Design boards 7. James Bond poster series

The brief
To expand my dissertation outcome and create an illustrated series of posters that would act as a fan made series, or limited run collector's edition range of prints.
The outcome for the dissertation brief felt rushed and incomplete due to time constraints and the main focus being on the essay piece.
Upon completion of the dissertation module I only had a poster designed for one film that didn't directly relate to the research gathered in my dissertation.
This poster series would focus more around the attributes of illustrated posters and less around the theory gathered from the topic of my dissertation.
The Research
The research revolved around previous sucesfful illustrated film posters and most famously Michael Gillette's series of psychedelic James Bond posters that purely just feature the females of the films and don't in any way convey the stories.
A direct redesign of these posters would promote the topics discussed in my dissertation due to the James Bond series not focussing around the bodies of these women, and James Bond being a womaniser is just one part of his character.
Idea generation
The idea and style of design for the posters would be developed from the initial poster created as a dissertation response.
The style of illustration has great emphasis on the mood of the film I found, with the harsh black lines against the white back ground giving the posters a morose and emotional feeling.
The posters would represent a small part of the story, encapsulating Bond's feelings at that stage in the film.
Four posters in total would be created representing each of Daniel Craig's Bond films, this could eventually be expanded to a poster for each film, with there being over fifteen films in total this would be a lot of work to create a series of posters for the entire amount of Bond films.
Development
Poster size was something to be considered, usually film posters are printed on a massive scale but in this instance the style of illustration was creating using a line following machine in the digital print room  and the largest size of paper this accepted was A2.
The visual outcome of the prints was dependent on how the machine behaved that day, with some of the prints varying in darkness and shade in comparison to the others.
The Spectre outcome was too similar to the Skyfall one in my opinion with Bond having the same stance and expression as the other poster, that when presented on a wall in a series the posters looked too similar.

Outcome

The final outcomes, visually in my opinion were great, functioning as a great series of posters that could be sold as limited run prints to fans of James Bond, for this reason the criteria were fulfilled.
Considering the end of year show and the piece of work I intend to submit, the best poster, Quantum of Solace would work great in large scale such as A0 therefore the poster is being developed onto that size, but as the machine can only print onto A2, the design has been split into four quarters and is being printed separately.
The final posters don't greatly represent the theory gathered from my dissertation surrounding females in film posters but the posters are a great improvement on Michael Gillette's, as they represent the story of the films rather than the female's bodies.

Design boards 6. YCN Independence day 2 campaign

The brief
The brief was to design an entire campaign promoting sales for the film Independence day 2 before it's release. YCN stated how the campaign must "We would like you to focus on real world and digital stunt based ideas for the films theatrical release in June 2016." and also "bring it firmly into the zeitgeist of the 21st century – across stunts, digital, installation and mobile."
Knowing this was going to be a large brief, but also a project that suited my career development perfectly, as I wanted to progress into marketing campaigns in the film industry, I contacted a graphic designer I knew who had history working with innovative print techniques as that was a field wasn't my strongest.
The Research
Research into other film campaigns was embarked and also into the first film's campaign which was a massive success. Investigations into how digital marketing can take place took place along with imagery from the latest film being gathered.
Idea generation
Ideas were discussed of how we could create stunt based ideas that would reach out to the widest audience, an audience of people who had seen the first film and also those who the film would be new to.
Ideas such as paper billboards that would becoming interactive, changing image as the brightness in the streets changed from day time to night. Glow in the dark inks and other forms of printing were discussed.
After a meeting and discussion with Lee Goater, he commented on how this brief shouldn't be restrictive at all and we should attempt to communicate the biggest and most large scale ideas we had, rather than figuring out what was possible.

We then moved onto a hack theme, involving ideas hacking Google, Facebook, snap chat and television adverts, as these could be mocked up, would reach a large scale audience and wouldn't need to be fully executed in terms of design.
Development
We each came up with a variety of ideas and attempted to create / mock them up to the best standard possible, knowing I had better design quality and could create GIFs I volunteered to design the larger ideas and all the GIF outcomes.
We worked closely together ensuring all the designs followed the same style and themes, sharing logos, images and typefaces between us,
Ideas were on going and throughout the brief we were thinking of bigger and better ways to execute our ideas.
As the brief asked for "stunts, digital, installation and mobile.", we were careful to fully include designs for each of these despite the difficulties faced by digitally creating a stunt based idea.

Outcome

The outcomes varied in quality, with the easier, digital ideas being mocked up to a better standard than say the flash mob dancing concept.
The final presentation that I created I feel represented the outcomes of this project to a very high standard, simply conveying the ideas behind our campaign.
Working collaboratively went well despite the initial change of ideas and no longer needing to use print methods. Due to the fact my partner was a in the second year of his degree I felt my design skills and pace of working over shadowed his and also due to the fact I am close to finishing the course and building up my portfolio, this brief meant more to me as I knew it would reflect the type of work I intended to take a career in.

Design boards 5. Colours may vary G.F smith

The brief

The decision to design for this brief came from the exhibition exposure attached to this, also due to the fact many of my previous briefs have been digital based and this could be a piece for my portfolio that evidenced how I can work traditionally, whilst also working with popular names such as G.F Smith and Colours may vary.

The brief for the colours may vary exhibition revolved around an archive being created using G.F Smith's stock choices and the various colours they had to work with.
Each student was designated a colour, mine being the Azure Blue.
The brief was complete with freedom, using a traditional print process to almost exhibit the colour of the stock.

Research
Research was hard to complete at this early stage due to the freedom and the brief revolved more around personal interpretation.

Idea generation
The bright colour Azure Blue had relevance and comparison to sky blue or baby blue, colours associated strongly with childhood. This was a starting point for the design and ideas formed from this early stage.
The idea to print a pattern of traditional sweets arose, using lino cutting methods as the traditional means of printing.
The size of the stock was to be an issue, only having a 23x23cm area to print on meant that the lino cut wouldn't be as detailed as first envisaged due to how intricate the cuts into the lino had to be.

Development
The idea was then generated to created a repeat pattern using actual sweets and various colours paints.
The colours of paints again would reflect vibrant childhood colours and also the brightness and attractiveness found in sweets.
Printing with inks was attempted but it was discovered that inks were far too viscus and sticky, also the colours were dark and not so invititing to create a child like print.
Outcome
The final outcome of the print was one that I was very pleased with, feeling it reflected the initial idea and concept of the colour representing childhood memories.
Many comments were made in the print room of how the staff had never seen anyone printing with sweets before, so that was a new method of creating artwork.

A comment that could be made is how the print was reflecting childhood memories yet the best prints were made using wine gums there for part of the print reads "gin" "port" etc, but that is simply due to wine gums being the best sweet of choice to print with.

Design boards 3. Clockwork orange

The brief
The reasons for me selecting this brief came down to it being a well recognised competition by penguin book covers, I had designed book covers in the past but the outcome of this would have been a refelction of my development as a designer approaching the end of my degree.
My contextual research for this brief began by looking into previous Clockwork orange book covers and film posters to identify the imagery surrounding this story.

The brief set as a competition by Penguin books demands:
"it is essential to come at it from a fresh angle. Try to design a new cover for a new generation of readers, avoiding the obvious clichés. Originality is key." and also "be competently executed with strong use of typography".

Research
Having already seen the film and enjoying the story I recognised a lot of imagery associated with this story. Pieces of the plot and imagery from existing covers of the film can be used to generate ideas.

One of the ideas from the film that always intrigued me was the idea of milk laced with drugs, "The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom. Moloko Vellocet is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."
Interesting how Alex the protagonist drank this milk created by Anthony Burgess at 15 years of age to get him in the right place for ultra violence.
The connotations between a young boy drinking this milk has a strong connection between Alex's childhood and how his life is panning out.
Idea generation
Idea generation / concept generation began by sketching out famous icons from the story such as top hats, cogs, knifes, brains etc to form an idea of the imagery that was available to work with.
The traditional title for A clockwork orange was too iconic and well designed not to be used or paid homage to in some way.

The use of hand rendered typography was going to take place in form of the quote provided by penguin books "what we were after was lashings of ultraviolence"

Development
After illustrating various shapes and icons from the story I found that the glass of milk appeared very effective in conveying the mood of the story, representing Alex ,the protagonist's, troubled life and milk appeared to be a indirect symbol for childhood, the disrupted milk conveyed that Alex had a traumatic upbringing.

The colours grey, white and some orange from the penguin logos represented the bleak atmosphere in the world that Alex lived in and where A Clockwork orange is set, also conveying the mood of the story.

Decisions were made surround the use of the colour orange, such as the drinking glass being orange, but this drew away from the liquid being milk which was a vital component of the book cover.

Outcome
The use of the milk glass is rather innovative and conceptual in comparison to some of the other book covers found amongst the internet, a problem that may arise with this imagery is that only someone who is familiar with the story would see the relevance of the milk glass.

The final outcome of the book cover is one that I am pleased with, the only problem I foresee is that the requirements for the brief was an eye-catching design that would stand out on book shelves, this would have been best executed using the colour orange but at the same time would not have conveyed the message I had chosen to follow in my design,

The title of the book could have been neatened up further and generally sharpened showing connection to the original title design from the film poster.

personal website design

James Bond poster mock ups

Design boards 2. LCA Triptych

Design boards 2. LCA Triptych

The brief

The choice to embark on this brief was due to how the posters would be representing the graphics section of LCA and also having the freedom to create a poster of your choice with any message didn't arise in many briefs nowadays therefore this brief had a lot of freedom.

The brief was to design an A2 poster for LCA Triptych, a poster that would be situated on the corridor outside of the BA Graphic design area at Leeds college of art.

With the posters not having no description alongside them, the image must work along and covey the message or simply just work as a piece of art or design.

Having seen most of the other entries for the previous Triptych's I had noticed that the designs were based on the style of designs the students liked/followed and also the topics were based around the student's interests.

Research

I thought on how I could make something intriguing that reflected my interests and would work successfully in A2 format. The idea of the audience taking from a piece of art what they will, and everyone perceiving the piece in different ways appeals to me.

The quality of the design was an aspect that mattered immensely as it would reflect the course and the ideas BA Graphic design stood for, and allowed to grow on the course over the three years.

Idea Generation

The choice to delve down the route of 'illuminati', anti religion symbols was all my own. An interest in different ways of thinking, the occult and almost 'higher power' is a basis for my design and representing this was the next step.

Triangles are commonly connected as symbols of the illuminati by people of my generation, where ever triangles appear prominently people tend to question why they are there and what hidden meanings they could be conveying.

Development

Various triangles and also anti christ symbols were used to create a continuing pattern containing larger and smaller scale triangles and crosses, ensuring all the crosses remained upside down in adverse to the normal orientation.

The colours of the piece at this time were not reflecting the mood of intrigue I intended to go for, these would be altered simply to black and white, with the idea that the audience takes their own message from the piece of design.

Outcome

The black and white design worked more effectively, isolating the shapes and forming an almost hypnotic spiral pattern. Accompanied with a design style of the shapes being drawn by hand, the final design decisions were made, the only remaining consideration was the placement of the circle.

List of 2016 brief

List of 2016 brief:

1.Creative networks

2. LCA tripytch

3. Clockwork orange penguin books

4. LCA End of year show

5. Colours may vary G.F Smith

6. YCN Independence day

7.James Bond posters

8.Bmx Manchester Campaign

9.Film studio branding.