Friday 22 March 2013

Letter Press Workshop

The Workshop;
In this workshop, we learn how to place the letters and where they can go, also we learnt about the leading in between for the spacing. This was a very interesting workshop, I think that if I were to go back to do letter press I may need a few pointers and help for the first time, although after that I think I would be ok to do it on my own.

Wednesday 20 March 2013

Screen Printing Workshop

The Workshop;
In this workshop we learnt how to produce a hot dog book, in a cmyk print process. Although I have done screen printing before, it had been a while, therefore it was good for me to get a recap and remind me of the proper way to screen print.

We started by printing the yellow as it is the lightest colour, there were crop marks on the screens so that we could get all of the prints in line, although the original screen and print was set up by the women who was running the induction, and was printed off, so some of the crop marks weren't on the prints, which meant it was hard to line up the print, so they were a bit off.
The end print was slightly off as the first print wasn't done properly, but other than being slightly off, they turned out okay.

The cutting and folding of the book didn't go very well for me, but now I know how to make a hot dog book, although next time I will be more careful with the folding.

Friday 15 March 2013

Group 7 10,000 steps

Initial Research;
We got put into groups and given a word or words to research. My group had Me, Mel.H, Roxie, Sarah, Vicky and Sam and we got given 10,000 steps. At first I had no idea what was meant by 10,000 steps, but then when I started looking into it, I found that it is a target for how many steps you should try to do each day to stay/get healthy. We all went away and did our own research about what we could do for this brief, then we planned to meet up and all give our ideas, so that we could decide. We also had to think about communication is a virus, and not just think about 10,000 steps but how we could make it viral. Our initial idea was to create a brand that sold sports goods such as footwear, sweatbands, gear and nutrition bars, we also spoke about creating a kit which we could hand out to people having some free good in it with our brand name all over them. We also thought about having a website and app with the information itself about the different kinds of walking and facts about our brand and what we are trying to do.

We all went away and did thumbnails of some logos and brand names which we were looking at, I started by looking in a thesaurus at words such as speed (acceleration, activity, agility, alacrity, breeze, briskness, celerity, clip, dispatch, eagerness, expedition, fleetness, gait, haste, headway, hurry, hustle, legerity, lick, liveliness, momentum, pace, precipitancy, precipitation, promptitude, promptness, quickness, rapidity, rapidness, readiness, rush, rustle, snap, steam, swiftness, urgency, velocit) this gave me all of these words, which I thought may be good to use, as we wanted to use something related to walking and exercise.

My thumbnail ideas for some logos or slogans. We organised as a group to meet up and discuss what the name of our brand was going to be, but we decided that we would wit till after our crit to decided.

After the crit we found that we could physically create a brand and the products such as nutrition bars as we can't make them ourselves. We got told that we could use the kit idea as what we could go on to do if we had more time. Although we could still produce our publication, so we came out of the crit we had to re think what we were going to do as Simon and Amber did like our idea to produce publications and hand them out in gyms, so the target audience was people who already exercise, but we had to re think the way that we would do this.

We then decided to change the idea and create just a publication which is really simple, so different to normal exercise publications, which consisted of line drawing, and photographs and motivational quote, this would try and get people to walk more and do more exercise, with the motivational quotes. We agreed as a group to make a publication consisting of motivational quotes supported by a simple illustration or info graphics, with maybe a bit of information with it to explain why they should be doing the motivational quotes. Although after looking at whether we should use photographs or simple illustrations, we decided to use the illustrations, as we would have wanted to get our own photographs, which would have been hard for us to do.

Roxie chose the colour scheme which we were using, which we all agreed with, as the colours work really well together. We also chose to use the typeface Bebas for the header and quotes, and Helvetica for the body copy, as Bebas would be hard to read in body copy.

After deciding on the colour scheme and type face, Sam created a custom page size for us to use, he started with a few different ones, and as a group we all chose the same one which we thought would look best for our publication.

As the colours, typeface and format has been sorted we could now all start producing our own pages, we met up as a group and all found our own motivational quotes. We all got assigned two double page spreads each, mine were 'walking the dog' and 'taking the stairs' therefore I used to quote which I found 'IF YOUR DOG IS FAT YOUR NOT GETTING ENOUGH EXERCISE'. I thought about doing an info graphic for this dps, by having a dog slowly getting thinner the more steps you do. But then I thought that I would just do a simple and minimal design.

Having the dog on its own as the illustration next to the quote, I think looks really simple and to the point, although the group wanted to put some more information on the document so I started to look up facts about walking dogs, and how you can benefit from it.

I found some information about it and placed the dog on top of the text, I then started to think about using the different colours available in different ways.

This does not look very legible, the contrast between the text and the stock isn't right, therefore it is hard to read, which means that the black works better for this publication.

I also used the quote 'THERE IS NO ELEVATOR TO SUCCESS. YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE STAIRS.' I think that this is a really good quote, as it shows you need to work just that little bit harder to get what you want to achieve, therefore I started to look at the quote and maybe highlight some of he key words so that they stand out above the rest.

I also tried out the quotes on different colour background, as I think that it looks really good when there is a coloured background with the writing being stock colour.

After doing my two pages, we agreed to meet up and put all of out pages onto one document so that we could get them all looking the same, this is becasue everyone has different ways of working. Although when I showed my pages to my group, I got told by one person in my group that they were wrong and they were doing something different for the publication now. Mel was ill that day but I told her that they are doing something different for the publication now, and her designs were similar to mine, so hers weren't used either.

There are too many people for everyone to do the publication, therefore Roxie started looking into the method of delivery and having the motivational quote on post cards and flyers, Vicky was in charge of web design and the twitter page, and me and Mel were going into product and packaging for 'what we would do in the future' like the original idea of creating some sort of kit or brand. Sam and Sarah took over with the publication and did a very good job of it, having a quote on one side of the double page spread and a simple illustration and information on the other side.

Roxie came up with a really good and inventive way to distribute and make us viral, this was to attach the flyers she designed, which has all of our information on it, e.g. twitter and instgram, as well as a motivational quote. These flyers will be attached to helium balloons and we will let them off and when someone finds our balloon they will tweet us and let us know.

Product and Packaging;
I started to think about the different things which I could produce that people who are doing exercise will need.
  • Blister plasters
  • Water
  • Music
  • Food
  • Sweat bands
  • Socks
I started by looking into doing packaging for blister plasters.

Roxie gave me some of her quotes that she found, which are in the publication and on the flyers, so that it would stay consistent, also Vicky gave me the logo to work with. I started by producing a simple and standard box net, and experimenting with layout on them, seeing what I think looks best and what Vicky thought looked good, as she was in my group I thought that she would be interested.

After printing the boxes off and trying to fit them together, I found that I needed to add some more flaps onto the net, as they currently don't work as boxes.

The packaging without the extra flaps on don't look right when the box is closing, I think that if I were to put blister plasters into them, they may fall out.

This was with the extra flaps, I found that it worked a lot better, the box closed properly and nothing fell out. This box is suitable for the plaster I used as I measured the dimensions of the plasters so that they would fit inside and not move around as much.

The box closes properly, and also stays closed which is a better design than the one before. The box fits in very well with the publication and the flyers, this is becasue I have used the same stock, colours and typeface.

The plaster fit into the box perfectly, there are three different sizes of plasters, this is so that there is a range, just in case. Plasters will be really helpful for people who are trying to get more exercise, as it is a change from what they are usually doing, they may get blisters on their feet. Even if the exercise is just walking a bit more, they may still need plasters.


This is the net of the plaster packing, I narrowed it down to these three layouts, and decided that it looks best with the large logo on the back, which Vicky agreed with, therefore I printed it.

The second thing I started to look at was the belly band on water. Everyone needs water to survive, you especially need water if you are starting to do more exercise as you would get dehydrated otherwise. There a bottle of water would be very relevant to this project, if it were to be put in a kit.

I found a lot of interesting facts about water and why you should drink it, this influenced my work, so I decided to use it on my belly bend. Providing information about why you should drink water on a water bottle will be a good thing, as it will get people drinking more, it will also encourage them to see our brand and exercise more.

I also decided to experiment with different layout for the water bottle. I know that I wanted to include the logo, to keep the designs all similar. But I also wanted them to be relevant to water, therefore the quote are relevant.

I then started to look at music, as most people said that they would do exercise to music, or music makes them want to do more and puts them in a better mood. This is why I thought I would make a motivational mix, so that the pack would come with a CD with songs on them which will makes you want to do exercise, and put you in a better mood. First I chose the songs;
  • Satisfaction - Benny Benassi
  • Don't Worry Be Happy - Bobby Mcerrin
  • Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross
  • Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and The Waves
  • Physical - Olivia Newton-John
  • Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
  • Send Me On My Way - Rusted Roots
  • Eye Of The Tiger - Survivor
  • We Like To Party - Vengaboys
  • The Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
All of these songs were chosen because I believe that these songs are really uplifting and make you feel good about yourself, this will make you want to do exercise. I wanted to produce the CD packaging like the plaster box, with a very similar layout although it will have a different quote to the plaster box.
I also decided to make something to go on CD's so that they aren't just blank with black writing on it. This will make the CD look more professional and presentable.


When cutting and sticking I found that I may chopped a bit too much off on certain bit, therefore next time I need to be more careful when cutting out circles.

Posters;
Mel produced the posters to help get more publicity for the twitter account and the instagram, she distributed them all around the university. And if we were to have had more time, we would have distributed them further.

Final outcomes;
Sam and Sarah
Roxie
Roxie
Vicky
Me
All
Mel
Evaluation;
If I were to do this brief again I would assert my opinion more, as when working in a group, it is hard for everyone to speak up, as there is usually a dominant person in each group that takes over. Also if I had more time I might have tried some different printing methods, like screen printing onto the packaging.