Brief 1: Record cover
For this project I was tasked with redesigning a record cover. I was excited as it was a graphic design task. When I actually got to see the brief, I was wary as there was already a list of songs that I had to choose from. The songs I thought I could get the most inspiration from was ‘Do the reggay’ by Toots and the Maytals (reggae) and ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by Sugarhill Gang (hip hop).
I started a quick research into both songs and I chose ‘Rapper’s Delight’.
Research:
For my research i looking into may different things.
The history of Sugarhill Gang and hip hop. hip hop, band research-25vpdij
Hip hop record covers from the 80’s and album covers from today. ALBUM COVERS MOOD BOARD-2lm978w
I also researched standard things surrounding hip hop. HIP HOP MOOD BOARD-20bduym
I was unsure of how I wanted to make my record cover look and how I was going to make it so I started researching different graphic designers.DESIGNERS MOOD BOARD-1nisu2o
Initial Idea:
I really struggled to come up with idea for this project. It took awhile for me to really start getting an understanding of the types of things I wanted to try.
- Mic to resemble the music/rap
- 2 areas of colour to represent a rap battle and spray paint
- Curved writing for the shape of the record
- The song repeatedly mentions a woman
- Looking at a woman from a far
- Silhouettes
- no need for detail
- can still tell what it is
- Similar design to the original
- Modernised/Simplified it
- Removed the bricks
- Turned the spotlight into a record
- Graffiti writing
- Brick wall
- Silhouette
Development: IDEA 1
Added colour so I could see how they would go together.
My concern for idea 1 was the spray areas. The size of the piece meant that using spray paint wasn’t an option. I tried multiple different way to get the spray effect however none were successful.
Development: IDEA 2
Added colour to this idea I realised that it would look quite plain. I added the scene of the room as a house is the type of place you would find this type of music being played.
I decided not to use this idea because if you took away the writing then the design could be used for any song.
Development: IDEA 3
I kept the majority of the colours, however I changed the background to navy blue as black would be to harsh.
I liked this design however I couldn’t see how to develop it more.
Development: IDEA 4
Started by thinking of ways to make the silhouette shape.
- Water colour on tracing paper
- Desired effect was successfully created
- BAD
- paper curled
- paint comes away as dust
- Cut out silhouette
- GOOD
- bold
- solid colour
- Can’t be on its own, people may not be able to tell what it is
- Water colour on paper
- BAD
- solid areas of colour
- colours are strongeI don’t like this
The idea that I thought I was gonna use was the water colour on tracing paper however this did not work successfully.
The black silhouette was the best but it seemed to plain. I then thought about adding extra detail to it. Tried adding the detail with a normal pencil and paint. I originally thought the paint would be better as it would be stronger than the pencil, however it turned out to be the other way around. The pencil also adds a metallic/shiny effect.
When listening to the song I noticed the beat/rhythm (4 long, 8 short) I wanted to somehow include that in the design. I decided to change the layout of the bricks to match beat.
Tested different colours for the background.
Development: WRITING
Investigated multiple different graffiti writing.
Idea 1 – to square
Idea 2+4 – to plain
Idea 3 – could be confusing to read
idea 5 – favourite (fun, easy to read)
idea 6 – nice writing however I don’t think it would suit the music
Next i moved onto how i would create the writing.
ACRYLIC – didn’t like as the paint was hard to apply within the lines
WATER COLOUR – paint could create successful drips
CUT PAPER – favourite (bold, strong colour, sharp edges) My worry with this method is that if the letters have to be smaller will they look as nice. Will I be able to cut them out successfully?
I decided to test the cut paper and water colour at a smaller scale to see what one would look better.
Next stage was to work out how i wanted to create the writing for ‘Rapper’s Delight’.
Final Design
Evaluation:
I am slightly disappointed with how my record cover turned out. My major let down was not anticipating that the paint would change colour on the different coloured papers. If I had the chance I would go back and make a physical record cover of idea 3 to compare them.
Brief 2: Sign
For this project we were tasked to work in groups to make a new signage that would be placed somewhere around DJCAD. The aim of the sign was to see how people would interact with it, would it change how they act within that area?
Research:
The first thing we did was walk around DJCAD to have a look at the signs that already exist.
We discovered that a lot of the signs are safety procedures or signs you don’t necessarily read as you can subconsciously understand what it is saying. The direction signs are okay but we realised that that aren’t totally helpful. Although they point you in the general direction, you could walk through the corridor and miss the place you want as there are limited signs in between. We watched a lot of people struggle to open the doors as they are so heavy and we don’t think they realise there is a button to open them. There was a lack of signs showing the directions to toilets and bridges.
Ideas:
We were unclear if we wanted out signage to be beneficial to the people that are in the building or a signage that would allow us to see how the people would interact with it.
Although we could expand on the ideas of the path and drawing attention to the button the one we decided to go with was ‘Wave at the camera’. We chose this one as we thought we would get a bigger reaction from something that you wouldn’t normally find in the building.
Chosen Idea Development:
After talking we decided that having a fake camera could be beneficial to this experiment, if people actually saw the camera, would they be more willing to wave. Or would their reaction be the opposite, see the camera then move away not wanting to actually be on camera. We then thought about where the camera could be placed and what it would look like.
Camera from the computer/TV screen on the wall
Put sign next to the screen
Modern CCTV camera
Blend in with the new design of the corridor
Old style CCTV camera
Same shape as lights – could blend in
We first thought that we would go with the old style CCTV camera as it would be easy to make it will not draw a lot of attention to it. From the distance it would look like a real camera.
Initial talk about placement we thought the best place to put it would be outside the studio, that way we could sit in the studio but still be able to observe the people and stay hidden.
Another thought was for us to stand on the floor above as we could look down on the floor that the sign would be on. This way people would be less likely to see us. Camera being above would also make it be more realistic.
After another walk through of the building we realised that there was a proper CCTV camera at the reception/main doors. We then thought that there would be a good place to put the sign as lots of people walk through that area. Now we no longer needed the fake camera.
Then we were onto making the actual sign. We knew we wanted our sign to catch people’s attention so we went with the colours yellow and black, these are usually associated with warning and danger. We thought that these colours will make the person pay more attention to the sign as they pass.
We then thought about the words on the sign, did we want to change them slightly? we thought of a couple of ways of saying the same thing.
- Wave @ the camera
- Smile, your on camera
- Smile for the camera
The one we went for was ‘Wave @ at camera’ we chose this one because when the person waves it will be easier to see than a smile. We changed the ‘at’ to ‘@’ to make it less formal, we hoped to make it more fun and casual against the warning colours.
We wanted the writing to be bold, strong and easy to read. We center aligned it so the message would come across as strong. We thought about having it in all capital but realised that would make it to hard to read as it would all be the same shape.
Throughout the time we had the sign up we had it in two positions, hanging from the ceiling and on the door.
While it was on the ceiling people kept missing it as they would be looking for their student card to scan. However once we moved it onto the door more people were noticing it, even people that were leaving(walking out the building).
We were a little disappointed with the lack of reaction that the sign got. There were a couple that voice that they had seen it and a few that looked around but there was hardly anybody that actually waved.
Evaluation:
I believe that our placement of the sign (on the door) was successful but our timing was not. If we were to do it again I would say that we should have it up earlier up in the day when people are first arriving instead of after lunch when most people are back in there studios. I had fun completing this project and it was fun seeing what other groups came up with.
Brief 3:Article
For this project we were tasked the create a magazine layout and web page for an article that The Short Attention Reader would be publishing. We were given the choice of four articles about different subjects; fashion and retail, design and sustainability, politics, crisps. I decided to go with the politics article as politics will have to have a more formal look and it will be a serious topic. https://bit.ly/2LpsPpj
Research:
I don’t usually read political articles which meant i didn’t really know what they look like. This meant my first stage was to look into already existing articles. From this I found out that they usually have large images of the person it is talking about.
After researching a now had an understanding of a typical news article about politics. Now it was my turn to draw thumbnail sketches of different layouts that I thought would be good.
From these sketches I couldn’t tell which idea was better so I made the designs digitally to help see.
My favourite design was idea 6. I liked the division of only having writing on one side, this means that it will come across as a less heavy article. The large image will catch the reader as they flick through the magazine.
Development:
The first thing I wanted to focus on was the text.
Now I could move onto actually making the designs.
My first thought would be to use a large image of Donald Trump but when I tried it it came across as being positive and promoting him however that was not the purpose of the article. I had to think of a picture that could show the negativity that he bring.
I decided to use pictures of people at protests, luckily I was able to find images of of people with signs that show the topics that are mentioned within the article. I chose to draw the outline of Donald Trump to show the thing that all they people in the images are protesting against. I made it the colour red as that colour is associated with danger.
When I had everything on the page I thought it looked to crowded and cramped. I felt that the writing takes up a lot of space on the page and it might put a person of reading the article. I decided to rethink the layout.
I thought that having columns would help break up the writing and make it appear that there is less. I chose to remove the image as when I asked others they did not understand what it meant. This left a large area of white space however it didn’t look strategic it just looked like something was missing. I added colour to the pull quote to draw the reader’s attention to it. This just looked odd and out of place.
I liked the look of the columns so I used that in this idea. I moved the pull quote so it would look like it is just there. The extra space at the top allowed me to have the heading and sub-heading in longer lines. It also allowed for me to make the heading bigger which makes it more appealing. There is a consistent margin around all areas of the text. I chose this as my final design for the magazine. fd-232dj4o
Web Page:
The web page was easier to make as it had to be similar to the magazine layout. I made two designs. 
I decided that the web page layout would be the first idea because it is clear, sectioned out so the person can focus on one piece of writing at a time. The text styles and pictures connect the magazine and web page together. The second idea was to crowded and there is a lot on the screen with the pictures in the background. Final Web Page-1qpa9vl