Its Up To You.
-------------------------------
Brief
I am required to design, develop and produce an information pack that effectively communicates or promotes me as an individual, designer and learner.
Background/Considerations
Who are you now?
What have you learned?
What skills do you have?
What do you know?
What do you believe?
What formats can you use to communicate this information?
What tone of voice?
What information do you need to include?
I have broke it down into three sections to start to get some idea of the information that I will include. I think breaking it down into sections may inform the format and be a good way to display the content.
Individual
- Laid back
- reliable
- committed
- Hard working
- Music inspires a lot of my work
Designer
- Minimal
- Crisp
- Clean
- Clinical
- Negative space
- Like limited colour pallets
- Geometric patterns
- Would like to explore editorial design/branding+identity/packaging
- Modernism has contextualised my interests within design
- Favourite designers: Nomar Bar, Experimental jetset, joseph muller brockman,Shigeo Fukuda
- Prefer to work digitally
Learner
- Better understanding of grids and colour theory
- Know a lot more about typography
- Competent in Adobe Indesign/Photoshop/Illustrator
- Can work as part of a team
- I have improved my problem solving skills, time management skills
- Can work to a deadline
Logo
To begin, I have decided to design a logo for myself to create an identity. This could be featured across what ever I include in the pack.
I started to draw some rough sketches to get an idea of what I want it look like. I want to use my initials 'JK' for the logo because its simple and easy to remember.
I have chosen the font 'Dodge' to manipulate to create my logo. I like the bold simple letterforms and think it will have a strong visual impact.
I like these two logos the best and think Im swaying towards the logo on the right.
Final Logo Design
I have further refined the logo and now I'm happy with the design. I am going to use black and a mint green for my colour scheme because its a calming colour which best reflects my personality.
Colour Scheme
C- 69
Y- 31
M- 35
K- 0
C- 0
Y- 0
M- 0
K- 100
Font
- Futura
I have chosen to use Futura for the type in my designs. I have got into a habit of using Helvetica for all my work so I decided to try something different. I thought Futura would work plus its a geometric font which relates to my interest of geometrics.
Business Card
I am going to design a business/promotional card to go in my pack. I will use my logo on it for continuity and to start to build my brand. I want to keep it minimal so I am going to have my name, email address and profession displayed on it.
This was my first attempt but Im not really happy with it because I think it looks a bit clumsy and old fashioned.
I am much happier with this design. I think its more subtle and elegant with the logo being smaller.
I started to experiment with the logo to use it as an illustration to create a more abstract design.
This gave me the idea to use the logo to create symbols. This design is meant to represent music waves to relate to electronic music being a big inspiration to my work.
Here I used the logo to subtle create my initials jk. On the back I rotated the symbol on its side to symbolise a continuos loop which represent repetition which is a characteristic of electronic music and the process when designing.
Final Business Card Designs
I decide to use the three designs as a set so a potential client has a choice. I changed the designs on the back of the cards to the same design to keep continuity.
When I was designing the cards I had and idea to print the front and back separately so I can sandwich a piece of black card in between the two. This will avoid problems with alignment when printing, add thickness to the cards and will look nice from the side, adding to the aesthetic.
I glued black card in between the cards. Im pleased with the result, the cards are a nice thickness and i think the black works well with the logo.
Packaging
I decided to divide my pack into three sections to cover all areas of the brief. I am going to design cards that pull out of each sleeves. The pack will have the business cards on the inside and will fold up into a square.
I further refined the design by adding a cover on the top so it folds up into a box. I think this will look much better and keep the cards in place. To secure the packaging, I have added a flap onto the bottom which will have velcro on it to hold it shut.
To allow me to print double sided I had to make it fit onto A2 stock. I am going to print onto water paper because I like the texture and off white colour, it will also be thick enough to hold the structure of the packaging.
Packaging- 170x170mm
Inner Cards- 150x150mm
I made a mock up to make sure it would work before I started to design it digitally.
Packaging Net
I have made the inner sleeves 5mm thick, so to compensate I have made the right spine 10mm and the left spine 15mm.
Packaging Designs
The smaller lines above the text is where the business cards will go. I have designed it so the inner sleeves will cover the cards once they are inserted.
Final Packaging Design
I have chosen to use this design for my packaging. I like the simplicity, balance of colours and feel its the strongest out of the variations.
Today I printed the packaging and and constructed it. It folds up well so I'm pleased with the result.
I decided to use the white type for the individual section for hierarchy.
ME Cards
I want to design a series of cards that work together as a set. I want to communicate me as a person and my interest in music as its my main inspiration when working. I am quite a reserved person and I like minimal dsign so I am going to keep the information straight to the point which I think best reflects me.
Individual
- Laid back
- reliable
- committed
- Hard working
- Music inspires a lot of my work
I drew a rough sketch to get some idea of how to lay out the content.
I have decided to incorporate two new colours:
C- 40
Y- 0
M- 0
K- 0
C- 11
Y- 60
M- 0
K- 0
I wanted to use geometric shapes to resemble a musical note that bleeds onto three pages to link them together. I decided to have an introductory page with the logo on, a page introducing myself and a page about music being my main inspiration.
I designed two more pages to go in the set that communicates the main qualities that I have that relate to me and my design practise.
I tried the type I used to create my logo but I think it looks to clumsy. I am going to stick to Futura for smaller text for continuity with the business cards.
This is how the cards will link together when displayed.
Final Designs
I refined the design and made it into two sections. I think this is a much more interesting way of displaying the designs.
Design Cards
I want to design cards that reflect the aesthetics I like in design, using key words as the subject.
Designer
- Minimal
- Crisp
- Clean
- Clinical
- Negative space
- Like limited colour pallets
- Geometric patterns
- Would like to explore editorial design/branding+identity/packaging
- Modernism has contextualised my interests within design
- Favourite designers: Nomar Bar, Experimental jetset, joseph muller brockman,Shigeo Fukuda
- Prefer to work digitally
I started off with the word minimal to base my design on. I want to incorporate negative space into my designs as much as I can as it interests me the most.
For the second card I tried to make it link by reversing the colours.
I was experimenting with the design and I tried flipping the minimal symbol vertically. The shapes left from the type reminded me of a crowd so I made an image out of shapes thats abstract to look at, but represents socialising and going out with friends, which has influenced my work and life throughout first year.
The third card represent clinical design with the straight line and red droplet resembling a clean cut and precision.
The fourth represents two things; I like to work digitally to create my designs and the illustration links back to electronic music through the symbols characterising musical equipment.
I have added an introductory page that communicates my interests in design and the designers that inform my work and inspire me. The symbols are meant to represent a drug with the liquid dripping out. This represents the time that goes into graphic design and how it becomes part of your life.
I just tweaked the colours and shifted the colour weight round in the pill symbol. I think this works much better being next to the white card.
Final Design Cards
I further refined the colours in the pill symbol to finish off the design. I am pretty happy with the outcome.
Learner Cards
I am going to design a set of cards that communicate how I have developed and where Im up to so far with my design process.
Learner
- Better understanding of grids and colour theory
- Know a lot more about typography
- Competent in Adobe Indesign/Photoshop/Illustrator
- Can work as part of a team
- I have improved my problem solving skills, time management skills
- Can work to a deadline
Reflecting back on the year, I wrote a list of things that I have learnt regarding each principle and how I could apply them to further explore the areas of design I am interested in.
Content to go on the cards:
Learning
Development
Design Practice
/ Competent
using Adobe:
-InDesign
-Illustrator
-Photoshop
/ Collaboration
/ Problem
solving
/ Time
management
/ Systematic
approach to material generation
/ Idea
generation
/ Working to a
deadline
Design Principles
/ Semiotics
/ Typography
/ Colour Theory
/ Grid Systems
Context of
Practice
/ Modernism:
Modernist design
has been the most influential subject I have been introduced to during my first
year.
/ Academic
writing
/ Analysis
/ Synthesis
Applying
Skills
Applying
everything I have leant during my first year of the program, I would like to
further explore the disciplines:
/ Branding +
Identity
/ Editorial
Design
/ Packaging
To create this design I used all the different shapes and colours I used for the previous cards. I wanted to combine them to create a geometric pattern.
I laid out the body copy across the three cards vertically so it would fold downwards as one piece.
This gave me the idea to connect each section of text with lines using the colours to create the impression of a circuit board.
I used these shapes to create a silhouette of a musical lead.
I started experimenting with the geometric shapes to try and come up with a pattern.
I didn't think the patterns looked right so I thought about using them to represent symbols off a circuit board.
Final Learner Cards Design
I happy with the final design. The circuits board acts as a timeline and represent the start of the course and where Im up two now with my design skills and ambitions.
