~ Secret 7 - Tame impala ~

This next song is Tame Impala - The less I know the better

Historically Tame Impala's music videos are very impacting visually, bright colours, trippy visuals and animation. So a good starting point for me was to watch the music video from the specific song and others from the album to get the overall idea of their style. The video has a psychedelic and un-relality theme throughout this is something I shall consider within my design.

I took screen grabs from the video I found visually stimulating and interesting to possibly use as references in the final design. 

The style of some of the illustrative elements of the video make me think of this iconic Sonic Youth album cover, the style of which is simple and 'messy'; its really appealing and possibly something to consider when illustrating myself.

This is the cover art for the album the song comes from. The bright colours and optical illusion style patterns suggest an alternate reality/trippy aesthetic. The design instantly draws you in and distinctively hints towards the style of music and positive feel to the songs.

My first experiment was to literally take the track itself and convert it into a visual. I used the mp3 of the song, converted into a RAW file and when opened in Photoshop this is what is created. The chaotic and hypnotising visuals are extremely relevent to the musical style and really interesting to look at.

I experimented further with the image, focusing in closer on parts and creating a vectored/clean image from this. 

The alternate of creating a vectored image was to embrace the blurred/pixelated nature of the image as a fuzzy mass of colours. I feel when you look at this image it moves around and almost looks liquid which is a really interesting and un-expected outcome.

This next experiment is based upon the storyline within the music video, the banana being a key element within this. 

These are some initial digital experiments, combining imigery from the music video, hypnotic (op art) style aesthetics and bright, bold colours.

This is a sketch done using the music video as a visual reference and the Sonic Youth album cover as a source of aesthetic inspiration. I feel its interesting and definitely eye catching (possibly due to its sexual/shock factor nature). 

~ Product Range Distribution - fanzines ~

An example of design for a cause and social change is the creation of fanzines by punks in the 70's.

The zines allowed the movement to share their music, opinions, fashion etc. The subculture was a tightly knit community that all shared similar views specifically politically and in terms of police power. 

The zines were mostly produced handwritten with cut out images and drawings; they were then mass produced using a photocopier as the most cost effective way of mass producing a publication. 

The cost effectiveness of my campaign will need to be considered in a similar way, charities can provide money for producing material but alone I am very limited by budget. One way I can produce cheap yet effective printed material would be to screen print my final outcomes; screen printing is far cheaper than digital and would portray and hand produced and personal feel to the work (which is appropriate due to the sensitive nature of the topic).

~ Secret 7 - John Lennon - final design ~

I began by drawing the couple together kissing; I felt this possibly shows too much of a happy moment and to be most effective the design needed to show the sadness behind the song. I wanted it to expose the issues we face and hurdles people need to overcome before the perfect world John Lennon imagined will be true.

 I sourced a film still showing Lexa's character in a much more emotive position. She's clearly in deep thought and upset. I illustrated this quite simple ensuring the emotions were clear on her face so this would be portrayed in the design. I imagine for this would be that if displayed people seeing the exhibition would recognise the character and further the overall campaign for LGBT representation. The design also features a tagline from the show/campaign 'we deserve better' this allows people who are unaware of the source and concept to search it and have a full understanding of its link to the song.

In this edit of the design I added in some raindrop/teardrop shapes to reinforce the sadness and emotion within the design putting it further in context. The colour blue was also chosen as its connotations are loneliness, sadness and melancholy. 

These are some more minimal edits of the design but I felt it needed a little more just to enhance the overall concept.

I appreciate that this design would not be appropriate for the design of a mass produced single for this song as its representative of the TV show. But in this context it fits perfectly; it's a chance to combine activism informed by the overall meaning behind the song and graphic design on display to the masses. Its an opportunity to speak to an audience that wouldn't usually appreciate the difficulties of LGBT representation within the media. I chose to add the blue background as it adds a boldness to the design and is relevant to the sad element within the illustration. It also links nicely to the original illustration that I mounted on paper; it makes it clear that its hand drawn giving it a heartfelt and personal touch.

~ Collaborative practice - fortune favours the brave - research ~

As I am the graphic designer out of our group it makes most sense for me to take responsibility for the overall identity and packaging design for the brief.

I began this task by doing some research into inspiring packaging solutions that capture attention and inspire people creatively (making them brave). One consideration I need to keep in mind when designing the packaging is the final production; it will be screen printed so to not overcomplicate things I will aim to stick to 2/3 colours maximum. 

- Clean and simple 

- Minimal amount of colour

- Appealing and fresh

- Not confusing and over complicated

- Informed and appealing patterns 

- Bright colours that capture the eye

- Clear brand with slight differences between variations

- Interesting net format

This design I found particularly inspiring as they've used icons to display the theme of the brand. This is a concept we could apply to our campaign by creating icons that express the brave/creative nature of the packages. 

It's also inspiring as they've used an overlay print technique that we could apply effectively by screen-printing the packaging. It's something that would be most effective when using this print method and would show off the hi-lights and nature of the ink.

Not Another Bill is a company that also offers a monthly subscription of well designed/aesthetically pleasing gifts/home objects. The subscription is definitely aimed at a design conscious audience that are creatively aware and looking for a certain aesthetic of gift. Considerations need to be made that the packaging for this is effective and appealing to the market; but our campaign outcome needs to stand out from this.

Effective example of illustrative artwork combined with branding to effectively package.

List of icons relevant to our campaign...
- Pencils
- Paintbrushes & paint pallet
- Print equipment
- Art equipment (relevant to the package contents)
- Hands
- String 
- Happy artist faces
- Calendar symbol
- Paint splashes
- Imagination bubbles/speech bubbles
- Scissors
- Mug of coffee

Simple example of vector style art supplies.

Our idea is to produce both illustrative hand crafted icons (by Jazz) and more simple vector icons (by me) that represent the contents and purpose of the box. These icons can then be overlaid on top of each other to effectively combine both styles and effectively create an appealing creative aesthetic. 

Example of a feel good, inspirational design; talks personally to the audience.

These are examples of packaging made up of separate bespoke sections. This is something that could be applied to our idea as each element of the subscription could be in a separate part and make up a bigger shape.

http://www.minieco.co.uk/paper-gems-new-templates/

Possible references to interesting nets for packaging.

~ Collaborative practice - responsive - Initial idea generation ~

We began our research by creating a mind map showing the deliverables, possible outcomes and possible target audience for the brief.

Our first decision on this was to have the target audience being college (and possibly high school) tutors for the benefit of the pupils. This decision was based on personal experience as I feel when I was at college bravery was never encouraged. Often digital work was the only thing that ever took place with no encouragement to leave the screen and physically try something new. This is something we will try combat within our brief; the aim being to get teachers delivering lessons teaching physical creative skills that are interesting and different for all.

Possible ways this could take form include -

- Interactive digital platform where lesson plans and tutorials can be delivered

- Book/zine series

- Events pack

- Campaign/lesson pack

- Inspiring film (alike the art documentary Made you Look)

We felt each decision we made for the design and outcome of the final product needed to be 'brave' in itself to further inspire the tutors to really push their students and inspire them. This lead us to the decision to create something physical rather than digital as its much more engaging with all involved. 

Our idea is to create a package for teachers (graze for art teachers); the pack will be a monthly subscription featuring a different 'lesson' or activity each time. Examples of activities include book binding, sculpture, printmaking etc. for the purpose of promoting learning new creative skills away from the computer screen. 

We want our pack to be screen printed, this again is more brave and hands on method of production than digital printing. It also reduces our production costs at the prototyping stage and allows us to explore a range of interesting stock choices (as you can screen print onto pretty much anything). 

Next we used the first idea of book binding to come up with a list of things that would be included within the pack. 

- Illustrated guide to the activity (make the most of Jazz's illustration skills and appeals to creative people on a visual level)

- Enough materials for the teacher to practice and demonstrate each technique to their class

- Stickers- to give out as encouragement for students (be brave)

- Theme cards

- Stock - for the front covers of the book (include a limited amount as we cannot provide the materials for the full class)

- Thread - its small so we could easily provide this as part of the pack 

- Poster encouraging bravery and showing the technique - this could be put on a classroom wall so students could do the activity again without the teacher going over it

This is an example of a Tate gallery teachers pack we found; as you can see the design is purely type, with no colour which is not very interesting and engaging. If the information given to the tutors is dull you cannot expect it to be translated to the students in an interesting way. We aim to introduce it to the tutors in a fun and colourful way in the hope it will brighten the students learning experience overall.

These are two examples of existing monthly subscription box's; Graze and Lucky Dip. They provide a small treat for people each month and are really popular. We basically want to take this concept and aim it at the target market of teachers in the creative departments.

The initial thought was to design a box pack in a similar form to that of Graze; but with added depth to allow for the mass of materials included within. 

But with further research into packaging nets we felt a more brave approach would be better informed by the brief so the use of a less common net is appropriate. We came across this triangle shaped box, its much more interesting than the standard rectangle and hopefully will encourage both tutors and students to think 'outside of the box'.

The next step was coming up with a name for our campaign we explored relevant words to the brief and the design decisions we had made so far...

- art

- design

- brave

- courage

- brave'art

- different

We came to decision that 'BRAVE' is a perfect solution for the name. It's short, snappy, easy to remember and directly informed by the brief/purpose of our product.

We explored some possible typefaces for the branding/logo of our campaign; it was important to choose something different that isn't overused within the creative industries. The experiments above are with the typefaces; Futura, Apercu, Cooper and Bluu. 

Then came the idea that the typeface and the format of the packaging could have some relevance to each other and the 'A' could appear as a triangle.

This lead us to this typeface; I personally designed this typeface which means it would be completely bespoke to our brand. It's an adaptation of Helvetica and was designed to show a tribal theme; the connotations of this typeface definitely are bravery making it a perfect and informed choice. 

I adapted my typeface using the letter 'V' and turning it upside down to create the 'A' character as a triangle so it becomes iconically linked to the packaging. The letter 'V' has then been standardised (back to Helvetica) so the triangle has maximum impact. The addition of the full stop within the title is also a conscious decision, it becomes much more of a bold statement; this is also the reasoning for the use of capitals it has more connotations of bravery than standard lower case type.