Harriet Julia Designs

Graphic Design Journal

[harrietjulia]

Creating some social media imagery

Here I have focussed on and experimented with some instagram 1080x1080px grid posts and 1080x1920px story posts, with a safe zone of 250px on header and bottom. Both can be utilised across Facebook & Instragram in this ratio.

One story post simple has their logo mark and a ‘coming soon..’ to help build intrigue for the band. The second story post leaves a space for a clickable link to lead the audience to their website.

Copy is kept to a minimum to allow the visuals to talk and for the rest of the copy to be used within the post themselves so they can talk more causally and intimately with their audience.

Black & White is still seen as the leading colours, and keeps them on brand and minimal.

[harrietjulia]

Viral Marketing

Part 2

Viral marketing is essentially something that gains in huge popularity online fast. It is a tool used by brands on social media to create hype around their service/product and helps them to grow their reach and gain new followers who will promote their service/product for them due to simple ‘word-of’mouth’. Viral campaigns are short lived so it’s vitally important to time your potential viral post correctly otherwise you might miss the mark and get lost in the noise.

“It encourages people to share with other people to reach a larger audience and thereby making the advertisement go viral, much in the same way that a virus spreads from one person to another.”

By using this process, brands are able to create an organic and more authentic audience whereby people deemed as ‘influencers’ and ‘celebrities’ are trusted advocates of a brand that help to grow its reach. Viral marketing can be seen as more successful than paid advertisement due to people finding these sources more trustworthy and they may be more likely to make an impulsive purchase.

Some of the most popular techniques include involving influencers and celebrities or content creators who will create sponsored adverts for your product, or may jump on a viral trend and help your message grow. As someone who enjoys youtube the most of all platforms I find that I more inclined to look into a product if one of my subscribed creator has suggested it to me, such as Tokyo Treats, which is often promoted on many of the Japan Vlogger channels I watch such as Abroad in Japan. Memes are also often used as a way to promote a brand/service or product by coming across as very relatable and on trend, these types of viral campaigns are incredibly shareable. 

As an example of a successful viral campaign we can look at Dunkin Donuts and how they jumped on the bandwagon of a trending topic to help promote their own product. When the image of a blue/black or perhaps gold/white dress debate took over the internet, everyone had their opinions on its true colour. Brands, such as Dunkin Donuts, cleverly jumped into the conversation to help push their reach and stay relevant and remain engaging and relatable to their correct target audience. They shared a simple image of a blue and a white donut, which created lots of re-tweets and organic growth for the company which helped them to boost their visibility during this trending topic online, and I’m certain created many in person conversations and extra trips to Dunkin Donuts as it would be on the consumers mind.

Another example of a great viral campaign was one of my personal favourite adverts, ‘Old Man Spice’ from 2010. This hugely successful ad did a fantastic job at being humorous and engaging, encouraging many to go out and buy the product, as well as re-share the ad due to its hilarious nature. It ‘broke’ youtube hitting over 60million views and counting! It was successful due to having a clear call to action for the product, being super sharable, just the right dose of different, which helped it stand out from other ads, and in return this helped boost visibility for the brand.

Resources:

https://startuptalky.com/top-viral-campaigns-analysis/

https://uplandsoftware.com/mobile-messaging/resources/blog/5-insanely-clever-marketing-campaigns-that-went-viral/

https://www.marketingtutor.net/viral-marketing-campaigns-that-will-inspire-you/

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/viral-marketing/

[harrietjulia]

Social Media

Part 1 

Identify two social media platforms and tell me how they work

Social media has fast become a large part of people's everyday life. It can be broken into categories such as social networks, bookmarking sites, social news, media news, forums & blogs. There are more and more platforms popping up each year, with some of the biggest social network pages are Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook & Twitter. To ‘millenials’ social media has always been a way of life. More and more content is being produced and consumed everyday, making it a very busy and very challenging space to stand out amongst the noise of ads and general posts.

Twitter - A platform used to convey short and sweet messages. It is very instant, any and all ideas/thoughts are conveyed quickly, however you cannot show complex messages or detailed information so you need to make whatever you are posting captivating and engaging.

Facebook - Some might say the OG, a place to connect with old friends, like-minded people who ‘like’ your page and drive a community, facebook makes it easy to create two way conversations, and chat with your audience, but the demographic is of a higher age as more young people choose not to engage with facebook.

The term social media covers many things and one person's understanding and experience can be quite different from others.

Tell me about the range of social media tools within the platform and talk about their function

Facebook -If you run a business page via facebook you can utilise the meta business suite where you can schedule posts, create ads, answer messages etc across both facebook & instagram. (since they are now under the one umbrella company, Meta) 

You can share others posts, create events, closed community group pages and dig really deep into the mindfield of paid advertising and syncing online shops to your page to sell your services/products

Twitter - A great place to spark conversations, questions and debates with your community, link to external pages such a blog, news page, shop etc, re-twitter trending topics or comments that interest you or your audience, you can share images and create schedules posts and paid ads.

However it can be limiting due to the character limit and the huge sea of tweets that you are competing against to get to the surface and pray you get some re-tweets to help grow your reach.

Outline the key issues surrounding social media etiquette

As a brand you don’t want to come across as overly pushy or ‘spammy’, selling your products too ‘obviously’ can come across aggressive and off putting to your audience, they want to feel like more of a community to are buying into your lifestyle and will naturally gravitate towards making a purchase, ie GAIN the audience via initial promotion, then RETAIN that audience by making them engage with your page, join a mailing list etc. You want to promote your service/product to them, so that they ultimately promote for you in the end without it feeling like that was the intention. 

Timing and placement is also key, find out which platform works best for your brand and what time of day your audience is most active. There is no point in posting and wasting valuable time on platforms that do not serve your brand any purpose or growth, or that are not engaging with the correct audience. When creating a social media plan think of the acronym R.A.C.E>REACH, ACTION, CONVERT, ENGAGE - ie create awareness, persuade your audience with some form of call to action, convert to sales and form long term relationships with your audience (it costs more to create a new customer than to retain an old one). Remember that online we have an attention span worse than goldfish so your content needs to grab attention and stand out,

It’s equally important to come across as yourself, authentic and on brand. Able to communicate without sounding robotic and be human and engaging with your community. It is best to avoid coming across ‘fake’, impersonal and ensure you are showing a true representation of you and your brand.

And on that note, it is super important to respond to most of your comments and engage with those that are taking the time to engage with you. This shows you care. And of course, it goes without saying that you should be respectful, don’t bully or harass anyone or show any radical views to your audience that could be deemed offensive.

It is also very important to analyse performance of your posts, otherwise you might find you are shouting into the void or that your content has become stale, not engaging etc. This is where it is important to set SMART goals and objectives for your brand. Sales being the most obvious form of measurement and success. You want to make sure you are looking at how effective and how efficient a campaign or a post has been. Is it doing the right things, getting the job done and are you using the right resources to do this ie, BUDGET, CHOSEN PLATFORM, TARGET AUDIENCE, IMAGERY etc.

[harrietjulia]

Mobile site: https://xd.adobe.com/view/27d80c95-ca3b-47d6-9cf7-49003cc2279f-728b/

Mobile version, simplified further, but maintaining the same feel as the desktop page. I was happy that I was able to recreate the listen page for mobile just by adjusting the layout slightly it kept the same visual feel as desktop. Below is my inital wireframe for mobile site before building it out further and making some adjustments.  Burger menu was something else, and I’m not 100% I achieves it correctly, but it functions, so that’s good!

[harrietjulia]

Link to site: https://xd.adobe.com/view/90686606-ae16-49c6-af50-a6a8e60792a6-c53b/?fullscreen

Final Site concept, keeping to brand guidelines and using initial wireframes to help develop the overall look of the site. Certain elements have been simplified ie the shop page, to help streamline the site and make it more user friendly. I decided to focus the ‘shop’ on band merch and leave the option to download the album on the ‘music’ page where audience will be immediately captured and re-directed to external purchase page. The same would happen on the gigs page where the audience would be re-directed to external purchase page.

I wanted the site to be quite visual, and inspired by the bands new video, the landing page would loop a video of the still presented. Black & white is the prevalent colour scheme, and the user experience is easy and simple (something I discovered with many bands sites) 

I tried out a few different layouts and schemes for the site initially but decided to really pair it back and keep it minimal as that felt more fitting to the band (seen below) I’m most pleased with the LISTEN page as I managed to find a way to interchange the featured album with a scrollable menu and not get too angry at XD. (hated it tbh)

Overall, XD and website building is definitely not my favourite task, but I am happy with the outcome and feel it represents the band and their brand perfectly.

[harrietjulia]

CASSETTE TAPES

There is a resurgence of tapes...why? Whilst researching current band sites, I noted that tapes kept appearing on the shop sites alongside CD’s and vinyls. 

“Against a backdrop of a pandemic that has done huge damage to the music industry, 2020 could justifiably be called the year of the cassette. According to British Phonographic Industry figures, 156,542 cassettes were sold in the UK last year, the highest figure since 2003 and an increase of 94.7% on 2019 sales. Seemingly out of the blue, global pop icons such as Lady Gaga, 1975, and Dua Lipa have started rushing out their new releases on cassette – and they’re selling out.” 

- Inverse; https://www.inverse.com/culture/why-did-cassettes-make-a-comeback

Which is bizarre to me, as tapes have notoriously bad sound quality, small imagery and were often chewed up by tape decks. However, it is obviously a new fad driven by ‘hipsters’ looking for the next retro kitsch thing to collect. The good thing is, just like the resurgence of vinyl, it does seem to be a positive move for musicians themselves as it is yet another physical limited edition item they can market for sale to generate income at a good profit margin (they are cheap to make) and helps the fight against streaming and illegal digital downloads of their music. 

Current pop artists such as The 1975, Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa and Ariana Grande have these currently in their shops. They do offer a lot of fun for adding colour to the tape itself and the layout of the fold out sleeve.

With this in mind, I am going to try and mockup Scaramanga’s album as a tape to add to my mockup website shop section along with the album and CD.

[harrietjulia]

Sitemap: Scaramanga

Taking Wireframe sketches into XD and playing further with layout concepts.

[harrietjulia]

Personas & user journey

34, Glasgow, Male

Short bio on background

Oliver is a tech graduate, he loves the outdoors and enjoys camping and cycling. He enjoys indie/electronic music and gig culture in Glasgow. He frequently sees his fav bands live, and loves a good chinwag about all the obscure bands he knows over a craft beer. You’ll find him in record shops, deep diving and scavenging for new sounds. His pals have a mortgage, he has his records.

Brands/websites they like

He frequents spotify, soundcloud, ticketmaster (or likeminded gig sites) and online magazines/forums where he can immerse himself in the indie/electronic music culture and can discuss at depth his love for music and receive live updates on upcoming music releases and local gigs.

Goals on website

Looking for live gig updates and new music releases and band updates

Motivation

To fuel his passion for music and Glasgow bands, find new material

Devices they use

Mobile and Laptop - ease of use, user friendly. He is tech savy

How does the user find the website, and use the site?

[harrietjulia]

Website Analysis

1. Roylskopp: https://profoundmysteries.royksopp.com/

What is the websites main purpose? 

The sites main purpose is to promote and build hype for the bands new album release

Is its appearance and functionality appropriate to the purpose?

The appearance and functionality of the site is heavily based on being an explorative experience for the user. The homepage is interactive and very visual with a symbol you can play with (the bands logo for the album) It compliments its context as it is intentionally mysterious, the unreleased songs from the album are blurred out (a count down to build excitement), inviting the user to revisit the site as they the songs are released. However an everyday user may think there is an error in the loading of images on site. The site exists for hardcore fans of the band, a way to experience and immerse yourself in their music and world.

Is it easy to use? Is it effective in achieving its purpose?

Elements can be challenging, ie. the visually design heavy homepage, an older demographic may be confused as to where to navigate to. There is very little text overall and a menu guide is only present at the footer of the page, it is all visual and reliant on look and click features. However, this seems to be on purpose, the mysterious and surrealistic nature of the site is appropriate to building excitement to the release of the album.

What design elements are significant in the design – e.g. layout, colour, text, graphics, images, and various other media. Analyse its use – how does it help achieve its main purpose? Does it aid in any functionality?

The site is very visual, the homepage’s 3-D interactive feature (which also plays a song) is a big component to introducing the feel of the site and the music of the band. It compliments the surrealistic nature of the site and band’s album artwork, a serious of objects which one cannot quite place, almost Dali like. The site utilises a very simple grid layout for the images along the top, all of which appear to be the artwork for each song on the album. When hovered over they reveal a clickable link which leads to a music video for that song, again emphasising the interactive element of the site. It is effective in creating intrigue and excitement for the release of the album. Everything is focused on being a little mysterious (appropriate for the album name)

What is the context of the site? What genre category does the site sit in? (e.g. is it a commerce site?News? Entertainment?) Analyse the sites position within the context. (e.g. what else is achieving the same goal?

I would place the site in the entertainment/artistic field with an element of e-commerce as ultimately they are also selling their new album, which is present on the page where there are clickable links to pre-order. But I think building excitement of the release seems to be the focus, and it is essentially one elaborate advert. I would compare to other bands sites such as Swedish House mafia https://swedishhousemafia.com/ who are also EDM, their site is similarly very clean, design heavy, visual with very little text and a mysterious feel throughout. It relies on an interactive element, but perhaps achieves it in a more sleek way?

2. Parklife: https://parklife.uk.com/

What is the websites main purpose?

The site excites to promote a music festival, sell tickets and be informational about the event

Is its appearance and functionality appropriate to the purpose?

A feast for the eyes, it is a very colourful, fun, engaging and illustration heavy site filled with lots of chaotic and psychedelic energy. This seems super on brand for a music festival which is in turn a chaotic and fun experience with a little crazy thrown in. It seems focussed on a youthful demographic, an older audience might find the site overwhelming. 

Is it easy to use? Is it effective in achieving its purpose?

Yes, all the information you would require about the festival is clear and present on the homepage, from the line up, dates and clickable links to buy tickets. The only element that could be confusing is the over reliance on graphic imagery within important sectors, ie the clickable illustrated icons for the VIP section could be confusing to navigate as you might not immediately understand the context of them, perhaps some simplified text below would aid this.

What design elements are significant in the design – e.g. layout, colour, text, graphics, images, and various other media. Analyse its use – how does it help achieve its main purpose? Does it aid in any functionality?

The site is design heavy and incredibly reliant on its use of illustration, colour and visual language. Every pocket of the site has been made to compliment the feel of the site, with neon colours and illustrations splattered everywhere. It is effective in creating excitement and ooo’s and aaa’s for the event. The design successfully captures the feel of a festival and in turn grabs the right demographic. 

What is the context of the site? What genre category does the site sit in? (e.g. is it a commerce site?News? Entertainment?) Analyse the sites position within the context. (e.g. what else is achieving the same goal?)

The site functions as an e-commerce site, ultimately there to sell tickets and build excitement for the festival. I would compare it other festivals such as Latitude festival https://www.latitudefestival.com/ which has the same goal, but a very different feel to the site. Latitude’s site is very clean, easy to navigate and less chaotic overall, a more relaxing experience...but maybe doesn’t capture the festival ‘feel’ the same way that Parklife does.

3. The Beatles: https://www.thebeatles.com/

What is the websites main purpose?

Stepping into a different direction, The Beatles site exists as more of a fan hub, entertainment based site. A place to go to find out more about your favourite band and delve into the nitty gritty details of their lives and the discography of the band.

Is its appearance and functionality appropriate to the purpose?

It presents itself in a very simple, clean format. Easy to navigate with clear language and good layout. This would appeal to the older demographic who are most likely to be the target audience. Keeping the site simple allows all to easily find what they are looking for without too much focus on the aesthetics of the site. It does however still compliment the band, as black and white colours are focus points which are appropriate for the bands logo and look and feel. 

Is it easy to use? Is it effective in achieving its purpose?

Yes, the menu along the top is very easy to navigate through, it is clear in its objectives and allows for a fuss free browse with structured grid layouts. The design overall lets The Beatles music speak for itself, it doesn’t heavily rely on creating ‘hype’ as they are already an established band with fans who navigate to the site for a specific purpose...to learn more. The only criticism I would have is the main body of text on the homepage could be more streamlined, it is very heavy/bold with large text that takes up a big portion of the page. It isn’t easy on the eyes and elements of it could be adjusted. A large image of the band stretching the width of the page as intro would have perhaps been nicer as an intro for the fans. The homepage also feels very ‘scrolly’ too much content that again could be streamlined for a better user experience.

What design elements are significant in the design – e.g. layout, colour, text, graphics, images, and various other media. Analyse its use – how does it help achieve its main purpose? Does it aid in any functionality?

The grid layout seems to be my main take-away, with text, media and images second. An element that I liked was the ability to search by song (A-Z) on the site to delve into the world of The Beatles. This element is very user friendly and when clicked on gives you insight to the creation of the music. Overall the site achieves its purpose in being an almost museum for the band, an archive of their work and a place to go to fan-boy/girl over them...just like beatlemania. (perhaps they could have played into the beatlemania era further for a fun element for the feel of the site?) I would have also liked to see more focus on imagery as their are so many fantastic photographs of the band.

What is the context of the site? What genre category does the site sit in? (e.g. is it a commerce site?News? Entertainment?) Analyse the sites position within the context. (e.g. what else is achieving the same goal?)

I would place it in entertainment an e-commerce as it is also functions as a site to sell band merch and highlight the ‘Get Back’ documentary. Unlike Roylskopp it doesn’t need to focus on building hype and excitement as it has an audience already that will seek out the site and products, they don’t have new releases, it will always function as memorabilia. I would compare the site to other older bands such as The Kinks https://www.thekinks.info/latest/lola/?returnpage=/ whose site I think is a little more fun and interactive, but maybe not as extensive or informative as The Beatles site as there isn’t as much to discover on there.

4. Magnetic Magazine: https://www.magneticmag.com/

What is the websites main purpose?

The last site is online magazine focused on being an EDM music hub for fans of the genre. It functions as a place to go to dive into the EDM culture and community. You will find articles, a podcast, news and events as well as a section on sustainability (thought this seemed a little random as I wasn’t sure how it related to the theme of the site?) and travel/camping for festivals.

Is its appearance and functionality appropriate to the purpose?

It is a very sleek and stylish site with grid layouts and a structured look, a black and white colour palette is used, appropriate to the genre. Text is heavy on the site, which is expected as it is first and foremost a magazine.

Is it easy to use? Is it effective in achieving its purpose?

Yes, the top menu is easy to navigate through (similar in style to The Beatles site) It also utilises a drop down burger menu, a welcome additional for mobile users. I could be wrong, but certain styles of the site make me feel it might be powered by WIX. The ads can be a little aggressive at times, with them scrolling down the page with you and interrupting the flow of the site. But ads are expected on any news site. (you can remove them by subscribing to the site for a fee, an element that could be promoted further) I like the additional image on the header promoting the podcast, but feel this could and should be on the menu list too as it seems to be key feature of the site, and isn’t present on the burger menu or header menu. Overall the site does achieve its purpose and is reflective of its genre and target market.

What design elements are significant in the design – e.g. layout, colour, text, graphics, images, and various other media. Analyse its use – how does it help achieve its main purpose? Does it aid in any functionality?

Layout is key here, the grid structure is clearly used and it is effective and easy to navigate through. Heavy text is used as headlines (although personally I feel elements of this could be streamlined a little) photographic imagery is present which is used to highlight articles. The imagery all feels coherent with that home-grown environment bringing each element together ie. most images feel very urban. Each article is given a yellow heading to highlight the field it falls into and some are clickable to give you further relatable articles. I feel the layout of the articles themselves are a little boring, everything is just in one large scrollable list and isn’t as reflective of the look of the rest of the site.

What is the context of the site? What genre category does the site sit in? (e.g. is it a commerce site?News? Entertainment?) Analyse the sites position within the context. (e.g. what else is achieving the same goal?)

It is an entertainment, news site, a hub for all things EDM, a place to immersive yourself in a culture that you are passionate about. I would compare to sites such as edm.com which actually has a very similar layout and feel to it, down to the grids, text formatting and imagery, but perhaps with a slightly better flow to it.

[harrietjulia]

Branding: Scaramanga

Concepts

Above concept 1: This concept takes inspiration from the theme of collaboration. Scaramanga is a duo that once was three, I wanted to play on that element by using a simple yet distinctive shape synonymous with the idea of three, a triangle. This also plays into the name of the band and it’s relation to the character Scaramanga and his infamous three nipples. By incorporating the shape into the typeface I was able to make the triangle represent the letter ‘A’. I settled on using an angular font which I felt gave a more retro, structured, minimal and sci-fi inspired look to the overall look of the band. Issue: legibility could cause issues with some of the lock ups if the shapes became too obscure within the typeface.

Below concept 2: Using my initial research board and looking at other concepts I had sketched, I noted the interest in the continuous line drawings of Picasso. The band themselves had brought these up as something they liked, so I wanted to attempt a concept that could incorporate both the triangle imagery and continuous line. I decided to keep in very angular to keep that sci-fi, structured feel. The 2 triangles presented in the logo mark connect and overlap to create 3 shapes (a subtle nod to the origins of the band) They also create a large ‘M’ and the letter ‘A’ which is appropriate to their name. 

Ultimately I decided to take forward the ideas I had explored in concept 1, the triangle imagery, as I felt it was visually the stronger of the final 2 ideas and offered more scope for play.

The design needed to be as versatile as possible so that it could adapt to the bands needs. The main logo is accompanied by a stacked version, a brand-mark and a pattern. The brand-mark is subtly visible within the logo and creates a strong minimal identity for the band. The versatility allows the bands to select variations of the logo based around their needs as they release new content, but maintain a clear identity.

Below: trying out variations of lockup on final concept

Above: pattern created using the brand mark

Above: Extract from brand guidelines

The brand guidelines came together really easily, I decided to keep it simple, using grid layouts inspired by the grid systems book by Josef Müller-Brockmann. Very handy for looking for potential layouts.

View final project on my website: https://www.harrietjuliaart.com/projects/scaramanga

[harrietjulia]

Branding: Scaramanga

Research Board 1:

After my initial listen to Glasgow band Scaragmanga’s music, I was grabbing at imagery of shapes, lines and movement. The music captures a lot of emotive response but also makes you want to dance. Knowing now that the singer was in a Bowie tribute band is quite clear in his tone. 

I kept thinking about coding, morse code and circuit boards, the simple lines and dots were coming to mind as I listened to the beats. Also throughout the more melodic songs such as the acoustic version of ‘simple love’ I pictured floating, closing eyes and slow dance movements. Overall the songs have an upbeat tone which you can dance along to but are also heavy on the importance of the lyrics and song themselves.

Research Board 2:

After conducting an interview with the 2 band members I noted some main key take-aways. 1. minimal 2. abstract shapes 3. euphoric 4. collaborative, to which I also made a point to note the importance of 3 (originally 3 members of the band). The name was chosen due to the bond villian, Scaramanga having 3 nipples (haha, love it!) 

I enjoyed listening to them explain how they bonded over their love of music whilst at gigs and drinking together, again showing that collaborative nature. They seem really passionate about music and emphasised the importance of the feeling it brings them, they feel at home, in the zone and in a trance when creating.

I’ve also gathered the core demograhic is geared towards those who are: young, creative, alternative 

They really seem keen on keeping the branding simple with a more serious, modern tone but perhaps some tongue and cheek to the approach as their name implies. I think a clean and minimal approach will work well here.

Research Board 3:

I took a little dive into some other band logos, from more modern designs to older ones. My initial thinking is that this will focus more on the typography of the logo. 

I’ve never really thought about The Beatles logo before, but after reading up I was interested to learn that the famous drop-T logo was created to emphasis the word ‘beat’ by using capital B and dropped T.

“In case of a typographic logo, the choice of font is what makes it unique. The creator of the Beatles wordmark did not customise an existing font but created every character from scratch. Today the typeface is called “Bootle”. The name of the band reads cleanly due to the big, solid letters”

The Arctic Monkeys logo from 2011-2017 intrigued me as they used distortion to almost create an illusion of movement within the branding. From research this might have been to echo a flag.

I’m assuming that the Bowie logo was to emulate his famous make-up and hair for Ziggy Stardust era.

I had to take a look at the chemical brothers logo as the Scaragmanga guys mentioned this as an influence for them. This logo was created using the Linotype typeface called Sho Roman. The designers played with the type a little “until the logo looked suitably scratchy yet coherent” This logo gives off a bit of a ‘cut and paste’ vibe with the letters a little smushed together, which was reminiscent of the chemical brothers approach to creating music.

References:

1000logos.net. (2019). 1000 Logos - The Famous Brands and Company Logos in the World. [online] Available at: https://1000logos.net/.

BandLogoJukeBox. (n.d.). BandLogoJukeBox. [online] Available at: https://www.bandlogojukebox.com/ [Accessed 8 Dec. 2021].

[harrietjulia]

Passion Project | Poster Final Touches & Mock ups

Here I have added in the finishing touches to the designs for each poster to include further copy, festival logo, website etc for promotional event purposes. 

 I created the info design/alignment purposefully to evoke the shape of a film slate as I felt that tied into the theme.

The mock ups I have used help to create a sense of scale and environment as I envisioned these posters to be used on billboard and outdoor settings to advertise the event, they are paired with a small selection of merchandise mockups ie postcards, tickets and totes.

Casablanca

Final advertisement poster and Ticket and Merchandise Mock ups

Dirty Harry

Final advertisement poster and Ticket and Merchandise Mock ups

Star Wars

Final advertisement poster and Ticket and Merchandise Mock ups

Jaws

Final advertisement poster and Ticket and Merchandise Mock ups

[harrietjulia]

Passion Project | Branding & Merchandise

Postcards

For the mini postcards I chose the standard A6 size format. I imagined these would be sold at the event or given to attendees with their tickets etc.

The back layout is simple and echoes the same theme used for the ticket design with the same colour palettes and logo mark present. I added in a little info Individual to each film to give further information about the movie, the Mandela Effect and its mis-quote. The front is just the simple version of the poster minus any of the copy added for advertisement purposes.

[harrietjulia]

Passion Project | Branding & Merchandise

Ticket Design

I started working on further branding and merchandise for the overall festival. 

Above, Inspiration: I stumbled on this film festival project by Isaac Mathew Ruiz, I admire his horror film festival branding and wanted to see if I could utilise some of his approaches in the branding I was finalising. I really enjoy all the elements he has created for it from the logo, posters, website and ticket design! Very inspiring for ideas.

His use of type, colour and overall arrangement is really effective for the subject matter, and I’ve taken some inspiration from this for adding final copy to my posters and additional materials. Take a look at his full project: here:  https://www.behance.net/gallery/52261327/Scream-Film-Festival

Designing the Ticket

Important info I noted to include was the when, what, where and why 

when: the time and date of the festival

what: what is the name of the festival and the film showing

where: the venue to attend

why: eh, cause you need the ticket to get in?

I took a look at some of my old tickets I had at hand from events and I really liked the long format. This could work well for folding etc.

I initially wanted to use the same font from the posters, but felt the logo typeface/font had better over legibility for a ticket, it is paired with a font called Barlow, which offers a larger family of weights etc to play with. 

My idea was to try incorporating elements of the brand mark into the merchandise and tickets. Below is several variations of my stages to get to the final one. I had one idea to make the perforrated edge of the ticket into a shape that was associated to the film, ie a bite mark or round like a bullet hole, but I wasn’t quite feeling it in the end. 

I decided instead to bring in imagery I had used in the posters to add some consistency to the overall festival. I also wanted this physical ticket to work digitally and so there is a QR code stub that the customer can keep to reach the website or app/digital ticket for each film. 

I imagined that this would be a long foldable ticket and that it would give the customer a mini print or peel-able sticker for them to keep with the movie quote on it.

I decided at this stage to print out the ones I had made as I wanted to ensure everything was legible. I also wanted to create a little mockup showing the fold. I was definitely right to print them out as I noticed immediately some issues with the font size.

So with this in mind, I made the adjustments to the tickets and landed on below as final versions of the tickets.

In my head it would be nice to have the main movie title and the logo mark foiled, shiny or give off some type of reflective surface.

My phone pics and folding skills aren’t 100% great, but I’m pretty pleased with what I was able to achieve with this little mockup. I would like to creates this in a digital form too for mobile and do a quick mock-up. (might add that in if I have time) I can envision some more animated functionality to a mobile version where the quote might change once your ticket is scanned (though the hows to do that I am unsure of :S) 

P.S I stupidly realised that I put the Jaws quote incorrectly (my own little Mandela Effect playing tricks with me)....I have altered this in the final ticket decision image shown, but the created mock ups and photos are wrong.

[harrietjulia]

Passion Project | Concept Experimentation

 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

I really wanted to attempt the other movies I had listed, so I decided to apply the same method to the Star Wars poster as I had for the other designs. I began again by printing out and playing around with cutting and pasting the words to re-arrange and create texture for the poster. 

I first toyed with beaming a light into the word NO. The intention for this was to make the word ‘No’ the highlight, make it look large and in your face. It was looking quite cool, but also proved tricky to get just right and I wasn’t sure at first how this would translate once brought into computer (plus my camera phone ain’t great)

Imagery wise I considered light sabers but in the end settled on the Darth Vader mask as it creates a little ominous energy to the poster. The image is by Inkredo Designer on unplash, I considered buying a mask to create the image but I liked how this image looked and wasn’t sure I would achieve any better with a crappy toy mask and dodgy phone camera. I scored out Luke’s name and made the score look a little like the glow of a lightsaber 

I quite enjoy this outcome, but unsure if I like it with the red ‘father’ or without? 

I wanted to try another method and fell back on coloured acetate to add some shapes to the design. 

I wanted to make sure that colour (specifically red) was a focal point for this design, to create a feeling of alert, evil, danger and also to correlate to Darth Vader’s lightsaber. So in my final design I made this clear and contrasted the red by having ‘Luke’ appears in green to mimic his good side and his light saber. (which I was unsure if was green or blue, turns out he had both colours but acquires the green after losing his orginal in his battle with Darth Vader)

left: original scan, right: final design

Now I just need to decide on which version I like best. I’m drawn to the right purely based on the bold red, it draws the eye well.

[harrietjulia]

Passion Project | Concept  Experimentation

Casablanca

For Casablanca I wanted to try out a few ideas looking at the imagery of the reflection of palm trees. Below is a still from the movie where strong palm tree shadows are cast on the back wall of Ricks Cafe. This I carried through in my experimentation to help capture a feeling of a place and time, a memory for the characters.

By creating a leaf out of card I tried my hand at casting some reflections on my carpet to get the shadow effect. The classic movie has lots of high contrast shots with black and white imagery, playing into the espionage and film noir genre.

I took my previous created type experiment (below) and placed the palm tree imagery behind. I think it is quite effective and echoes the setting of a time and place and the movie; as Saul Bass would say “Symbolise and summarise” something I keep saying to myself. My only concern is that the palm leaves could look slightly menacing, almost like knives?

Above Far left, a simplified version of each design was created using the same typeface, I do quite enjoy these but they don’t hold much imagery to the films, other than the colour palettes and quotes themselves. However they are very legible and super clear in their message. They also remind of Oatly branding, the typeface is quite similar but not exact.

One thing that I kept coming back to in my head was the imagery of piano keys and so I got myself some piano keys washi tape (how fun hehe) so trialled a version of this design using this washi tape to cut and paste the quote in. 

I think or Im hoping it works better and directly references the quote, scene, song, and memory perfectly. The tape when scanned in wasn’t quite looking how I hoped, and proved tricky to pair with the background. Perhaps too busy? I also tried a version using imagery of piano keys as a subtle background and I think of my trials bottom right is the strongest. I didn’t have a piano at hand to photograph, image is by Oleg Kuzmin via unsplash

[harrietjulia]

Version 1. A4 Spread

Re-imagining the Hidden Hitchin article as a much more modern A4 editorial magazine spread.

I wanted to try creating an entirely different look, it should have lots of breathing space and a colour theme throughout. I chose a green and orange palette to add some Halloween and autumnal vibes.

The Headline is sliced using a shape (I’m unsure if there is better way to achieve this using InDesign, as I know how I would do this in Illustrator) it adds that ‘hidden’ theme to the article headline. Being that this is the 31st edition and the article is published in October and is focussed on Halloween, this was added as a sub heading in to be more of a feature.

Referring to “Grid Systems” by Josef Muller-Brockmann, a grid layout consisting of 3 columns is used, the inner and bottom margins are increased to give breathing room and space for the fold. I also used this book as reference for deciding where is best to place the page numbers. I think the placement keeps them visually in line within the body of text.

A total of 3 fonts are used, one for the display headline, one for the main body of text and one for the sub headings. (I could probably eliminate 1 of the fonts) I added in a sub heading called ‘Top Tips’ for the last page, as I felt this last paragraph in the article was just a little add on of things to do and recommendations from the author. It makes for a nice conclusion to the piece.

Version 2. A5 spread

I also tried to have a go at creating this article within the A5 page confinement  (as originally intended) and tried it out as an 2 page, 4 page and 6 page spread to see which would give the best result.

Above: 2 page spread, with soft and subtle imagery and more breathings space for the body of text. This spread utilises a 2 grid layout with larger margins again for the inner and bottom of pages. Similar ideas are used throughout as seen in the A4 spread. I quite enjoy the outcome of this one, and it is the closest to the original in regards to page set up. 

Above: 2 column grid again, imagining the article as 4 pages this time and utilising much more imagery and a greyish blue colour palette with sepia toned photos to match the bleak and spooky subject matter. (reminded me of gravestones and black and white images)

Above: and lastly, keeping a similar feel, but changing up the typeface for the headline and sub headings and playing with the layout a little. Each sub heading now has it’s own page and imagery. I also attempted to try a small illustrative element to represent Aram’s Alley, not sure if I like it or not and alone maybe it looks random, perhaps carrying it throughout the spread would be better

Which is looking the best so far? Any critique welcome :)