No News is Good News... Brief - Development of Inside

Here i am looking at the content and design within the envelope. These are only rough examples of the work i have done, but i was trying to work out where things would be placed. I want to keep the content minimal so that it remains simple, like the posters.

Original Design

I like the layout with the cut off section to the right. Having said that i think that the main week design is what i need people to pay the most attention to and the message with the instruction kind of detracts from this. I think this is due to it being so large and kind of makes the design look childish, the type is just too heavy. I really like the colours and will be sticking with this for my future designs.

Within this I have moved the text over and shrunk it/ I prefer it this way. It just adds to the image. I have crossed off all the faces apart from one to make the message a bit punchier. This is because when you look at the image you see that there is one person left and it inevitable that they will die, especially with the message underneath re-enforcing the message.

With this design i have added the web address which shows you where to go to download the year calendar. I altered the cut line and where i put the message even though i have moved where the text is you can still read it and it adds to the main image. Also i have crossed off all the faces because i think that this still shows a powerful message. This also means that by crossing off all the faces it takes away the 'interactivness' of the piece as people cant cross them off themselves so i will take out the cut line so that i just becomes a poster. Again simple and maybe more effective.

With this poster its exactly the same as the above except that the web address is in red. I think that there is too much red on this poster and maybe a bit overpowering to the viewer. Having said that when i take the cut out line out then it may be more effective.

No News is Good News... Brief - Development of envelopes

This section is purely focusing on the outside design for my envelopes if i chose to do and envelope. I have tried a variety of different things incorporating as much or as little of the previous poster designs as possible. I tried out a lot of different combinations and instead of discussing all of them i have picked 3 that i like or don't like from each sheet.

Envelope:

2. Personally i don't like this design because there is too much going on. The envelope just looks too complicated, and messy. I tried it smaller but it just lost its definition and looked more squished (or as polly put it sqaushdulated).

6. Here i was trying to experiment with the larger message 'think MRSA etc'. I also tried blocking out where the stamp went to help show where it would go on the envelope. I don't like this design as much as others, i think that the message being so large really detracts from the mailing address which doesn't work as a mail shot.

7. I altered the size of the message and just used an outline from the stamp. I think this works quite well. Its still simple and nothing detracts from the mailing address. this could be a possibility to use for my future development.
Envelope:

2. O really quite like all the hand designs - i like the idea of having a hand print on the envelope where you would hold it/carry it. With the second design i think maybe the hand is too much especially with the thick outline for the stamp.

4. This is a minimal design with it just showing the finger tips prints. I think the idea works but needs more developing to make it smoother and more professional.

6. This is a similar design to the 2nd one except I have taken out the stand and moved the hand slightly. it works better than the second but still needs more work.

Here i have tried to make the envelopes roughly to see what they will look like. The writing is quite pale and i think that the red writing for the address works better than the pale. Also the hand works quite well now that its printed properly with the pale actually making it not so obvious. I still prefer the design where the whole hand isn't on the design. I think it is more aesthetically please and visually works well.

There is still a lot of development i need to do but generally i am happy with the style of the envelope and where i will be going with it next.

Illustrator Brief

For our illustrator brief we had to create 16 variations of one letter that we had designed for the Alphabet Soup brief. Personally i was really looking forward to this. I had some background in illustrator and was looking forward to expanding my skills with it. I found the sessions really useful because they taught me a lot i didn't know, for example using the drawing tool to alter and create designs. I never knew how to use this but now i use it all the time. I keep trying to push myself with illustrator because i realise it is a vital part of being a graphic designer.

When i tried to create my designs i used a lot of the artistic tools readily available which was kind of boring to use as i wasn't learning anything apart from what button did what, so i scrapped them and decided to use the drawing tool. this in the end was most beneficial to me and i think i created the best designs using this. I left some that had the artistic tools on them but only to show the comparison and some of them i really liked. I think my favorites would have to be the one where it looks like the P is falling apart by the layered squares and the last 3. I think these work well and although the letter isn't that legible you can still see what it is. I think the worst has to be the P on the 1st line right at the end. it just looks too blocked and fuzzy, but i did want it to have a textured feel to it and it does to a certain extent.

As i said before i really enjoyed this project and i have learnt a lot. I will be using the skills i learnt throughout my time as a graphic designer and i am glad i have learnt them now instead of later on.

No News is Good News... Brief - Part 2 Inital Ideas

This section shows my working from the very beginning of my project. From initial ideas to the start of the development.

The idea that I immediately liked was the idea of using the statistic 'on average 3 people in the Uk die every day from MRSA' - i think its really punchy and will hit home. Also i will b sticking with the stock and two colours as my poster because they were effective. I will also be keeping the same font as Helvetica provided me with a clean and crisp look to the type face which was really important.

I research BUPA adverts because i thought the relation between BUPA and MRSA was too good to pass up - BUPA being a huge private hospital and although it is private it doesn't escape the clutches of MRSA.

I discuss the idea on my sheets that i wanted to keep the people unisex this is because I need my poster to appeal to everyone Male/Female/adult and children. with a pretty simple design this means the message will reach across to them.

Below i took the original sketches and put them on Illustrator to work around them and see what would come out best.

I chose the red version to start with because i liked the thick line and the bold colour it really makes them stand out on the white background, they really contrast well. I chose the rectangular body and disjointed head, this is because although i want the people too be unisex i want it to appear human or be recognised as a human figure. Also personally i think that having a figure that looks as if it is standing tall makes it appear almost healthy compared to the slouched body position with the other drawings, this helps illustrate my point that MRSA attacks healthy people on an almost subliminal level.

I tried experimenting with the graph idea in Illustrator too but if I'm honest it just looks way too messy and not simple. Which completely defeats what I'm trying to create.

The calendar idea is defiantly what i will be taking on. Below shows one of my work sheets that shows the specifics i want to get across with my calendar and ideas on how to do it.

From this point i have gone on to take the ideas further on illustrator, as well as work on my envelope designs.

No News is Good News... Brief - Part 2 Mail Shot

With this new brief we are looking at message and delivery. Using our last project as inspiration or development we are to produce a mail shot to be sent out to 10 different people, this means that we have to produce a design that is easy to reproduce, inexpensive and can be delivered easily. We have to use the same tone of voice as we did with the posters and ideally just transfere the style of design from the poster onto the mail shot, this is exactly what i will be doing). With the 10 people we send it out to they have to be specific to our target audience, in my case hospitals, doctors etc.

We have been given the envelope design with its specific sizes so that is what we model our new design around. This means that I will be looking at the content more closely and about the envelope itself, i.e. thing that i can do to alter the envelope for example it opening up into an a3 design or printing on the envelope. We were told to focus on one aspect with the mail shot out of these choices; Inform, instruct, persuade, promote? - For my envelope I have chosen to inform, as the whole point of my posters was to raise awareness of the MRSA superbug and therefore informing people will help their understanding of it. I have chosen to send my envelopes to hospitals and doctors because they are the people that are in the situation too help raise awareness and they have the facilities to either put my posters up or whatever i decide to put inside the envelope.

The benefits of this project s to help make us think more like a graphic designer, it makes us look more into the design (with having specifics and seeing what we can do), printing costs and colour reproduction on a large scale (because as Amber rightly pointed out it will be very rare for us to design something as a one off).

After we had our briefing we were told to go away and focus on the WHO, WHAT and WHY.

We were given a task to create 4 sets of 5 statements relating to our previous statement on the poster. This meant creating 5 facts, 5 opinions, 5 closed questions and 5 open questions. All of these facts would come from the research that we had done and had to relate the the statement to maybe be used in the mail shot. Below shows my 4 sets.

Who are we trying to say it to?, Why are we trying to say it? and What are we trying to say?.

Below shows my response:

What am I trying to say?

That MRSA is a disease that kills over 1,230 people in the UK every day.

Why are you trying to say it?

In order to raise awareness of the superbug so people pay more attention to it. People don't know how serious it actually is.

Who are you trying to say it to?

At the moment i am trying to raise the awareness in relation to doctors and hospitals because they are the people that can do something about it, it is their responsibility to keep it under control and prevent it.

After I had worked all of this out it was time to start my ideas and designs for my envelope.

No News is Good News... Brief - Final Pieces

This section shows my final pieces as a collection. I really think they work as a set, i am happy with the designs and i think they will help raise awareness of MRSA. I have achieved everything i wanted to achieve with them, that being to a professional standard and creating an effective message.
Type
Type and Image

Image

The full set of Posters

No News is Good News... Brief - Original Working

For this brief we were told to create 3 posters around the title that we settled on ( In my case MRSA). the posters had specifications that we had to stick to i.e the paper we printed on had to be a 2:1 ratio of and A3 piece of paper, we then had to the choice of any two colours we wanted plus the stock colour. This meant that our work would eventually end up looking as a set of posters, even if the images were completely different. Personally this works well for me because I always try to restrict my colour palette as i think if you are trying to create a strong image that can be read/seen quickly then the simpler it is, the better.

In our studio session on Tuesday we did a variety of tasks to help give us an idea of where to start with our posters, for example creating symbols and words that would reflect what our poster would be about e.g for MRSA and words i was looking at horrible words like 'festering', 'pussing', ' moaning' and images such as the hospitals signs for hands and ambulances etc.

After this task we were then told to come up with 3 designs for the poster by 3 o'clock. at first i really struggled with this, i couldn't get my head round anything without doing some research first but we didn't have time. So i began by just sketching out ideas for the poster just simple layouts and using the words and images that i had already drawn, as i worked on this ideas came to me which seemed to work on a basic level at first any way.

Above: The basic gist here is to create the phrase/message that i will use out of boils/bacteria. This would be for my text and image poster.

Above: This images doesn't really show what i want to do, the idea is to have the text MRSA, CAN, BE and FATAL really bold while the other surrounding text is a darker shade of the coloured tock i use, so that you can read it but only just.

Above: And for my image alone poster i want to use the symbol for hospitals and washing your hands but change it so that it shows the MRSA bacteria being passed on quite easily, just by a hand shake. I want this to look quite disgusting and the bacteria to be obvious.

Once this session was done i then went home and began to think of ideas for my message. Below shows images of me coming up with the message and different variations within it.

The reason i used the word 'think' was because as i mentioned before i wanted to raise the awareness of MRSA and make people think about it. Coming up with the right message was quite hard because it was vital that the words had MRSA and FATAL and a few words in-between to join them. coming up with the right layout and phrasing was important because i wanted the message to be sharp, clear and to the point. Once i had decided on my message i then went on to work out the two other posters in relation to the message and how they would work around it in the most effective way.

Once i had finished my initial ideas i then went into illustrator and began experimenting with the 3 posters.