my learning journal

After presenting our manifesto to Theo and our fellow designers, showcasing what our protest is about and what Blood Diamond is, as we found out nearly everyone did not know about Blood Diamond or even knew what it what. We as a group showed our design ideas leading up to our final manifesto. Adian created the final manifesto.

After we presented our manifesto, we received some feedback about our presentation mainly all good feedback but one thing that most people and Theo agreed upon was why weren’t imagery added into the manifesto and they pointed out that the manifesto didn’t relate to what our protest was about, so Theo was pointing out the imagery I created and said maybe putting that into the manifesto to showcase what the protest is about. So taking this feedback on we will improve upon this.

After researching into Blood Diamond, I started to come up with designs to go onto the manifesto. After finding out that Rebel forces cut off the hands of the civilians, I wanted to create a design using that to create an awareness of what is going as the result of Blood Diamond, this will showcase the severity of what is the result of these diamonds. Using the black and red will give contrast and by using the uncut diamond will show the true form of the diamond and also show people are being killed for these diamonds.

Another design I came up with is quite geometric and contemporary, Arranging the lettering in such a way that it makes the viewer look even harder to see what the lettering is saying, its almost like an oxymoron in the way that its a metaphor for what our protest is about.

I designed the diamond to be quite geometric but also show off the rough, uncut aspects of these rough diamonds.

My other design, I wanted to highlight where the main conflict areas are for Blood Diamond mining by placing a diamond to highlight that.

I then transferred my designs into 2 different programmes, InDesign and Photoshop.

Using red and black for a colour theory catches your attention as you see these colours as danger and even being serious and in this situation this is what I was aiming for. Imagery needs to convey a message or meaning, and following along from what Blood Diamond is, and this is what I tried to implement into a few of my designs.

Creating geometric imagery, is quite modern and contemporary as its quite common to see daily advertisement.

Some quick information about Blood Diamond:-

• Blood Diamond also called Conflict Diamond, as defined by the United Nations, any diamond that is mined in areas controlled by forces opposed to the legitimate, internally recognized government of a country and that is sold to fund military action against the government.
• Was formulated during the 1990’s brutal Civil Wars waged in Central Africa by Rebel Groups in Diamond rich areas. Three specific conflict areas – Angola, Sierra Leone and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• 4% of the worlds diamonds come from conflict areas.
• RIF cut off peoples legs, arms, hands etc.

 

References:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facts-about-blood-diamonds/

https://www.brilliantearth.com/conflict-diamond-facts/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/blood-diamond

https://geology.com/articles/blood-diamonds.shtml

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/7928039/What-are-blood-diamonds.html

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-diamonds/

For the second part of the Collaboration unit. I have been put into a new group with some of the people on my course but some people from the Illustration course. As I have learnt from the previous Collaboration project, we as graphic designers will have to collaborate not just with other graphic designers but other designers in different fields. This is giving me an insight of what it will be like to work collaboratively other designers in different fields.

MANIFESTO:

The theme for this Collaboration project is Protest. As a group, we were given the task to create our own Manifesto. As a group, we thought of what themes we could use for our Protest theme.

These were:

• Animal Rights/Poaching
• Climate Change
• Homelessness
• Deforestation
• 3rd World Problems
• Blood Diamond
• Farm Murders in South Africa, Zimbabwe etc

After talking about these different aspects, we wanted to do a protest on something that isn’t widely known to the public, as most of these are constantly being spoken about in the news on a daily basis. The main 2 that we were debating from were Blood Diamond and Farm Murders as these are not widely known about. After discussing about what to use for our protest and to base our Manifesto on, after discussing we went with Blood Diamond as theme as we felt we could find more information about it and could do more for it as a protest.

 

From all the feedback that was given to myself and my group, we took this on and improved vastly on our work as an individual and as a group.

After having the feedback, I experimented with the layout structure by using different grid system ranging from 3 to 5 grid columns and also the type changed by spacing out the type to make it more coherent but also to give more legibility. After changing the colours of the campaign, we found that it made the campaign more inviting and less corporate which was part of the feedback. It connects to both male and female and also University students will feel more encouraged to actually go on and read the information provided. Improving on the hierarchy, creating a path for the eye to follow which will then make the reader more interested because the hierarchy was created. we felt like the hand drawn aspects should be incorporated more into everyone’s piece of work, and taking this on board, I added handwritten backgrounds, more hand drawn elements.

The posters I have improved upon, spacing out the text on the one poster to show that it is clear. This was a more simplistic poster and I wanted to showcase the positive side of graduating with Mental Health and the info graphic poster, I created a more seamless transition poster, as the hierarchy is set out where the viewer knows where to start reading the poster and adding the imagery also makes it more friendly.

The snap chat filters, I created a more celebratory aspects as graduating University, adding the graduation cap, confetti and logo showcases the positive side of graduation.

Redesign Powerpoint 

I took on the role of developing and improving the snap chat filters, so looking at the the filters snap chat has, I didn’t see much with a background, so I thought I’d design a filter with a background linking to mental health. Also another idea was the person wearing a graduation cap and having confetti coming down as a celebratory snap to say they graduated University. This is sticking to what our campaign is all about.

I wanted to keep with the celebratory aspect and out this into a snap chat filter using our new campaign colours as a focal colour.

After receiving some formative feedback from David, there are improvements to be made to our individual and group work also.

Due to circumstances, I have taken initiative and taken on improving the snap chat filters alongside improving my poster and also improving the campaign logo. Myself and Lizzie have worked together to improve on the logo.

LOGO:

After taking the feedback on board, myself and Lizzie have worked on the logo together by adding a more hand drawn aesthetic to the logo and also changing the campaign colours to blue and pink. We added a hand drawn imagery and experimented with typefaces and combing both to give a more personal approach to it. Taking this logo apart we kept the typeface we had originally but added hand written type face, using spacing also to give legibility, we added the sub text underneath the logo to promote what our campaign is about.

 

 

 

After doing some research into info-graphic posters, I found that the posters can be quite long due to the amount of information on it and also that the layout is different, the grid system is varied from a 3 to 6 column grid, imagery is quite simplistic and known as isotype which I have taken into my new layout.

The reason I chose to a three column grid system is that it was common set layout through out every poster so I took this into my designs.

Showing all our work in context.

After all the research I have done and creating my initial designs I have created Mental Health Posters using a mixture of InDesign and Illustrator to create Linear imagery, Logo designs, and the actual layout of the poster using a 3 grid system as my poster is a more informative rather than an image based poster. My main focus was to add the information needed for an informative  poster. I have learnt so much over the course of this project by learning a simplistic approach is better than an over complicated/busy approach.

These were my initial designs using a 3 grid system. Using the orange and dark blue has given contrast as they are opposites on the colour wheel, the dual colour tone I used was inspiration from the research I did on the Mental Health poster as it’s helped me base my ideas by using this dual colour tone as it needs to have a balance across it all. Forma DJR Deck is the font chosen to  used all across our work as a group to keep all our work cohesive, ranging from different sizes of body text to create a hierarchy throughout the poster. I created more developed poster designs from the last poster, creating a more contemporary and modernized layout and approach to the poster.

Developed posters:

I took inspiration from one of my group members posters and implemented some aspects of there poster design into mine, which will give a cohesive link throughout our work. Doing this has given a modernized and more cohesive look.

Reflecting on this, as a group we all needed to make changes to our work by working together and changing aspects of our work to give cohesiveness of each others work. Working in a group was defiantly a challenge as we all as individuals have different designs aesthetics but we all made sacrifices and made a cohesive Mental Health Campaign. Working within a group setting was a challenge for myself as I didn’t really like to work within a group due to different personalities but this project has changed the way I view working in a group as I found I was able to work with fellow students to create something we were all passionate about and that we can all give our opinions to one another which enables us to improve our work. As a Graphic Designer this has given me an insight for future reference into which I’ll be working with other designers and creating something for a company as a group, and I’ve learnt that I need to work with others and work with other aesthetics to create a piece of work for a company etc but what I have learnt from all this is communication plays a massive key part while working within in a group because without communication you are setting yourself and people in your group to fail, communication is a key part of group work as you need to showcase your idea generation show your ideas for the subject given and the group will bounce off each other with ideas and creating designs that everyone is happy with but also giving feedback on this in which to improve your work even further and vice versa. Everything I have learnt from this project will be taken through into next group projects but also into the future work place.

 

From the previous I have done on different mental health posters, I have definitely taken what I have learnt and put this into my idea generation. I have mainly focused on the hierarchy of each section of the poster such as the heading, subheadings, body text, imagery, the colour theory etc. I have noted this down and taken this on board for my designs.

For these posters I have designed, I have used a dual colour tone of orange and dark blue, which I took inspiration from my research and created a more contemporary and modern approach, and I have added some shapes in the one design to create a more modern approach towards a poster, and having the harsh linear lines with the circular shape to give some contrast from the harsh lines. The hierarchy was experimented with by placing the heading, body copy etc in different parts of the layout to see what will work and what would not. For the hierarchy, I placed it strategically in places to make sure the viewers will have a guide of where to go. Everything I have stated, I have learnt and taken inspiration from my research to create some striking and contemporary pieces of work.

I will be using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign to transfer my hand drawn designs into digital versions.

DEVELOPMENT:

I have developed my initial designs to see what I could change to make the layout more modern but mainly to stretch my design idea process further in which I am able to challenge myself even further.

I have challenged myself even further and experimented with angles slogans and imagery creating a slanted look but also adding a 3 dimensional shadow to create some depth and a contemporary layout. I’ve learnt that expanding my idea range is always a good thing to do as you are able to create something even more dynamic and modern but combining aspects together to create something even better than the original initial ideas and as a Graphic Designer, using your creative boundaries helps myself as a student create something more modern and contemporary.