21 Michael C.

Michael C Plaice is a northern based creative director of the design studio Studio.Build. His talk today spoke about his upbringing, as well as causes and influences in his life that have led him towards a career in graphic design.

From the start of the talk it was clear that Michael was not an ordinary designer, his path and love/hate relationship with graphic design has led him to live a dynamic life where he has many lessons to teach, and much knowledge to offer.

I found his passion for typography prevelent throughout his life, from studying album covers in the 1980s as a passion to the typography centered work he and his studio embark on today. He asks us to appreciate the ‘wow’ moments in design and find inspiration from everything in life, and not just everything within graphic design.

Micheal does not belive that pretty graphic design is interesting, and instead belives that everything is ari game, with minimal rules and regulations create the most interesting designers of tomorow. I find truth in this, Especially within creative industries, graphic design is an industry that promotes innovation and dynamism that such the upbringing of these creative must find their own innovative path and employ their own creative techniques. Michael belives that this creates the kind of evocative and visual design that he finds particularly interesting.

A key part of the speak that has been prevalent throughout all of the afterlife talks so far, and that is that forming relationships within the design industry is key to a successful career, not only that forming relationships is vital, but that doing good design for good people is as key. Favours are commonplace within the design industry and play an important part of forming your own design studio. Another key part of Michaels talk is his preference on smaller, tighter workspaces with small groups of good, focussed people that are equally as passionate as the creative director.

Key takeaways from this talk include interesting designers to research such as, Vorne Oliver & Rod Clarke, an urgency to form relationships with design studios around the country, the overflood of graduates in the summer is often frustrating for studios and thus, earlier applications stand a better chance of being a success due to a lower amount of competition. I found Michael’s talk inspiring and useful in my recent influx of passion for typography, serving to only inspire me further to grasp every opportunity and attempt to find inspiration in everything that surrounds me, ensuring to look out for the key ‘wow’ moments in design, then ensuring to employ these interesting and innovative systems in the work that I create, in the hope that I can develop into a more unique and interesting designer.

Afterlife Continued

Studio KOTO

James Greenfield and his studio, Studio KOTO work with companies for branding and re-branding from start-ups. Having heavy involvement in brand development and maintenance. With this being the opening salvo to his afterlife talk, I am very interested in what he has to say. I found his talk both inspiring and relatable with James believing in the ideas over the visuals when designing. This is a point I have come to realise going into my third year, I find that I am starting to focus much more on the research and ideation stages of projects, in order to allow for a greater meaning filled execution.

IDEAS ARE EVERYTHING –

A good brand can be built on good ideas, but just having flashy visuals is not enough to create real, emotional lasting connections with audiences. This point really resonated with me due to my own experience on the course and reflecting on the project that I have found most successful so far. As well as being built on fantastic ideas, James believes that brands should also be a story, not a static collection of branding elements slapped together, btu instead a story and the brands quality should be judged when asking yourself the question, how good is their story? I found this piece of information useful to me, I have done research on brand purpose previously, but to have it said by an industry professional as such as valued point only confirms it within my own design philosophy. James states the key to creating a good brand story is really delving into what the brand means, knowing what they do and how they do it inside and out, so that effective design solutions can be developed.

Some of the clients James and his studio have worked with include, Meatable – Whereby Studio KOTO created for the future, this project was particularly interesting to me as the work had to be placed in a time that doesn’t exist yet, the ability to design for the future shows a clear solid and fool proof approach to design, something that has clearly been cracked over at Studio KOTO.

James considers designers agents of change, but also shares the belief that talking can fast track you to better answers, I fully agree with this and find that communication in every instance, but especially within design is the key to being successful, good clear and confident communication can give you access to others viewpoints and criticisms, something that helps everyone tighten up their design work.

I walk away from this inspiring afterlife session with a question in my mind, who are you? what are your values? I believe that these questions will help to shapes me further as a designer as well as find my place within design.

Maris Latham

Maris Latham is a previous graduate of CSAD, she is currently working for Cowshed in Cardiff.

due to Maris position as a CSAD graduate, I found her talk more relatable than most other afterlife sessions. Her tips and experiences seem very real and born out of experience. she expresses concerns and mentions how it’s okay to not know exactly what you want to do, or where you want to go. This helped me realise that I do not only have the career of a graphic designer available to me and has inspired me to look further afield into related industries, where my communication based degree will still possess transferable skills, even if the job title is not strictly “Graphic Designer”.

Maris’ confidence within her time studying at CSAD was particularly interesting, the fact she dove right in to using type within her FMP, even with limited experience is something that I find myself doing, and it’s reassuring to know that it is often met with positive connotations among industry professionals.

Once again, Maris stressed the importance of preventing burnout as a key factor to having both a successful career, and an enjoyable time. It is vital to have a work/life balance and to note that your entire life cannot be design, you must have hobbies and activities outside of it, or else you risk losing interest and burning out early.

Maris also recommends the book: “Graphic design is mental” Ben Longden

Gavin Leisfield

within Gavin’s talk I found a common theme amongst all the previous afterlife sessions, that being a designer is far more than just design. Putting emphasis on getting out and inspired by everything around you as well as remining determined and hardworking, but also stressed the points that design must remain enjoyable if to avoid fast and deadly burnouts often. Burnout is a feeling I have certainly felt before and with Gavin’s advice I believe it should help me to avoid it more in the future.

Gavin’s asks us to consider if we are happy where we are, as well as stating the important fact that there is always more out there if you aren’t happy with where you are. Gavin has gone through many different job and industry roles and finds that moving around in jobs helps to gain a bigger picture. On the topic of travelling Gavin advise us to get out and travel the world, the experiences and inspiration gained by travelling to other countries is unmatched.

Similar to James Greenfield, Gavin asks us to consider who we are now, and who we want to be. this will help shape long term goals and overall guide your journey to becoming a more rounded and experienced designer.

I found Gavin’s run through of Go Ape very useful, I have done branding projects in the past however to see a live case study with annotations from Gavin made me realise the huge amount of experimentation and research that goes into finding the best branding elements for a client. The sheer number of tiny adjustments made to just the logo marque alone, this matched with user research in order to develop good quality keywords and focus groups. Competitor analysis was also a key part of the research stage, making sure you know not just your clients products, but analysing competitors gives you a better view of the industry as a whole, as well as spotting what holes exist amongst those competitors, and then exploit it.

Gavin also talks about getting the idea, and then breaking it down to the smallest parts possible, then rebuilding it, with the visual language and design approaches attached, I found this very interesting, but surely challenging to do. It does guarantee an engaging and huge understanding of the brief the client has set, but it also means that you will have a plethora of experimentations when the work is being complete, meaning you will have a lot of fallbacks if the client does not agree with your outcomes.

Overall I found Gavin’s talk inspiring and informative, his walkthrough of the Go Ape brief will continue to be of use to me for a long time, a constant document that can be fell back onto whenever I am struggling to fight my way through a design challenge.

A final note from Gavin, that Bolivain food tastes like shit!

Paul Felton & Alex Wooley

I really enjoyed this afterlife session, the focus on meaning as well as multiple interesting projects run throughs kept me engaged the whole time. Common Curiosity are heavily embedded in theoretical and conceptual research long before they even consider creating their own work. This resonated with me, as my love for research sits at the forefront of my designs, I share their view of taking one or two core concepts that have been founded in heavy research, and then relating that back to design. I find that this removes the need for “pretty Graphic Design” with such heavily embedded meaning there is no need for fluffy gradients or strokes, the research is informing the designs, and thus the designs made are true and real, they allow the viewer to relate perfectly and relate not just the colour or the shape of the logo, but the objects/experiences that the branding material is being visually explored.

Paul chooses to pull out a couple of examples, the one I found most interesting was a project on a London brewery, I found this to be a perfect complement to his talks on the necessity of research within graphic designs. the visual language of the brief represented not just the look of barrels and arches, but specific arches and structures that are unique to the brewery itself, this allowed the visual language to tell its own story and made the brand far more interesting than just being a nice colour or looking pretty.

Overall I found this talk very inspiring and interesting, the tips witihn the talk are relatable to my own practice commonly and will no doubt help me shape my future moving forward into graduation.

Gareth Dunt

Within Gareth’s Afterlife session I found his Journey to be the most unique of the afterlife sessions, he talks about his life frankly and this makes him appearing more human and interesting, gaining interest and making me listen to every word he has to say throughout his afterlife session.

Gareth pushes collaboration projects as he believes that the best work is made when varied people come together, and i must agree! from field projects and general life experiences the mixing of talents and industries creates varied and innovative outcomes, and certainly some of the best projects throughout my degree have been working with others who possess different skillsets, whether that is working with clients or with other designers who exist within a different undergraduate.

Another interesting point mad by Gareth was an idea that “it’s better to be interested than interesting”. This mindset helps people to keep working and improving themselves, as well as prevent people from comparing themselves to the people around them too often. Wanting constant inspiration and design ideas seems the key to creating positive designs and all round being more valued as both a person, and a designer.

Gareths porfolio advice for us was also very interesting and useful. His advice is as follows

Less is More!

Make sure your portfolio is designed well in order to tell the stories of your work more efficiently

Create some self initiated projects! they show a passion better than words ever can

Constantly update your portfolio, not leaving everything until it is needed for an interview the day before

Also accept and encourage feedback at every opportunity

There is no need for more than three pages per portfolio project

Developing Final Outcomes & Reflections

My final outcomes here are simply more detailed versions of previous iterations, dealing more with the typographic detailing as well as polishing off the videos and animations with audio as well as smoothing out several transitions and animations.

fmp-design-document Download

I found my larger animation to come alive with the improvements, the transitions are now much more varied and interesting, meaning that even though it is multiple minutes long, it is exciting to watch while continuing a large amount of interesting and intriguing information, I believe I have delivered this in an effective and accessible way. Alongside the App, in particular the converted interactable infographic that exists within it, this infographic really is the most effective part of the app, that combined with the ability to scan your local area and get that areas light pollution level, you can then translate that light pollution grade to other relatable occurrences, something that I think would improve this would be to offer some comparative areas light pollution level, however the user themselves could do this simply by entering a different postcode into the app and thus getting a different areas light pollution results returned, however given that this is not expressively mentioned within the app would mean that it could make a marked improvement of the amount of use that my users get from the app and in particular, the infographic within.

Overall, I found my FMP massively challenging, but equally rewarding. I believe I have taken risks with my FMP, delving into motion but I do think that it has forced me to learn new skills, given the perfect topic area for motion there really was no other way that these issues could be designed apart from having motion sitting at the centre of it, saying that though I still find my use of static ads both meaningful and interesting, I have avoided simply making for the sake of making, everything here has a purpose and helps to either strengthen the brand or strengthen the level/sophistication of the communication within the brand. With this in mind I think the outcomes could be expanded upon, further experimentation into different animation software’s would help me to realise what else I could do, unfortunately I lacked the timeframe to conduct this extensively, however I did have the chance to experiment with the cinema 4D engine within after effects, I feel much more exploring into new programmes may have perhaps harmed my outcomes more, I think I gave myself enough of a challenge for such an important and lenghty project, and overall I think I have met that challenge well and am therefore a more rounded designer because of it.

Fight Bright Ammendments & Developments

With the name, logo and type working together, it seemed the right time to go through all of my previously made content and fix the issues brought up as well as incorporate general refinements. I think as a whole the animation is now much more effective, the effects that are used are used throughout but they also have smaller, detail oriented changes to them, even the smallest things like having small offshoots of lights in the animation directly above to show a downward facing lamp, as well as easy easing the keyframes so you get that nice sense of flow and softer revealing, down to the smallest details input here, having the light glows themselves be one frame out of timing so you get the tiniest sense of travel between the actual letterforms glowing, then the larger glow emanates from the sources, I think this all works together to give a more realistic motion experience.

Fight Bright

With further refinements I have changed the logo and name of my campaign once again, I really think that the foundations of the content are the main area that need work. The visual systems remain perfectly functional, however small adjustments to the name and tagline will help to make my call to action clearer, this was once of my key concerns in the research stages and so I think it is worth the time to really flesh out every alternative with taglines, names and marques to ensure that the campaign remains both accessible and identifiable as well as delivering high quality, persuasive information and content.

Fight Bright, is shorter, snappier and more memorable than my previous names, it still implies that light pollution is a fight, and the tagline goes into further detail, specifying that it is a campaign about combating light pollution. The previous flashing lights are still proving a successful way to reveal and conceal information, having this moved into a moving format allows the viewers eye to be forced over to different areas, isolating type for the duration it takes to read, then removing it from the page to reveal something else, this revealing information in isolation also echoes light pollution itself, the inability to see the whole picture is a part of the sight limiting factors of light pollution, I think this has been translated well into my designs, it doesn’t say ‘this represents light pollution’ in a literal sense, but the good thing is, it doesn’t have to. I personally think that it is clear what the flashing lights are representing here, this is of course assisted by the inclusion of thinner weights of type that also implicitly remind the users of fluorescent tubing, a most artificial form of light that is often the cold blue shade replicated above.

I think if I could just translate this short snapshot into my longer length animation, then I would be really delving into success, but the issue I’m finding with that is with the length of the animation, and that I can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over again, as there would be no point of making the animation the 2 minute length it currently is, additionally, it would also become predictable and boring to watch.

I think moving forward with the further branding elements for this campaign, I think the main issue does not sit within the longer animation, I need to go through and be really innovative with my animations and then refine the animations to be smooth, but to do that they must sit on an interesting and creative foundation, utilising the motion design research previously to ensure that I really push it as high quality as I can so that it can become an interesting and inviting piece of motion design.

FMP Ammendments after submission

vs-pres-22 Download

With the notes from my formative presentation in mind, I have reworked the structural elements of the campaign, while the visual language was perfectly functional. The actual approach was causing confusion as it was not perhaps as thought through and clear as it should have been.

I found my improvements to the categorising of the campaign very successful here, taken from my first project this year I decided to rename the campaign to something that could be changed slightly/added to in order to give the user a clear insight, not just that they are learning about light pollution, but exactly what part of light pollution. Three categories seemed perfect, one for the sight limiting factors, one for the health and a final one for the wildlife/climate effects light pollution has. These could be broken down into even further sub categories but at that point the categorisation would perhaps become pointless as the users would potentially get lost in a large web of categories and end up more confused in the end.

More urgent type has been implemented, and I think this is a wholly positive change. the use of small caps allows for greater play of type while still having a varied weight, but keeping the larger, more present caps help to scream the words on the page with a greater sense of urgency than the previous, softer typographical approach. I still think that scale could be utilised more in order to give a greater sense of hierarchy, however this will need to be taken with huge delicacy, too much large, bold caps and the page will look far too cluttered and will once again become confusing and overwhelming, with the use of flashing lights still in all of my content I do not think I need to make the designs anymore overwhelming than the moving elements already are. If this can be done though, I think it will help to just elevate my visual language just that bit more.

to match with the new, more fighting and urgent type and new name. Lights vS asks users to fight against light pollution, this vocabulary has been selected very purposefully, I want light pollution to seem like a fight, but a fight that can be won, I think this is becoming a key element within my campaign as the main first step seems to be persuading people that light pollution is both a massive problem, but also does not have to happen, this new set of vocabulary alongside the updated visual language but paired with the previous successful elements of ‘Lights block Sights’ allows the call to action to become even more clear, easing the user journey into success.

finally, along with the new elements mentioned above, in order to ensure that confusion amongst the three different categories is eliminated I have incorporated a different key colour, all of these, blue, yellow and green, are all RGB colours, they still show the bright and aggressively artificial nature of light pollution, especially when on a dark background. The glows are kept bright and wide to show just how much one single lamp can illuminate, but also just how easily over lighting can occur when too many lights are placed in one area, the area being the screen bounds in my Lights vS case.

Moving forward, I now need to start implementing the more subtle, detailed oriented tasks. I need to go through my animations and fix all the key frames so they are as smooth as possible, as well as eliminating widows etc. from the typography of the app and infographic, I also think my work would benefit from a small amount of imagery introduces. Now it is entirely typographic, even just inputting a few light sources to reveal different layers of information should help vary the pace slightly and ensure that potential users are kept interested throughout their time interacting with the campaign.

ISTD Post Submission Developments & Research

I find that the entire time working on my ISTD entry pre formative deadline I was constantly working on the best IDEA, and the entire time spent after the deadline was simply refining this idea, this is not to say I didn’t do much work, the refinement and constant development of the project was much more demanding work that simply coming up and exploring many different ways to reimagine Invisible Cities.

I think what was the most important part of this post formative section of work was when I decided to move past creating in one large map, I instead broke the cities down separately in order to understand them better, and then I built them back up within the map ready for further refinements. I think this was the most important part because it really sorted my head out as to how I was going to approach the work, It allowed me to create a massively detailed large format piece of work by dividing it up into its different sections first, the research on Joyce Stafford helped to frame this as when I looked at her work I felt overwhelmed with all the content on the page, but once you delve into it in detail you begin to see how everything makes sense, for me this had to be done by completely breaking down the cities and placing them onto the rough print photos below. It allowed my brain to process each city individually on a format I am used to, and in the end allowed for a much more experimental and interesting outcome.

I went through many different approaches within the development stage of the spreads, using varied techniques from AR to specialist binding and sticking, considering using pull out tabs within the city of Fedora to translate the feeling of different reflections as well as implementing wheels cut from different rings out paper to allow full access to the book.

research-and-development Download

discovering my plan of, glyphs for expressing cities themselves and type setting and format for the chapters overall was another important part of developing my ISTD, being a key part of my theory behind making the large maps, and I took any rules and theory I could follow as at times I really wasn’t sure what would improve to decline the quality of my work, seemingly random fixes kept popping up and things I was sure would make my work better ended up making it to complicated and lost that delicate accessibility. the glyphs themselves also helped to cement a sense of cohesion amongst the large variance of colours and setting, due to the fact they were actually made from the different serifs sections of my chosen typeface, Migra Serif.

I really think ISTD has been my favourite project this year, it certainly has been the most complete, by this I mean it really focussed on everything, five weeks to perfect the idea, then more weeks to develop the big picture, with even more weeks spent refining the details, to then finishing off the last weeks with developing crystal-clear presentation to allow my carefully crafted designs to be as accessible as possible. I really wouldn’t change much I think I’ve pushed myself farther than ever before, working on ISTD even with multiple other projects being managed, and constantly updating my sketches and always noting down any potential new ideas and then exploring them, I think this has resulted in a detailed sketchbook that shows a clear exploration of everything I attempted, showing a clear rationale as to why I’ve made what I’ve made and why it is deserving of an ISTD.

due to it’s size my final outcomes can’t be uploaded to wordpress but there is a link to them here if it’s not possivel to extract them from the ISTD submission – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PokeO6N5gpyI_d-k9a-OYRk17fjeNip3/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A7g_6okamqAtwm2fbqNhzfIp3DYV8GKr/view?usp=sharing

Dissertation Design

Introducing me to the dissertation design project was a short workshop whereby I had to make different spreads with pre provided content, but with a varying strict amount of criteria set with each spread. I found this exercise useful, mainly for the short time frames given for each spread, rather than the restrictive parameters, I found short timeframes forced me to think quickly and act efficiently in order to design a cohesive spread. It taught me how to complete a task to the highest standard i can in the too short a time frame I have been given for it, testing my prioritisation skills while simultaneously giving me further practice in designing editorial spreads.

Here I think the second spread is most effective. I think this is because while the first spread was not worked for long enough, the second spread was designed still with a large amount of restrictions added alongside it, but those restrictions made me iron out the details that were allowed to be introduced, making it a simply but effective outcome. the third spread perhaps tries to be too fancy with the short amount of time that I was given to design it.

The most useful part of this workshop was, in my opinion the focus on building a good foundation to THEN add typographic flair and details. With already having a functional spread, I could then add the details and fleuron’s to it from there in order to build on what I have already made, rather than trying to do too much too quickly without enough of an idea on what I want to make or what should go where. Moving forward I feel more confident in my typography, after not being able to work on these spreads for very long and looking back at them now, I think i’ve executed them to a good standard and I’m learning that obsessively overworking often leads to poorer work.

dissertation_aidanmurphy_st20138647 Download

https://www.behance.net/collection/182252469/Diss-Design

My research for this project looked at a plethora of different editorial spreads, from experimental to more standard formats and layouts. I found that I was already aware of a of the different types of experimental formats from my ISTD project, but I feel this project will be different and should take on a different form, rather than being experimental in the format, as I have already done I should fill holes in my portfolio and use a more typical page bound, while executing as high a quality typography as possible, but leaving it plain to see and easily accessible and comprehensible.

Given my topic area of dissertation, My editorial needs to play with the idea of branding and propaganda, in particular the interactions between the two and how they have existed and reacted to each other, this being a dynamic and fluid relationship, the manipulation of propaganda and branding seems perfect for making a consistent but interesting pace, experimenting with manipulation of type is something well documented within typography, and therefore there is lots of research that I can pull from in order to get inspired as well as referencing from. Initial the examples above that use the redacted bars to isolate information is interesting to me, just using the bars themselves to hide information is very cliche but I wonder how I could take the idea and the effects and style of a redacted bar, and make it fresh, new and interesting with varying techniques so that it could be used throughout the different editorial spreads that I create.

Above are my initial experimentations after research and sketches, I tried to play on this idea of selected and redacted information, by alluding to the smudge like shapes of redacted bars, but without having them appear in the usual sense. I think by doing this I’m able to layer my spreads and incorporate a larger variance in hierarchy without having to implement too many colours, having information hiding around the borders of the smudges would elude to the idea that there is more information concealed, but the spread is only allowing you to see a select portion of the information, much like how propaganda and branding function in the real world, this technique used above allows me to do that without having to explicitly say it, making the spreads more intelligently packed with meaning and metaphors overall boosting the sophistication and desire to uncover the information within.

I have also taken inspiration from government style documents, within my mood board above these were among the first things to be found when searching to topic areas that exist within my dissertation and so they would clearly create an obvious link between the visual and typographic language and the content of the body copy. Large stamp like letterforms bring further layers to the spread and help to make the hierarchy less typical and what you would expect, although I like this effect it is not really what I wanted this editorial to do. I mentioned earlier about how this editorial should perhaps not be so experimental as ISTD shows that I have already done that, the typography should be focussed more in a conventional sense, like the justified paragraph of body copy on page 2, the absence of rivers and optimal line length may perhaps be less exciting to make than a massively experimental outcomes, but it does have a greater long term life as well as show a wider skillset when everything is evidenced within my portfolio.

With that in mind, I do like the colour scheme used here, the splash of colour are given more impact and the typography contrasts well to make for an interesting and varied paced set of editorial spreads.

Moving forward with the notes from me previous experimentation in mind, I have sketched further and made further editorial spreads, using a different set of colours, techniques as well as playing around further with the typefaces. While I mentioned I did like the colours used in the previous attempt, the rich purple reminds me of royalty and a higher class, almost as if the content is too high to be viewed by the people who are reading the spreads, it also reminds me of Cadbury’s, a company that does have a case study about them within my dissertation itself, on top of this I also very commonly use either a black/white background for my designs in almost every project so far at university, in an effort to challenge myself further in different areas I have decided to push this colour scheme and see just how far it can be stretched, if I get to the end at it really is the inly think holding the spreads back it may be changed but at the moment it seems to be working far better and contain far more embedded meaning that the previous, black, white and red colour scheme.

My methods of manipulation are much more varied than previously, these were more interesting to make as well as play with the type in more ways, I also feel like I have more ideas for thiis type of manipulation, stretching and contorting type can be done in a plethora of ways and I really have only scratched the surface of this concept.

The idea of a fine line is also floated about these spreads, I explore the ‘line’ throughout my dissertation, as seen in the sketches & brainstorms below.

Putting this line in different places within the earlier spreads and then moving forward with the spreads the line becomes more distorted and less obvious, reflecting perfectly with the content within the spreads. However, I feel if this line is to be introduced, it needs to be one of the only visual language effects, as the messages behind it need to be so easily understood with only some thought that It would need to take centre stage. I feel the manipulation of type and headings is very successful now and I would like the push it as far as I can before decided if I am going to take on other alternative techniques, taking inspiration from my previous lessons learnt in the workshop at the start of this project and not take too much on at once.

My next round of experimentation heed advice from previous reflection and tighten up the typography as well as choose a smaller number of techniques and then flesh those out further in order to create a more cohesive story as you are progressing through the spreads, and I think I’ve done that successfully. These spreads are not finished at all but I think sufficient progress has been made on pushing my spreads further to make them more effective.

The spreads still feel slightly too experimental and so should be brought back a tiny bit, focussing on the typographic rules when it comes to editorial as well as really refining and condensing the techniques used will help to finalise my spreads until they are ready for presentation.

My final outcomes are below, I feel these as done the job that my editorial spreads needed to do, although I do really want to be more experimental I now know that this is not always the best idea, my designs sometimes just need to do the job well, they do not need to be a huge expansive story that challenges everything, knowing when to follow the rules is just as important as knowing when to break them, and on reflection of this project, I feel that this the most important thing I have learn throughout the time working on it.

diss-design-spreads Download

Outcomes & Scope With Reflections

presentation-1 Download

My outcomes at the time of the formative presentations are above.

I belive these outcomes are certainly the embodiment of my entense research in both theoretical and conceptual settings. However, while the positives here are the well informed nature of the outcome, I think the actual conceptual visual cohierency and typographic detailing as well as the overall sophisitication of th outcomes needs vast improvments, there is no need, in my opinon to explore any further concepts in the form of research I have all i need. I should be concentrating my efforts into creating detailed outcomes, and perhaps limiting my number of outcomes significantly, at least for the time being concentrating all my efforts into perhaps just making a small but detailed and useful app as well as a single, informative and experiemental/experienctial motion animation would help to really hammer home exactly what details and systems should exist where. For example, the increasing of weight to show light is intensity is good, and so I should push this concept as far as i can, explore every hole that the techqnieu can fit in, and this should be done before making a large scale outcome in order to prevent the dissolution of the campaign and it’s meaning as well as it’s visual and typographical impact.

The motion animations are functional, but they could become much more, the potetnial here is endless due to a carefully researched and selection format matching perfectly with the issue at hand, light pollution in motion is perfect, and I do not think i have met the potential here, but there is so much more than can be done that should perhaps be done by taking myself back to sketches and stepping away from after effects, a somewhat restrictive programme if you’re not highly proficent in it’s tehcniques and systems, as i am still quite new to the programme, this would likely help to exapnd the experimental nature of my outcomes while preventing a disjointed and seperate feeling throughout my outcomes.

my static outcomes should use ugency in more ways, for example, experimenting with small caps and point size more, the screen bounds can be broken to give a greater sense of scale and movement, such an important part of my outcomes movement should be considered in every sense within ever outcome.

moving forward I think i will look back at my first project this year, which was also a social campaign and see what were the massive positives there, not in the visual systems, but in the foundations of the concepts of the campaign overall, for example, that project was split into different sub sections with mt designs forming an overarching brand, light pollutino is such a massive and complex issue that affecs so many that this may be the new and refined way to translate my research through. Rather than light block sights perhaps it could be called

Lights Vs …..

And then sub sections can be put in after the Vs, allowing the audience to instantly connect with what the designs infront of them are meant to be showing, helping the formation of connections and making my designs more accessable to the widest audience possible.

While there is still plenty to improve and refine before submission, I think i have successfully engaged with new and exciting design challenges, I have not shyed away from after effects, a programme that I have previously tried to avoid. I belive I have clearly found a very important issue and, through research and experimentation have discovered the perfect format from which to express my social campaign from, it is just a case of taking a step back for a short time and perhaps looking at this project with fresh eyes and drawing up a new structure, ensuring to keep the visual language elements I have already created that seem to be working. I look forward to transforming this project more and hopefully working out the problems in order to allow my social campaign to reach it’s full potential and make real, social change.

Further Developments & Static/Motion Technique Refinements

Ext motion fixes

In the hope of better communicating the essence of light pollution i have moved further into 3D within my animations, this is another type of animation entirely and therefore may benefit frobeng made in Blender rather than after effects, however given my lack of experience in blender i think it would be benefitical to make my outcomes in after effect and then port them over to blender for application of noise, 3D effects and the insertion of objects.

At the time of making i was aware that making 3D text in after effects is a very difficult task, it is very hard to do well as the work so easily falls into an amateur looking catageory, for this reason i do not think that iincluding it in this project is a very good idea, I am alreadys stretching myself enough by learning after effects purely for my FMP as well as the fact that the use of multiple programmes for the same animation may cause corruption issues not to mention that the different visual styles that possibly would be created will cause massive rifts in the coheriency of the visual languge, my visual langauge is postive at this moment and does not need much ammedning, I would not want to upset the balance without having at least some solid outcomes made beforehand. For these reasons i feel that experimentations such as these should remain to be explored until further in the project, once my otcomes have been develedoped further and only small adjustments need to be made to the foundations of the visual language/storyboards for the animations.

Apart from the 3d effects, the improvements I have made to the animations are overwhelmingly positive, I think is this becuase previously I had made the basic structure and outcome, but beuase of this the actual amimation uses bare bones techniques in order to just translate my ideas within my storybaord, however with this extra time I now have I delved deeper into each section and transition and explored more in depth what I could do to each of them, this rise in quality is also supported by the now more consistent typopgraphy, a clear consistency in left aligning as well as block paragraphs often appearing in simlar places, only having the weights changing, and the weights being changed are there with reason, to reflect the varying intensities of light pollution present around different local areas.

With the now more consistent typography, the different weights are now more noitceable and contain more visual impact, as they are clearly meant to exist in that state. This is a difficult task as the rules of tpyography do often prohibit me from executing a dynamic type weight, shifting multiple times even within the same word.

I find the increase play in scale positive as well, light flashes more like a distant sun that impacts more than the whole page, rather than bulbs simple illuminating the very surrounding area, this helps to bring more impact as well as have more infomration be revealed imbetween the flashes of light, A technique I find to be an effective way to translate infomation.

Infographic and pragmatic light use (Urban Sun Conceptual Research)

The urban sun is an important piece of research for my project, the use of projected and pragmatic light correlates well with my large scale stencil outcomes, it helps to show how this would be possible and open up more aveneus as to how to execute this idea.

I have developed a large scale infographic to support this, the infographic uses the information translated from various scientific papers on light pollution and the bortle scale. Using the bortle scale as a system to viualise and make more accessable I have made my infographic much more accessable than the papers from this the information has been translated from. In addition to this, the effects of light pollution here are not just to do with the night sky, an issue that I had spotted early on in the project that organsiations seem to often fall into, my infographic has also translated the health and environmental effects of light pollution.

The elongated format on which the information sits upon helps to incease the legibiilty of the information, you cna clearly scan downwards through the document and spot, at what point certain things arent visible or at exactly what point light pollution will begin to disrupt your sleep etc. I think this is a vital part of the infomrgraphic as it makes the progress towards lowering light pollution tangible, members of the public can see this infographic, then use my app to find their local levels of light pollution and how to reduce it. The audience can then check back some time later and spot if it has reduced, and then understand what that reduction means for the health of them, and everyone around them.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1dZBIEz8HDx93R_dFySBbwAKiUCv3OI/view?usp=sharing

These outcomes now tell a coheriant a story, with this in mind, I feel a user journey would help to concrete this story, and easily translate my objectives and how I hope to achieve them alongside why they are the correct outcomes for achieveing these objectives. A user journey has been used for previous projects and did help the client understand my creative decisions, and so it would be wise for it to be my next port of call before inital submission to allow for the clearest and most useful feedback possible on Monday.