Studio Brief 2, What is a book? Grids

Today we looked at grids and finding the grid in a magazine double page spread. 

We did an exercise where we had to pencil out all the lines we could see and see if there was a grid system in place. 

This seemed like a simple exercise but proved quite hard because I wasn't sure what type of grid it would be, if it was a modular or column grid and if my lines I drew on it were right.

Also I wasn't sure if the lines I was drawing were correct or even there, but when you take the magazine out and look at just the lines you can can see a clear grid and layout system.

I carried this exercise on a bit more so I can start really understand layouts and practise seeing them in double page spreads.

After doing this exercise a few more times it has helped a lot to understand the layout systems in double page spreads and how magazines often use the same layout throughout a lot of their pages.

Type Journal 12

Type Journal 11

Studio Brief 2, What is a book? Questions

We need to decide on five definite questions to research and collect content on before doing the whole set of ten questions. 

The five I have chosen to look into are;

What's the difference between Typeface and Font?

What's the difference between Readability and Legibility?

What are the seven colour contrasts

What are complimentary and subjective colours?

What's the difference between RGB and CYMK?

With these five different questions there's a decent split in colour theory and type work, when we go into the other five questions I will look at other aspects to make it more rounded piece. 

Secret 7, Final Design

From the drawing I did I put it into photoshop and played around with the edit. Using curves, levels and the hues etc I was able to create new colours and textures. From there I made patterns from them, seen in the spiral design. 

I played around with the positioning of the T like this one, however I'm not really a fan of this design.

This was the design I created from the T and gave to the crit. This was the most popular design so I wanted to develop it more.

I've experimented with the colours and the brightness and contrast of these designs to find the right one. 

When I was experimenting I made a really nice colour I liked, but it had only happened to one of the sets of Ts, so I had to go back and retrieve that one T and work with that.

This is the T I had edited and really liked the colours of it, this is the screen shot of when I deleted the other Ts from the photoshop file. 

From there I wanted to put it on a black background so the colours popped more and have just one T to make it a bold image.

But I did try it with a white background, which I think doesn't work that well.

I tried repeating the image as well, which I do like the look of, however think it could be too much to look at.

I tried using cold colours to see the opposite end of the spectrum, which I also liked but it doesn't suit the glam rock era and the colours of T-Rex.

Final Design

This is the final design I've chosen to go with, I like it. Think it demonstrates T-Rex well and hopefully subtly.

Secret 7, Ideas

This idea came from the lyric 'bang a gong'. I wanted to show the sound waves and vibrations in a colourful way. Also in the shape of a gong. These are just experiments I played around with, I wanted to use a lot of colour just like T-Rex and glam rock phase.

After playing around with a lot colours and line weights, I've decided to not go with this idea and stick to the repeat of the T pattern, but develop it more.

Secret 7, 30 Thumbnails

We had to create 30 thumbnails to generate loads of ideas for the Secret 7 brief. This task really helped me trying to think outside the box and idea I could think of. I don't think I got to 30 but it still was useful. I've went with 5 ideas -

the hands showing possession, 

a broken down T

T-Rex sex

Sound waves 

Lips

Secret 7, Ideas

This was another idea I thought of which is trying to represent the sound and show the gong from the line 'bang a gong' lyric. I want to have the design in keeping with the identity of the band and the glam rock era, so that's why I've chosen to go with bright colours.

From these few designs I've layered them up to make a different image and put it against a black background to make the colours pop even more.


After putting it together I decided I really didn't like it!

I think it looks really ugly and just not a good piece of design, so I won't be furthering this idea anymore.

Secret 7, Crit

Crit

I didn't want to ask to many questions about my designs, so I just asked if the T-Rex sex was actually funny and should I go with it? and simply what's your favourite?

Majority of the feedback was that the the T-Rex sex was funny but too obvious and I should try other ideas.

A lot of people were a fan of the repeated T pattern I had created, which is also one of my favourites.

From the feedback I've decided to look more into the T pattern and will develop that further. 

Secret 7, Five Mock Ups

These are the five ideas I wanted to develop a bit further.

This idea wasn't really a serious idea it was more some fun. I just found it really funny. Obviously the idea is that it's T Rex's getting it on. I quite liked this drawing and the style I chose but I know it wouldn't work that well on the shelf and to stand out. 

This idea is the developed from the lyrics 'dirty sweet and your my girl'. So I was trying to get across two opposites in a feminine way. I enjoy drawing a lot so wanted to incorporate some drawing into this design. I drew lips to show femininity in a not so obvious way, like lipstick, however I think I could look at other feminine signifiers.

I think if I choose to go down this route I would add more detail and texture to the drawings. Adding more 'dirt' and darker colours to the dirty side and make the pinker sweeter side more vibrant. Then put it onto photoshop to see how I could edit it to further the colours and detail.

For this idea I was thinking of a play on words. T Rex sounds liked 'T wrecks' or a 'wrecked T'. Here I've drawn a literally a wrecked and ruined T to see what that looks like. I chose brown to show decay and age. Although T-Rex never decayed as a band they are old and from talking to people on the course not many people are aware of them. I want to develop this design further.

With this idea I wanted to play around with the music and mark making. T Rex are quite a psychedelic hippy band so wanted to play with paint and see what shapes I could create. I quite like the range of colours and markings thats come from this. Although I'm not sure if I could carry this on a lot. I think I have stronger ideas in the top five I would rather work on.

This was a quick sketch of an idea I was trying to convey. When I listened to the song the idea of possession came through a lot. The song is about love and couples which sounds like possession. So this drawing was the hands creating a space that they will possess. I don't think I really like this idea, it's very difficult to try and draw a word like possession.