OUGD505 - Module Evaluation

Module Evaluation:

I have enjoyed the briefs for OUGD505 because I think they have allowed us to experiment with being more creative than some of the other briefs have necessarily allowed. I am personally really interesting in music and play instruments so found the micro genre of music brief a really fun one to play around with. I liked my outcomes for this brief however I would like to be more experimental and ambitious if I were to revisit it in the future. I also enjoyed that studio brief 2 allowed us to choose something that we are personally passionate about. This meant that it was more fun to get stuck into research and the outcomes were more important as they were based on a subject that I found personal to myself and feel strongly about. Again I think I would like to have been a bit more ambitious with the outcomes for this project and show more development. This could have allowed me to come out with a larger variety of outcomes for the subject that I feel strongly about. I found this module hard to get stuck into at first as I felt that it came around so quick after our last module. I think I would have liked to have more time spent on this module after our last deadline as I think I could have come up with much more work with just a little bit more time. However, this has taught me that I need to be better with my time management in the future and separate my time better between my modules. I think this will help me to have a more consistent standard of designs across all of my briefs.

OUGD505 - Micro-genre of Music Evaluation

Micro-genre of Music Evaluation:

The designs successfully respond to the brief as they are representative of the chosen micro-genre of music. They are clean and eye catching designs that show a clear link to the research that was conducted into fingerstyle music. The finish of the poster was very successful as the final print was crisp and clear. The printing for the flip-book was also clear but due to there being a lot of pages the sizes of the pages varies slightly which somewhat affects the final outcome. The bind also had to be rethought due to the thickness of the pages. This is something that would have to be considered in more depth if it were to be remade in the future. 

An improvement that could have been made for the final outcomes would have been to be a bit more ambitious when deciding what to create. There could have been a more exciting solution to portray the movement of fingers playing the guitar which could have been experimented with. This is something that would be done if this brief were to be completed again. If I had more time I would have also liked to experiment with making a zoetrope as I think that this could have been another interesting way of showing the movement of the hands. I would like to consider making one of these for the exhibition.

OUGD505 - Final Flip-book outcome

Final Flip-book outcome

Video of flip-book:

OUGD505 - Final Poster outcome

Final Poster outcome

OUGD505 - Production

Production:

For the production of the poster there was not much that needed to be done. It was digitally printed at an A2 size so that it was big enough to see all the detail in each individual photograph and so that the colours that were chosen would be accurate and match those chosen on screen. It was also printed on satin paper so that it had a clean and crisp finish. The only other production after the printing the poster was cutting it down to size using the crop marks removing any border so that it was a full bleed image as designed.

The flip-book was also digitally printed so that in the same respect as with the poster all of the colours were accurate. It is an A6 publication meaning that it can be hand-held comfortably for flicking but also still large enough that the detail within the imagery can be seen. Once printed, each page of the flick-book was then cut down to size and put together in the correct order so that the movement of the hands made sense. Due to there being a lot of pages in order to see a wide range of motion it was very thick to bind as the thread was too thin for all of the pages. This meant the original plan for the design had to be rethought and the use of a bulldog clip was chosen to keep the pages together. This actually worked really well and allowed for a good range of motion when flicking the book. 

OUGD505 - Design Development

Design Development:

During the development of the poster, I started to think about other objects that I could create to show the movement of my hands when playing the guitar. I thought of both a zoetrope and a flip-book.

The idea of creating a flip-book was decided after the poster was finished. This is a simple publication that is used to show movement between a series of images and would therefore accompany the poster even further accent the technique used for fingerstyle music. Below are a few screen shots of the layout for the flip-book. A black strip was added to the left-hand side to make sure that no detail would be lost from the images due to the book needing to be held from that side of the book. They are also landscape images used to make sure that it is easy to flick and to view the images. 

OUDG505 - Layout Experiments

Layout Experiments

During the development stages of designing the pop art poster, the layout was changed and experimented with a lot. The images below show all of the different arrangements of the images that were tested when choosing a layout. I experiments with both landscape and portrait layouts and also change the shapes and sizes of the images within the layout to get a range of different layouts to choose from. This meant that I had seen a fair few different possibilities to give a executive decision as to which one would be best.

The image above was the chosen layout for the design. The use of the square images means that the main focus is on the positioning of the hands which is what was needed to portray the movement and to accent the technique. The design is portrait because this makes it representative of the imagery take of the artists that use this style. As it is a technique used by solo artists the pictures taken of these artists tend to be portrait so it made sense for the layout of the poster to also be portrait. After peer discussions this layout was also chosen to be the most aesthetically pleasing.

OUGD505 - Idea Development

Idea Development:

Keeping the idea of showing the technique in mind lead to using snap shots of me playing the guitar instead of a video. i played a very small part of the piece of music a photographed each movement that took place. 

This then allowed the use of pop art to be incorporated in the design as I had considered when conducting the research as I really like the style and it would help to accent the message I am trying to get across with my work. To do this I vectorised the images I had taken of myself playing the guitar as seen below. 

Once the images were vectorised I was able to start experimenting with the pop art style. I therefore changed all of the image to use three different colours leaving the darkest part of the background the same. These colours were influenced by the Marilyn Monroe pop art piece which was created by Andy Warhol. Both my piece and the influential piece can be seen below.

OUGD505 - Extra Videos

Extra videos for experimentation:

I tried a couple of different pieces to see if the sound quality would improve at all but unfortunately it didn't and I therefore decided I needed to try a different idea.

OUGD505 - Initial Ideas/Designs

Initial Ideas/Designs:

Learn a piece of fingerstyle music and try to perfect it. Film each attempt and create an abstract video of the process of the learning to celebrate and demonstrate the hard work and talent that it takes to be able to play the guitar in this way.

The video below is one that I took of me playing part of a fingerstyle piece that I just leant. It is an Ed Sheeran Piece so is sticking with the theme of popularity. However the sound from the guitar sounds quite distorted in the video. I therefore decided I needed to rethink my initial idea for the response to this brief. 

OUGD505 - Further Research

Nowadays there are many famous artists such as Ben Howard and Ed Sheeran who use this technique. When researching into fingerstyle music for this brief it became very clear that due to artists such as these the micro-genre has become more and more popular within recent years.

Famous Fingerstyle Artists in the present day:

Ben Howard:

'Ben Howard plays guitar left-handed and makes extensive use of alternate tunings, such as CGCGGC (Old Pine, Everything), DADF#AD (In Dreams) and CGA#GFC (End of the Affair, Esmerelda). He also complements these unusual tunings by using a partial capo for many songs (Further Away, Everything, End of the Affair) in order to use harmonic or bass notes otherwise unavailable.

He also has a distinctive percussive strumming style, called the "pick and go", and Howard's method of laying the guitar flat on top of his knees and playing it percussively was influenced by contemporary folk songwriter and guitarist John Smith.'

Ed Sheeran:

'Ed Sheeran was born in February 1991 in Halifax, England. He began playing guitar at a young age and soon after started writing his own songs. When he was just a teenager, he moved to London to pursue his music, and his outpouring of creativity added up to several early EPs and hundreds of live shows. Drawing attention for his online performances, Sheeran hit No. 1 on the iTunes chart before he ever signed with a record label. Since signing with Atlantic, Sheeran has sold millions of records, had a song appear in the second installment of The Hobbit trilogy and won Grammys for hits like "Thinking Out Loud" (2014) and "Shape of You" (2017).'

Taking into account the new popularity of this style I started to research into pop art. The reasoning behind this is because both pop art and fingerstyle are based on expression and they both have developed and changed as time has moved on. Pop art was created with the intention of being bright and eye catching, it was created with the intention to be a popular style but didn't gain this popularity until later years. Traditionally guitarist were more background instruments but as seen by research this technique is much more fashionable in the present day meaning that artists who play the guitar in this way now stand out. 

Examples of Pop Art:

Piece by Richard Hamilton

Piece by Andy Warhol

OUGD505 - Idea Generation

Initial Ideas:

• Create a guitar.
• Learn a piece of fingerstyle music and try to perfect it. Film each attempt and create an abstract video of the process of the learning to celebrate and demonstrate the hard work and talent that it takes to be able to play the guitar in this way.
• Focus on the hand positions on the guitar - shadows?
• Design a guitar skin

OUGD505 - Product Range Distribution Evaluation

Evaluation

The designs successfully respond to the brief as they are a solution to the problem of people being uneducated about mental health. They are friendly and engaging designs that show a clear link to the research conducted into mental health and children. The illustrations add a childlike aspect to the designs meaning that they are more appealing for children. The production of the final designs were successful prints with a professional finish. The bind of the booklets was also successful, however if it were to be rethought a slightly thicker thread could have been used to ensure that the booklet was sturdy and durable. If the brief were to be revisited an improvement would be to come up with more outcomes in response. This would mean that there would be a wider variety of resources that could be used to educate children and allow for a lot more designing in the development stages of the brief. 

OUDG505 - Final Outcomes

Final Outcomes

OUGD505 - Example Booklet

This is an example of how the booklet would be filled in by a child. I thought it was important to get a copy filled in by someone to make sure that the instructions make it clear what needs to be done.

OUGD505 - Production

Production:

The booklet and flyer were both digitally printed. This is because it allows for consistent mass production of the same product as they are going to be given out to children in schools. This is also a cheaper method of mass producing. They were both printed onto matt paper in order to once again keep the costs down and allow for easy mass production. They were both then cut down to size using the crop marks.

Finally the booklet needed to be bound. It was bound using a saddle stitch and was designed with this binding method in mind. This was the most practical binding method for the booklets as it keeps the pages together as needed and is an easy way to bind. Once again this will help with mass production. It was bound with black thread to compliment the black within the designs. 

OUGD505 - Design Development

Design Development

After finishing the design of the booklet it became clear that some actual information of mental health support was missing. However, I didn't think that this would information that the children would necessary read or engage with. I therefore decided that the best solution would be to add an extra page that could be slotted inside the booklet with extra information including helpful websites and numbers for the parents to read.

This involved more research into the best places to get mental illness support for young children and then a list being created of all of these places. The designs below are the once which I came up with for the flyer. It uses the same colour scheme and the front cover image to show consistency with the booklet design. This makes sure that people are aware that they come together. 

The flyer above was the chosen design. It was the best design of the three to keep consistency with the booklet. 

OUGD505 - Chosen Layout design

Chosen Layout Design

The chosen designs for the layout of the booklet can be seen in the images below. The booklet is 16 pages long as I didn't didn't want it to be too long as its supposed to only be a taster. I therefore thought by keeping it to only a few activities it would stop the children from getting fed up and therefore make them more engaged in the activities that are there and the reasoning they are doing them. The booklet was designed at size A4 meaning that it is large enough for the children to be able to fill in the gaps with their drawings.

OUGD505 - Initial Designs

Initial Designs

When initially designing the book I felt that it was important not to overcrowd the pages so that is it easy and clear to understand for the children. The typeface that I chose to use was Gobold Thin. I decided this was an appropriate typeface because it is clear, block capitals making it easy to read for the children and makes the instructions appear bold and concise.

For the front cover I wanted to include another illustrative image that was calming. Trees and sunsets are proven to be calming images so I vectorised a photograph and made it look more illustrative in order to keep with the illustrative aesthetic of the book. I also used an images that uses blues and greens as the colouring because these are neutral and calming colours. 

I then started to experiment with the colouring of the rest of the book and placed my illustrations into the document in order see how the different background colours would compliment the illustrations. The colours that I experimented with for the backgrounds were picked out of the imagery that I used for the front cover. After experimenting with the colours I decided that it was better to have the background mainly as white but to sometimes have a coloured background just to pick out certain pages.