Design Is About Doing. Letter, Word, Sentence, Paragraph

The Brief:

We have been asked to take part in the live brief for HOW books. How books are creating a new publication named "Letter, Word, Sentence, Paragraph", to look for new fresh talent they have sent out this competition brief ready for us to take part in.

I will be creating a set of posters which focus on both typography and the word 'opposite'. 

Mind Map:

I left considering what i would define as an opposite which was something that is similar yet of a difference, for example:

• Apple - Windows
• Serif - Sans Serif
• Rich - Poor

When looking for a web definition of the word it came up with:

• reverse: a relation of direct opposition
• being directly across from each other
• antonym: a word that expresses a meaning opposed to the meaning of another word, in which case the two words are antonyms of each other

 Antonym; word which has the opposite meaning to another, although not necessarily in all its senses

Ideas:

Whilst contemplating if i should stick to a computer idea with typefaces which are only usually found on a windows computer and others which are only used for apple mac I decided against it and wanted to concentrate on the serif - sans serif typefaces.

This was probably the idea i felt best matched my description of "opposites". 

I looked into the most commonly used typefaces and for Sans Serif it was a unanimous Helvetica that won the vote. For the Serif typeface Baskerville was the most commonly used. 

Opposites:

I worked out that i would make the typefaces become the opposite for example Helvetica would have serif's:

The above was quick ideas of how i could show the typeface changes. I wanted the original typeface to still be there so that the viewer could see the differences for themselves against the original. 

Thinking about mirrors and how the reflect and show a certain opposite of the type i thought it was the best idea to go with a set which follow the idea of reflexion. The final image could incorporate all four typefaces so that all the designs link into one image.

Final:

Postcard Development

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10.

I decided to use photographs of my brothers car for this project as i had them in quite high quality and thought they would fit the brief well also it is slightly orange so fixes into my colour i had for visual language.

I used some stock photoshop effects which worked really well. After i placed them i duplicated them and mirrored them to the other side turning down the transparency i created a canvas where users could easily write over the image but still see its presence.

OUGD102 - End of module self-evaluation

Module Code: OUGD102 

Module Title: Design Process

Name: Lewis Francis

Blog Address: http://www.l-francis1013.blogspot.com


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1) What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

In this project i approached it knowing nothing about bookbinding or flickbooks. I have learnt how to create a flickbook from a video and achieve a steady smooth playback in a printed form. I dont think i explored it to its fullest and i believe i should have used it to a much better standard to help me achieve a dead certain 100 number for the flickbooks and pages.

2) What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

The research i took throughout his project was quite in-depth as it was a personal hobby and favorite subject i went and searched for more opinions than just my own and also looked into different aspects of dates and times of games which i would usually ignore. 

I wish i could go back and perhaps look at peoples opinions on all the big decisions of my project making sure i was still following a line which would speak to my audience of fans.

3) What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I would have liked to say i created something which i could benefit from in the future but the only thing i can think of is that i have learnt not to try using flick books for ways to show long videos as it really doesn't work as well as it should for anything over 3 - 4 seconds.


4) What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

I feel my entire project has been a weakness as i haven't managed to finish it to a god standard at all. Time management was a huge issue as i haven't felt motivated to push myself with it at all. I cant blame the time period as its been the longest project to date nothing but personal laziness and lack of involvement. I have identified what distracts me and will make sure it doesn't happen again as i am more than capable of producing much better work than what i have.

5) Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. More in depth research both primary and secondary. 
2. Time management and own work time
3. know when something isn't working and work around it
4. if something gets boring MAKE IT INTERESTING
5. remember why i love graphic design and show it in my work

by amending the above i believe i will create and produce much nicer and more up to date work which i will be more proud of.

6) How would you grade yourself on the following areas

Attendance - 3
Punctuality - 4
Motivation - 2
Commitment - 2
Quantity of work produced - 1
Quality of work produced - 1
Contribution to the group - 3

Final Crit

Issues:

• who is it aimed at?
• flick books could be smaller
• try a square
• cut neater
• better stock for flick book
• try something thicker for the stand

Action to be taken:

• reprint boxes for each flick book to make them abit more uniform
• remake the original game boxes for the consoles.

Repackage

Now that i have decided to go along the path of gameboy's i created the flick books for the original gameboy bootup and the gameboy advance startup. I then included the two video game startup books as these where made into advanced games so i didn't want to waste them.

I needed a way to present these as some kind of celebritive product and figured a tray with die cut sections to stand the boxes in would be best as it shows the dates along the top to remind people.

The tray when finished could be made from acrylic plastic to add strength.

I repackaged the books to have a pull tab to yank them out of the flush covers and allowed for a smoother and more slick style.

The books fit nicely into the cut sections.

Packaging

Already creating two of the flick books which took alot more effort and time then first expected. The layout for the covers where quite simple however.

The net was a simple measurement of each side along with a tab to stick and then slide over the flick book.
The best style i managed to create was by having the original box art as previously explained.

i included the year that the game in the flickbook was from and it all began to take shape.

 The covers i felt added to the real feel of the project people where quite happy to slide them off and play around with them. People knew what they where going to expect when taking them out.

I attended a crit where the feedback was very clear. the problem and solution wasnt very clear. no one knew what they where really trying to achieve. I took the feedback to the design sheets and realised that what i was trying to create was really unreachable as each flick book took double what i had planned to make and where really to large to use. 

The next plan was to move the development further. 

I went back to my questionnaires where i remembered how people used the Gameboy more than any other console. This sparked an idea and i felt stupid for not seeing it earlier in my work.

I will focus on the Gameboy and the parts which where significant for example the creation of the gameboy. Moving onto the Gameboy advance which revolutionised the handheld market.

I looked into the Gameboy and created a sheet describing the different types upto current day where i decided to stick with the Pre DS stages of the console.

As i had already made the two flick book for the video games i realised that they had also been made as games for the Gameboy so a simple repackaging would be suffice.

I looked into the startups of the Gameboy consoles and realised that was a clear obvious change for each handheld as for every new ere of gaming it updated the boot up screen. To my relief each startup video was also only around 4 seconds max which meant the size was no longer an issue !

After following the steps i took to create the huge flickbooks this felt a lot easier and meant i could have the transaction really smooth without it being massive.

As you can see from the video the playback of the startup video works so much better.

Cutting down videos

I had to come to create a flick book to show as a prototype. I took a video from YouTube i found of a good quality and started to cut the video down into frames.

The video was 14 seconds long and after i decided to cut it down into 20fps i set out the layout and printed them off,

This is how i set out the flick book to make sure i used most of the stock and made cutting easier.

I came to a problem when i printed a video. I had to cut out 28 pages worth of screens each having 12 screens on each page.

The total of the flick book came to 336 whilst this wasn't a problem for cutting out it was very difficult to think of how to bind such a amount of card along with the ability to flick through it being compromised.

I drew up some design sheets to try and conquer the way i could bind these together.

I came up with the way to hole punch my way through the pages in sections.

By hole punching 20 pages at a time i managed to keep a consistent way of getting a hole through the whole item.

I tried to use string and stitch the book up but it was too thick that anything i tried would snap or not hold them together good enough. I ended up using an elastic band strung through and tied around the other side. This allowed for an amount of stretch to be applied when trying to flick each book but it wouldn't snap like the previous tried and tested methods.

After i  figured out how to bind these together i started to think about how i could package them with a sleeve rather than a box as these where really quite large and where almost unusable.

I drew up an example of what it could look like including a date stamped onto the top to allow people to see the progress throughout the years.

Knowing how large these where going to be i decided to look into how i could package them all together and include a poster where i could have the flick book put in front of the poster to complete the bar chart and add abit of extra interactivity to the mix.

The elastic band worked really well to hold them all together.

The width wasnt so much of a problem as it took on the shape of one of the retro style boxes quite well.

the thickness of the flick book was really not useable and ruined the  idea to an extent.

The flick book however do work pretty well when flicked through but then again i have quite large hands.

The above video shows me using the flickbook and i figured it would still be worth the try to package the flickbook.

Design Sheets

I set down to try create some idea sheets to help me come to terms with what it was i needed to create.

In this sheet i decided to think about what size and style i could produce on every flick book. 

Throughout the sheet I thought about how i could package a flick book. At the time i figured a flick book would be around 1cm wide and could be packaged in lots of nice ways with the format of it being square or rectangle.

1. Recreate my own style of box art
coming back to the earlier research i could create a nice fitting flick book box like the old retro games came in. Each both would be a replica of what it used to be on a smaller scale allowing the user to open it and relive what they did as a kid.

2. Cartridge Style
perhaps make a cardboard cartridge that when the flick book was inserted it completed the look of the cartridge along with the sticker it would have come with.

Moving on to decide on the style later i thought about how i could package the items. Making a box with a lid which could be removed easily to then show each individual book on show ready to be flicked by the user.

Possible Outcomes

I had a thought about how i could start to use the information i have received to help me with the 100 brief.


1. Create a music CD with instructions how to compose the users own theme music from a collection of music notes and sounds from the old games.


2. Create a book showing box arts from the 80's to till early 2000's 


3. Create a video which can be downloaded which shows the intro's for the games best liked.


The above ideas where all really good and i felt would tackle the brief's problem well but asking around the class and to friends everyone said the video seems most up to date and re-useable.


I took into consideration the new age media of videos and how people access them. The top results for video playback was as shown:

1.Youtube

2.Download

3.iTunes

4.Mobile download

5. Purchase from retailer 

I researched into YouTube and many videos are available of game intros already but at a very poor quality and i thought about creating a group for souly high quality game intros. The problem came back when i was thinking it through and realised it would be going away from the old school almost analog feel of the older games.


My second creative thought was to have available iPhone videos for people to keep on their portable device and watch whenever they wanted. The problem with this was how to package or instruct the user on where to go and how to use the item along with many people perhaps not owning an iPhone.


The last of my ideas was to try out flick books. I have wanted to practice with these for along time and after considering videos it came to me that i could try out a method of cutting down videos to make flick books to play the video back.

Box Art

I have decided to look at different box art from different consoles to prehaps create a book of covers going from the 80's to the 90's:

Looking at the above examples of box art it shows that the nintendo box art seems to have the most consistency throughout its boxes which would make documenting and re creating my own boxes abit easier and look nicer. 

After finding more of these box arts i realised how diverse they all are and when looking into the games created from 3rd party developers the style of each box moves even further in an opposite direction.

This fact meant i wouldn't be able to keep all the images consistent and would start to look out of place and this isn't how i like to see design at all. 

I may return to this section and re use some of the facts ive found out to help me along with a different part of this brief.

Responces

I received 50 responses after posting up on Facebook and receiving emails back from friends. I received some expected results but also some which threw my design development abit as i wasn't expecting to hear that as an answer. below i have the broke down statistics.

1. Do you remember playing consoles like Megadrive? Super Nintendo? Atari?

Megadrive: 

8

Super Nintendo:

14

Atari:

2

Other: 

24

2.What was your favorite Video Game?

Mario:

31

Sonic:

8

PaperBoy:

2

Other:

9

3.Do you remember the intro's to your favorite games?

Yes:

45

No:

5

4.Did music play a big part of how you remembered these games?

Yes:

23

No:

27

5.Do you miss the old games?

Yes:

46

No:

4

The above told me that many people i asked remembered the old games and had quite a mix of memories of main characters. With asking people my own age i imagined the results would be more aimed towards the nintendo and sega ere mainly late 80's - late 90's as this was many people ages 19 - 22's childhood years. 

The results show people remembered Mario as apposed to Sonic and the biggest surprise was that more people remembered other consoles than the ones i gave as an option.

I broke down the results of the 'Other' category and noticed many people remembered the more affordable handheld console, the Gameboy!.

The music didn't seem to be as important as i thought it was but still gave a good response Furthermore the videos where memorable which i was hoping would be the case as i will now try and carry this through my project.

100 Questionare

Using what i did with my previous project i decided to keep the questionnaire simple and short meaning people wont feel as annoyed by spending a minute answering them.


1. Do you remember playing consoles like Megadrive? Super Nintendo? Atari?
this will hopefully be simple enough that after i say the three names it may help them remember.


2. What was your favorite Video Game?
hopefully there will be some similarities that occur when looking at them on a whole.


3. Do you remember the intro's to your favorite games?
this will let me know if following a path with a video at the end of this project would be worth it.


4. Did music play a big part of how you remembered these games?
this could be a possible extra part of the brief i could follow up with.


5. Do you miss the old games?
if mostly yes then i will feel good about following a subject of retro games.


I printed these off and handed them to friends in hull. They filled them out and sent me them back via email.
I went onto Facebook and also created the same questionnaire on a friends group and also posted onto the retro gamers group. 

Collection 100

Basing the brief on:
Classic/ Retro Games


What will i collect and document:
I am going to be looking to collect video game box art as is a key way of identifying the subject that i want to focus on. I will create a questionnaire where i can find out what people remember and what they would consider would be a good way to follow this brief through.


By collecting box art from older games i will be able to show people them and see if they do recognise any and then use the ones which seem to be noticed the most in my outcome.


I have also thought i would collect the startup videos for many of the video games that people say they remember and perhaps create away to also show the initial startup video with the final outcome.


Possible way to implement this into the brief:
I could use the above found items and information within my brief by collecting the top 100 games people remember along with the videos. I could also keep a note on dates that the games where created and create some info graphic items to see if there is a pattern being followed with the date, age and time of the games played/remembered. 


Primary Research:
Questionares,
statistics created from the data
find some retro game fan clubs and ask questions to people who consider themselves fans.
Personal favorite games


Secondary Research:
For this part of the brief i will be working with the internet mostly to make sure i have an upto date knowledge of all the retro games to backup any primary research i obtain.


I will visit game shops and see how they are sold in current styles of games along with pictures from different sources for the box art.


YouTube will allow me to find many of the intro's to the video games which will be a relief as finding them to every game i imagine to produce by video camera would be a really tricky job.

What If - OUGD102

Brief:

We where asked to collected information about Leeds. The information we collected had to be a minimum of 100 things when these where collected it became a starting point for the brief "What If".


The Brief was a group effort and after being put into our arranged groups decided on our topics of collection we decided to focus on litter as it seemed the most apparent and easy to obtain further research.


I had afew days off and when i returned the group had decided to move on from focusing on litter as a general problem in Leeds City Center and move the problem to Leeds Festival.


This created abit of tension with the group as i didn't really agree that is was a good path to go down when the litter in the city center was so accessible. Regardless of the fact we carried on and we had a problem ready for the brief to start.

Problem:

Due to the increase in people attending Leeds Festival there has been an increase in litter during the festival.

The first thing i decided to do was try and incorporate any ideas i had from the previous litter problem which was ready before we decided to change the problem. From talking with the group we had split into separate parts of the problem, all tackling a section each.

Moving away from the group i had a time think about how i could make collecting litter less of a task and more or a natural thing to do. 

I created a sheet ready to brain storm ways of making this work:

• Posters showing how to bin litter
• Making it almost impossible to litter
• Biodegradable items
• Incentives
• Shock tactics, info-graphics showing the amount of litter
• Join in music
• iPhone App

After thinking it through i had come up with more reason why not to participate in trying to resolve a problem about litter with anything which appears to be litter. For example posters, pulled down, blown off teared up becomes litter. Incentives like freebies would be a good if not expensive way to encourage people to help. So i decided to look further into the iPhone app idea. 

Research:

My research comprised of questionnaires, older ideas and peoples opinions. The problem i faced was that i had not ever been to a festival and with the Leeds fest being a few months ago from the project starting i had no way of obtaining any primary research. 

This problem was quite a large factor when it came to considering that the brief was supposed to live. Regardless i tried to salvage it and find people who had been to the previous leeds fest and ask them questions.

Questionare:

1. Did you consider Leeds Festival Clean?
2. Did you think litter was an issue?
3. Was there anything to make you want to clean up?
4. Would free items encourage you and friends to tidy up?
5. Do you own a smartphone?

With the fact Leeds fest is a fast paced and fun event i didn't want to overload the questionnaire with hard thought provoking questions.  

I set out to the facebook group for Leeds Fest and i sent out a group message to all members to please reply. I received 22 replies but decided to use 20 for sakes of keeping statistics easy. The replies came from 9 females and 11 males. Each Answer added to 5% of the statistics.

1. 25% No 75% Yes
2. 10% No 90% Yes
3. 100% No 0% Yes
4. 15% No 85% Yes
5. 10% No 90% Yes

The above statistics clearly showed that the litter is a problem at the festival and it seems that nothing seemed to be done about it.

The last question in the series was to help me justify if a mobile app would indeed benefit anyone. If the majority of people didn't have a smart phone readily available to download the app being created it would be wasted.

Regroup:

Coming back together with the group they told me how incentives for collecting litter was going to be a main way of them following throughout this brief. Now not wanting to conform to everything and have abit of a different take on things to show abit of diversity into our project, I decided to keep with the idea of pursuing the iPhone app.

Everyone liked the idea if not finding it abit eccentric but still the design sheets came next.

Research:

Looking through the internet i came across an video game advert which claimed to use smart phones to advertise its new upcoming game.

Fable 3 King Maker

The iPhone app allows users to "drop" flags wherever they are in the world and claim territory against the apposing team "Royals v Rebels". This was a huge success with over 1,000,000 people taking part around the world. This not only helped me come to terms that an iPhone app very well could work but that people are there to use it.

I moved onto developing ideas for what could be on the iPhone app and developed an icon for the event:

The Idea Matures:

Throughout research and looking closely at the existing Fable app i imagined if the "players" of Leeds Fest where broke down into even groups for example- Red, Green, Blue and Yellow. The users can check statistics and see which group is currently winning in the collection of rubbish. By adding a competitive streak to the collection of litter i feel it would push people to want to see there team conquer the festival. 

The app could contain a live map of the site giving guidance to where places are, parking areas, drinking tents and gigs. The app could also include up to date news feed making sure festival goers are always in the know of giveaways and potential money making events.

This was presented to the group and again appeared to go against what the rest of my group had decided to go for with them making T-shirts and other giveaway material i felt it didn't quite create a resolution for the problem of litter.

I took on board a comment of "how will you know when litter has passed the bins?". A quick creative thought of bin stations throughout the festival would allow a simple inferred beam to be broken when rubbish enters inside and adds to the total. This would meet the already suggested need for more bins at the festival but also add abit of authority to the mix making sure the app is shown as a fair game.

A fellow group member calculated the cost of the cleanup phase of the festival to be of a MASSIVE expense. Im not sure how much this would cost to create but i know an iPhone app is very cheap to create and have on the market. If the free giveaways given to winners of the clean up app would only add up to a third of what it costs to do a full regular clean up the festival would save a lot of money already. 

Iphone App Sheets:

I created a quick liner version of the iPhone and made a sheet of them to work on so i could structure the iphone app idea more clearly:

This sheet shows you a breakdown of what the app would consist of starting from top left:

1. App Loading Screen

2. Main Menu

3. Live Map

4. Live News

5.Group Breakdown

6. Statistical View

7. Bar Code Scanner for Rubbish Input

8. Leeds Fest Store

1. App Loading Screen:

this would be a simple logo with slight motion to ensure fast loading and quick retrieval of data.

2. Main Menu:

this section is the home screen. Choose from the different categories within the app.

3. Live Map:

this will allow you to see which group is cleaning up which areas and your own personal score. Also gives you notifications of what is happening is different places.

4. Live News:

This will be up to date and always have new information for everyone to join in with and keep in the know.

5. Group Breakdown:

A quick show of how your group is doing and a quick show of the rest of the groups progress.

6. Statistical View:

For those really wanting to see it in a clear way this allows for a bar graph with the team colour to show in comparison to their own.

7. Bar Code Scanner for Rubbish Input:

This would let individuals put their own rubbish into one of the designated bins and scan their own personal barcode to add PP ( Personal Points ) to the account and allow them spend points in the Store. 

8. Leeds Fest Store:

This is Leeds Fest very own store where people can spend their collected points from rubbish on merchandise. Example would be that 50 items is equivalent to one T-shirt. The option to confirm buying the item would appear and ask for a shipping address the collection of 50 items by a clean up team would cost more than postage to someones address therefore again saving money and not allowing people to throw these items on the floor adding rubbish !

Mockup:

I created a design sheet to try show how the information for these apps should be received. I created this in both illustrator for the individual screen and Photoshop to bring them all together.

The above would be a nice way to show the app to the class and as a large poster.

Final App Logo:

This is my final version of the logo. Using existing logos such as the Apple Game Center i felt people would get a fun and game like feeling off the colours used. The contrast of colours from the background tot he logo is a great way to bring attention to it and make people quickly identify it.

Final Poster:

This was the final way of showing the app making it a long poster i felt it was the best way to showcase all the capabilities of what i had thought up.

Conclusion:

I enjoyed this project and found it fun working with others, I did however dislike how the group had changed ideas after i returned to college as i still feel focusing the project on the general rubbish of leeds would have been a better and more in depth way to show our work with things we produce being able to be used in public as a live item.

I dont think i would like to have to focus on Leeds Festival again as it doesn't really interest me but i think if this outcome was to be produced it would be a great way to try solve the problem of litter at a festival.

If i could come and do this project again i believe i would keep upto date on the blog alot more than i have a its slacked and i have probably missed some important information or development out which is a shame for myself.