Evaluation

In this assignment, we were given a range of D&AD briefs in which we could work individually or as a group with a maximum of three people. The other two members within my group is Charlotte Wood & Christopher Boss-Pratt and the selected brief we choose to do is the typography brief “Ministry of Sound”.

I personally found this task intriguing, as it was typography based, so there was a strong base line in what the outcome should consist of.

In producing the final poster, we all decided that it would work best if we all came up with ideas individually, as we all had different ideas and concepts towards the brief. By doing this, it enabled us to have a selection of ideas that we could work from and see what works best and what doesn’t. By having a designer coming in and having a one to one tutorial, it was very beneficial as it helped us know how to improve our outcome and see whether we were working along the right path.

Throughout all the designs, we focused on the imagery as it represents sounds as we found pure text would have been boring and dull. By manipulating images it will emphasise a visual effect to the audience; drawing in their attention. In poster 1, the focus of the image is the MOS logo being purple as this was the new colour scheme. As it is the first poster, we wanted  it to be colourful and have a strong visual effect. These were done by the alignment of the shape layout of the logo but also by the paint splatters. In poster 2, sound waves imagery is based around the club music and the imagery is defined and clearly stands out from the pink background. The purple and white font colour used with the same font for the audience recognition. It stands out from the background due to the gradient used.  In poster 3, the colours through and behind the imagery links to the paint splat within the first poster. The purple background is used as the main colour choice of the MOS brief. The typography throughout the series of posters remains the same and it depicts neon lighting used within a night theme atmosphere. We have selected the font as we feel it stands out and draws attention for the poster. The typography matches the style and imagery of the poster.  The typography in the last design brings the aspect from all the design by creating a neon glow and using gradient and outer glow to enhance this.

Whilst creating the poster, we experimented a lot, trying to get a specific style that at the end did not work out; leading us to use a font in which we tweaked to get a more realistic look. Overall, I was pleased with working with the team members within the group as everyone played a role within the task and contributed a lot with negative and positive feedback.

One of the changes, if we had more time and had better experience with the program, would be re-creating the video as I found that it could have been more intriguing with better feature and effects to make it more interesting.

Personally, I am pleased with the outcome and thought that we worked well together. The composition, use of colour and layout all worked well each other and I thought we fulfilled the requirements for the Ministry of Sound brief.

Below is a screenshot from my D&AD account showing the submission page to validate what I have submitted.

 

Below is an image of the invoice from D&AD

After Effects

By completing  the three poster, we then created a short presentation video that will present our answer to the brief. This video will contain creative idea and key executions. To create this presentation, I used a program called “Adobe After Effects. At this stage, I never knew how to use After Effects but once getting use too the program, I got grip with the basic effects and it seemed to be a ride in the park.

Below is showing the video of my first attempt.

Below is showing my 2nd attempt of the video.

So comparing both videos, the second attempt looked more appealing and more interactive but also looked more professional. It looked more of a presentation and had a smooth flow and was clear to see and a good amount of time for the viewer to read the information being stated.

We kept it simple but the main thing was to present our ideas clearly and succinctly which can we seen via the poster but also by the video.

 

Creating MOS Poster 2 & 3

Creating poster 2 & 3 wouldn’t  be a hassle, as most of the hard work has been done. It only putting the content together and experimenting and tweaking with the positioning and colours but keeping in the mind the colour that we are meant to use according to the “Ministry of Sound Brief”.

The images below show us experimenting with the colours of the typography but also with the background to find out what work best with each other.

 

Imagery

Having decided that having an image on each poster will represent sound, I manipulated two other images that relate to sound within the music atmosphere. Theses two images are

1. Headphones
2. Microphone

The images below shows theses two images.

Headphones

Wavelengths stating what goes in, goes out. This states that sounds travel. Everyone will hear the sound at some point.

Microphone

The way sound is expressed through voice and not tweaked using gadgets like autotune; as this make the artist sound more smooth and stabilised. The sound is maximised so everyone is able to hear it.

Selected Font

Therefore, the font we choose to use was a font called “Neon” by fenotype. It is easy to read and is extremely realistic and was the closest we could use to neon lighting to get the same effects within the lighting in the clubs. One of the strongest points of using this font is that it enabled us to change the colours to give it a transitional look but even though the effect of using the lighting technique would have been more appealing.

Being able to agree with the selected font, we then cracked out with task in creating the 3 posters.

 

Group Meeting – Type Decision

In today’s  group meeting, we discussed the choice of type we were going to use compared to using the paint lighting effect as we all agreed it didn’t turn out as strong as we wanted it to. If it turned out liked the research image example, it would have been a strong piece upon the poster, as it would have directly responded to the clubber night theme.

Not being able to use the lighting effect enabled us to use our back up option of using a range of type fonts. The benefit of using this, would make the poster look more professional. The images below within the slideshow shows the 5 selected fonts from the selected, that we as a group decided that would work best for the poster compared to the rest of the selection.

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Looking through the slideshow of the selected fonts upon the posters, we then narrowed it down to one finally font.

Our New Attempt of Light Painting Experiment

So Chris and myself then decided to take on the role in experimenting with the new technique. The images below shows this.

So as you can see from our attempt,  the writting wasnt clear at all and didn’t have the same effect as we wanted the outcome to be. So having both lighting techniques and a choice of fonts, we will discuss the next steps in our next meeting.

Research Lighting

Seeing that the lighting technique didn’t work, we researched more into lighting and we were intrigued by the image as you can see below. This was done by “The Sorcerer – Photographer”. As a group, we found it interesting and more appealing as it more unique and stylish and actually related to lighting within clubs

By having a new idea of how we would like the typography to look like, We searched more into light painting and discovered that we can change the camera options to “Bulb” instead of changing the shutter speed. By doing this it enabled us to produce the text in a longer amount of time without worrying about the time limit. The video above shows the tutorial in which we discovered how to do this.

Experimenting with the Lighting

Chris finally finished cutting out the letters. To do this, he used the pen tool in Photoshop as this gave a clean smooth cut around the lettering. The image below shows this.

By looking at the outcome from the lighting, we thought that it was effective upon the black background as it stood out but the problem I had with it, is that it looked too childish and didn’t seem like it had any wow-factor towards it; didn’t appeal to me at all. Despite this, we worked with it and tweaked with it and saw whether it worked well upon the poster. This can be seen by the screenshot below.

The obvious main problem about using the lighting effect is that the lettering wasnt clear enough and this was due towards the background not being dark to enable the visual effect. As stated within the brief, we only had a specific colour range in which we was allowed to use to create the picture and black wasnt 1 of the main colours for the background.

Having identified the problem of using lighting, we decided that we would adjust the colour via the hue & saturation to see if it makes it stand out. The results from this was that, the darker gradient worked well but the it seemed to clash with the paint splatters. This can be seen via the picture above.

MOS Type Selection

Whilst we got Chris to cut out the individual lettering we did using the lighting effect, I started looking at the range of different fonts that we could use if the concept didn’t work out or didn’t give out the high quality effect we was looking for.

The image below shows the range of fonts selection I thought would be relevant for the brief.

As you can see from the font collection, the main theme was still towards the night life style where the music, beats, wave sounds would still be presented through the use of typography.