Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
MEDS 2007: New Media Design and Production Assignment 1 Nicola Allen P1126063X
Contents
Design Briefs ..3 Project 1 - Album Cover Ronno The Choice is Makin You Initial ideas ..4 Original image and inspirations .5 Album cover development....6-7 Final cover with evaluation...8 Project 2 - Logo Frosted Cupcakery Initial ideas (with inspirations) 9 Initial sketches. 10 Logo development .. 11-14 Final logo with evaluation .15 Project 3 - Movie Poster Woodstock: The Directors Cut Initial ideas (with inspirations)16 Initial sketch.. 17
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Movie poster development 18-22 Final movie poster with evaluation 2324
Design Briefs
Album Cover. Using a randomly generated image from Flickr, create an album/record cover using the image along with a randomly generated band name and album name. You will use Photoshop to manipulate the image and design the cover. *** Logo For this exercise you are going to create a logo for a company. You are reasonably free to develop a logo unconstrained from an already existing brand identity or youll create a logo for a fictional company.
Early ideas: Cupcake shop logo; music reviews blog logo nicolagetsvocal. *** Movie Poster For this portfolio piece, you will bring together entities from Photoshop and Illustrator to create an original film poster for an existing film, or for an imagined sequel or prequel. You are free to use Adobe InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator to bring your ideas together to create your final design, and output it as a PDF.
Rather than use random elements to generate ideas and content for the posters, you will plan and design them. You may choose to focus on a different element of the film; for example, you may choose a theme, a character or a setting. Remember the decisions you make will have an impact on how the film is perceived
- for example, a close up of a person could suggest an intimate, character centred drama, while an image of a landscape may suggest a more epic saga.
Early ideas: Foo Fighters: Back and Forth; Woodstock: The Directors Cut; Waynes World.
The initial conception of this album cover came from randomly generating a cover picture from Flickr, a band name from Wikipedia and an album name from a quote generator. I was lucky in that I generated a haunting picture of an East Asian lady holding a bunch of roses, taken in a shabby tiled room that could have easily been used as a cover image in real life. The band name Ronno was generated, which I immediately linked to an alternative band whilst the album name The Choice is Makin You made me think of portraying some sort of personal development on the album cover. With this imagined character in mind I was able to think up some suitable ideas for the cover including the message that I wanted to encode (Hall, 1980) in it. I wanted to encode the makin you element through using the roses that are the central objects in the image. To do this, I thought of duplicating the main image before turning the upper duplicate black and white. After that I would erase the black and white colour where the roses and their stems were, bringing out the pink and green colours that would signify the new mind set that was making the woman a new person. The choice would be portrayed though taking the newly coloured main image and duplicating it twice, splitting the upper two duplicates in half and moving the halves outwards to develop an almost blurred image. The outermost halves would be turned down to 25% opacity; whilst the mid-outer images would be turned down to just 50% opacity, and the main image would remain at 100% opacity. This develops an image of progression from someone who is barely there, who then makes choices to become a fully there person in the centre third of the image (rule of thirds).
I imagined the font to be a clean cut serif font similar to other alternative bands in the genre, with the album name in different font, but using the colour from the roses to link The Choice is Makin You to the aforementioned new mind set (roses) held in the womans hand. All the text would also be centrally aligned to keep the audience attention in the centre third of the image.
Blurred, haunting image and serif font use (above). Use of repetition on cover (below).
Here are some of my record cover inspirations, along with whichsymmetry Use of basic elements (above). they inspired on my selfdesigned and developed record cover. 5
Use of accent colour with black and white (above/below). Use of serif font (below).
Development #2 In creating this image I played around with the fonts turning the album name The Choice is Makin You- into the same serif font as the band name, that was Mongolian Baiti. I think that the serif fonts match the imagined genre discussed in my initial ideas better than the sans serif one used in the first draft. This makes the cover much more coherent. I also made the album name wholly pink and italicized it, to differentiate from the band name whilst keeping the album cover elements in relation to one another. I also used the Blur tool in Photoshop on Ronno to add to the warped feel of the cover as created by the editing applied to the main image, that is outlined in the initial ideas.
Development #4 For this edit, I switched the faint glow around the album name to a 1pt white stroke. I felt that the glow didnt look right and looked almost clich and tacky on the cover. I also felt that sharpening the stroke around the title helped further differentiate it from the band name. Whilst the blurred band name fitted in with the lower opacity elements of the edit, keeping it warped, the title containing the word choice was sharp like the central image. This links the lady being a new person as outlined in the initial ideas to what is making her a new person the choice.
This image is also a screen grab of the production window, showing the cyan grid guides that I used to keep the edited images symmetrical in placement. Timothy Samara (2002) said that grids help in organising visual information to aid communication. I used them here to keep everything aligned, the main image in focus and the text centred within the ladys second set of arms. This also puts the text in a hierarchy, as we read top to bottom.
This is the final image. In this image I nudged the album title to the right a little. In development #4, this was slightly out of alignment with Ronno. Initially I thought this was simply the italicizing making it appear out of line but in a second visit to the image it wasnt touching the guides as it should have been but as shown above this has been rectified. Overall, I am happy with this image. It was great to see my idea come to life and I got the exact effect I was looking for. I found it easy to create thanks to prior experience in Photoshop (Adobe, CS4 and CS6) and feel that working with grids assisted in the perfect alignment of the images and text. I also found the repetition in this image helped create the perfect warped feel to show the development that I wanted to encode into the album artwork, whilst also conforming to design rules.
I wasnt set on a font initially, but I knew it had to be something with a curvaceous serif style to prevent the logo from appearing harsh cupcakes are cute and girly in the majority. I was also unsure about the case, as in whether to keep just the pleat outlines, or fill it in with colour but this was developed on-screen. Another element I developed on-screen was the cupcakery font effect as the initial idea was to add a hot pink stroke and fill the letters in white like an outlined font, or fill it in the same hot pink all over to match the other text. One element I was sure on however was the cherry on top of the cake to add to the ideological cupcake look.
Here are a few inspirational pictures I considered in the planning of my logo featuring my cupcake brand of choice Fancie, hailing from my hometown of Sheffield:
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Development #1 This is the initial on screen image that I created. I duplicated the pointed rectangle shape before warping repeats into an arc shape to create the cupcake case. As sketched, I created the frosting by warping the text using the arc upper warp, and laid the same text out beneath the cupcake to spell out cupcakery. This text was filled white with the same hot pink colour as the upper text used on the stroke. The pink and purple worked really well together and I was happy with this basic opening development.
Development #2 Against my initial ideas, I decided to try out a different, sharper cornered font. As expected, the text was far too harsh and didnt suit the company, that was meant to be cute and girly. Not only that, but the font is also difficult to read, particularly on the lower element of text. As the font relies on lines to give the letter shapes, the stroke-edged text became far too difficult to read without a colour fill. In short, using this font meant that the logo didnt serve its purpose.
Development #3 For the third development I reverted to the initial round-cornered serif font, as this was much softer and easier to read. To further develop the logo, I felt my initially sketched text as frosting idea wasnt working, so I drew and manipulated an oval shape using the Pen tool in Illustrator CS6 to form a more definite outline on the frosting. The oval was filled in the same hot pink as the text, but I lowered the opacity to 20%, hence why it looks like a baby pink on the logo. This maintained the colour scheme with the rest of the logo, despite visually being a completely different colour. This also meant the new shape didnt detract attention away from the key text.
Development #5 At this stage in the development I enlarged the lower element of text to the width of the cupcake case base. My intention was to balance out the logo and almost make it look like the cupcake was on a plate. I feel this intention was achieved through sizing up the text. I also applied a gradient to the frosting shape created in development #3, with the low opacity hot pink at the bottom fading up to white. This reflected the imaginary light hitting the cake, similar to the cherry created above.
Development #6 In this development, I played around with the cupcake case. I applied a purple-white gradient to the repeated shapes to again, reflect the imaginary light hitting the cake. However there was something about this that made it look cheap, but at the same time, no colour in the case was too plain. The next stage of development was to try an opaque purple fill in the case element. I also nudged cupcakery down slightly as it was fighting for attention with the newly coloured case. I felt that doing this kept it with the logo, but also made it easier to read.
Development #8 Here I started to work on the cherry stalk. I went with a basic triangular shape created using the Pen tool at first, just to get a feel for what the cherry would look like when completed. At this stage I felt that the logo was starting to come together and my initial ideas were becoming a reality. The next step was to work on the lower textual element cupcakery and also creating a more realistic cherry stalk.
Development #9 Firstly I worked on cupcakery. I decided to try an opaque magenta fill for the text at the recommendation of my tutor and I feel this was a positive move. Like the cupcake case development, I feel that colouring the lower text the same as the upper aided the coherence of the logo. At this stage the logo looked a lot more wholesome and realistic, like it could be a suitable letterhead or shop front for a newly opened cupcake business.
Development #11 As I had spare time to play around with my logo more, I thought about placing the word cupcakery within the case. I tried it with both a pink fill and white stroke and vice versa, but both interfered with the lines of the case. This made it extremely difficult to read and it looked messy on the logo. I also added 30% opacity magenta swirls on the frosting behind the text. I did this by drawing a rough petal shape with the Pen tool. I then selected the shape and created a new art brush in the Brushes Palette, which then allowed me to draw the shape randomly around the frosting. Whilst you have to look closely to see it, I feel this adds gentle texture to the frosting, adding another element of 3D.
Development #12 As a result of development #11, I moved cupcakery back beneath the case to again act as a plate to the cake. I did however position it nearer to the case as I did in earlier developments, as the white space between the base of the cake and the text was enhanced by the cases purple fill. The word was aligned against the base, and I feel this brings the logo back together as one. It also keeps the logo tidy and easy to read, whilst the text doesnt interfere with the other elements of the cupcake i.e. text versus case pleats.
With this final logo, I feel I met and even exceeded my expectations during the initial planning. My initial sketches in comparison were plain and lacked in colour, whilst this on-screen developed logo is bright, eyecatching and portrays everything stereotypical about cupcakes. It is contemporary and I feel it could work well on all of the businesses literature, such as letterheads, flyers and websites along with business cards and promotional materials like button badges. I also feel this logo would work well with other colour schemes, say brown and mint green to reflect a mint chocolate chip cupcake, or red and white for red velvet cupcakes. In this final development I changed the stroke of the case that created the texture and pleats of it, from a bright white to the same low opacity magenta used to make up the frosting. The white stroke stuck out like a sore thumb against this consistently pink and purple logo, and I feel the soft pink works much better whilst enhancing the logos coherence. This part of the project has also improved my knowledge and skills in Adobe Illustrator CS6. I had never used the software before so this was new territory for me, but I feel I coped well with it and developed a professional logo by beginner standards. I would like to rework this logo in the future when I have had more practice with the software to see if I can make it look even better. For a novice illustrator though, I am extremely pleased with my efforts on this logo.
I intended to use a hippy inspired font to further increase the 60s influence against a vivid purple background. The tag line, title and review quote would also be placed around Jimis minimal head outline to fill the empty space on the poster. You can see my initial sketch of the poster on the next page.
Below are some 60s-style posters, together with minimalist posters that I was inspired by in creating this poster:
Development #2 In line with my initial sketch, I started to play around with the typography of the tagline on the upper part of the poster. As this is the most substantial element of text on the poster, this was a perfect place to test out different fonts and how they looked on the poster. This poster uses a serif font, Hobo Std, which comes as standard on iMacs. This was the most 60s style font I could find in the factory font book, and whilst it gave me early ideas as to how the completed poster would look I felt this font looked cheap and unoriginal. For further development, I searched font websites online and gathered a selection of other fonts to test out. I also decided in this development that the placement of the tagline was perfect, drawing the eyes in at the top as it questions what did we never know or what havent we forgotten, so we are encouraged to read down the poster for answers.
Development #4 In the next stage of development I returned my attention to the posters typography. Against my initial ideas I decided to move away from sixties fonts, and instead try a vintage, handwritten typeface. This font is called Platform and I grabbed it from the Internet. I love the curvature of the text together with the flag warp that I applied to it as it gives a feeling of tripping on the infamous acid that went around the Woodstock festival in the film. However this text is difficult to read at a glance and together with the paisley background it becomes even more difficult. I did ask a few people what they though of this particular text and they were all in agreement that I was difficult to read, especially for a movie poster. With this in mind, I developed this further on in the process of completing my poster.
Movie Poster
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Development #7 Here is the completed Woodstock title. Overall I am pleased with this placement of the letters and glad that they fitted comfortably into the space that I had allocated for them. It made sense to make the s the most stretched letter in the centre of the afro as it allowed for four letters on both the left and right of Jimis hair. This differs from development #6 where d was the central letter. The only issue I had with this was the amount of blank space, particularly around the peace sign and the c in the latter half of the word. This is something I played around with in the closing stages of development to see if a change in positioning or warping would close off some of the black space.
Development #8 In this development, I added a purple stroke to the upper tagline text, using the Eyedropper tool to pick up the purple from the paisley backdrop. Using the Colour Palette, I toned down the purple to a darker shade to lift the text from the poster. I feel that this added dimension to the poster, and I repeated this with the lower text that was applied to the poster, later in development.
Development #10 Before tidying up some of the features mentioned in previous developments, I added the last element of the poster Jimis guitar neck moustache as illustrated in the initial sketch. I took a vector from the web of guitars and cropped it down to the neck. Using the Magic Wand tool, I selected the neck and rotated it before placing into onto Jimis face. This was then duplicated and flipped horizontally to complete his moustache. Despite the poster being minimalist, Jimis facial hair is a notable feature of his so I thought it wrong not to include it. I felt I could encode the poster with the fact that it is a music documentary by using Jimis instrument to make the hair, and it came out perfectly just as I imagined it in my initial sketch.
I also warped the c along with d and w to again close off some of the empty space. I am disappointed that these letters, especially the d came out a little blurred/pixelated as a result of the warp despite me sharpening them slightly with the Sharpen tool. However, given the time-scale I am pleased with the overall results of the title text and given more time Im sure that I could find a way around the blurred, warped letters.
Meanwhile I also solved my discomfort with the band name element of text towards the bottom-right of the poster. By Mesh warping this slightly I was able to reflect the shape of the excess headband on the left, better balancing the poster with two curved shapes on either side. Following this though, the review quote looked too uniform with its straight alignment, so I also warped this slightly to reflect its sister text on the right. Again I am pleased with the outcome of this and I feel that the poster looks much better as a result.
Overall the poster, like the other two projects, came out much better than I could have imagined using pencil and paper. The poster has been vastly improved over a number of weeks thanks to on-screen development and I couldnt be happier with the results. This is the project that I am the most proud of and I had the most fun creating this out of the three projects for this portfolio.
SAMARA, T. (2002) Making and breaking the grid: a graphic design layout workshop, Gloucester,
Mass: Rockport in MILLS, S (2012) Design Principles Intro, MEDS 2007 New Media 1: Design and Production. De Montfort University, Leicester. Available from: https://vle.dmu.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblac kboard%2Fexecute%2Fcontent%2Ffile%3Fcmd%3Dview%26content_id%3D_2644666_1%26cou rse_id%3D_389568_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue [Accessed: 10/12/12].
Hall, S. (1980) Encoding/Decoding. In Nightingale, V., and Ross, K. (eds.) (2003) Critical Readings: Media and Audiences. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Pp. 51-64.
Picture References
THE BIG PINK. (2009). A Brief History of Love album cover [Online Image]. Available from: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qKmc-GKAUkg/T_csyg6BCvI/AAAAAAAACF8/MTqTigQFdF0/s1600/Capa.jpg [Accessed 14/12/12]. BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB. (2011). A Different Kind of Fix album cover [Online Image]. Available from: http://pompeydoomcrewmusic.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/bbc-adkof.jpg?w=549 [Accessed: 14/12/12]. FRANZ FERDINAND. (2009). Tonight album cover [Online Image]. Available from: http://assets.thequietus.com/images/articles/863/franztonight_1228946907_crop_520x520.jpg [Accessed 14/12/12]. KINGS OF LEON. (2008). Only by the Night alternative album cover [Online Image]. Available from: http://stereogum.com/img/thumbnails/posts/kings_of_leon-only_by_the_night_art-uk.jpg [Accessed 14/12/12]. THE SMITHS. (1986). The Queen is Dead album cover [Online Image]. Available from: http://headphonenation.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/ts-the-queen-is-dead.jpg [Accessed 14/12/12]. FANCIE. (2011). Pink background logo [Online Image]. Available from: http://www.theswellelife.com/.a/6a00e54ef1680988330154327b51bb970c-500wi [Accessed 13/12/12]. FANCIE. (2011). Shop Front logo [Online Image]. Available from: http://www.vidlocal.co.uk/sheffield/wpcontent/themes/vidlocal-theme/timthumb.php?w=268&h=151&src=http://www.vidlocal.co.uk/sheffield/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/fancie.png [Accessed 13/12/12]. FANCIE. (2011). Cupcake selection [Online Image}. Available from: http://www.fancie.co.uk/assets/templates/fancie/images/img-caaaakes.jpg [Accessed 13/12/12]. FANCIE. ( 2011). Cut Victoria cupcake [Online Image]. Available from: http://fancie.co.uk/images/made/_assets/img/uploads/cakes/99x_212_212_c1_center_center_0_0.jpg [Accessed 13/12/12]. ALEX EYLAR, (2010). A Clockwork Orange minimalist poster [Online Image]. Available from: http://blog.imagekind.com/10-amazing-minimalist-movie-posters-by-alex-eylar-on-imagekind/ [Accessed 13/12/12]. DEVMI. (2012). Lumedia Concert minimalist poster [Online Image]. Available from: http://devmi.net/50photoshop-tutorials-for-creating-poster-designs/#.UMsAGnOLKFw [Accessed 13/12/12]. JSWoodhams. (2012). Skyfall minimalist poster [Online Image]. Available from: http://jswoodhams.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d51emqs [Accessed 13/12/12]. SAIFEE, M. (2011). The Dark Knight minimalist poster [Online Image]. Available from: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Minimalist-Movie-Poster/1527785 [Accessed 13/12/12]. WOODSTOCK. (1969) Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock [Online Image]. Available from: http://students.cis.uab.edu/townley/jimi%20woodstock.jpg [Accessed 13/12/12].
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