Thumb's Up

This was a quick-fire brief that had to be completed within one hour. The deliverables were two A4 format posters that consisted of no more than two colours. One had to advertise your own capabilities as a designer and thus sell yourself to a client. The other had to detail what you were looking for in regards to a perfect creative partner. No prizes for guessing where this was going to lead then...

My own thumb print, my own handwriting and a body of text about myself. Can't get anymore organic than that really?

Again my own thumb print, yet less words in less coherent manner. The idea with this was more lending to the fact that I didn't know who was going to fit the criteria and thus they would be effectively filling in the gaps themselves... I guess you could say they were volunteering themselves to fit into my thumb print, or the mold that I had set.

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Snake's Alive!

So I'm still behind, but what's new? Let's roll...

With another new week came another new brief, this time entitled 'How to...' Luckily for me the brief was a two week task, although I have to say it was probably one of the most obscure briefs that I have ever received in my life; let alone this degree. The first port of call was to pick a number from random that ranged between 01 and 1001. For no particular reason I selected number 677; which quite humorously correlated to the task of 'How to care for your snake' in the Collins book of 'How to do just about everything.'

My initial concept development led to obvious interpretations of how to look after a snake as a pet; a notion that the book itself advised me upon. As per usual however, I liked to make the task a little more enjoyable and subsequently progressed onto topics such as advertising for hair-care products (using Medusa as a mythological reference point) and caring for a snake with intention to consume it. The latter perhaps not in the snake's best interests, but after all a brief is what you make it!

From a particularly interesting crit, it soon emerged with feedback that the idea of consuming snake as a meat dish was by far the stronger approach; and so the development continued. The most peculiar product that I came across was without doubt snake wine; an alcoholic beverage that combined your average wine with a fermented cobra in order to let the venom pass through. Thank you for that Vietnam... I think I'll pass.

In struggling to finalize my focus down to a specific audience, I had a somewhat welcomed epiphany thanks to Glass-eye Gasi and his fond love for food. This resulted in producing a couple of final resolutions, the first being an instructional poster for chefs to prepare the snake for eating. The second being a complimentary recipe card for restaurant goers who would perhaps like to try preparing a meal in the comforts of their own home.

Here's what I came up with...



The theory behind this design lies in the way that the business card sized image would slot over the main A6 recipe card like a paper clip. In doing so the receipt would be secured and given to the customer in one neat little package.


This would obviously be laminated and situated within the workplace; in this instance the kitchen. I aimed for a very direct and informative approach that delivered clarity through both type and image. Photographs of the design in the real world will follow shortly as soon as I get back home and have a word with my old boss; I'm sure he wont mind.

Nice Nice

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Re: Cog Resolutions

Sorry for the delay in updating my progress with this brief; have been exceptionally busy with this that and the other. You all know the feeling I'm sure. Here we go...

I eventually come up with a set of six final resolutions as I felt they all needed to be done. Multiple ideas were tackled with each of the given designs. The basic premise was either to create a card that could be given in the way that you would give a birthday card, or to alternatively create an interactive card that you would fill out yourself as a gesture of good will.

I finalised my decision based on what I considered to be the strongest resolution in terms of both aesthetics and theory - 'Thank you, you have been a star' and 'Thank you for thinking out of the box' were the two to make the final cut. I felt they possessed the strongest message and worked best given their layout and format.

A few coffees later I chose to submit 'Thank you, you have been a star' as my final entry to the competition. It conveyed a more accessible message that could be received by a much larger and broader audience; mass production was a consideration I was trying to aim for.

Thank you for listening, well... reading.

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Recognition Day...

A brand new brief for a brand new module and whaddya know, it's a one weeker (for us anyway) courtesy of Cog Design. The idea and concept is as follows:

'Recognition Day (4th May) is one day in the year, that we celebrate an excuse to dispel cynicism, to reach out and say thank you.

Genuine praise is wonderful to receive and simple to give, but none of us do it enough. We want everyone to take a few minutes out of their day to tell others that they appreciate them. On Recognition Day it’s acceptable to suspend the barriers and to say thank you for the little things.

We are looking for challenging, interesting, exciting, awe inspiring, thought-provking visual responses to the concept of Recognition.Create your responses using a method that best suites your idea: paint, typeset, knit, sculpt, print, photograph, doodle, carve, crochet, engrave, stitch or draw. Capture your creation and send us your response.

We will choose sixteen of our favourite entries and publish them as A6 postcards. The postcards will be used as part of our annual celebration of kindness – Recognition Day.

Three financial awards are available to the students who best demonstrate a creative talent through an inspired response to the brief. Each of the three will also be considered for a three-week placement at Cog Design’s studio in Greenwich, South London.'

Sounds straight forward enough? Here's last years winner:

I think I've got a few ideas up my sleeve for this, stay tuned.

Links::

Cog Design
Recognition Day

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The Message:

Hi,

Just to let you know that this blog will contain the latest goings on that I feel you should know about in regards to my final module as a first year undergraduate student. OUGD103 Design Practice is all about discovering who I am as a designer, what my concerns are, what ambitions I have, what I want to be and how I want to go about it.

I'd like it if you would discover this with me...

.ta x