BTEC Graphic Design Second year exhibition analysis

We went round the second years graphic design and art exhibition to gain inspiration and look at what has been created within our own department.
Here I will be showcasing the work created by an artists that inspired me and what they have created along with artists that have inspired them.

Devon Hooper: BTEC Graphic Design

The concepts and ideas of this project were clear and clever, based upon consumerism and all the problems it creates in a very infographics style using maps graphs and visuals that connote with the facts and figures around it. I especially liked the idea of logos on biblical photos and the use of maps/outlines of famous brand images with different backgrounds such as bacon for the map.

They had used Barbra Kruger for their research and here some examples of her work:

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Current Work

Here is some of the current work that I have been doing towards the most recent project in which I am creating visuals for muse's song 'uprising' and have been creating as interesting visuals as possible:

Here is more of the hand rendered work in progression:

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Tune In

New Project

The brief for this project is to form an album cover one typography based, one mixed media based and one photographic based for the following musicians and these songs:

Muse - Uprising





















P!nk - Stupid Girls

Florence and the Machine - Cosmic Love

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These designs for cans of 'coolers' were created by BrandEver in 2013. BrandEver create interesting visuals for branding of all sorts of products coming up with fun and clever ideas that really work as packaging entities. In their own words the company describes themselves as "We build brands with character. No timid wallflowers here. Because we firmly believe that in today’s marketplace - “Safe is dangerous”. And likewise, “Dangerous is safe.”"

They have used the cans to create images that when aligned create faces with hand gestures, very colourful and representing fun and clever at the same time. the text/typeface used is very simplistic with the very pop art style of faces being key to the image and the part that makes this stand out to the consumer. Using the silver of the cans creates a visual that isn't usually seen, often the packaging of a can will try to cover up the silver as much as possible to put their own stamp on it. This branding does the exact opposite and to a great effect.

The target audience is to teenagers and young adults, with comic book style and quirky colours they can attract majority of these type of people, especially as its an alcoholic beverage.

Images of the cans via TheDieLine

Bright. Perceptive. Unconventional. Passionate. 

The Brandever team is a collective including business strategists, designers, writers, artists and photographers, that brings a wide range of expertise and experience to each client. 

Brandever is led by Bernie Hadley-Beauregard. Bernie started Brandever after building a career with a number of successful high end Pacific Northwest consumer packaged goods brands including Purdy’s Chocolates, Starbucks Coffee and Granville Island Brewing. Bernie’s talent is in seeing things the way others don’t, in turning things upside down, but always with a keen eye on the end goal – to create highly successful brands and businesses for his clients. Bernie has a Masters of Business Administration from McGill University where he specialized in Marketing and International Business and a B.A. in Administration from The University of Western Ontario.

BrandEver

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Comparing these brands and their logos, they are both well established with rolex taking a more classic, posh look and swatch trying to update the brand, with hip/cool watches and designs and fresh advertising campaigns.

The contrast of both brands public image makes it easy to sum up each style and how they work at selling their type of product, this is clear just from their logos. This is because the logo is the direct identifier for the product the brand and what it stands for. For example a brand like 'nike' has a clear italic font type that is clear and makes the consumer think of speed, I am going to deconstruct each of the chosen companies logos  show not only contrasts but similarities between the way that they do this.

This is the brand logo for the luxury watch company 'Rolex' their brand image and overall design is classic and classy, giving them an up market type of consumer, who is more assured by quality than cost. Therefore the logo contains a very classy but clean font that is very standard in the way it is presented but when on adverts and watches stands for something that is very desirable  The crown above the type is simplistic and yet still connotes the complexity of the type of timepiece the company creates. Both are used very effectivly to create a logo that not only defines the company but is easily associated with wealth and class, someone with a Rolex watch will be identified as well off.

Whereas the cooler and more fun watch company 'Swatch' has a brand image that reflects quality and creativity. The overall design is to attract younger people with a very contemporary vibe that does come across as fun and clever. The logo itself is very simplistic and has a very distinct style about it. The type used is very circular and flows well, on its own the type would work very well as a contemporary feel. The swiss logo to the right of the font is to represent, not only the country the watch company was founded, but also to show that they create quality products and they are no gimmick type of company. The consumers are very different and are looking for good value for money, the logo as an identifier is less strong as Rolex but the style strongly connotes the type of consumers they want to attract.

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From figurative painting and installation to illustration and picture-book making, Jeffers work takes many forms. His distinctive oil paintings have been exhibited in multiple cities, including the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Illustration clients include, TED, NY Times, Time Magazine, The Guardian, United Airlines, Lavazza Coffee, Newsweek International, Her Royal Majesty the Queen of England, and the Irish Times for which he received the Gold Icad Award for Illustration.

HarperCollins UK and Penguin USA publish his picture books, including Stuck, The Hueys, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, The Great Paper Caper, and most recently This Moose Belongs to Me. Working in collaboration with Studio AKA, Oliver’s second book Lost and Found was developed into an animated short film, which has received over sixty awards including , The New York Times Best Illustrated Books 2012, a BAFTA for Best Animated Short Film. Picture Book awards include the Smarties Award, Irish Book of the Year, The Blue Peter Book of the Year, as well as shortlists for the British Book of the Year, The Roald Dahl Prize and the Kate Greenaway Medal. Oliver won a New York Emmy in 2010 for his collaborative work with Mac Premo.

Oliver was brought up in Northern Ireland and now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York

This image or object really caught my eye when looking at Oliver Jeffers work, reaching out from the normal lovely sketchy handwriting fonts and producing something very different but still with his own design twist on it. It really creates an interesting product and could be seen as a main piece captivating his work.

I chose this image because the media in which it was made upon is a flat wooden board, giving it a very rustic feel and creating a different sort of image from that on a canvas or white paper. It also included nice visuals that related to my project with the link between time and clocks/watches. 

This image was a really interesting find, not only does it use stunning background visuals and hand rendered stars but the type really caught my attention as not only a lovely choice of font but also good use of the tags for background and sketchy wisps for the dividers. Creating a very clever visual that makes sense not only as a poster but for branding and the book cover it was designed for. 

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For my first research artist I chose David Carson, he is a famous graphic designer. Best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. Carson was perhaps the most influential graphic designer of the 1990s. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called "grunge typography" era.

I chose to copy this image because its simplicity drew me to it, the way in which it is able to be so simple and yet free and flowing at the same time, something that I will be interested in when creating my own logo.

This image is really eye catching as it contains a very clear and simple font but has a very nice complex hand rendered images and textures in the background. This type of design I would like to see featured within my logo when it comes to creation.

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This is my new Graphic Design blog, here I will be posting things that I think are interesting and also reasearch towards my project. I will be posting typography and visually clever graphic design.

This image is by Stefan Sagmeister

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