Toontastic Typography

This is a collection of typography I found whilst out and about in Newcastle. I have noticed over the last few months an influx of stylish and out of the ordinary design and especially typographic use in and around Newcastle. These are some examples I really liked in particular that will serve as really good inspiration for any branding projects I do in the future as well as any typographic based solutions to any brief. I think it is really important as young designers to look for inspiration everywhere and speaking for myself making a conscious as well as a subconscious effort to gain this inspiration can only make me a better designer.

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!