14.10.16 - Initial Designs and Group Critical Analysis

14.10.16

Group critical analysis

The word that I was given for the first studio brief was ‘Fenestrate’. The definition of fenestrate is small holes or transparent windows. I therefore decided that a good brand to create for this word would be a musical instrument brand, this is due to the sound holes that are present in string and wind instruments. From the initial research that I did these are the designs which I created. I experimented with both the use of capital letters and lower case and also a couple of the different typefaces.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 1 and figure 2 are the initial designed that I had created for the group critical analysis. The group liked the initial designs that I had created but they decided that their favourites were the ones that used lower case text and serifs. This is because these portrayed the personality of a musical instrument brand more due to the fluidity that serifs create and the more friendly feel that lower case letters create. They also liked the way that I had tried to incorporate some musical symbols or shapes from musical instruments into the design of my typeface. This is because it allowed it to become more clear that the brand was for musical instruments, however, I was told to be careful not to make it too obvious and cliche. 

An idea I was given to try was the use of very tight kerning to create small openings within the design or block colour to explore the use of negative space. I was also told that I could try making the base-line, x-height etc, visible in my design to give the impression of the stave that is present on sheet music. This would perfectly represent the musical instrument brand as the five lines and four spaces on a stave each demonstrate a different musical pitch. 

To improve on my design I should do further research into traditional musical instrument companies and specifically into string and wind instruments which I wanted the brand to predominantly focus on. This would allow me to make sure that the design would fit correctly into the current musical instrument market. It would also help me finalise my decision on the best typeface to rebrand.