Speaking from Experience- Problem

Last night I encountered a problem that messed up the look of my design. I stuck my organiser up on a wall to take photos to show what it would look like as a poster. I took the calendar down to my disappointment I was taking the blue tac off and noticed that it was peeling my design off and leaving a horrible stain on my work. I was really upset, and I have now re-printed it but it was just annoying. I have learnt from this tho, that on this texture of coated paper I shouldn't use blue tac or any other sticky substance. 

Here I tried to tip ex out the mistake but I think it made it worse and more noticeable

Also when I reprinted I noticed a spelling mistake, so I am happy that I re-printed anyway. 

Speaking from experience- Downloadable PDF Version

http://issuu.com/aimeeparker/docs/speaking_from_ex_blog

Speaking from experience- Final Outcome

I am really happy with the front of my organiser I think the belly band works well and brings all the colours together and complements the pencils well. 

This is the back of the organiser, I have decided to put the course name and the college on the back so you know who it is aimed for and when it is up on a wall it brings it all together. 

This is the inside of the organiser on one side, I have designed it so you can put it on your wall write on it and add stickers of when you have done your type journal, blog posts, birthdays and when deadlines are.  

This is the opposite side of the organiser, it includes things like the anatomy of type, serif and sans serif, seven colour contrasts, and inspirational websites. 

I made the stickers to incorporate the colours of the organiser, overall I am happy with the way it has turned out, I am especially happy with the stickers and I will hopefully making more stickers in the future. 

Speaking from Experience- Development

Here are the four page layouts I have designed to go in my calendar/organiser, these are the things that I think I would of found most useful having on my wall being a first year graphic design student, simple things like the anatomy of type and the seven colour contrasts. 

For the front cover these are the colours I am going to go for, I designed a pencil vector on illustrator and made it into a pattern.

This is my initial front cover design, the pencil patten on the back ground and the blue will be a printed banner with the words 'stay organised' on. I like it and how simple it is however I feel it could be improved. 

I tried playing around with the design, keeping with the blue and adding a central circle, I like this but I think it looks like its been done before.

I then tried incorporating all of the colours of the pencils into the banner, I think this works best. I will print the banner on a thicker card using A3 so it can wrap round the organiser. 

When I booked my printing session I asked what programme I needed to design stickers on ready for printing, I was told that I had to design them on illustrator and have a separate file for the vetors that I want cut out.  

I am going to print my stickers on A4 and then cut it in half to make A5, I will print the design on first and then cut them out. 

Here is the banner I designed on illustrator, this will bring it all together as I can put the organiser and the stickers in together. 

Speaking from experience- Test print

Today I did a quick test print in black and white to check whether the page layout and the size, also to see how big it would be on the wall. I have realised that i can print pages 1 and 2 back to front also pages 8 and 9, as they both have content on each side that can be visible. I think the size is just right, I have printed on A4 and cropped them down. I pinned it up on the wall to see how big the overall calendar would be and I think it works well. I have learnt a lot from putting this test print together, like not to use spray mount or pritt stick but to use double sided tape, and I need to fold each page perfectly to et it precise. The next thing to do is design the sleeve/band to go round it as I have realised the final outcome will need this. 

Speaking from Experience- Digital Sticker Designs

Black and White

Here are my first designs for the stickers in black and white, I want to keep them as fun vector images/ sybols. From left to right: 'tj' type journal, 'house' home, for when people go home, 'B' blog, to keep a record of when you have blogged, 'birthday cake' to record when peoples birthdays are.

After a lot of experimentation with the pen tool and transferring the colours here are my designs for the stickers, I decided to have five in the end as I am working with 5 colours, the last one is a clock this is to represent deadlines. I think they work well as a set and will go well with my calendar. 

Speaking from Experience- Sticker Designs

Some sketches I have done trying to decide what icon to use on the stickers, I have decided that I am going to have stickers for 

-birthdays

-blogging

-home

-type journal

I have decided to create some stickers as it will make the calendar/organiser more iterative and to help with time management. 

While getting my ideas down, I also looked at how big I would like these stickers to be, I think I want to go with a circle format. I was originally looking at doing the stickers 1x1cm but from actually drawing out how big that would be I have decided that it is too small, I think I will either go for 1.5 or 2cm stickers depending on how many I can fit on one page. 

Speaking from Experience- Design Decisions

Colour

 I want a bold colour scheme with come contrasting colours to make it something exciting to look at and something that people want to fill out.

This is the colour palette I am going for. I think this will suit both boys and girls and will look quite bold and fun.

Type

Here is some type that I looked into that I could possibly use.

DK Sleepy Time

I really like this font and the hand drawn element to it, however I think it might be too thin and hard to read.

Always in my Heart

Again I looked into this font as it has a hand drawn feel to it and will make the organizer feel more personal. I like this font however I think it could be too girly as I am trying to aim this at boys and girls.

Amatic SC

Another good typeface that I could use, I like how tall the letters are and that you can only use capitals, again though I feel it might be too thin and may not be legible enough for a wall.

Cooper Black

I think this is the font that I am going to go for for titles and headlines as it is bold but not boring.

Layout

Here I have started to layout my calendar on inDesign. The squares and circles on the side are space to stick stickers to record when you have blogged, type journal, birthdays and home. The use of stickers will make the calendar be more interactive and if kept up to date will be pretty successful and people wont fall behind. I think the circle format for the stickers will work better and it make the calendar look more decretive even if people done use them.

Brief 3- Alternative Movie Poster Twitter

OUGD404- End of Module Self-Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I have learnt a lot of new skills within this design principles module, including things like the anatomy of type, readability and legibility, type hierarchies and colour theory. I think I have gained good knowledge of design principles through completing the tasks and reading various books from the library. I have applied a lot of skills that I have learnt in this module to other modules on the course, it has been very useful. 

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I have developed my knowledge of the basic building blocks of graphic design, I have learnt a lot of things that I didn’t previously know, but I now understand are essential to graphic design. Tasks from this module have also strengthened my understanding in other modules. Learning about the anatomy of type and colour theory has been particularly enjoyable and useful. I have definitely developed sketching out things before doing them on a computer, I didn’t realise how much this develops your designs, it made me think more carefully about my design decisions.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I think a strength I had was hand drawing letterforms, I enjoyed this process of seeing how bold bold can be and how far you can manipulate the letterforms. I think research was another strength using books rather than the internet helped a lot. I enjoyed doing my type journal and I feel that I have become more aware of type; I have started looking at more type design and why certain letterforms have been used.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

Blogging all the problems I had rather than just the finished pieces was a weakness, in the future I will aim to blog as I am doing something, rather than doing something then blogging, this way if a problem occurs I can put it strait on the blog.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

Blog on time- Keeping my blog up to date as I am doing the tasks, this will help as then I would blog more problems

Type Journal- I would try and do at least two each day consistently

More experiments- Experiment more with different letterforms and colour theory ect. Experimenting more will broader my understanding

Label everything- sometimes I forgot to label things on my blog, labelling as I blog will make things a lot easier.

Reflective- be more reflective with my work