ISTD Overview with Sally.

Basically Sally just wanted to talk to all the people who wanted to have a go at entering into the ISTD 2009 project this year and as she is an examiner for them, who better to talk to!

She gave us some key points to consider when producing our piece for it;

• Prove you can handle typography,
• Be clear on your outcomes,
• Do lots of research (keep it too!),
• Produce a type spec,
• Making your own typeface isn't needed!
• You can do an animation if you want,
• Avoid imagery (20%-30% at most)
• Don't go for the obvious!

I'm going for it this year. I want I.S.T.D. at the end of my name!

Ink Rooms; Live Brief!

I said to myself at the start of the year, 'put yourself forward for everything' and that is what I'm doing!

Neil came to the class with Mat Desmier about a bar in Bournemouth town centre in need of re-branding. They're currently called 'The Ink Room' and they aren't making any money. Basically they want us to design them a completely new identity, logo, menu, artwork, themes, flyers, everything!

I'm really looking forward to getting into this but we hardly have enough time as it is, it's going t be a struggle to fit at all in. Hopefully it should be alright because I'm pretty far ahead on the greetings card project at the moment so hopefully I wont fall behind!

We've already had a group ideas generation for the Ink Rooms with Neil and we all came up with some great ideas but for their old name, not their new one! I think we can persuade them to keep their old name!

We have broken off into smaller groups for this, with each group developing one name. Luke, Meg, James, Vicky and me are developing the old Ink Room name (yes!). We shall see how it goes!

PAL (Round 2)

After breaking the ice with our new group, one of their main issues was whether or not their work was at a sufficient level. All three of us could relate to what they were thinking as we all had issues about that last year. So we decided to bring in the majority of the work we produced from all our projects, including the one they are doing right now, Text and image. They spent the whole hour looking through our work and we sat around with them telling them about it and answering any questions they might of had.

They seem to respond to this very well and we seemed to chat more during this than when we did the ice-breaker! We explained that in no way should they work in the same way that we did and at the end of the day, there is no right or wrong way of doing any of this work, just so long as you can justify why you have done it and make it relevant.

I'm very happy with the group we have. They're all really responsive and good communicators (plus they don't mind having a laugh!) and iI think they will help Luke, Vicky and I succeed at being PAL leaders.

Thanks Guys!

T.G.I.F.!!

Yes, it has been. It's certainly dragged on but I managed to get a lot of mundane work done as well as some experimentation for my cards. Because of the nature of my cards, they have to work at certain angles, positions and lengths and if they don't work well in all these areas, they'll look rubbish!

(It's still a surprise!! You'll have to wait and see what they are)

So now I've settled on they designs and patterns of my set of six cards but I'm holding off from settling on my final colours because I would like to see them together as a set before any decisions are made in order for them to compliment each other. Also, I've managed to produce 24 design sheets today (this includes the Look Again / Think Again Project last week) all with research and design ideas and the design processes I have gone through. This isn't it though! I've still got a lot more work to put into them and I'm starting to worry if I have done too much! (Geeky I know!)

Final Poster Crit With Sally!

That's my day today.

My critique with Sally about the posters was a lot more helpful than I first anticipated it to be. I thought she was just going to say the same thing Neil did a week ago but she didn't. She had no idea who's poster was who's and she had to work out for herself what each poster meant. With my poster;

her perceptions of it were that it was about Visual Communication and obviously the CMYK reference in the logo meant we can work in print, but mainly about how we generate ideas, due to the tag line.

This is partly true. My main aim for this poster was to demonstrate the fact that we generate our own ideas and show that we do a lot more than people perceive. But the general thesis of this poster is to campaign for a third year in Vis Com.

Sally gave me some helpful advice and things to alter to improve my poster. The 'i's definitely have to be change because everyone associates them with the 'information point' logo's around the country. Also, Sally thought that I should carefully consider who I am aiming the poster at, students going on the course or the directors who choose whether we get the third year or not.

New Inspiration Everyone, Look!

Zoetrope! Could it be done?

I'll certainly try.

Grind It Out.

I know it's not the most fun part of doing any project but it has to be done. Spending a solid day doing nothing but research for this new project has been long but it has given me some more inspiration for my greetings cards and I now have a substantial idea that I want to take forward to the next stage.

But I wont tell you yet!