Final Negotiated Brief - The Little Book Of Ginger Stuff

This is my final design for my negotiated brief. The negotiated brief is a project that all second year foundation degree students undertake, the aim of the brief is to let students understand the creative process from beginning to end by asking them to write their own brief and see it through every stage. I decided to use this brief and the time allocated to create a self promotional piece to be used as a mailer with my CV in the future when applying for placements and jobs. The brief I wrote stipulated that this little book would be about ginger facts, coining the phrase 'a gingersaurus' but more importantly would have a major focus on humour throughout. Another stipulation of my brief was that each spread would have to be different in style and content to effectively represent my skills as a designer and also add to the quirky feel of the final design. I really enjoyed this experience, the research tasks were incredibly fun for me as a ginger as I got to read a lot of funny stories, facts and myths surrounding the hair colour and then got to combine this with inspirational research of a variety of styles in design and illustration that not only helped me when designing my little book but that will stay in my collection of inspirational work for a long time. This brief was not only a lot of fun however, it gave me leave to learn about an aspect of design I have always been very curious about and had a sneaking suspicion would thoroughly enjoy: book design. This encapsulated learning about printing techniques, paper stocks and format and really getting to grips with grid systems, why we use them and how to use them effectively as well as refreshing on software I unfortunately do not get to use as often as I would like. Overall I am really proud of how my work has turned out and thoroughly enjoyed the process, this brief has shown me just how interested I am in book design and this area of design is definitely something I will be revisiting when the opportunity arises.

Lovely Bit Of Narc

Last week I was asked, along with my classmates, to take part in a live brief from Narc Magazine. The brief was to decipher a concept around the sheer randomness of music visualization with a focus on mixed media and apply this to a CD cover for their coming compilation CD, the disc and if the mood struck us a corresponding cover design. The only restrictions were to work to the Narc Magazine dimensions and to make sure no obvious music imagery was used such as instruments. This was my solution to the brief. My idea stems from the winged shoes of Hermes, the messenger of the Greek God Zeus. This line of thinking stems from the belief that Narc Magazine are messengers of the most up to date music on the British music scene, bringing culture to the masses. I focused on mixed media heavily when constructing my designs; the trainer is hand made using a variety of materials and techniques, tempered with the use of paper cut outs, in a variety of different colours and stocks and then scanned in to illustrator to add details such as the text and placement within the document parameters. I really enjoyed this brief, it was so liberating to create something purely for creativity's sake with just enough prerequisites to make this brief free and yet not too free at the same time therefore allowing me to avoid certain avenues of research and idea generation and focusing on others. Another aspect that I am really enjoying about this year long module that this brief is encapsulated within is the freedom from massive amounts of paper work and annotation, allowing me to focus on the brief and the solution. This module is really helping me with my idea generation skills and it is great to see an idea come to fruition on a more industry realistic time scale. It was also great to meet the narc team and have them, along with some tutors, critique my work. Overall I am really proud of the work I produced and thoroughly enjoyed the process. I wasn't lucky enough to win the top prize of full publication but was shortlisted and will feature in the magazine along with a few of my fellow Newcastle College grafters. Congratulations to Lauren who won the top prize and I am really looking forward to seeing all our work in the next issue :) Good Stuff!

The Sacred Book Of Lovely Grafiky Stuff

Rather than lamenting the lack of a Grafik subscription that I put on my Christmas list but my significant other decided to ignore, I decided to fluant my love of the magazine, henceforth to be called the sacred book of lovely graphiky stuff, on my blog by posting a collection of my favourite covers from 07/08/09. Oooooh lovely!

Root Ginger: A Study of Red Hair by Jenny Wick

My newest brief is a negotiated brief in that I have written it myself and justified it through a proposal setting out what I want to do and why. It has been approved so now I can talk about it freely without the worry of a knockback on a project I am really excited about doing. I am going to be writing and designing a gingersaurus! 'What is that?' I hear you ask, well its a big book about those ginger folk. So rather than post some rather boring photocopies of from history books, and pictures of famous ginger people I thought I would tantalize you with a couple of fantastic photographs from the Root Ginger Collection by Jenny Wick. The original exhibition was held in 2009 at the Idea Generation Gallery in London and though the time has long since passed that we could all go and point and giggle at such an exhibition you can still view the collection online at;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2009/jan/24/ginger-redhead-exhibition-pictures

This is one of my final design solutions for my last brief. The project is a live brief from D&AD designing ambient media for lastminute.com, focusing on a sting/ident animation to drive people to their website and also encourage people to use lastminute.com to facilitate their use of free time or use of spontaneity.
My concept focuses on colour communication of the brand, I have created a camper van to communicate the brand through the use of the logo's 100% magenta colour but also by using the vehicles to communicate travel. The strap line 'do more good stuff' was provided by the brief, My concept started off on paper as a map drawn from the birds-eye view with the little vehicles driving round or over to create the strapline so that at point a of my animation a hand drawn map with architectural elements from all over the world would be seen in soft pale pastel colours. Then a sound effect would play car doors closing and an engine starting. The vehicle would then go around the map and create the strapline in it's wake. I really liked this concept but unfortunately it did not transfer well onto screen. I was disappointed but wanted to find a solution so that this concept could be realised. I began looking through illustration magazines and my own collection of inspirational illustration work and happened upon a piece that integrated typography into an illustration and this helped me to create my little animation idea.
This sting is part of a collection comprising of an interactive web banner and a microsite design that are to follow that all follow a similar concept. I really enjoyed this project and learned so many new skills, this is an area of design I have never experienced before and although I came up against a lot of problems during the learning process I was really enjoyed it overall.

Cheeky Penguin! Inspiration / Web Services—Penguin Book Pastiche

A very witty take on some of the most popular web services from French illustrator Retrofuturs.

Whap! My top 13 crazy stationary/brand designs

Whap! Like a flash of satori, your company letterhead should be a slap in the face of consciousness. The whole point is to grab your readers’ attention by the throat on first contact, then make them beg for more in the long run. Considering the chronic short-attention span of a generation raised on cable TV and the internet, this is saying a lot. I’ve gathered 13 of the most eye-popping letterhead designs so far to illustrate my meaning. Albeit the designs are stylistically distinct from one other, this showcase is a marriage of cutting-edge creativity and effective brand communication. Enough said.