Evaluation – Studio culture
Studio culture was an interesting project. The brief told us that we were to create the branding for a studio that we must make up ourselves. It took some time trying to understand what was asked of us, writing down notes for ideas, rejection from ideas, but eventually we settled on something that everyone approved of. We decided that for our studio culture project, we would create the branding for an open studio where people could come in from anywhere, pay for our services, and then be given our facilities and equipment to use as a way to create artwork in many different forms. We decided to call it ‘Plan C’, where the plan c was coming to the studio when plan A and B, doing it from home or paying someone else to do it for you, wasn’t an available option. It also had a double meaning to it, where Plan C also stood for Plan Creative. We created some logos for it, which is an essential part of the branding process. It well communicates who we are without even having to explain ourselves. Originally, we were going to create artwork that we can pretend was made by our customers and use it on the website and social media, but we didn’t have enough time for that and didn’t end up doing it. But we did do a lino cutting of our logo. It went well and was mostly a success, apart from the fact it was backwards and only was the right way around on the acetate. It wasn’t really an issue for me though, more of a learning experience for next time. Plus, we managed to improvise with creating purple by mixing some red, blue and white so that it could match our logo colors. Although, the lines weren’t kind of messy as I am not very good at doing lino. I’d have to practice more to get cleaner lines, but the jagged lines don’t always have to always necessarily be something bad. Did we succeed in our project through branding? I think we did quite well. We created a great concept for an open studio that has the potential to do thrive, created logos, business cards, merchandise as well as a website that can easily be navigated. The website had taken inspiring elements from other existing websites too, such as the home page layouts. The common aspects of a website were there and shows in the mockup that it can be clicked on and accessed. The website describes who we are, what we stand for, showcases artwork that can be made, as well as sells merchandise to our valued customers. Something that we could improve on however, was that at the start of the project, we were working well on it. However, through out the middle, we got too focused on our counter culture project and were working more onto that and kind of ended up forgetting about working on studio culture. Next time we should balance it out more and make sure studio culture is getting done too.
Evaluation – counter culture
During this project, my goal for the counter culture brief was to design a magazine called ‘Explorer’ which highlighted the positive aspects of the internet and the impact it has had on society. To do this, I had to use elements of graphic design such as illustration, typography and visual hierarchy in order to effectively communicate my message. I wanted it to change the idea of the internet being mostly bad than good. Although it may not be perfect, I wanted people to be able to recognize the good in it so that they don’t wish it was completely ridden of. I also wanted people who already felt positive about it to continue feeling that way, relating to my magazine and feeling nostalgic. I believe that my magazine turned out pretty good. The information was clear, concise and relevant to my topic. I tried to make it engaging to the target audience and feel positive. There was enough information without being too overwhelming. Visually, I think it managed to hit its goal of having a bright, retro, early internet feel to it using illustrations such as internet tabs, paint tabs and scroll bars. I liked my choice of font for both headings and text. However, if there was one thing, I wish I could have done better, it would be having more illustrations on there. Since my time was limited and I was busy trying to get everything done in time, I didn’t have enough time to make as many illustrations as I wanted to. I wanted to make multiple detailed ones to put in. Unfortunately, it’s too time-consuming and I just didn’t end up having the time to make them. Another thing I didn’t end up adding was the weird experiences I planned on. This was because after gathering a few of them from people, I realised that a lot of them were negatives which you already hear people complaining about a lot. That pretty much defeated the purpose of my magazine, which was to put the internet in a positive light instead of a negative one. Because of that, I wasn’t sure if I should add it in for that wacky aspect, but risk it reversing the intended effect of my magazine on its target audience, or just leave it as it was and end it there. Instead, I just decided to not add it in at all. Most of the image making was done on illustrator and transferred onto indesign. Although, creating the image inside of the paint tab was done seperately as a bitmap. Same applies for the pixel music app and pixel cloud. Those were added as pixel images to add to the old retro feeling, as well as look like the old video games. I managed to print it out as the size I wanted so it would look like a desktop screen. However, I couldn’t bind it the way I wanted to, which was unfortunate. This was due to the fact that I did not have the required materials to do it at the time and didn’t obtain them. It was also because I hadn’t learned how to do the binding too. If I had the chance to do this again, I would like to make sure I have the required materials and have taught myself how to properly bind it too. Another thing I would like to add is that the paper wasn’t anything special either. Perhaps next time I could find specific paper to use in the size I wanted. Something interesting and fitting, maybe something that feels a little bit like a screen would be a nice touch. When it came to doing my t-shirt print, that came out successful for me. I think it was a good way for branding purposes but it also looked visually appealing and it was fun for me to do. Although it came out a little different on the fabric of the shirt and I had to go over it again, it worked well and it’s a good process. Hopefully when it comes around to the next project, I can work at a better pace and get more done faster. I hope that my skill set can grow even more, as it did this project and I have even more fun ideas.
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