OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - Second Crit

I took these designs to my second group crit:



Feedback:

- People liking the new colours, much more appropriate

- Better image used

- Nice layout with circle

- Use of hospital gown pattern really interesting

- Make Channel 4 less obvious - other ways to reference television programme

- Play button? Play bar like on Netflix?

- Use TV glitch/standby screen as reference - experiment

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - Further Development

Following the feedback from the group crit, I decided to try my shortlisted poster designs on different colour backgrounds in order to remove the harshness of the white.

I stuck with the green and blue colour scheme and used a simple blocked-out background, but I felt this definitely wasn't working and I didn't like the images laid over the top of the colours - it didn't look right.

My next thought was something someone had suggested in the crit - I could print onto a hospital gown? This led me to think about the pattern on hospital gowns, so I did some quick research into this. Copying the two most traditional hospital gown prints, I created a vector pattern swatch of each.

I tried this as a background for my print but it was too dark and was taking away from the rest of the information. I tried it in a lighter opacity but I also thought this looked a bit naff and didn't have the effect I had hoped.



I came to the conclusion that I think the colour scheme was my main issue. It was making the posters too clinical and harsh and it was too much like a flyer. I also thought the image of the crying baby was almost adding a negative vibe.

I started to look at some other images:

        

I definitely feel these images would be more appropriate as they are softer and friendlier and do not show a baby in distress!

Looking at the image of the baby's lips, I had the idea of using a soft peachy skin tone within my designs. I made a swatch of this and decided to combine it with blue, but a softer one to the previous swatch I was using. I felt this colours were a lot gentler and almost reminiscent of a baby's nursery/clothing.




I found these posters on Pinterest and I really liked them, I thought the layout was cool and something I could potentially use. Inspired by these, I decided to use a similar layout for my own development.





I started off using the same elements and layout as my previous designs, but with a different image and colours. Immediately I preferred these and felt like they better put across the message I was after. After some playing around, I decided to experiment with the poster layout I had found on Pinterest and use it in my own way. I have played around with putting the hospital gown print in the circle, which is something I really quite like. I am excited to develop these further after getting feedback from my next crit!

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 03 - Charles and Isla End of Year Show Branding

-Feedback harsher from working professional.

-Fulfill need of the client first and foremost

-Engage visitors

-Create something we're proud of,

-Innovative, creative, eye catching.

-Looked at previous LCA shows - minimal clean design. Corporate? Too clean - not art collegey - not everyone clean and minimal, everyone different - does not represent college as a whole

-Looked at photography and clean type - middle ground between what you want and what LCA will like.

-Too literal using objects - don't want something too obvious

-Name needs to connect to visuals/idea.

-Conceptual design rather than literal.

-Student centered. Creative communities. Critical thinking. Professional. Progressive.

-Everything you put in needs to have concept behind it. Can't just put in because you like it.

-"Extraordinary" - straight to the point, bold. Experience, people, ideas, fun, memories, work.

-Hierarchy of information - what goes where.

-Take risks - go for something people will remember. Weird and out there.

-Colours - brand guidelines - why and what reasons.

-Mock up ideas to help people visualize.

-Show how to work in different concepts.

-Nike Air Max Day Adverts.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - 5 Shortlisted Poster Designs

I took these five shortlisted poster designs to a group crit to receive some feedback.

People were really keen on the idea behind the posters and felt that me having a personal connection to this made them more interesting and in turn helped my work become more refined. People said it was great to see me doing something that I can really relate to.

People said that the colour scheme was cool but perhaps just a bit too clinical  - there were suggestions of softening up the overall aesthetic.

The photograph of the corridor was unpopular and people said it was perhaps a bit scary!

There was an extremely mixed opinion from the people in the crit as to which was their favourite design - everyone said a different one!

There were suggestions of printing onto a different coloured background that would help reduce the harshness of the design, or maybe even printing onto something like a hospital gown!

People also said the blue photograph of the baby was better as it looked less distressed/not as teary!

Following this feedback I am going to review my designs and push them as far as they can go.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - Design Development

I wasn't too keen on my initial design ideas and felt I was at a dead end so I chose to take an entirely different approach to the work, using One Born Every Minute as my focus.

I started by looking at newborn baby photography - I manipulated the images in Photoshop using traditional medical style colours.

      

       


Using the typography I had created earlier, I began to play around with layout, placing the text on top of the images etc. I experimented with the sizing and positioning of the text and how it worked in conjuction with the imagery.





I chose to keep a clean white background to allude to the crisp clinical setting of hospitals and kept to the stereotypical medical colour palette.



I quite like the aesthetic of these designs and their clinical and contemporary edge, so I would like to develop these further and shortlist a few designs.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - Initial Design Ideas

To start my initial design process, I began with the NHS logo. I wanted to stick with this to show pride in our NHS and to credit them for the amazing work they do. I also chose to initially work with the NHS colour scheme as I felt this was relevant to the context.

I began by looking at basic hospital equipment and how I could use the objects to form a pattern or composition. I looked at some vector imagery of these items in an illustrative style which was something I quite liked. I played around with blocking and masking them out of shapes and colours to see how they changed. Whilst I liked the simplicity of these designs, I felt they were a bit too literal and basic. I then started to experiment with the NHS typeface, which I discovered through research is Frutiger. I chose a few key words to experiment with, including the original opening date for the hospital.





I also did a few hand-drawn sketches of the objects but I wasn't too keen on these.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - One Born Every Minute Research

Following my research into LGI, I discovered that the popular Channel 4 programme One Born Every Minute was filmed in the Leeds hospital in 2013.

I decided to do some research further into this. Working on the maternity wards myself, this is something that took my interest in particular and I felt I could work with this by using my own personal experiences as well.

"One Born Every Minute hits screens tomorrow (Jan 2) and this time will show babies being born at both Leeds General Infirmary and St James’s Hospital.Previously only the city centre hospital has featured on the Channel 4 programme. But for the second series filmed in Leeds, cameras are following expectant mums at both maternity units as mums are sometimes sent between them if one is full. Producers said on the busy wards it sometimes felt like one baby was being born every 30 seconds, rather than every minute.A spokeswoman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We hope the public enjoy seeing the inside workings of our busy maternity service for a second year running.“This programme gives a real insight into the joys and challenges our staff face on a daily basis.“Reaction to the first series was extremely positive and this year a wider team will be featured.” "

"Programme-makers Dragonfly wanted to film in a busy maternity ward and were delighted with the reception in Leeds.Assistant producer Emma Jones told the YEP afterwards that both the television team and ward staff enjoyed the experience.“We were so welcomed by the team at the unit. Neither they nor us wanted us to leave at the end of filming,” Ratings for the series also peaked at five million viewers, the highest ever for the programme. The cameras returned to Leeds last autumn to follow a whole new set of families, including some using the hospital’s new active birth equipment.A spokesman for Channel 4 said: “Our cameras follow mums between the two hospitals as the midwives juggle the load and do all they can to stop the whole city closing its doors to mums in labour.”"

"How the show is filmed

One Born Every Minute is a first of its kind in capturing the many different perspectives within a room as labour and birth takes place. Because the cameras are rigged and fixed at different points in the room they are uniquely placed to capture both the mother and the father or partner’s point of view, or the mother and midwife’s, simultaneously. In traditional filming this could only occur if there were multiple camera crews, which is not practical or appropriate within the confined spaces of a labour and birth room.

The experience of labour and birth is so emotionally charged that the ability to capture every detail of an experience in this way makes for compelling television. The lack of a crew means that the viewer is in the privileged position of sharing this most personal experience without being obtrusive.

Forty remotely operated fixed cameras were rigged in different locations around Southmead Hospital in Bristol (series 5 and 6), Leeds General Infirmary (series 3 and 4) and Princess Anne Hospital, Southampton (series 1 and 2), and kept in place over three and a half weeks. Because the cameras were fixed there was no need for a camera crew, and the footage from each camera was fed directly to an outside unit where a team of producers and directors were on shift 24 hours a day. Cameras covered a range of locations from the labour and birth rooms, to the reception area, and the corridors. In addition there were single handheld cameras to follow the action beyond the rigged area."

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - LGI Research 2

Leeds General Infirmary, also known as the LGI, is a large teaching hospital based in the centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and is part of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Its previous name The General Infirmary at Leeds is still sometimes used.The first hospital known as Leeds Infirmary was opened in 1771 on what is now the site of the former Yorkshire Bank in Infirmary Street off City Square, Leeds. Notably, the founding five physicians at the infirmary were all graduates of the University of Edinburgh Medical School. Construction of the current hospital on its new site in Great George Street started in 1863 to the designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott.

LGI is one of the leading centres in the UK for neurosurgery, and one of 10 centres in the UK for Paediatric cardiology. It has a rooftop landing pad for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance Service.

In 2010, all children's emergency services were moved to a dedicated children's emergency department at LGI, which has meant that the emergency department at St James' Hospital is now only for adults.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - LGI Research

Welcome to Leeds General Infirmary

Right in the heart of the city, Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) has been saving lives for nearly 250 years. 

It is also a specialist regional centre for a number of complex conditions, as well as providing many general acute hospital services such as an A&E department, intensive care, state of the art operating theatres and a high-tech high dependency unit.  

It brings together many of the country's leading experts in caring for patients with serious brain injuries, heart and lung problems and major trauma, A helicopter deck on the Jubilee Building has seen thousands of flights by the Yorkshire Air Ambulance bringing sick patients from all across the Yorkshire region and beyond to be treated by experts at LGI.

What we do

As one of the country's leading teaching hospitals, Leeds General Infirmary has an international reputation for its expertise in a range of specialist services for which the hospital is a regional centre.

Central to the site is the Jubilee Building, which contains many services dedicated to helping critically-ill patients including those with major trauma, brain injury and heart attack.

The hospital has a large and busy Accident and Emergency department for adults, and next to it is a separate dedicated facility catering for children up of the age of 16, adjacent to the facilities of Leeds Children's Hospital to ensure seamless care for youngsters.

The hospital also has one of the best-known maternity units in the country thanks to its exposure on the award-winning Channel 4 series One Born Every Minute.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - Initial Ideas

For our next brief, we  have to create an A3 poster using traditional print methods. The poster has to be celebratory and be regarding an event or occurence in Leeds that has helped shape the city.

My first initial thoughts were to look at the Leeds Indie Food Festival or the Leeds Loves Food festival as food is definitely something I am interested in and it would certainly engage me!
After some research I began to go off the idea a bit and felt it was too generic.

Following a bit more thinking, I decided that I would use my own personal experience of working in a hospital and somehow base my poster around this. I work at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield as a Ward Assistant, doing a variety of jobs ranging from cleaning, to serving the meals, to helping patients with their general welfare. I work on a variety of different wards so I get to see a large variety of things and different people from various walks of life!

I have thought about basing my poster on the LGI - Leeds General Infirmary - and celebrating the ways it helps the people of Leeds on a daily basis. I want to look at the opening of the hospital and celebrating the fact that it has nearly been open for 250 years!

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 02 - DR.ME Workshop

In today's workshop with DR.ME, we had to create a short gif using collage materials based on a word we were given.

Mine and Lucy's word was 'cabal'. The word has a few different definitions, from 'a secret political clique or faction' to 'a clique, as in artistic, or literary' to 'a group of people who plan to take action'.

Looking at our source material we had to create the collage, we decided to create gif based around parkour and the parkour community/group.

We used a variety of different scenes and placed them together in one long strip. We then took a small man who we had found photos of in an article about parkour and cut him out, arranging him so he appeared to be jumping through the scenes. We took pictures of the man at various positions in order to create a sequence.

Overall we were really happy with the final result - the gif looked effective and it appeared as if the man was taking a long jump through the different settings!

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 01 - Minor Adjustments

Following peer feedback from the final group crit, I have made some minor adjustments to my final design so it is ready for submission.

I have changed the placing of the book title so that it is closer together rather than spread widely across the 4 lines. I think this looks more refined and professional and adds extra breathing room to the front cover.

I have also swapped round the author's name with the Daily Mail quote - I feel this looks better as the author becomes more important and noticeable, with the less important information sitting at the bottom of the page. This works more harmoniously as an overall composition.

I have changed the typeface from Helvetica Condensed to Arial in a variety of weights. I think this looks better with the handwritten type and also has a more contemporary and professional feel.

The handwritten style has now also been used on the spine instead of the Arial typeface, which has helped each part of the cover tie in together properly. Because the spine is the first part of the book people will see in a shop, using the handwritten style will also make it intriguing for the reader. I have moved the author's name on top of the collage as I was struggling for room with it below. In order for it to be clearly visible I have had to change the colour to white. I quite like this as it helps separate both the book title and the author's name.

Overall I am happy with my final book cover design. I think it is effective in both engaging a young teenager audience as well as being nostalgically appealing to the adult/parent audience. If I had more time I would have modified the collage slightly so that it was more loosely done and had a few more collage-like elements such as ripped paper etc. I think this would have added to the design but was too difficult to do in the short time space. If I get shortlisted for the competition this is something I would definitely look into doing.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 01 - Final Evaluation

 Following a group crit, I have received feedback on my final design.

There were lots of comments saying that my typeface chosen did not work well with my handwritten style. It was said that my handwritten typeface was very suitable and relevant for the audience and context, but the partnering typeface needed more consideration.

People also mentioned me using the handwritten style type down the spine - this would help tie all three elements of the cover in together as one. There was also a mention of putting the authors name up with the book title to avoid cluttering down below but I'm not sure it would fit - this is something I would have to play around with.

There were also many comments on how the collage could look messier and less refined - it could have more of a childlike style and look less thought out. Using less care when cutting out the images, leaving rough edges or torn bits of paper would look more appropriate for the age and context. To solve this I would like to add a few rougher style elements to the collage such as some ripped paper behind the main imagery etc.  Somebody said that the collage looked a bit flat which I totally agree with - I need to add something that will give it a more 3D element.

One of the comments mentioned that the background was boring and could be made more exciting. I didn't personally agree with this and I feel a busier background would take away from the collage and make it less of a focus. I liked the paper/card style background as it alluded to the element of a diary/handmade.

Someone also mentioned about me using black tape to cover Noddy instead of masking tape as Adrian actually painted him black in the book. I did think about this originally but I wanted you to still be able to see Noddy coming through slightly and using black tape would have blocked him out entirely.

I plan on making some small aesthetic changes to my design before submitting to the competition.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 01 - Typographic Development

I have decided to have my collage spanning across both the front and back cover to add an element of continuity and unite both sides of the book.



I have left room to the left of the back cover for the blurb.

I started playing around with my own hand-drawn type for the book using the Wacom tablet. I wanted to create a typeface that would look like a 13 year old had drawn it, without being too obvious or childlike.



I personally preferred the typefaces drawn in capitals as I feel it was more boyish and relevant to Adrian's age. It also worked better with the collage when placed on the cover with the image.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 01 - Collage Development

I started playing around with the glasses and placing the collage behind these as a metaphor for 'seeing into Adrian's world'. I really liked this idea and began to experiment with layout on a book cover. I used a handwritten style typeface to represent the diary style.





Unfortunately I discovered that Adrian Mole does not actually wear glasses - it was a misinterpretation included in the TV series. Apparently Sue Townsend was not happy with this so I have chosen to remove glasses from my designs.


I experimented further with collage and began to include illustrated elements. I wanted the collage to appear as if Adrian could have made it himself with magazine cut-outs etc. I used tape to black out Noddy and drew devil horns on Thatcher.

I have also discovered Adrian Mole does not wear glasses and that it was a misconception, so I have removed these from my designs.



Below is the final collage I have chosen to use on my book cover.

I have included pen drawn illustrations along with paper cut outs to emulate a collage that could have been created by Adrian himself. I am happy with the overall result of this and feel it is effective and relevant to the context of the book.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 01 - Collage Creation

Following on from my previous idea, I decided to create a photographic collage of all Adrian's likes/dislikes and things from the book.

I used imagery specifically from the 80s so that it stayed relevant to the context and time the book was written. This will also appeal to the 'parents' side of the audience as they will be intrigued by imagery from their 'hey day' as such.

I chose to create the collage in colour so that it was engaging and attractive, helping it to stand out on a bookshelf.

I experimented with layout, moving the elements round in order to see how they worked together.

Personally I prefer the second collage (right) as it works better as a longer layout rather than clumped together.

 



I also played with having Noddy as the centre of the collage and the other elements emerging from him. I did like this layout but wasn't keen on having something as the main focus in the centre.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 01- Initial Ideas

I started by making a note of Adrian's moles likes and dislikes, along with other references from the book.

- Likes ABBA and wears flares
- Hates Margaret Thatcher (calls her the devil)
- Tries to paint over Noddy wallpaper in bedroom
- Wears glasses

I collected some vector imagery of these things and began to play around with layout. I also looked at just using the pair of glasses as a metaphor for 'looking into Adrian's world'.

OUGD406 - Studio Brief 01 - Study Task 03 - Typographic Treatment

I have created 3 different typographic treatments for my book cover layout. I have played around with format and layout to see how each cover works in multiple ways.

The typeface I chose to use was a handwritten style font called Colours of Autumn. I felt this was appropriate for Adrian's age and character but I also think it was not legible enough. I used Futura Heavy Oblique as the secondary font but I also felt this did not fit with the handwritten style very well. I would prefer to use a font that is a bit lighter and clearer.



For my first layout I chose to place the book title at the top of the page and the author's name at the bottom. The word 'angst' is to represent the image, with the review quote underneath. I feel this is the most typical layout and I wanted to try the most basic option. I have also arranged the blurb very straightforward on the back cover with it covering the whole page. I do like this layout and feel it is easy to read due to it's simplicity, but I feel I could be more experimental with it.



I switched it round for my second book cover and chose to have the author's name at the top. I quite liked this as it made the author a more important factor. I also placed the book title underneath the image slightly to the left to allow for more breathing room. I particularly liked having the quote at the bottom of the page as I felt it looked best here. I wasn't too keen on the back cover layout - I put the diary extract on one side and the blurb to the right. I felt this looked too disjointed and didn't flow how I had imagined it to.



For the third book cover I designed something completely different, with both the author and book title at the top followed by the quote, and the image towards the bottom half of the page. I didn't particularly like this layout and felt it looked too squashed towards the top of the page. I did like the back cover though - I seperated the diary extract and the blurb into two parts which made it clearer and easier to read.