After Tuesday’s session in the studio, The branding has to be pushed further and a splash screen must be created alongside the general product being pushed further after the rough sketches that I had created, the week previous.
The splash screen must be different from the business card but essentially contain the same kind of information, a rough intro into what our brand creates as well as links and pictures to send the viewers to digital media such as our Instagram that is just starting up and being updated with posts every 1-2 days as more work is being created, making it not only a platform for promotional material but it can also function as a documentation of our work timeline while increasing the awareness and overall sales of our product.
Beginning the splash screen but simply viewing the business card once again, and creating more brush strokes in similar colours that can exist in the background of the screen while appropriate information is placed over the top of the brush strokes.
While we can only include static images into the splash screen, I still want to maximise the advertising opportunity given to us by trying to include some form of digital movement/animation, this will make our screen stand out against some of the other groups whos product will be displayed along the same screens at different times, the extremely bright and vibrant colours contrasting with the black background should do this on its own, but assisting in its impact in any way I can will ensure that the most effective screen is created and the brand strengthened. By including a form of GIF into the splash screen then a moving entity can be placed into a somewhat static file and give it a sense of dynamism.
Creating a GIF
Using the same colours and type from previous parts of the branding, I’ve decided to incorporate a moving entity into the splash screen. Doing this within photoshop is an easy process that yields high quality and endlessly playback results, by first making them work in sperate layers, in this instance I’ve simply put the different lines of text on different layers you can then queue when you want each layer to go from hidden, to shown and then back to hidden. A simple process allows the text to flash on top of the black background in an infinite loop, giving the splash screen a better dynamic finish and still being able to use the coloured brush strokes, once again tieing it all into the overall brand aesthetic.
I really like the way that this artwork looks, matching in nicely into the brand and attracting attention from the viewer without being too overbearing takes a careful balance of colours and text size, as well as carefully adjusting the frames of the GIF to ensure a smooth transition is achieved, I would like to make the brush strokes flash as well as the text, however, I think that this would make the GIF too flashy and lose its professional finish that I feel it currently has. Although this has been made specifically for the splash screen I see no reason why it can’t be reused in later parts of the project to promote our brand.
Splash Screens
Throughout my experiments with the splash screen I seemed to know what kind of image I wanted to create, heavy use of the single and colourful brushstroke was prevalent however I thought that there needed to be a colour change for these examples, the business card already used a large yellow stroke and so doing the exact same for the splash screen felt a bit lazy, alongside this I also changed the brushstroke itself, creating a range of about six different vector brush strokes in illustrator and then blending them into the text and other effects accordingly. Due to the position of where the splash screen was going to be, in my later and more successful experimentations I felt that a large QR code would be very useful, something that would not require the viewers to stretch far from their phone after my research on trend hunting I found that it is becoming much more popular to simply step into the users world rather than attempting to become their friends and invite them into yours, by including a large QR code that could be read from a far distance I could easily invite and intrigue large amounts of viewers to our company Instagram, and from there, they could find out a large amount of information about our company and even begin to see the products that we are creating. Because of this I felt that there did was no need for a large amount of text on the splash screen, the space would mostly be taken up by decorative aesthetics, this would mean that the information I did include could be a very large point size and therefore, very clearly legible even with the chosen typeface that boasts a more messy and handmade look.
Final Splash Screen
After my experimentations I decided to utilise the triple screen setup where my splash screen would go, by doing this I was able to make the text very large and legible even when placed onto an already bright background as well as the QR being able to be scanned from a distance, not forcing the viewer to disrupt their path and lessen the time it takes for someone to gain access to our Instagram and discover our product being created.
I think this works as an effective splash screen, it attracts attention and matches the overall brand aesthetic while being slightly different enough to be counted as its own piece of branding and keeping the pace exciting and dynamic by using a different variation of brush strokes, while keeping some key elements the same but including a large scale GIF that would loop on repeat, covering over the entire middle screen and serving as the tagline for our brand.
If given more time I would like to experiment with more brush strokes and possibly make some of my own using photography and physical paintbrushes rather than just using illustrator to make them, this would allow for a better sense of realism within the screen and a wider range of deeper and more interesting colour range.
Aidan's Graphics Blog 