D&AD: JC Decaux #LondonIsOpen Final Thoughts
Out of all the projects in the year the outcome for D&AD is probably the closest to what I would like to be recognised and known for. I definitely attempted this in my second brief of the year with Unheard Voices, the historical context with current culture is another theme in my response for JC Decaux’s brief.
My biggest struggle I often notice in a lot of my briefs is getting context into a visual that communicates well and efficiently. It’s very hard to focus on the context and the idea and then let it muddle too far without ever thinking of how to get people to engage and find this as interesting as I do. Having Shari to write the copy for this brief definitely allowed me to focus more on the visual aspects on the project, collaborating with her helped tremendously. Getting to a point of a visual that worked was another challenge but it did start to become clearer, with what needs to attract attention first, that design hierarchy in images and copy is very important. The whole point is to draw someone in. Through all the experiments and visual revisions, the satisfaction of ‘THATS IT! THATS HOW IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE’ was very satisfying, I enjoyed the triumph of that a lot more than I noticed.
The process of writing the copy began with a lot of difficulty because I obviously had not established a focus that’s specific about the London moves on quickly attitude as the brief did mention using the retail aspect of Oxford Circus as a main focus. When I decided that the main focus of the campaign is about the city of London and how it will carry on despite the it’s adversities, the copy began it’s refinement to it’s final stages through the sub-headline Our Spirit Keeps Us Timeless.
Creating a mood board and simple presentation for Shari definitely helped her and I to get to a place where I was happy with the copy.
Solving problems in visual hierarchy
The main struggle to solve here was just translating my idea of these very vibrant posters into actual posters. I had established that I really wanted a bright acid color for the headlines to be overlaid on the images that were darkened and editted to a nice deep black and white.
What helped most is working in a different color profile in the end when I realised that actually I could work in RGB as the posters are now screen-based rather than print CMYK. RGB colors are definitely punchier and made me feel more open to more possibility.
The placements of longer or shorter copy and finding a template or a system that could work seamlessly through out all six posters that will roll out, above was the first layout and arrangement of the copy without a traditional justify right, center or left. I wanted the anti hierachy and almost punk “F Your Establishment” element to come through without it being too obvious.
The off center placement of the copy was done to give an idea of non hierarchy for the copy worked better as a concept and didn’t translate well. It felt awfully jumbled and the sub headline’s placement felt like it was interfering with it’s placement in the center. Aligning all the text to the right definitely seemed most successful, it’s legibility was good and didn’t clash too much with the images chosen in the background.
The outcome at the end definitely came out being very close to what I have envisioned in my head. The contrast of the old imagery of the Blitz with the witty headlines and followed with the sub headline definitely made me feel like the campaign has began to make sense and come together. I don’t think I will ever be able to get things to be exactly as I think of them initially but this project left me in a very satisfying and positive place as I approached the end of my degree.
The final thing I looked into before I finished of the campaign was an interactivity. The screens themselves at the bus stop didn’t have a screen to respond directly so I thought about a website to accompany the campaign that I titled thiscitycarrieson which then becomes what I call this project entirely.
The website functions as a information point of what’s ahead for the London Is Open campaign where interested by-passers could gain information and get one of the
Out of all the projects I’ve done for the year I think the process of this project albeit stressful was also incredibly fun to execute. I learned a lot about finishing and design processes, the frustration was rewarding. Collaboration definitely helps and having Shari work alongside me made this project very enjoyable.
