my learning journal

Before I start to sketch up some layouts for my posters. I’ve looked into may posters relating to Mental Health, this will enable me to create some modern design layouts and take inspiration from. I will be looking at different sections of the posters to see what has made them so successful and how I can take this through into my own work. I will be mainly focusing on different typefaces, the spacing between letters, the actual layout of each section and colours.

1st Poster – Isotype based poster:

This poster has a dual colour ton using white typeface which gives contrast against the pink background. This poster also uses isotypes which is quite rare but also gives the poster a new dimension on how to convey a message. The typeface is very clear as it uses a white type and this gives the reader readability as the type is clear. the hierarchy of this poster is done very well by changing the size of the font to show what is meant to be read first then leading onto the next part of the type.

 

 

2nd Poster:

This is a more simplistic type of poster but it also works quite to portray the message intended by using a simplistic approach but it’s not as striking as the other poster as the lighter blue is quite muted and doesn’t really give the pop it needs to grab peoples attention but the heading is what grabs your attention. It has the main heading, subheading, slogans and contact information which are the main features needed in a mental health poster which I will be taking into my designs as these    are the main aspects you need in a poster.

 

 

 

 

3rd Poster:

This is a more simplistic version of a poster but it is very dynamic and grabs your attention. The spacing the typeface, ‘STRESSED’ is quite compressed but it is quite successful in how it is laid out, you have the overlapping with coloured sections and this is showing what stress feels like only using type to show this.

 

 

 

 

Reflecting on all the research I have done, I’ve learnt that a simplistic layout is more a popular choice than a over complicated one. The hierarchy of a poser is very important and from m research I can see that this is done by the layering each component right and decreasing the size of the font on the headings, subheadings and text body is decreased in size to create a flow through the poster which is quite an important factor which I will be implementing in my poster designs. Also from the research, a dual colour tone is a very popular choice and I have learnt that the reason for this is that the background colour doesn’t subtract away from the body copy, subheading, headings etc, so from this I will be mindful of this in my own design process.

As a Graphic Designer, I need to take everything I have researched and take it on through into my own work and from this I will keep developing and improving my knowledge and also my design process which will help me in the future. Doing initial research is a very important part of being a Graphic Designer as you need to get idea generation before starting on the computer.

As a group we were still very unsure on a logo , due to different opinions, so we asked our tutor for some advice and what he thought about our possible logo designs.

The logo was our first query, so we showed David our initial ideas, as we were showing the designs, our tutor said he liked the orange and dark blue combination of colour for the logo but thought the logo was out dated due to the drop glow, so after doing research and talking to David this has taught me that simplistic designs are always better than over designed and as I was looking as different logos online, the colour way used was only two toned, the spacing of the letters were exceptional and used a linear design more

than a detailed over complicated designs, so this has shown me that it is better to have a simplistic design as a logo as it needs to me legible and relatable to the theme presented. For example I looked at this design and the type face is more legible and professional, the spacing of the lettering makes the type face more clear and look more professional.

As a Graphic Designer learning this now will help me in the future because I have learnt sometimes a simplistic design is always better than an over complicated design, by not using drop shadows, improving on the spacing and choosing the right typeface as it needs to look professional and link to what the theme if the campaign is.

So David suggested about having the typeface as the main focus for the logo and having solid block colour fill, so we used #UnI, and played around with upper and lowercase type t see the different outcomes we cold take forward as a final logo design. I drew different variations of #UnI, experimenting with upper and lower case, using the literal meaning of you and I and highlighting certain letters in uppercase and alternating in dark blue and orange.

So as a group we discussed what the aims were, what we need research and what each person is going to do for the campaign.

After discussing together, we decided that we are going to based our campaign around mental health but specifically in University, we came up with a few names for this campaign. We came up with ‘Drop Out’ but after speaking to David, he said it gave off a negative message so after coming up with many ideas we decided to go with ‘Minds Unlimited’.

We wanted to focus more on raising awareness about mental health in university as we found that over a thousand of students actually drop out in the first year, so we would like to raise awareness and say that its okay to talk about it and get help.

For our digital work, we have come up with a few different ideas of what we all could do, for example posters, banners, GIF, outside ads etc. To make it more accessible we also wanted to make filters, stickers etc for different social media apps such as Facebook, Snapchat etc as this is what Uni students most.

After talking together we decided to look at mental health, the statistics, different campaigns and what other different mental illnesses there are, and from this we will come up with a campaign name, a more specific area of mental health we would like to base our campaign on and also what we as a group would like to create for this mental health campaign.