Christmas Tasks

I struggled in the research tasks that asked to create visuals on unusual software. I attempted to create visuals on text and data programs however found it hard to branch out further than simply recreating the visual of a ruler. However, the photography restraint task I found very engaging and suited to my research, I used the research and process from that task in my final outcomes. It gave me a better understanding of arranging together photographs and caused me to consider proportions and empty spaces. Photography with a form of restraint is something I intend to use again in future projects.  

To conclude, my work has been strengthened by documentation, critique and research and has led to an interesting project that I found actively engaging. This project has brought to my attention importance of process and how it can widen possibilities within my work.  I intend to continue to respond and collect to source material throughout other projects. 

Wayfinding Research

Wayfinding is a system that informs people of their physical environmental surroundings. Its function is to guide and enhance people’s understandings and experience of the space around them. Research of existing wayfinding systems in Leeds is important in understanding the environment that will be used for my wayfinding designs. 

Most wayfinding is objective, from research around Leeds it is evi

dent that only relevant information in regards to the space or location is displayed and no other information is needed. By removing unnecessary excessive information, a clear communication system is presented with concise information meaning people don’t need to think about what is being shown. To make a signage system work together, a design grid is used to order information and to scale the signs to different sizes.

Signage

Types of signs:

- Information signs - a sign with a destination

- Directional signs - helps find/locate a destination

- Identification signs - info about individual locations are displayed

- Warning signs - safety procedures for an area

Alongside my research into Wayfinding systems in Leeds I was reading Bruno Munari’s Design as Art, this helped me develop a better understanding of how we connect with signage and how language in general is communicated to one and other. It commented on subjective impressions and spoke about how to find a general 

Objective Symbols of Subjective Things

These are some examples of subjective sysmbolism for objective terminology. I was illurtrating paranoia and escape . Using repeated brush strokes to create a sense of movement and manipulating their size to give it a sense of moving away or towards you. By over lapping the stokes and using other contrasting shapes to act as if something is being contained or surrounded was an attempt to visualize paranoia.

By using thick brushes and black ink I instinctively  painted a variety of abstract stokes. Considering how I made the strokes (frantically, softly,) or how hard I pushed it onto the paper were all factors that took part in the final outcome of my pictorgrams. 

Objective Symbols of Subjective Things - OUGD403

The visual language of this signage system is arguably a combination of both objective and subjective design. Independent coffee shops have a very personal feel and exist as individual particular places and with my system diverting people away from chain coffee shops it is arguably subjective. However, objectively, it directs people to the nearest coffee shop opposed to directing someone to a specified coffee shop, opinion on the quality of each coffee shop is removed therefore displaying no hierarchy. 

The design itself only uses 3 flat colours brown, black and red. There is no text and features symbolism of coffee this causes it to be objectively understood by whoever. However other aesthetics, such as the materials used to build my sign (carboard) and the process being freehand without a grid, are uncommon in other objective sign systems and therefore the design becomes particular. 

With my design being used as actual coffee sleeves in the coffee shops as well as a signage system on the streets, it links up my system and helps it become better understood as well touching on being part of a community. It also allows people to keep the design if they like it and easily becomes distributed within Leeds.

Van Toorn however led the dissent against the ‘objective’ approach. Toorn agues passionately for the importance of designers retaining a sense of personality and romance in graphic design in his statement, “in fine art, experiments have been done for centuries, and perhaps we should pick up more from that tradition and use more form it”.  

Graphic designer Wim Crouwel, opposes Toorns argument, in his belief of graphic design being objectively built on clarity and simplicity with use of grids. Staying true to his original viewpoint of “I have always believed that graphic design is a discipline that should translate a message in an aesthetic and straight forward way, without personal interpretation that has no connection with that message.” 

OUGD404 - Colour Book No.1

OUGD404 - Colour Book No.1 

1.     Photograph a street / scene of Leeds

2.     Using Adobe, make a Pantone group/colour swatch of your chosen ‘scene’

3.     Output - A folded booklet/book in a design of your choice/backed by research 

4. The colour swatch
5. Written analysis (in your own words) to include all of the following:
1.  
1. An introduction
2. 250 words on Joseph Albers use of colour
3. 250 words on Klein [Blue]
4. 6 examples of Klein’s blue in graphic design
5. 100 words on Pantone
6. 100 words on RGB v CMYK
7. 500 words on the use of colour in graphic design
8. Evaluation of the colour group/harmonies/contrasts 

Pagination the sequence of numbers assigned to pages in a book or periodical 

OUGD404 - Pantone Colour

Wayfinding In Leeds - Research

 Wayfinding In Leeds 

Wayfinding is a system that informs people of their physical environmental surroundings. Its function is to guide and enhance people’s understandings and experience of the space around them. 

Most wayfinding is objective, from research around Leeds it is evi

dent that only relevant information in regards to the space or location is displayed and no other information is needed. By removing unnecessary excessive information, a clear communication system is presented with concise information meaning people don’t need to think about what is being shown.

Hospital Signage Using Blackletter Strokes

Video Stills - - Design Process -