~ Secret 7 - Max Richter - initial ideas ~

This is a really beautiful and hypnotic piece of classical music, when listening to it I found myself drifting into peaceful and simple thought. I wanted my submission to portray this simple peace visually. 

His compositions are representative of peace and tranquility and although many enjoy them live; but the main purpose behind his pieces are for a peaceful nights sleep - the length of them being a big part of this - many of his compositions are made to last through a whole night's sleep (8 hours).

Personal input - personally I suffer with bad anxiety that affects my sleep greatly and am constantly looking for new things to help with this. As part of my experimentation with this particular song I played one of his all night compositions while I slept. Immersing myself in the music in this way has allowed me to fully visualise a concept for the brief. 

The biggest relief of anxiety, stress and lack of sleep in my personal experiance is simple things, like adventures, new beginnings, peace, simplicity, the opportunity to escape chaos.

Initial thoughts on things that visually portray the peaceful and simple feeling -

- Plants, growing, spring, emerging

- Sunlight, sunrise, appearing

- Nature

- Minimal environments

- Exploring, a sense of adventure, the unknown

- Clean-ness

- Sleep

- Running/walking

This is just a list of things that personally ignite the same feeling that this piece of music does inside me. Due to this being the first release by the competition with no lyrics it seems appropriate that the design treatment i decide to submit should be informed directly by the overall feelings produced as a result of listening to it.

Based upon my initial ideas and feelings I created these thumbnail sketches. Each sketch uses a minimal approach and layout and only simple line drawings. I wanted the style of illustration to be as representative and informed by the music as possible. 

I want my final outcome for this to be a combination of my initial ideas; choosing the elements of which I find to be the most effective in relieving anxiety and tension.

~ Chicago Latino film festival - final design ~

My typography for the poster was very much informed by 'festival culture'. Particularly an independent film festival has a certain vibe and reputation for being quirky and individual. This is something I aimed to express through my typographical illustration; the fine detailed aesthetic created is representative of the often groundbreaking and completely individual films that are shown at this event. Each letter, illustration and pattern are hand drawn therefore individual themselves and well informed by its context. I think the fact it is hand drawn also links to the idea that many of the films will of been done by indie film makers who don't necessarily have the money to buy all the equipment they would use to create a blockbuster movie; in both cases it comes down to a DIY attitude.

This is one of my initial experiments with layout. The colour was informed by the iconic red associated with Latino culture. I experimented here with more hand drawn (brush pen) type; but I felt this took the focus off the illustrative type a little too much and the hierarchy of information needed to be adjusted.

I tried out an assortment of different typefaces trying to choose one that represented Latino culture (serifs suggest flair and fire which are big symbols for them). I came across Bluu Next; the sharp serifs and unusual use of geometry and varied stroke width gives a brilliant sense of individuality making it perfect for this poster.

To create a better sense of type hierarchy and make the illustrative type the boldest part of the design I added more elements of information to the poster (date & examples of films/directors within the festival). I made sure everything was aligned in accordance with each other to keep a sense of balance. I made 'film festival' the biggest and centralised it within the poster as I feel its the most likely bit of information to draw people in; they will then be drawn to read the red type then the smaller information when interested.

I feel the poster successfully communicates the indie production value of the type of films that are showing within the festival due its partly hand illustrated nature. The digital type is the more information element to the design that once the viewer is drawn in encourages people to look into it further.

~ Secret 7 - Jack Garratt - design ~

As Jack Garrett is still a small artist just finding his feet and 'brand' within the music industry it's important to try best capture his look within the design. He iconically wears snapbacks within most of his photoshoots as his recognisable feature I felt it was appropriate to include this within the illustration. 

This is my initial illustration for the design. I created small shapes and patterns within the portrait to represent the 'worry' and thoughts going through his head (also included a thought bubble to reinforce this.

These are a few of my colour experiments; colors such as yellow didn't work as they weren't informed well enough by the underlying meaning of the song (too happy/positive). The use of blue was better informed as it has connotations of sadness/loneliness. 

I decided rather than vectoring the illustration I would use colour selection as this meant when colouring it would pick up some of the natural grain/imperfections created when the image was scanned giving the image a natural grain/worn look. I inverted the image so it was white illustration on a hazy black background; this gives the look/feel of isolation which is relevant and appropriate to how Jack described the meaning of the song itself. I think this design is well informed and executed as it's both a homage to the artist himself and informed by his thoughts on the song. 

~ Secret 7 - Jack Garratt - initial ideas~

My nights are broken up by the sounds of women I’ll never meet
And when my eyes are closed I can start to feel you staring at me
The right side of my bed has always left me feeling stuck in between (Oh, oh, oh, oh)
Everything I know and all the lies I tell myself so I can sleep

Pick apart the pieces you left
Don’t you worry about it, don’t you worry about it
Try and give yourself some rest
And let me worry about it, let me worry about it

You came around to say that you’ve been away, like I hadn’t known
As if I don’t wake up every single day not seeing you go
As if this moon of ours only shines a half to make me feel whole
As if I haven’t felt your breath in every step I take when the wind blows

Pick apart the pieces you left
Don’t you worry about it, don’t you worry about it
Try and give yourself some rest
And let me worry about it, let me worry about it
[x2]

(Oh, oh, oh, oh) (worry)
(Oh, oh, oh, oh) (worry)
(Oh, oh, oh, oh) (worry)
(Oh, oh, oh, oh) (worry)
(Oh, oh, oh, oh) (worry)
(Oh, oh, oh, oh) (worry)
(Oh, oh, oh, oh) (worry)

Pick apart the pieces you left
Don’t you worry about it, don’t you worry about it
Try and give yourself some rest
And let me worry about it, let me worry about it
(Worry) (Worry)
(Worry) (Don’t you worry)

I began my exploration of this track by looking into the current aesthetic Jack Garrett's design work follows. He hasn't really got a set brand style as his website and album artwork differ significantly. The album artwork above is a loose illustrative style that expresses the personal depth of his music well. I also looked into the song lyrics to further understand the meaning behind the song.

http://www.gigwise.com/features/99939/jack-garratt-worry-lyrics-explained-and-the-story-behind-it

I came across this video of Jack explaining his thoughts whilst writing the song to give me an accurate sense of direction for the design. "worry is about obsessing and not coming to terms with the fact someone is over you and telling yourself they're not." - it's a selfish yet relatable song that's very personal to Jack's experiences in life.

Album covers often capture the 'self obsessive' nature we have as humans that Jack refers to in his analysis of the songs meaning. I found some examples of more unusual album covers depicting the artists as they are most commonly photographic yet these are beautifully illustrated. For this reason I felt this approach to the sleeves design would be appropriate.

'Worry' and chaos particularly when it comes to love and relationships is something that's difficult to visually depict as its so irrational and complex. I find Keith Haring's illustrations (particularly the one above) seem to express a certain accuracy level of this expression well. The complexity of lines, shapes and pattern visually represents the different irrational and often deluded thoughts that Jack Garrett's song expresses. I do have my own personal style of illustration that is often the result of erratic and random brainwaves as a form of expression; this could be adapted and put in context to the song and be appropriate for this design.

~ Responsive - studio brief one - Leeds Print Fair - final prints ~

Initial ideas for my screen prints are - 

- Letters (for people to buy their initials or as a gift)
- Ampersand - appeals to a creative audience but can be bought by all (non specific)
- Inspirational quotes
- Illustrations
- Portraits
- Minimal shapes (geometrical designs - could come as a set of 3)

I wanted my prints to double up as self promotional pieces - the ones not sold here could be sent out to potential employers and clients.

This is my first of the three designs. I chose to go down the route of self promotion and getting myself noticed. Due to this I wanted to show my personal style of illustration as something I could provide. I went for something complex that you could stare at for a long time appreciating the details; making it appropriate to hang on someone's wall. Because Munro House and it's visitors are mainly other creatives I felt adding in the typography would add to its appeal to this target audience. I made this print square format as its much more unusual when it comes to poster design which makes it stand out more.

I used a marbling screen print technique that involved running different colours of ink through the screen on one print. This made each variation of the print completely bespoke adding to its value making sure the customers felt each print was personal to them.

I also experimented with variations of brightly coloured stock; this meant the customers could choose a print according to their aesthetic preferences or the colours used within their home.

For my second print I chose to use the word 'think' I feel it's simple yet inspirational and perfect for say someone's office environment. I once again chose to use my illustration skills. I created this one at a4 format so it would be cheaper and people a little short for cash could still have an option.

I once again used the marble technique so each print was bespoke and experimented with stock choices so people had a free range to choose from.

My 3rd design is an ampersand; I chose this as its typographic and directly informed by the creative audience but it's not specific to any certain person like letters would of been. I wanted this print to be a lot less intricate than the illustrative ones so it showed off the beautiful variations and textures created by the marble effect. 

The clean bold design allowed the marble effect to be really effective. Each looks hand painted making it really clear it was traditionally printed rather than digitally.

The print fair was really successfull and I sold lots of prints and got myself some brilliant exposure within the local arts community. It gave me a chance to show off my style and also get to know the organisers of the exhibitions and various events in Leeds. I have also gone on to send out samples of these prints to design agencies to help make contacts further afield in the design industry.

~ Responsive - studio brief one - Leeds Print Fair - research ~

As a starting point for this brief I decided to explore the possible traditional print methods I could use to produce the posters and their individual pro's and con's.

Letterpress

Pro's - Type only, interesting to see what possible layouts I could come up with that were interesting and different.

Con's - Could risk being too boring and too specifically aimed at designers/people interested in typography.

Monoprinting

Pro's - allows me to create completely bespoke pieces

Con's cannot reproduce the same design this would throw up difficulty with displaying all my final prints when selling them.

Linocutting

Pro's - The outcomes have a really bold and appealing look to them, you can also reproduce as many of the same print as you like

Con's - It's something I have little experiance with so the outcome might not be good enough to actually sell

Screen printing

Pro's - Allows me to produce either a hand rendered or digital design then produce prints of any colour on any stock

Con's - Might not be able to tell they are screen printed rather than digitally printed?

I decided the most appropriate choice was to screen print all 3 of my outcomes as I had previous experiance with this method and I could experiment with a large variety of inks and stock choices.

~ Responsive - studio brief one - Leeds Print Fair ~

Due to previous involvement with Munro House Leeds and The Gallery I was briefed to take part in their christmas fair and produce some prints to sell. 

The Brief. Create 3 designs that represent your individual skills and style within the design/illustration/print industry. They must be produced using traditional print techniques to a standard that can be sold. Any format/size. These poster designs should use skills learnt from the course and be targeted at a wide range of people, as the Christmas fair isn't just art-based. This assignment will allow you to explore your own design style and be experimental. One of the main aims of this task is to have fun!
The deadline for this brief is the 4th December 2015 at 3.30pm. For this reason, you will have to have all deliverables completed and printed by the 3rd. You should experiment with different stock and colours that could interest different audiences. Your progress, developments and creative decisions should be documented on your studio blog.
Background / Considerations. You are a graphic designer. Everything you produce should be considered.The prints should apply to a wide clientele range.You should consider things that may help you get your name out into the world (business cards).
Consider what else you will need, for example price tags, petty cash for change etc.

Mandatory Requirements. All research, development and decision making should be documented on your studio practice blog.You must demonstrate that you have explored and considered a range of material.Your prints should be neatly presented and reflect you as a designer.Your work must be accompanied by an evaluation of at least 500 words.

Deliverables. A range of completed prints.Design blog.Experiments with stock.Design Board