Steps by Chris Wilmes

Design | Photography | Regional & Urban Planning One step at a time. Currently listening to 'To Pimp a Butterfly' & 'Cherry Bomb'.  I live for coffee, music and design. DESIGNS BY CHRIS WILMES...

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EARS Exhibition

Some event photographs of the June exhibition for artist EARS @ Juddy Roller in Melbourne. Check out more at http://juddyroller.com.au/ when they become available.

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Spective: A modular alphabet.

The design was based on three perspectives: The top, left and right faces of an orthogonal cube. Each Letter was created using a combination of two lines (long & short). These lines were simply rotated and reflected to create perspective on the grid.

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Deconstruction of type: Din 1451 Engschrift. Letters A, G & S.

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AGDA Small talk & PAUSEFEST Present: Sons & Co

Photos round 2

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AGDA Small talk & PAUSEFEST Present: Sons & Co

These guys had some great insight into the world of web design. Their approach to web design and the connection between design and development is a great example of how two disciplines can work together in unison.

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Collage: My Body, My Laboratory

This collage was later developed into an Ox-Plow booklet. Currently I have no image of the final booklet as I haven't gotten it back after grading. The Booklet was made of a two sided collage, which was based on some stereotypes surrounding men and women, and how they may meet.

Using cut-up techniques and random word placement, the collage developed into the following. Excuse the quality, as I haven't gotten a scan of the final works.

My Body My Laboratory

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Paper Folding: The Fold Between the Pattern

So at uni we had to fold some paper and then take photos of the final outcome. I felt like I was taken back to primary school when we were all making paper cranes etc. I didn't really enjoy that, because it was nothing new to me. For the final outcome, I needed to create something that would be a challenge to me - something that would be original and not just a re-hash of what I've done before. I was mainly intrigued by geometric folds, which ended up being the focus of the project. I had also been working with pattern designs for another class which got me to my final idea:

THE FOLD WITHIN THE PATTERN Imagine concept cars doing laps on the Nürburgring; these cars are wrapped in psychedelic patterns to prevent eager onlookers from identifying their unperfected or secret forms before they are proudly unveiled. Similar to those cars, these folds have been hidden amongst their own patterns, with only their shadows and distorted prints helping you identify their form. From simple to detailed, these folds represent the creation of shapes amongst shadows. Hiding the overall detail and form establishes a level of disconnect from the effort involved in their creation, and questions your need to fully understand their true form and the logic behind their creation; unlike the concept cars, these forms will not be unveiled.

It was definitely a lot more fun than I expected!

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WSKY 2

Sample 2 of the WSKY project exploration.

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WSKY

Playing around with some pattern techniques for WSKY (Whiskey), a line that will possibly be introduced into a future run of FRNT brand products.

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Adrian Frutiger Spread

Final spread layout preview.

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All about grids and pictograms: Final

The icons are done! It's been a lot of technical work to get everything working the way it should, but I am fairly pleased with the outcome. I have learnt a lot about the processes of icon creation, and even file organisation.

Here are the final icons:

Educational aspects In terms of progress, it was a very interesting task. The most valuable technical element that I learnt from this process was the processes required to turn a complex line/path drawing into a single colour compound shape. Also, overall, the requirements to simplify - the Synecdoche; for example, at certain sizes I left the external oblique muscles (boxer's muscles) in the icon, but removed them when the body was zoomed out too much (see Core vs. Chest). To understand this a bit more, check out my last blog post quoting Jonathon Ive about simplicty in design.

Problems! In a way the requirement to simplify could be seen as an issue which I had to overcome. Technically, however, the most prevalent issue was to do with the preparation of the compound paths; in some stages, and depending on how the lines and paths were created for certain icons, creating a merged icon and turning it into a single coloured object (compound shape) caused extra layers to be created, filling in the negative space. This was rectified by cleaning up path anchors, deleting those additional created layers, or simplifying the grouping/layer organisation.

Usually concepts change throughout the design process to cater for problems or a renewed requirement. For this project, the concept has remained to be identical to the original. To view the original concept, check out the first post on this project.

Usage Ultimately, the icons are made to be a hybrid between infographics which are used on existing gym equipment, and wayfinding icons. The idea of simplifying and merging these two into one, gives the observer a more immediate visual to help him/her understand what the equipment or gym area will target in terms of bodybuilding. To achieve this, the icons will be placed on the equipment itself, and on walls of the dedicated rooms for certain exercises (Leg exercise room, Olympic exercise room and so on).

Infographics utilised on outdoor gym equipment

Wayfinding icons used at airports

To conclude, I just want to say; get your technical aspects in order before your start! Organise your files, set them up properly, make yourself checklists, and ALWAYS make sure your project is being made in a mode that suits its final use (e.g. print vs. web). Doing these things early on will save you a lot of time at the end!

Now into something else!

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Quote

"To be truly sim­ple, you have to go really deep. For exam­ple, to have no screws on some­thing, you can end up hav­ing a prod­uct that is so con­vo­luted and so com­plex. The bet­ter way is to go deeper with the sim­plic­ity, to under­stand every­thing about it and how it’s man­u­fac­tured. You have to deeply under­stand the essence of a prod­uct in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential. To be truly sim­ple, you have to go really deep. For exam­ple, to have no screws on some­thing, you can end up hav­ing a prod­uct that is so con­vo­luted and so com­plex. The bet­ter way is to go deeper with the sim­plic­ity, to under­stand every­thing about it and how it’s man­u­fac­tured. You have to deeply under­stand the essence of a prod­uct in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential."

- Jonathan Ive Design has rules, and yes, rules are sometimes meant to be broken, but you have to have a fundamental understanding of those rules to be able to break them. Knowing exactly what you're doing and not doing is key to good design.

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De Stijl & my style

So I have to make a quick 5 minute presentation on De Stijl (The Style); Each student in my group has to create a very quick presentation just to generate some class inspiration for our next major brief. Turns out De Stijl, the topic I have been assigned, is incredibly interesting and has already really inspired me!

This post is a brief insight to the first few rough page layouts I have created for the presentation, which took me about half an hour in total; it's always great to feel inspired immediately! The inspiration for each page came from different classic De Stijl designs that I found in some books. Mind you, the presentation is yet to be edited according to certain De Stijl rules, which I haven't had the time to properly study yet. This preview is simply to show you how inspiration works, and how useful it is to just get what's in your head onto screen/paper immediately, even if they aren't exactly accurate yet! As a designer you need to remind yourself that every single idea is worth having and noting; don't ever discard creative ideas as bad ideas. The conceptualisation process is incredibly important. What I have found to be interesting is that the design process is never the same; yes it's great if you give yourself steps, but sometimes the complete opposite will work for you.

Preview:

I'll leave you with my final thought: Design the way you design. Stop restricting yourself to someone else's processes; you're only limiting your own style. After all, it's the end result that matters most!

Now it's time to do some research!

Enjoy your day!

[chriswilmes]

All about grids and pictograms: Part three

After a few weeks of no updates on this project, the gym signage icons are close to completion. As I said in the last post, there is now an additional requirement to create an ideogram as part of the collection. The updated list of icons has become:

Pictograms:

Chest

Back

Legs

Arms

Shoulders

Core

Drink/water

Olympic (Lifting platforms/bars)

Weights

Ideograms:

Stretching

Cardio

Preview:

Further Adjustments Recommendations were made to reduce the amount of detail in some designs, looking specifically at the detail in the abdominal region. As you can see in the second set, second image from the left, the abdominals have been simplified in comparison to the first two icons in the first set. This type of adjustment will be made to all icons. Simplify where necessary: Less is More (view my post about minimalism quotes here).

Applying the Grid The application of the grid became incredibly useful, and the body elements worked well with the Fibonacci sequence employed. An example how how the body parts are split into three areas as the Core icon; The first third line sits at the collarbone, and the second underneath the armpit. The overall hip width matches the central thirds lines, and the arms utilise the space outside of those areas.

Final tweaking is necessary, and the finals will be done by next week. Stay tuned for next week's post!

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Adrian Frutiger

Just a little quote from Adrian Frutiger for a uni project I'm working on; It is ever so important for the thinking behind the world of digital type.

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Love minimalism

I got a bit inspired by a little book on Minimalism. I think the yellow version will be hanging up on my wall soon, reminding me to keep it simple!