Its good to talk!

After our group tutorial I feel I have some good ideas going forward for my "Thank you!" brief. I proposed my idea of saying thanks for a recent job opportunity and how I wanted to incorporate this into wine packaging. Before the tutorial I felt like I had hit a brick wall. I believed in my idea but couldn't get it on to the next level.

It was suggested to look at the visual language that advertisers use. If the receiver of the gift is in advertising, make it suitable for the audience. I thought about different types of advertising, Billboard, Ambient, Gorilla and had a lot of ideas. Also I want to look at other packaging ideas. The box is good, but I can also use the paper its wrapped in, or the bag it's supplied in.

I'm overflowing with ideas now so I need to look at each one, along with my notes and decide which one to pursue. It really does prove that talking helps, I would never have got there on my own!

Thanks!

Your welcome! This is the first part of my new brief of the 2nd year. An opportunity to say thanks. But to whom? Why? And most importantly how?!

I've asked everyone (well almost everyone) I've run into over the last few days who was the last person they thanked, why and in what tone they thanked them. Saying thank you for someone passing you the salt during dinner is a long way from thanking someone for saving your life...not that this has ever happened to me! The tone and receiver of this thanks will determine the whole project.

The list of who to thank is long. But I don't want it to get to heavy or sickly sweet. I don't want it to be a thanks to Mum for all her support, or my girlfriend for her inspiration. I find all that a little bit twee or full on. Thanks can be a real throw away comment, and this is what I want to look into. The truth is we say thanks all the time, and often mean it but don't really say it with any purpose except on a few occasions. I want to think of who I have thanked recently so I can capture the feeling and thought behind the words, which should help manifest itself as the basis of my project.

Soil Association Brochure

This advert was on the front of the brochure we received at home with our organic fruit & veg box delivery.

I thought it was a really well executed idea. Using the veg to make the face of the pointing figure from the war time "your country needs you" posters. Amusing and striking. I read the other pages too, so it clearly did its job to get the viewer interested.

Vagabond - Self Summer brief

I decided to make a small brief for myself during the summer. Short and sweet I decided that, should one day I be lucky enough to run my own graphic design company, what would I call it. It is a question that had been knocking around in my head for a while, so for a bit of fun I sat down one day and came up with this:


It is hard to think of a name that encompasses all aspects of design and to call it simply James Roberts Design Studio would be a bit crap to say the least. I took the name "Vagabond" from a Bob Dylan track I was listening to on my i-pod whilst running. I came home and looked up the meaning of the word. It derives from the Latin word 'vagari' which means to wander. Also, "leading a carefree life" "having no settled home". I liked the sound of the word and also the meaning. It has derogatory connotations too, mostly western associations with tramps.

So, I decided to call my imaginary company "Vagabond". I wanted to make a fresh logo design, that was simple and using mainly typography. I chose the type face Myriad as I liked the way the V was so similar to an upside down A in shape and it also had a modern feel to it, essential for a modern design company! Just the type on it's own wasn't enough though, so I decided to knock the bar out from the cross section of the two A's which made them look even more like the V and V, A and N all looked a little like arrows pointing in different directions. I then reversed the N so that it appeared backwards to give it a quirkier feel but still kept its legibility.

I then put a grey gradient colour on it as I thought this would be easy to reproduce for letter heads, business cards etc and under the word Vagabond I wrote the words that I would like my company to transmit, "Fresh" "Design" and "Ideas" I chose to put this in orange to give some bright and fresh feel to the graphic, also the associations of orange are summer, sun and the fruit itself, with happy and fun being amongst its connotations.

To bring the design together, i drew a line underneath and another breaking eitherside of the three key words.

I am quite pleased how it turned out. It is exactly what I was looking for, although when I look at it now I see the design linked more closely to a surfing/clothing brand than a design company...maybe I'm in the wrong business! I realised shortly after completing it that there is a band by the same name currently on the play list of Radio 2, so now it looks like the most unoriginal name for a design company. I might as well have called it "Oasis Design"!

Moon

After visiting London again this week for what seems like the 50th time this summer, I kept on seeing the film poster advert for a new film by Duncan James, I watched the trailer and thought the photography and imagery used was stunning. I'm not really into Space and all the Sci-fi genre but the film looks fantastic.

The Moon always looks great with a dark space like background, but on the poster instead of going for an obvious look they decided to use continuously decreasing circles to represent the Moon which really catches the eye. I think using an image of the Moon alone would have maybe made the film look more like a documentary. But this simple black and White image with a graphic Moon, really made me want to see the movie.

more here

This week I have mostly been looking at...

Whilst using the excellent local library (otherwise known as Borders) I was flicking through some books and fond work by Klas Ernflo. What caught my eye at first was his simple graphics with some really great type. I checked out his homepage and found myself looking through all of his work and I don't think there was one thing I didn't like. I think it is his simplicity but also quirkiness. He is based in Barcelona, which I had no idea of until I checked out his site.

http://www.klasherbert.com/

I saw these adverts for Star Wars convention and thought they were ace!

There are more here.