OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Development

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Development

As me and jess gave our idea a lot of thought, we left ourselves slightly restricted for time so unfortunately we felt it would be best not to do a screen print, as screenprinting is a time consuming process. We did however still have our initial digital print slot so we decided we would just print it. We started to digitalise our calendar and wanted to give it a modern feel based from our research. Jess came up with the the idea of using a 'Hive' concept so we started to play around with hexagons as it's a lot more modern and quite aesthetically pleasing. We also played around with different fonts as although we could no longer screenprint, we still wanted a letterpress style so used different kernings etc to create a slight post modern approach to the type. However we both agreed that in these experiments it came across as childish rather than post modern.

 

Final Crit

We agreed that there wasn't enough space for people to write before the crit and the final crit confirmed this.  It seemed that people didn't really understand what we meant by an events calendar and I thought that the crit was very negative. The tutor didn't have anything positive to say about the layout or the idea.  We received feedback from people saying that we should have a monthly calendar that was interactive which people agreed with which was essentially our idea but on a three monthly basis.  I think I articulating our idea well but what we didn't articulate well was why the calendar is needed and why students should go to events. I think that aspect me and jess knew but hadn't actually discussed before so I felt a bit caught out as there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on this. Which is what we should of really articulated this better as I got the impression from the negative vibes that people thought that we hadn't done much - which isn't true as me and jess had put a lot of thought and effort into this. In addition we were told in the interim crit that it had to be specific to graphic design students and I felt that the crit was unfair and unequal amongst the students - some people hadn't made it specific to graphic design students and that was apparently okay - suggesting that we could have stuck with some of our original ideas.  It was also suggested that we wouldn't be producing enough for two people so we should create a book that informs students of events that we found useful and allow space for notes at the back. We took this crit seriously and have decided to do exactly as asked so that we can't be scrutinised for not listening to feedback.

After our crit, we decided to incorporate the acetate as someone had suggested to do a one month calendar instead rather than three. This way people can just use a marker pen to change each month but we would still use printed paper to display the acetate on. We eventually decided to keep the typeface simple and straight with Baskerville. Because our layout was simple we decided that a serif font would present the letterpress/traditional style - combining it with sans serif Verdana for the body font would create a balance.  We decided on the title 'What's On' because we noticed that on a lot of gallery websites, their exhibitions and events are labelled under a 'What's On' navigation button. The orange grid would be printed on A2 acetate and the white paper in the background would be A1 - this would have 'What's On?' and the paragraph explaining the intention of the calendar.  This informs students of why it is important to attend outside events. Furthermore, we both agreed to use such large papers to solve the problem of not having enough room to write.

We then also wanted to create a book as suggested in the crit. However we both decided to produce a book on where's the best places to go or check up on so it relates to the calendar but has more emphasis on where rather than when. We felt that this would be more useful to students as it relates to the calendar, in that if ever there isn't any events on currently, students can refer to the book to look into where to go instead, as all the places we chose you could just walk in and wasn't a specific exhibition.
We wanted the aesthetic to relate to the calendar as well. Although we did try out the wonky, post modernist approach we felt it didn't have any continuity and both the calendar and booklet should be consistent. The orange line on the cover and throughout the book represent the grid of the calendar.  The condensed layout & brief explanation further presents the idea of adding info on to a calendar. We used the same sans serif typeface throughout the book to keep consistency with the calendar & the 'Notes' page uses baskerville, again to be consistent with the title on the cover and on the calendar. The notes page asks people to keep note of events they have been to or know about so that they can inform people for next year or put it on the calendar for everyone to be aware of.  At the back we reminded people that they should PPP blog about the things they attended.