Billy Edwards

A blog to show ideas, inspirations and progress.

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Revisiting: Leif Podhajsky

A year down the line from my last research blog on this particular designer, i thought it was worth a re-visit to see how his style has adapted and developed to the current design trends. Originally famous for the abstract textures he produced for ‘Tame Impala’, Podhajsky has since moved on too ideas with more photographic and geometric elements, as well as using tone and shade in a completely different style to his norm, black and white. A lot of his earlier work is very crisp and vibrant, however he is more recently took on a grainier, textured approach, this helps to create a refined outcome, it makes elements which would usually look ‘too’ digital, and puts them in a more traditional light. This creates a contrast between new and old design, which is very popular at the moment, and it is a technique i am going to experiment with further in my own creations.

 I think these designs clearly reflect the current identity of the music industry, which is very sleek and noir, and this shows that he is working with an informed view of the society around him. This is a huge attribute of working successfully in the music industry, the identity of a track release must both fit the ‘brand’ of the artist, as well as the consumer desires which it is sold to. 

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[forsakenlouie]

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A more refined version of an earlier design, as well as one which is purely typographic. I feel that the texture has relevance to the piece in several ways, Its contrast in colour and tone support the ideas of racial divison which are prominent in the book, as well as working functionally as storefront ‘eye candy’ (the brief reminds us that it must compete well in a busy environment). The texture also gives a contemporary feel to an otherwise very classically designed book and story, so it will interest younger audiences as well as old.  

I changed the top design so the spine is more prominent, while it may look peculiar flat, i feel that this will help it stand out when it is stacked with only the side showing, and this is something i will consider when i do a physical print test. I also elongated the black to reach the top and bottom of the book, this was an aesthetics choice, however it allowed some room for adjusting the title type, which i made bigger, but kept the same spacing.

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Contrasting traditional typography with a contemporary colour palette.

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https://www.behance.net/gallery/43586847/Engraved-Entomology

A really nice project i found from a designer in Brighton, it aims to combine aspects of entomology with pattern design. This creates a really nice contrast between the organics of the insects and the mathematical geometrics of the patterns which they house, but also emphasises the elaborate link of intricacy and beauty that both of these subjects hold. The deliverables are stated to be digital wallpapers and print artwork, a reminder that if an idea is there, it does not always need a strong function for it to be worth following through. I have briefly explored working with insects and photography in the past, and the link between nature and design is something i would like to experiment with further, perhaps with the inclusion of typography.

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Design Something Every Day! – Smashing Magazine

As designers, we’re all trying to get better at what we do. We surf the Web daily for hours trying to find useful tips and tricks to enhance our design skills.

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FACT Mag : Branding their way to success.

Fact magasine is a great example of how branding can be successfully applied to the music industry to gain interest and following. Not only do they do this through the visual identity of themselves, but also through the musicians that they support through media features. 

They portray themselves in a very corporate and professional way, represented predominantly by the bold, sans-serif type logo, which is always in a powerful, unmistakeable red. This logo is supported throughout their website by considered body and header typesets, as well as colour. These elements help to achieve the overall image that they are beaming through to the public on social media, which, since the complete transfer to the online world in 2009, has become their main tool for publicity. It is worth highlighting that although they do not sign musicians directly, every article or post created is done so with the brand identity of the musician in mind, they understand that the public want to be able to relate to, and simply to identify, artists by their visual prowess in the eye of the media. If Factmag reflect these socially and culturally considered identity, they are more likely to gain post clicks and interest from the public majority.

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HouseFreqs Screen printed merchandise.

Some photos of my screen printed outcomes in relation to my HouseFreqs Live brief, these are mock-ups of possible post-rebrand merchandise, which main use would be for promotion through social media competitions, aswell as being available on the HouseFreqs shop. I was really happy with how the clean cut slip-mat designs came out, the logo is clear and bold, and the circles bound it nicely aswell as make relations to the recurring circular semiotics which support HouseFreqs and the music industry as a whole. The inversion of the black and white creates some visual diversity between each sides of the print, and as the examples show, this could be furthered using colour maybe to represent different competitions or era’s of releases. 

I have also shown how the same screen works nicely on clothing, and this would allow for an easier manufacturing process when considered on a large scale. 

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To Kill a Mockingbird (4/10) Movie CLIP - Atticus Cross-Examines Mayella (1962) HD

To Kill a Mockingbird movie clips: http://j.mp/15vV0dT BUY THE MOVIE: http://amzn.to/tGAzK7 Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6pr CLIP D...

As i haven’t read the book from start to finish, clips from the movie provide good research to get a feel for the story, tone and ethical issues they challenge.

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Primary dissertation research

Dependent on the response i get from design agencies i am considering to run a slightly different set of questions which will be aimed at the public, the aim of these will be to gain an understanding of the consumer market and how people are influenced by music artist branding and music artwork.

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The MoonPig Brief

‘To develop a greeting card concept or range for Moonpig that you think is missing from our web-site portfolio.’

This is a challenge i am considering for my competitive brief of this module. It would require assessment and analysis of Moon-pig’s target audience and how successful their product range is at connecting with them. I would have to investigate the celebration card industry as a whole to see what other companies offered that Moonpig do not, and use this as a foundation of development and expansion to create something unique and functional. 

My initial ideas for this would be to look at how cards could be designed in visually and technically informed manner, as there are not many readily available cards that a graphics designer would be hooked by. When you consider how the market is run it is not that the people making the cards are bad designers, its just that they are not created with the designer in mind, and this is an aspect i think it would be interesting to touch on.

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During one of the my talks at university this week, a tutor talked about how she had created a typeset for the near extinct Scottish dialect ‘Doric’, in the development process she used another font as a starting point, which was essentially re-appropriated for use with the new letters. This got me thinking about how i could re-edit a modern, sans serif typeset and add other elements, so i used Helvetica as my foundation for an early experiment, and by adding serifs and changing line width i gave it contrast with a more traditional appearance.

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Food Type

A great typography project which uses simple paper frames and a food source to create a diverse and effective alphabet, this sort of work could be applied to the advertising industry as a display font for a supermarket, but the technique of course has many other applications dependent on the medium of the frame and the texture, it is something which i experiment with digitally without considering it in this way, but in future this is a method i will experiment with in physical form.

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The greatest record sleeves – as chosen by the designers

What’s the best-designed album sleeve? The Beatles’ White Album or Kraftwerk’s Autobahn? Miles Davis’s Tutu or Pixies’ Doolittle? Designers of modern album covers including Peter Saville, Vaughan Oliver and more pick their favourites

Its interesting how prominent portrait shots still are in vinyl sleeve design, it reminds us that sometimes, functional text combined with a well took and interesting photograph of the artist can reflect the music on a much more personal level. It also makes me consider how this classic method of vinyl artwork could be contrasted with modern design to create unique, obscure cover sleeves.