Visiting Professional: Joe Gilmore / Publications (Brief 3)

As well as finding the invites shown to us by visiting professional Joe Gilmore from Quibk really inspiring and relevant to what I am doing, (see blog post), I also was impressed with his publication design. I'm a bit stuck with my publication design brief so seeing lots of examples of well designed, interesting pieces makes me more excited to get started, and gave me lots of ideas.

The publications are quite interesting because of a few factors, such as:

- a mix of different stocks in the same publication, sometimes to separate different sections, and to allow some pages to be printed with only one colour

- a mix of typefaces and styles can also keep things interesting and standing out from other publications

- a good quality cover can be simple but effective, especially the examples printed on to really nice quality textured fabric

- a subtle use of a print finish can make a really simple cover stand out

- don't just print on to paper, really consider stock choice and its relevance to the piece

- experiment with different types of binding, such as spiral bound books for a change

- people will love to interact with publications with fold out pages 

- the colour choice is really important and a special spot colour may be what makes a piece stand out

Visiting Professional: Joe Gilmore / Invites (Brief 4)

Joe of Qubik design was our visiting professional today. A lot of Joe's work was actually relevant to the two briefs I haven't finished yet so I found myself making loads of notes about how I could improve my work inspired by some of the things Joe has done. I've also made a blog post about the publication design.

Qubik

The work is quite different to my style, but I am really interested in graphic design like this, with a focus on typography and the grid. Its been one of my targets to work more on these skills and this is something I want to work on again for fmp. 

A mix of typefaces and styles in one design can work really well instead of using an image, which I would normally just automatically go for.

The choice of stock is so important in making an invite stand out, but also keeping it relevant to what you are inviting people too. Subtle print finishes or special spot colours can make the invite seem more luxurious and interesting to the person who receives it. Also, the invites don't need to be the typical a5 size, as a few examples show how well the square format also works.

There are lots of examples of invitation design for the cultural sector on the Qubik website, which are all very relevant to me. The examples have made me think about how I am laying out the information, and to keep things neat to a grid and simple. I've also thought of a few things I need to include on the invite from these examples.

Brief 4 / Organic Theme

I was a bit stuck about where to start with the organic theme that was suggested to me by others, instead of the black and white theme I was going for, so decided to look on pinterest for some general crafty ideas that were produced using the kind of stocks I will be using, to help get me started.

Organic envelopes / invites / cards

A lot of the designs posted for this theme were actually for wedding invites, which was quite useful to look at, as I will be creating high quality invites also.

Looking at these images, as well as organising a little mini crit with others sparked up some ideas about how to progress.

Ideas:

: Create your own stamp to go on the front 

: Consider the address label and how this will fit in with the design

: Could laser cut in to wood

: Could print on to cotton (A3 £3 RGB colours)

: Sewing machine stitch envelope

: Go with organic craft theme, makes more sense than the black and white

: Look on pinterest for invite design research

: Use handmade paper

: Make the pieces collectable

: Could have a pattern inside the envelope

Brief 4 / Luxury Print Finishes

Benwells

Benwells are specialists in print finishes as you can see from these beautiful examples. The examples include embossing, textured surfaces, flocking and foiling, spot varnish, duplexing and die cutting. Often a few of these finishes are combined, but the simplicity of the designs means that they still look sophisticated. The stocks are luxurious and great quality and I would love to propose that some of my MCD centre branding was printed with a certain print finish, because it would reflect the sophisticated theme I want to get across, and set the centre apart from its competitors. These finishes make products more exciting, and more like a keepsake rather than a throw away piece, which is what I want to achieve. I will consider these print finishes while designing my products.

Brief 1 / Typography Doodles

This font MTF Doodlewhats has helped me think of some of the patterns I could doodle around my letterforms for the style of typography I want to create for the greetings card brief. I think these doodles will appeal to the target audience of teenage girls, but still look good rather than looking a bit cheesy like most cards out there for the target audience range.

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Here are examples of how typography can be combined with doodles to create really detailed results which look good and are interesting to look at. It is important with my cards that the messages will be easy to read, and I think when the type is plain, leaving all the detail to the background, is when this works best. Also, keeping the designs to one colour, and just letting the doodles stand out seems to work best.

I could use a variety of mediums to create my doodles, from biros, fine writers, pencils, inks etc. I want the messages to look more like well designed art work than a scribble in the back of someones notebook though!

Brief 1 / Font Choices

Here are loads of examples of the type faces I have looked at to inspire my hand drawn typography practises. I have chosen them because I think they would work well being hand drawn, and some of them are actually hand drawn initially. For my drawings, I have been creating my messages using different letters and having a mixture of upper and lower case, to keep my designs looking fun and appealing to the target audience.