poster

Self Evaluation (1) 14/06/11

contact with local agency

Visit to the Design museum

Bookshelf/coffin - made me laugh

I liked being able to see the crazy rambling sketches of the designers

Bird bunting in the gift shop - reminiscent of my owl bunting that I made for the book fair last year....

Greetings cards - good inspiration for my greetings card brief, I like the simplicity of these designs

Rob Ryan book - I'd never seen these before - I love the live setting for these cut outs

Fantastic view

Glasses lamp shade

Love this advertisement - both interesting and visually attractive

Pictograms -

I enjoyed my trip to the design museum, although my motive was dissertation research, I actually found the gift shop the most inspirational aspect of the trip, giving me lots of ideas for my projects!

My objectives for 3rd year....

Improve software skills in all areas.

Web design - continuous development.

Become more confident about designing for print - and produce some work which exhibits this ability.

Typography software - teach myself how to use this and set myself a project where I can spend some time on this.

More branding and logo design - from putting together my website this Summer I have noticed areas in my portfolio that I am lacking. Branding and logo design is something that I plan to go into and I actually have little evidence of this.

3D typography - I experimented with this briefly in 2nd year as part of a freelance project, but I would like to set myself a brief which involves me embracing this.

Continue to explore hand rendered/image based typography - I have become more and more interested in this and want to continue this exploration.

Image driven design/illustration

Develop my conceptual abilities and aim BIG - I feel that I often think as radically as I could. I dismiss ideas before they even develop properly because I worry about how I will execute them, but I think I need to become more aware of my abilities and realize what my potential is.

Go back to basics - I want to continue my engagement with more traditional processes such as screen printing. I want to try and design more away from the computer, old school style. 20 years ago I probably wouldn't have had a computer and incredible design was being produced. I vow to only use my computer in the instance of formatting, time saving and to improve quality.

Spend more time researching past as well as contemporary design - I have spent a lot of time doing this this summer and as a result I feel much more in touch with what's going on in the design world, what the competition is and had a lot of ideas for my own practice.

Consider areas of interest - one of my main weaknesses last year in my opinion was my chosen subject matter. I failed to think of areas of interest when I needed to. This Summer I have recorded all my ideas in a little notebook which I can now apply to future work.

Get a placement for Christmas - I feel really disappointed with the outcome of my summer placement (or lack of) and I am already looking at other designers to contact more locally.

Improve visual documentation - I feel that my photography and display abilities let me down and dont't do my work justice.

14th TDC2 winning typefaces

These are some of the winners from 14th 'Type Directors Club squared' competition. These are the ones that I particularly liked :

Typeface Designer: Hannes von Döhren, Berlin
Foundry: HVD Fonts
Members of Typeface Family/System: Thin, Thin Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Regular Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Black, Black Italic

My father gave me some magazines from the 1920s and 1930s, which he had found at my grandfather’s; he thought I should have a look at the hand-lettered advertisements. I was fascinated by the surface feel and by the general atmosphere of these magazines; the way the body type was set and the various combinations of typefaces and hand-lettered headlines.

I absolutely wanted to create a typeface with that kind of feel. A geometric face that nonetheless would possess a certain softness and warmth. Because of “bad” printing, the text faces in those magazines had slightly rounded corners, lending them an emotionality that today’s clean-cut type lacks. So I decided to give Brandon slightly rounded-off corners to allow it to radiate warmth in spite of its geometric clarity. Although Brandon with its 12 styles is a relatively large family, each weight has its own aesthetic, for while the weights are based on each other they were all drawn separately in order to give each variety its own details — like the various ‘g’ variations or the perfectly round counters in the Black weight. A real italic was designed to provide additional individuality and to distinguish the font from most other geometric sans faces, making it even more ‘human’.

Typeface Designer: Erik van Blokland, The Hague
Foundry: House Industries, Yorklyn, Delaware

The Eames Poster Numerals are numerological necessities punctuated with a pulchritudinous parade of pachydermic power whose circusized woodcut-inspired shapes were drawn in three stackable weights and boast a broad range of color choices limited only by the imagination, RGB or CMYK spectra, and the availability of custom pigmented emulsions.

Typeface Designer: Hubert Jocham, Lautrach, Germany
Foundry: Hubert Jocham Type

Members of Typeface Family/System: Regular and Italic

When letterpress started with the Gutenberg Bible, the typeface was like a texture. Before humanism, type did not really need to be legible. The letters were rather drawn in an ornamental way. It filled a space. My idea for Matrona was to create a similar structure. I wanted it to be very bold and still as legible as possible. The result was a headline typeface that can fill spaces. You can even fill it with a picture. Or you create an ornament with contents. There are three weights to extend the usage to different sizes.

Typeface Designer: Alex Rütten, Berlin
Foundry: FSI FontShop International
Members of Typeface Family/System: Regular, Regular Italic, Light, Light Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Black, and Black Italic

Suhmo is inspired by classic Egyptian and typewriter fonts such as Courier and American Typewriter, which feature headline and text use. This impressive duality was a guideline for the concept. At the same time, many formal details were derived from the typical neon – lettering you can find on aged Italian restaurants in Germany. Suhmo has short ascenders and descenders and a generous x-height, making it a good choice for editorial design. It combines simplicity and functionality with playfulness, offering interesting details such as loops and swashes and a slight stroke contrast. Its varied details are unobtrusive in text sizes while developing character and sparkle in headlines. Suhmo’s extensive character set includes numerous special characters and ligatures, several figure sets, and small caps throughout all styles. The Suhmo family consists of four weights: Light, Regular, Bold, and Black, each with an Italic. The weights were staggered to complement each other within a layout, the Black corresponding to the Regular and the Light corresponding to the Bold weight, allowing words or phrases to be clearly stressed within a text. The Italics are lighter than the Roman and have a relatively slight angle of slope. The forms are derived from a manual writing process and often cross the base-line or the x-height.

Typeface Designer: Jeremy Mickel, Providence, Rhode Island
Foundry: Mickel Design
Members of Typeface Family/System: Extralight, Extralight Italic, Light, Light Italic, Book, Book Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Black, and Black Italic

Shift is inspired by American slab-serifs from the late 19th century. In its lighter weights, it takes on the personality of a typewriter face, with flared terminals and prominent serifs. In the heavier weights, it acts as a titling Egyptian, with thin spaces between characters and small counters. Designed as a display face, it also works well for text.

Typeface Designer: Vera Evstafieva, Moscow
Foundry: Infonta
Members of Typeface Family/System: Latin and Cyrillic

Amalta is a Display typeface with calligraphic background. It inherits weight and letter constructions from the original brush lettering. Amalta’s Latin and Cyrillic sets were designed simultaneously with an equal attention to details and overall pattern. They both include initial and final swash forms, which can be used as a typographer chooses. Amalta is suitable for large size typesetting headlines, few-line texts, etc.

Typeface Designer: Erik van Blokland, The Hague
Foundry: House Industries, Yorklyn, Delaware
Members of Typeface Family/System: Regular, Regular Italic, Book, Book Italic, Light, Light Italic, Thin, Thin Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Extra Bold, Extra Bold Italic, Black, Black Italic, Stencil, and Stencil Cameo

Charles and Ray Eames did not design a typeface and this project was not about creating fonts that they would have drawn had they felt the need or inspiration to do so. It was about creating a tool that had the same universal appeal as monuments to the Eames aesthetic, many of which have been so ingrained in our visual landscape that we barely notice them. Eames Century Modern is crafted in the same vein; its dignified legibility effectively transmits the message without overpowering the medium while devilishly intoxicating details in words, letters, serifs, spaces, stems and tapers find their way into the subconscious of even the most casual observer. Much like waiting in a departure lounge on Eames system airport seating; you don’t know why you’re comfortable, you just are.

Nick prints

These prints are designed by designer 'nick prints'. I came accross his work on the D&AD website. It helps to show the direction I want to take this year; really focussing on image driven graphic design and  experimental image based typography that moves away from the swiss modern styles.

I like his use of text and image in a way that communicates very aesthetically - rather than stripping type or image down to its bare essentials and focussing purely on legibility, he explores decoration.

Ballet brief

 

English National Ballet Design Contest

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  The globally renowned English National Ballet is inviting artists to get creative and design the visual identity for ‘My First Sleeping Beauty’, the first in a series of classic ballets for children. The selected artwork will be displayed at the world premiere of ‘My First Sleeping Beauty’ in April 2012 and on marketing and promotional materials in the United Kingdom.
  
  Participants may submit one design in JPEG or PNG format but must retain their original artwork should they be chosen as the winner. Designs submitted must incorporate the following:
  
  • title ‘My First Sleeping Beauty’
  • Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) with dark hair
  • A strong reference to ballet

Fakery brief

Protest placard brief

PROTEST PLACARD POSTER COMPETITION IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE DIESEL SCHOOL OF ISLAND LIFE

Competition closes: 13 Jun 2011
Voting period: 24 May 2011 - 13 Jun 2011

THIS COMPETITION HAS NOW FINISHED

Congratulations to JOESTER88 whose entry was chosen by our judges as the winning entry!
Thanks to everyone who participated. Click here to get involved in future poster competitions and other design briefs..
Here's the winner

COMPETITION HAS ENDED

Political sloganeering used to be the realm of overpaid 'creatives' who wear black rimmed glasses and play table football most of the time before doing lots of cocaine and churning out something like 'We're all in this together.'

Well times-they-are-a-changing because according to Radio 4 we are living in the Golden Age of the Placard, meaning everyone is coming up with their own political messages. This is probably due to the conjunction of two factors 1) there is loads to protest about at the moment as the living standards of the average person are going to hell in a handcart, while bankers wearing suits made of money look on and laugh 2) texting, instant messaging stuff like Whatsapp and Twitter have trained us to communicate in short form meaning we feel more able to say something which may cause one to LOL or LMMFWBAO.

See some examples of political word play and sloganeering here.

Come up with a political slogan using 140 characters or less. Imagine the slogan on a placard, so you should use bold type. If you do want to feature an image to support your slogan it is best to keep it simple. Remember an image may not be necessary.

 

The slogans should communicate a political message.

Some examples include: Yes We Can, Fight the Power, Nick Clegg We know You, You're a Fucking Tory Too and Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out.

CLIENT INFORMATION

Diesel School of Island Life is a series of free lessons, field trips, screenings and parties throughout May and early June featuring inspiring industry experts and pioneers including Howard Marks, Goldie, Metronomy, Mr Hudson, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, SBTRKT and many more. For more information visitwww.facebook.com/diesel

ENTRY GUIDELINES

- The brief is open to artists from all disciplines
- Be creative with your text if you like, and include images if you choose to
- Please work to A2 dimensions (594x420mm) - can be portrait or landscape
- For purposes of voting and pre-viewing in the web gallery, your entry needs to be formatted into a JPG or PNG format, RGB, resolution: 72dpi, max filesize: 1MB
- For optimal viewing in the gallery, please resize your image to 610 pixels width
- Please make sure your name, daytime phone number and email address are added to your profile on dontpaniconline.com - you can edit your profile at any time but please make sure this information is present before the competition ends
- If your entry is chosen as the winner, you will be contacted to send over the hi-res (300 dpi) version of it. So be prepared to have this quality version ready if you are chosen
- Remember to check out our inspiration page here! 

Laurence King brief

This year Laurence King is celebrating 20 years of independent publishing and we’re giving you the chance to design some celebratory artwork for the occasion.

The winning piece will become our official 20th anniversary poster that will be distributed in Don’t Panic packs right across the country as well as being shown on www.laurenceking.com andwww.grafikmag.com.

There will also be a special event showcasing the artwork at Woodbridge & Rees gallery in September.

In addition to this, there are prizes of LK books up for grabs for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place!

To celebrate the anniversary, the theme of your work should be based on the number '20'. You can interpret it broadly, but please try to stay on brief!

Also, your design must incorporate the Laurence King 20 Years logo - downloadable here.

CLIENT INFORMATION

Established in London in 1991, Laurence King Publishing is now recognised as one of the world's leading publishers of books on the creative arts.

Their books are acclaimed for their beautiful design and authoritative text as well as the quality and care taken over their production.

They publish books for students, professionals and the general consumer in the following subject areas:advertising, architecture, art, the decorative arts, fashion, film & animation, graphic design, interior design,photography and product design.

ENTRY GUIDELINES

- Please incorporate the Laurence King logo in your design - it can either play a big part and form the basis of the design, or may feature on the periphery, but inclusion is essential! (download it here)
- Please also do not add the Don't Panic logo
- The brief is open to artists from all disciplines
- Please work to A2 dimensions (594x420mm) - can be portrait or landscape
- For purposes of voting and pre-viewing in the web gallery, your entry needs to be formatted into a JPG or PNG format, RGB, resolution: 72dpi, max filesize: 1MB
- For optimal viewing in the gallery, please resize your image to 610 pixels width
- Please make sure your name, daytime phone number and email address are added to your profile on dontpaniconline.com - you can edit your profile at any time but please make sure this information is present before the competition ends
- If your entry is chosen as the winner, you will be contacted to send over the hi-res (300 dpi) version of it. So be prepared to have this quality version ready if you are chosen

One Flag brief

The One Flag

A First Things First Project

Design is at war with itself. We are taught that design is about finding solutions. But the success of these solutions is judged so narrowly – Did it ooze desire? Did it shift units? – that we find ourselves implicated in problems far greater than the ones we solve. The time has come for a radical shift in priorities. We are now faced with some of the most daunting global challenges in human history.

These are real targets, worthy of our problem-solving skills, ripe for our intervention. Yet those who have the vision to rise above national and political boundaries still have no symbol to rally under. We invite you to create a flag – free from language and well-worn clichés – that embodies the idea of global citizenship. A symbol that triggers pride and cohesion, whether worn on a backpack, displayed on a door, or flown on a flagpole. A symbol for anyone to declare membership in a growing and vital human cooperative. We invite you to prove that design has a real role to play in the fate of our world.

Arigato brief

Tokyo Arigato Project Competition

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  We’ve been receiving warm support from all over the world since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. It wasn’t just people in Japan who were affected, people in many countries showed their warmth and support through various creative initiatives, making new connections and bonds across the world.
  
  We are proud to introduce ARIGATO project, founded in association with Tokyo Award, an art and design TV show in Japan and Design Association NPO.
  
  We are kindly asking professional creators, universities, and members of public to submit their art/design work under the theme of “LOVE”. Open to nine categories:
  
  • Architecture
  • Interior
  • Products
  • Fashion
  • Textiles
  • Fine Art
  • Media Art
  • Graphic
  • Photography
  
  We believe that design has the power to help rebuild Japan and do good around the world. During this difficult time, we were overwhelmed with messages of support from around the world - we are very grateful to be able to say ARIGATO!