Speaking from Experience

Pin the phrases on Britain

I think it would be a good and fun task to try and pin stereotypical sayings from around the country to the image of Britain to see if people can guess or understand local dialect.

I've used the same image of Britain and blown it up to A2 and with that made some tags that have obvious lingo in for people to pin to the map.

There's a range of dialects and phrases which I think people will be able to understand, but if not thats good because will create more conversation.

Speaking from Experience Final Outcome

The pack includes small postcards, phrases and A2 map game a book and belly band to hold altogether. 
I was going to fold down the A2 down to fit in the pack, but don't want to ruin it. The ink will probably break and ruin the aesthetic.

Speaking from Experience Postcards and Pin Game

At the crit I said how I didn't feel like it was finished and a lot of people agreed. I talked with Helen who gave me the idea of doing a pin the tail on the donkey game but with phrases and the image of Britain.

Pin Game

I've printed the image of Britain A2 size so a group of students could work on it, and the phrases are A4, with a larger point size. I haven't put the names of cities around the image to keep in line with my design concept.

Postcards

Another idea that I really liked was from Poppy who thought of making little postcards with a phrase on it and then on the back the Students have to translate it. These creates a bit conversation with themselves as well as 1st and 2nd year.

I've followed the whole theme of this brief with these postcards and keeping it green means no one can use the colour code to guess. This also goes with the phrases game.

 Unfortunately as I went to cut them down, I miss judged the guillotine and cut half of them too close to the edge, so rather than 8 I have 4, but have used one of them as a small belly band for the cards.

Speaking from Experience

Design decisions 

Type

I've used Letter Gothic Bold because the idea stemmed from wanting the lettering to be a bit broken up and confusing, which was like the typewriter type I first tried. The Letter Gothic makes it clean looking but still suits the tone.

Image

I've chosen only to use vector shape with colour because I like clean simple design for this book. Having little text and easy looking images helped the overall design theme.

Colour

I wanted to use colour similar to the British flag, although I've only based the words on English slang, I still think anyone outside England can relate. The softer pastel versions of green blue and red works a lot better than the bold true colours. It's calming rather than in your face. It has also printed really nicely on the antique white stock.

Layout

Going for a a centred column like layout works well for the eyes. I think it's interesting and gives both pages enough text and negative space evenly. The fact I've put the text to either side to create a gap was so no text went near the gutter but it also makes it easy to read.

Binding


I've chosen to go with saddle stitch because I thought perfect bind was too formal. The book is supposed to get beaten up and read through a lot. Hotdog fold also wasn't appropriate.

One Day Brief

Brand - set of association to relate ot a company
      - good brand is something that goes further than it is
      - USP - unique selling point

Descriptive Branding
 - Names which say what they are 
 - EasyJet - makes jetting around easy
 - Toys r us - all about toys

Evocative Branding
Names which suggest the association but doesn't describe it
 - First Direct - first bank for telephone banking
 - Innocent - natural, pure

This is the presentation that sums up everything we did in the day.

Abstract Branding
Names that break sector rules and stand out. They make no clear reference to the nature of the business
 - Aviva - an intended name to suggest dynamism and movement

Brand Given
 - Brand identity
 - Tone of voice
 - Dialogue -  customer involvement?

 - Mission Statement
 - Values
 - Vision
 - Personality 


Today we got a brief to rebrand a company within one day.
The companies were from Leeds United website.

We were split up into boy and girls, then got ourselves into a line from tallest to smallest. 

There was five companies to rebrand, which was handed out down the line. We ended up having groups of around 5.

We received our company, which was Flamingo Land.

We brainstormed some ideas, and looked at the website to have a look at their kind of design style. It was loud and cluttered, quite kid friendly but really hard to look at.

Research

- Name because it was the first animal in the park
- Sponsor other animal charites
- College for animal care degrees
- Orange and green
- Just type for the logo - Horrible rock sort of type

1000 animals at one point but there is less now and more of a concentration on the roller coasters

We wanted to rebrand it to a less cluttered and busy looking logo and website, so that adults and kids could look at it, make sense of it and it not be so harsh to look at.

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We had the idea to create the F of Flamingo into a Flamingo, when we put it next to the word it looked better with the F still in it, it didn't really work that without. Just looked like a Flamingo and Lamingo next to each other.

Here we tried to show that it has roller coasters and water themes, with this splash of water but it didn't really look that strong.

Adding the green grass hinted to the nature and added a new element of colour to the logo, which relates to trying to get boys involved as well as girls.

Looked at the website and other websites like it, which all followed the same kind of bright colours, busy cluttered formula. 

Speaking from Experience After Crit

I printed my book in digital printing without doing a test print, which was stupid but it actually created a lot more positives rather than negatives.

Original Print

ADD PHOTOS 

Problems - 

Text- 

Text is too big, the body copy underneath each subheading is too big and looks too big on the page. There isn't enough difference in the subheading and body copy which I want to create.

Fix - Drop text to 10pt

Stock- 

I used the stock in the print rooms which I thought would be good because of the thickness, to create the book feel. However the colour is far too bright and the book can get dirty quickly.

Fix - Use my own paper,Antique White will work well for mine because of the soft colour and porous texture. I think the colours will soften more with it.

Spelling mistakes etc -

I noticed a couple of spelling mistakes and words used in the wrong way for the meanings.

Fix - Change the mistakes and ask someone who uses the words to put them in a correct sentence for me.

Not enough with just a book -

I felt like this wasn't finished. I wanted to create more to go with a book. I was talking with Helen about what else I could include, we thought of different things like an exercise for the first years to get involved in, 'guess the phrase' 'pin the phrases on the map', or adding a poster with each part of the country.

Poppy came up with an idea of having phrases on postcards and them having to translate them. I really liked this idea and think it would be a good way to get the first years talking, to each other and me.

Fix - Make postcards and 'pin the phrases on the British Isles' game

Speaking from Experience Digital Designs

I desinged the spreads first before the cover because I was stuck on what to put on it. However for the spreads I thought of having title pages, with colour and images - 

This way theres colour in the book, and theres some visual help so you know where the information is from.

I put the south text on the opposite side because I wanted to break the book up a little bit.

I finally decided on the text being in the centre and using the gutter as a focal point. I like the column of text and colour in the middle of the page and it draws your eye to there. Having the text to the left and the right of the gutter makes a solid shape and I think is easy to read.

I struggled with the wording for the front cover, I knew I wanted to have a small explanation of what the book was but couldn't work out how to put it. This book has a jokey tone of voice, like a lot of work. I find it the easiest way to convey my message, and for this is appropriate.

For the back cover I played around with imagery. After a few attempts of writing up the blurb as well I decided on this. I chose to go with just the image of Britain at the top [top left] because the others look to busy and I didn't like the mix of colours.

 I wanted to see if I could incorporate the three colours I've used in the Britain image and use it somewhere. But I definitely think this looks rubbish and a bit tacky and will not use it.

Speaking from Experience Initial Digital Designs

I've recently started to get really interested in books and layouts, because of Fred's module. So I knew I wanted to create a book for this brief.
I think a book is quite a good and appropriate way to convey this information and educate the audience.

I started by drawing some thumbnails of loads of different layouts I could think of. 

I wanted to keep the layout simple and clean looking, because I hate pages with a lot of text on. The dictionary is never fun to read because of all the text, so I only wanted a few words on each spread so it was appealing and readable.



I then went into looking at typefaces and what I could name the book.

I chose the name Pardon? because that word is used throughout the country and doesn't have an regional identity. It always sounds better than 'I don't get it' because that could cause confusion.

I looked at type writer style typefaces because I wanted something that could be a bit messy or difficult to read, because it represents the content, the confusion that people go through.

I chose to go with Letter Gothic Std because it reads nicely, its clear and I think the slight curves of the letters makes it more human and fun.

 I want to have a brief explanation of the book on the cover, but I'm just experimenting with the placement of that .

The next step is deciding on a the layout finally, and digitally. I normally go with my drawing and then finalise it on InDesign.

 I started with just a few words a page, but think this is too bare and not interesting to look at all.

I experimented with using the shape of the area, that the page was talking about. It doesn't work behind the text or with the text but do like this idea so will keep it in mind.

 I don't think centring the text works, it makes it hard to read and understand which is the word and which is the meaning.

I like this layout a lot, I think - once cleaned up - it will be interesting to read and easy. I also want to use colour and maybe images.

 I knew I wanted the title to the side because it means there's more room for the text and so I can play around with and find the clearest layout. 
It also keeps all the words on the same level so there is clear grid system, making it easier to read.