Cardiff Met Blog 2018 – Current
Week of the 9th March – putting ideas to paper
From a previous group activity I already had some wacky ideas. For instance the team came up with the idea of a singing sandwich and having food singing together. Then with little research I drew the rest as I did not want to come up with things that were already out there.
Week 1 – mood boards/ research
At first I wanted to look into designs and logos that exist. These are all to do with people coming together with music notes. The weaker ones I feel have only music notes or books. The ones with quirkier outline symbolism I believe work better such as the riverside logo with shapes becoming a collection of people.
I then looked into actual marketing designs that have already been used. Being an admirer of Gareth Malone I looked into what things he uses But there was not much available or it just wasn’t the best. From this I branched out looking at other choir organisations but none of these are the most creative. Thus I want to go out of the box and be a bit wacky with my ideas so that its not boring for the client seeing the same classic styles of a singing photo or music notes and nice text.
Task 3 – Writing our Creative Brief
Starting this I have no idea what one was nor that they were essential part of the communication between our client and ourselves. The brief forms creative boundaries that a designer or myself can follow within the creative process.
By creating this brief it sets guidelines of what we understand the client wants/ needs are. It sets a time scale, what we aim to do and how we are going to do it and so forth. Through having this clearly written in front of me it clarifies whats in my mind so that I am ready to go forth and create ideas. This also helps the client understand our work process so that we can take them on a journey with us.
Task 3 – Client Briefs + Brainstorm in a Box
Looking at the long list of clients and work i quickly pinned 3 down all with the over arching mental health platform. Having a lot of personal/ family experiences with difficulties in the field I felt a stronger pull and connection. But reading the briefs in greater detail I felt Art Active would be a better fit as their aim is to boost wellbeing without thinking you are through being/ joining in a choir. Singing helps the mind stay focus and being in a team helps stay connected, thus boosting personal moral.
The main presentation opening our minds went on about how we can create ‘good design’ to help for positive causes. But we need ‘good’ social responsibility by understanding and researching. The main thing what we need to know/ understand is the need of the client. I learnt that there are different needs and understanding these will help in the future.
The over arcing theme was the question – “How might we persuade *** [who] to do ++ [what]?” Meaning what process and actions do we have to go through to get connections in an optimistic manor. Creating 10 framed questions we then moved on to listing 50 things on what we know can help us answer these questions. There were 5 categories what we can bring, persuasive words we know, knowledge about the target audience, then client and finally about the subject/ message. The did the opposite to what we don’t know. All of which is in the following photos.
By having a list of what we don’t know raised questions and we became confused on what the final outcomes will be – meaning we can think of ideas but without talking to the client in person and finding out what they want/ need from us it is had to move forward.
Tuesday 10th March – Arts Active Communications
I have been tasked with the communications between our group and the client. This is a very important role and so far I have been on top it, making sure everyone is understanding.
Due to the current global situation we had a virtual meeting. There were only 3 of us on the call due to an internet problem and a few illnesses. So I decided to type up the notes we made throughout the meeting so that everyone was informed on what was said as well as clarifying our understanding of what the client said.
Sending this to our client she amended a few parts explaining more on what ‘eventbrite’ is and how they plan to use it. I had never heard of this before so they were very helpful in there response educating me on this.
What is the Story – Task 2
The task is to look into my era of now and what stories defines now.
Doing the most basic thing of image search, is sometimes the most helpful thing. On there we have Brexit and all the politics that came with that. There is clean energy and being eco friendly to help the planet. We’ve got Instagram and all the social media, whether that is a good or bad thing to be so popular or not? There is online gaming, new songs, education, Netflix, TV series, merchandise, celebrity gossip and the main themes are memes.
Memes are a very recent thing and only came about from Richard Dawkins in 1976 with his book called ‘The Selfish Gene’. From then the mid 90’s had the first humorous piece but then with technology in the 2000’s it took off, to now anyone can create any meme they wish to voice their own opinion. The creator becomes the designer.
However, a meme isn’t always seen as persuasive with one clear voice so I decided to look into actual paid designers and the trends of this era.
One main factor I found was being minimalistic with little texture but bold in colours mixed with simple line work. 
I keep thinking back to when the Scouting association changed their classical logo and styling. This is a representation of how the times have changed and how aesthetic is so important to people. With the new branding of the fleur-de-lis emblem it is more useable and cheeper to print onto anything such as the uniforms and so forth. The design is to show a “more relevant image of Scouting,” meaning that the aim is to be contemporary.
The designs are aimed at both parents and children showing that scouting is “fun and exciting while retaining strong links to its heritage.” The message raises awareness of the impact scouting has on the masses. Knowing first hand the need for volunteers to give up their evenings and odd weekend, the organisation knows the power that perception is everything. since the rebranding my home town scouting group has opened a second evening and boosted up numbers in other sections too. Being the largest youth movement they want to keep being relevant and persuade adults to help as well as children to join and engage with them.
Another company is a skin care company – Consonant. They sell high end products and needed to persuade customers to walk into their store to buy products. They targeted people in the neighbourhood to engage and hopefully buy a product. This minimalistic typographic piece shows that a rough surface can be more, can be beautiful. Implying that their makeup can cover over the skin for a perfect, clear, pristine finish so why wouldn’t the a passing by person go to the store. After this advertisement the store saw a dramatic increase in local customers that continued to come back.
Themed Research – Task 1
We had a presentation outlining the ways in which designers create work to persuade others to that cause. Persuasion can change many different things such as beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviours. With this power ethics was questioned, bringing up how we as designers need to have this awareness and understanding of the designs we produce.
After the in-depth presentation a task was given. In small groups we collect related to the given theme that does what the presentation outlined.
Disability/discrimination
I quickly came across a few facts explaining the sheer some of people in the uk has a disability. Of those people most of them felt they weren’t excepted within society. Also a law was not placed in until 1995. So 25 years only has there been an actual law against discrimination. With all this said research found the last 20 years in Britain has been revolutionised in the way that the fully abled treats and respects the disabled.
“Disabled people make up about 1in 5 of the British population.”
“1 in 3 disabled people feel there’s a lot of disability prejudice.”
“The Disability Discrimination Act came about in 1995.”
Last week – Finalising Design
Having gone to the last tutorial not many things were needed to teak. The only suggestion given was to place the planets better. They need to link in with the page not just be placed on top of everything. I keep going back to depth and layers like the book building on the readers science knowledge, adding steps and curiosities to the go further your own education. My design is showing the layers of research Bryson has put into the book from the blue background then adding light and stars then the typography, vector images and all coming together for a cohesive easy viewing.
Moving the planets solidified my design and took the white line back behind the blurb and behind the planets. This changed the hierarchy so the ‘Best selling….. Century’ typography is the main feature at the back.
The last element was to export with bleed and crop marks then send it in and now I’m just waiting in anticipation.
Going into week 2 – Developing and Detailing
With the feedback given I looked into 
the typography and how that effected the dynamics of the piece – changing the type on the spine and blurb at the back. It was suggested that the off white tones from the quotes didn’t work and I agreed feeling they are already lower on the hierarchy through size so a colour change was not needed.
On top of that the rocket seemed off with the orange dull colour so using the colour given near the barcode I feel it is more cohesive and brighter. I then went on to add more depth and detail adding slight shadowing and highlighting in places.
I also decided to remove the extra line of the ‘journey’ that the rocket took. This opened up the space not letting the viewer become over whelmed. However, in a tutorial others suggested that the lines were too simple and basic so maybe the rocket could pass some planets or space inspired cartoons. Adding planets the design now looks complete with all the elements and just the right amount of boldness and detail.
Week of 17th Feb – Visual Ideation and Feedback
At first I visualised the ideas using other people’s designs. I also wanted to look at all the type needed to place within the specified areas. The first idea was a sort of explosion of different matter within the universe – taking water and fire into a main bang of life. The feedback was that it was a good idea but needed a lot of time and detailing of creating my own illustrations.
Next idea I went for a more minimalistic idea of creating my own space theme background then adding strong bold type on top. The background needed brightening but overall they seemed pleased. However this design, if taken forward, would need a more depth to it. The design is plain and it needs that key feature.
Liking both my ideas I decided to try and do both simply then see what one i preferred more. I created a vector image of a rocket that was basic and almost like a children’s toy to add playfulness – making the line of travel into the ‘S’ shape in the updated typeface of the title. I then lightened the image and brightened the stars/ dots making them bigger. This meant that the background was something to look at, creating more depth.
I then went to my first idea to create a waterfall meets volcano but this was time consuming and did not look the best. So scrapped this idea as I was on an extremely tight time schedule due to family reasons and the rocket with typography felt right to take forward.
Fiona Fraser's Graphics 