Self Branding Logo

As part of my portfolio, I felt the need to make my own personal logo the very first page, however, it needs to be re-created. Based on a piece I had created in the past out when I was bored, I created the base shape at the top of my logo. This piece was created in Illustrator using the pen tool, ellipse tool, offset path and rotate tool. Honestly, the process is quite simple, only half the design needs to be made, the other can be reflected. The result however, I find to be quite a complicated looking, but aesthetically pleasing. I then hunted around for a font that would work well with this construction. Eventually I stumbled across the font 'Speakeasy' which is the font you can see above. After spending a great deal of time working with alignment, structure and kerning of the text, I eventually settled with this final logo. My intention for this logo was to have it placed on the first page of my portfolio. Seeing as the portfolio is selling myself, it only made sense to me for my logo to be the first thing anyone looking through my portfolio should see. This will spill over to more then my portfolio however, this will be placed as the header for my blog, will be going on my business cards and, if I get around to making one, will go on my website.

HEX-Clothing Designs

Following the completion of my capsule collection branding, I shortly moved onto clothing designs. During the development of my brand, I was already aware of several ideas I wished to create. Like my logo text, I knew that the majority of my designs would be created using a graphics tablet to help their styles match that of the brand. I had several desires for these clothing designs since the creation of this brief, trying to push the boundaries on the placement of my designs, 

The first idea I chose to create was that of an octopus, something I have been drawing whenever I was bored for a long time now. I knew the tentacles would be one of the most features if this is what I wanted to draw which lead me to the idea of having one wrap around one of the sleeves. As I mentioned, I wanted to try more unusual design placement with my designs because of the amount of common placements that are available today. This resulted in the entire design being placed in the upper right of the shirt, not only does this achieve my desire for unusual placement, but it allows my wrapping around the sleeve idea to be created more easily. To help make this shirt more recognisable as part of this HEX brand, I felt the need to connect the two in a obvious way. I added a globule of ink, appearing to be launched by the octopus placed roughly in the centre of the shirt. Within this I removed the filled black, constructing the word 'Hex' in the process. While I do personally love this design, in terms of practically, this would be very difficult to create in practice due to limitations with common printing. The process behind creating this piece involved me simply sketching the image straight onto this stock image using a graphics tablet. This process took some time but in the end achieved great looking results despite its real life impracticality. This process took too long however to justify it being used for future designs. This also has the limitations of being difficult to to transfer from one stock image to another or across to other clothing items. For the future designs, I decided I would construct them separately and then focus on placement upon completion.

I ended up creating four new designs (to go along side the HEX logo) to be placed on clothing. I decided the basic idea for each design during the construction of my brand logo and now had reached the stage where I would create and add to each idea.

The first idea (top left) was an attempt to create another tiki mask style image, crossing over with a oni mask theme. Once the design was complete (again using the graphics tablet) I placed the HEX text between the horns to fill the gap where something appeared to be missing. The second design (top right) was based on my desire to draw an owl like design. There was some cross over between this and the last with the noticeable feature of the horns, developed slightly more this time around. I wanted to keep this idea looking more simple then the last, using the horns to still draw the viewers eye. My following idea (bottom right) was another owl based idea. Trying to add a little variety in the style of my designs, I paused my use of the graphics tablet and instead constructed this piece using the pen tool in Illustrator. One of the most recognisable features of owls are their large eyes, this is something I wanted to maintain in this design, using gradients to help these stand out further. For my last design I decided to take a different route from my sketch style, this time leaning towards the use of shape, like that of my logo. Quite simple to make, using the pen tool and ellipse tool, I constructed my last design.

Placing everything in situ was a rather time consuming and delicate process, but in the end, I was very pleased with the majority of the results. For each piece of clothing I placed the tiki mask design below the neck at the same place at the same size. Depending on the colour of the item of clothing, I altered my designs to black or white. My four designs from above were fairly simple to place, I leaned towards as large as I could place them. On the hoodie designs however, I added something to the actual hood, whether it was the horns that matched the designs or a segment of my shape design. I also had the idea of having my HEX logo wrap around the body of each clothing piece, which, while it would also be difficult to practically create, the design itself is something I found quite successful.

Digital Skills-Illustrator Tutorial

Like with Photoshop, I felt that the completion of an online tutorial in Illustrator would be to my benefit. Using some of the skills I already knew, such as offsetting paths, adding gradient, using shapes, etc, I also learned some new skills such as the use of some different pathfinder options and creating a brush in Illustrator.

Digital Skills-Week 4

This weeks digital skills session was more focused on type editing, looking at tracking/kerning, creating outlines, 3D effects and the appearance panel. Both the 3D effects options and the appearance panel were completely new territory to me, yet both were surprisingly simple to pick up and apply.

Using those skills listed above, as well as those taught to me last week, I was able to create this piece in line with a piece the lecturer had created. The appearance panel is probably the most useful skill I have learned this week as, not only does it allow easy adjustments to shape and texts, but it significantly sped up the process of creating this poster and so will help in future work.

Digital Skills-Week 3

Moving on from Photoshop, our next digital skills lecture covered the basics of Illustrator, using the pen tool, selection tools, stroke and fill, gradients, shapes, and importantly, the difference between Vector and Pixel images. Vector being images that do not change quality when scaled due to them not being made up of pixels.

Fortunately for me, I feel much more comfortable in Illustrator then I do in Photoshop, especially with the Pen tool which took up the vast majority of this exercise. Unlike the previous exercise, placing the image in situ took the addition of a few more technique that were previously taught in Photoshop. Using the warp tool I could bend the image to the shape of the page and using clipping masks and gradients I could add a shadow and lighting effect to make the piece look more realistic.

Alternative Techniques-Blaydon Tennis Club

Given the short space of time I had available after producing a range of initial ideas and development, I feel the final pieces I created were quite suited to their task, one of which I personally prefer much more then the other. As a brief overall, including my Harbour House work, I feel this is one of my more successful briefs. In terms of research I have delved much deeper into the area I am working in giving me a greater understand of what is suitable and aiding my initial ideas generation. Particularly in my Harbour House work, I have been able to produce a wide range of ideas based on my research and have applied in different formats suited to the field of branding.

My first final piece, the one I prefer less, was my type based. Normally not one for typographic work, I thought that I would give myself a small challenge by forcing myself to work out of my comfort zone. So I dabbled, very simply, in the creation of a font using, predominantly, the shape tools and the pathfinder functions. While I quite like the font I have created, as an overall piece, I was left feeling quite disappointed by the result, perhaps had it been placed in situ somehow, it may have looked more suitable, but it is unlikely. Quite simply, it's too simple, I do not mind the style of the font, but on it's own, it lacks any real impact.

This logo, on the other hand, I found myself surprisingly pleased with. Created using Illustrator, I used a few more unfamiliar, yet useful techniques, such as offset path, rotate tool and textures (though they are much easier to apply in Photoshop). Removing the lack of impact issue present in the previous final piece, this logo is an instant improvement. The main issue I have with this logo is the crossed rackets in the background. This is something I thought about before I did my second set of research, finding that the Wimbledon logo shares this as well, despite this I decided to take this forward, because frankly, it was one of the only things I really wanted to take forward from my ideas. In the end I feel the whole thing works however and shows developed skill on my part, being able to apply smaller details that might be individually overlooked but together help to create a successful final piece, such as the text in the center green circle of the gradient in the outer ring.

Alternative Techniques-Harbour House

Using Illustrator I was able to create all of my logo ideas for Harbour House. The client had said that they liked the use of negative space in logos, and so I thought I would focus on that as a starting point. Clearly my first idea was far more successful then my second. Playing on the House part of the company name, I used the direct selection tool to manipulate a H into a house structure, and then used the shapes tools and pathfinder tools to create a small door silhouette to complete the house as it was not very obvious that that is what I was going for without it.

I then looked into using basic shapes and type to create a clean, simple logo which I feel I did rather successfully, with the addition of a gradient to finish it off. I then returned to my first idea after thinking about trying to give the negative space house a 3D effect, and while I feel the result is not all that bad, the original idea is far superior.

I then created several ideas focusing mostly on the type, using different fonts and techniques to manipulate and create a range of different ideas.

Finally, I thought it would be worth exploring the use of shape in logos, and after some research, I saw that many shapes are created using the ellipse tool to create clean curves. Using this and the rotate tool, I was able to create two, very similar, ideas.

After I had create some logo ideas, I tool the best and placed them into different branding formats, such as, business cards, compliments slips and letter heads. The business cards I was especially happy with thanks to the ideas of having pieces cut out to give the business cards a unique aspect.

As you can see, my work placement gave me plenty of time to work on logo ideas and place them in different elements, experimenting with different ways to present them on said formats, which is something I rarely leave myself the time to do.

Final Packaging Designs

In the end then, I was able to digitally produce 3D visuals of my packaging ideas, incorporating the base packaging and the logo ideas I developed.

Due to the packaging itself being so basic at first glance, I thought that the uneditied version of the Phonica logo placed at the centre of the box would suit it best with only the addition of the black border to give the packaging more impact. I also showed how the packaging would be unveiled to reveal its contents in a more interesting way then just tearing the box apart. This packaging would be lifted to reveal the stand and vinyls/CD's inside.

The alternative to the above packaging, the idea, as previously mentioned, was to have the choice between these two packaging designs depending upon the want/need for the stand or not. After some testing with the chosen logo alterations, I found that this design suited the packaging more then others. I also added the line and dot that are present on the Phonica logo to the spools that the strings wraps around which I thought helped to further represent the company on the packaging.

Keeping in line with the Phonica style of a fresh, clean look, I the outwards fading Phonica logo with nothing else. As with the other designs, this black and white look keeps in line with the Phonica website which is very simplistic and contemporary in terms of colour palette. This packaging was the basic idea for the speakers that are available on their website. While the actually speaker packaging will no doubt come in several sizes, in my experience, the boxes tend to be a similar rectangular cuboid shape, as such I designed one packaging design that can be scaled to fit the different sizes. I also showed, once again, how the packaging will be opened, revealing the delivered item and peripherals that come with it (thank you cards etc).

Lastly, I created the final packaging designs for the artwork packaging. Once again using the original Phonica logo, but in a more unusual way. Having the 'n' in 'Phonica' placed across the divide in the packaging, I used the dots beneath it as finger holes to easily open the packaging once the tape had been removed. Doing so would show the artwork, secured in a tray with small divets for easy access. On the inside of the doors to the packaging, like the speaker packaging, would be any additional peripherals secured by two corner tabs so that they are not loose during transportation.
Overall I am pleased with the actual packaging ideas, the execution however is something that has let me down I feel. Having spent too long on development, I have let myself down in the actual presentation of the final ideas due to lack of time. While the packaging is going to be black and white, the way I have constructed the final pieces has left them looking somewhat unfinished. Hopefully I will come back to these in the future and will learn from this time management error of mine.

Cover Titles!

Using two different methods, I have successfully created two different titles for my magazine covers.

Starting with the top, I created that font by simply using the pen tool. First of all I created the the actual words without the 3D effect using the pen tool, copying any letter I had already created as I went along. Then, it was simply a matter of creating a 45 degree line at the length I wished and copying it all around one version of each letter. I then created a new layer and used the pen tool to make shapes around the edges of the letter using the 45 degree lines to tell me where to stop.

The second font was far more interesting to create, using the Pathfinder tool. To begin with I typed out the title. Then I placed different rectangle shapes and circle shapes across the title. Then selecting a rectangle/circle and the letter it was covering, I used the 'Divide' button in the Pathfinder option window. What this does is it creates new shapes where the two objects over lap for example, the T in Tinker was made by placing a rectangle over the top half of the T, then when I pressed divide, the rectangle with some missing bits became a new shapeand the top and bottom halves of the T became individual shapes. I then just deleted the rectanglular shape, and used the arrow keys to move the top half to the left and down slightly. Doing actions similar to this allowed me to create the title you can see above.

These two titles are intended for the single portrait idea and the broken glass idea repectively, though one concern I have is that the second title might make the broken glass cover look somewhat busy and messy. If this transpires to be the case then I see no issue really in swapping their placements, I dont think either will look to much out of place on the other cover.

Digital Skills Lecture- Swiss Style Poster

This poster is the result of another extremely informative Digital Skills lesson inwhich we used both Photoshop and Illustrator to create this Swiss styler poster. In Photoshop we focussed on manipulating the image, this involved tools such as Gaussian Blur, adding noise, changing specific colour channels, and using many different blending modes on many different layes in order to create an aged appearance. After this, within InDesign, we focussed heavily on layout, taking the image we had created on Photoshop, setting it out as you can see above, and then manipulating the set copy by changing features such as the font and tracking.

This Digital Skills lesson provided me with much insight and a better understanding of both Photoshop and InDesign as well as the knowledge to use tools I previously knew very little about, such as the Marque tool for example. As with previous Digital Skills lectures, I will annotate the Screen Prints I took throughout the lesson and add them to my Digital Skills folder.

Self Branding

This is something I found especially difficult, particularly when it came to thinking of a name as I did not want to just use my name. First of all I used the idea of teeth as frame for the text. This resulted in 2 quite interesting ideas both of which I was quite happy with even if the name 'Connor Design' is ridiculous. 

To try and add a bit of diversity to my brand ideas, I tried to go down a different route in terms of the images. I thought I would go down a more unusual and less common route of lots of tone and detail with a heavily sketched appearance. For this I decided to draw an crazy evil robot head with the name 'Roboticus' next to it. The name came from a play on my surname, Roberts-->Robots-->Roboticus.

(When I sketched it, I did not anticipate that it would not fit the page)

While out of my designs, the robot idea is my favourite idea, however it seems a little unsuitable for a brand logo, it would also take along time to vectorise or sketch with a graphics tablet. The heavy tone and detail could work against the logo is the sense it will be void of bright bold shapes to catch the eye. You could argue however that due to the large image, sketched tone and font, that it would stand out amongst the simpler, more usual logos.

In the end I decided to go with the 'Braces" idea, out of the 2 teeth ideas I preferred this one due to its darker feel. Not only that, but I feel that the text stands out more and includes more specific details such as the brace wire wrapping around. I also feel that, because it has been scanned in from my sketch book, the colour from the lines have a faded appearance, which looks far nicer then if I were to go over it in the graphics tablet.

Project 3-Ministry of Sound Poster

At the beginning of this project, we were given a choice between designing posters for the Ministry of Sound 'Saturday Sessions' or designing a spread for the Typographic Circle. As you can see, I chose the former. My reasoning was that the Ministry brief would offer much greater freedom in terms of imagery whereas the Typographic brief would be more focused on layouts. As you can see from my previous posts I have attempted to vary my creative methods using tutorials and graphic tablets. Due to this diversity of ideas I feel I have produced reasonably final pieces that matches this brief in most respects. I say most as I did not stick to the provided colour palette, I simply felt that the colours chosen were not ideal for the poster designs, for example the purple provided was far to dark which I felt did not coincide with the Ministry of Sound vibe.

My idea of the separated logo is the center piece of these posters. This was one of my most original ideas for this project, the intention was to split the logo up so that it was still recognisable on the individual posters, but would conjoin to create the complete logo if the posters were presented together. I successfully manages to create this effect as well as chance the colour scheme per poster to, what I felt was the most sensible options. I felt, keeping this element consistent throughout the posters I was able to signify them as a series, which was part of the brief. One element of these posters which only came about towards the end of the project was to include a bold, defined to pronounce the month the poster is representing. This was another part of the posters which remained consistent throughout, only  the colours of the fill and outline changed slightly to best fit the individual posters. One other, less noticeable feature I added towards the end of the project was the date headings on the posters. While subtle, I find this feature really helps to the consistency of the posters. My strengths for this project I feel lie in the creativity each poster contains, the way the draw in your eyes, and in terms of colours chosen. My weaknesses I feel lie in layout, I am not 100% happy with the layout of my posters, I feel, on review, that I may have focused to heavily on the imagery and making that stand out that the text is lost slightly.