OUGD501 Design context: Poster design

OUGD501
DESIGN CONTEXT
POSTER DESIGN

To start the process i created the desired layout of the posters, I followed the same text positioning and colour scheme as my concertina book in order to create consistency

I next created a grid structure using columns of 4 equal widths. This is a guide for when I combine and collate the posters in the correct order.

Using photoshop I then cut each section of each image and rearranged them in an alternating order.

After conducting a print test i decided to add lines to the posters in order to maintain consistency throughout the product range.

OUGD501 Design context: Design decisions

OUGD501
DESIGN CONTEXT
DESIGN DECISIONS

AESTHETIC:
As I want the poster and book to be very informative and functional I decided to use a type based aesthetic with a bold and eye catching impact. To star the design process I created a range of possible thumbnails and layouts that could be used throughout the range.

COLOUR SCHEME:

I chose a very simple yet eye catching colour scheme of true black and white. The colours have a great impact and work well at showing the opposing views presented. The term "seeing things in black and white" means seeing two polar opposites which is also the concept between my design.

TYPEFACES:

APERCU:

I chose to use Apercu as my header font, it is bold, readable and very functional. I think the typeface works well for heads as it has a lot of impact and is easy to read

LEKTON:

Lekton is the typeface used for the body copy, It's clear form works well with the header font chosen. It is also reminiscent of a web coding font, which are typically seen as informative and functional.

OUGD501 Design context: Concertina book binding workshop

OUGD501
DESIGN CONTEXT
CONCERTINA BOOK BINDING 
WORKSHOP



As part of the practical side of Context of practice i have decided to make a concertina book. I attended a concertina book binding workshop in order to gain the crafting skills needed to develop this technique. below show the steps to creating the book.

Making the book cover:

OUGD501 Design context: Rewritten first things first manifesto

OUGD501
DESIGN CONTEXT
REWRITTEN MANIFEST

For my design piece I decided to introduce a new manifesto challenging the version produced in 2000. Although I agree with most parts of the manifesto I also think that there are flaws with in it. For example the manifesto focusses on the cultural elite and is written and signed by a number of high powered and rich creatives. It fails to acknowledge every day individuals as well as young designers struggling to make money and make their mark on the world. It is often hard for fledging designers to devote large periods of time and effort to charitable, ethical causes and sometimes we have to make slightly unethical choices to make ends meat. The rewritten manifesto isn't blind to the short comings of consumerism, nor is it oblivious to the power of advertising. Instead I try to show a more rational and equal view on consumerism. The practical pieces shows synergy as it is inherently interlinked with the issues discussed in my essay and the focus of the first things first manifestos throughout. I plan to display my own manifesto and the first things first manifesto in contrast with each other to allow the viewer to make up their own mind, and also to display the middle ground between the two.

PURSE STRINGS FIRST

We, the undersigned, are art students studying; graphic design, art direction, visual communication and multimedia development who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been undermined and disapproved by the cultural elite. Many creatives and academics have criticised and demoralized a designer’s role with in this field; Branding it selfish and self serving.

We as designers apply our skill and imagination to provide the public with exemplary design to sell, Laptops, music devices, mobile phones, designer clothes, fast food, health foods. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but it is more than that, it is a fact that commercial societies have permitted a growing number of its members to define their own preferences, promoting individuality and allowing lower classes to obtain products previously only for the higher classes.

Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the criticism of a designer’s role in a commercial market. Designers, who have devoted their efforts primarily to advertising, should not be seen as weaker designers, nor are they promoting a harmful code of discourse. Instead they are designing for the good of the public rather than their own integrity and self worth. Putting the consumer’s needs ahead of their own and enriching the diversity of choice with in the consumer market.There maybe pursuits more worthy of our problem solving skills, and perhaps financial security would allow us to design with in this realm, but riddled with the debts of student loans and tuition fees these pursuits are often unobtainable. We are humans and must work for a living, to better our selves. Not all designers have the freedom to devote their time purely to ethical work. We need to make money, we need to put our purse strings first.

We propose an alteration in views in favour of a more rational and realistic view on the roles of a designer. A mind-shift away from the belief that a designer in the commercial field is inadequate and evil.In 1964 and again in 2000 visual communicators signed a call for our skills to be put to a worthwhile use. But who are they to determine “worth wile use” with in our field. Only the societies based on economic and political freedom have made possible a growing standard of living to the majority of its members. Luxuries, earlier available only to the rich and powerful, have become increasingly accessible to common people only in the Western societies. It is a fact that commercial societies have permitted a growing number of its members to define their own preferences. Today we challenge the short sited views of the original manifestos, and strive to decide what our first things first truly are.

OUGD501 Design context: Adbuster Imagery

OUGD501

DESIGN CONTEXT

ADBUSTER IMAGERY

OUGD501 Design context: First things first manifesto analysis

OUGD501
DESIGN CONTEXT
FIRST THINGS FIRST MANIFESTO
ANALYSIS

The First Things First 2000 manifesto, launched by Adbusters magazine in 1999, was an updated version of the earlier First Things First manifesto written and published in 1964 by Ken Garland, a British designer.

The 2000 manifesto was signed by a group of 33 figures from the international graphic design community, many of them well known, and simultaneously published in Adbusters (Canada), Emigre (Issue 51) and AIGA Journal of Graphic Design (United States), Eye magazine no. 33 vol. 8, Autumn 1999, Blueprint (Britain) andItems (Netherlands). The manifesto was subsequently published in many other magazines and books around the world, sometimes in translation. Its aim was to generate discussion about the graphic design profession's priorities in the design press and at design schools. Some designers welcomed this attempt to reopen the debate, while others rejected the manifesto.

The question of value-free design has been continually contested in the graphic design community between those who are concerned about the need for values in design and those who believe it should be value-free. Those who believe that design can be free from values reject the idea that graphic designers should concern themselves with underlying political questions. Those who are concerned about values believe that designers should be critical and take a stand in their choice of work, for instance by not promoting industries and products perceived to be harmful. Examples of projects that might be classified as unacceptable include many forms of advertising and designs for cigarette manufacturers, arms companies and so on. Adbusters has been a significant outlet for these ideas, especially in its commitment to detournement and culture jamming.

FIRST THINGS FIRST MANIFESTO (REVISED) 2000

We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it.

Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best.

Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.

There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programmes, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.

We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.

In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.

MAIN POINTS OF MANIFESTO

OUGD501 Design context: Concertina research

OUGD501
DESIGN CONTEXT
STUDIO BRIEF 2
CONCERTINA RESEARCH