OUGD402 Studio Brief 1 | Thought Bubble Festival - Leeds

Thought Bubble is a 'comic arts festival' that takes place every November in Leeds.

I had never heard of Thought Bubble before this year's event probably because I didn't live in Leeds, but this year caught my attention because Mondo are going to have a stall there, selling some of their most popular work but also some of the artists behind that work will also be there.

Unfortunately I am unable to go to Thought Bubble this weekend as it's my little brother's birthday which I had already planned to go home for prior to finding out about this.

This is even more annoying as Mondo are selling a Thought Bubble-only 'Back to the Future' poster which is one of my favourite films, designed by Matt Taylor who will also be there.

"BTTF is basically my dream project and as such is utterly terrifying, because it is embedded in the public consciousness and has it’s own library of iconography that even people who haven’t seen the film will know. On top of that, the previous BTTF series at Mondo are amongst the highlights of their output - so a little bit of extra pressure to live up to there.

For my design, I went back to Struzan’s original concept posters - there is a great one with Marty vanishing from the feet up, and as soon as I saw it I knew that I wanted to use it as my starting point. I think PCC and Laurent have closed the book on using the Delorean so I deliberately stayed away from that and focused instead on Marty and his instantly recognisable features. I used the title block from the original poster and stripped out the rest of the type so that the image stood alone on the page. I’m really happy with how it turned out and I hope that the Mondo faithful dig it as well."

http://mondotees.com/blogs/news/18113695-thought-bubble-2014-back-to-the-future-by-matt-taylor

http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/

OUGD402 Studio Brief 1 | OUGD403 Module Evaluation

OUGD403 Module Evaluation 

Overall I think the work I produced for this module turned out rather well. Studio Brief 1 taught me how type can communicate a certain feeling or vibe through different shape . This could be weight, angles, x-height and many other characteristics. This led me into Studio Brief 2 where I learned how to take one design and develop it further to make a full alphabet. This lesson doesn’t just apply to type and letters, but will apply to any project where I need to see what designs will and won’t work as a finished product. The research I did for the first two briefs helped me with Studio Brief 3 as it was all purely research based. Although I had done research before this brief it was not as extensive as it was for Brief 3. This brief required us to know the ins and outs of a chosen news story well enough that we could present it to our peers and they would clearly understand the story, the issues behind it and how and why it was reported. My chosen story was rather interesting as it was a very current issue involving Russell Brand, I chose this story as I thought I would be able to get a lot of research done while still be interested in the story. I was glad that I chose this story as for Studio Brief 4 we had to visually communicate a message that derived from our research from the previous brief. I had a lot of initial ideas but thanks to crits I was told that I should change paths, and I’m glad I did as I was very happy with the posters I produced. 

The feedback I got throughout this module was very helpful to me in making sure I got the best possible outcome. Although not every suggestion was great, it took me in a different direction where more ideas could stem from. Crits were the best place to receive feedback but just simply being in the studio and talking to my peers gave me some great ideas also.

I have learned from this module that preparation and planning is the best way to keep up with work. In the future I will keep on top of my blog daily and document every bit of development as during this module I have lost key design decisions due to not screenshotting or saving certain documents.

OUGD402 Studio Brief 2 | OUGD403 Studio Brief 4 Evaluation

Evaluation

I really enjoyed Studio Brief 4 as it was a chance to convey a personal message through our work for the first time.

When I first started designing my posters I was looking into 9/11 and I was going down that route, but thanks to the interim crit I got told to stay clear of that as it didn’t relate to my research as closely as the media did. I think this is where I went wrong with this brief; I was designing before I knew what it was I was trying to say, but then I was then helped by my classmates to find a new path to go down and the idea of the media  changing people’s words for the benefit of their sales was much more suitable. Once I knew where I was going with it I had a clear message  that made it easier to design than before. 

A challenge that I faced during this brief was with the colour restrictions. As  I did an illustration of Russell Brand it would have looked much better with a wider range of colours but  I had to make sure I stuck to the brief and only used two colours and shades of those colours. I overcame this challenge in the end by simplifying the illustration so less colours were needed.  In the end I think the illustration worked out rather well as it got the likeness and  people knew it was Russell Brand straight away despite the simplicity of the face and the features.

Another aspect I thought worked well was the use of acetate. By adding in this stock it allows the audience to interact with the poster which will make it stand out from the rest. The reason behind the acetate is it lets the viewer of the poster physically uncover the truth of the story, and reminds them that not everything the media says is 100% correct.