OUGD503 Individual & Collaborative Practice, Brand as a Narrative (Studio Brief One & Two)

Summary of the presentation & things to consider:

Narratives resonate with the audience
Emotive and passionate
A hero/protagonist (your audience)
A villain/antagonist (what’s at stake/the challenge)
Appeal (What the audience can learn/take away)
Transformative (where is leads the audience, whats achieved)
Versatile (doesn’t just exist in isolation)
Consistent (regardless of platform and application)
Expansive (think big)

OUGD504 GF Smith Talk (Studio Brief Three)

Today, GF Smith came in to talk to the group about all of the stock and projects that their stock has been used on. They also brought in their whole collection in the form of the GF Smith book. Their stock is really interesting as they outsource it all from all over the world. In my next project, I am going to try to buy some GF Smith paper and experiment with it, as I have only really had experience with what is on offer in the print room and library at this current time.

They also brought in a lot of physical prints that their stock has been used for, which were really interesting to look through and feel in person.

OUGD504 Initial Research, Size Magazine (Studio Brief Three)

This publication is a free magazine that I picked up from the shop Size? It is entitled 'The City Life' and is a photography book featuring images of many of the products that Size? sells. The layout of the images is particularly interesting as it flows really successfully and each image is offset and therefore really pleasing to the eye. 

OUGD504 Initial Research, Sheet Magazine (Studio Brief Three)

Sheet Magazine is a free magazine distributed and exclusive Leeds. It's printed on newsprint and is basically a newpaper filled with full posters. It's very popular around Leeds as Leeds is a student city and students like to put the posters up on their wall. It's also a popular publication as students of Leeds can submit artwork to be printed in next issues. 

OUGD504 Swatches in Illustrator (Studio Brief Three)

Working with swatches.

Using the swatches palette in Illustrator is very simple to do and can make working with specific colours a lot easier. You can add swatches using the palette, meaning that the colour will be easy to find when you need to use the exact same colour again. This is also useful when printing, as you can lower the opacity of the ink colour, however at a printers it will still cost the same amount to produce, as it would still be the same ink colour. It also means that when you change one specific colour, all of the colours that are the same in the document will change too. It's very handy and saves a lot of time. You can save and open up swatches so that you can create multiple designs, for example posters, using the exact same colour scheme. 

OUGD504 Inital Research, Printed Pages (Studio Brief Three)

Printed Pages is a photography magazine. The front cover is printed on a glossy, textured stock which is really interesting to handle. It uses multiple different grid layouts throughout the publication to entice the reader, some of which can be seen below. The magazine has an offset as a whole, meaning that the colour black almost looks grey, which is really aesthetically pleasing as it's quite pastel and easy on the eye. 

OUGD504 Printing in Spot Colours with Photoshop (Studio Brief Three)

Working with duotones.

Photoshop is useful for converting images into duotone. This can make printing a lot cheaper as it can limit the number of Pantone inks needed to print. This will end up reducing the overall cost of a print and is therefore very useful within commercial graphic design. The steps on how this can be achieved can be seen above. This will be helpful for me if I ever forget how to convert an image into duotone.

Working with the channels panel.

You can also reduce print costs by getting rid of certain colours in the channel path. You can remove channels and completely change the colour to Pantone colours as you can see above. This is also how you set up a document to be commercially UV spot varnished. 

OUGD504 Canons of Page Construction (Studio Brief Three)

The Golden Ratio.

To measure the golden section of something, for example a piece of paper, you have to measure the long side first. So for example, the sheet of paper measures 29.7cm.
29.7 divided by 1.618 = 18.35 cm
you then measure the smaller side of paper and apply the same sum. This keeps happening until it is very small, and that is how you find the golden ration of a piece of paper. The golden ratio can be applied to pretty much anything, and can be applied to nature and photographs.

The golden section of 100cm:
100cm / 1.618 = 61.80cm
100cm = 61.8 + 31.2

Pros.

• Aesthetically pleasing.
• Helps decipher an appropriate header size to your body copy / vice versa.
• Can to applied successfully to web, print and pretty much everything.
• It's asymmetrical.

Cons.

• Limits your design.
• Subjective to viewers taste - not everyone will always think it is aesthetically pleasing.

Van De Graaf's Canon.

Van De Graaf's canon helps solve the margins of a page according to the page and spread dimensions. It helps determine where images and text should be placed.

OUGD504 Initial Research, Toilet Paper Magazine (Studio Brief Three)

Toilet Paper Magazine is a very obscure, quirky photography magazine. It is bound using staples as you can see below, which is quite different for a photography magazine as most photography magazines are bound using stitch or often using a perfect bind. The photography is very obscure and each page is a double page spread of one single image. The photographs are very bold and contrasting, and often have a sense of humour involved. 

OUGD504 Initial Research, Colours May Vary (Studio Brief Three)

These publications below were all found at Colours May Vary in Leeds. This publication is called 'Drift' and mainly uses full bleed images that are contrasted with a page of text. It's interesting the way the images are contrasted with a background for the text of full colour. 

This magazine was called 'Another Escape' and was very modern and slick with its design. It is really interesting from start to finish as the grid system changes with each page, however it still flows really successfully.

This publication was called 'Bone-Shaker Magazine'. It instantly stood out because of the bright coloured front and back cover. The layout of the actual content isn't particularly my style, however it's still eye catching and designed very well as it's relevant to the content - it all flows really well.

OUGD504 Inital Research, Village Book Store (Studio Brief Three)

All the photographs of books were taken and found at Village Book Store in the Corn Exchange in Leeds. The publication below is entitled 'Printed Matter, Inc.', which is a non-profit publication founded in 1970 by artists. It uses very bold colours in photographs to attract the readers attention. It also uses graphic arts to make the pages pop more, which can be seen in the first photograph. It's an obscure publication as the front cover is blank, and all the information is on the back - for example the name of the publication and creator.

The publication below is entitled 'Score (Scene 1/Tokyo) and was very similar to the previous as they both follow a similar grid, however they're both different sizes. This publication also had the title on the back. It uses quite contrasting, interesting images as its content.

This publication was entitled 'Paris et la Banlieue'. It also had the title and creators name on the back. This publication was particularly interesting as the back cover used a textured stock that had been printed on, which gave the effect of leather. It is also interesting as the inside of the front cover gave the effect of a hard back book, as it has an extra sheet of paper that gave it the impression of a wrap around cover.

The next publication was very interesting to look at. It used multiple different layouts and grids to portray the imagery. It was particularly interesting as the front cover was very minimal and modern, and it had a little slip of paper loose inside with information about the publication, which made it a lot more interactive.

This publication is called 'Jaunt' and was created by Lotte Reimann. It is a photography book printed on a very glossy stock. The stock is unsuccessful as it reflects the light an awful lot and makes it quite difficult to view the photographs to their full quality in artificial lighting.

This publication was called 'Toilet Fail'. The contents of the bush is basically photographs of bathrooms that are quite humourous or unsuccessful to use. The cover was successful as it was attractive to look at, however the inside was printed really poorly and on very thin stock.

This publication was called 'Shoreditch Wildlife' and documented nightlife in Shoreditch in London. Mutiple different grids were used for this publication also. It was on semi-gloss stock which was effective as it was professional, however not too distracting to look at.