Can I have a minute?

When tinkering with something as specific as letterforms, kerning, widows and the like, the only satisfaction is viewing the final thing and seeing no further improvements to make.

Unfortunately, that point never comes - we only ever get to the point where we say "Yeah, it's pretty good, and that's where I'll leave it". Never satisfied.

Anyway, I'm rather sick of looking at these, so you can look at them instead.

If you've no idea what they're about then look here. Don't try and read the type, it's latin (although I may have left the word "phallus" lurking about in there somewhere...).

I wanted chapter 2 to visually link in, and achieved this with use of a signature colour, a similar bookended approach, and similar typographic features. I decided to slightly change the pace by using more imagery in chapter 2 - this keeps it from looking too stagnant (or at least that's the plan!).

Right, there's one battle fought and won - the weapons for my second battle may or may not include the following instruments: spray mount, a scalpel, and a strongly-worded email to the people who provide the toner in the Uni printers.

Chugging away

We've all been there - you're trying to get to where you're going down the high street, and you can't walk five steps without the man in the red coat stopping you. You know the one - he carries a clipboard, pushes his face right in front of yours, and won't take no for an answer.


A writer in the Metro a few years back coined the term "chuggers" - a combination of "charity" and "muggers", as what they appear to do is forcibly take money of people in the name of charity. Anyone who has ever visited Wolverhampton will probably know that here it is a problem more prevalent than in a lot of places. When our editorial piece was to be on "social, political or economical issue" in the city, then, it didn't take me long to decide on this as the topic to design for.


Three double-page spreads were wanted for the problem we were dealing with, and three were wanted for our response, or a potential solution. Each set of three was to contain between 2,500 and 3,000 words of body copy. I've mostly designed chapter 1:

The red mirrors the mental image we have of the man I mentioned earlier. Plenty of charities use it as their primary colour - it's distinctive and bold, as well as iconic. I wanted to book-end the piece with the large red pages at either end to ease the transition from chapter 1 to chapter 2, and also to keep the design from looking too similar throughout. This way, the central spread is more of interest due to the photograph.


I need to start designing chapter 2 now. Hmmm, solutions to chuggers...? Should be fun.

Out of Logos Cometh Animation

I promised (what an anti-climax) to post my finished logo animation, so here it is.

The logo was a simple concept (see here), so the animation was made simple too. The three-tone sequence was chosen to mirror the three coloured strokes, along with the three words in the strapline. I'm no sound technician though, so don't judge on the quality of the sounds themselves - they more give an indication as to the kind of jingle which would accompany the movement.

Out of Darkness Cometh Logos

The organisation at Uni never fails to amaze me. Upon enrolling on the "Applied New Media" module I was reassured that there would be no clashes in me taking this module along side the others, despite me being the only student in that module not taking a year-long Graphics module alongside it. I was keen to do the module, as it dealt with things I hadn't ever looked at, and hadn't really been given the chance to until now.

Our first brief? To animate a logo. Brilliant, I thought - what kind of logo were they looking for us to animate? Only the logo the rest of the group would be creating in the year-long module I was not a part of.

Not to worry though (and apologies for those who I've confused with my description of our confusing Uni module-ing system), as I was able to knock up a logo with some time to spare. The logo was to be a corporate design for the city of Wolverhampton.

Treating Wolverhampton as a product to be marketed was not an easy task - as anyone who has visited may be willing to testify. But, for what Wolves lacks in immediately engaging beauty, it makes up for with the quality of the people. Wolves is a diverse place, full of a variety of ethnicities, religions, and classes, and what's struck me more and more as I live within the city is the striking way in which this does not seem to cause division. All told, there's a fairly unified spirit within the area - which has helped the city to grow.

Anyway, sociology aside, that's where my design started, and it was realised via the use of strokes which not only overlap, but strive in a similar direction. Different colours were used to signify the diversity in the city.

I'm not expecting any phone-calls from the council with monetary offers, but I reckon this logo will be good enough to showcase the small amount of Flash knowledge I've picked up over the last few weeks. 

Snark Hunting

The illustration module I'm doing this year is a year-long brief in which we will produce (after roughs, storyboards etc.) a full-colour dummy book for children. We were to choose either an existing tale in the form of story, song poem or legend, or we were free to write our own. The narrative should be designed to run over 13 double-page spreads.

I umm-ed and ahh-ed over where to find my story from, and eventually stumbled across this brilliant source. I've always loved Lewis Carroll's playfulness with words, and the way in which his tales and poems instantly spark the imagination into working - it's impossible to read any of his work without seeing images running through your head.

The poem I have chosen to adapt is "The Hunting of the Snark" which you can find in full here. It's quite lengthy, but well worth a read if you appreciate nonsense and a playfulness with rhythm and prose. The below illustrations by Tove Jansson are a lovely introduction to some of the characters.

We were asked to write a synopsis of the story we would be re-creating so I wrote this: 

"The original is split into eight “fits” or chapters. Each four-line verse within the fits has a rhyming pattern where the third line rhymes with the first, and the fourth with the second. It is written in a playful way, but there is a darkness lurking in the form of the Snark throughout.

We are introduced to a ship's crew of ten, who arrive in a place which is “just the place for a Snark”. We are informed that their aim is to capture the creature, as “you may serve it with greens,/And it's handy for striking a a light.” On arriving, the Bellman (the character clearly in charge) tells the rest of the crew the different signs to look for in a Snark. The Baker also shares a tale told by his uncle – a tale about the danger of “Boojum Snarks”, for when one of these is encountered you will “softly and suddenly vanish away”.

The crew set out to hunt – two characters (the Beaver and the Butcher, who before this event do not get on) explore a valley and come across a Jubjub bird. The Beaver manages to save them, with a strange combination of mathematics and a knowledge of natural history. During the hunting, the Barrister falls asleep and dreams of a strange scenario involving the Snark, a pig, and a court hearing. Finally, the Banker is attacked by a Bandersnatch and loses his sanity – despite trying to pay the creature off. The Baker then disappears off ahead, and the others follow after. They hear him yell “It's a Snark! It's a Boo-” and then silence falls. The suggestion that the Snark he encountered was in fact a Boojum is confirmed by Carroll at the end of the poem.

This story will be edited down so as to form a children's story – elements such as the Barrister's dream, and several of the ten characters will be cut out. The story will still be coherent, carrying the essential elements of the hunting, the encounters with the Jubjub and the Bandersnatch, and the disappearance of the Baker."

That's where I'm at so far - the brief will take all year to come to fruition, so expect to hear more. Next step: character creation.

Flash!

Ah-ahh.

I recently started a new module called "Applied New Media Design" - sounds exciting doesn't it?  I originally chose this module in order to add another string to my bow, and learn about some new sortware and techniques.

Here's what I made the first time I used Flash:

We were given the two words, and the task was to animate them in a way which reflected their meaning. I was keen to show a relationship between the two, so as to avoid the two animations seeming static.

I'm really pleased with the result, it only took me around 45 minutes. Obviously it's littered with slight errors, but I'm trying not to get too hung up on it.

"Every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time"

It's a rightly assumed notion that students are disorganised. We turn up to places late, leave important items in unimportant places, and forget most plans we make (plans that don't involve food, nights out, and lie-ins of course). It's also an assumed notion that Christians can be pretty disorganised (head in the clouds maybe?), so a combination of the two could be seen by many to be foolish and potentially dangerous.


That's exactly what a University Christian Union is! A group of disorganised students spreading the message of God's love - through planning events, studies, missions and the like. A great thing, a vital thing. But we're students - surely we can't be relied upon to know where we need to be when....?


Think again!

Behold the term-card (front and back) which will inform our Christian Union members of what's happening week-by-week (until they lose it of course).


Joking aside, we felt it would be a good thing to do - what we're about is important stuff, and so us being organised will help us to do our important stuff, Proverbs 16:9 willing of course... I show it to you good people not so you know what's going on exactly (although feel free to pray for us), but because it's kind of design-y.


I was influenced by the idea of negative space in order to make the leaves appear as though they've dropped through the central channel. I also wanted to create a timetable which was clear and accessible, but not dry and boring. I achieved the first via this channel, and the second via the lop-sided nature of the arrows.


Signing off now, I've got to go and... Wait, what was I going to do?