OUGD404 Hot Dog Fold, Study Task Two (Studio Brief Two)

For this task, we have been asked to go home and create an instruction book to creating a specific book, however create the actual book using the instructions. I decided as I am new to this I will create a hotdog booklet. I started my creation process by creating one by hand so that I knew how to lay out all of my context. It ended up looking like this.

I then started creating it using Photoshop. I came up with a simple grid so that the bleed of my type wouldn't run over.

I then added my type onto it. I kept within the grid so that when I print it it will all fit together really well. 

I then added illustrations to it to make it a little more interesting, but also a lot easier to follow. I created these illustrations using Adobe Illustrator.

I then printed it and followed the instructions to create it! This is the final product. I think it's really successful and really useful, so for this reason I am going to keep it. I don't think this would be a very useful idea for my final book design for this project as it isn't bound and I would be very limited to how many pages I could use.

OUGD404 What is a book? & Folding, Study Task Two (Studio Brief Two)

We were all asked to bring in three books each and to discuss them with our group. Cameron brought in this example that he thought could be classed as a book as it's a scratch map that you scratch when you have visited certain countries. Personally, I wouldn't consider this a book as it has no folds or binding.

This is another example that we looked at. It's called a hotdog fold. It's really cheap and easy to make as it's only made out of one piece of paper which can be seen in the photo below.

I brought in this little booklet that I found in the SU. It is folded and staple bound, so for this reason it can be classed as a book. 

This is another book that I brought in. It's a VICE magazine and it has a perfect bound.

Charlotte brought in her Kindle. I personally don't class this as a book, it's an electronic book, however times are changing and in the future I guess it could be classed as a book, although personally I don't consider it one as it's not a physical copy and you can't physically feel it.

This is a newspaper and I think it does class as a book even though it isn't bound. I think this because it's folded and physical and you can read it just as you would a book.

This is a book that Izzie brought in. It's a ring bound notebook. Although it's not folded, it is still classed as a book as it is bound.

As a group, we were then asked to create a book using only folds. This is Izzie's response, which we then made as a group on a bigger scale. Although it's not a very conventional book, it is very interesting to handle and for this reason I think it's a success.

OUGD404 What is a book? Study Task One (Studio Brief Two)

We were put into groups and were asked to answer the question:

1. What is a book?

 To begin, I looked at the dictionary definition.

The definition said a book must have pages and be bound in some way, meaning it doesn't really leave a lot of room for interpretation, however other people have different opinions on whether a book needs to be bound, for example newspapers could technically be seen to be a book, however under this definition they aren't.

As a group, we came up with some words associated with books to try to figure out a personal definition. Some of the words we came up with are below.

• Binding
• Pages
• Informative
• Product
• Cover
• Stock
• Images
• Text

We came to a conclusion that we could define a book as:

"A series of sequential information bound into a folded document" - to be more vague, it could also be defined as something that physically informs people, this opens the definition to include things such as leaflets, kindles and newspapers, which could originally not be classed as books.

2. What is the purpose of a book?

As a group, we came up with different ideas, such as:

• To inform
• To discourage
• To entertain
• To Persuade

Overall, however, the answer was to transfer information from one knowledgable person to another willing to learn. We discussed the idea that a book is more personal than just reading a webpage or poster as its something you can physically hold in your hands and because of this you're likely to take in more information.

3. How is a book constructed?

Firstly, we thought about how the physical aspects such as pagination, binding, stock, glue and folding changes the feel of books. The second aspect would be from the author's view who would construct a book from words, paragraphs and chapters.

4. What are your two favourite books?

My first favourite book has to be 'Hate Mail' by Mr. Bingo. I like this book a lot as I find it really interesting that people would actually pay for insults to be sent to them through the post. I think it's a really niche market and the recipitents have got to have a very good sense of humour and must be self-confident. I ordered this book from his website and paid extra so that he would send me a signed copy. This is my signature, which I think is hilarious. 

My second favourite book is probably my Carhartt Fall/Winter 2013 Collection, as I think the designs are incredibly slick and everything follows the same grid and flows really fluently. The photography style and generally layout really fit well, and I also think it's really effective that some pages just use a complete block colour which breaks up the different clothing.

OUGD405 Photography Induction (Studio Brief One)

In the photography induction, we were taught about how to set up a camera properly. I already knew most of this as I studied photography at college for two years, however I found it useful as I got to recap on the basics and also learn about how to take cameras and other equipment out at uni.

We were set a task to go around uni and take some interesting photographs, experimenting with the settings, such as aperture, shutter speed and ISO. On the photograph below, I mainly played around with the shutter speed. I think the image looked a lot better with more lighting as you could see a lot more detail.

On this photograph I played around with mainly the aperture, as I wanted part of the twig to be blurry. I think it's a successful image as there is a narrow depth of field.

For this one I played with the shutter speed mainly and tried to make the image as dark as possible, as the light source was really interesting to look at. I think it's a successful image and definitely looks better when edited into black and white.

OUGD405 Evaluation

I really enjoyed this module as I feel like I really pushed myself to learn lots of new skills, and I feel as though I was challenged on every single brief which I think is really good as I had to overcome each challenge and in doing so I definitely developed lots of skills and my understanding of how to think of better concepts. I think my conceptual thinking has definitely improved and I think that's a really great thing, as graphic design only works if there is a strong concept or underlying meaning behind the design.

A particular brief that I enjoyed was definitely the first brief, in which we had to design 3 photo frame backing papers. I think it definitely challenged me and I had the opportunity to experiment with Photoshop in great detail. I think I taught myself a lot with this brief, as I played around with Photoshop for hours trying to get the perfect colour scheme that I wanted. I think it was also really good that I managed to document this on my blog as there was a lot of work that went into creating each layer and choosing the perfect colours.

I also really enjoyed the final brief, that was to identify a problem that is caused by your focus of research and create packaging that would resolve this said problem. I liked this brief as alcohol causes an awful lot of problems and I had to really sift through them all to find the perfect problem to try to solve. I think my outcomes were successful although some people disagreed. I think it's a good thing that people disagreed, however, because it just made me more conscious to note why I did everything the way that I did on my blog.

I think through-out the module I was successful with time-management and I finished everything I had to do in time for every group critique, even when I was struggling to come up with a specific concept, it was good that I had lots of ideas as people in my group critique helped me and also gave me lots more ideas. I think it was also good that (mostly) I kept on top of blogging and on top of concept boards, as I didn't have lots of work to do just before submission.

OUGD405 Edible Type (Christmas Brief)

For this brief, we have been asked to create edible typography. We can work in teams, so me and Izzie decided to go together. We had quite a lot of ideas, these are listed below.

• Meringue Pro
• Fruitura
• Thymes New Roman
• Biscuitville
• Didotto
• Silomi
• Helvetikka

We decided to go with Helvetikka, and decided we would make naan bread into Helvetica and then also make a curry from scratch to go with it. I think it was a really successful project, however as we made the naan bread the night before it was rock solid in the morning. However, the curry was really good and really hot, and the naan bread was when we originally made it as we added chilli seeds into it.

OUGD405 How It Would Work (Studio Brief Four)

I decided I wanted to see a bit of my app in action. For this reason, I decided to make a .gif of how the app would start up. I created this animation using Photoshop and I think it's really successful, however the QWERTY keyboard loads too slowly - however you get the general idea of how it would work.

OUGD405 App Development (Studio Brief Four)

I have decided I should get to work on my app development. I know that I want to have a loading page that's really simplistic with just my logo and maybe a coloured background. This is the design I came up with. I think it's really slick and definitely effective. I also think the colour works really well as it reminds me of beer or cider, as the white contrasts with the orange, similar to the froth on a beer.

I then decided I should create a login page. I think this is also really effective as it's simple and reminds me of social networking logins. I think the use of grey definitely works for the design, so for that reason I will use this for the rest of the app flats I create.

I then created a profile for the person using the app. I decided it should definitely have a photostream similar to the style of instagram, and it should also be easy to share the photographs with other social networking apps. This is the design I came up with. I think it's quite effective as I had the idea that you could personalise the profile so it is relevant to the user, such as having a profile picture and changing the display image. 

I then needed to create an app flat to show how you would actually get to the camera option and other settings. This can be seen below. It's very simple, however it works as it's very similar to the menu bar on the app VSCO, the app I took my inspiration from.

Then all I had to do was create the page that you would have the options for taking photographs on. It was very simple to do - I used the same kind of style that the actual Apple camera uses, in the way that when you have a menu up the background sort of looks frosted and blurred. I think it's really successful and I think it's good that I included the option for a customised time.

In the group crit, people said that the app is really nicely designed, however they don't think it is very obvious that it's aimed at students. They also said that there is kind of a mixed message as the profile page is quite humourous whereas the login and other pages aren't. I think, however, that it is quite obvious, it just depends how the person would decide to set up their profile. 

I have now created a page where you can see all of the application pages together, with a couple of sentences about how the app would work and function.

OUGD405 Logo Development (Studio Brief Three)

I started developing logo designs in Illustrator as I had an idea of how I wanted my logo to look. This was the general idea I had for my logo. I wanted my logo to be relevant to the purpose of the app, so for this reason I looked into what icons are assosciated with drinking alcohol and also with photography. For photography, I found these really helpful as it gave me some basic shapes that I could work with.

I also looked into what comes up when you search alcohol on Google. The images below came up. I think it would be really effective if I had a cocktail as my logo, as the glass is really noticable and original, whereas there are lots of things that come in bottles. I noticed that the colour orange came up a lot, so for this reason I am going to make my app orange.

I want my logo to be very minimal, as I feel like most of the social networking apps that are out there at the moment are simplistic. These are the three logo ideas I came up with. Personally, I think the last design is the most effective, as the first is too much for the eye to handle and the second seems very enclosed and I want it to be quite free and have a lot of negative space.

OUGD405 Relevant Logo Research (Studio Brief Four)

I decided that I should look at some logos that already exist to do with alcohol to get an idea of how companies that try to solve problems to do with alcohol do it. I found this website called Talk To Frank that aims to advice people with drug and alcohol problems with advice and information. It's a good website as it doesn't bang on about not doing them, it just tells you what could happen to you if you do. I think the logo is quite effective, I remember seeing the advert on television when I was little and thought it was really clever. I also think it's good that the logo includes the phone number and website, as it's a very important website and company.

I then looked at the Drink Aware logo. I don't particularly like it as I think it's too simplistic and it's quite boring to look at, however it is also effective as it gives direct access to the website. 

Seen as I am going to create a kind of social media app, I am going to look into some social media logos that exist at the moment. Below is the logo for a new app called YikYak. Personally, I don't like the logo at all. I think it's too complex for a logo and there are too many colours, however it's kind of good at the same time as most app logos are very similar - they generally are a coloured background and then a white logo over the top. Although this is good as well, as they all seem to work and are successful logo designs.

 I also looked at the Vine logo. I think it is really successful as it's simplistic, and I think that simple logos are really effective and noticable - this is proven with lots of logo designs.

OUGD405 Research Into Logo Design (Studio Brief Four)

I decided I should look into some logo designs so that I could get an idea of what kind of logo I want to create for my app. I found this design on tumblr and I think it's incredibly slick and relevant. I particularly enjoy the sharpness of the ends of the letters, I think it adds something really special to the logo design. The designers page can be found HERE.

This is a design for a personal branding project. I think it's really slick and I really like the fact it's incredibly minimal. I also really like the fact that the logo is displayed with a background and I think the colour scheme works really well.

I then went onto designinspiration and found this logo design that I think is really nice. It is for a company called catch 5 and I think the logo is incredibly relevant to the brand. I think I should try to make my logo in a similar way - in that the logo tries to explain the brand meaning as well.

OUGD405 Research Into App Design (Studio Brief Four)

To begin my research, I started by looking into app designs that already exist. This is one that I found on designspiration. I think that the design is incredibly slick and i love the fact that the app is gold, it adds an element of class. I think the simplicity of the design could definitely work in my favour if I design my app to be similar to a social media app. It could even be a social media app, these apps generally seem to be quite successful and there are always new ones coming out, such as the latest craze 'YikYak' where you post anonmyous thoughts.

I then found this app design on designinspiration. I think it's also really nice and slick, and I particularly like the use of the colour purple, as you don't see any apps at the moment that have that kind of colourscheme, it's usually blues and greens.

I think this app design is also really effective. I think the way the app is displayed on the board is also really effective, as it doesn't narrow down the application to just one type of phone, it could be any phone.

OUGD405 Idea Generation (Studio Brief Four)

To begin with, I had to try to decide on an idea for what I could create for my project. My original idea was to brand a company that sells hangover pills. There is a company that already exists called Blowfish that sells hangover pills, but the branding is quite formal and I think if anyone was going to take hangover pills it would be students, as older generations don't tend to drink to get drunk, they drink because it's relaxing and they like the taste. The company's website can be found HERE. However, in my group critique on Monday, people said that they wouldn't take alcohol pills because they wouldn't want more chemicals in their system - I disagree personally, if it got rid of a hangover i'd take anything, but I guess that just means that they are aimed at a very specific audience.

My group then gave me quite a couple of suggestions and other routes to take my project down. These are listen below.

• A stressball for when people get the alcohol shakes.
• An app that wakes you up in the morning and tells you to drink a glass of water.
• An app that tells you things that can get rid of a hangover, for example going for a run, eating a banana etc.
• A hangover cure kit - this could involve a bottle of water, paracetamol, facewipes etc.
• An app that you tell when you're drinking and it will stop you from drunk texting people.

All of these ideas were good, but I feel like they're not going to work successfully to cure the problem of hangovers.

I was speaking to my friends after a night out and we were all trying to piece the night together, as we had all suffered from amnesia. This gave me an idea - to create an app that takes a photo every other minute that will help you piece together your night.

OUGD405 Communicate (Studio Brief Four)

For this brief, we have been told to identify a problem for my individual research and then provide a solution to it through the identification and packaging of a product. The brief says that I must resolve the problem in an engaging and interesting way to a specific target audience. The brief is quite vague so for that reason we have to create our own brief that is specific to our project.

Studio Brief

Alcohol causes many problems in many peoples lives, from hangovers, to comas, even to death. It also can cause money problems within families as people can become alcoholics. For this brief, you must identify a problem that alcohol causes and solve the said problem. You must provide the answer through the identification, branding and packaging of a product. You should focus on a specific target audience for this product and this should inform your design process and decisions.

Background / Considerations

• Look into problems caused by alcohol
• Ask students what problems they have with alcohol
• Consider target audience
• What are peoples opinions on alcohol?

Mandatory Requirements

Produce a body of work appropriate for your chosen solution. Put your design development on your blog.

Deliverables

• Create a series of blog posts documenting your design process
• Create a two minute presentation that clearly outlines your resolution 

OUGD405 Final Book Design (Studio Brief Three)

This is the final book design that I came up with. I'm really happy with each page and I think it definitely works as a leaflet that would be handed out to students. Although you can't tell on this, when it's printed, the book will be back to front which will add to the feeling of being drunk.

I'm really happy with the outcome and I think it looks like it could definitely be a part of "The Drunken Cookbook" and "The Hungover Cookbook". I chose to make my front cover red because it's a colour that I assosciate with alcohol, as my favourite spirit is vodka.

Here is an interactive version of my booklet. 

FINAL BOOK DESIGN