Rosie Oakes

20 years old. Graphic Design.

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Vienna, July 2014. Photos from Vienna Zoo, The Natural History Museum, The Belvedere, Schonbrunn Palace, Karlskirche, Albertina...

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Happy days

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The exhibition space.

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The first chalkboard looks a little something like this

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The completed recipe cards

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The bags have been screen printed on! I'm really happy with how these turned out. Since the bags are quite fiddly, the ink smudged in places but I ended up liking the result because it means each bag isn't exactly the same and it looks more natural.

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The finished brochure - So happy to have completed the main part of my FMP. It only needs binding together now. I printed it onto light brown/beige sugar paper as I love how the fibres are still visible and it makes it look more effective and natural. I think the more imperfect it is, the better it actually looks. I plan on printing some more so they can be scattered around the exhibition space for people to look through.

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Reflection, 14/05/14

It has been a while since I last wrote up a reflection but I feel I have come a long way with my work. Yesterday I realised I didn't have much written feedback (since I always ask people such as my parents directly for their opinions on my work) so today I gathered some feedback on my chalkboard designs. I felt this really helped me in deciding which chalkboard design to develop further and use in the final exhibition space (will explain this later on in the post).

Today I started my final designs for my recipe cards. I guess I like the layout of them and how I've handwritten the recipes but on the other hand, they don't really match up with the rest of my products I'm making such as the booklet and they also don't feature the logo. I could resolve this problem by scanning the designs onto the computer, digitally adding the logo and then printing them out but this seems pointless. Alternatively, since I still haven't decided on a final design for my booklet pages, I could change that so it matches the recipe cards. However, I'm not sure how I would go about this since I use watercolours in the recipe cards and at this stage, creating watercolour pictures for every page of the booklet would be time consuming.

I have come up with some ideas on how I'd like my exhibition space to look like. My first idea is to have the two boards placed together so they create a corner and the table would against them in the middle. On the table would be my final booklet and recipe cards as well as a computer monitor which would display this blog (this could pose a problem though since college have blocked tumblr...). On one of the boards would be two large sized posters and on the floor would be the chalkboard with one of the designs I'd have chosen. On the other board would be my final bag designs. I am wanting to screen print my designs onto paper bags in different sizes. Other things I am planning to have is bunting which would hopefully match the colour scheme of my booklet and maybe say 'eat local' on it and also I think a nice touch to add to the farm/farmer's market theme is to have a basket of fruit and vegetables. Not real ones, mind. Hopefully I'll be able to find some crochet patterns for things such as carrots and apples and I'll be able to make some before the exhibition. My second exhibition space idea is pretty much the same as the first except the table would be placed against just one of the boards and this allows more space for an extra poster up on the board. Alternative ideas include having the chalkboard placed on the table rather than the floor, having no bunting at all or no monitor at all. I would like to display my campaign logo in the exhibition by itself as well as on the final outcomes such as the booklet and posters.

Since my two poster designs are done, I can tick them off the list. If I have any time left once completing everything, I would like to go back and maybe design another one because they were definitely fun to create, especially taking the photographs.

Looking back at my work overall, I suppose I am quite happy at what I have done so far. I feel like I have improved massively since starting the foundation course in September and I'm still determined to improve. A lot of research into current design trends, typography and existing design such as logos, booklets, posters, etc has really helped.

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Today I developed my ideas by creating my sketchbook designs onto a chalkboard. I used different coloured chalk (which doesn't show up well in these photos) as well as white to produce drop shadows which would stand out. In my final exhibition space, I would like a chalk board to be there and I would have one of my designs on it, since it's obviously not as authentic when you are just looking at a photo of a chalkboard. This will go alongside my other two posters I have created for the campaign but it will be different and will fit well with the farm/eat local theme. I think my favourite so far is the second design but I plan on creating more so I have more options.

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For this second poster design, I used primary sources in the form of my own photographs. I used a wooden chopping board as the background and gathered a load of fruit and vegetables (and two eggs, which according to me are fruit as well) and I arranged them in different positions, ensuring that there was an empty space in the middle where the text would go. It took quite a few arrangements and photo taking until I got what I was happy with. After this, I uploaded the photos and used Photoshop to adjust the contrast and added text and the logo. I originally had 'Eat Local' as the text in the middle but I thought this was too much since the logo also has these words. So I changed it to 'from farm to fork'. It was going to be 'from spade to fork' as I have a spade in my logo but eggs don't grow in the ground and require a spade, do they? I'm pretty happy with the result, especially the quality of the photographs which was only taken with my Fujifilm Finepix S4800. My next poster design will be my chalkboard idea.

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New blog logo

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The first poster idea.

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I also created some mock up t shirt designs today (from here). Same with the bag designs, I'd like to screen print these onto t shirts. I would like the shirts to look modern and fashionable because to be honest - I can't imagine many people wanting to wear a shirt that says 'eat local' on it, somehow.

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Here is another bag design I've created which is similar to ones I have done previously in that I've made a pattern out of the fork and spade from the campaign logo but I have also added my 'eat local' text to the middle. At first I thought this design would be too busy but when I created this shopping bag mock up (from here), I quite liked the overall look of it. I was originally planning to develop this idea by changing the colours but I think the black, grey and white colour scheme looks nice in this, despite not matching any other colour schemes of my other designs. My plans were to screen print my designs on paper bags and even though I'd still like to do this, it could be difficult to achieve with this particular design because of the drop shadows on the text and circle.

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I was creating some more bag designs today and I wanted to take a more simple approach and come up with ideas that were less busy than the other ones. I borrowed another design I made for the chalkboard poster ideas. I really like this and how serif and sans serif typefaces contrast together, but unfortunately it isn't really connected to any of the other designs I have created for my other outcomes (such as the booklet or the campaign logo). Another idea was to have the words 'eat local' in cursive text placed in a circle with the fork and spade from the logo at the top. I tried this out and I think I much prefer this simple design without it. I also had an idea of simply having the logo as a bag design but not only did this make the overall layout look extremely empty, it just looked plain odd.

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Here is my second layout idea and I definitely think I prefer this over than my first one. Like I have mentioned in the previous post, the headings are similar to my front cover idea in that they use the same typefaces and itself takes up half a page. I have created more illustrations and haven't yet experimented with photos but I guess the pages do look a bit plain without them. I particularly like the contrast between serif and sans serif typefaces and the use of drop shadow. I think I'd like to make the background look more textured as I feel this design could have a lot more potential and currently does look a bit bland.

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I've been working on a new layout for the booklet. Rather than have one page per product (cheese, bread, etc), I have decided to have two pages each. The heading is similar to the front cover in that it uses a variety of different typefaces and takes up half a page. There are no images here - instead I have used illustration but I am not completely ruling images out just yet. I have included the logo at the bottom which would be present on every page. I will continue to develop this idea and see if I can improve it.