Showing posts with label OUGD201. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OUGD201. Show all posts

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

OUGD201 - Evaluation



BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN
LEVEL
05
 Module Code 
OUGD201               


 Module Title
DESIGN PRODUCTION - PRINT


END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION

NAME
Joe Warburton
BLOG. ADDRESS
j-warburton1013.blogspot.com

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

Throughout this module, I have gained extensive insight into commercial printing. The ‘Top 10’ manual of things you need to know about print allowed me to explore aspects of commercial printing I had never come across. I learnt how to set up an artwork to print in the form of colour management, scale, resolution, preflight and so on.

We had a screen printing workshop in Blenheim and in Vernon street last year but I never put this into practice within my work. However, this project allowed me to explore print processes which I had never fully investigated therefore screen-printing seemed like the perfect choice to experiment with. As I eventually created a packaging consisting of a black substrate, I chose to screen print pearlescent, metallic silver ink. Despite the lengthy process for such a small amount of information, I believe this has been worthwhile and my knowledge in this aspect of print production has vastly improved.

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

The concept development phase of this module, in particular for the ‘Good is?’ brief allowed me to explore my concept in more depth in order to devise a story or background to which I would eventually base my project on. In past projects, I have usually delved straight into digital design as opposed to creating a thorough rationale and exploring my concept through all possible aspects – this usually produces a body of work that is not as thought out as it could have been.

The visit to Team Impression provided me with a huge insight into commercial printing. Although I had researched into print processes and production, I hadn’t fully understood the process, limitations and outcomes in which they can produce until this visit. Understanding the limitations of colour, stock and print processes allowed me to create an informed decision as to how I would print my products in industry.

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

Before beginning this course, my work was predominantly advertising and design for web. Through this module however, I have picked up an extortionate amount of new skills which I have adapted to my work. I believe my passion now lies within print due to the tactile nature of printed outcomes and the endless possibilities in which it can produce. I believe my strengths lie within brand identity and packaging as this was most prominent through the ‘Good is’ brief. I believe the simplicity and minimalistic aesthetic of my designs reflects the concept of nostalgia effectively.

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

I believe my time management is lacking – I need to prioritise and organise my time effectively to avoid panic and frustration at module hand-in. Through the workshops given to us during the early stages of the design process, I was able to focus more so on concept development and research as opposed to digital design. However, I still did not have a focused concept towards the beginning of the physical design process that ultimately disrupted by design development due to the multiple changes I had to make. I hope to rectify this in future projects by outlining what I will create.


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

Define my concept early on – Despite the numerous revised rationales, it was nearer towards the end of the project where I had a definitive concept outlined including what I will produce, the story/background behind it and the context of the products.

Define my target audience in advance – Similarly to my concept development, I need to define who I am aiming my product/outcome towards as this may alter the design decisions dramatically. Although I had a fairly clear concept as this was a novelty gift, I originally intended to devise a nostalgia pack catered to everyone – obviously, this was near impossible as everyone has personalised and individual memories and in the progress crit, it was noted I could create a pack based on a particular decade which resulted in a more defined and focused target market (albeit a very diverse one).

When doing to-do lists, stick to them – Now and again, I create to-do lists which although help keep me focused, I rarely abide by them. I need to make sure I am following my progress constantly.

Explore all aspects of print – Although I had experimented with screen-printing and possible foil-blocking, I need to book an induction with letterpress, laser cutting etc as this may prove beneficial in future projects.



6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
(please indicate using an ‘x’) 

5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

1
2
3
4
5
Attendance




x
Punctuality




x
Motivation


         x


Commitment


        
x

Quantity of work produced


         x


Quality of work produced


      x


Contribution to the group


         x


The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.


Good is...? Presentation boards


What is design for print? Final print manual


Good is...? Print ready .pdf's

Began creating print ready .pdfs for submission. As the medicine packaging will eventually be die cut, I made sure this was separated on a different layer. However, I then changed this to a spot colour so when sent to print, the printers will know what colour is to die cut.





Pharmaceutical range - 245gsm matt coated, 2 colour (1 spot). Die cut nets. Offset litho.




Pack booklet - 245gsm white uncoated, full CMYK and 1 spot. Staple bound. Offset litho.




Pack - Screen printed using pearlescent metallic silver inks. Die cut net & hand crafted.


Monday, 21 November 2011

Good is...? Foam

Although I expected the foam I ordered online last week to come on the friday, it came late today (Monday).. fortunately. I purposely requested the foam to be cut to the exact proportions of the pack itself in order to account for the extra spacing which the thickness of the card may cause (if this occurred, I would reduce the foam to size.

Luckily, however, it was a snug fit.. though I then had to cut out each individual section to fit the contents previously in the black, box packaging. As I was unable to cut the base of the sections, I removed excess foam by dividing the sections into squares and removing these individually (as you can see below).








What is design for print? - Revised layout

After looking back at my initial layout design, I noticed there was no definitive structure and organisation so I decided to devise a revised layout based on my new 'top 10'. The following was my original design:



Using Illustrator, I created the following CMYK and RGB colour palettes as the images I found online had a low resolution and were pretty awful design-wise. These would be featured on the main 'colour' page.





I used a simple, 3 column layout, with the content appearing in just two of these in order to create white space (a theory of which was explained in Graham's type workshop). I used a darker grey for the subheadings and a light grey for the body copy. Towards the bottom of the page, I showcased what category the content belonged to along with the colours featured on that page.




I then added a header which gave a brief outline as to what the content explains in more depth. I used the serif font, Bitter in order to create an interesting contrast between the heading and content.



Large content pages featuring segmented type which allowed me to increase the type in size. Due to the large font surrounded by a lot of white space, this creates an immediate starting point for a specific section in the manual..




The A0 and B0 series charts found online were a little dull therefore using the colours featured in my multi-tonal images (below), I created two charts. These used a range of tonal values of a particular spot colour, decreasing the smaller the page becomes.






I added more images to break up the amount of text and provide visuals which the user could reference the content against in order to further their understanding.








What is design for print? - Font choice

I thought 'Bitter' was the perfect font choice to be featured within my manual due to the description and basis behind the type explained by its designer, below.




"People read and interact with text on screens more and more each day. What happens on screen ends up being more important than what comes out of the printer. With the accelerating popularity of electronic books, type designers are working hard to seek out the ideal designs for reading on screen.  

Motivated by my love for the pixel I designed Bitter. A “contemporary” slab serif typeface for text, it is specially designed for comfortably reading on any computer or device. The robust design started from the austerity of the pixel grid, based on rational rather than emotional principles. It combines the large x-heights and legibility of the humanistic tradition with subtle characteristics in the characters that inject a certain rhythm to flowing texts."

As this font is based on printed text designed for screen, I thought it was a suitable choice to show the translation of print to web and vice versa. This type can be used with a sans-serif font, most likely Helvetica Neue as this is what was used in my last print manual.

Good is...? Screen-printing

Finally, I managed to screen print after a lot of waiting - seemed like such a lengthy process for such small amount of information but I hope it's worth it. As I was printing onto black stock, I decided to use a pearlescant, metallic silver in order to create an engaging visual.










Good is...? Final pack insert


Just realised I had set it up to A4 as opposed to A5.. that was unexpected. It was easier to rectify than I initially thought, however, I simply altered the size of the type and the scale of the images - InDesign automatically aligned the content to the columns.




Saturday, 19 November 2011

Good is...? Pack insert re-design

Looking back at my designs for the pack insert in reference to the type workshop we had and in comparison to my other products, I decided to alter the booklet layout. Nostalgia is a thought process, a memory, which requires us to think therefore a minimal composition with a lot of white space will allow room for a user to 'think'. I don't want to overcomplicate the design but I wanted to add photographic imagery to incite the nostalgia. The other layout, however, just had the sense icon, placed spontaneously in the centre. When bound, the old layout may affect how the icon is shown.

I began with an A4 document in InDesign. I chose to stick with the A-series format simply for ease of use and manipulation. As it is just an insert, it does not need to be set to a required specification.







I then began designing using Illustrator as it is a short publication and I am more familiar with this program. I used an A5 format as opposed to an A4 as this will be the size of the printed outcome. I used 8pt on 11.5pt leading for the main body copy and 9 on 13pt for the title/headers.