OUGD503 Studio Brief 03 A Brief History Of... Code Academy Relevant Information

Coding is clearly a consideration when designing a website. Up until this point I have avoided too much thought about how I was going to code this website design because I was afraid that tis would stop me from designing the website as I would asexually like it. I already know a few details from the workshop on coding that we had and small things like the fact that I want full bleed images from other students in the class who have more experience with coding.

Despite my lack of knowledge about coding, I have really enjoyed designing for web because creating a connection between my illustration style and digital design has been challenging and really interesting. 

I have spent some time on code academy going through the basics just so that I can link some of the coding knowledge I have gathered with the design elements I have decided on.

The above image is the information I found on how to insert links into the coding for interior page links and links to outside websites. This would be usable throughout my website for swapping from walk to walk and also for the navigation to exterior website that are useful for the bus time tables and the restaurant websites.

The placements of the images that form the background of the entire websites might be placed in the code as is demonstrated above. However, this may not be how to achieve full bleed images.

The basics of HTML body code are here, we covered how the style sheet in CSS would effect the appearance of this information.

Javascript would make up the majority of the coding for the website. This is because it allows interactive coding for the website. Things like the rollover buttons with the expanding boxes of information connected to the icons on each walk would have t be coded in Javascript. I would need to figure out how to get these boxes to appear for only 4 seconds or so that the text boxes don't overlap and stop them from being readable.

OUGD504 Studio Brief 04 Workshop For Print

For print based out put CMYK is the colour space you would need to work in when producing for commercial print.

when talking about commercial print-
offset litho, digital printing and screen printing.

All of the following information on the use of colour in software for these printing gout comes:

CMYK is subtractive colour (print process)
RGB additive colour created from light (on screen)

Litho printing uses CMYK on four different plates of this colour that layer on top of one another to build up a range of colours for a full colour print. When producing work it is important to think of the colours you are using as ink, before it is printed.

The two main tools for working with colour are the swatches and the colour window. You can view the w=swatches as thumbnails or for more information as a list. It is generally useful to clear all the unused swatches this can be done on the drop down menu of the swatches window.

The small coloured squares on the far right of the list symbolises the colours are part of the CMYK colour space.

It is important to check that the colour space you are working in is CMYK. Adding a swatch is as simple as selecting this option in the drop down menu, you can edit this swatch at any time by double clicking on the swatch symbol or thumbnail in the menu. 

It is possible to add colours to constructed shapes by using the colour dropper in the colour window, They can then be added as swatches as follows.

These colours are now global swatches which means that they can edit the colour of all objects in this swatch simply by editing the swatch.

You can also edit the tint of individual colours to get many variations of one colour (different from changing opacity).

The level of the new tinted swatch is then displayed in the swatch menus.

Spot colours are purpose mixed colours. Often these are used for efficiency where three spot colours can be used rather than four litho plates. These are also used to achieve brand continuity (pantone). Pantone and other spot colour libraries can be found on illustrator like so.

The search bar in the top of the swatches can be used to search reference numbers for pantone colours. You can set these as spot colours and global colours.

Once you have a swatch library you like you can save it for future usage. Specifically within illustrator.

by saving the swatches to general areas such as the desktop you can use the swatches in other adobe programs. If using a swatch library in a program like In Design then it is good to treat the colours like an image file and keep them in the same folder as the project document. It is important to save the swatches as ASE files. 

It is important to not that tints and other opacity changes cannot be imported into other programs. You would need to re make the tints in the necessary program from the original global or spot colour swatches. 

OUGD503 Responsive Studio Brief 01 Individual Practice Leeds Arts Party JuJu Flyer Responding To Crit

After the crit we had with the arts party I implemented the changes suggested and I am really happy with the result. I am just waiting on a response now.

I started to think about the fact tat it was perhaps a bit sinister for the positive activism that the arts party is all about.

Although I had already tried green and red and a few other colours I went back to this process and looked at a few more options.

White looked a lot like paint but had legibility draw backs.

I then settles on tis soft blue. While talking to some members of the party I found that the response was very positive. suggesting that it wasn't in fact too feminine but had the right mix of positivity (looked like ice cream) and edginess. 

I made the huge mistake of creating the design in RGB format even thought I knew it was for print, so when it came too sending the file over I had a momentary panic because the colours of the type didn't convert well as can be seen in the image above.

It also seemed that the opacity of the drop shadow was lost in the conversion so I spent some time reconstructing the colour with some adjustment layers and eventually got the colours below which I am happy are as close to the RGB as humanly possible. I also allowed some leeway with the opacity because Fran said that the printers tend to always make the reduced opacity lighter than it is on screen.

I will update further when I have seen the printed results.

OUGD504, OUGD503 Time Management for all Briefs

This is simply a post to highlight the fact that time management is always a factor in every brief. At the moment I am organising my time over the assessment week coming up in order to make the best of the time available. 

OUGD503 Responsive Studio Brief 01 Individual Practice Leeds Arts Party JuJu Flyer

We had a brief meeting looking at the flyer design and discussing the changes that might need to be made. Over all it was a very positive response and I got some good outlines for improvement.

A problem I cited with the back cover was how the logo was justified to the left yet the type I had put in was centrally justified. Fran said it would be fine to centrally justify the logo and we decided on the typeface bp replay which she had spotted on my wordpress digital portfolio and really liked. This means that we have a few light and bold variations for creating hierarchies on future designs.

Everyone really seemed to like the messages of the first layout of Arts Arts Arts because of the overt message it send so I will return to that but with the new hand rendered type.

We also talked about the printers (awesome merchandise.com) they have already had some post cards printed with them and the are able to create a spot shine effect. We talked about size and came to the conclusion that perhaps postcard prints would be better because of the thicker stock available (250gsm) and the spot shine options when we order over the phone. 

A previous poster design was illustrated by my friend Fran (another Fran) and we talked about getting fran to render little social media symbols rather than vectors to create more of a sense of a hand rendered house style. This could also feed into the program which we discussed at length considering this and the use of the red from the logo as the key colour.

I now simply have to put these changes into action and send off the design to be printed.

OUGD503 Responsive Studio Brief 01 Individual Practice JuJu Showcase Flyer Leeds Arts Party Brief

After The seminar we had with Danny looking at how to address our responsive brief I thought I would go back and apply the SMART guidelines to the brief and write up a full brief myself so that at the end I can evaluate the success of my design.

Brief:
Create an A5 flyer which explains what the arts party is all about and to stimulate support online and attendance to the conference its self. It is to be handed out at the JuJu showcase in the corn exchange at which we will have a stand. The target audience is mostly people that are already interested in the arts (they are already attending the showcase) across a wide range of age groups but all adult from student up. Therefore the flyer has to communicate what we do concisely because the cause is something that attendees will already be interested in.

The arts party have a possible arrangement with a commercial printers so when designing I have to consider digital print methods but create a hand made and crafted look because this fits with the arts focussed theme of the arts party. (could this be achieved through stock choices?) 

My motivations for doing this brief are three fold. Great exposure for my work in the arts circles, the brief is relaxed and allows creative freedom, it offers a chance to work with a commercial printers.

Time restrains are quite a problem in this brief. When I was first contacted the only outline was 'in the next few days' however, the showcase is not for another two weeks so I have implemented a time limit of a week to be print ready. This means actually hand making the flyer will be impossible so I will need to consider suggesting this look.

The email I received is shown below.

OOUGD503 Visiting professional Talk Feathr Wallpaper Design

Tom From Feathr wallpaper came in to talk about what their company does and how we can get involved. The specialise in small amounts of wallpaper made for people who want something really different. They want something ground breaking and different, that is why they are briefing graphic design students rather than surface pattern students.

They provide support for their designers and the designs are always the property of the designers, ownership is never transfered. They print their wall paper digitally so some colours can be a bit difficult like bright neons and metallics. However, if you really want to do something specific he said just to get in contact and ask about it.

He talked through the target market profile that they had put together. The was a 30-45 age bracket, possible first or second home owners, either way looking at making their home individual and are okay with spending a little bit more (£70 ish ) either way it should be an expression of individuality and a conversation starter.

Consider the scale and the distance at which the paper will be viewed, let the pattern change from different distances. Consider the depth of the design, don't always think in two dimensions, this will add depth to smaller spaces. Consider highlights and low lights and how they direct the eye around the paper.

The repeat of the wallpaper is 53cm by 10m but consider the average langth of a wall and how this will effect the display of the pattern.

The specs for submission are here.http://www.feathr.com/images/uploads/Feathr_-_The_Brief.pdf