Abbie Yapp

BCU Graphic Design Student 

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Major Project Launch 

Let the blogging begin, today we’ve had our last and final project launch. Major project has arrived and it’s now time to start getting the portfolio ready for life after graduation. With the success from my last project, I’m more than ready to start this project.

 I’ve already got ideas on where I wish to take this project, which is a good head start. I’m taking my mistakes from my last project and using them as positives for this project to help me achieve the best results I can. Time management is a factor I seriously have to take into consideration, I have no time to waste with this module. My time management was out the window with the last module, but now it’s a fresh start and I’m going to knuckle down and plan my time wisely.  

Happy Monday! 

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Evaluation

Brief 1: The mental health foundation brief has been one of he most challenging but rewarding briefs I’ve ever done. From the start I knew it was going to be challenge with it having such a personal side to it. I had moments where I doubted myself and thought it was going to be too hard having it so close to home. But I’m so glad I’ve stuck with it and carried on, I’ve never felt some much happiness from one brief. It’s really opened my eyes and helped me on my road to recovery. 

When I first started the brief I was’t sure how the project was going to visually look. I knew it was going to have animated with playful childish elements but I never knew fully where it was going to go. Once I had created the characters I finally begun to see where my visual journey was going to take me. From that moment it lead to create my best piece as a designer yet my activity book.  Seeing that come together pushed me further with this brief, I’ve never challenged myself to create so many outcomes. Getting a response back from the mental health charity really made it real for me. This brief may help me get the recognition I need.  Brief 2: I struggled with this brief in the beginning I had no idea where to start or even tackle the food waste issue. So much has been done already on this subject I didn’t want to repeat anything that had been done. It look a lot of research and time with this brief, I had to come up with a fresh idea that would allow me to stand out from crowd and make a difference. I then came up with the idea of using light hearted humour to engage with my audience instead of the typically forced tone with this subject. I named my campaign TALKING TRASH, it was a campaign that would be seen in supermarkets and public spaces. 

Brief 3:

Penguin design awards, I had to re design the cover of the childrens classic, ‘Emil and the detectives”. I haven;t designed book covers since A level and I wanted to reunited myself with that design element again. I can safely say I don’t want to do book covers anytime soon, I found no interest with this brief and struggled to connect with it. When I don't have a passion for something I always find it a drag. I did really like my design in the end, as I used my own personal style when creating the book cover. 

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Final Book Cover 

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Experimentation 

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Experimentation

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Book mock up ideas 

I’ve mocked up 3 book cover designs so far, I’ve kept the design very basic and simplistic because i feel limiting the design is more engaging to the audience. I’ve selected the iconic bowler hat from Mr.Grundeis. I wanted him to be the main feature of the book because I everyone would assume Emil would be the main feature of the front cover but I want to add this sense of mystery. I want my young audience to to be caught off guard with the book design but they love it because it’s a game of mystery. 

The top design was inspired by the penguin classic books, I just loved the sheer beauty of the simplicity. I used a torch light at the button because I wanted it to look like it was shining the light on the title. I thought having the word detective I thought it would be symbolic to have a torch light underneath the title. I think the mock up’s look good already I just need to select my favourite and refine it. 

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Experimentation 

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Font Experimentaion 

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Simplicity Inspiration 

Simplicity is now a common theme across books of today, standing out for their striking simplistic covers. We are drawn in by the block of colour and simplicity of the font. Designs today take iconic elements from the book and use those as the key design. Many book covers today are seen having a re-design to make the book cover more simplistic. 

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Final Advertisements 

Here are my final posters and outcomes, for the Talking Trash Campaign. The campaign will be featured with supermarkets. magazines and billboards. My idea behind the campaign was too have a light hearted sense of humour behind it, I wanted to use humours quotes and turn them into an education purpose. I’m really happy with my final outcomes, I feel they look professional and sleek.

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Talking Trash Poster Experimentation 

I wanted to take this style of experimentation further, I wanted to involve photography with the quotes to bring them to life, I feel it works really well, before just having the quote on the plain coloured back ground, it wasn’t engaged enough. But having the photography with it swell allows the audience to visually see. I experimented with a variety of photos with each quote as I wanted to get the balance of contrast and composition. 

The reason why I’ve moved to this particular style instead is because I felt the money comparison posters weren’t communicating a clear message. Whereas here I feel this posters communicate a clear message allowing my audience to have an understand about food wastage. I feel my audience all enjoy these quotes they have a light hearted quotes. I didn’t want to have a forcible tone of voice with the subject because I don’t wish to nag my audience I just simply want to educate them on wastage. 

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Talking Trash Poster Experimentation 

I wanted to experiment with having imagery behind my quotes, this was my first lot of experimenting. I went on to my trusty friend pintrest and grabbed some images I felt could work well with this quote. I didn’t want to just bung a photo of some fish behind my quote, I wanted to play around with filters and see if I could I make  something that I could follow through with brand image. 

I actually really like all of the posters funnily enough, but I know I need to been strict and choose only one. I think I’m going to go for either the fish up against the wall or the fish in the bowl.  I can’t seem to make my mind up right now! It’s a tough one because I really do like all of them. To my my decision easier I will do the rest of the other quotes posters and see what works as a nice collection together. 

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Talking Trash Poster Experimentation 

I was happy with my other designs of my posters but I wanted to have an experiment with a different visual style and approach. I was really influenced by my mood board with all the food quotes, I just really liked the humour behind it. I love to use humour at the heart of my design. With this brief I want a light heart approach and I wanted quotes people could laugh about and go back and share with their friends. 

To take these posters further I would experiment with some statics to go underneath and I would get them to match  what the quote was experimenting. For example I would related a tip for freezing food with the plenty of fish poster. I showed my friends these posters and they loved the humour behind them. They sad they liked these better over my money comparison. I think I agree, it’s got more of a link with food wastage and it all compliments each other. My next move is to take these posters further and add some more content behind it. 

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Talking Trash Experimentation 

I’ve decided to created a campaign called Talking Trash, it focuses on money comparison and educates audiences oh the money they are losing due to us being careless with our good waste. I was thinking of aiming this campaign at students as a way of getting them to see how much money hey could save from food and go travelling. Being a student myself I know how much travelling is an incentive, everyone wants to go travelling but money is always an issue. If I can show students they can easily save money by being careful with food wastage I feel this would get the ball rolling for them to finally make a change.  Looking at my current posters I feel the idea is there and the visuals are great, but I feel it isn’t resembling food wastage as much as it should. I feel its communicating too much of a holiday advertisement which isn’t the case. I think I need to have a play around and use more food iconic to make it more related to food waste. I had a quick play around with applying it to t-shirt’s and bags just to see if it would work applied across multi platforms. It has a really good visually style and boldness too it but again I feel it’s not communicating a a strong message about food wastage.  I asked my peers what they thought about the designs and they really love the visual style but said I do need to make the message clearer. 

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Currently Reblogging everything off another blog, due to me not allowed to post anymore as I’ve reached the limit. 

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Wedding Invitations 

Adam Slator & Imran Mohmand

Say hello to Adam & Imran, they have come to me asking if I would design their wedding invitations for their June 2016 summer wedding.  I’ve never designed wedding invitations before we it’s all a new process to me! I’ve asked Adam and  Imran what sort of idea do they in mind for the invasions and Adam said he wanted a nice classic vintage style wedding invitation. They are getting married at Birmingham Botanical Gardens and will be surrounded by beautiful flowers, I have an idea of included some watercolour flower illustrations. They have asked if white doves could be included on the invitation as they will be realising doves at the end of the ceremony. I have this idea of creating the invitations on brown parcel paper and screen printing white doves and flowers on to it. I’m going to create a visual mood board for Adam and Imran to allow them to have an idea on what I will be producing for them. Giving them moodboard will allow them to tell me if I need to add anything extra or even take something away they don't see that visually pleases them. 

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DO YOUR BEST BEFORE

Behance, once again has provided me with a great campaign project to look at. Do your best before was a collaboration project based on food waste. A group of GMD students from London College of communication created the project in 2014. The mission was to raise awareness and help solve the food waste issue. The campaign kicked off with a real fridge being placed on the streets filled with  rotton food to grab peoples attention. The group then proceeded to interviewing people and gave our informative leaflets about the food waste matter. Inside the leaflets were tips on how to avoid throwing food away and how to get the best out of the food before the expire.

I love the hand drawn style to the campaign, it strips it down back to its raw roots and allows you feel part of the personal journey. Again simplicity is a winner  of this design style. Keeping the design simple allows the message to be voiced and grabs the audiences attention. I would quite like to experiment with this visual style as I feel it would suit my ‘Talking Trash’ theme. It would match the raw and organic theme I was aiming for.

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Poster Experimentation 

Ive created several variations of posters that could be used for campaign, I want to base the posters on what they could of saved the money on so in the future they will be more cautious with wasting food. I firstly began the poster experimentation with a photo I took whilst in new york, I wanted to have break down of what the £600 could of been used in New York. To me theres nothing more heart breaking seeing what you could of spent your money on. I do honestly re think my buying habits when I see figures like this. 

I’m torn between what poster works best, because I really do like the photography combined with the illustrations. I feel it’s uniquely different from any other campaign style, by showing them a photograph of the location I feel it makes it more real. By teasing the audience with what they could of had would annoy them even more they are wasting vast amounts of food. I want to continue with the photography combination style as I feel if I refine it again it could look a decent campaign poster.