Friday, 30 September 2016

Accessibility

Image result for dyslexia fontsCan you read this?









Image result for dyslexia fontsA graphic designer, with dyslexia, has designed a font to show the difficulty of reading with dyslexia. When you try to reform the letters to make the words, and can no longer skim read, it takes ten times longer to read it - which is embarrassing. This was Daniel Britton’s intention - for people to understand the most common learning disability. This, however, to hard to test as what fonts may work for some, it won't work for others.

Disabled people have to be considered when anything is produced or published. It helps your work to reach a wider audience, shows that you care, but, mostly importantly, avoids any discrimination.

Considering this - how far do we have to take this? If you publish a poster, how can you avoid people who are short-sighted not seeing anything? Do we have to make Mount Everest wheelchair accessible? How is it even possible to create a poster or app eligible for all disabilities? I think the best way to see how people react to different, is getting some secondary research. I didn't think there'd be any, but there was.

(Link to essay - coming soon)

Friday, 23 September 2016

My Typographic Poster: Final

I did the finishing touches of my poster today. After feedback, there were a couple of tweaks I wanted to make. Firstly, the 'funnel' look of the text looked like it should lead to something, so I made the comma go at the bottom. This lead to something, and flowed better, but I still had some ideas for changes. I also changed the position of the 'Albert Einstein'.

Next, I rearranged the text completely, so I looked more like a block. I find this easier to read. I really liked this, but I did one thing to change. The red 'corrections' seemed really clustered, so I erased the comma correction, and made it a full stop. This made it a little simpler. I also added my own copyright - something I need to get used to, really.

This was the final outcome, which I'm really please with. Printed out it looks really good, simplistic and clear. The idea behind it is clear and clever - something I aimed for.

Hand-drawing Type

First, I thought about what sanctuary means to me. I started to think of gates, into a sanctuary, and the word popping out of the gate, but I didn't like the designs on paper. They seemed a little basic to me, so I thought about fonts. A way to be creative with the font and design, I realised, was putting the font into the gate, and have the rest of the text underneath. I'm still playing with it, and perfecting my final text and designing, so stay tuned.


Today, we learned about drawing fonts, to get creative with text in your own. I like designing font as it's personal, and can fit whatever you're trying to design perfectly. I did start looking at fonts online, and sketching them out, until I just started sketching my own. These were really fun to design and copy, and I know I can keep adding to this page throughout my book. It's also a really useful skill to have as a publisher, to show clients exactly
what you can imagine - something you can't do through Abode.

I decided to design the fonts in black, white and grey to start, so I could get to grips with the differences. I added colours to the page to look pretty.

Next, we had a task: either design a psychedelic poster, or a personal tattoo. This really excited me, as I have actually designed tattoos (drafts, mind you) for my friends. So, I chose to design myself a tattoo based from one of my favourite quotes: "Sanctuary: a small, safe place in a troubling world." Personally, I always prefer basic tattoos, so if I were to get the tattoo I would probably get it in typewriter font. However, I wanted to be a little more creative, so I designed a more abstract tattoo.

When I think of sanctuary, I thought of places - and private places at that. This made me think of gates (like in private areas), so I started to sketch different gates, until I came up with the right-hand photo design. This is an overhead gate with words made into the top. I liked this idea and it suited the text also - which was a basic, serif, hand-drawn font.

I decided to make this digital to complete it, but I like to put things into Procreate in my iPad (mostly because it was expensive), so I ill write another blog post updating you on that.

Thursday, 22 September 2016

My Infographic Poster

As soon as I got my sketchbook, I started to doodle thumbnail ideas for my poster. These went from very basic - how the text will look, and where - to more detailed as I got more of an idea. I wanted my design to mean something and link to the words on the paper. I chose the quotes 'Never start with a clean piece of paper' and 'Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new'. I thought I could play with these quotes and designs more.

I, then, blew up the ideas I like the more on my 'thought' page. This helped me to get to grips with what I had thought up, and see which one I enjoy the most.

The first was the top left design, where a sentence stops and the word surrounding it completes the sentence. I think it's one of the more complicated ones, which catches your eye. This was inspired by this 'wreck the journal' page, one similar to one I had when I was younger.

The next idea was ripping the paper. I though about when I make mistakes on paper I tend to rip up the page, and start on a fresh one. What if you turned those pieces over, wrote or drew the back and stuck them together? You'd get a messy, disorientated look which I thought was unique and clever. However, to put it together digitally would be hard, and to physically put it together would be a risk because it wouldn't have that attractiveness.

Next, I liked the idea of smudging ink blots. I thought of smudging words and using fingerprint smudges to create the messy look, while it possibly being pleasing to the eye, too. I knew putting this together in Procreate would be fun as there's so many brushes out there for this kind of effect. However, it would be minimalistic.

Finally, my most classic idea was a marked poster. You know when you've stayed up until 1AM to complete an essay that's due in the morning, and you get it back and it's more red pen than actual paper? I thought of this for the mistake quote, and it'll be full of mistakes. Just to give effect. Again, minimalistic but I would blow up the text, and make it easy to read (despite the grammar corrections).

I went with my final idea, which turned out like this. I'm happy with the outcome as it's simple, but looks really good and I like the font.


Exploring Typographic Posters and Books

Firstly, again starting with research, I wanted to see some classic examples of typographic book cover and posters. I looked at examples from the early 60's, as nowadays mostly photography or artwork is used, with some exceptions.

Image result for typographic book covers 1960
Image result for typographic book covers 1960
I simply typed in the Google search to see, firstly what came up. There were covers with old, bold text, and some with smaller text but nothing else, and some with drawings as the font to create a bit of fun. This one here caught my eye first, however. We had worked on Mary Shelley's work last week, and, even though it is a version of her book, I found the typography interesting. The letters are almost jumbled and look very gothic, especially with the colours, and this relates to the content and genre of the book. I found it really fascinating that something as simple as letters - no drawings or pictures - could relate to the book.

There were also other examples I enjoyed. Such as, the 'Cheeses of the World' cover. I found this interesting because there were drawings, but they were designed in with the font. This is a really creative and less subtle way to link to the book cover itself, and, again, there's minimal colour.

There was a Canadian teacher and philosopher, Marshall McLuhan, who wrote the books The Medium is the Massage, and Understanding Media. He believed it was the media, and not the content, should be the focus of study. He explained this using a lightbulb. A lightbulb is a medium with no content (like a newspaper with no articles), yet it stills enables for people to see light when there would be dark. A lightbulb creates an environment without any content, much like a newspaper could create an atmosphere without content (articles).

This relates to typographic posters and covers, as you could remove the content (book pages) and it still creates an atmosphere, and is almost content itself.

I, then, looked at 60's inspired posters. There was a small project done by someone online, where they took modern brands, and advertised them 60's style. I thought this was really interesting, as they have used 60's styles, such as using helvetica (which was on the rise) and retro colours. This helped me think of my colour schemes that I'm going to use.

Next, I will post a blog post with my idea, sketches and final draft. I plan to design this with Procreate at home.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan
https://www.behance.net/gallery/33585031/Modernistic-1960s-Advertisements-Typography-Posters

Frankenstein

For another project, I had to create an infographic of Mary Shelley - the writer of 'Frankenstein'. Not many, including me, hadn't heard of this woman or her story, only the one she had produced. However, I had to huge advantage: I lived in the city she had finished the world-wide famous story in.

Key facts I found about Mary were that:

- she was a known author
- she drafted Frankenstein in Switzerland on a retreat.
- her half-sister, Claire Clairmont and her lover, Lord Byron, were also present.
- she had another half-sister called Fanny.
- Fanny committed suicide in Bristol
- her father tried to keep the suicide quiet while in London.
- she completed Frankenstein in Bath, 5 Abbey Churchyard (which no longer exists).
- her husband was Percy Shelley, a poet.
- his wife, Harriet, committed suicide in Hyde Park, London, whilst pregnant with their child.
- Mary, Claire and Percy had eloped together, so when they returned they had to hide from certain people.
- she was inspired by the electrical experiments on corpses at the time, by scientists such as Giovanni Aldini.

Before setting out to take pictures of historic place she may have been in, I wanted to conclude my own research.

I also found a tour around Bath I was thinking of attending to take photos for my infographic - only issue is that it takes place after my deadline.

Next, I should be able to create and detail my own infographic, seeing the information I have gathered here (and the pictures).

Sources:
http://www.shmoop.com/mary-shelley/timeline.html
https://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/misc/shelleysites/england/Bath/Bath.html
https://www.insidescience.org/news/science-made-frankenstein

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Folklore Logo

Last week, we had to create a logo for a folklore museum. So, I started at the beginning - research. We were given napkins and stained paper to doodle ideas on, and this was to help spark our creativity. I started to research folk itself, and the main thing I found was folktales and old legends. I doodled some ideas and then moved on to the audiences I was trying to attract - families and researchers. From this, I decided my logo would be colourful to attract kids, but also sophisticated enough so it wouldn't seem childish.

From this, I focused on the idea of researchers and doodled some more - until I thought of quills. Back in time, they recorded everything so we could create museums and find evidence. So, I doodled these into a logo.

I put this into digital form, so I could play with fonts and colours. I didn't like the font I drew, so I decided to play with this on my iPad in Procreate. The first design I had bold, old-timey font that I didn't like, so I decided to go for something more 'swirly' and fitting.

This next one, I liked a lot as the text suited the drawing, and it looked sophisticated. Next, I had to add colour, and I added a background colour to attract family audiences, and then some colours to the quills to make it more exciting. I let the feathers overlap the circle of blue to create a relaxed look.

Overall, I'm happy with the outcome, and I'm happy with the doodles and 'fuzzy thoughts' I had for it to lead up to what I created.

Thursday, 15 September 2016

First week

Back for a final year at college, and it's different already. Everyone's chosen their paths with this media course, as have I. I am now in a publishing class, which we plan to design, print, copy, present, and more. We had an introduction to the course, which is easy to refer back to if I ever need re-focusing.

Next, we got familiarised with the equipment in the studio. We had to take photos of others, and set up the lighting and set, so we can add our own photos to our projects and articles, etc. We all had a blue backdrop, and used two lights - one pointed at the backdrop and one aimed at us. My photo (my google picture) was really well lit and focused, and I didn't have to do much editing apart from cropping and being extra fussy with levels.

Finally, we got given an exercise to kick-start our brains. We were given a product, and had to find a way to sell it and make profit. We were given the product of a UV wristband that changed colour in sunlight or UV bulbs. In a group we came up with ideas such as using them for events at nightclubs or bars, or even having them as collectibles. Our best idea was a 'warning' band for over-exposure to sunlight. Fun for kids and reassuring to adults. Next week we will receive projects and more exercises.