Illustrator Brief

My first illustrator work. Simple letter variations. I started with the letter Q, but moved onto G, I figured there'd be more options.

I started making various letterforms by taking the original, and manipulating in tiny amounts until the letter was something completely different. Takes a fair bit of time.

The final 26. Theyre not amazing of course but I learnt a lot doing it. Image manipulation programs have always seemed like a bit of a bitch but it was actually a lot easier than I first expected. 

mail shot: the final print.

yes, the final one. 

in total 100% honesty I'm not really that happy with it. this is probably for one of these reasons:

the lower half of type on the inside is too spaced out

it still slightly looks like I've been on illustrator to fix it up

I could have taken it a lot further in terms of envelope net/design

I could have done more with my own two hands before scanning it

it's depressing information, i'm not sure i enjoy making stuff like this

therefore, I chose not to empty my bank account in order to print it on some heavy, nice, durable paper. I like trees anyway, so there's another reason why I didn't. 

Instead I printed it off on the standard colour printers, costing 50p. I cut out the two sides, and backed them onto a single piece of card costing 15p. 

Of course we had to produce a set of ten, which I did so:

The other 9 (I did 10 actually by mistake) cost me 2 pence a piece, costing 20p for the lot.
Therefore the whole set (including the one for posting) cost 85 pence, meaning I've saved my money and  done my bit to save a tree somewhere.

mail shot: illustrator experimentation

boom! what a result. scanned in the designs I had made and hooked the up to Illustrator, which I'm still not a fan of really but I can kinda use it a bit now. Anyway after some messing around with some live tracing, a bit of colour here and there and a load more cutting and pasting (digitally this time) I came up with this for a near-enough final design. I added in the website at the bottom plus a sub-question to give the viewer some kind of direction. 

I think the combining of digital and hand-made elements work quite effectively for the message I am trying to convey. I feel pretty good aswell because I haven't let my design become defined and directed by digital mediums.......because to be honest, as far as I can tell, anything made from scratch in Illustrator is always going to look like it was made in Illustrator. Which tires me endlessly I'm just tired of seeing everything looking like it was designed for a school textbook

Mail shot progress.

I wanted to go for the whole cut-and-paste way of doing things, firstly because I like the rugged, hand-made look of some design, but also it meant I could take it home and mess about with it, cause my computer won't stay on for more than half hour sorta thing, nor does it have any decent programmes for creating/editing images.

I printed off templates and text, and used bits of coloured card from the library to come up with some designs.

home workspace. 

printed off some bits of text to play around with. i messed around with a few different sizes, but I kept the font consistent with the poster, I felt that changing this would cause the mail shot to be too detached from the poster. I wanted to put them together as a unit of work - poster + mail shot, clearly related as coming from the same source. 

First proper design. It looks like a child could have made it (with the right resources and some basic intelligence), which is sort of the idea. 

Further experimentation in college. Of course I went on spending money on colour photocopies completely oblivious to the fact that I'd used more than 2 colours (excluding stock), someone reminded me once it was already too late. I did like it though, it was a shame we had to be restricted to only 2 colours plus stock.

Back to two colours. Thinking about it, having pink, black and white keeps the mail shot more consistent with the posters. I'm quite happy with the layout and hand-made styling. 

No news is good news. mail shot. 1st ideas.

A couple of first ideas for my mail shot. After looking at various examples of direct mail designs in a book I have been looking at ( http://www.piebooks.com/english/search/detail.php?ID=925 ), along with items of direct mail I have encountered myself, I decided the most tactical way of arranging my mail shot would be to keep it simple and streamlined. 

It seems to me that in order to make mail shots effectively you either have to:

Make them incredibly fancy with twists and turns and user interactivity, so that the viewer can play/construct/break/discover etc etc etc. generally taking the viewer on a roller coaster ride of mail-ness, something that will make them go out and say to their colleagues/friends/neighbours/kids/doctor/ whoever you might come across, 'oh i got the wickedest thing through the mail today.'

OR

make them so incredibly simple, easy to read, streamlined etc etc etc that the viewer can pick it up, acknowledge the message within SECONDS, throw it away, and then think long and hard about what he/she has just read whilst queuing to buy a paper/fags/bus ticket/whatever you might do in the next hour after reading your mail. and then hopefully be good spirited enough to follow up what has been read. 

ANYWHERE in between I imagine just wouldn't work - either too elaborate and can't be read in seconds OR not interactive enough and generally a waste of time, doesn't have enough bells and whistles etc etc etc.

HOWEVER.     I feel like the two designs I have spent a few minutes drawing together may be so boring that not a single person would be able to hold out a few seconds to read it. So I'm going to take a different approach, a much more cut and paste affair. 

why? 

the mail shot is directed at people with children. 

the only 'design' that children know, in reality, is cutting stuff and sticking it somewhere else. 

mail shot: fact/opinion/question

Statement of fact:

More than 1 million children worldwide will become victims of child trafficking this year.

my opinion:

Too much of tax payers money is spent dealing with PETTY CRIMES (theft from large corporations, cannabis, enforcing the legal drinking age, graffiti, stuff like that.) and not enough is used to deal with REAL ISSUES.

however this is just my opinion, and the beauty of an opinion is that you can't tell me I'm wrong. haha.

Question:

How much is your child worth?

mail shot who why what how?

the mail shot requires a mailing list of ten recipients. to determine who I am aiming mine at, it is useful to answer these four questions.

Who?

Hospitals, doctor surgeries, clinics. Serious places. Areas that parents and children regularly pass through. Companies with an interest in such overlooked issues. why? companies with a a fair bit of spare income can pour money into attempting to prevent the trafficking of children, and raise awareness of this. What their real intention is of course to paint their own company's name with a 'look at us, we're helping the world' sort of brush, making people take notice and say 'oh, that company's helping the world, i'll probably buy more of their products'. It works for the company, and it works for a few children that would've been trafficked next year.

oh, schools maybe aswell. it's good to get young people involved, as they have a much fresher outlook on the world than older people.

Why?

It is a very overlooked issue.

What?

More than 1 million children will become victims of child trafficking this year.

How?

by INFORMING and EDUCATING.

no news is good news message and delivery brief

brief for the second part of No news is Good news.

Madrid Bullring - visual synecdoche



Madrid metro - visual metaphor



real madrid - visual metonym

no news is good news final posters

I came up with three final designs, and tested the blue and pink colour schemes. Here they are:

I chose the pink ones for printing - I feel that the shocking nature of the message being delivered is well contrasted by the innocence of the pink colour. The blue makes the posters look like your average 'cry for help' sort of material. I should have attached a website somewhere really, thinking about it now, it's all good and well conveying the message, but pretty useless if there's nothing directing the viewer towards more information. I'll remember that for next time. 

the image isn't all that bright so the colours look a bit dull. But you get the idea.

image and type ideas - no news is good news.

Drawing together the ideas I have produced so far I thought it would be a good idea to work out some potential resolutions using suitable colour schemes and layouts. The hand-cuff/pacifier image appeared to be the most popular, I guess compared to the other vector graphics I drew up it is more suggestive of young people being put into someone elses control other than the parents. 

I'm not particularly happy with the brown one.....I mainly chose that as I saw a similar poster using that sort of colour scheme. I feel the black/white/pink/blue is the most suitable, as blue and pink are colours most commonly associated with children. I'll ask around for a few opinions as to what will work best.

Visual Language - Colour Theory and Pantone Matching system

An assortment of red items brought in for the session.

Items arranged in terms of their shades and tints, to create a spectrum within our chose items. 

our group's items were then linked to the next group, who were either orange or violet, therefore creating part of the colour wheel. 

we did have a fair amount of stuff it seemed.

The activity was a bit more tricky then it would initially appear - due to different surfaces and textures, it was often difficult to determine where a particular item would fit within the spectrum. 

hey presto, a colour wheel constructed out of entirely random objects. demonstrates the absolute diversity of colour present on everyday objects. 

Pantone Colour Matching System:

A set of swatch pads used to identify the true colours of designs, ensuring no mistakes are made when printing. They're quite expensive, as far as swatch pads go.

The second half of the session involved using these swatch pads to identify the Pantone colours of ten of our objects. Once again, easier said than done, a lengthy task but it was quite interesting to be fair. 

Colours identified:

formula solid matte booklet

Bisto lid : PANTONE DE 102-1 C

c 20 m 100 y 70 k 15

Teabag box: PANTONE DE 91-1 C

c 0 m 100 y 80 k 10

Craft Knife:

PANTONE DE 73-1 C

c 0 m 100 y60 k 0

coated euro booklet

Throat Lozenges Box:

PANTONE DE 108-1 C

c 0 m 100 y 60 k 0

Mount board frame:

PANTONE DE 98-2 C

c 0 m 90 y 65 k 10

coated vol.1

Graphic Design book front cover:

PANTONE RED 032 C 80% (ratio of ink on stock)

solid matte

Tesco Strawberry Lemonade packaging label:

PANTONE 206M

14 pts PANTONE Rub.Red 87.5

2 pts PANTONE Yellow 12.5

Cadmium Red Paint tube:

PANTONE 185M

12 pts PANTONE WARM RED 75.0

4 pts PANTONE Rub.Red 25.0

Tomato Ketchup Bottle:

PANTONE 199M 

12 pts PANTONE Rub.Red 75.0

4 pts PANTONE YELLOW 25.0

Cola-Cola Can:

PANTONE 200M

12 pts PANTONE Rub.Red 73.9

4 pts PANTONE YELLOW 24.6

1/4 pt PANTOME BLACK 2.5

Here's some photos of the Pantone swatch pads in use. Photos courtesy of Sophie

Wicked. here's a swatch made from the ten colours identified. Demonstrates how many different shades and tints of red are found in many everyday objects, without being an obvious thing. 

Vector Graphics

A few vector graphics I made for use with the poster. After asking a few opinions it became pretty clear that the handcuffs/pacifier image worked the best. I feel the same way to be honest.

text based poster ideas

A couple of ideas for the text-based poster. The second one somehow appears to be conveying a more serious message, probably due to the background colour chosen and the fact that only the word 'victims' is highlighted.

typeface research

several typefaces I feel would be effective for use on posters. Respectively:

1) Helvetica Bold

2) Century Gothic Bold

3) Gill Sans Bold

4) Futura Medium

5) Myriad Bold

6) Lucida Grande Bold
7) Geneva Regular
8) Arial Bold


After asking a number of opinions, i learnt that number 5 (Myriad Bold) would be perhaps most effective to start off with. If it doesn't perform so well for my text-incorporating posters then I suppose I could just be safe and standard with Helvetica, by the looks of things it must be the poster's favourite typeface.

more..

couple more ideas for my image-only poster:

I quite like these two. But maybe I'm rushing into experimentation too quick and not generating enough ideas.

visual language - sequences through space

letterforms on three planes through space. much like the channel 4 clips, where the camera pans until the number 4 can be seen properly.



simon cherry making templates and drawing up some letter parts.



the template used to (ever so slightly) accurately determine the size and position of the letter parts.



work in progress....you can see how it will shape up. the right bar is on the far wall whilst the left is just behind the template. magic.



before panning channel 4-style



we had nothing to suspend the middle section from, so a hand had to do. i found this task challenging and enjoyable. i've learnt something, but to be honest I'm not sure what yet. maybe with more time, more coffee and more cigarettes we could have done this immaculately.

group: sophie, cherry, max and myself. red team.

photos courtesy of sophie, courtesy of a borrowed camera.