OUGD504 - Design for print - prototype development and artwork design

OUGD504 - Design for print - prototype development with designs

Following on from my initial net assembly session and idea generation, I have decided to do a Russian-doll/ pass the parcel style print pack. I have decided on my three boxes: the massive octagon box (no 8 in initial ideas), the rose box inside of it (box 3), a butterfly-top box inside of that (box 4) and inside of that, a never-ending card design. In this post I will show how I have experimented and developed the boxes and card so they have the correct dimensions for each other and have amended the shapes to work more effectively. 

Never ending Card Design

I started with the smallest of features ... the never ending card design. I wanted to ensure that this vital piece was an appropriate size for user interactivity, that there was enough space for some cool features and that it wasn't too small for wear and tear.

I decided that the size should be 100mm by 100mm to fulfil all these points. I printed off and assembled a mini- prototype off the internet to help me understand how it worked and how to design the artwork for it.

Then, to the correct dimensions, I created a really rough prototype with some faint sketches to work out what would go where!

Development of the artwork for this can be found here.

Butterfly box

I loved the opening mechanism of this box when I first assembled it - so that's all that I salvaged from the original design... 

I just made it a tiny, short box - but I found that the lid, although the same size as the walls, was too flimsy and needed to be taller. This prototype was out of paper, meaning it would only be worse in the final card design.

So I made the opening mechanism walls a lot deeper - higher than the walls of the box itself when opened. Somehow, when flipped over, the walls don't touch the bottom of the box. I had to make sure that the height and volume of the new design was no higher than the volume of the Rose box! Because they were all similar shapes IE cubes, it wasn't as difficult as previously thought. I just had to keep printing off different sizes and pick which fitted the best in terms of height, and widths were calculated just using measurements.

This deeper opening mechanism was a lot easier to open by my peers and withstood handling opening and closing multiple times.

Development of the artwork for this can be found here.

Fitting Butterfly box inside of Rose Box

As you can see - the Butterfly box with it's deeper walls and new dimensions means that it fits perfectly sideways (the way I have chosen to do it in the Octagon box with the Rose box) inside of the Rose Box.

Rose Box

Named after its opening/ closing mechanism, this box needed a lot of work. The hooks didn't reach each other, and I didn't really care for the thorn design on the edges:

Multiple flimsy paper print-outs later, I had rounded and accentuated the hooks, and made the walls they are attached to larger, as I found this meant they could reach each other better.

I also changed it from a rectangular based box to a square box, and changed the dimensions to fit snugly inside of the large Octagon box.

However, once I had finished I realised that I had changed the opening mechanism completely from it's original image in the book I retrieved it from. Each of the hooks once hooks over the hook on it's left and so on. Now, I had changed it to two layers of two hooks interlinking.

This meant that I could create a design that had a 2-part reveal feature! IE, open first layer, reveal second layer.

The inside of the box still needs work - it doesn't sit flat very well!

I wanted this box to be the second box - IE the first box the user sees inside of the initial packaging. This meant that not only must it fit snugly inside the Octagon, but also accommodate the smaller butterfly packaging.

Development of the artwork for this can be found here.

Octagon Box

The Octagon box didn't need much changing about it, other than scale. However, that's easier said than done!

To accommodate the 100mm x 100mm never ending card design inside of the butterfly box, inside of the rose box inside it, the Octagon when flat had to be about A1 in size! I decided to wedge everything in side on, so it wouldn't rattle around.

In the image above I am calculating how much room, realistically my Octagon box would give, whilst considering size of folds, and a mm or two for stock etc.

Development of the artwork for all of these pieces can be found here.

OUGD503 - Responsive Session 1

Introduction to Responsive Sessions

For the first part of the module in the run up to Christmas, you need to obtain and complete a minimum of 5 substantial briefs. Within this there needs to be 1 brief that has a longer deadline and has a good body of work required to keep you busy that you can use in sessions up until Christmas.
Document EVERYTHING!

Extra websites to look at for competition briefs:

• Talenthouse
• The Dieline Awards
• YCN

What do I want to get out of this module?

A sense of time management and discipline 

• Time is money - use it wisely!

Using effective professional communication

• understanding realistic time scales and be able to estimate them for a client, know how to bring it to a close when the time is right. 
• do what I say I'm going to do for a client and not drag out the worktime.
• Working out how much to charge a client.

How not to get exploited!

• Charging people
• being firm with clients that this is your PROFESSION not a favour!
• Creative compromise

Be a more confident designer - have the reassurance that I'm not just a student.

• Improve my analysis of new briefs

Develop myself as a designer

• Develop my portfolio
• Find more out about my personal interests and strengths
• Start to network and get contacts in industry

Why do you think live and competition briefs are useful?

Getting professional work experience as a freelancer

• Practice for working quickly and to a high standard
• Gain confidence in my work
• Developing a clearer / more effective working practice

Real World Benchmarking

• See real world demands of clients
• Gain feeback from real world audience
• Be able to gauge the standard of work of the real world in the same projects as me as opposed to just my peers

Gaining professional practice skills

• Emailing language skills
• Pantone referencing

Exposure and networking my work

Why did I choose the briefs I chose?

• My style could be applied
• My skills could be used
• I am familiar with the target audience
• Offer a feasible challenge with an opportunity to grow as a designer
• Creative scope/ freedom to do something I want

The 8 questions of brief analysis:

For the dissection of a brief, the following 8 questions need to be asked in order to understand it more clearly:

1. What is the problem?
2. What is the brief asking you to do about it?
3. What is the brief trying to achieve?
4. Who will benefit?
5. What is the message?
6. Who is the audience?
7. How will the message be delivered?
8. Can you foresee any problems with this?

In groups, we applied the 8 questions to a brief we were given. Ours was a campaign request from paper supplier Fedrigoni.

• What is the problem?

The company feels that they are perceived in a way that doesn't suit them.

• What is the brief asking you to do about it?

Create a campaign that changes the current feel of the company to be more fun and playful to potential customers.

• What is the brief trying to achieve?

To transform the current identity of the company to appeal to their customers more.

• Who will benefit?

Customers will be offered a range of services they weren't aware of.

• What is the message?

Fedrigoni is fun!

• Who is the audience?

'Printers across the UK'

• How will the message be delivered?

'Campaign' - not specified.

• Can you foresee any problems with this?

Are they asking for a concept or final product? 

How can we obtain samples - the brief says we're not allowed but can have some if our design is chosen?

Does the concept of 'fun' actually appeal to the target audience?!

Task for next session:

Pick a brief that is substantial and that you're willing to happily work on for a long time.

This task can be found here.

OUGD503 - Responsive - studio brief 1 - individual practice

Responsive Session 1

Studio Brief 1

Using the list of websites provided below, identify and respond to a range of competition briefs that reflect your emerging creative interests and professional ambitions within Graphic Design. You will need to select one main brief that will become the focus of the taught sessions and studio workshops for the duration of this brief.In addition to this you will need to select a number of smaller/quicker briefs that will allow you to demonstrate your ability to develop effective responses within professionally realistic deadlines.

When selecting and responding to briefs you will need to consider the following:

• How do you balance what you want to do, design or produce with what the brief requires?

• Do the briefs offer enough breadth and scope for the development of a range of responses while at the same time allowing you to focus your practice?

• What are the realistic timescales for completing the brief? Are you working to these?

• Have you clearly identified what the problem is before you start?

• Where is the challenge in the brief and what will you get out of doing it?

• What do you need to present and how will you present it?

• These questions should underpin the decisions that you make and will form the basis of the studio workshops

Coincidentally, all briefs chosen were off of one site : designcontest.com
Firstly, my decisions to choose these briefs was based on the fact that each of these had a longer deadline than a week - there's no point in choosing one I don't have time to even start! The reasons I chose each individual one are underneath each of the titles below:


First brief chosen:

'website footer artwork/drawing'

https://www.designcontest.com/other-design/httpwww.bidet-toilet-seat.com/

Contest Brief

Project description

This drawing will be at the footer of my website. It will be a progression from Monkey to modern man, regarding bathroom use and the final man who now uses a water cleaning device after going to the bathroom.

I have included an example of the style I am looking for, file name "Footer example", but please no stick drawings like you see in the drawing of small people.

The background color would be RBG 51, 51, 51 or #333333, but I would also like the choice of having it on a off white or white background too.

What I an not looking for is drawings of people sitting on a toilet, wiping or squatting going to the bathroom.

This is a list of progression ideas for you to start with. The Monkey would start on the left ending with the modern man on the right.

1. Monkey/Ape

2. Caveman/Homoerectus scratching his head

3. Neanderthal holding leaf with a confused look on his face.

4. 250 years ago man holding corncob with pain on his face.

5. 100 years ago man holding newspaper with yikes look on his face.

6. Modern man holding a roll of toilet with some of the paper hanging down, with a sad look on his face.

7. Today's modern man holding a Remote with a smart look and big smile on his face. That image name is "remote".

Please be creative and keep it fun and let me know if you have any questions. If you would like to learn about this device, please look at the image called "Device".

I chose this one because I know that illustration is one of my passions / strong points and so the idea of doing something fun, comical and illustrative appeals to me as a designer. The challenge for me would be doing something that is suitable for the web, as it is not one of my strong points - I know little about it... It will be presented digitally onto the site with close ups of the design.

Second Brief Picked:

'La Magdala'

http://www.designcontest.com/logo-design/jewelry-brandmark-needed/brief/

Contest Brief

Project description

We need a brandmark (logo) for our company La Magdala. The product will be objects of antiquity that are used in handmade jewelry. Obviously, the brand has religious connections. We need an old world style illustrated mark that will represent the brand. The name translated means Mary Magdalene or The Magdalene. We would like to incorporate Religous Iconology and Symbology into the logo. But the main part of the logo needs to have the Mary Magdalene icon which is on her tomb (see the attached image marymagdala.jpeg, its the MS letters). I have attached the images for your viewing. Must be a vector illustration.

Thanks!

I chose this brief because contextually, I'm good at keeping to historical styles and the challenge would be modernising it for a contemporary brand. The fact that it's something girly like jewellery appeals to me.

Third Brief Chosen:

'Gmünder Gartenwelten'

http://www.designcontest.com/logo-design/gmunder-gartenwelten/brief/

Contest Brief

Project description

This Company will be a gardening company whose CEO is a 25 year old guy. He's just finished all his gardening-shools and wants to come up as an entrepreneur. Helping people out in gardening-work, mowing the lawn,cutting plants, to plant new plants&flowers, cutting the hedge and whatever a young and motivated gardener does:-)

As the company car is gonna be a brown pick-up VW amarok (just like the ground of a yard/garden) we would love to have a logo that contains a lot of green color (just like the grass). It should be modern and easy to recognize.

Thanks a lot for ur help and some nice and awesome logos!

Feel free to do whatever u want.

The target audience for this brief is around my age range, the company itself is around my age range, and the brief describes something illustrative and so this brief appeals to me.

Fourth Brief Chosen:

http://www.designcontest.com/logo-design/local-festival-logo-required/brief/

Contest Brief

Project description

For a local 2-day music festival, we are in need of realy cool logo design.
The festival aims to attract a mature adience (30-40-50 years old) on the first day, the second day will be focussing on a younger audience with local bands, dj's and dance acts.

We are looking for a logo that will look appealing for both age groups, nothing too sophisticated, but eye-catching, fresh and some kind of "less is more" design.
Colors to be used are blue and yellow as these are the colors of our hometown. Off course you can use these any way you want and combine with other colors (black, grey, ...).

The words that the logo needs to contain is:
1. The name of the festival: "Vijfhoekfeesten" (this is Dutch and contains two words; "vijfhoek", which means pentagon and "feesten", which means party/festival)
2. it should also contain in a very very small font (not to striking): POWERED BY MC - This is legally required, but it has to be as small as possible!

3. The date of the festival (15-16 Augustus 2014) - if you choose to embedd this into the logo, please make sure we can adapt this easily, so we can reuse the logo for a next edition.

looking forward to see some designs....

I chose this brief because I have attended a few music festivals and know the kind of market, not restricted by age but by style, that this would best suit.

Fifth Brief Chosen:

http://www.designcontest.com/logo-design/tinyhippo/brief/

Contest Brief

Project description

TinyHippo is a new media agency, that produces tv, commercials, radio, print, web etc. We expect custom fonts being made, custom graphics and a brilliant idea.
One single note/idea; perhaps the two pp's could be the butt of the Hippo? But not necessarily.

The challenge of this brief for me would be the minimalistic style as my style is more elaborate but I think it might be interesting getting over this initial problem for me.

OUGD504 - Design for Print and Web - Creative Suite session 1

CMYK printing colours

Lighter colours are usually printed first, like cyan or yellow. The inks are clear but when printed on the paper gain their colour. Key is usually printed last.

Colour in Adobe Illustrator

Tips for using colour - Swatches

In the swatches palette, you can view the name and CMYK numbers of your personal swatches by viewing in 'small list view'

The new swatch button

New swatch palette

Or create a new swatch using the colour palette

To add multiple colours as swatches go to the swatches menu and select 'add used colours'. This adds all colours in the document to the swatches palette.

If you only want to add a few, you can select them all together, then go down to the drop down menu and select 'add selected colours'

The difference between the cut corner and grey box icons in the swatches

And those without

Is that the grey boxed and corner cut swatches are 'global'.

This means that there is a link between the swatch and any object that it's applied to, meaning that the object will update when I edit the swatch. The global checkbox can be unchecked at any time.

Global colours only allow to change the tint of the CMYK colour in the colour palette. We can make swatches from the different swatches:

The name 'process colours' refers to CMYK and the 4 plate printing process.

Spot colour is a pre mixed ink - the colour of it is not made by combining CMYK. Spot colour is used when specific colours are wanted because of expense. The less printing plates you require, the cheaper the job will cost.

Spot colours are also used when metallic, fluorescent or an exclusive colour is needed. To mix a spot colour, either the CMYK numbers or reference number, such as a Pantone number, is used for the printer to reproduce exactly.

To access the Pantone colour library, go to the swatches menu, go to Open Swatch Library then to Colour Books. 

To help finding a colour, either type in the name or the number into the finder box. To display the finder box go onto the drop down menu and check Show Find Field:

NEVER change the name of a colour on the Pantone palette as this will be impossible to reference to the printer.

Spot colours have a spot in a box as opposed to a grey box to show that they are a spot colour.

Your swatch palette is automatically saved to the document you're working on. But what happens if you want to use the swatch palette on a different document? Or on Photoshop? Or InDesign?

Go to the swatch menu and select Save Swatch Library as AI

Like installing a typeface, the swatches palette saved will be consistent on every computer you use.

To use your saved swatches in any document, even new ones, go to the swatches menu, Open Swatch Library, User Defined and it will be there to use!

To have a cross - application swatch library, save as ASE not AI. And save in the same place you keep your images, fonts etc.

 DO NOT SAVE in the Illustrator folder on the computer.

To use different tints of a spot colour is a lot cheaper than using separate spot colours and even cheaper than using CMYK printing plates.

OUGD504 - Design for print - self initiated critique and resolutions 29/10

Self Initiated Crit 29th Oct 2013

Because we have no scheduled critiques any time soon, I decided that we should get together and help each other out and plan a crit ourselves.

I messaged everyone from the class on Facebook and arranged to meet today to discuss our ideas and give reviews and suggestions for one another.

People who attended the crit:

1. Sarah Butler
2. Sarah Goldthorpe
3. Sean Connolly
4. Caitlin Walsh 
5. Jamie Pudsey

When it was my turn, I pitched my idea:

'Posh Pass the Parcel'

Layers and layers of different printed materials, concluding with an 'infinity card' - with the message that print is endlessly fun. As interactive as possible, including laser cut, scratch card vinyl, thermo-chromatic ink, foil and flocking. A special gift to own that will be cherished by designers and print enthusiasts alike.

Feedback I got:


Sarah Butler

• Will it act as informative or showing viewer?
• Might need a conterpoint inclusive book
• Might be too much information to have on the boxes
• The interactivity of the product will set it apart from others

Although it will be informative, it is more intended as a keepsake with the idea of having a function. It's not necessarily something you'd refer to in an emergency!
The information will be printed on the 'boxes' and will be readable once they are unravelled and laid flat.

Sarah Goldthorpe

• Infinity card and endless possibilities of print is genius!
• Make the letters out of chocolate? - real pass the parcels have sweets/ chocolate in them
• Keep boxes minimal - 3 to 5 boxes because like 10 boxes will bore the viewer.

I really like the chocolate idea but the end product will be a keepsake and so I wouldn't want anything that is disposable and therefore make the product incomplete once consumed. 

Sean Connolly

• What stock are you going to use?
•  Can it be put back together? 
• Has to be useable.
• Who is your audience?

The boxes will be re-attachable and able to be re-assembled and so the product will be reusable. The audience are print enthusiasts and designers alike.

Caitlin Walsh

• How to package?
• Where will it be sold?
• You need to do loads of prototypes to ensure it works!!

The packaging is itself - perhaps the outer layer will be sturdy enough to withstand storage? It would either be sold online on print/creative websites like Etsy.com and Ohsobeautifulpaper.org but also be available in shops such as Paperchase and Waterstones.

Jamie Pudsey

• Sounds ambitious! It's an incredibly unique idea. It would involve a lot of work.
• Not that practical though - how can people refer to it?
• Who's your audience?
• Do lots of prototypes.

Although it will be informative, it is more intended as a keepsake with the idea of having a function. It's not necessarily something you'd refer to in an emergency!

Questions I need to answer/ resolve:

What stock is going to be used?

How can it be packaged?

OUGD504 - Design Production - Design for web - Studio brief 2 - workshop 1

Web introductory workshop and written workshop sessions 

Aims of session:

• Web standards and limitations

Acronyms, Abbreviations etc.
Designing for the lowest common denominator

• Layout
• Setup
• Basic coding

Limitations 

• Originally there were only 216 web safe colours - now computers can host over 6mil colours!

What's a Favicon?
Favicon is a little icon on the tab of chrome and sometimes at the start of a URL.

When Coding

• The head of a website in coding is the place to store all data for the site - this part isn't actually visible is just used for dictating what the website should do.
• The title in 'head' is title of page on the tab not necessarily viewed on the page.
• Anything that you want to be visible on a site should be in between the body section.
• Every part of the content of the website needs to be in one folder on the computer itself - if not this produces error 404 because the website can't find the page needed in this one file.
• NEVER put any spaces, symbols, numerical characters or capitals when naming your site folder. It also needs to be 8 characters or less.

Setting up a basic website using DreamWeaver:

In this demonstration I have named both my folder and my website 'root'. 

Home page should be saved as index for it to work correctly.

The pages will start to appear in the side bars and folders.

An asterisk next to the name of the site on the tab in dreamweaver indicates a site with unsaved changes:

Commonalities of navigation solutions in websites:

• Nav bar at the top / left of the screen
• Footer
• Search bar top right of screen
• Top left back button
• Social media buttons top right of screen
• Start of the website on the home page
• Logo top left as home page link throughout site
• Breadcrumbs for navigating through product sites

Un-commonalities of navigation solutions in websites:

• Landing page (old fashioned)
• Left to right scrolling (becoming more popular)
• Paralax scrolling (becoming more popular)
• No navigation bar at all
• Everything on one page