Work Experience 05/05/2010

Today contained much less talking than other days and a fair bit more action. We had just from half 9 until half 4 to get everything rapped up (it is currently 14:54 and I've just finished my allocated contribution). Everyone was assigned different tasks to go about during the day. The first task was to achieve some research on plastic/signs/braille companies. After a lot of searching I discovered a company which will create our laser cut/embossed signs on plastic with braille and colouring. Everything we need. I emailed them a specification for our signs and as a rough quote they stated a cost of £21 each plus VAT which with 80 signs comes to around £2000. My other task for today was to collect all of the artwork for the signs and create PDF's for them. I also had to add braille type which I downloaded from the internet. This was a lot more difficult than it should have been due to mass confusion as to file format, lost files and such other issues. A laser cutting has also been arranged for a mock up of a design (currently in progress as I write this) so that the client can have an idea of what the signage will look like. Here are the sign designs.

Work Experience 04/05/2010

Today was spent coming up with ideas for signs to help the blind & visually impaired navigate their way around Castlepoint shopping centre. Some time was spent brainstorming and we decided that overall the solution should be approached from three fronts. For the visually impaired it would require a set of large, simple & easily recognisable images. And for the blind it would require some audio & texture qualities. Texture being the addition of braille to the signage, however after research we discovered that only about 20% of the blind can read braille and so audio would definitely be required. The concept would be to include an infra red sensor to the front of shops which would send a signal to a headset of sorts, which would be handed out to those who needed them from the shopping mobility centre. The infra red signal would give the name of the shop and perhaps what it sold to the user. After discussing options for delivery we moved onto design, first categorizing the shops that there are at the shopping centre. We came up with 6: Electrical, Clothing, Food & Drink, Home-ware, Supermarket and Entertainment. A lot of discussion was had about the different icons once they were brought to the table. Some needed editing, some needed re-doing completely. My section to design was Food & Drink. Design Progression:

We decided that the backing should be a light green as the black of the icons would stand out from it well which would be necessary for the partially sighted to see it well. The colour would also stand out well from the surrounding area which is mostly grey metal/concrete.









This cup was decided against at committee.











The pantone reference we chose was 374C.

Type is added. Sans serif is required as it is easier to read.

Measurements for final layout:
300mm x 300mm
40mm margins
95pt Helvetica Bold (to sit on bottom margin)
Icon to start from top margin (allowances for tweaks)

Work Experience: 28/04/2010

So after yesterdays events of setting up our little studio company today was focused on coming up with ideas for advertsing strategies. We talked about what kind of clients we would want to work for. The short list came down to: record labels, doing illustration & design for CD sleeves/flyers/posters. Fashion, creating look books & advertising. Drinks companies, designing packaging & advertising and finally Charity, doing advertising. So after deciding on these we needed to come up with some way of getting our name & message to these clients. After a LOT of debating and throwing ideas around we came up with the idea of using the 'plus' sign from the logo to reflect a medical nature, and so to play on a gimic of being 'design doctors'. We then split into smaller groups to throw some more ideas about for this. My group came up with the idea of creating a mock first aid box containing some promo pieces. I was in charge of designing the box itself but we only had 10 minutes to do this in so it was a quick job. Here it is. Pretty simple design.

Into this was placed a business card,

a lollipop,

and a plaster (the image for which won't load). These elements were designed by the rest of my team.

 Back of envelope box thing.

 The Collection.

After pitching this to the whole studio it was decided that we had the best idea and were put in charge of craeting a more realistic version of this as a mock up. That's coming soon.

Work Experience: 27/04/2010

So today was the start of my work experience unit. We began with an overview of what we would be doing over the next two weeks. Firstly we would be creating a set of stencils to be sprayed onto the grass around AUCB to guide people an exhibition. We will also be creating a map for the same exhibition. Lastly we have been set a live brief to create a design for signs to be put up at Castlepoint shopping centre which will help mobility customers (those that are disabled/partially sighted/blind) to get around the shops. These will need to have both standard text on but also braille so they can be read by everyone.

As we are setting up a studio team the first task was to chose a name & design a logo for ourselves. We split into groups and my team came up with the idea of 'Comelion designs', being that we are visual COMunication students and we wanted to suggest that we were adaptable to any environment. This received good feedback but overall we felt that the name was too long and since it was misspelt it could be difficult to create a customer base. The end result was 'Thirteen plus one' which came from there originally being 13 of us and one person showing up late.

We then went about designing the stencils to be sprayed around AUCB for the show, we had been given a set typeface and the fact that they wanted it displayed within a circle. These were my designs. The first set on the left were the ones that I pitched. (This includes the large 2.) I wanted to keep them simple as grass is not a very accurate medium. I used bridges on all numbers regardless of whether they were necessary or not and stretched these through the circle in a straight line. These received good feedback but another design was chosen due to creative flair.

The chosen design was then split up and each person in the team then designed one number, directed by the chosen design director. This was then printed out across 6 A3 sheets, taped together, spray mounted onto some grey board and then cut out with a scalpel to create the stencil.