Assignment: Poster 4

My fourth poster based on font families is a very simple design and it is a simple rule. Font families are literally the same design of type just with different weights and are at different angles so that they look different. Franklin Gothic was the font I chose to use as it is one of the fonts that has nine different weights, ranging from narrow to heavy. I think that out of all four of these posters this one is the weakest in terms of design. All of the lettering is centred about the page and it is simple black and white. However in terms of the point that it is illustrating, which is that font families can be used effectively to make things look different while still using the same typeface, I think that it is one of the strongest.

Assignment: Poster 3

My third poster I chose to experiment in ways in which you can express how important legibility is. If a point size is too small then you struggle to read it depending on how far away you are from the subject matter. If the point size is too big on certain documents such as letters, leaflets or posters then you will run out of room to place the other information that is needed in the specific document. I chose to use the same layout as an optician’s eye test because an eye test plays with the legibility of certain letters. I think that this is a good way to express the way people read and how small a point size is legible in certain documents and situations because it helps designers use the right point size whether it be an advert for BMW or a child’s book. The legibility of text is also different depending on who the intended audience is because children’s books like Biff and Chip have a bigger font size than more advanced readers’ books like Lord of the Rings.

Assignment: Poster 2

My second poster, the Joe Sparano quote, I decided to lay out the text in a similar way to the first poster. This way there is consistency within the posters. The quote is: “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” I used a script font and a sans-serif font for this typeface with a little bit of pattern in one of the corners of the page to emphasise a point. I chose to write the quote in Coneria Script apart from the words obvious and transparent. I chose to write these two words in Impact and in Calibri because they are both sans-serif typefaces and I believe that the design would have looked odd in a way in which the typefaces would not complement each other. I think that these typefaces complement each other because you should only every really have no more than 5 fonts to a document otherwise it looks messy. On this design, I have four, as the name of the person who quoted it is written in Aliquam Ultralight. The three diagonal and parallel lines are placed conveniently over the top of one of the letters because you can still see the shape of the letter through the shapes. I think that this is a good design to express this quote because not only does it use different typefaces to emphasise points, but it also is dynamic in terms of the way it is laid out because it shows transparency within the design.

Assignment: Poster 1

My first poster, the Leonardo Da Vinci quote, I decided to lay out the text in three different typefaces. The quote is: “Simplicity is the ultimate Sophistication” which you can automatically see that you will not need more than three typefaces. The words simplicity and sophistication speak for themselves in terms of what kind of type they should be displayed in. I chose to show the word “Simplicity” in the sans serif typeface Aliquam Ultralight, which is a thin and crisp typeface and is also very simple. The word “Sophistication” I chose the script typeface Coneria Script, which is an elegant script font with different contrasts around the counters and on the tails of the letters. There are three different types of typeface on this poster which are script, sans-serif, and serif. The typeface in the middle of the page is called Imprint MT Shadow. This is a serif typeface and you can tell this because of the brackets on the lettering. I think that having all three of these typefaces on the same poster to show how different types of lettering work with each other. If all of these typefaces were to be all in a sans-serif, script, or serif font then it would look a little dull. These three typefaces work well with each other because the word simplicity and sophistication are words in which you can show their meaning with image. Simplicity would be shown in a very simple typeface with no fancy curly bits or decoration; just plain and simple. Whereas the word sophistication would be shown as really fancy, curly, and a little more decorative.

Assignment

For this module the assignment was to produce four posters that show how design works. These are thumbnails of my designs for four posters based on graphical rules. They are rough but I think that with the right colour and the right layout choices they will look really good. I am unsure exactly how to lay them out but that is what thumbnails are for. My ideas consist of playing with legibility and how well we can read certain point sizes. Size 4 point size is not a legible point size to read a book in, but neither is point 72 because they are both either too big or too small. You will either strain your eyes or you just won’t be able to read it at all because there is one letter to a page. Another idea of mine is to experiment with font families and how different they look from each other. I am unsure how to set this out as the thumbnails show, I do not know whether to keep it nice and simple or complex it a little bit. My third and fourth idea are two quotes that I picked from Leonardo Da Vinci and Joe Sparano. However, again, I do not know which colours to use or how to lay the quote out along the page.

 

White Space & Negative Space

What is White Space?

White space is the area of white on a document. There is something called Active White Space which is white space that is used as part of the actual design. Passive white space is the byproduct of a layout design; i.e: the white border around a print process design.

Negative & Positive Space

Negative space is everything around the design – regardless of colour. Positive space is the design itself, the subject matter of the design. However, Negative space is not the same as white space. White space is used to read things better, give out information freely, and to reduce clutter.

Some design examples of using negative space are Google, Yahoo, and the Think Small print advertisement for Volkswagen.

Spot Colours

What is a spot colour?

A spot colour is a colour that has already been premade. On the separations page it comes through as a separate plate to the CMYK colours.

Spot colours cost more because you are paying for more ink than your average printer has and is seen as a luxury.

Who uses these spot colours?

Big branded companies use these spot colours. Brands such as Orange, EE, Coca-Cola have their own colours that are spot colours smacked onto all of their merchandise, logos, posters, adverising material etc. These big companies can own their own colour red, orange, yellow, green. You then cannot use that colour on your own stuff if you plan to sell it or advertise it.

Coca-cola’s red is R:225 G:0 B:0 and in printing it is C:0% M:95% Y:92% K:0%. That is the colour I cannot use to advertise or sell anything because Coca-Cola own that colour. However if I were to change the colour to R:225 G:1 B:0 I can then use that colour because it is different to the colour that Coca-Cola owns.

Print Process

When it comes to your printing process in Graphic Design, always make sure it is exactly what you want, or what the client wants. There are five steps in a printing process and these are:

Proof Reading

A proof reader is paid to proof read documents and find mistakes within design, journalism, etc. Always make sure you get someone else to proof read your work for either yourself or your client otherwise it will just come back to you, creating more work for you.

Soft Proof

A soft proof of a document is classed as a digital PDF file or on screen in whichever format you can provide it in. This way it saves trees and doesn’t waste paper.

Hard Proof

When you are sure that everything is perfect with your soft proof, and it’s been proof read with any adjustments, you are ready to print a hard proof. This is one single printed copy of the design or article to check the colours, the DPI, the type and it’s legibility and that the layout is right.

Separations

Separations are printed pages with the default print colours (CMYK) of the image printed onto each page. One page for Cyan, one for Magenta, one for Yellow, one for Black. By printing these pages it shows us how much of each colour is used in a single article or design. However, it doesn’t show us any colours that we use that aren’t CMYK. The person printing will have to buy that particular coloured ink to print in that specific colour, otherwise it will come out a completely different colour using a mixture of CMYK and will not be the exact colour you wanted.

Client signs off the proof

As soon as the client signs off the proof, any problems that they find within the design is now down to them to fix. They signed to say that everything is perfect with the design you have provided to them so if they then find a mistake, it is their own fault for not checking anything before they signed to say it was all okay.

Branding

Big companies are branded by the way they look. You will be able to tell which company everything belongs to from their logo. Normally big corporate companies place their logo on every piece of their merchandise or packaging, as well as letterheads etc.

For example, Starbucks have their logo on all of their cups and on their different sized cups and they even have their own mugs that people can buy and take home to keep forever.

I was given a task to create a logo for a company called Harper’s Haridressers and our brief was as follows; Harpers Hairdressers are a family run business. They have been established in Guildford for 30 years. Ron Harper who runs the business is retiring and leaving the business to his children. They want to relaunch the Hairdressers in a contemporary new way, but want to keep the feel of a family run company, and the ethics that go with this. They are aware though that in the era of Toni & Guy, that they need to be seen as a fresh and relevant brand that isn’t for old men. They want to target fashionable men and young adults.

So with this brief I came up with these visual ideas.

All of these ideas are really similar to each other in terms of colour scheme. I chose a black and white colour scheme because it’s simplistic and still holds on to the traditional side of the company. Black and white is a very traditional colour scheme because it links back to things like black and white television. I chose a Script font for the word “Harper’s” because again, it makes it look quite traditional and I chose a sans-serif typeface for the word “Hairdressers” because that would add a modern feel to the design so it meets the brief.

My favourite design out of all of these is this:

I like this design the most because the brown makes the company look traditional where the colour has been placed on the typeface and the lines around the edge of the black square. Also, the underlining under the word hairdressers makes the words look contained within the logo rather than just floating. I chose to draw a shaving razor in Illustrator and I changed the opacity to make the shape nearly not visible. The reason I chose to put in the shaving razor because it will touch back to the traditional side of the company. The only reason I added the scissors to the design as well as the razor is because the company wants to target a more modern audience.

Hand Drawn Typography

Hand drawn typography can make something look really good or really bad depending on what kind of typography style you are drawing. A script font is normally quite an easy one to draw because it is very similar to people’s handwriting. A serif font or sans-serif font would be a little more difficult to draw out because of the kerning and the sizes on the contrasts of the letter shapes.