GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
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GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
Tools used.
The toolbars found in Adobe Illustrator and Photosop, used to produce my work.
Text analysis.
Analysis of Typography to identify key features.
Do not open.
Erik Marinovich hand designed numerous envelopes purely for the fact that he though people were not receiving hand-written mail any more.
This was my first, hand drawn attempt of Erik Marinovich's 'Do Not Open' inspired envelope. My intent with this was not to overcrowd the space available on the envelope; however, it is now apparent to me that this may have been a more successful method. The text for my name is very angular, and in places, elongated due to the distorted nature of the text's path. I have used a total of 3, main, bold yet vibrant colours for my envelope: red, yellow and blue, despite altering the shades between them.
The first of my edits was mainly just processing the envelope in Photoshop, with the inclusion of tidying edges, re-styling the text, repositioning of elements as well as adding a subtle background - this caused it to become more geometric. Some of the styling included directional drop-shadows and colour vibrancy alterations. As this was more of a processing edit, I kept the original colour scheme as opposed to altering it.
My second edit was one of changing the colour scheme to a series of blue with red. The contrast of colours is very subtle in comparison to an alternative. Although the series of blue colours work fairly well together, I believe that the red used could have been to some extent more vibrant than its current state in order to add more contrast between said colour and the blue.
This edit is another variation of the initial modification created by the alteration of the hue levels. After moving the hue alteration handle to the red end of the spectrum, the colour scheme reformed to mainly one of pink and red, with the distinct colour resembling more of a green in this edit. I am not predominantly fond of the colour scheme of which this created.
My final edit of the envelope altered the colour scheme into one of shades of blue and yellow. I particularly like the strong contrast of the yellow against the blue of the envelope as it creates vibrancy throughout the colours. The focal point of this envelope would be the 12 due to its central positioning as well as its contrasting colour (against the blue). These characteristics cause attention to be focused directly on the 12.
Vector face.
Juian Opie draws vector styled portraits.
My first vector face was my original, replicating the original colours from the photograph of myself of which I used in Adobe Illustrator as a layer to trace over. Using my previous knowledge of Illustrator, I acknowledged the methodology of which it uses to create, and mainly fill, shapes. From using this knowledge, I decided that the best approach would be one of splitting the face into different sectors, such as my hair, face, neck and jumper (as well as the details within the face - eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth). I started the drawing with an outline of my face. Upon approaching my hairline, I made an estimation of how I'd draw my hair, and dew an arch over the lower edge of my hair in order to give myself room when it came to drawing it. Upon completion of the face outline, I proceeded with the hair by disabling the face layer and once again tracing over the image. This process was repeated in a similar fashion for the neck, jumper and facial features. To create the nose, I originally created the outline of my entire nose, but research into Julian Opie's previous work advised me into taking another approach - feature outlining. This caused me to solely outline the parts of which had definition to them, like the sides of my nostrils, as well as areas of which would be shaded, such as the nostrils themselves. To further develop this effect, I decided to use the pen style that is thin at the start and end but progressively gets thicker towards the middle. I also used this for the details at the side of my mouth. My next problem was one of adding detail into a piece of which should be styled minimalist; however, in order to overcome this, I decided to add shading to the top of my hair in the form of lighter sections to show the direction of my hair. I then decided that the background of my piece was too plain, therefore I came to the conclusion of adding a divider, splitting the background into a lighter and darker shade. The subsequent of my vector faces are all edits of the original, number 1, via colour scheme alteration.
In this edit, I decided to apply a colour scheme of green and black; I differentiated it slightly with the inclusion of white and grey in the background.
This edit of the vector face consisted of pink and green, using a deep shade of pink for the jumper, lighter for the hair and green/turquoise for the background. As pink is almost directly opposite from green on the colour wheel it causes the colour to contrast against one another.
Blue and yellow was the colour scheme for this individual modification of the piece. I decided that it was a viable colour scheme to produce a lively and contrasting feel; blue is at an obtuse angle to yellow on the colour wheel, hence the distinct and predominant conflict of the colours.
An acute angle between the orange and purple on the colour wheel, for this piece, created a subtle contrast between the colours - enough to make the contrast visible; it was not enough to create a strong, powerful contrast.
Merging photos together.
Double exposure combines multiple imaged based on light to create ghost like images.
My integrity for my initial attempt of double exposure was one of creating contrast between two subjects of an image, in this case a person and the wall, via comparing grayscale to colour. To achieve this, I changed the entirety of the image to be grayscaled - this left me with a fully monotone image. Through a selective process, I decided that the most effective parts of the person to replace with colour would be their hoodie and hair. To give it a graphical feel, I added text to the side, resembling the quote itself, as the roots were deep, the word 'roots' was deep on the page (low down).
The second attempt at the double exposure was my most successful one, in my opinion. I started it with two images, a side-on photo of a person and a photograph of a tree line behind a lake, with the tree line's reflection being in the water. I started the piece with the photograph of the trees being the right way around; however, it became apparent to me that the tree line was more defined in the reflection as opposed to the actual tree line. Rotating the image 180 degrees gave me a more definitive tree line to work with for the person's hair. To further develop this, I decided to use the faint inclusion of the remaining treeline in the background, to add to the double exposure effect.
My third double exposure was one of minimalism. I planned this from the start, hence the use of whitespace around the subject of the piece. Similar to my previous ones, I started with a grayscale photo of a person, with edited levels to achieve darker and lighter areas, and then countered the grayscale with a vibrantly coloured cityscape shot of New York. To keep the balance between the grayscale of the original photograph and the colours from the cityscape, I decided to apply the coloured photograph over the top of the original, in a gradient style, starting stronger at the bottom and fading towards the top. After this, I finalised it by using the eraser to further shape the overlaying cityscape. In due course, I was able to contrast the dull likes of the grayscale image with a strategically placed vibrant cityscape.
Analysing artwork.
Analysing this image gave me an insight as to how the artist wanted their piece to be, as well as what it portrays to the viewer.
I like the overall feel of this particular piece as, at a first glance, there is not much in terms of obvious meaning behind it; however, upon closer inspection of the cluster of items that makes up the swirled motion, it becomes apparent that they're all items of which are found in modern life. In the background, there is a sky; in my interpretation this represents the nature in the world. From this, the cluster of items are distracting the viewer from the nature in the world, giving us the meaning behind the piece that modern life prevents us from seeing the beauty in the world in the form of nature. This meaning is also backed up from the album title as it is called "Animals and Vehicles", 'Animals' representing the nature and 'Vehicles' being the man-made modern life objects. After this inspection, the piece then becomes rather polysemic due to the complexity of the piece - many interpretations may be drawn from this.
The overall colour scheme of the piece is rather simplistic as it merely consists of red, yellow and blue (with some gradients between the colours). On, and in, the objects themselves, thin strokes have been used, giving them a neat-sketched look. In an interesting twist, by horizontally aligning the piece next to a duplicate of itself, it becomes clear that the shape of the piece has been designed to be seamless.
Surreal images.
Using magazine cuttings and royalty-free images, I combined images together to portray graphical surrealism.
To construct my first photo montage, I only used two base images. The primary base image was a grayscale photograph of a mountain road. I liked the sharpness of this image as all minor details were visible, which really brought out the texture in the road. To begin, I used the content-aware remove tool to remove the text at the top and bottom. I then thought that the image itself was missing a reference to cycling so I copied the second image into my workspace. From there I cropped the image so that the solely remaining element was the text saying "Ride of the gods". My idea was to create a jagged effect by selecting multiple angled polygons, enlarging them, applying a coloured tint and finally adding a dropshadow. This gave the effect of the layering of the shards above the original image, with the inclusion of the newly added text. I decided that the colour scheme of which I was going to use was one resembling the British flag, as a subtle reference to the British Cycling Team. This meant lightening one of the 'shards' and colouring the other two red and blue. I believe that this created a subtle, yet effective resemblance of the British flag over the desaturated image beneath. The final result of this was a rather peculiar fragmented poster of which was aimed at the cycling team of Britain.
The second of my photo montages was more of an abstract piece in comparison to my themed one prior to this - For this, I used three separate images. I started with the image of an old woman sat by an energetic yellow door. I noticed the high levels of contrast between light and dark within this photo which caused me to continue with this throughout the production of this photo montage. I made no alterations to the base image (the old woman); however, to apply the second image, I cut out the head of a cow using the polygon select tool in order to achieve an edged cut around the head. I decided to proceed with an edged style to the head as it looked more like a 'cut-and-paste' operation as opposed to a detailed replacement of the woman's head - this was what I was striving for. In order for the pasted head to seem as though it belonged in the image, I had to make an alteration to the levels of the layer. I brought the blacks further up and the greys towards the whites. This created the darker darks and the normal lights effect of which was originally found in the base image. My next issue was the wall - it looked too plain. To add a more appropriate background, with respect to the cow's head, I decided to use an image of a field and use it as an overlay to the wall. I feel that this created the needed atmosphere to make the cow's head look more in place instead of merely pasted on the image.
My third photo montage was an experimentation of working with silhouettes of people. The base image of which I used was a pre-done double exposure of a woman and a mountain-line. Primarily, I used the content-aware remove tool to remove the quotation from the upper right of the image. This gave me a blank canvas of which I could work on the image with. The next thing I wanted to do was to integrate the image of Russel Brand. To do so, I used the same technique of fragmentation as I did in my first photo montage; however, its distinction was that this time, I filled the gaps of the fragments with the image of Russel Brand but it looked odd having the image of him against the silhouette of a woman, hence why I layered the third image behind it and selected the outline of Russel Brand, filled with black and then changed the opacity to give the effect of a silhouette shading in the background. The final modification of which I did to the image was to move the WELCOME into a new layer and duplicating that layer. I then positioned one of the layers behind one of the fragments and the other in front. I then clipped the layer by using the fragment's shape, then set the blend mode to lighten. This gave the effect that the text was spanning across the page, but intercepted by the silhouette of the woman. As the majority of the photo montage is white, due to the original base image, the contrast of the desert and sky in the background creates a contrasting effect.
The fourth photo montage of mine begin was a test of manipulating a single base image using a shape distortion style. The image of which I chose to do this with was one of a row of three houses. I chose this because of the definitive shapes of which the houses made up - I knew that this style would look effective contrasting the sharp edges of the houses against the curved, rounded, shape distortion. I began by setting up rulers on both axis in the centre of the document, this gave me a cross-shape of which I could use to centralise my circular selections. I started by creating the largest of the selections to start with. From there I copied it to a new layer and rotated it by 90 degrees in a clockwise motion, then added a subtle dropshadow to the layer. I repeated this three additional times to create four circular sections. The original image had 'Luca Sironi' in the upper left; however, I removed this by, primarily, copying it to a new layer, then using the content-aware remove tool to remove it from the image. I then sliced the two words in half and placed them at either side of the largest circular section. I then added a small row, the same width as the text, of a dark overlay. I added some small text to lay across the circular sections, cutting the sides to make them appear as though the text layer was inside of the circular sections. I also added another small cutting from another magazine to the road, using the skew tool to replicate a decreased pitch axis rotation, matching that of the road. Positioning this behind the circular sections gave an interesting looking effect as this wouldn't be the expected behaviour of the text. The aspect of this piece of which I like the most is the consistently purple colour scheme. Due to the strong colour of the sky, and the rotations, the purple is passed throughout the entire piece, causing it to be the strongest colour within it. Overall, all of the changes made to the base image make it have a hand-made, yet evidently digitally created aesthetical feel to it.
My fifth and final photo montage was one of a photograph of a mountain. I used this photograph as I instantly recognised the grayscale colour scheme in it, as I believed that it would be easily manipulated to appear abstract. To begin with this piece, I first altered the levels of the image in order to create darker blacks and lighter whites, this made the snow contrast greatly again the dark rock of the mountain - an impressive effect. To create a surreal/abstract feel to the image, I started by separating the mountain from its sky-filled background, adding a dropshadow as I made it a new layer (which I used later on for another effect). To further continue to surreal feel, I used existing parts of the mountain to create, what looks like, small boulders and placed them in formation to make it appear as though they were floating around the mountain. As done with the mountain as a whole, I added a dropshadow to each one. I continuously used dropshadows to create subtle, yet definitive, visual layering. The final two modifications of which I made to this piece were the inclusion of a snippet of text from a magazine, 'Hot Shots'. I chose this particular clipping of text as it followed the black and white scheme of which the rest of the image also followed. The block of colour behind the text influenced me to add an inverted strip in the sky, which sat behind the mountain due to the layering done previously. I believe that this made it look much more interesting as the inverted strip followed the likes of the newly inserted text, making it look like a consistent strip across the entirity of the image. Generally, the sharp contrast between dark and light shades in this piece is what I like most about it, as it gives it a distinction to my other photo montages.
Researching Boost Energy.
Boost Energy is a company founded in 2001 by Simon Grey, based in Leeds
As it is just another company in the ever growing business sector of energy drinks, Boost has its unique characteristic of price. That is how they get most of their business
In comparison to other, similar, products, Boost appears to be the cheapest, without being low quality
Boost is crowded with competition; in 2014, a study concluded that Boost came lower than 19th in the top selling energy drink brands
Its rivals consist of:
Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar, Amp, NOS and an array of others.
All of these brands have developed a strong and unique identity for themselves, making them easily recognisable by just a segment of their icon/name. For example, Red Bull has developed themselves to embrace the use of red, yellow, blue and white. Within their drinks, they change the colours to represent what their product is, for example changing the blue to be light blue to represent the lighter, sugar-free drink. They do a similar scheme to portray their calorie-free version, substituting the blue background of the drink to be a grey colour - similar to the likes of other soft drinks. Within these colour changes, Red Bull always keeps the red and yellow of their logo the same, which makes them easily distinguished from the likes of another company.
The likes of Monster, however, are prone to changing the colour of their company logo, but keeping the shape the same as it is a logo unique to only themselves. The iconic M (
) is the face of Monster, so no matter what colour they use, it is always recognisable as an asset of their company. Their most distinctive colour scheme is their one of green, black and white. This can be found on their original energy drinks and their main documentation about the company including their website. Throughout the different editions of their drinks, they change, mainly, just the colour of the M and a slight change in the background pattern. For example, in their tropical variation Ripper, they change the background to be a lighter grey than their original, but totally change the colour of the M to yellow. As a general rule, they alter the colour of their M on their can, whilst making a subtle change to the background, with the exception of their recent Ultra range, of which applies the colour to the background, whilst keeping the M as a black outline, with a chromed fill.
Rockstar is yet another well-recognised and requested energy drink. Its design varies highly, making it seems like a lively and colourful company through the use of varying, highly engaging background on their cans. The asset of which they keep the same is their logo, which is a cartoon-styled text-based logo of Rockstar Energy, replacing the A in Rockstar with a star (
). The Energy Drink part of their logo is switched out with a short descriptor of the content of the can, such as ZERO-SUGAR for the sugar free range, or more generically, the category of the drink, such as SUPERSOURS. Their consistant design constantly emits an urban auroma due to the way of which the patterns used in their background vary and can be seen as unstructured. This, in some aspects, causes them to be seen as unprofessional; however, the designs for the cans have evidently been thoroughly planned to represent their lively and energetic ethic for the company.
The three companies explained avove all share a common trait - they all sponsor sportspeople for a hugely distinct array of sports, from BMX riders to F1 racers. This helps to promote their product as people watching sports are constantly reminded of their existance, superiority and professionalism to be where they are seen. This makes it harder for the little, lesser-known, companies such as Boost to promote their product efficiently.
Boost's small significance in the world of energy drinks is due to an ever growing demand for the most recognised and developed brands such as Red Bull, Monster and Rockstar
It has developed a wide array of energy drinks coming in different forms: bottles and cans
Sketches for Boost.
I decided that I would like to stick with Boost's currently existing minimalist design. Personally, I think that it is effective for an energy drink company to use such as scheme as otherwise it may overcomplicate the product when the users would rather have a simple product of which they like.
Throughout the planning process, the first design of which I came up with was some sort of incorporation with an arrow
Below are some sketches of which originated from this design planning
This was the first of my arrow-styled sketches, having an arrow on the left, with the word 'Boost' located in the ridge of the head of the arrow.
This design came from the original arrow-styled sketch, but instead of the word being to the side of the arrow, I slotted it within the arrow itself, merging the chunks of the arrow at the bottom to make it solid. The thickness of the arrow was also changed a so that the arrow head covered most of the word 'Boost'.
This sketch is very similar to my second arrow-styled sketch; however, I changed the thickness of the arrow to make the word 'Boost' overflow from the sides.
Finally, this design was a variant of my first arrow-styled sketch, made purely by rotating the arrow and moving the word 'Boost' so that it sat on top of the neck of the arrow.
Another idea of which struck me, continuing on from the arrow design, was to integrate the arrow itself within the word 'Boost' as opposed to the opposite way around
Below are some sketches of which were developed from this design planning
My first integration sketch consisted purely of replacing the first letter 'o' in 'Boost' with a circular shape with a cutout of an arrow for the hole in an 'o'.
This is highly similar to my first integration sketch; however, the 'o' of which was modified is now the second one as opposed to the first.
The third integration sketch moved the arrow integration to the letter 't', as an arrow looks relatively similar, in structure, to the letter 't'.
A lightning bolt was something of which I incorporated with the word 'Energy' from 'Boost Enegry'
Below are some sketches of which were made from this design planning
The first sketch of the lightning category was an initial test of lightning, then a realisation that the lightning bolt could resemble an 's'. This was to be used later on.
My second sketch of this category was another test of forming an 's' with a lightning bolt. Along with this, I also, similarly to my arrows (two & three), tested how it'd look if the word 'Boost' was positioned within the bolt itself.
My third sketch was one of integration, as I replaced the 's' in 'Boost' with the lightning bolt seen from the previous two sketches. In order to achieve a balanced look on the characters and the lightning bolt, I had use a heavy font, hence the size and 135 degree dropshadow on the text.
When drawing an arrow, I realised that the shape may look much more interesting and unique if it were split in half and mirrored on both axis
Below are some sketches of which were drawn from this design planning
Sticking with the idea of using arrows, I dediced to expirement with the use of half of an arrow, with the word 'Boost' positioned above it.
This sketch shows the transition of which I made from using the half-arrow. I made a copy of the arrow and rotated it 180 degrees, I then positioned it on the edge of the bottom half to create this shape.
Merging the two shapes together made this shape. This is the shape of which I used for my final logo design.
This was a quick sketch of my final logo idea - the newly merged shape with the company name, 'Boost', on the inside of it.
Further developments.
Some of my designs which were not used, I had developed digitally. This helped me to decide on my final idea by experimenting with other designs.
This shows the development path of which occured when producing my final idea. The left hand side shows an original idea, with each branch of the line showing different ideas of which came from the original idea. The bottom right logo was my final idea. This shows the development of the shape from the original half-arrow design.
My second development was one of focus towards the integration ideas. The ideas started with an arrow hole in the 'o', initially the first one. For the second development of this idea, I moved it along to the second one, and for the third, both of them. As a further development of this category of idea, I progressed by copying the arrow-designed 'o' and insteda of including it in the word 'Boost', I included 'Boost' in the 'o'. I think that the most effective logo from these developments is the second one, as the 'o' with the arrow in it was in the middle of the logo, it had a sense of symmetry.
The third batch of developments were focusing on the use of the word 'Boost' in an arrow, rather than the other way around. The main difference between these development is the fact that the word 'Energy' has been moved around, and removing it in the lower right one. The two on the top row were the least successful of all of them, as I believed that it didn't fit in with the minimal theme of which I was going for. This was due to the slanted text being harder to read than that of straight text.
These developments were highly inspired by the likes of the first of the arrow-styled sketch. I used the sectioned design of the arrow for most of the developments in this batch. Also, throughout these, I wanted to trial a lighter font for a further minimalist feel. The lower left design is a minor alteration of the upper left design, solely by adding the word 'Energy' in italics, however, I decided that it did not look as good as the others due to the positioning of the text, as it edged beyond the base of the arrow. The design in the middle of these developments spanned from the first with the difference of removing one of the sectors from the arrow and spanning it across the word 'Boost'. The group of designs on the right hand side developed from the middle one, with the alteration of enlarging the bottom line and including the word 'Energy' within the line.
The developments in this section resembled the infinity icon, as the word 'Boost' can be interpreted as an increase - increases limit as they tend to infinity, hence the inclusion. I liked the colouring of this logo, as it would be easily expandable to other colours; however, I thought that it was a little too bulky for a logo, due to the text being outsized by the infinity logo. The modifications solely consist of different shades in the word 'Boost', starting with a solid colour of the darkest shade, then using the shades on the respective sides of the infinity logo, then reversing said shades.
Finally, these developments were the developments of my final logo. In the lower right, the original logo design is found, with the other colourings around it. To add the colourings to the logo, I added a stroke to the outline of the base shape, setting the stroke to use a linear gradient of zero degrees in order for the gradient to go from solid colour on the left to transparency on the right. I believe that using a gradient for the stroke was much more effective than having a block of colour, this was due to the rest of the logo having a solid colour - the gradient added an additional layer of style to the logo.
Psychology of logos.
Whilst designing the logo for the Boost rebrand, I had to investigate which type of colours were associated with different logos, and their imprissions on myself and others.
Expanding the final idea.
After I had settled on a final design, I had to produce further version of the logo suited to different scenarios of which would occur within the company - such as the different flavours for the drinks.
This design is the final design of my logo, without any flavour colour modifications. To add the colour modifications, I added a stroke to the logo with a gradient from left to right.
I've added a blue gradient outline to this design to replicate Boost's currently existing original flavoured energy drink.
To create a logo for a strawberry flavoured drink, I added a light-red stroke to the original logo.
The green stroke of this design indicates that it resembles an apple flavoured drink.
As another alternative flavour, I have added a yellow stroke to the original design to represent a lemon flavoured variant.
The brown stroke on this design indicates as to the flavour of which it's assigned to - Cola.
As the colour would suggest, the orange stroke represents the orange flavour.
I decided that the purple colour used in this design imitates the average colour of berries, hence the berry flavour.
Continuing with their current special edition of their drink, I used the colour pink to represent their special edition 'Winter Spice' flavour.
The light blue colour, in this case, resemble the sugar-free variant by having it as a light [lite] version of the original colour, blue. Lite is often seen as 'less', in this case refering to the amount of sugar.
All, but the original, logos would be found on their products respectively; however, for the original, I believe that this logo would only be used in places of which had no reference to the flavour of the product, such as their website logo, letter headers, etc. This is because this logo would be used to portray their company, not a flavour of their drink.
Mock products.
In order to get a feel for the product without manufacturing it, I produced a mockup design of a can of Boost; however, I thought it may be more applicable to make it in an advertising format of which may be found in a magazine, for example. The subsequent image is the result of such work.
Evaluating the course.
Throughout the duration of the course, I have further developed my, already existing, techniques and I have also found myself using new pieces of technology to assist me in completing my work.
Prior to the course, I had not used a graphics tablet before; however, during the Vector Face project, I utilised said graphics tablet to draw some of the smaller details in the hair of my face - I found this to come in particularly helpful when working with smaller details, as the graphics tablet allowed for a much more natural feel of drawing when rivalled with a mouse; this, however, was not the case for larger details, as I found it much simpler to work using the mouse, as the drawings were stage-by-stage, allowing for dynamic changes.
The project of which I have enjoyed the most has been the Photo Montage project.
I believe this solely to be due to the strong use of photoshop within it - one of my most enjoyable to use applications as well as one of my strongest areas.
Creating the surreal images seen throughout the project brought a sense of freedom as there were no guidelines as to which we had to stick within, since we were aiming for surrealism. Due to this, I was able to create an array of montages, with the inclusion of singular modifications.
Despite it not being my favourite project, Julian Opie was my favourite artists from this course due to their persistent consistency.
Every piece of his has a distinct feel about it, due to his minimal vector-styled approach. Due to this distinction from other people's work, I found my admiration for Julian Opie and his work.
Throughout the duration of the next unit of work, I'd like to further develop my digital drawing in Illustrator. I feel as though it's a skill of which I have not really explored thoroughly within the past projects; however, it is certainly something of which I'd like to, both, develop and do more of. At the same time, I would also like to continue with my Photoshop work and practise effects such as Double Exposure to more thorough depths.
I chose to present all of my work digitally, on this website, as I found using manual methods, such as a book, much harder to co-ordinate as I feel as though I am rather dynamic. I originally ran into problems when I wanted to change the order/layout of my work when it was in a book; however, with a website it was much easier for me to do so. Using a digital form of presentation also meant that I could access it from anywhere, meaning that I didn't have to rely on carrying a book around with me. Personally, I found it easier to make a website than to plan a layout for a book, because, as I mentioned earlier, websites are much more dynamic and can be changed at any time, but also because of how much faster I found it. These reasons are also applicable to the method of production of most of my work - dynamic, changeable, faster.
I feel as though the final piece of which I have produced matches my expectations and has achieved the goals I set out for it. I aimed to strive for minimalism but also come across as being iconic. Due to the bold nature of the piece, I believe that it has met both of those conditions, with plenty of expansion room for modification further on, such as making new flavours, or including the logo in a more professional situation such as a letter, etc.
Presenting my work in a website meant that I could predetermine my general layout during construction. By doing this, I was able to test, alter and tweak it to my likings, ultimately meaning that I am pleased with its current state. A major benefit of using a webpage for it is that I can include a navigation page, in which the user can easily browse through all of my work - something of which is not as doable in a hand-done fashion. So, on a whole, I am overwhelmed with the layout of my work on the webpage.
As touched upon in the 'Skills to Develop' section, I think that if I were to do any parts of this course again, I would aim to do more digital sketching/drawings on Illustrator, as it is something of which I'd love to do. I think that it would have helped greatly in the Erik Marinovich project as this was the only piece of work of which I did by hand. In comparison to my other work, I believe that it is of a much lower standard; however, I have chosen to keep it as evidence that I have experimented with different mediums and that I have come to a conclusion as to my preferred medium.
Overall, I have enjoyed the course thoroughly as it has allowed me to experiment with different techniques and discover more techniques. In addition to this, I have been able to practise non-graphical related skills such as writing my own, small, jQuery library to manage the image previews of which are shown upon clicking on an image on this webpage. Focusing on the graphical side of the course, I have enjoyed every project, even those of which I was weaker at, as they all gave me the opportunity to learn something about the artist or even myself. I have been able to refine my skills and discover more through experimentation with programs of which I was already familiar with; however, I now feel as though I have a much stronger understanding of everything of which I have done, than I would have before doing this.
Conclusively, it is fair to say that the Graphical Communication course has been profoundly enjoyable, be it through creating work or researching work, as it has broadened my digital skillset as well as discovering great artists.
