Photography Brief

In this post iw ill be exploring different camera angles, shutter speeds and lighting using my previous car.

We took the car to a car park as the lighting could be controlled by our own portable light which made things alot easier to photograph.

I was going to concentrate on the colour white throughout this investigation.

had my friend take an image of me with the car (abit sad isnt it)

I have tried to include many different layouts and setups of the car so that i showed not just one angle. I failed to mask our artificial lighting as on my bonnet you can see the extra glow from the set up light.

Overall i am happy with these images and i felt much better using one of my cars as a subject than just random items from the photography room.

What is a Line

Initial Ideas:

For this project i had been quite stumped for sometime whilst worry about other things i feel i had lost track of this really and thus fallen out of love with it ( or not given it much chance to grab me into its possible exiting design possibilities ) and took on quite a bland attitude towards it.

Chosen two phrases to follow throughout this project which where:
Mathematical Landscapes

Breaking this down i had a mind map with possible solutions around working this out.
[ insert image of mind map]

looking into how you could see land and buildings as nets which are all created up with lines is how i think i will proceed with this project.

• having the chance to show how a road could be broken into a smooth curve filled with other lines to enhance the feel of a flow.
• showing a building and the true angle and height
• seeing how a park could have hidden heights and curves unseen by the eye but when broke down with a grid and net.

The  above demonstrates how my finals could possibly look the white mesh shows the workings of the gradient and incline/decline in the landscape.

Problem i came up with is that i couldn't take detailed enough primary research as it was too difficult and i didn't really have the tools or knowledge on how to obtain such statistics.

This was a problem as i had already started to think of possible ways of delivering this outcome:

• using a viewfinder type of device i could have a sheet of printable acetate with the netted and gridded version of an image printed onto it... placing this in front of the actual photograph taken to work from it would look asif you have placed the net over the image and give it a more realistic 3D view on everything asif you where seeing the "lines" from my eyes, therefore knowing what i meant by "what is a line "

[ Insert images of sketched up work]

Re-thinking this without any guidance from tutors was tricker than i thought and i began to become stuck and panicked and probably left the work abit longer than i should have !

so back to the drawing board:

"what is a line"

taking this personally and looking at my life and where i use lines as anything other than design i use lines to plan routes and give a quick idea of direction when i drive and travel which is a big part of my life.

After properly thinking about the above i wish i choose this to follow in the first instance as it fits me much better than a netted landscape of a building which has no connection at all.

[Insert google maps ]

Looking at the above images and when i print them off to keep in the car they are on handy A5 pieces of paper for quick refrence.

I have decided to concentrate from my once a month travels which i know well and create them into handy A5 postcard like items.

The travels:

Hull - Leeds

Hull - Sheffield

Hull - Aberdeen 

Hull - Barry, Wales.

I want to make them look visually nice and easy to see by keeping a strict colour scheme of blue and red. This will allow me to tell the difference from rail travel and driving.

[ Insert sketches of idea ]

Final idea:

I am really happy with the look and feel of the final pieces as i think they look clean and show what a line means to me.

I will be printing these out on nice silver pearl paper to allow the designs to have a nice feel aswel as look. 

Conclusion:

I found this probably one of the hardest projects and not think iw ill get a too good mark as it doesn't seem as full as other projects. I have learnt how import the  actual crits we undergo really are with design work as it keeps you going and engaged with your work.

I didnt like how the brief was so open and free to follow whatever path we choose as much as i used to love them i have a horrible feel towards them now by allowing too much of your unguided work flow into one thing it becomes crowded and doesn't always work leaving you with either too much and looking messy or slacking and not producing enough as you talk yourself out of everything...

If i could do this project again i would 100% document my work so much better and blog alot earlier as i go along as it is becoming to be abit of a problem. 

Visual Language - Book Fare Idea

Things to do with the letter 'A'.

Letters

things that make the letter 'a' in nature

typography

buildings that look like 'a'

animals with the letter 'a'

items that start with the letter 'a'

sweets that start with 'a'

Looking at the above i didnt like the idea of sticking to a pattern of just finding things that started with the letter 'a' as it just felt liek the easy thing to do. This lead me to wanting to go with the typography side of the letter A. I feel that using learnt things about type i could create a good hotdog fold book which both informed and entertained the user.

Idea to go with:

I will be using learnt phrases and important aspects of typography to go with each letter A. I will be able to use things like the apex and highlight them.

The problem i had was that i had already created something along these lines for an earlier brief which followed a contraction side of typography so i think i will move the idea further on by looking into the creator of a typeface for example; Max Miedinger the creator of helvetica. 

Design:

Knowing i had to stick to a A4 hot dog fold which meant i had a max 8 sides to design on or 6 if i include a front and back cover. I wanted to have a letter A on each page with some information underneath that.

The backside of the hot dog fold would be perfect for a poster and i feel the best way to bring the whole design together is by having a large letter A created from each part of the A's showcased in the booklet.

Colour Scheme:

knowing that i want to keep a professional informative feel throughout my design i decided to go with Grey & Blue as the two colours for the designs as i feel it gives a friendly but professional look on the work.

Stock:

Using a cheap white stock will compensate the whole feel of this piece, especially knowing i will be trying to sell these at the book fare so i opted for a much thicker silver paper which is a dark grey with a silver pearl printed over the top so every colour i have on the design shines with a metallic look. This added to the expensive feel of the item and i feel it added a sense of professionalism to the finished article.

Typefaces:

1. Frutiger

2. Baskerville

3. Gill Sans

4. Trajan

5. Garamond

6. Helvetica

I have chosen the above as i feel i have a mix of famous typefaces as well as those perhaps not so well known which will hopefully make people gauge more interest into wanting to read through the item.

 Final Printed Design:

I had to print these on a home inject printer as time was running out.

Hard points:

I hated the folding of this i felt the design was let down by overlapping pages but was irrelevant when all put together as it was only afew mm offset and as the item was made to be unfolded it didn't make to much of a difference. 

Conclusion:

Selling around 3 of my books i considered this a success as there where much nicer ones available at the fare but i was happy with this and believed i answered the brief well and using the time wisely meant i had a solid looking product. If i was to do this project again i would perhaps use the A3 option for the sake of making all the type more readable.

Visual Language - Type & Grid

All about type

Breakdown

Baseline

X-height (height of a lower case x)

Counter

Bowl

Ascender/descender

Stem

Point size etc

Weights

Light

Regular

Medium

Bold

Extra Bold etc

Styles

Condensed

Extended

Script etc

The Grid System
[ insert stuff about grid here]


I have chosen to look into magazine layouts using a nice grid which if ind inspiring. I have found these so far and i will be breaking them down to work out the layout and then be able to re create the style you see.

The above posts are really nice to look at and i feel it uses the grid system really well but doesn't compromise the design.

visual Language - Photography

We where asked to collect images from a given word around the college. I had been given the letter "A".

I was happy with the collection and i felt i had put together some good innovative views of the letter including buildings and ladders.