OUGD406 Studio Brief 3 - Collaborative Practice Leeds Library Exhibition Branding

Studio Brief 03 - Collaborative Practice - Leeds Library Exhibition Branding

Module ID:	OUGD406	Module Brief:	Click Here
Module Leader:	Simon Harrison	Module Deadline:	01/05/15 (14:00)
Brief Deadline:	20/04/15 (09:30)	Outcomes Assessed:	4A7, 4B6, 4C8, 4C9, 4D6

Studio Brief

Working as part of a creative team put together a pitch for the concept, branding, identity and promotional collateral for the Book cover exhibition at Leeds Library. Create an engaging, identity and promotional campaign for the Book cover Exhibition. What is unique about this exhibition? How can the content, location, exhibitors potentially inform your design treatment. Who is the target audience? What do they need to know? How will you engage with them?

Background / Considerations

Considerations you should be aware of and include are: - Location - Times - Content - Exhibitors - Social media, links, hashtags etc - Contact Details - Format - Signage, way-marking - Opening night Invites Restrictions: - Costings: be aware of reproduction costs to ensure you don't propose something unfeasable - Production: collateral must be reproducible using the college resources.

Mandatory Requirements

Documentation must include evidence of time-management, planning, dissemination, independent and collaborative practice Organisation, planning and presentation for a 15 minute pitch of your ideas and concept

Deliverables

15 minute pitch/presentation of your proposal Mock-ups of key pieces of print/digital collateral Evidence and documentation of collaborative practice For this brief we were in the groups that we had previously been put into for other group projects and briefed that we were to in groups design the full branding for an exhibition that would be showing our completed book covers from the previous brief and that the brief would be exhibited at Leeds Central Library. Through the brief we were given a rough outline of what we should think about including in out branding but we were also told that it was really open for us to change and include anything we thought might be necessary. It was made apparent that through the brief it would be very important to manage our time effectively as this would play an important part in our whole process and that we would also have to take into context Leeds Central Library itself as this thought into where the exhibition is being hung could change or inspire our work. When finished the designs would then be put into a presentation and we will present it to out class and the tutors, and from the presentations the winners would be picked and the winning group will actually get to use their branding designs as the actual branding for the exhibition. For the initial stage of designing we started by generating some ideas and concepts of which we could brand the exhibition round. We had discussions as a brief and discussed elements that we thought we should work with so that we could get started with the generation stage. The first thing that we decided was that we would use and inclusion of dots and lines connecting these dots. We decided this as we were going to use this as a basis as a concept for the brief the fact that the main thing you do in a library when reading is connecting the dots in our knowledge. With this information in mind, we didn't want to decided on too much aesthetically as we wanted to have the concept started and then all split up and create anything we want with the intention to come back together and then look at everyones work and merge what we like from them to create out final idea. I decided by working on a logo as I thought that it is probably the most important part of the branding and would be a great basis to get started with and base the rest of the work around. Below is a mood board of different logo ideas and things we could include into the logo to bring to the group meeting. Firstly I started playing with the idea of the connecting the dots and worked this into some geometric shapes to see if these could work as a logo. Next to further the contextual side of the whole idea I started to look into sacred geometry and the meanings that come with some shapes and I found the bottom left line drawing in the picture below.The symbol is the flower of life of which in the terms of sacred geometry was brilliant for a basis to base the concept around as in sacred geometry the symbol stands for enlightenment through understanding and I thought that this was perfect as that is exactly what you do in a library so I thought it linked very well and that the flower of life can also be found in the workings of a lot of famous historical theorists and inventors such as Da Vinci. Finally for the idea generation stage I started to bland the two concepts of the work the connecting of the dots and the flower of life to create the line drawing in the top left of the picture below and also including another colourful and non digital element that we could add to finish the logo. To gain some inspiration for the brief we went to Leeds Central Library as we thought that this could have helped us with deciding what we were going to do for the branding and here are the picture taken during the visit; From the visit as a group we took a lot of positive attributes. Throughout the building it was evident that there was a running colour scheme of shades of brown and cream neutral colours and then the repeated use of a blue colour as an accent colour. The building overall gave off a very extravagant and elegant feel thought the period feature, excessive detail and curved nature to the whole building so therefore the challenge in my eyes was to come up with a branding for the exhibition that firstly doesn't take away from the work being displayed but also secondly doesn't also clash with the buildings decor too much as the buildings scene was already very busy. Finally the last things of which I took from the decor of the building and that would work in nicely with what ideas we already is that the build displays a very geometric sense to it due to the excessive nature of historical buildings, THERE WAS SHAPES EVERYWHERE After our group talked about the initial idea we had and from the flower of life idea I had and the connecting the dot idea we had decided one of my team mates came up with the logo below of which we decided to use as the final logo for the unit. For the next stage of the unit we decided that it would be most effective for use on a basis of time management to decide on the aspect of the branding of which we thought would be necessary for the final outcome and then when we had all of these wrote down to split them up accordingly based on our own strengths and what we enjoy creating. This worked perfectly as when split up we had each got two different things of which we would need to complete for the final outcome meaning as a team and as individuals we knew exactly what we needed to do and exactly how much time we had to do it. We decided to include all of the suggested outcomes from the brief and also decided that we would do some extra outdoor signage that could be around the city as this is very important for an exhibition that people know about it and due to the fact that the exhibition all revolves around book covers we decided to add the creation of bookmarks for the branding. As we had already chosen the contextual sir to the project we then started by making a mind map of all of the possibilities of names that we could have for the exhibition and finally decided on re-connect as this linked with out connecting the dots theory that we had started to include in the practical work but also the inclusion of the "re-" as the exhibition feature the "re-" designs of out book covers. After this now that we had a more solid idea of what we needed to do individually we decided that we would use Bebas Neue Regular as between the group is was our favourite and most applicable to the branding after looking at a number of typeface and then finally we decided what colour we would include in the branding. We decided to go with a grey-blue shade as this colour was included throughout the whole of the decor of the building where it will be exhibited so it would be in-fitting with its surroundings. So now with the concept, font, four choice and style decided we all set out creating out individual projects. Mine were to create bookmarks and flyers for the exhibition. For the brief I also decided to create a title header of the name of the exhibition in the style of the logo we had created with the sphere. I started creating some potential books marks and flyers for the exhibition in keeping with the style that we had decided with the inclusion of the chosen title type face, Bebas Neue Regular and the chosen colour and logo. It was now time for the first crit of the unit, we took in the work that we had created individually but kept in contact the whole time so that they looked similar in a design style and worked as a whole branding in to a criticism with out tutor, there was a wide range of feedback that we got from the crit but the overall prominent feedback that we got wasn't brilliant. The tutor said that the sphere logo that we had decided to use was too intricate and also that the colour blue that we had chosen looked too scientific for the nature of the exhibition, a step to far past the contemporary look we were going for. As a form of research we went on a trip and visited some local galleries not for the exhibitions themselves but just to gain inspiration from the promotional material that they use to promote for the exhibition and the style and the collateral they have for the exhibitions... Following the interim crit for the unit as the feedback overall wasn't very good we came to a group decision and decided to change the idea totally and start the exhibition branding again. Thinking about the feedback we then decided what we needed to do make this new idea better and the changes we had to make to make it less futuristic than the last one and actually contemporary. We decided to start on the logo immediately, after taking into context some of the feedback that we got saying we needed to simplify the logo totally and we needed to look a shape that we could take from the old idea that was seen in the posters, after developing this and now instead editing this shape to looking almost like an open book we came up with out new final idea for the logo as we thought it would be perfect and much simpler than the logo for the last attempt. Then keeping some aspect of the old idea such as the typeface as we got positive feedback to that in the crit but changing some aspects such as the colour scheme as the dull colour scheme of the old idea made it too futuristic so instead we would use a warmer colour scheme to bring the idea back to contemporary.We therefore decided to use instead now a shade of cream as the feature colour instead of the blue, along side black and white. We new thought due to the simpler but clever nature of the new logo that it would be much easier to use on all scaled not just from big scales like in posters and signs but would also be easy to use on small media such as flyers and bookmarks. After deciding on the new logo, colour scene and typeface we made a mood board together with things we would need to start designing work so that when designing all of our creation would be visually similar and work as a whole set and here it is below; My two tasks that I needed to complete were bookmarks and flyers; BOOKMARKS I created a range of ten different book marks using the key elements and shape that we had decided on, the final logo shape, the black white and cream colour scheme and the chosen type face. Fo the shape of the bookmark I decided that I would keep the two side and the base of the bookmark normal but would minimal the logo by creating a custom cut off on the top of the bookmark. Similarly to this I continued and used the overall design aesthetic for the flyers too so that the would work as a set and look visually similar in the branding. On the flyers I finished them off the a reverse side to the feature side with a body copy piece of information about the exhibition. After this we them came together as a group and tweaked all the work so it worked well as a full set for the branding and then we put the final outcomes into a presentation that we would then present to simon and some level 5 students in which we would pitch the final branding idea we had for the exhibition trying to win the competition and here is the presentation; The feedback that we got from this final crit was so much better than the last crit, we got great feedback from both our tutor and the level 5's who sat in the presentation. This presentation could be used to make the final tweaks that we would do to the work to get it finalised. Firstly it was suggested that we should change the body copy font that we would use as Garamond that we had chosen although they saw the link we had used with the garamond and its relation to older themes relating to the book that the font was too far away from the contemporary style we were going for, they suggested that possibly a sans serif font or a more contemporary serif font would be more suitable. It was also suggested that the choice of cream colour was much better linked to our ideas and that the link with the cream and the colour of book pages was a much better link but it was suggested due to our heavy use of cream that if we tweaked our designs we could instead use a coloured stock and eliminate the need for printing the cream colour and just print the blacks. It was also suggested that due to the fact that our design uses a lot of simple shapes that we could keep the cost of our printing costs down by screen printing some of our final outcomes, even though it wouldn't be appropriate for some of the designs due to the small text and intricate line work it would definitely save a lot of money in some areas. It was also suggested that the use of the sphere from the first attempt at branding wasn't needed as the newer logo was linked enough, we explained that the whole concept behind our idea came from that sphere but they said it is still linked enough to leave the sphere in the initial stages and not feature it in the final designs but just as a source of inspiration. The final comment came in the line of the booklet, they thought that the content was brilliant as we had included information of our college itself, the graphic design course we're on, the exhibitors and the exhibition itself so that people who were at the exhibition could gain information about the exhibit-on properly even if they aren't LCA students and finally that the inclusion of the level five exhibitors into the book and the clear definition in colours between the level 4 and level 5's in the exhibition branding. Overall as a group we we're very happy with the feedback as it was majority fantastic and we had to change the whole idea half way through the brief. Some time after the presentation we had feedback from the presentations from simon out tutor in our groups to receive the final feedback from the unit about how we worked and what not. In this section I will also discuss how we worked as a team through the brief. We all thought that honetsly we have worked very well as a team on the brief as we were all quite passive in the designing stage and none of us has extremely strong opinions so it meant we were all really flexible with each others ideas and this worked really well for us. In terms of time management that also went very well too as we all kept in contact with each other very well though facebook and kept bouncing ideas off each other even when we were separate sharing any files between each other. We came across no problems when we were working and had no arguments at all everything flowed very smoothly, we were open to changes to get what we could get looking the best and we all listened to each other perfectly. I wouldn't have changed my group for anyone else! It was suggested that we could have considered costs of production more than we did and to price up multiple situations of printing we could find. The final little negative suggestions that we could have changed was that the presentation just couldn't have won as we just didn't go in to as much detail as we could have but it was very good overall just the little we changes we could have made were to change the type to something less drastic than garamond, and that possibly from an outsiders perspective it could be said that our logo was slightly too similar to the logo of the college which could confuse outsiders so there was just slightly to much work that would have had to be done to get it finalised for the exhibition and it just wasn't ready but overall very good comments on the actual contents of the submission.