ISTD – The Undiscovered Country…

Brief

‘Stare death in the face’ and find out everything there is to know about it. Consider international, scientific, historical, statistical, literary and poetic touch-points within your research, before determining your approach. Design a publication that ‘visits death’ – a work that will inform and stimulate the intellect whilst pleasing the typographic designer’s eye.

Final Product – Memento Mori

A timeline of famous people from birth to death inc. biography, poetry, and quotes on their deathbed.

What If… Apple was a dirty word.

In this project we had to come up with a “What If” scenario. 

What if … Brands took control of the words they are named after and enforced exclusivity to them of it.

Context:
In the not too distant future the use of this word is now restricted.
Brands own exclusive rights to the word they are named after.
There is a need to find alternate names for things.

Notes:
The ministry of trying to do something about it – ration book promoting consideration for how we use resources
No Shop by Thomas Matthews – Promotes buy nothing day
They Live – movie by John Carpenter about the subliminal messages behind advertising

MelonCauli

Haiku Coffee Shop

Quick update on the project. Here are some elevations for the cafe proposal.

For this Haiku I mimicked the logo style, creating a new font based on circles and lines. Each of the vertical lines are on the window and each of the horizontal lines the wall. When viewed at the right angle, the haiku is visible.

Design for Change

Before I start please note: This is an imaginary brief for a university project, no such thing has been commissioned, this is just for context of the project. I’ve been meaning to write this up as I’ve been going but the concepts have been evolving pretty quickly. I have done a few ideas and wish to share them on my blog.

Project Haiku

Commissioned by London City Council and The Poetry Society it is your job to bring poetry to the citizens and visitors of London using design.

Proposed Brief 1:

Poetry is a form of communication. It paints images and invokes feelings. Communication today is short. We chat in 140 characters. We make one sentence status’. It’s visual: a snapchat here, an instagram there. Life is hashtags, tweets and vines. Short poems are known as sonnets, even shorter poems are known as a Haiku.

The project will take a number of Haiku, that paint images and invoke feelings and place them at key locations around London. Like modern communication, their lives shall be short, fleeting, temporary.

Proposed Brief 2:

This project is to persuade and inform people of the fun that poetry can bring to the mundane. Out buying a bottle of wine for dinner, here have a poem. Drinking in the bar, have something to read once you have finished your beer. Not into alcohol, no worries we have hidden haiku on your coffee. We’re not satisfied with sneaking these little critters into adults lives, they have infiltrated our schools too. Haiku will be added to pencils and stationery that can be given to schools and children free of charge.

Proposed Brief 3:

A pop up cafe using the language of hidden haiku from PB2.

More Images

Design for Industry – SyFy

It feels like week since I last updated. Probably because it has been. The past four weeks I’ve been working hard on a project for our module called “Design for Industry”. We were given a choice of several briefs that are also part of national competitions. I chose the one for the SyFy channel, given that I’m a huge fan.

In these four weeks I have learned Adobe After Effects and Premier Pro. My skills are improving and I hope to be able to do more in the future.

In the mean time, here is my logbook and final products from this brief.

#iamreal

I can finally write about the project I’ve been doing for my DPS500 module. I began writing about it earlier in my blog but had put updating it on hold until it had finished. The idea was to create a website and online protest around my project (and as my final piece) and see where it went, before ‘coming clean’ about it being about a design project.

I have linked my log video and accompanying log book in this post.

The project was a rather emotional one, but I created some pretty fantastic pieces of work I am happy with and it is probably my most proud of piece of work so far this year. I will leave the website up, see where it goes etc. I have also made the designs available on redbubble.

Part One

I’ve been working on the ‘tea sample’ preliminary letter, that will be sent to prospective work experience companies. It will include a QR code to a special place on the blog where they can then leave a message or navigate elsewhere. This will be sent 4 weeks prior to the tea kit.

After some research, colours have been changed to green.

Blue was also tried.

Green translates the tea better, due to tea leaves being green etc. The tea supplied will be a simple English Breakfast blend, to try to appeal to all tastes of tea lovers.

Attracting Attention

After discussion about what it is like to be a design studio manager, and have a thousand and one CV’s and portfolios pass by your desk I decided to work on a care package of sorts, which will house my CV’s details, business card and cover letter. It will be in the style of packaging, to showcase my ability in that.

I have settled on a tea-kit (for a kit-tea, /kitty/, see what I did there?) which will house a tea bag, sugar and milk.

First is working  on the tea-bag and business card design using the logo. I thought about making the card be part of the teabag, but it looked unprofessional and messy.

Back to the drawing board.

-Kit

Working on a personal identity

Making logos or identities for other people is nothing new to me. I’ve made profiles and things, for various online identities regularly for years. Yet coming at this with fresh ‘designer’ eyes had me stumped. Do I show my unique personality, or will that scare away prospective employers. The whole work experience thing (at my age) is new. What if they don’t like what they see/hear/feel?

I quickly threw that negativity to one side. This was a new leaf, a new chapter, a new battle.

I spent a day working on identities that embodied my hobbies, likes, and personality before settling on the logo that I did.

Ideas ranging from cosplay, paw prints and cute faces hiding in words until I finally settled upon the clean-looking K with a kitty/cat.

To me the design is simple, clean and works well with the ideas I have in mind for attracting attention to my work.

-Kit