OUGD504 - Design for print and web - Initial Ideas

OUGD504 - Design for print and web - Initial Ideas

My initial ideas for the project were based around the idea of an Augmented Reality App for a smartphone. The concept being that the user would hover the pin points in a 3D environment and the screen would show the text and images as if they were in the 3D environment. I thought this would be a good way to fulfil the brief criteria of not producing litter in the street environment. 

The audience determined by the brief were people who didn't have the time to read. This lead me on to think about how I could make this experience an event that could introduce them to reading in a fun way and maybe encourage them to continue. 

I wanted to pick a story to tell specific to the environment it is in. I jotted down these few ideas:

I initially thought of towns close to me so that I could easily research them in person. I started with Liverpool,  and thought that the story could start from the Cavern Club down to the waterfront, to the new Beatles museum. Initially I envisioned the characters from Yellow Submarine (film) to walk in and out of the buildings on a grand scale. 

I then thought that to go down a more traditional route, and play to Liverpool's exporting heritage, old sailing songs could lay along the river etc.

I also thought that the stained glass window of the church in Daresbury (near where I live), the birthplace of Lewis Carroll, could come alive using augmented reality, including the characters from Alice in Wonderland. 

I decided not to take these ideas any further because not only have I already done projects on both these subjects in the past, but I feel like they've been covered by other designers, too!

I started to jot down loads of different titles of classic novels and research into their locations to base my event in:

 

I looked at some of the stories that had a more adventurous genre to them and looked at their dates and locations:

Around the world in 80 days

• 1873 - 140 year anniversary 
• features London, Suez, Bombay, Calcutta, Victoria (Hong Kong), Yokohama, San Francisco & New York.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

• 1884 - 129 year anniversary
• features Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, & Arkansas.

Pride and Prejudice

• 1813 - 200 year anniversary 
• features Hertfordshire

Journey of the Centre of the Earth

• 1864 - 149 year anniversary
• features Germany and Iceland 

I decided to go with 'Around the World in 80 days' as it featured many different locations and visuals with a strong Victorian style. I had a quick research into it for the visuals which can be found here.

The idea developed into a full- on event, incorporating the annual World Book Day reading event with the 140th anniversary of Around the World in 80 days (both internationally based things). 

The event would be a virtual reading experience incorporating text from the novel imposed onto the 3d environment using the augmented reality app on the users smartphone. They would be guided along a route from Picadilly Circus (chosen for its large advertisement screen- could be utilised?) in London (a chapter in the book) to Waterloo train station (also featured in the book) using the help of the app itself, and signage, such as stickers on the floor. The visual experience would also be accompanied by an audio experience, featuring the characters reading the story.

The event would be promoted using a series of adverts and appropriate merchandise such as a lanyard guide featuring a map of the route would be included. I also thought that maybe sponsoring bookshops along the route such as Waterstones could have window designs based on the event for promotion.

Because the event is hosted by World Book Day, I also want to include bookmarks and World Book Day Tokens.

After a bit of research into printed ephemera for event design (Here) and thinking of ways to take it further, here I brainstorm all the different ways my designs could be transferred:

 I decided I was going to start it off with:

• Lanyard featuring map of route through London
• Bookmark
• World Book Day token
• Souvenir poster
• Vinyl window design for participating shops like Waterstones (proposed)
• App design with icon (proposed)
• Website (proposed)
• Adshel posters (proposed)
• Billboard poster (proposed)
• Floor stickers to guide the audience through the route (proposed)
• Headphones with logo etc (proposed)