chalysefowlerdesign

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Week 13 - Flat Mag

Reflection

For our last assessment for projects this semester, we were tasked with completing a group project of a flat magazine with the title, The Wandering Eye. As there were no restrictions on the topic other than the title, we decided to go with one of the group members ideas of exploring secrets. We got to work deciding the types of articles we would write. Within our group of three, one of us wrote an article about the ‘psychology of secrets’, another wrote an article about the secret or hidden street art of Melbourne, and I wrote an article about the role of secrets in history and politics. 

I found writing my article to be relatively easy as modern history and political relations are both areas of interest for me and I was able to reference some of my prior knowledge, especially from a book I had recently read, The spy and the traitor by Ben Mcintyre, (based on a true story). 

I did find working in this group to be difficult as I felt like I was often pushing to get stuff done, having to explain basic adobe skills and ultimately doing a lot of work myself to get a result that I was happy with and that I felt would earn a high mark. I feel like we all worked fairly evenly in creating the content, but in terms of the layout and deciding what additional content we would need I felt like I had to do it or it wouldn’t get done. In the end, I understand that group projects are rarely easy and I am happy with the finished product and my contribution to the project. 

Lead-up work

Below is our initial colour scheme research, we ended up choosing the blue and maroon as we thought they would create interest, they also had the added benefit of creating black when combined. This image also includes some of the initial topic ideas I had. 

In the end we ended up choosing to stick to a monotone colour scheme, using black and a slightly brighter version of the red as the previous colours looked too dull.

Above is pictured the first layout I created, we were attempting to relate the visuals to the written content by depicting the streets of Melbourne, however, this resulted in a very unbalanced and overpowered layout.

A few weeks in I was practising some hand lettering in my free time and thought I'd hand-letter ‘the wandering eye’ just for fun, with no actual intention of using it on our mag. However, when talking to Christian the next day during our tute he suggested that the title should be more of a feature. I showed the group a photo of the hand lettering I had done, suggesting that maybe we should put it in for a moment just to see what it would look like. We all agreed that it worked really well in the space and decided to keep it there as the salient feature of our mag. 

A couple of weeks ago I was analysing our current design and felt that the ‘Lust’ font was not doing anything for the design, except perhaps cluttering it and making it difficult for a viewer the quickly read. I did some research and found a few opinions saying that Baskerville paired really well with ‘Mr Eaves Mod OT’ (the body text font). I thought I would test this out and was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked. I then suggested to the other group members that we should change the heading font to Baskerville which they agreed. 

We experimented with a few different swashes to add some depth to the layout, however, with Christians suggestion we decided that we could mostly solve this problem with some swashes as part of the lettering. This is what we did for our final design below. 

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Week 10 - Logo Design

This week we were tasked to create a logo for ourselves, following on from last week when we had to create a logo for a classmate. I had actually put a bit of work into creating my own logo earlier in the semester so below I have shown the process I went through to design it.

This is the first idea that I came up with, looking at it now I don’t think it is too bad, I definitely had concepts that were much worse. (I have also included the initial colour palette)

I decided that this logo was too blocky and would struggle if flattened to black and white. I then decided to change my colour palette and explore the idea of a circular logo as I like the way it can work to look like a stamp. 

Above was the first circular design I tried. I decided I liked the circular outer with the rough texture, but the text it the centre lacked purpose, partially due to a lack of hierarchy. I wanted to add something else within the circle, as well as apply a hierarchy to the text. Below is the next design I tried. 

Once again, this seemed to lack purpose and anything to draw attention to it. the underline felt like it was in the way and hindered the design. I then tried to work with some colour for some inspiration, although I knew that the final design needed to work in black and white. This is my final design below, where the leaf stem draws the eye towards the text and adds to the organic theme from the mood board. 

I think this logo design works well, but I’m not sure anymore that it completely reflects what I want my brand to be. After I’ve finished the assessments for this semester I will definitely be re-looking at my logo design to try and work to make a design that best reflects my work and the type of work I want to be doing. 

[chalysefowlerdesign]

Week 9 - Logo Design

This week we were tasked with interviewing a classmate about their logo design needs and creating a brief to then design a logo during class. 

I interviewed Genevieve and then created a logo for her design business, GCD Illustrations. She would need the logo for use on her blog, website, facebook page as well as art prints and greeting cards that she illustrates. 

These are some of my initial ideas below, which I began by thinking of before I opened my computer. 

Once I started working on my computer I worked on finding a suitable font to use for the design. I was also considering vectoring a more refined version of the lettering but I wanted to see what fonts I could find. 

I ended up finding a great font with a lot of alternates which is what I used for the final design, even though I experimented with a number of others, this was my final design. 

I’m actually pretty happy with this design, especially considering the time constraints, however, I do want to start making non-typographic logos too. 

[chalysefowlerdesign]

Week 8 - Reduction

This week we were tasked with representing the storyline of a movie of our choice using only four illustrated icons. I chose to represent Mission Impossible fallout (2018) with my icons. My final product is shown below. I found it was extremely difficult to choose what the four most important parts of the storyline were, and I feel like a lot is left out. But, I also feel that it does represent the movie somewhat accurately and follows a similar style. 

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Week 7 - Appropriation

This week we were presented with the task of appropriating an image or style to then apply to a t-shirt design. It was suggested that we could create a design to submit to a t-shirt design competition, run by Threadless.com. One of the upcoming competitions that interested me was ‘analog’ where the subject should be an analog object. 

I decided to complete an illustration of an analog sound desk as sound production is a topic that also interests me. I used an image from McHugh Hire, Canberra as a basis for my illustration. (https://mchughhire.com/sound-mixer-24-input-desk-behringer-qx2442usb-premium-audio-mixing-board-hire.html) It was necessary that I appropriated the image of the sound desk in order to ensure that the sizing of the sound desk features, and to meet the appropriation requirement of the brief. 

The image below is my final appropriation illustration on a mocked-up t-shirt.

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Week 6 - Advertising Poster - The Wandering Eye

This weeks task was to create a poster to advertise the upcoming magazine, The Wandering Eye. Ideally, the poster would make the viewer look twice as it should show a different perspective on an issue. 

I chose to show technology as cutting individuals off from the world, as opposed to opening them up to the world. I did this by showing a computer which hides the leaf behind it and causes confusion with the mountainous scene on the screen. This is backed up by the headline at the bottom of the poster which asks the question of the viewer. 

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Week 5 - Final Calendar Submission

This week is the final submission date for the first assessment this semester - the calendar.

I chose to focus on the theme of nature of my calendar on travel around the world. I wanted my calendar to be inspiring for the user to travel somewhere they may not have considered. Overall I think my calendar somewhat achieved this, however, I don’t think it is as educational as I originally had hoped. This was mostly due to the minimalistic styling I aimed for combined with the size of the calendar (A4) that is wasn’t realistic to include all the educational elements I had originally wanted. (as shown below)

Initially, my first sketches were of a more detailed style, however, I found that with my limited drawing skills I couldn’t achieve what I had pictured before I started drawing. I also found that I couldn’t mesh a minimal style with the detail I wanted in the sketch together effectively. The image below shows the second sketch I did where I tried to include a number of elements that represented different destinations. This could have worked if I’d used photographs and made a collage, but I left it too late and wanted to use only original work.

From here I then tried to digitalise my drawing attempt in the hope that I could achieve a more minimal aesthetic however, I disliked the design even more than I did when it was a sketch.

I started playing around with geometric shapes from here in an attempt to create something that I felt met the brief I set for myself. I also began to re-do my mood boards to better reflect the direction I wanted the calendar to take. I decided to do one mood board per month, within a larger mood board which would tie the calendar together.

From here I decided to try and represent the different locations from the images on the mood board using geometric shapes and colours inspired by the mood board.

For my final submission, I feel like it definitely could have used a fair bit more workshopping but I think it fills the brief in that it is inspiring for the user to want to travel. It is not as educational as I originally wanted but I think the small pieces of educational info about each area is somewhat useful to the user.

Below I have attached the final thumbnails of my final design along with a short rationale.

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Week 4 - Calendar Presentation

This week we had to present a short presentation to our tutorial group about our calendar progress. 

At this point I wasn’t too comfortable with my idea, I feel that it was a bit simple and I feel that the concept hasn’t translated well to the current design. 

Below are the slides that I presented that show my current progress. 

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Week 3 - Number Plate Fonts

The premise of this weeks task is how number plates must be designed to fill multiple requirements. Similar letters and numbers (e.g. O and 0) must be easy to tell apart at a glance. The whole font must also have very high readability from a distance. 

We had to design the letters for a numberplate - UON018

My design is below. 

I think that my numberplate would still need a lot of work before it would bee useful as a font for numberplates. 

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Week 2 - Grid Layouts

This weeks task was to practice making layouts with the assistance of a grid. We had to make two different layouts, mine are shown below.

Layout 1 (four-column)

Layout 2 (eight-column)

I was surprised at how easy I found it was to make a layout using the grid and I’m happy with the way that the layouts turned out. 

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1002 - Week 1 - Geometric Portraits

This week’s tutorial brief was to create 2 portraits using only geometric shapes. When I first considered doing the portraits I thought that despite not being great at drawing, using geometric shapes would make it a little easier. I’m not sure if it would have been easier to do a realistic portrait, but the geometric shapes were definitely still difficult.

For the first portrait, I chose to draw KJ Apa, an actor from New Zealand. This was when I realised just how difficult it would be to make the portrait resemble Apa at all. In the end I think people would be able to recognise it if I gave a lot of clues, but it’s not extremely obvious who it is. It looks more like a generic character. (The photo I used as a guide is below)

For the second portrait, I chose to draw Anne Hathaway. I thought this would have an advantage for the recognisability as more people would recognise her.  I wanted to really try and make this one resemble Hathaway. In order to do this I put an original image of Hathaway in a locked layer below where I was drawing, then proceded to draw the geometric shapes here. I feel that this worked much better and I am pleased with the final product. I feel as though people could look at it and recognise immediately who it is. Although I did use another image as a guide, I feel that if I or anyone was to do this type of art regularly it wouldn’t be ideal to have to use another image as a guide. 

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1001 - Week 13 - Final Chocolate Packaging Submission

This week I submitted the final design for the Chocolate Packaging for Bellinzona Chocolate. I have included the final dieline, mock-up and design statement below, as well as some of the moodboarding and element creation.

Design Statement

Bellinzona Chocolate is a chocolate brand that embodies the elegance and finesse of an exotic chocolate factory in Switzerland. I wanted the branding to embody the grandeur of the experience of eating this chocolate.

I chose the deep red for the base colour as I felt that it embodied the grandeur of the brand effectively. I wanted to pair this with some lighter colours in order offset the dark colour of the red as well as a metallic colour (featured within the pattern and the logo) in order to embrace the quality of the brand.

The pattern has been used as a representation of the feel of eating chocolate and provides an element of fun for the branding whilst still maintaining elegance.

I made two patterns that I was considering using within the final design. The first is the pattern that I used on my design as some bubbly shapes that loosely represent the joy of eating chocolate. The second was a subtle pattern that I was considering using as a low opacity pattern in the background of the red, however, once I had all the elements that I wanted in my final design, I felt like it hindered rather than helped the design.

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1001 - Week 12 - Prototyping and Finalising Design

This week I concentrated on finalising my design and prototyping it. 

After feedback from the presentation on Monday I decided that I was happy with the logo being just the singular B in foil. 

I decided on my final 3 flavours and chose the colours that I would use for each of them.

I have added more elements to the design such as net weight, chocolate percentage and copyright to make the branding look more realistic. 

I have included my current three package designs.

I printed these dielines out and made prototypes.

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1001 - Week 11 - Pattern Making and Branding

This week I focused on the creation patterns for my brand. These were a few I created in illustrator.

The first one is my favourite, and I will probably use it in my final design. 

I also considered a smaller pattern in the background to add some depth.

This week I started making some more refined package designs. I used the first pattern above on top of some of the colour swatches in my original moodboard to create some designs. 

I am not sure whether I will use the logo above or switch it to be just the B on its own in a foil texture.

This was the first dieline I created. 

I like this design, I do worry about the logo on the back that it’s too bold. I have also added a brand statement to explain to the consumer the history of the brand. 

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1001 - Week 10 - Logo Creation Continued

This week I furthered the branding from last week through the creation of some more logo ideas as well as the first pattern ideas. 

I made two more logo ideas this week, one using the idea of a flag as a symbol of royalty, and the second using the wall of a castle. I felt like each of these could be adapted to work in some situations but it didn’t fit the mood for my brand. 

Flag logo

Wall logo

I also started considering how I would like the packaging to look this week. These were a few of my ideas but none of them really fit the elegant look I wanted.

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1001 - Week 9 - Logo Brainstorming

This week I concentrated on the generation of possible logos. I wanted to encapture a sense of elegance and grandeur within the logo. I also considered building from the idea of the Castles that the town of Bellinzona and working some sort of castle feature into the logo. Here are a few of the possible designs I had. 

Firstly, I explored text that I could use in the logo. I downloaded a number of different fonts, however, the one I thought worked best was Tuesday Night, which is a free signature font that I found on Behance. 

I also explored some other fonts however none worked as well as Tuesday Night including Jinky and Volupta Script Pro.

I didn’t mind Jinky as the B but I didn’t feel like it fit the brand mood.

After I had decided on a font that I would use I then focused on designing the logo.

The first idea I explored was the idea of using a cone shape to represent the turret of a castle. I applied some effects to this shape and placed the B on top. I felt like this could have been a possibility but on packaging it was a difficult shape to fit aesthetically.

This week I’ve been able to further my brand vision through the font of the B as well as wanting to ensure the brand conveys a high-class aesthetic.

[chalysefowlerdesign]

1001 - Week 8 - Chocolate Branding Brainstorming

This week I am starting Assessment 3, where I need to design the branding and packaging for a chocolate brand. 

From my initial brainstorming, I am planning on creating the branding for a bar of elegant, high class chocolate. As far as the name of the brand, at the moment I am thinking of using the name of a Swiss town as the brand name, as I think that this could fit well with the current brand vision. From my initial searches of Swiss towns, the name Bellinzona stands out. This particular town is known for it’s 3 historical castles. I like that the town has this history as I think that helps contribute to the elegance and meaning of the brand even though the brand is new. 

I have created a mood board for my design, currently, some of the main features I would like to include are the greens and pinks, as well either gold or rose gold foil highlights. These have all been reflected in my mood board.