Summer Project Breakdown.

This is my Summer Blog broken down into the best bits, it will involve a total of 8 Linked images all taking you to different posts over the two blogs that I have produced. Involving 4 greatest hit posts and another 4 that I feel reflect me best as a person, showing my interests and also personality in some respects.

Camden Market.

Early Bird & Night Owl.

Music Enthusiast.

Banksy's Gallery.

Urban Movement.

Iain McArthur.

Open Minded.

Third Dimension.

Advertising - Poster Art 150.

I found this book on our bookshelf at home whilst actually searching for the dictionary, so I started flicking through the pages to be pleasantly surprised with what was inside. The book is essentially about 150 London Underground posters from each decade / year from all the back in 1920's. I think that is a great book to reflect on the designs that were used in each decade and also you can see how as time went on, the design industry adapted to their posters making them more engaging and fun for the public as well as very informative. I have picked out a few pages from the book to give an idea of what its all about and also to show off some of the graphics used for the underground posters.

Out of the 4 that I have picked out, this has to be my favourite design, simply because it has the 'London Underground' service, mocking the taxi transport service. Whatever angle you look at it, this poster is TRUE! It's practically saying you could get a taxi and let it take you twice as long to get somewhere OR you could get the tube. I also think its a great that the designer of this poster has interpreted the taxi's as snails - for the main reason being they literally go at " snails-pace " in London. The colours added onto the snails and the overall shape of them are very close to what a taxi would normally look like to make it a bit more comical. Finally, I think that un-like the other posters which include a fair amount of text - this one is great for the reason being all they used to present the poster was the design, the underground logo and finally the the minimal amount of text. Almost because the design speaks a thousand
words and you just need that short caption
at the end to finish it all off.

Handful of Concepts - Adjustable Adapter.

"Adjustable and Extendable Plug adapter."

I know there are plug extensions designed as either a cube or rectangle, but why not go that extra bit further and design a plug which can be stretched out, twisted, pulled to suit your rooms needs. It would make those difficult areas of your room where it needs a plug socket most that little bit easier. 

Advertising - Pre War.

Ever since I played the video game 'Fallout 3', I have always been fascinated by Pre-War / Post-War advertising and how it becomes to be so effective. I feel that retro posters and packaging designs are keen to the eye, it is almost like stepping back in time and for those of the older generation, it could be reminisced in many ways. The design on the right is one of my favourite posters advertising the game, it doesn't give too much detail away, but it does show it in a post war apocalyptic land. Even the concept of 'apocalyptic' can be a long conversation in its self, which really engages me.





Linking in with the 'pre-war' scene, I find retro branding very eye catching and something that is only just starting to be used again in the graphic design scene. Professions such as; Coffee Shops, Barber Shops, Tailoring Shops, Brewery, and so forth, are great examples of businesses that are beginning to use this style of design. I have collated some of my favourite retro / vintage posters and logo's, which I personally find most appealing and engaging, I really like the typography / calligraphy used on some of the images below.

Handful of Concepts - Waterproof Notepad.

"Waterproof Notepad."

For some of us, our ideas come when we are aimlessly standing around doing pretty much nothing, - in other words - the shower. However, whenever I get a good idea I always make myself write down as soon as I get out, but I forget due to other things getting in the way before that. SO, to save precious ideas from going to waste and getting lost forever, it would be a nifty idea to have a notepad which would be waterproof so you could write down your thoughts with ease whilst in the shower, meaning you wouldn't have to worry about writing rubbing away.

Advertising - Interactive McDonald's.

I'd seen this interactive 'coupon / advert' a few months back but it didn't occur to me to talk about it until I re-looked upon it now. I personally feel that this is a great way for McDonalds to connect with the customers, it makes the consumer use their phones and virtually fill up their cups full of chips from the larger screen infront of them. Not only does it make the customer work for their food, but it also sort of brings a friendship closer together. 

Handful of Concepts - Hand Charger.

"Hand charged phone batter."

Seeing as I'm a festival enthusiast, is always becomes a real concern about phone battery, although there are ways of sustaining enough battery over the weekend - soon or later those chargers will run out. You could also pay to get your phone charged up but I mean come one, who wants to pay? Much like the self winding torches which requires hand power to generate enough battery life to produce a beam of light, there could also be something similar for a self winding phone charger. Just plug it in, wind it up and let your battery continuously charge, without having to worry about it running out.

Handful of Concepts - Pizza Fork.

"A pizza roller and fork in one."

The means of combining 2 or more items together to make life easier is become a much higher demand due to the public being more and more lazy. So why not build something that suits their needs, a pizza roller and a fork in one - meaning they don't have to switch cutlery between meals and this also saves vital washing up space. 

Visits and Events - Comic Museum.

Located on Little Russell Street is this hidden treasure, simply called, 'The Cartoon Museum'. I had only heard about it due to my mum telling me there was a small cartoon gallery around the area of the british museum that she had seen and thought I would be interested in having a look at one day. So on Tuesday 12th August, Myself and 4 fellow future students from GD headed down to London for a day trip and we decided we should take a look at the museum.  

 I wasn't too sure what to expect as I ventured inside, would it just be photo's on a wall, maybe animation but nothing could come close to what I THOUGHT it would be like to what it was actually like. The main foyer room was where you could buy your ticket to go through but it was also filled with books, posters, post cards and pretty much anything else that illustration orientated.

 This photo [LEFT] was the main entrance before you walked into the exhibition show, I love how pretty much the whole wall as been filled up with all sorts of illustrations and characters - some being familiar and some quite obscure. Never the less, this was a perfect way to introduce you to the world of illustration before walking into the main sector. My favourite design on this wall here is definitely the Napoleon sketch on the far left of the wall - the designer has stretched the cartoon so it fits the length of the door frame.




These photo's are just some that I was able to get whilst my time there, I was more fascinated by the designs and illustrations that half the time I forgot to reference it and take photo's. Although there was some issues with taking photo's, meaning you could only take general shots and not close up ones - I went against these rules slightly and took as best pictures as I could get as the illustrations were totally worth the shots of getting caught.

   

Out of both floors on the exhibition it was this rather crude comic strip featuring Desperate Dan and it being related to Animal Cruelty. Now in design, there is that big thing about even if you love it or hate it, it'll be on your mind and you'll remember it, and talk about it to others - this is a prime example of this, if you read the comic strip from left to right you will begin to see how crude and vulgar it actually is. It made me think how this was acceptable back in 1939;

Handful of Concepts - Real life drop box.

"Real life drop-box."

These days, us designers tend to use the website Drop Box an awful lot to share and keep our work safe on an online virtual box. Thinking way into future terms, almost like a portal, you could have 2 boxes or containers - one at your location and another at your destination , and just put the items your wished into the box. This would then magically teleport the items to the other box meaning you can easily transport goods, items, ect. 

Advertising - Watch Dogs.

If you had read the ABOUT ME section of my blog, then you would know I quite like gaming and that all sorts of video games actually help fuel my ideas. Quite recently, a game called 'Watch Dogs' has just come out on all platforms, but before it was released there was this rather iconic and interactive advert which fooled unsuspected passers by into subconsciously being apart of the game but in real life.

The whole concept of this idea was really well thought out, initially there would be a place like in any ordinary town, where you can get your phone fixed but in this case the salesman offers to add in a free app. Once the app is inserted, the salesman takes the customer outside to show them what it can do, things such as; Turn on and off street lamps, Open car doors, Eject money from ATM'. But the good thing about them showing these specific features, is that these are just some of the things that is possible in the new game. It makes the consumer feel much more connected with the brand and also excited for the release of the initial game because the things that they had just witnessed were quite clearly illegal, yet they loved it. I advise you to watch the whole of the video linked above to get a gist of what I am talking about. This is a great way to interact and gain more interest from the public / consumers.

Handful of Concepts - Colour Shower.

"A shower that changes colour due to the temperature"

This idea would work great for people with the loss of touch, as it would be a shower synced up with some L.E.D lights to show what temperature it is for those who can't feel the sensation of heat. To be honest, it would also lighten up your shower times in the evening with the lights off for anyone;

HOT - RED
WARM - ORANGE
MILD - GREEN
COLD - BLUE

and the rest in between.  

Handful of Concepts - Designers Knife.

"A swiss army knife created for designers."

I was thinking the other day, seeing as I quite like to have my utensils for working around me and knowing where they all are. Taking the idea of a Swiss Army Knife where all the essential equipment you need for camping / exploring is - you could create a "Designers Knife" with essential equipment needed for any area of design, for example the knife could include;

Pencil, Pen, Paint Brush, Ruler, Compass, Scalpel, Sharpener, Rubber ect. 

Personal Inspirations - Jay Howell.

It was only very recently that I stumbled across Jay Howell's unique style of illustration and work that he produces. I first saw his work on a music video of one of my favourite artists Flume, where I felt his work was completely out of the ordinary and rather special in the illustration area, it was from here on that I decided to google and look up his work in a bit more depth.

 

I think the main reason why I like Jay's work so much is that its nothing compared to any illustrator I have seen before. Seeing as most illustrators that I like are very clean and precise with their projects, Jay is the complete opposite. In my personal opinion, I feel his work is very sketchy and quite unique in its own way. By elongating the legs of the characters that he makes, and in the video above, he literally takes your imagination to a whole next level, having illustrated characters with 3 heads, oddly shaped bodies, multiple eyes and so on. I am really fond of his work as its something, quite literally, out of the ordinary.

These are just 2 other posters, that I felt showed off Jay Howell's work best and also ones that stood out to me and appealed to me most.

Timeout Magazine - Clink.

 

LINKING IN WITH MY OTHER TIMEOUT POST;

Another interesting page I had found in the Timeout Magazine was this part on hotels and hostels, the main reason I was so drawn towards it was because of the graphics used to talk about the company. I was so intrigued, I decided to go onto their website and see what other communicative and unique graphics they used, and these are just a few screen shots of what I found;

As soon as you click onto the website, it looks really friendly with everything you need in the right place - which saves time and hassle when having to search endlessly for something. The colour scheme that they had used in the magazine, was exactly the same on the website which made it look connected and not a mess. I think that the cyan and yellow works well together, the yellow isn't too over powering nor does it get washed out by the blue.

I decided to grab a screen shot of these small info-graphics that they had going on the website, initially I genuinely thought they were there just to liven up the page, but once I actually used my head I realised that the 4 other words were links to different websites that they run. Then the little icons underneath were to do with what was available in each hostel ect. For example, the 2 icons far left look as if it is saying "This hostel has available bathrooms and showers..." and so forth. 

Visits & Events - VFestival.

Over the weekend of August 15th - 18th, I headed up to V Festival at Weston Park, in Staffordshire. Safe to say that the weather held up pretty good for 3 of the 4 days, until on the day of us leaving Monday it pretty much poured down. Although I didn't go there for anything design related, the posters and patterns used to advertise the event really struck my eye, I do like how they have used a paint splatter and made the colours quite vibrant to make the whole poster stand out from the rest of the text. However, I prefer last years designs to this one, because Jared Nickerson designed the whole thing as I spoke about previously in this blog, I'm really fond of his work, never the less, I do quite like this design that has been done for 2014.

2014 Poster

2013 Poster

One visual thing that did catch my eye a fair amount there, was the design at the MTV Stage. The use of typography and different styled calligraphy to make up this really unique looking banner on both sides of the stage was fairly eye catching. You can just about see it in the Sam Smith photo below, where it is visible underneath the 2 main screens, it linked in well with what the music the MTV stage was giving out.

These are just a few photo's and videos that I managed to get whilst at my time there, without me going on too much about it; It was probably one of my best weekends this year.