Brief 4 - Communicate: Interim Crit

In small groups we discussed out ideas. We asked ourselves the following questions:

• Is it appropriate?
• Is it achievable?
• What is the purpose?
• Who is the target audience?

My idea was to create a pack of cards which provides rules to the card games. The problem I discovered in my research was that card games are not played as much as they used to be. This is down to several factors; not knowing or having clear rules, not knowing enough/appropriate games, rules are hard to understand. 

By creating a small pack of cards with clear rules it would illuminate all of these problems and allow everyone to play by the same rules. I will research into the cards people said they liked playing in my survey.

Plan for the week:

Monday - book printing room for deadline, write brief, research the card games people enjoyed playing, create a mock template design.

Tuesday - Rate the card games on how easy they are to play and how quickly they can be played. Begin designing the cards.

Wednesday - Design

Thursday - Design and final tweaks - Print final designs at the end of the day

Brief 1 - Visual Thinking/ Alphabet Soup: Crit Feedback

The crit today was very useful. I found that previously I was really struggling on ideas and how I can progress. The feed back I got about my current 10 designs was that they were good but were too similar to each other in their set styles. Below is a list of things that were suggested to work on:

• LINE WEIGHTS - I want to experiment with varying the weights. One point that came up was that instruments are precise and intricate, this has made me rethink about the line weight and experiment with making it all thinner and delicate. The thinner and neater the letter form the more legible it will be. 

• ONE INSTRUMENT -  Look at potentially focusing on one instrument and basing all the type on different parts of that instrument instead of having a wide spectrum. The word  'instrument' is so broad that the idea of narrowing it down could make it easier to focus and produce a good piece of work.

• TYPE ON INSTRUMENTS - Another idea that was suggested was to look at the type used on instruments like scalpel  or even guitars. The point behind this was that they use small fonts and the writing is normally hidden but still clear and legible, this could be something that may work for mine. It will also be worth looking into how the fonts are written on the instrument. For example on a guitar it maybe be etched into a small metal plate. This opens up the option for experimenting with etching and other techniques that may be used such as engraving and embossing.

• GRID - Look at creating the letters in a grid this will fit in with the idea of it being neat and precise and will act as good guide lines.

Now I will begin to look into working by hand and also using other materials to create the letter forms, I will experiment with textures that relate to instruments.

Introduction Brief - Interim Crit

In todays interim crit for the introduction brief we were given feed back on our current ideas and product. One of the issues that came up was the colour scheme as it may be too much or too overpowering. I would agree with this as although I believe teal is a good colour to use for this brief, we should probably hold off using ever shade. Today we will experiment in black and white and rejig the layout so colour can be minimal. This will also help to solve the other problem brought up about the amount of text. We want to try and fit as much information on the back of the paper fortune teller as possible without over crowding it. If we remove some of the layers then we can fit more text in without making it looked crammed.