OUGD404 Design Principles Grids Lecture

The lecture we had on grids was mostly definitions and terms used when producing printed publications, this will help me to create the final layout designs for this brief.

Book- a collection of pages bound together. (the basic nature of this definition opens up a lot of creative production possibilities that I may want to take into consideration during the research and design stages of this brief.
Many different types of materials can be bound together, not only paper can be used to make a book. Like any other aspect of design the choice of binding type and materials is completely dependent on context and purpose.
Leaves- each sheet is individually known as a leaf when bound in a book.
Page- Both the front and back of a leaf are known as pages.
Spread is two pages facing one another, the right=recto and the left=verso.
The gutter is the space down the centre of a spread that is allowed for during the design of the grid so that binding doesn't hind information.
Creep- The curve in a bound page that emanates from the gutter.

The golden section/rule appears through design and nature. it follows the idea that if you take a perfect square out of a golden rectangle, you are left with another golden rectangle. A paper sizes relate to this in that it maintains a constant ratio as it reduces because one side always matches the width of the next.

The thing that really sets books apart from other mediums is the sequential communication of information that originated in the book format and has been taken on into new technological realms such as websites.

This information is vital to creating a set of layouts that work as a coherent hole, because each and every aspect of the layout will be considered.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 01 Submission

I made the submission of my origami face design as seen below.

I also added a rational which can be found below.

The starting point for his design was the lyrics 'money like paper with faces', from which the origami aesthetic was established. I wanted to achieve a darkly appealing affect and from research I found that taking something familiar and changing it to become something unfamiliar, is always more unsettling than something completely alien from the outset. So, I took one of the most familiar and every day things, the human face, and played with confusing the eye, making it unfamiliar. Both these things combine to make the tone of the piece, yet it is the message which provides the back bone of this design. What struck me about the song was the complexity of meaning and the many different possibilities for different analytical outcomes, depending on the listener. This depth and complexity of meaning, with a darkly appealing aesthetic is what I have attempted to convey. This was done not only through the suggestion of the face sinking into the oily substance in the background and the many silhouettes of other faces within the initial design. Can you see them all?

OUGD406 Studio Brief 01 Deciding on the Final Design

 During the final crit I brought a number of different versions of the designs so that I could get peoples opinions as to which one to submit. 

After asking several people I decided on the satin print of the black nail varnish as shown below.

Generally I am happy with this design, it fulfils the criteria of what I set out to create. The oily background creates a sinister tone because of its dark colours and connotations of pollution. The depth of meaning found in the song is clearly communicated by the faces with faces design which simultaneously creates a trippy and strange quality to the design which communicate the essence not only of the song but the genre within which massive attack works. The juxtaposition of the reality the photograph media makes and the surrealism of the simple line drawing, disrupts compared to a continuous media throughout the design. In turn this slightly unsettles the onlooker because the different mediums have to be worked out, they are not simple to discern.

If I am unhappy with anything it is the fact that the design seems quite smiler to the disclosure branding, which I did not realise until after I had produced the design. Although this is true I am glad I pursued this design to the end because it meant I got to grips with the screen printing process and photography, generally learning a lot more than I would have, had I just played with illustration.

If I could change anything it would be the face added at the top in profile. I feel it is just too obvious and doesn't fit with the other subtle ones. However, arguably it unlocked the design, opening the door foe the onlooker to notice the other faces, without which the design would be meaningless.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 01 Illustrative Design Development

As well as the origami face design I went on to develop some of the other concepts. The newton's cradle concept attracted a lot of attention in the interim crit so I wanted to develop it a little further. I started to experiment with illustration styles and how they might be applied to the idea. Although originally I wanted to photograph a newton's cradle and photoshop it into melting in some way, as I had sketched it for the interim crit. However, this was not possible because I could not get hold of a newtons cradle in time to take my own photos, which would be the ono way to get a high enough quality image.

I tried out creating the origami aesthetic that I had played with in the vector graphics earlier in the project. I did this by adding angular lines which were dictated by the shapes of the cradle. 

I then did the same on the interior and decided the different light sources for the exterior and interior of the illustration. This was an attempt to separate the background and the cradle so that it can be more easily identified. To increase this I used pencil on the outside lines and pen cross hatching on the interior lines. I like the way this create a refracted and abstract aesthetic that fits well with the darkly appealing look I want to achieve and the Massive Attack identity. I think I may submit this design or something like it at least as well as the fully developed origami face design.

In my original ideas generation stage I came up with a few ideas surrounding the 'seven magpies for a secret never to be told' superstition. In order to do this I wanted an illustrated aesthetic to help capture the slightly surreal essence of the song which would not work with the realism and sharpness of a photograph or a vector graphic. I experimented with ink illustrations as can be seen below. It was very hard to control where the ink went when blown and produced an unsatisfactory mess. Although I like the concept, I really don't feel like this experiment has produced anything productive. At least it has allowed me to come to some kind of conclusion with this concept. It just seems less promising than the other ideas I have pursued.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 01Screen Printing

Along with printing the photographs I took earlier I got the positives of the vector graphic printed so I could experiment with screen printing onto the different types of paper.

I was unsure if the thin lines of the original mock up would work as a screen print or be too thin and delicate so I did a version with thinker lines just in case. These were both on the same screen so that I didn't have to pay extra.

When the screen was exposed I found that there was a little bit of a problem with the delicate lines in the eye of the thinner design. This turned out to be a floor in the printing that was soon solved by using the power washer to get all to the unset screen out.

I mixed two lots of paint, one white and one silver. the proportions of the white pigment had to be about 60% 40% so that the density of the white could be enough on the black images. The silver pigment was made of powdered paint which made the reflective surface better once printed.

I did a lot of tests on numerous different types of paper including the matt and satin photo paper. I had to put masking tape around some of the individual prints on the screen so that the ink could not get through. Although I used an acrylic based paint like the technician suggested but the satin paper still cased a bit of trouble. I found it stuck to the underside of the screen in such a way that meant that the print could smudge when removed, so everything had to be done carefully to get a good print.

OUGD406 Studio brief 01 Photographing Background Textures

As previously mentioned I wanted to achieve an oils background for the origami face design I have produced and possibly further experimentation with other ideas. I knew I wanted a thick viscous texture and so I got a 180mm macro lens from the photography department and started to experiment with photographic metallic nail varnish. 

Because the field of focus for the macro lens was so shallow I found i could not photograph from the side as this mean half of the shot was out of focus no matter what I tried. So eventually I settled on this set up so that the lens was as close as possible but also directly parallel.

I tried a number of shots with a glittery metallic nail varnish, altering the aperture, iso and exposure to get the colouring and tone I wanted and I do really like the curls and ripples in the photo but it seems far too cheery for massive attack and just doesn't have the oily look I was after.

These two are my most successful shots. I made the change to high gloss black nail varnish and found that it provided mush more of the aesthetic I was looking for. 

However, I had some difficulty getting these curves and reflections. The nail varnish, when poured onto a flat surface went completely flat its self, so that very little reflection and gleam could be found.

 So, I solved this by setting the timer on the camera and swishing the nail brush through the varnish to get the effect you can see above. the difference between the colouring of the top and bottom photo was me playing with the white balance and found that setting it to florescent lighting produced the most satisfactory results. I will go on to have these printed in digital print on some different papers to see how this changes the affect of them.

OUGD404 Design Principles Brief 02 Session

We were asked to get into our groups and present the research we had done science the last session. Once we had done this we narrowed down the question to 5 definite ones and then separately chose another 5 topics which we personally wanted to find out about. My list is as follows:

- Serif and Sans serif the battle

- Anatomy of type and how it effects legibility and readability.

- Italics rules of creation.

-Colour schemes and how to create them.

- Colour modes and how they apply to print.

- Colour associations and colour psychology.

-  Chronologies of type.

- Web layout design and web safe colour.

- Grids and how they work.

- Colour gamuts.

I will go on to research the second five later in the week ready for next session.