OUGD505 - ST3 - Getting People Eating Bugs?

For the third study task we were asked to rationale how we might be able to get people in the UK to learn and get involved with making eating insects and bugs a part of the average UK diet? Due to the fact that this whole study task revolved around design thinking instead of a well rounded design output for the task instead there would be a well reasoned theoretical approach,

At first we did some research in to the farming of insects compared to cattle the results were shocking; we discovered that for environmentally base reasons the farming of bugs compared to livestock was infinitely more efficient on topic such as space needed to grow the same amount of produce and furthermore the overall emission that aren't applicable to bigs but are to livestock.

The second aspect about the eating of insects compared to livestock was also shocking; we outlined they per the same amount of product bugs were marginally higher in protein but were considerably lower in calories and fats making they so much more efficient as a source of protein for the health conscious;

Our final idea was to create a company that created a number of regular food products but with added insect ingredients aimed at the environmentally focused and the health conscious.

OUGD504 - ST1 - Appropriation & Subversion

Here are the two examples off social led change posters, there are both satirical and sarcastic evaluations of modern day culture in the medium of collage

OUGD505 - ST4 - Vote!

We were tasked with the fourth study task of the module in which within out teams (Me, Ethan and Tom) we were tasked to create an idea of which would be implement to increase the number 18/22 year olds who turn if to vote at the general Election. By outlining the reason as to why people didn't show up to the vote and then reflection on this through the idea generation of the task.

Even though the brief suggested it we decided against partaking in research in to successful electoral campaigns as through our research we outline this wasn't an attribute that really effected the reason as to why they didn't vote, instead the two key major factors that lead to people not showing up for the vote was firstly due to the ease of voting, them having the easiest possible encounter with the elevator voting system and also because of the fact that the politicians involved and the fact that the youth aren't fully understanding of what each member stands for. The final design outcome of the idea generation would have to combat both of these aspects in oder to ensure a higher turn out at the next general vote.

After experimenting with multiple different ideas as a group we eventually decided on an app system that would act as a means of combatting all of the aspects as to why people didn't turn out to vote, in one concise app that would consist of a means of conveying information about each party to voters with an added technology that would allow for voters to compare the different parties on their different standpoints. The app would be finished with 'Mapp' of which would have all physical polling stations within in and finally through blockchain technology  to keep it impenetrable similar to bitcoins act a means of which people could vote through the app.

Presenting the youth with a means to combat all of the different reasons that they didn't vote in the election next  time.

Below are some sketched wireframes we drew us to act as a visualisation of how the app would work with its comparison and manifesto pages, actual designing isn't necessary for this task the wireframes just help to visualise the concept.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Design Choices - Final Designs

Overall the final screen prints for the project came out much better than expected, he designers were mostly aligned perfectly, the coloured matched what I desired and the illustrations had come out intricate and more importantly clear. The hologram work perfectly aswell and reacts to the sunlight just like a normal hologram from the glitter of the silver translucent screen printing ink.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Design Decisions - Screen Printing Process

The final screen printing process was quite simple in the end, and a lot quicker than initially expected. As it went on it became more and more like automatic actions rather than having to think about what was going on at that moment. The first stage was to choose a screen of which was of a big enough size that it could fit the whole of our separations. The next stage was to take the screen in to the stripping room and strip the screen down ready for our exposures. The final step to prepare the screen ready for print was to coat it with emulsion, let the emulsion dry completely and then finally expose the separation through the UV emulsion to dictate the separations on the the screen, after a small wash the screen is ready to print on.

The next stop was to use three pots of screen printing medium bought earlier and mix this with acrylic paint to create the ink for screen printing. This was a very important stage due to the fact that it was necessary to replicate the colours generated in the digital design so that the final designs are in context with the content. The final stage was to use the third pot of medium to devise the hologram effect colour. This was achieved by using a much higher level of medium to acrylic paint to make it as translucent as possible, the colour for the hologram ink was made by mixing silver with a small around of blue, to replicate the effect of the light bouncing off the hologram and changing its colour and then this ink was ready to overlay on the designs. This screen print method was perfect for the visualisation of the hologram effect do to the translucent qualities of the screen printing medium, it replicated the effect perfectly.

Now the final stage was just down to screen printing the actual designs for the banknotes, this required determination and accuracy to achieve the most professional aesthetic possible, accuracy within the overlay printing was they key to realising the balanced and organised designs. 

OUGD505 - SB1 - Design Decisions - Separations

Below is the exported imagery that will be used as the separations and taken on in to the screen printing aspect of the project in which pot go these notes will be screen printed in their respective colours with a translucent spacey blue/grey screen print medium to act as the hologram on the banknotes. These notes will both be screen printed for inclusion in the Level 4 & Level 5 exhibition 'Money Is?' and so this means that the final printing process must be as perfect as possible as the work will be going in to an exhibition, this will be achieved by printing as many final outcomes as possible for each bank note and then choosing the best two of these to go in to the exhibition.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Design Decisions - Security Measures

The final aspects that will go on to the notes is the security processes to help validate the banknote, and act as a means in which the banknote could be checked for counterfeit currency, this will be the final additions to the note as outlined in the earlier stage of the project this will help to ensure that the note stays simple and well structures adding to the professionalism and modernity of the note; ensuring the design stays a contemporary as possible. The hologram editions will help the note look as much like an authentic currency as possible compared to looking like a cheap redesign.

The final note editions are the holographic additions that take shape in a hologram in the shape of the earth to further reinforce the notion off an all inclusive currency system and then the banknotes are finished with the serial code and dashed bar in holographic form too.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Design Decisions - Colour

The next stage of the design process was to colour the four different denomination of the newly designed international currency and rather that picking the colours on an aesthetic basis only instead I attempted to inform the colour of the note from the content of the not itself. This means that the cities in question featuring within the denominations have a link with the colour of the bank note that they are on.

The decision was made to experiment with the colour concepts and so for the outcomes two different concept method were implemented. The first of these methods is for the ten and twenty token denomination banknotes, the colour concept for these notes were generated by look at how the colours are perceived in that part of the work due to the fact that the same colour can mean very different things in different countries around the world. The second part of denominations the five and the fifty have more literal and less conceptual concept generations.

The first of the bank notes is the five token denomination, this note features The Statue of Liberty, New York and so the blue colour used for the note was sampled from the flay of New York City.

For the second bank note, the ten token denomination the purple was chosen due to its representation of royalty within England. London is the city of the monarchy and therefore purple is the perfect colour to represent London.

Furthermore the third note is the 20 token denomination banknote the illustrative feature is the oram Towers, Kuala Lumper.  This colour relates to the content of the not contextually due to the fact that in that aria of the world; Eestern Asia Orange as a colour represents spirituality and try acceptance with surroundings and these are big aspects on the religions of the area.

Finally the last banknote, 50 tokens features the Arc De Triomphe, Paris as the illustration. The colour for this not similarly to the five token note was taken from the flat of Paris and therefore has a direct relation to the city.

Instead of having the serial code printed in white not he note like outline in the earlier stage of the project instead now the decision has been made to change this and instead have the serial code go on with he holograms on the noted in the next stage so that it will be a lot more discrete like in the top left note above.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Design Decisions - Note Layout

Due to the fact that the main feature illustrations for each of the denominations being so intricate and detailed the decision was made that the rest of the note surrounding the illustration will be as simple and minimal as possible, not acting as an addition design aspects acting more like a frame of which could encapsulate the illustration.

The borders are a simple way to add structure to the design, and this structure and organisation will transcribe in to a professional looking finish for the bank note, with enough area left at the bottom of the note for all the necessary information. 

The end goal with all of this is trying to achieve simple but effective design in my eyes. This will mean disregarding some features that can be found on current notes such as monarchs face, or famous personnel, but all of these aspects are only usually relatable in context to the country that the note resides in, for my designs the world as one will be celebrated through the sign of a simple yet effective design with only as much information as necessary. The Value of the note (with no name as the value changes depending on the currency of where you spend it) we could call it 20 tokens? the second necessary aspect is a serial code of which will be used to identify the specific note, and some form of security measure to check the valid of the note itself.

The final security measures will be added at a later stage, after the colour of each of the denominations has been decided.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Design Choices - Final Illustrations

Below are the four different landmark from around the world that be act as the feature illustration of each denomination of the notes. The four landmarks are firstly Petronas Tower,Kuala Lumper. The second landmark is the Arc De Triomphe, Paris. The third landmark The Statue of Liberty, USA and finally the last landmark is Big Ben, London. In this stage it was important to ensure that the illustration were as detailed and praise as they possibly could be and so this mean spending an awful lot of time on them getting them right and rather than them looking like flat illustrations extra aspects were incorporated to generate depth within the illustration hopefully creating what will be an intricate and delicate feature of the notes.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Design Decisions - Illustration Developments

For the illustrations used within the note designs illustrator was used to illustrate the monuments line by line. The illustration were traced from a real life image to ensure that the illustrations look realistic and professional as they will have a knock on effect on how professional the final designs look. The illustrations were drew in using a line with a one point stroke, meaning that it was just thick enough to be screen printed but thin enough that I could capture enough details with the illustrations.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Aesthetic Research - Snøhetta Norway Currency Redesign

This redesign of the national Norway Krone currency commissioned by the bank of Forward is the perfect display of where the concept outlined in earlier stages of the process can through research and experimentation expand in to one overarching concept, displayed and secured by different means.

The feature of these redesign pays homage to the notion of the redesign by conveying a message through photography on one side of each of the denominations but for the other side this is contrasted with a much more contemporary version of the revers, but with the intention to convey the same meaning. Through the redesign of the currency, the artist has managed to bring the currency design in to the modern day, but then still pay homage to the currency of old by representing a big part of Norway historical culture, the sea.

This redesign is also great additional piece of research as it hows how planning in the concept stage and experimentation stage can help to further solidify a concept and this has amounted in a means of aestheticially linking all off the denominations of the banknotes through the concept.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Aesthetic Research - Barbara Bernát EURO

Although there are many different prospective redesigns of different currencies from designers around the world, the vast majority of them use a very similar design style when it comes to implementing struck swiss modernist aesthetic to add structure and professionalism, this redesign of the Euro banknote by Barbara Bernát displays another totally different way that this redesign could be taken. In her redesign the combination of subtle muted colours and tones combined with the delicate and dainty animal and plant illustrations create a potential look for  currency like no other.

This eye-catching illustrative style combined with the minimal additions to the banknotes creates a design for a currency, that could more than well double as fine art they're so decorate. This once musicale attempt at currency design now abolished and something with a little more femininity used instead to create the most eye-catching currency design known to man.

This concept also conveys a really effective way in which the UV holograms within the design work can not only act as a means of security and to check validity for the not but they can also take place in the art form that is the currency design, presented perfectly though the UV animal skeletons that appear un UV light.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Aesthetic Research - Travis Purrington USD

The next of the currency redesign is yet again a redesign of the US Dollar but his time the feature of the notes, linking to the concept behind them is the big chance within the designs, the designer Travis Purrington instead wants to challenge the notion of notes currently in circulation and propose something totally different...

"Travis Purrington's interpretation of the US currency looks like it belongs in a cyberpunk movie. Gone is the uniformed green, and the portraits of long-dead presidents. Purrington's designs are subtle yet sleek, embossed with astronauts, crashing waves, ice-capped mountains, and distant galaxies. 

The project draws inspiration from the Swiss Franc, and was conceptualized to showcase banknotes that placed greater emphasis on the accomplishments of the living, rather than "codifying myth or legend." Purrington says he removed the Founding Fathers from his design as this was a practice Congress had wanted to abolish following the American revolution. He wanted to focus instead on the attributes shared by workers in a community, and "how these attributes contribute to the principles we end up seeing as valuable."

In this currency redesign the banknotes have been stricken of the way of only, by having one notable historian on one side and another notable historian on the other and instead he proposes that instead of dedicating the currency to aspects of history hundreds of years ago, instead the notes should pay homage to the the advancements of the modern day world. He does this by designing the concept around a number of different scientific and technological advanced of the modern day and further more paying ode to the world around us through the environmental aspects.

This is a fantastic example in which the outdated and boring currency of own is redesigned to be inline and reflect on modern society as it is today, and not on the past.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Aesthetic Research - Jack Prettyman USD

US CURRENCY REDESIGN by jack prettyman

"In 1739, before the Dollar was used as US currency, Benjamin Franklin’s printing firm in Philadelphia printed colonial bills with nature prints—unique raised impressions of patterns cast from actual leaves. I took this as inspiration and themed my currency redesign around tree leaves that are indigenous to the US."

This is an example of a currency redesign for the US Dollar by a Graphic Design by the name of Jack Prettyman. This is the perfect display of how a detailed research in to the history of money can be reflected upon and then adapted in to a modern contemporary context and through this redesign it shows the nature of how important it is to develop a strong concept and this always end up in proficient informed design.
Off the back of this research it have also made me consider the need of including modern day realistic aspects such as serial codes and governmental seals, but the need for these is only dictated by the concept of the redesign itself.

OUGD505 - SB1 - Concept Decisions - Initial Idea Development

In order to help make the decision which conceptual idea to take forward in to the design stage of the process one of each of the different notes will be designed and then there three different design possibilities, representing the three different concept ideas would be taken in to a group feedback session, and from the feedback session one will be advanced on to the design stage of the project.

The feedback from the group critique was all very positive, my peers agreed that the notion of an international currency is very well fitting to the idea of generation conceptual ideas for money of the future and believe this was the avenue I should take in the final design outcomes. Although they said that the international currency was the most appropriate way to go with the redesign like enjoyed the satire involved in the nation debt related note, and though they made it stand out as slightly more memorable in concept that the other two, but in execution it didn't quite meet the grade. They also commented that although the conceptual idea behind the greek based redesign was very strong when as a set, when viewed as an individual note for the exhibition purposes they could be deterred from being away from the set and actually as individual notes aren't competent  enough as a design outcome and so off the back of this group feedback session the decision was made to take the landmark illustration features forward in to the next stage of the process do to its international currency concept and simple but professional design style.