Group Task:
Elliot Jones
Aimee Parker
Helen Street
Kieran Walsh
Thomas Houghton
& Myself.
Theme given: "Become an expert in…"
Main points to consider:
What do you want to say? How do you intend to say it? What language would be appropriate?
Will the content be communicated primarily through type or image? If it is both what is the relationship between the two?
What are you aiming to achieve? Are you directing your audience to a website, encouraging them to attend an event? Will it be interactive or encouraging them to change their lifestyle?
Firstly both as a group an individually we discussed what "expert" actually meant:
'a person who is very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area.'
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/expert
From looking at the original definition the idea of an experience/ trying something new really stands out as a strong concept. In the initial discussions about the task there were a few options mentioned as we talked about what each of us were an 'expert' in which ranged from cycling, knitting and others. As a form of concept we thought it would be interesting to look at the question in terms of learning a new skill.
We decided that individually we would research some ideas of topics that we could consider.
Alcohol: I firstly thought about the student age group and one thing that is in common with most people of a similar age is that we largely consume alcohol in a social environment.
Cocktail making could be a fun idea and also focus on student budget because bars/clubs are incredibly expensive.
http://www.predrinks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cocktail_making_london_5_2.png
Hangover cures: Even though this links to my first idea I thought it could be highly humorous and informative about safety because of course alcohol can be incredibly dangerous. I found that through research humour or emotion makes an idea successful and potentially viral because it encourages conversation between the viewer and others.
http://www.loveinfographics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/hangover-cures-around-the-world-health-infographic1-600x600.jpg
As well as drinks I thought about linking the idea of students to budgeting and perhaps finding a way to inform students about simple ways to improve their spending. This could be through recipes linking to food or just general spending costs.
Another skill which I found through asking friends and family was to learn another language. I think it is human nature to want to learn and to have a crave for new experiences. Therefore this fulfils this and could work as either online resources or an event.
http://aphs.worldnomads.com/travel-tips/17484/languages.jpg
Another skill I found linked the whole group together was Graphic Design: it could be that we inform ourselves of more information we don't already know or inform new designers about things such as type design for example.
A small project which is running through the course as an idea is 'real life is more important than graphic design'. Which I thought could be built on as a concept to build a website or twitter page for creatives to blog or post a picture of what inspires them or somewhere they've been. This could be for a target audience of creatives within Leeds College of Art or even develop further.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khOaAHK7efc (what if money was no object)
As a group we discussed each others ideas and found that the strongest concept would be to learn a new skill through engaging a response from the audience (physical), which could be through making or doing something. We also discussed target audience as figured the best way to make something become viral would be to target those who use the internet the most which tends to be creatives and bloggers, so therefore our target audience would largely be those who attend Leeds College Of Art but also creatives online.
One of our ideas which seemed the strongest was learning the skill of paper folding (Origami).
'the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures.' (Dictionary)
Our idea is to look at origami as a skill in folding paper which could create potentially anything from looking at what has already been made and creating your own.
We thought about using an exhibition space as the ultimate space to display work but also having an online presence such as twitter.
The main focus of this project would be to engage people into making and learning how to create origami and therefore learn a new skill.
We discussed as a group the need for branding/name/logo as an essential part of the project along with clearly conveying the message.
There were also discussions of creating some form of pack which could include instructions and paper to create your own origami and to decorate it (colour/ illustration). In terms of price we also thought that this could be incredibly expensive to print so firstly we will look at how the design could fit onto one piece of paper. In terms of stock we will experiment with thicker and thinner weights along with colours to select the most appropriate. For the designs which will be printed most (packs) these could be printed in black and white only to keep the costs low. We also discussed having these origami pieces form as an exhibition as stated but to have it as some form of competition which could work by submitting physical designs (through a submission box perhaps in college) or online through photographs on social networks such as twitter as these could be projected.
The main focus for this brief to work would be for people to get involved and begin making their own and showing others as viral campaigns work through a development of 'word of mouth'.
First ideas for a pack:
On an A4 how could a square fit?
The instructions are incredibly long so I think they should either be printed separately or double sided onto the bottom of the page.
Type can also be created out of crafting paper and this could be an idea to pursue which could work for poster designs:
There is also an actual origami typeface on dafont: http://www.dafont.com/origami.font
However we could create our own to hang up or project in the exhibition.
Two typefaces I looked at originally:
I feel from looking at these two the second is the most legible due to the negative space of each letterform not being affected too much, the first can only really be read when it is much larger which is similar to when working with script or block fonts.
As proved the first font isn't fantastic in terms of readability when made smaller.
On my design I haven't included written instructions as I found that when adding them they seemed too small to read, although this could be improved by printing this bottom section back to back and therefore filling the strip on both sides. The purpose of experimenting with only monochromatic tones to begin with is so that we have the ability to print on black and white which for an A4 costs only 2p in college this therefore means that we will be able to produce a larger amount of copies for a smaller cost.
It is incredibly difficult to include a large amount of type onto the bottom of the page so as a group we could perhaps discuss this and only include simplistic instructions on the pages and maybe others onto a website/twitter feed. The website and twitter (with hashtag perhaps) needs to be placed onto the bottom of the design. I chose gill sans light for writing "fox face" because it is quite a simplistic font to read and also contrasts the title which I have used this font therefore could then be used for the other information.
To check if the instructions worked correctly I made one myself:
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