OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 Toilet Paper Magazine

I recently came across toilet paper magazine. It's very bright, bold and interactive online. Their website looks unorganised but it's very easy to navigate:

They make use of animations and sound on their website too which makes it really engaging and fun to use. I am really intrigued by this magazine, it looks heavily influenced by post modernism and I would like to pick up my own copy and read it if possible.

http://www.toiletpapermagazine.org/

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Andersons latest film, and I am in love with the aesthetic of it. Pale pink is a running colour throughout the film:

I love the style of this design, it looks so grand, friendly and inviting. Annie Atkins was the lead designer for this film, and created everything including official documents and newspapers: 

I am really inspired by this kind of design, I feel like it fits my way of working really well. I'm going to look into these designs for my personal branding project too, and use them for inspiration when creating by business cards.

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 Penguin Drop Cap Series

I discovered the penguin drop cap series by Jessica Hische a while ago, but was recently reminded about it an OUGD406 seminar. The book cover have been re-created as an alphabet series using the authors last name. These books work beautifully as a set and compliment each other and their respective books. 

These books represent a growing trend in celebrating book cover design, and as an aspiring designer that news couldn't make me happier. 

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 2 Final Business Cards

After trying out various business cards and playing around on illustrator/photoshop I think I've created something that suits my style of working and represents me as a designer. Here are my final designs:

I've created 3 different business cards that all use geometric shapes and bright colours. They give off a sense of fun and excitement, and I've made the back of each one relate to the front. I will be adding more info to the back of the page once I've created a site to upload my finished work and possibly a twitter account or facebook page. I'm happy with these designs, I feel they all work together as a set and I can finally feel like they relate to my work and design process. 
I will hopefully be creating a logo to go along with these, but it will just be a simple logo to compliment the sans serif and bold shapes. I think I may just use the regular C and bold W of Gill Sans which I have used on these business cards as it already fits with my designs and is very versatile. Something like this:

I like this because it matches with what I have already created and it can be changed and altered to fit any design regarding colours because it's so simple. Overall I'm happy with what I have here, and I'm going to continue creating more in the style of this, possibly something like a small poster/flyer series that compliment the business card with more information about me and my designs. I think the most recognisable thing about my branding so far is the fun shapes and bright colours, rather than the logo. I'm happy about this though, because it means people will remember me for my designs and what I've created rather than a small symbol. 

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 2 Business Card Ideas

Although I haven't fully finished my logo yet, I decided to start messing around with business card ideas. I started with simple black and white, and played around with my name and tagline. I wanted the tagline to be something catchy but not generic. I think just "Graphic Designer" or "Creative Thinker" sound a bit boring and doesn't strike me as someone who is actually creative. 

I started with this design, and I think its a bit risky. Asking someone if they know who you are in that way seems a bit arrogant to me, and thats not the way I want to come off to people. I decided to keep this aesthetic, but add colour and change what it says on the front to become a bit more friendly: 

On the back of each business card would be the same details in the respective matching colour of the front. I think these are more friendly and will inspire clients to contact me. I think I'd like to create a series of business cards that all work as a set, so then clients may ask for more than 1, or would like to collect them, etc. This design is still preliminary and I think I'd like to be more witty with what I write on them.

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 2 Self Branding Logo Ideas

The first thing to make is the logo. I think this is the most important part because everything else I create will work around this. I decided to experiment with hexagons, and trying to fit my initials in. I was working in black and white first so I didn't have to limit myself to a colour scheme. 

This was my first attempt. After a while I didn't really like the typeface, it was too thin and I felt like it didn't really work. I decided to try another one:

I removed the W because it didn't work as well with this typeface. This feels more grand and elegant. I decided to play around with colour to see how it looked:

After considering this design for a while, I decided to scrap it. It looks too much like a jewelry store brand and I don't really think it reflects my design capabilities or my style of working much. 

I wanted to create a simple logo that combined both of my initials. After playing around for a while, I found that the W fits inside the C using a circle drawn in illustrator and courier new for the W:

I decided to make a mountain scene out of it to make it look more like a logo and less like two letters placed together. I experimented with colour on this design too:

 

 

 

I think this logo is better because it's more versatile. The colours aren't final yet but it shows that it can be experimented with and suited for any situation. Although I'm not in love with this design, I think it's the best thing I've produced so far. I'm still going to keep experimenting with my logo though, as I think I should be in love with it, and I want it to reflect me and my designs properly.

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 2 Self branding: Further research and ideas

After my one on one tutorial for this brief, I decided to look further afield for more inspiration. Choosing one type of design aesthetic and sticking to it is proving difficult for me, as there are so many options and loads of different ways to work. I work predominantly with vectors and illustrator, so I feel my work should convey that. I typed in "crazy business cards" into Google and these are what stuck out to me the most: 
















All of these business cards are unique and have their own style. They stood out to me because they were unconventional and made their own mark. I'm unsure about creating a business card in a different shape, e.g. circle or hexagon, as I feel it would be impractical to carry around easily and any potential clients would have a hard time just easily fitting them into their pockets, for example. I'm also having a hard time decided whether to have a clean, minimal look or be bright and exciting. I think the next step from here is to play around on Illustrator and see what I can create.

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 Sharp Suits

I've recently found a website called Sharp Suits, which takes ridiculous client comments and turns them into graphical posters. I think this is a fun idea, and some of the posters created were very effecting and quite funny. Here are some of my favorites: 

Although I did find these posters amusing, it is quite disheartening that someday I will be the one coping with these kind of comments. You can view more here at http://sharpsuits.net/

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 Phone Case Oppertunity

A few weeks ago, I posted a picture to instagram - just a doodle that I drew of some cacti. I was approached by a designer and was asked if I wanted to do a collaboration with her to put these designs on a phone case. She is my age and she runs her own shop with phone cases, iPad cases, macbook skins, mugs, sticker sheets, pocket mirrors and make up bags. I thought this was a really good opportunity for me because it gets my work out there for people to see, and I'll also make some money out of it. 

We continued talking through twitter and the design started taking shape. We are now at the stage where we've decided on a rough colour scheme and are almost ready to start promoting this case through social media. We discussed the colour scheme for a few days and sent some ideas back and forth:

I wasn't really happy with these colours, so she sent me the file and I had a play around with the colours myself: 

I also played around with yellows and blues and sent those over: 

But Polly didn't really like it. It's quite hard to work within a collaboration, especially with someone you've never really worked with before, but we stuck to our initial idea as Polly gave me some advice with how she comes up with colour pallets: 

I took this advice on board and created something we were originally going for, using orange and yellow tones:

This is as far as we've gotten so far, but I'm excited about this project and the potential it has for me.