SamFishwick2018UALED

The next step in my design was to use the fonts that I considered in order to create logo designs. Developing my logo was a very important part of my branding as it meant that I had something concrete to work with, using it in all my designs and creating a proper uniform brand.

For this logo, I experimented with the moon icon and I used it in place of the letter D. Although I thought it was a good idea, in practice it didn’t read as well as it looks like it says “MI NIGHT” as the D is difficult to identify, and therefore I didn’t go ahead with the design.

I kept this logo design very basic, focusing on the smaller aspects of the logo – the Midnight colour and the letter M. These together made a very basic icon but it was too simplistic to use as an actual logo.

For my logo, I decided to experiment a lot with the Fake Serif font and the ways I could use and experiment with it. I chose Fake Serf due to the graffiti-like grunge design which felt fitting to my general design formula and spray can prompt.

One of the ways I decided to experiment with the logo was by changing the case of the type. Although a basic, minor change, it provided a different way to look at the logo. With this I broke general convention for the font and the way it was used, acting almost rebellious which felt right at home with the graffiti and spray can prompt.

For this logo, I decided to experiment with the type and case more by using different types of capitals and lower case in different places. More specifically, I separated “Mid” and “Night”. I liked the way that the layout came out in this design as it used the space and alignment well together. However, I didn’t think it flowed as well as a proper logo as it separated the word “Midnight” when it was meant to be one word.

I developed my logo further by going back to the idea of using the moon icon in my design. For example, I decided to re-purpose the crescent moon that I used in my initial logo design, flipping it and creating negative space with the type in order to make it out as if letters had been cut out from the main logo. When I made the circle shape central to the text it seemed to cover up the “id”. Although it had no specific meaning, I thought it was interesting that it covered up those letters and nothing else so I decided to use the negative space created by them in the logo design.

In this final logo, I took the moon idea a step further and decided to use the entire circular moon shape rather than just using the crescent moon. Once again I used the idea of the negative space with the text in order to make it stand out and look more unique, bringing attention to all of the text so that it looks more appealing overall. In the end I decided to go ahead with this logo and used it in my final design.

For this prompt, we had to choose between a range of various spray can colours. This was a difficult decision because immediately lots of different colours all gave me a range of ideas and ways to take the prompt of creating our own spray can. In the end, I decided to choose the colour “Midnight”, which was a navy blue.

This stood out to me because of a lot of the possibilities and the way that I could link this colour to nature, the ocean, and things relating to midnight itself. To do this, I created a large mood board/spider diagram featuring a lot of the things that I could base the basic prompt on, as well as features that connect to that, some extended features linking together to truly build upon the theme.

The three main themes that I stemmed off the name were “Nature”, “Night” and “Darkness”. The “Nature” branch spread about a lot, developing into types of caves, trees, the ocean, all different types of wildlife. The “Night” branch spread into focusing on the moon, stars, space, and also nocturnal animals, which linked into the wildlife aspect of nature. Finally, for dark, I considered ways of using colour, such as contrast, and also the idea of isolated places, such as deserts and abandoned buildings.

To experiment with all that I had researched, we split our work into four different processes – Line, Tone, Shape and Texture. Each of these was an extremely basic premise to go off, but that gave me a lot of freedom and flexibility in designing my work.

Line

The first design I did involved lines, and it created an effect similar to those of interlocking pipes. To start out with line, I wanted to create an intricate design, highly involving lines that overlapped and intersected. In order to make it so you could tell the line were intersecting and curving as I intended, I decided to give them some width so that this effect was able to be seen. Since I wasn’t working with colour on any of these tasks, I wasn’t able to use it to differentiate each of the lines from each other. I then decided to give each line a unique pattern so that they could be identifiable from each other, the patterns themselves involving use of lines in order to add another level of depth and complexity to my work.

For this, I just used some basic straight lines. This was a good way for me to experiment with angles, which lead me to be inspired to use different angles and rotation in my work.

For this design, I was experimenting with tone. In order to experiment with different types of shading, I decided to draw some kind of non-descript creature. This meant that I had something completely new to work with, which meant I had a completely new way to shade. This gave me some insight into how I could use good shading.

For my second Tone piece, I experimented a lot with depth. I didn’t want to focus too much on something too artistic, so I drew some basic shapes to make a simplistic cliff face. With that, I could see different types of angles and levels of depth and the different ways that they may be shaded.

In my first Shape experimentation, I drew a lot of basic shapes, including circles, squares and triangles. This was very general shape experimentation, and I developed it further by drawing on lines connecting each of the vertices of the shapes, which allowed me to make even more shapes between them.

With my second shape experimentation, I first drew a grid of equal squares. With this, I was able to use triangles of different shades to show different types of shapes and shading. For example, I used more and less lines for cross-hatching to show different levels of shading. To experiment with the different ways that I could use shape, I attempted to create something that looked like a face using the grid.

In the Texture experimentation, I tried to keep things more natural and draw plant life for the designs. For this one, I used a cotton bud dipped in ink in order to get a natural, round, textured shape. I used this by compiling all the types of shapes together so it looked like a set of flowers, and then I used pen to draw lines between them and bring them together to resemble a rosebush.

For my second Texture experimentation, I used a lot of ink for the full design. The primary tool that I used alongside it was a wooden cocktail stick with a blunt tip. This gave me a fairly simplistic tool to use, but by varying the pressure and angles that I used, I was able to change it so that I could consider lots of different shapes and angles using just the circle.

For the next step in my project, I decided to research artists. This was a useful task as it allowed me to get a lot of secondary experience and inspiration for my designs. Since the artists that I researched all had reputation and fame from their work, it was a good starting point to base my project off.

Stefan Stagmeister

Stefan Stagmeister is an Austrian graphic designer who has been recognised for his unorthodox and strange designs, often making good use of typography in his designs, acting as social commentary and questioning society as a whole in his work. This was a big inspiration for my work as I like to use a lot of typography in my designs, focusing on it specifically more than vector design or colour schemes. By looking at Stefan in particular, it allowed me to get a lot of typography knowledge and further boost my ability in this one area.

Saul Bass

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer who was known primarily for his movie posters and logo design, working with renowned directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick. The film posters specifically stood out to me due to the ways they use shape and colour. A lot of the poster designs use a lot of negative space in their work. This was a good inspiration for me, and I want to attempt to use negative space in my designs, through interesting vectors, allowing my work to have multiple meanings.

Lester Beall

Lester Beall was an American graphic designer, who made a lot of interesting posters, most well known for the Rural Electrification Administration. These designs stood out to me as they seem to be an early case of graphic design keeping designs extremely simplistic, limiting colours and having a total lack of any gradients or shading whatsoever, making everything stand out. As well as this, he used photography a lot to complement the designs, keeping a fine line between realistic design and simplistic vector design. This inspired me and made me think about the ways I can use photography alongside vector designs to get a good balance in my work.

For the first part of my project, I decided to focus on the different materials I could use to make my work. This included a range of mediums, involving practical work, such as paints and textures, and digital work, including vector graphics and photography. With these in mind, I was able to get a lot of ideas for things to use and ways to experiment with them.

Branching off each of the forms of media and materials, I looked at the possibilities of using the specific materials, as well as ways they make link together. For example, through pens I looked into calligraphy which lead me to typography as a whole. This allowed me to link with computer graphics, more specifically typography of logos and branding. With these branches and connections in mind, it made me think about ways of mixing and matching medias so that they worked together to create a piece of art that involved various materials while also keeping it organised and structured.

After looking at the materials, I decided to focus on the processes. This allowed me to take a deeper look into the different ways that I could use the materials, which gave me inspiration for different ways to look at using them. For example, for pencil, I thoroughly covered tone and shading, and the different methods I could use for them. This was useful and it gave me a method to link my designs with the overall prompt of my unit.