key information including some of the questioning suggested by the Jim Krause 'Design Index' book. I still struggle around the issue of costing; I want to be fair but at the same time don't want to sell myself short. It's difficult as a fledgling designer with limited experience, knowledge and skill to feel comfortable in this area.

Rachel established the site plan by way of a flow diagram as I had suggested. A key feature will be areas with quite different identities; one for adults, particularly teachers, and another for children. There is a great deal of potential within the site for further interactivity - games, puzzles etc. - but that's for the future; for now the site's main focus is on the transmission of information. It also needs to incorporate minimal animation to support end users who may not have state of the art equipment.

Having said all that I couldn't resist having a go at a Flash based web page for the kid's section of the site. It's the kid's part that I have been able to make a start on as I'm still waiting for content to arrive from Kingswood. I have also carried out research into fonts that may be appropriate for headings and titles. Kingswood have a logotype which Rachel and I consider to be a little stiff and formal - it's reminiscent of a prep school logo. At the moment, due to budget constraints and other logistics, it is difficult for her to embrace a full rebranding so we decided that I would look at ways in which to soften the look to make it less formal. I have already started to experiment with this.

Rachel and I met to look over the progress on the kid's page. We were both of the opinion that while the vector based Flash page appears cute it is perhaps just a little to young for the core audience - 6 to 8 year olds. We both like the 'magazine' type look of the other dummy page and I need to work to develop this. The child characters need a little more work and I'm still not sure whether to go with children or an animal centred character. I was intending to use Image Ready to slice it ready for HTML editing but Adam has pointed out that this route creates accessibility issues due to all of the text being presented as images. I think there are ways round this, for example creating text-based links as a footer on the page, but in just underlines my current state of understanding in terms of developing web pages. I need to learn more about the techniques, pro's and cons of page design, particularly the technical issues that impact on these. It's one of those instances where technical know-how can inform creativity. Without that level of understanding it becomes difficult to appraise sites that appeal as a stimulus and to see ways forward for planning my own sites. I feel like I need to take time out to learn more about the technicalities but also feel that I don't have time to do it. Catch 22.

Glyndwr University Christmas Cards

Having had my designs chosen to be used by the university this year, the arrangements for their printing has been incredibly rushed, and laced with a number of complications. The most difficult of these was Marketing's stipulation that the cards should be produced in bilingual form with the Welsh always preceding, and having equal prominence to, the English. For two of the cards, where the design plays on the substitution of the Glyndwr g into English seasonal phrases, this proved considerably problematic. I could kick myself for being too anglocentric but this constraint was not part of the written brief.

I also assumed that there would be time to rework the designs to bring the fonts and CMYK colours into line with those used in the actual branding. However, due to the 24-hour turn around time, this was a misplaced assumption. As a result of all the to-ing and fro-ing between the in-house design team, Marketing and myself, plus the deadline at the printers, I ended up surrendering complete control of the final design adjustments. The result is a compromise that I am not entirely comfortable with. I am not proud of the results. I think the integrity of the designs have been compromised.

All this highlights the need to be certain about restrictions from the word go and to approach the appropriate people to elicit all necessary information early on in the design process. I need to be much more proactive in this area in future. The penalty you pay for not taking these steps is work that you are not that keen to attach your name to.

Personal Christmas Card

Decided to design our own personal Christmas card based on the Peskimo design seen earlier. Their piece had a loose Christmas feel to it that I wanted to develop and personalise. Their are also undertones of Airside in the lozenge-style character design. The whole idea was in part prompted by work on the Bren Project's Christmas card which is being printed by I Will Print in Telford. At £15 for 50 A5 cards, with envelopes, it was too good an offer to ignore.

I was pretty pleased with the results particularly when you see the nature of the printer's premises. It also gave me a first opportunity to deal directly with a printer on a brief over which I had complete control.

Glyndwr University Christmas Cards

I wanted this to be a minor short-term brief to run alongside the lengthier more demanding work that I've undertaken.

I knew from the beginning that due to the university's recent zesty re-branding, I wanted to try and incorporate it into the design. I brainstormed and researched the extent of Christmas symbolism and came up with a number of designs - probably 10 in total. I also reviewed images of the types of Christmas cards that appeal to me.

I wanted the cards to reflect the clean dynamism of the new brand and incorporate some of the style found in the products of Paperchase. I was also influenced by the work of illustrator/designer Laura Ljungkvist.

Where I could, I also decided to make a play on the stylised g of the Glyndwr logotype, using it to embellish seasonal phrases such as Season's Greetings and Glad Tidings.

I think the cards, while not particularly pushing any boundaries, hit the client's needs and objectives fairly square on. I'm sure that given more time I would have reworked the designs to offer them further depth but who knows, in doing that, I might have wrecked their simplicity. I know some people might say that as a degree level art student I should be playing with installations, light projections and barbed wire, but part of life as a design communications student is to respond to the needs of the client. It's a commercial skill worth developing. Besides I've yet to hear a coherent and logical argument that explains why the Christmas card is a lesser art form.

In submitting the designs for consideration I also presented the notion, originally suggested by Pauline, that the university might, in future, like to consider producing a series of designs for general sale aimed at generating funds for the university itself or for charity. I need to consider ways of developing extended strategies like this more spontaneously myself.

Sand Rose Project - Map & Directions

The Sand Rose Project commissioned me to produce a location map in two forms to use with clients and other interested parties. I produced a vector-based scaleable version that can be used by the charity in a variety of formats.

One version is aimed at beneficiaries about to use the facility, the other is more specifically targeted at those invited to public events organised by the charity.

Bren Project Christmas Card

I was commissioned by the charity that I am involved in to produce their corporate Christmas card for 2008. The organisation's logo features nine circles and all of the presented designs made a play on this. The image selected is reproduced below.

Bren Project Website

I recently undertook a redesign of the Bren website. The original site was created about 18 months ago long before the charity had really got off the ground. At the time my experience of building sites was zero and I had taken the opportunity to essentially teach myself Dreamweaver. My understanding is a little more advanced now and we have just taken the first photographs of the charity's projects in action.

Time was right then to move the charity's web presence on a bit. I'm quite pleased with the result. The new site is clean and positive and reflects the character of the charity more closely. One of the trustees described it as being 'more our own'. I think the handwritten type and personalised images help to create this effect along with the addition of new features such as case studies and opportunities to work with the charity.

Once the new site started to take shape, I found that I was much more capable of planning ahead and organising elements of each page. This makes everything much more time effective. I still don't know enough about the technical side of site building such as HTML and CSS. What I have learnt so far has been by feeling my way but it concerns me that I'm attempting to create things where there are huge gaps in my knowledge.

I also find it quite difficult to visualise designs on paper before building. I sketched out a rough layout in advance but much of the design was realised on the fly as a result of play. Maybe looking at and considering the structure of more websites might help in this respect.

Kingswood Nursery and Infant Centre - Character Commission Research

The Kingswood Centre, a residential environmental resource for young children located near Wolverhampton, would like to promote itself and develop its environment through the use of a sympathetic child oriented character.
I was initially commissioned to design and build a new website for the centre but during informal discussions with the client I suggested that the development of a character might be a possible strategy for not only developing web presence but also a means to a unified child-centred identity that could incorporate printed communications, signage etc.


Aims

• to design and develop a character or characters that promote the centre in the eyes of its young target audience
• to develop a character that offers a sense of identity and security to young children, that can be used in a variety of media and formats, and develops the centre's overall brand identity

The centre is closely associated with rabbits, both wild and tame, and an initial idea is to explore the potential for a rabbit as a character. This is an initial trawl through existing characters of varying quality and suitability.

Christmas Card Mood Board

Peskimo

Laura Ljungkvist

Paperchase

Charitycards.co.uk