DESIGN PROCESS - RESPONSIVE - RE-DEFINING BRIEFS

The past two sessions have made me realise that my initial selection of briefs may not be as relevant to the responsive module as I first imagined. Specifically, the brief I outlined as my main point of focus does not have room for substantial development or proposals.

In response to this realisation that my initial selection of briefs are not as relevant as first though I decided to re-define my selection of responsive briefs. The process was started by outlining the briefs that will be replaced and why I have chosen to replace them. 


OLD BRIEFS 

Below are the three briefs that I will be replacing;




EMBRACING OUR DIFFERENCES -

The embracing our differences brief tasked participants with creating a piece of artwork that communicated a message of diversity and equality. The brief was very open as to how the piece was produced and simply asked that the outcome was submitted at a certain size.

I was initially attracted to the brief because of its ethical message, as a designer ethics are very important to me and so entering ethically driven design competitions is something that interests me and benefits my practice. 

I have since decided not to enter the competition for two reasons, the first relates to the openness of the brief, it is not specific with what it asks for and even after re-writing the brief I still felt that it was vague and unspecific. Due to this vague nature I found it hard to generate ideas that really stood out as as something that could be developed into a quality final outcome, and so progressing through even the first stages of development was challenging. Additionally, I also initially outlined the competition as the brief I will focus on over the coming months, after assessing the competition in detail I realised that there was only slight room for development, as the submission guidelines outline that only one image can be submitted.




EZE BRUSH - 

The Eze brush competition was made available on the Talenthouse website and tasked participants with creating a logo for a toothbrush company. The competition is very straight forward and asks for a 'sleek and clean' logo that utilises a combination of colours. 

I initially selected the brief as one of my original five choices as logo design is something that I am interested in and want to develop as part of my design practice. Additionally, the brief is only small and so would make a nice quick addition to my responsive module. 

Since selecting the competition I have decided against entering it because as I started to progress through the early stages of ideas generation and development I found the project really uninteresting. Therefore, although the competition was relevant and beneficial to my practice I have decided to replace this brief with something more interesting 




DIGITAL ARTS AWARD - 

The International Digital Arts contest was a design competition I discovered through the Graphic Competitions website.  The contest was one of the most unspecific competitions that I had come across as it only asked for some form of digital artwork, initially I thought this could be beneficial as it would allow me to submit a design free from the restrictions of a brief. However, when it came to creating a concept I found it was so open I struggled to think of an idea I wanted to develop.

After reviewing the competition details and struggling to generate ideas I decided not to continue developing the brief and instead focus on finding a brief with more direction and relevance to my design practice.   

NEW BRIEFS 

Below are the three new briefs that I have selected with additional explanations defining why these specific briefs were selected as replacements.




D&AD - NATIONAL TRUST - 

Considerations;

• The brief is much more substantial than my original main brief choice and so has more room for the development of project outcomes and proposals.
• The National Trust is an organisation that aims to introduce more people to the natural environment - a cause that I personally believe is very important, also relevant to my ethically driven practice. 
• Challenging brief - how do you persuade young people to engage with the outdoors?

Why is the competition brief useful?

• Work could have a positive effect - ethics.
• Improve project management skills - substantial brief with room for development.
• Help me realize my professional responsibilities - brief relevant to practice.

BOARD PUSHER - 

Considerations;

• Relevant to practice - illustration
• Relevant to personal interests - skateboarding.
• Unusual outcome - not very often you design a skateboard deck. 

Why is the competition brief useful?

• Allows me to develop the standard of my illustrations.
• Quick brief - another responsive project. 

SECRET 7 - 

Considerations;

• Relevant to practice - open with how you create response. 
• Past success. 
• Gain exposure. 

Why is the competition brief useful?

• Quick brief - another responsive project. 
• Improve project management - speed.

DESIGN PROCESS - RESPONSIVE - SESSION 3

We started the session with a presentation that went through the 10 steps to preparing persuasive project proposals. 

The 10 steps;

1. Set clear aims and objectives.
2. Be smart - the definition of objectives.
3. Use words from the brief (proposal).
4. Justify the need for your proposal.
5. Describe your audience.
6. Describe your motivations.
7. Consider the viewer.
8. Don't be vague.
9. Visualize the product.
10. Assume nothing.

Set clear aims and objectives.

First describe your aims, aims are usually the changes that your project will make to the status quo.

For example;

• Social change.
• Political change.
• A change in peoples perceptions.

Secondly you describe your objectives, objectives are usually the methods used to achieve your aims.

For example;

• What research you will collect.
• Where you will go for specialist information.
• What processes will you use.
• What final outcomes will be produced.

 

Be Smart - the definition of objectives.

Use words from the brief.

Justify the need for your proposal.

Show what research you have collected relating to who could benefit from your outcome and why they need it. Be certain not to make empty statements, have reliable data to present to help communicate your point.


Describe your audience.

Describe exactly who the audience are, and be specific;

• Locations.
• Lifestyle.
• Which industry?
• What values do they have?
• Why will they engage with it?
• What do you hope to achieve?
• What is success criteria?
• What are your values?

Consider the viewer.

Make your proposal easy to read;

• Use a professional layout.
• Use the appropriate tone.
• Don't repeat images or information to pad it out.
• Check spelling. Check the Grammar. Check it again.
• Get some one else to check the spelling.

Don't be vague.

Visualize the ending.

• What does the project require?
• What criteria do you need to satisfy?
• Who is the target audience?
• What will stimulate their interest in the idea?
• What do they expect to gain from the project in terms of aims, objectives, outcome and outputs?
• What do you require for the project?
• What initial research will you undertake to stimulate your interests or start you on the research journey?
• What criteria do you need to satisfy?
• Who your target audiences will be?
• What you want to get, personally and
• professionally out of the project in terms of
  recognition, challenge and achievement?

Assume nothing

The only thing you know is that the reader of your proposal knows nothing about you, your skills or the concept of your project.

Remember, if everyone else does something the same way nothing will stand out.

'QUESTION EVERYTHING, ACCEPT NOTHING'

PROPOSAL PRESENTATION 

After the presentation we were divided into small groups of five and asked to present a proposal for our chosen brief.

When presenting my proposal I refered to my concept statement to help me accurately communicate all information relevant to the selected brief.

Below I have listed some of the points covered.

• Aims - Help raise an awareness of the importance of diversity and equality within a community.
• Objectives - The brief outlines that the winning submissions will be displayed on billboards at an outside gallery. Therefore, I will produce a piece of digital art that will rely on semiotics and illustration to communicate its message.
• My outcome will be concept driven as to have the most impact the message communicate must be relevant, understandable and cause an emotive feeling from the viewer.
• My target audience is the younger generation, specifically the age group of 10-25 year olds. To have the most impact it is better to target a younger audience who are more open to change. Often as people get older they become cemented in their mentalities and are much harder to connect to on the same sort of level.
• The project simply requires one piece of artwork submitting per person, leaving me with little room for development. However, this leaves me a lot of spare time to generate a really effective concept which will help to win the brief.

I also presented one of my initial mind maps exploring my personal take on the words diversity and equality.

FEEDBACK

I received some feedback from the group regarding my initial start on the brief;

• The target audience is still broad with an age range of 10 - 25 years old, people from this age group will have contrasting views and will be triggered by different visual plies. Therefore, you need to further define your audience.

DESIGN PRODUCTION - BRIEF 3 - SESSION 1

Before todays session we were asked to select three briefs from the dead IDST briefs available online.

Below are my initial three brief selections.

TYPE FACTORY - 2009

IMBALANCE - 2010

NOT JUST FLEURONS - 2011

The first session task gave us three minutes to highlight words from each brief that initially caught our attention. 

As I progressed through the task I realised that certain decisions were made when selecting the three briefs because of my personal interests as a designer. As an ethically motivated designer terms relating to ethics and wether or not the brief worked towards an ethical outcome had the most influence.

Using the words selected from each brief we then formulated a list of 'bad words', a term which relates to words that carry little meaning or relevance when used to communicate aspects of the brief. Using terms such as 'broadest' and 'fascinating' when writing a brief leaves its open to interpretation. As designers the best briefs are very specific with the information they present, this allows us to create the most informed and appropriate graphic outcomes in response to the given task. 

CLASS (bad words) LIST

• Connects.
• Metaphorical journey.
• Broadest.
• Fascinating. 
• Phoney.
• Interesting.

From the initial choice of three IDST briefs we then had to select one for further development . After choosing the final brief we had to assess its content against four specifications.

SELECTED BRIEF -

• 'Not Just Fleurons' 

Below are the images showing my assessment of the brief.

5 PROBLEMS YOU WANT TO SOLVE AND WHY? - 

• Define the market (audience) - Brief is very vague with who the outcome should be aimed at.
• Asks us to communicate very visual aspects using only type - this is creatively challenging as you have to consider how to do this in an effective way.
• What is 'the concept of the garden'? The brief uses very vague terminology which is hard to understand without being informed.
• What is the exact definition of 'Fleurons'?
• Do people want to connect to nature? Answering this will help achieve the correct tone of voice me when creating my outcome.

5 FACTS ABOUT THE SUBJECT AND CONTENT - 

• 'The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden'
• 'Some see gardening as a metaphor for life'
• 'Consider plants in the broadest of possible ways - their form, colour, size, texture, smell, taste and feel...'
• 'Inteprets and celebrates plants'
• 'Connecting with nature makes people happy'

5 FACTS ABOUT THE AUDIENCE

• People disconnected from nature.
• Or never connected to nature in the first place.
• People without regular access to plants/nature.

5 THINGS YOU DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THE BRIEF

• AUDIENCE - Completely open to interpretation, not defined at all.
• 'Plants' is a very broad term that could be associated with a range of vegetables  flowers and grasses from across the world, this leaves the direction the brief could be taken in very open.
• Why are they asking us to do this? The problem is not properly outlined, what are we supposed to be solving? 

WHAT DO I WANT TO COMMUNICATE AND WHY?

• The importance of plants and nature to the modern individual living in an urban environment. As outlined in the brief it is important for man to connect to nature and in the modern city environment this is very hard to achieve. Therefore,  my outcome would inform and educate the audience about the importance of interacting with plants and nature.
• Plant based medicines for the poor. Ethical/sustainable message. In a world where the cost of medicines and pharmaceutical drugs is constantly raising an understanding of herbal and plant based medicine could help a lot of people in less fortunate situations.
• Plants and sustainability. Would communicate how plants can help you live a more sustainable life. 
• Grow your own food/plants. Ethical/sustainable message. The modern world has seen an increase in genetically modified food being put into the market place by supermarkets and other large food based corporations. My outcome would educate the audience about their negative effects and offer a solution in the form of a grown your own vegetables kit.

REWRITING THE BRIEF 

Rewriting the brief enabled me to tarnish its concept with my own individual idea, allowing me to produce a bespoke response and still answers the requirements and considerations of the original brief.

DESIGN PRODUCTION - BRIEF 2 - PROGRESS CRITICISM

Today I had a progress criticism in which we reviewed the work created in response to the web brief. 


Below are the main points I presented to the group.

POINTS COVERED;

Introduce Concept - 

• Website will educate the audience about the history of skateboarding.

Survey - 

• Enabled me to highlight target audience.
• Results showed that participants thought a knowledge of skateboarding history is important.
• Results also showed that participants would engage more with a website with illustrative, skateboard style illustrations.  

Aesthetics -

• The 'kinetic V5' website successfully utilizes illustrative aesthetics to visually represent the D.I.Y zine ethos the site is based around. 
• My outcome will utilize similar aesthetics as they are very relevant to my target audience.

Finally, I showed examples of my thumbnail design variations and final scamps while explaining how the site will navigate. Moreover, I also explained my reasoning for making certain design decisions. 

FEEDBACK

After each student had finished presenting their work the group and tutors had a change to give constructive feedback regarding the concept, project progression and website.

Below are the comments I received after presenting my work;

Landing page - 

• Is the landing page needed? Users are often put off by functionless landing pages.
• It was later discussed that my landing/home page does have relevance as it introduces users to the websites purpose, what it hopes to achieve and why.

Appropriate aesthetics - 

• My choice of rough, hand rendered aesthetics is very relevant to the target audience.
• Ensure that aesthetic theme runs consistently across all aspects of the site.

Static site -

• The sites fixed aesthetics means that the site will be very static and wont work across multiple formats.
• I would like my website to be responsive and therefore work on hand held devices such as tablets and smartphones. However, as I am working to a very tight timescale and have little experience with the software I will put the ideas forward as a proposal. 

Composition -

• At the end of my presentation I highlighted a composition related problem to the group. My current designs have a consistent composition that is used across the majority of pages however, the design created for my blog page breaks this consistency. I wanted to know if people thought this would be a big problem.
• The whole groups suggested that I should stick to the consistent centre column layout.

Wireframes -

• For my project to progress I need to start creating wireframes for each page of my website. Wireframe designs are essential in successfully creating a website as they allow designers to see the specific measurements used on the layout of the page.

IMMEDIATE RESPONSES

Finally, I reviewed the feedback that I received during the session and created a list of responses to help me successfully overcome the problems highlighted during the criticism.  

• Make compositions consistent - Redesign blog final scamp with amended layout.
• Get started with the design process - Start creating the wireframes.
• Make decisions regarding production of website - colours, secondary fonts.
• Keep time organised - Start designing. 

CONTEXT OF PRACTICE 2 - PROGRESS TUTORIAL

Today I had my tutorial with Richard in which we discussed my choice of question, possible areas of focus and my physical outcome.

MAIN ISSUES DISCUSSED:

Chosen subject - Consumerism.

• Consumerism is a subject I am very passionate about and have been interested in for a while. I feel that an understanding of consumerism needs to be communicated to wide mainstream audience to help people understand the problems that follow a consumer society.
• Question example - How does the consumerist system negatively affect society?
• I need to find specific examples to focus on that will support my ideology.  

Practical piece.

• My physical outcome will be aimed at children, I believe that to overcome the problems associated with consumerism we need to educate the next generation so they can be informed enough to make the correct decisions when it comes to consumerism related problems. 

Initial research - Writers.

• Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis - Schooling in Capitalist America.
• Ivan Illich - Deschooling society.
• Kalle Lasn - Culture Jam.

ACTION PLAN

After the session I wrote up a quick action plan to help organise the initial stages of the project. Last year I wrote in my evaluation that I need to start working on projects immediately to help me manage my time better.

• Review initial idea and strengthen the concept.
• Write up the essay question.
• Gather books and other research materials.
• Organise content from research materials.
• Write detailed essay plan.
• Start essay. 

DESIGN PROCESS - RESPONSIVE - BRIEF THREE DESIGN BOARDS

DESIGN PROCESS - RESPONSIVE - BRIEF THREE EVALUATION

Another one of the initial five responsive briefs outlined at the start of the module was the UNreported ‘Free The Arctic 30’ competition brief. Unlike other briefs that were reviewed this one listed a strange and very open form for the outcome, simply asking for a ‘Protest piece’ to help raise awareness of the campaign.  The open nature of the outcome allowed me to adapt brief to suit my practice, producing a printed, illustrative outcome. Additionally, another reason the brief was appealing is because its purpose is to raise awareness for an ethical issue, as a designer with an ethically driven practice this makes the competition relevant and appealing to my practice.

After collecting a body of research and defining a final concept I started creating the illustration choosing to do so by hand, as a designer I have always found it easier and quicker to complete preliminary designs and illustrations by hand and so it is something I put into practice regularly. Moreover, the brief presented me with the chance to develop my skills in Adobe Photoshop as I had to render my outcome to make it look like a paste-up piece of artwork. The rendering aspect of the project was an important part of the development process as it helped to give the illustration context in the environment it would hypothetically be placed in.

A problem encountered while completing the brief was the loss of colour information during the displacement map process. To ensure that the illustration looked like a convincing paste-up piece of artwork I applied a displacement map to render some subtle paper creases onto its surface. However, during this process there was a loss of colour information which subsequently changed the illustrations aesthetic. In future projects a complete understanding of the Photoshop processes applied will help to surpass any similar problems.