Studio Brief 03: Study Task 6.0

Binding Workshop

Binding methods mock ups

Figuring out which binding method your going to use for a publication can be really hard. Luckily for us we had a class in binding methods which was a good way for me to not only explore methods but also to try and make some myself.


Perfect binding

Perfect Binding is a widely used soft cover book binding method. With this binding method, the pages and cover are glued together at the spine with a glue. The other three sides of the book are then trimmed as needed to give them clean “perfect” edges.

To assemble a perfect bound book, you need to form a crisp block of paper. Then the spinal edge of this block is roughed up with blades or abrasives. This exposes more paper fibers and increases the bonding area for the glue. Glue is then applied along the roughed up edge of the first page. The cover of the book is then wrapped around the block of pages and it adheres to the glue along the spine. After the glue has cured, the three open edges of the book are trimmed as needed to give them nice clean edges. In picture 1 you can see the final result of a perfect bind.

Needle stitch

The needle stitch is also a widely used book binding method and can be combined with a hard or a soft cover. With this binding method, the pages are stitch together with a special kind of string.

To assemble a needle stitched you need to make three holes in the paper in the middle of your book. After doing that you can use a needle and some string to attach all the paper together. In Picture 3 you can see the final result of a needle stitch. 

After doing both methods and actually feeling what they are like I choose to do my own publication with a Japanese-String binding combined with a stock cover from G.F Smith. I choose for the hard cover so I can easily attach a polaroid to it without it falling out all the time.

Studio Brief 03: Study Task 5.0

Research

After the brief and selecting the right pictures to use for the publication, the start of research began. I went a day long visiting art & photography book stores in Leeds to see what is going on about type, layout, grid systems, photos, stock, printing, binding, audience and etc.

After a day full of inspiration I went home with a lot of pictures from different kind of art & photography book design. From now on I have good start where I know which way to go and experiment and what I definitely not want to do. From the knowledge that I have right now I'm sketching en experiment with grids and layouts, what is useful for my publication and what not, when express the pictures the most and when not.

Lay out design, landscape image use

 Image caption 

 Cover design (black on black printing)

Binding possibilities 

Studio Brief 03: Study Task 4.0

Cannons of page construction

A method of constructing a page, how structure can give order. Grid systems can be restrictive, and encourage laziness and are inappropriate in some circumstances and give inappropriate or untrue justification for something.


The Golden Ratio

'Divine Proportion' is supposedly the most appealing structure for aesthetics.
The maths to do the Golden Ratio is 100/1.618 = 61.80.

As a page layout not used so much but relevant for point sizes in type.
12pt for body copy and 19.4pt for potential pull out quote etc. Column sizes are also to the ratio.

After drawing Divine Proportion a few times I also tried to apply them on some pictures (portrait and landscape) in a magazine.

van de Graaf

The maths to do the van de Graaf is 2:3.
Compositions are defined by the corners of the 'bow tie' section

Justify your own approach to page construction, does it use a canon? what does it relate to? how will the target audience identity or receive it.

Studio Brief 03: Study Task 3.0

Brief "Type in context"

Based on your primary research exploring type in a specific geographic context, you will produce a publication entitled "Type in context: (name of place)". Through the summer task you will have collected numerous images and written copy about uses of typography in your local area. This content will then be used in your publication.
Your publication will feature images and text related to typography and will be printed and bound to high standard. Your publication will be positioned as an "art & photography" book therefore considerations should be made to target audience when designing your publication. The size, format and number of pages are entirely your choice.
Editorial design and binding is something that you already have some experience of therefore this assignment will give you the opportunity to build on what you have already learned about this area.


Background/Considerations

This is a 4 week assignment therefore you will be expected to produce a very well developed, polished piece of graphic design. Make use of your time carefully in order to ensure that your publication is the best it can be.

Content considerations:
- Research - art & photography books, grid systems, audience
- Experiments, developments, evaluate
- Type and layout
- Photo quality / editing
- Preparing your document to print
- Production considerations:
- Stock
- Print method
- Binding method
- Mock ups / experiments (evaluate)
- Finishes
- Commercial considerations vs. access to resources
- Preparing documents to be sent to print - any considerations in regards to print methods (digital or offset)
- Understanding colour/ink and related standards and systems (CMYK, Pantone, etc.)
identifying spot colour, spot varnish, die cut, emboss, and other finishes in digital art work ready for print
what printers will be expecting - marks, bleeds, etc.


Deliverables

1. Finished publication
2. Studio practice blog
3. Design boards
4. Any mockups / experiments
5. Evaluation (500 words)

After reading this brief

The brief is quite understandable and clear after reading it. I took some pictures back in The Netherlands but they were not really in a context as the brief asks for. My opinion after seeing the other classmates pictures mine pictures I took are a little boring for a good publication.

So I decide to take some new pictures here in Leeds near where I live at the moment, Kirkstall Road. The experience of walking by Kirkstall Road in Leeds is like cold and chilly, not from the weather but from the atmosphere. It's almost a tragic experience. The design that is used for the shop signs are tasteless like the food what you can buy here. If you walk through it you'll get the idea that you automatically have blinders on. The hustle and bustle of the traffic jam is very noteworthy despite that you unconsciously ignores.

Studio Brief 03: Study Task 1.0

Blogging for level 5


In todays lesson about blogging, the most important lessons learned was;


- Write in third person (it, is, it does, the effects of which are…).Talk about your work with

   confidence as if it is a “matter of fact”.
- Don’t make design decisions based on preferences or aesthetic comparison.
- Only use objective justifications for your decisions – cultural, contextual, audience, 

   communication, primary research, literature.
- Critical justifications.
- Take care when using text from other sources –paraphrasing is always better but 

   otherwise quotes must be referenced.

"Blog with purpose – don’t waste time over filling with unnecessary or uncritical details."

OUGD504 Studio Brief 02 ST 3.0

Icon concept 

When the right shape was found for the icon of the brand, the mission goes on to found the typeface that is most effective to combine perfectly with the icon. Down below there is a selection of some typefaces that could represent the experience of drinking coffee, this could represent flavour and simplicity.

Color research

What noticed was that the color of all coffee logos have an association with the smell, the color and the taste of coffee. This has an impact to associate with the experience of drinking a nice cup of quality coffee.

The research for fairtrade, biologic and health logos is similar the color use for coffee logos. The most of the logos from the research are in two-tone designed, green and white. The color use look very confident and genuinely.

From the color research that is shown above there are two final outcomes that are used for the logo design. The first color combination is more the experience of drinking coffee and the second color combination is representing the fairtrade experience.

Brown/ creme: the color of the experience of drinking a nice cup of quality coffee.

Green/ white: the color of recycling, biologic, confidence and genuinely.

OUGD504 Studio Brief 02 ST 2.0

First I wrote down the mainly information about the C2cup, so I had an overview and from there I could figure out the right audience for this product. The main audience are modern people who loves coffee and are on their way to work or to uni and represent biocomposite/ recycling and fair-trade. They haven't got any competitors, cause they have a really unique product. So I looked up to retail stores that could collaborate with C2cup. The company who would fit in the best with this target audience is Starbucks, 9 out of 10 people who goes to Starbucks are on their way to something like work or uni and they pretent they are fairtrade.  

With the sketches for the logo design the outcome was mainly a combination a typeface with icon based. Because the product is a modern and unique that haven’t got an image yet has to be an apparent image. To achieve the recognition for this logo, the name has to be readable and presence of simplicity. 

The round shapes of the letter C and the number 2 are equal and symmetric. This has an advantage on designing the simplicity of an icon. To experiment and transform the two shapes it can be transformed in to one shape. The outcome of this shape has to visualise a couple of experience, love for coffee, recycling of bio composite, represent fairtrade and the kind of sense of infinity of using.

OUGD504 Studio Brief 02 ST 1.0

For my first task I looked through Kickstarter projects to find something that's related to a category, the most I found attractive was Technology. I found a project that related to my interest,  coffee. It's a coffee cup made from coffee, and they haven't got a logo. 

C2renew has created biocomposites for many different customers, across a lot of different industries but the c2cup is the first thing created 100% for us. When their co-founders thought about one of their favorite things - coffee- and brainstormed ideas on how to use coffee in new and innovative applications the idea of a coffee cup made from coffee sprouted and the c2cup was born.

Designing the c2cup
Once they decided they wanted to create the c2cup, they had to come up with a design that would work with pre-existing stainless steel inserts.  So a lot of time was spent on Solidworks designing the c2cup until we finally arrived at a cup design that worked well.

The Coffee Biocomposite

To develop the cup, they created a new biocomposite formulation which is a hybridization of a bio-based resin and coffee waste. This coffee biomass not only results in a greener plastic, it also cuts down on cost while maintaining the desired mechanical properties.

To ensure that our material was well suited for the high temperatures of coffee and dishwashers, we moved away from using a composite meant for 3D printing. To prove their material would withstand everyday use they did extensive testing and developed sample plaques to show the mugs texture.

Developing the c2cup

Once they had the biocomposite and cup design, they wanted to develop a proof of concept cup so they used our coffee biocomposite to make 3D printer filament and printed the 1st coffee cup. 

After the success of our 3D printed cup they decided that an injection molding tool would be necessary if they wanted to produce a high quantity of c2cups. Since their last Kickstarter (aside from the continued materials development) they worked with a rapid injection molding company that specializes in molding smaller items. This allows them to have the lowest cup production cost and hopefully, with audience help, a successful Kickstarter so that they can begin producing c2cups for everyone.

OUGD504 Studio Brief 02

Studio Brief

Kickstarter is a web service for 'crowd funding' projects, products and businesses. Members of the public can pledge money towards projects ranging from music to technology to food. Your assignment for this week is to produce a logo design for a Kickstarter project of your choice. You will also consider and plan various branding strategies for your chosen project showing how your logo will enforce this brand.

Your logo will incorporate your knowledge of the project and it's creators having fully researched its origin. You will also consider carefully the market and or social context to which it belongs (e.g. music genre, locale, etc.).

Once you have developed and designed an effective logo you will demonstrate how this will appear on at least 2 deliverable elements (e.g. Poster, packaging, CD, advert, website, etc.).

Background/ Considerations

There are many variations and contradictions about what makes an effective logo and 

of course these wil change depending on what or who the logo is for. Therefore it is 

important to commit to research about logo design as well as contextual aspects related to 

the project / product itself.

What is branding? When presenting and submitting your work you must show evidence 

that you have considered possible branding strategies for your chosen project.

An effective logo must be able to work in the various branding contexts of a company or 

organisation therefore you must show that you have applied your logo to at least 2 

deliverable elements (these could be print or digital).

Mandatory Requirements

All research, development, experiments and decision-making should be documented in 

your studio practice blog with clearly labelled posts.

Your design boards must include: summary of research, evolution of design ideas, final 

design, branding considerations, logo placed on deliverable elements.

All submitted work including your blog should be clearly labelled. Mislabelled or confusing 

work may result in depleted marks.

Your work must be accompanied by an evaluation of at least 500 words.

Deliverables

1. A final logo design for your chosen project including images of your logo placed in

    various contexts.

2. Design boards

3. Studio practice blog

OUGD504 Studio Brief 01 ST 3

Final outcome with the feedback from tutor and classmates.

OUGD504 Studio Brief 01 ST 2.1

I wanted to design the infographic for the poster. The infographic is pretty abstract and dynamic visualised. The information of the 7 stages of the design process is on the other side of the folder. This is an addition of the contents of the infographic.