Harry Walton, Graphic Design

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c2c Rail

My seventh university project began with a brief for the c2c Rail company, from which we were given about two weeks to generate a decent idea that could be used in the company’s marketing scheme this year

Unfortunately I was ill on the day that the brief was set, so it took me a long time to finally wrap my head around exactly what this task was about, not leaving me with long to come up with ideas

Despite this, I was determined to think of something interesting for the brief, and did a lot of research into the way that trainlines advertised their tickets

I noticed that a lot of the adverts focused on prices rather than actual experiences, and usually just displayed a standard city trip - these advertisements felt rather bland, and I could see that a lot of them would fail to connect with viewers

For this reason, I decided that my approach would have to be much more engaging - hence why I chose to base my marketing scheme around the idea that “There’s more to train travel than the daily commute”, which I felt would help viewers to relate to the advert, and encourage them to get the train to somewhere they can associate with enjoyment, not just work

This contrast between work and leisure can be used across multiple mediums - for example, it would be easy to create a tv advertisement that progressed from a man’s solemn commute to his city job, to a family’s day out to the countryside via c2c Rail

Colour could also play a key role in each respective advert - juxtaposing the black and white, melancholy daily grind, to a colourful day out with loved ones 

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Evaluation,

For me, this module wasn’t as much about learning. I chose a topic that I knew a considerable amount about, and designed my final outcomes in a style that is both unique to me and that I enjoy doing. So this particular project was more of a development-based journey, rather than something daring and experimental. But don’t let that convince you that this project wasn’t helpful to me, in fact, it has been crucial to the advancement of my skills within Graphic Design.

 I say this because every now and again you need a project such as this one, with a lot of creative freedom and no annoying specifications on how to do this and that. Projects like these help me to progress as a designer, because I get to figure out what I enjoy creating, and develop the skills that I am already comfortable with.

 One thing I did learn however, was that I should always put as much thought into the type that complements my work, as the art itself. In future I will always use my illustrations as the heart of my work, but words as what define it. I originally had used bread and butter straplines which did their job but not much more, but no I am beginning to see how much of a difference a few words can make when added to a composition.

 I put as much research into the topic of depression as I felt I needed to, and as for my artist research I didn’t do much at all, but this was not out of laziness, but out of the strive to create my own personal style that I can be identified with. For this reason I don’t at all regret not looking at other artists for this brief.

 As for things that may have gone wrong during the brief, I cannot say there were many. I know that sounds a tad pretentious, but whenever a design wasn’t coming fully to fruition, I would merely scrap what I didn’t like about it and recycle the better ideas into the next poster, and so on until I had created my final piece. So I can’t exactly say that anything wrong because each attempt at a poster that I had was somehow included in the final product.

 I was incredibly happy with my final outcome. There were a few miniscule errors within the illustration (some odd lighting in areas, bits of grass placed wrong etc.) that would be hard to notice without them being pointed out, but apart from that I feel as if it accurately displayed feelings of depression and fulfilled its purpose in getting a message across to the viewer.

 For my next project I will probably change the tone and tackle something that I’m not as comfortable with, such as videography. I feel as if I owe it to myself to try something new and see if there are any hidden creative talents I don’t know about yet. At the end of the day, this project has helped me develop some really useful design skills, which I can definitely fall back on if trying something new doesn’t work out.

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Critical Commentary 3,

Our third lecture was about how we see/interact with artwork.

I chose to use one of my personal pieces that I created as part of a series I’m doing in my spare time. This one happens to be based on AMC’s The Walking Dead, a popular American tv show.

The composition is made up of four aspects in total: The text at the top of the piece, the blank space in the centre, the character and scenery at the bottom, and the border which frames the composition.

I have used many visual tactics here in order to draw the viewer’s eye in and keep it there. The most obvious of these that I have used, is colour. I purposefully chose a light, beige colour for the blank space within the piece, and contrasted it with a dark brown colour for the parts of the composition that I wanted people to be looking at.

As well as this, I made sure not to make the piece too detailed, using only silhouettes and simple text to keep the viewer focused on what is important. However, by doing this there is always the problem of the piece being too boring, which is why I make sure to always overlay a texture onto my work, as well as adding some more precise details that can keep viewers on their toes, in this case those details being the ashes rising from the bottom of the piece.

Finally, I framed the piece in a way that kept it interesting. I have the belief that the best way of framing artwork is by repeating the artwork within itself, as a simple black or white border around your work will only distract the viewer, whereas my procedure softly brings their eye into the centre of the composition whilst also bringing my work forwards and creating less space between it and the person looking at it. The border is an enlarged repeat of what is in front of it, but I have purposely made it darker so that it is less distracting, and have placed a slight shadow beneath the artwork on top of it, again to bring it as close to the viewer as possible.

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Critical Commentary 2,

This next ‘Critical Commentary’ task involved the study of panelled/sequential imagery. We were asked to look at a page from a comic/graphic novel and explain how a narrative is shown though the layout and general composition of a page (or two).

I chose two pages from one of my favourite story arcs in comic history, specifically the Flashpoint Paradox, where superhero The Flash uses his powers to go back in time and prevent the death of his mother, which circumstantially alters the reality that he once knew (with disastrous consequences) and sets him on a journey to put things back to the way they once were. In this particular scene, The Flash is seen giving Batman a letter from his father, who died in their normal timeline but was alive in the one Flash accidentally created. The scene’s main objective is to show emotion, and it does that spectacularly well.

We see Batman’s sceptical reaction at first, and we are there to witness the moment that he realises this letter is actually written by his late father, as he loses his footing in a flurry of emotions. This is especially shocking to the reader as Batman’s character is famous for his stoicism, which makes the final panel all the more iconic to the development of his persona.

The reason I chose these two pages out of so many possible scenes and great moments from the comics I have read, is because it is just so good at displaying not just emotion, but humanity too. It barely requires any spoken language here, but the artist still manages to create a truly heart-warming moment between two characters. Even a character as strong willed as Batman can be reduced to tears by a letter from his father, and it illustrates his humanity in a way that nothing else could do better.

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Critical Commentary 1,

This poster is one of many that were used to advertise the Cemig power company. The series uses both minimalism and negative space to conjure an image of something that is well known within popular culture. This draws the eye to the piece, both due to its aesthetics and the use of imagery we can relate to. Although the advertisement itself is not in any way associated with (in the case of this poster) Star Wars. Upon reading the line at the bottom of the composition, we see that the purpose of the poster is to remind you to turn your television off once you have finished using it. Some people might call this bad advertising, due to the fact that the connection between the movie and a power company is incredibly forced. But I disagree and propose that this type of advertisement is the opposite, a very powerful and fulfilling piece of work that carries out its purpose in a way that I doubt many other compositions could. The reason I say this is because it is a lot easier to get someone’s attention with what appears to be a movie poster, than it is to draw in their eye with a poster that discusses electrical power.

The piece sucker punches you with the juxtaposition that takes place between the text and the image. You go into the piece expecting to be entertained, but leave informed. A crafty trick from the designer, but brilliant, because that power company’s message is now firmly implemented in your unsatisfied, but informed mind.

Whoever designed this series is a true hustler of the human mind. They know exactly how to play us as humans and how to trick us into taking in what is quite honestly one of the most boring moral messages on the planet.

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Side (24 hour) brief - Walk in my Shoes Poster

We were given another day-long brief that tasked us with creating a poster for the exhibition our work was being displayed in.

I wasn’t happy at all with how this turned out, but I was forced to rush this piece when I didn’t realise it was another 24 hour project until the last moment.

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Side (24 hour) brief - Bee 9 Honey

As well as the main project we were working on, an extra project was set for us - one which involved designing a label for honey that had been produced within Birmingham.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the final product here due to the fact that we were only given a day to complete the brief, but the exercise was fresh and exciting regardless.

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Other finished pieces,

I worked on quite a few different ideas before I reached my final outcome.

This first piece was based on the idea that ‘someone’s world could look very different from yours’.

Next, I had a photographic piece that at one stage I’d considered printing for the exhibition. In the end I simply decided to use it for my ‘Walk in my Shoes’ poster.

I used a lot of abstract, symbolic imagery here. Such as the hand crumbling, a man going for a quiet stroll on his own, nooses, and crows. The finished product was quite stylised, but not nearly impactful enough.

This last piece came very close to being the one that I decided to print, but I loved the imagery within my final piece too much. I tried to show the different stages of depression in this poster, but I never became fully satisfied with it, a perfect example of an idea that you feel is so close to what you want it to achieve but just slightly misses the mark for you and consequently becomes experimentation rather than a conclusion to the project.

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Primary Research,

I already had a pretty decent knowledge of depression going into this project, and was eager to dive into it. But I decided not to skip out on my initial research and browsed numerous mental health websites before moving onto my artist research.

I looked through quite a few statistics that could potentially be used on my posters.

I didn’t feel like I had to research what it felt like to be depressed, as I’ve gone through the occasional rough patch and thought it would be more personal if my posters were depictions of how I have felt in times past. I hoped to create abstract self-portraits, with a strong focus on emotion.

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Project 5 - Walk in my Shoes,

My second year of university has begun with an interesting brief titled ‘Walk in my Shoes’, which focuses on charity work and will culminate into an exhibition of student work.

I decided very early on in the brief that I would be basing my work around the topic of depression, especially within young men, as this would make the project personal for me, whilst also helping to raise some awareness of a huge problem that is very often overshadowed in today’s society.

I felt as if I would be best able to convey my ideas through a series of posters, one of which I would put forward for the Walk in my Shoes exhibition.

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Harry Walton

A dark, dark place (Depression)

Mental health is a topic that is slowly becoming less and less taboo with our generation. 80% of people with symptoms of Depression never get any treatment for it, and a very large portion of this percentage are young men - due to the fact that men are often ridiculed and demasculinized when discussing their feelings. This piece is personal to me because it’s based on something I was told during a difficult time in my life. Specifically, “Don’t stay in this hole you’ve dug yourself” - I have moved past that now and with this poster I urge others to get the help they need in order to do the same

Photo-manipulative illustration. Size A1 portrait

November 2016

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Project 4 Summary - Exploring Meaning Through Narrative,

The last brief for my initial year of university, was by far the shakiest, but I believe the end products were worth all the stress this project put me through. I could be entirely dishonest and say that my work and the brief itself were without fault, but that wouldn’t be accurate feedback, so I will tell you my legitimate thoughts on the project.

One of the main reasons I wasn’t the biggest fan of this brief, was the initial reaction I (and many others) had to it. The brief was pitched as a ‘non-digital’ brief where we had to make two books. I thought that this was utterly ridiculous and not at all suitable for a Graphic Design course. I don’t think a single person signed up for this course wanting to go into hands-on book-making, and if they did then they would be more suited to an Illustration degree. If you went for an interview at a graphic design agency and showed them a nicely made book, they would probably ask you: “But are you any good at Photoshop?”

So of course at the beginning of the project I felt so mistreated by the brief that for a while I decided I wasn’t going to do it. I didn’t do any work until it was announced (in complete contradiction to what was originally said) that we were allowed to digitally create the book and get it printed.

So, that gave me some hope that I was on the right course and not having my time wasted, so I finally started my work. Due to the fact that I’d missed out on a lot of hours at this point, I see now that I rushed the first book to some extent. This first book was based on George Orwell’s 1984, which I took the time to read over Easter.

The first book was meant as a survival guide to the world of ‘1984’, written from the perspective of someone that had betrayed ‘The Party’, a political group who had gained absolute power over 99% of the people. I created some worthy pieces for the book, but when I tried to print it, I completely misjudged the sizes of my imagery, which led to the final product having visible white lines around their edges.

However, I learnt from my mistakes and made sure that the second book was of a much higher quality. This book was supposed to be a more personal piece, and it was suggested that we design it around a story from our lives. I decided to make a book that discussed various elements of life instead, this way I could tell multiple stories with my book, and give the reader a very personal look into the way that I see the world. I was much happier with this book, and I’m quite proud of some of the visuals that I produced for it.

Overall, despite its shaky start, this brief turned out quite well in the end. If I were to do the project again, I would wish to have the brief better explained initially, and that way I wouldn’t have felt threatened to rush some of my work into completion before the deadline.

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Areas of Design I may go into - Essay,

It was years ago when I figured out that I wanted to go into Graphic Design, but the area of it from which I will specialise still remains unclear to me. This isn’t because I’m not confident in any area of Graphic Design, but more because I enjoy working in so many of them.

Much of the work I have produced during my time at university has been in some shape or form a publication. For my first brief I designed a magazine, the second a handbook on eyesight, and for my latest brief I have created two more books. However, despite having done so much work of this type, I feel as if my strongest brief was the third brief, where I branded a music festival. For the most digital of the four briefs, and therefore the most accurate to what modern Graphic Design will be like, I created identities for my festival, festival sponsor, and twelve separate bands that would perform there. I feel like I enjoyed this brief the most, but there is a good possibility that this was only due to the fact that it was a digitalised project, which is much more in my comfort zone.

Another type of design I could go into, is infographic-design. In my second brief, I created a few infographics to convey statistics to readers about optical disabilities, and felt as if it was a field that I would be comfortable revisiting in the future.

Before starting at university, I did a lot of advertising briefs in college. Whilst these briefs weren’t always the most enjoyable and could sometimes even feel tedious, I believe that advertising will be the field of design that could provide the most work. Due to this, there is a good chance that I will end up going into some form of advertising, and I’m surprised we haven’t had much focus on that in this first year of university, but I have hope that next year we will.

The final area of Graphic Design I could see myself going into is something I have only recently started working in. Motion Design will no doubt be getting more and more popular, as people now prefer to see moving images as they scroll through their Facebook newsfeed, rather than static ones. So this area might have some potential, and will definitely be in conjunction with advertising, but my only fear is that I have not yet got enough experience in this field, so we’ll have to see how I feel about that when I leave university.

So, there are multiple areas of design that I can realistically see myself going into, and at this stage I really don’t mind. I enjoy all of the mentioned fields and would be excited to start a career in any of them. I’ve always said that I would be a diverse Graphic Designer, so it is most likely that I will end up working in various types of design.

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Some things I've learnt ~ Final Piece

This is my second book, which was meant to be more personal to me. This is why I made the decision to base the book on different aspects of life, how I view them and why I see them that way.

I also tackle a lot of design principles visually here.

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1984 Survival Guide ~ Final Piece

Here is my first book, based upon the world of 1984

I also have a printed version, this electronic version is for display purposes only

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Personal Book Development - Part 8

The final chapter of my book focused on ‘Life’ itself.

For the imagery on this chapter I chose to portray as many important problems in life as possible. At the top of the piece, a polar bear is shown stranded on ice, to portray the current issue of global warming.

The centrepiece of the image is perhaps the most relevant at the moment, as it shows a rubber boat full of people travelling across the sea, to suggest the Syrian migrant crisis.

Lastly, the bottom half of the image shows a soldier trekking across the desert, to show the problem of war that is plaguing countries like Afghanistan at the moment.

I think this triptych of life’s problems is a very powerful way for me to end my book, as it shows what we should all really be focusing on.