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.

Creative Futures Week

Neil met with the organising committee who have approved the concept in principle but have asked for a few minor ammendments to the layout. They are also not too sure about the colour of the original design and have asked me to submit a blue scheme plus alternative colour-ways. I think the blue is a little too reminiscent of the NEWI identity and has a slightly disconcerting corporate feel to it.

The way of working here is in stark contrast to dealing with an individual client who is able to make unilateral decisions. I can't help feeling that dealing with a bureacratic institution is less satisfying and I am also beginning to doubt whether the whole system will be responsive enough to get everything completed within the proposed timescale.

I do need to take more notice of the composition and layout of marketing materials and packaging - be a little more analytical. I think that design that I have lived with and perhaps considered a little more, such as book jackets, comes more easily to me. I guess that there are also many more direct comparisons and points of reference for something as utilitarian as a book cover.

Norwich University College of the Arts

January 2nd 2009 - Visited Ray Gregory at Norwich School of Art. 

Ray has been teaching at Norwich for 22 years, before that he worked in the design industry for over twenty years, both self-employed and working for the London based studio, Minale Tattersfield.

My attention was first drawn to Ray by his contribution to 'A Smile in the Mind' where he nails his colours firmly to the mast with the view that the skills necessary to conceive witty graphic design solutions can be taught. As this was the focus of my dissertation, I contacted Ray and set up a meeting.

Ray progressed from Stoke on Trent School of Art to a three year degree course in graphic design at the RCA. It was here that he became a convert to the ideas approach to visual design, inculcated by a number of American tutors including Bob Gill. It is this principle that Ray pursues to this day in his teaching at Norwich. In his words the course at NUCA is "unashamedly commercial, but from a position of challenge not acquiescence." There is no academic snobbery here. The aim of the course is to produce "design graduates who can think through problems rather than decorate around them. Style is easy because it's mostly derivative and usually self-indulgent - design by thinking is a more useful and longer term proposition," he says.

It was this fervour for the ideas approach that led to Ray's contribution to 'A Smile in the Mind'. During production of the book, an ex-student of his, working at The Partners, suggested that if the authors truly wanted to review witty ideas in graphic design then they should go to the 'horse's mouth': Ray Gregory. Ray admits that he has never read the book beyond proof-reading his own contribution and recalls turning down the free lunch at a London restaurant, offered by way of payment, for a sausage roll and two pints of lager with two ex-students. In fact Ray is slightly disappointed in the way in which the book casts him as an academic, a strategy he believes to be intentional on the part of the authors, designed to incorporate a solid educational view point. In Ray's mind they completely disregard his twenty years of work within the industry.

Without doubt there will be many graphics courses around the country that share Ray's passion for ideas but where he and his fellow team members, Ray supports 3rd year under-graduate students, impress is the thought put into the design of the course. All elements contribute to the development of an ideas approach whilst at the same time reflecting the broad range of graphic applications. In Ray's words the course is 'practice-based'. The third year students, for example, are required to tackle briefs that address corporate identity, packaging, publicity, book jackets, editorial and advertising/direct mail marketing. Throughout the course, no brief lasts longer than three weeks. The results, whilst neither ground-breaking nor avant-garde, are impressive in terms of the widespread use of wit, depth of thought and the quality of production.

How do they do it? Ray has a number of strategies and approaches that he adopts with his students. Essentially the general approaches can be summarised as:

• Begin reasearch with what you know because this is likely to yield solutions that are universally understood - if you knew it, without in depth research, the chances are that others will also know it.
• Visualise, visualise, visualise - push on through multiple ideas. Ray occasionally sets briefs where, via crits, students are not permitted to develop similar ideas. He pushes them on to unique solutions. Often those found towards the end of the process are the best. 
• Don't go for the big idea, go for many ideas.
• 'See it - Do it - See it' is Ray's mantra to describe the cyclical design process. It is not sufficient just to visualise ideas. You have to put them into practice. Realise them and then review them.
• Don't necessarily dwell on design for the 'worthy' causes. They are difficult for experienced designers to deal with. A birthday card or wine label offers as much scope and is just as worthy of our consideration.
• Relax into the process otherwise your outcomes will be tight/anxious.
• Place restrictions on the brief - rewrite it for yourself.
• Use self-questioning throughout the process. For Ray this strategy was born out of frustration in his days at the RCA. He now sees the 'what if?' approach as of enormous value and often models this process alongside students until they are able to internalise the method. Questions might vary but they should be designed to clarify and move the process on.
• Brainstorm adjective and metaphor descriptors around the subject of the brief. Look to see how the subject can be implied rather than explicitly depicted, implicit/lateral not explicit/literal. Imply by using the opposite or by missing/cropping imagery.
• Explore verbal and visual associations related to different view points and research around the subject.
• Think on beyond the product - What is it that you are really buying into/purchasing? e.g. when you go into a DIY store for a drill bit, it's really a hole that you're after.
• Collect examples of witty design solutions.

Briefs have been specifically engineered to support these skills and strategies. They include:

• Design and promote a useless object. Develops a strong sense of the absurd and suggest avenues for future witty thinking.
• One Word Poster. Poster design around one word attending to visual and typographical associations with the chosen word.
• Design a Pub Sign. Terrific scope for lateral thought and subtle implied meanings. How many ways could you suggest 'The Spread Eagle'?
• Two Random Lists. Select a word or phrase from each list and visually promote the combination e.g. Jazz (list 1) on Ice (list 2) or Singing (list 1) under water (list 2).
• Random Word Associations - Select two random words and then generate as many associations as you can between them e.g. bomb and wig - fallout. No design required, simple idea generation in the de Bono mode.
• Imply using opposite imagery, e.g. How can you use cat to suggest dog?

Ray believes that what marks out a student's capacity to assimilate and wield the skills and understanding that underpin witty visual design is intelligence. Intelligence here is not necessarily the logical analytical variety but a type that embraces humour and intuition and whose quick-witted response has the capacity to ad-lib.

Ray believes that there is always a solution that has a degree of wit to it, no matter what the brief. It's simply a question of casting searchlights in the right areas. He is an interesting if somewhat irascible character who claims never to have read a single graphic design book and who doesn't hold much truck with the design establishment. He refuses to analyse what he does too deeply, believing that such pedantry is likely to jeopardise the spontaneous intuitive aspects that he holds dear. He agrees that a certain amount of analysis must take place in order for him to assess and nudge students on, however, for Ray, instinct and intuition are king. By his own admission he wasn't on top form for our meeting. Celebrating New Year he had fallen and gashed his temple. Fortunately the booze had anesthetised the effects of this until the following day but it couldn't mitigate the shame.

What was noticeable looking around the studio with Ray afterwards was his pride and attachment to the students and their work. What was also apparent was just how widespread the application of witty thinking was throughout that work. It was both inspirational and yet disconcerting.

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.

Creative Futures

I was contacted by Neil Pritchard, Glyndwr Careers Service, to take part in the marketing strategy for Creative Futures Week. The organising committee want to include a student in the process and are keen to devise a strategy that engages all art and design students in a way that last year's poster campaign failed to achieve. The time scale is fairly tight in that the design has to be created and produced within 3 to 4 weeks, with Christmas plum in the middle. If possible the strategy is also to operate in a number of formats; print, phone text, web and electronic flyer.

I played around with symbolism and metaphors relating to the future and its prediction and tried to combine or manipulate symbols to witty effect. I produced four draft ideas to pitch to Neil.

The strongest, in my mind, and the one that Neil and I are most interested in pursuing is shown above. Here's the rationale:

All students face choices surrounding their futures, and choice is at the heart of the concept here: you can take a considered and constructive view of future plans or you can leave your future to chance.

As one part of a direct marketing strategy all eligible students will be offered an A6, folded to A7, card containing a tea bag. The message contained plays on the idea that you can either take a kind of mystical approach to the future, or you can take control - by engaging in Creative Futures Week. You can also have a cuppa too.

The artwork supplied is by no means in finished form and will need to carry additional information such as Welsh language equivalents. I would also like to illustrate the six stage process using ‘first aid’ style diagrams. The campaign could be further enhanced by an animated web link, electronic flyers and guerilla style tea bag stickers placed in strategic locations.

The strategy is quirky, direct and personal. It also avoids reliance on poster advertising where there is fierce competition and a tendency for it all to become ‘wallpaper’.

Neil and I also considered the use of a tea bag with string and tag as a means to reduce materials and costs but considered the amount of space available for text on a tag prohibitive. It could be a nice teaser but would require further marketing materials to then place the idea in context. There would always be a risk that the audience would become too perplexed or wouldn’t then be exposed to the following stage that started to make sense of it all.

Anyway, when you put your mind to it, tea has lots of possibilities. It’s the future.

Alternative ideas were essentially poster oriented. The above plays on retro ideas about the future and the image of a stylised robot holding a paintbrush is mildly amusing and quirky. Below is an illustrative solution that I really enjoyed creating and which plays on the idea of being creative with the future - the characters are engaged in manipulating the calendar to their own chaotic ends.

The final idea is a metaphorical representation of the future, the gently blurring dots indicating a kind of succession or passage onwards. This is possibly the weakest of the presented ideas.

The problem with all these poster related ideas is their indiscriminate effect made worse by the competition they face from a multitude of other posters. The tea bag idea is direct and also promotes a fairly serious message: if you want, you can be proactive when it comes to your own future.

I can't say that I'm really enjoying this, I think it's the intricacies of dealing with a committee and also the target audience being my peers -  a savvy and demanding lot.

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.