OUGD404: Type Journal

I really like this sans serif found as the letterforms are quite rounded in comparison to angular shapes of most sans serif fonts such as Futura. This font has also been carved into wood which is why it is important for it to be simplistic. 

OUGD405: Edible Type

I initially began my practical forms of edible type by purchasing letter cutters:

My idea was to use cake as my bottom layer and to write a word in a particular colour. I then planned on putting black icing onto the word white to form and show the research I did into the stroop effect. 

However I found that when using these letter cutters on cake the substance became stationary within the cutter and therefore I tried this technique with using flora (as pictured above).

These didn't go brilliantly well even though they improved from my initial attempts- these were still incredibly delicate (due to the small cutters) and the consistency of the cake was 'crumbly'.

I therefore tried these cutters with melted chocolate and also jelly.

However I found that because these cutters were so small the chocolate became stuck once set, I also tried this by cooling a large block of chocolate and pressing the cutter into it- however it created the same problem. Jelly was a nightmare to work with as its consistency is incredibly difficult to create a letterform, it isn't naturally a stable food substance, my efforts with this were incredibly disappointing and therefore I found that my idea of using the strop effect wouldn't work. 

Therefore due to the lack of time I decided to create something more simple by involving the game of hangman I know of from childhood. I decided I wanted to use cake as my "base" and topped it with chocolate to create a smooth surface to work with (darker belgium chocolate to create a greater contrast with icing).

I initially tried working with words that would link to myself for instance by experimenting with the word zebra and trying to create zebra print with black and white icing. However I found this detail incredibly difficult and therefore tried to just replicate hangman by using the word "type". 

I'm not overly impressed with the final execution of my work because I found incredibly difficult working with edible substances. I don't usually work with baking or other forms of edible substances for graphic design, however it was an insight into how intricate edible type is and if developed properly and allowing for a lot of time, the final pieces can be outstanding as I saw in the end of the competition, some of the ideas that people used and created were incredibly innovative. The final three being a typewriter made from cake and icing, the second was screen printed chocolate and the winner created "Gill Sandwich". This brief has been a learning experience as I found that people who worked as a group did better and created more original ideas and a larger amount of work in such a short space of time. 

OUGD405: Brief 1- Final Designs & Crit

Experiments with paper stock and problems with inks:

I had several problems with the colour purple and pale yellow I had worked with and I found that what worked on screen looked very different once printed. I was highly disappointed with the outcome but felt the better result was when it was printed onto a thick sketchbook paper (for watercolour). This was a problem I found when working with RGB and CMYK- and therefore must remember in the future when working for print to always work in CMYK.

These are my final designs printed before the final crit onto thicker stock (sketchbook paper) this is because the paper is less shiny and incredibly matte, this also suits my target audience as printing onto thicker paper would be more expensive and contains connotations of wealth. The critique was written and therefore I created three questions to direct my feedback, these included: 

1. From looking at these designs what stores could you see/imagine these to be sold in?

2. In conjunction with the previous question who do you think the target audience is?

3. In terms of the final piece do you think these are successful?

Feedback:

1. Shops mentioned: debenhams, bhs, tk maxx, Laura Ashely (or other high end homeward store), M&S, John Lewis, Paperchase. 

2. Target audience: middle aged women, eccentric and like colour.

Middle aged women who like decorative things, middle aged (female), young people/children/teenagers. 

3. Successful?

- Not successful because the colour scheme doesn't work, alignment of text needs to change.

- Not successful: the type is hard to read and over flourished. Colour scheme does not go and composition needs to be changed.

-The dimensions aren't mentioned and it is unclear what is being sold, the patterns aren't consistent and the text is not readable. 

- Could be successful if another colour was used around the text. Try white?

- Designs are visually interesting and could catch someones eye- maybe more depth to the design would make people want to buy it more.

- I'm not going to lie they would not be successful at all, the colours clash terribly and the font is difficult to read.

- I would like to know who the target audience is because I don't see it appealing to many?

- They don't contain the necessary info and the style seems fairly cheap. I don't think they are successful. 

As the rest of my class are not the intended audience I knew their feedback would be slightly biased to what they as designers love. My intended audience was for wealthier female middle class, to which they understood and wrote in the feedback, therefore I think that is how my designs are successful- they reflect what that audience would want. What I have taken from this feedback is that I will experiment with the idea of white instead of the gold tones and change the composition of the text on the 8x6 backing paper. However I will not be changing my font of choice as I personally don't find it unreadable, and the size was needed within the design- I have included this however I have written it with type instead of numbers. However the crit did also confirm my disappointment in how the purple and gold/pale yellow tones transferred to print, therefore I will take the purple out of the background.

I will also experiment with using the same pattern within the backgrounds and also fade this out by using a lower opacity and this may help with the readability and legibility of the typography. 

I feel that these are far more successful now through removing the purple and choosing one design to keep them consistent within the backgrounds. However I am going to remove the design from the top right (see below straight on view) I found from looking at the design the top right was too distracting and the typography needed negative space due to its complexity. 

FINAL DESIGNS

OUGD405: Brief 1- Design Development From Interim Crit

As stated in my previous post from my critique I want to take forward my third idea which includes enhancing the use of the sizing of the frame. This is to make the size extremely obvious to the buyer and therefore make the process easier, I will create my designs in a portrait orientation because this will consume less self space, I have noticed that this occurs in the majority of stores and portrait photographs tend to be more popular, possibly because of this reason. Before I began designs I looked at similar aesthetics which follow modern norms of the Victorian Era this is due to the style of frame

I want to design for. In my research I took photographs within the Victoria Quarter and wanted to design for a store that could possibly sell frames there- therefore embracing the building and its architecture.  I also collected primary research of decorative and ornate papers of different patterns which I could scan and use within my designs in photoshop. (see design context blog for initial research).

After collecting and scanning some of the designs in I began looking at what fonts would work best for my designs. I thought from looking at the type of brands within the Victoria Quarter that a hand rendered frame would not match the overall aura of the building and that a precise but elegant computer generated font would work best. Initially I first experimented with the layout of a font called "Old London" which is a Blackletter font which is informally known as Old English (incorrect) and is considered to be with English Tradition.

However after laying out the text I found that it was completely not suitable for its purpose and didn't contain the correct connotations, as this type of font (Blackletter) can date back to the 12th century it wasn't specific enough. This led to further research in which I found a beautifully crafted font called "Preciosa" on the website fontspace. 

I found that this font was perfectly suited because it shows elegance and history combined  which is what I want to portray throughout my designs- I will edit this font to experiment with colour further. 

I initially began editing quite obviously with the theme of black and white editing- as this is usually used within old photographs (linked to the processes of print). However I found that these design were not suitable as they were too detailed and made the font both illegible and difficult to read. This design therefore would be unsuitable for its purpose so I will continue to edit this typography by looking at printing this font onto tea stained paper/ off white paper. By including simple design and colour this could work much better, so therefore in my further designs I will look into colours I could use. 

From research into Victorian design I saw that the paper/stock used was an off white colour and that photographs tend to be sepia. In response to this I experimented with tea staining paper and scanning it in to work with it digitally on Photoshop- I also blended in Victorian styled papers which had been scanned in on the computer, this is because it further adds connotations of the Victorian Era and therefore reinforces my idea.

I experimented with the colour purple into the outside of the text because after the crit there were comments on what colours I should use- and that I should research into colour theories. Within the crit there were also comments regarding purple and gold:

Purple: "The color of royalty, purple connotes luxury, wealth, and sophistication. It is also feminine and romantic. However, because it is rare in nature, purple can appear artificial."

Gold: "The color gold is the color of success, achievement and triumph. Associated with abundance and prosperity, luxury and quality, prestige and sophistication, value and elegance, the psychology of this color implies affluence, material wealth and extravagance."

Silver: "The color silver has a feminine energy; it is related to the moon and the ebb and flow of the tides - it is fluid, emotional, sensitive and mysterious. It is soothing, calming and purifying."

http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/

From researching the meanings of certain colours I experimented in a hand rendered format initially with gold, silver and copper coloured metallic pens. This was to enhance the idea of luxury and extravagance. I found that gold worked the best, so I scanned this into photoshop, however I found that this looked incredibly unkempt.

From working in a hand rendered format I found that through scanning these images in on photoshop, when I went to use the magic wand tool to edit the background out of the picture it became difficult to work with. This meant that I selected a tone from the coloured pens I were working with through photoshop, I changed my use of hand rendered type to digitally rendered because I felt that through asking for feedback that a more clean cut approach would aesthetically work better due to the target audience for the type of decorative frame. Within the design below I used a drop shadow and experimented with width.

When printing I found that the width when editing on screen the width of the gold looked large enough, however after printing I found that it was hardly visible. I also tried printing onto watercolour paper stock which was much thicker and absorbed more ink- this worked incredibly well because the thicker paper connotes typical ideologies of wealth. 

This was the outcome I was most pleased with in terms of test prints for this typography, I showed this test print to others and I gained feedback that it did portray femininity and elegance, there were also suggestions on how I could include the colour purple.

I initially began editing the backgrounds of the photo frames with my primary photographs firstly by adding a purple toned photo filter, then merging the photo and overlaying the tea stained paper I initially scanned and also editing the photo into black and white and experimenting with a blur effect onto the photograph to put the text in full focus this was an idea I came across whilst within the photoshop induction as it reminded me of depth of field on a camera. However after feedback I found that it wouldn't be as successful as using patterns and plain backgrounds which are less distracting. 

This was one of my first designs I created the pattern in illustrator from tracing/ scanning Victorian patterned papers I tried it with a darker grey/ light tone of grey and I turned the illustrator vector into a brush and turned down the opacity to ensure the focus was on the text.

I also tried scanning in backgrounds that i had collected and editing them through photoshop with opacity and blending/ colour overlays, however I found that this was far too busy and the colours seemed far too dark therefore I will try creating a more simple version of this background into a border using illustrator.

This is the development piece I ended up working with in terms of the border being made with illustrator, initially this was black but I changed the colour to match the typography (gold tones). However I felt that after feedback it worked better with a purple tone (from research). These colour and pattern choices were made to ensure that it would appeal to a target audience of middle aged women mainly, who are slightly more wealthy. 

After completing the 8x6 backing paper I began on the second (7x5) I tried scanning in parts of the patterned papers which I had collected and merging them with the purple background, I found that aesthetically the pattern worked well but I felt that by cropping it the composition including the typography wasn't balanced. 

I also received comments/feedback that the font was too decorative along with a highly detailed and bold background, however after experimenting with removing the flourishes I found that it was best to lower the opacity of the background rather than remove the flourishes on the font. 

After experimenting with the font and also cropping the backgrounds I tried filling the whole border with this pattern and blending the middle section, however I found that this didn't look crisp or cleanly cut and therefore didn't suit my initial intentions of making the backing papers look expensive. 

Therefore I found that by filling the whole background, this would work best in terms of suiting my initial intentions along with the colour and overall aura of my designs. At this point, two out of three of my designs have been finished. The third design will be a combination of the first two in terms of scanned papers and vectors created on illustrator.