Work Based Learning - Hitchcock Brief

Today we got given the brief for our Work Based Learning module. We all had to pick a piece of paper out of a hat which would be the Hitchcock movie we were allocated to design a movie poster for, for Tyneside Cinema. I got given Vertigo! To get us started we were set research tasks which were to research our film and look at other examples of movie advertisements and posters.

The brief states that the poster should be photography-based, which means that we have to team up with the foundation degree photographers and art direct a photo shoot based on the film which should be interesting!


STRENGTHS: I feel a lot more confident now using inDesign so hopefully putting the poster together will be quite easy.

WEAKNESSES: I've never art directed anything before so this will be something new to learn, I also don't know a lot about photography when I'm meant to be planning a shoot!

OPPORTUNITIES: Experience in art direction will definitely be gained and hopefully I'll learn a thing or two about photography!

THREATS: Scheduling photo shoot with photography students could be quite difficult so it's important to keep up to date with work and planning the shoot


TIMEPLAN:

Typography & Editorial Final Designs

I was really pleased with how my final designs for the editorial project turned out, I really enjoyed this brief as a whole! I felt like digital skills especially using inDesign had really developed and I had got used to the programme a lot more.

I decided to go for quite a minimalstic style with my spreads, which was an interview of actress Emma Stone. A lot of my research of editorial design I had looked at had a very minimal feel to it with simple geometric shapes included in the designs which I thought looked really fresh and cool!

It took a lot of experimenting in my development but I eventually figured out a way to include the shapes with the text and images. I didn't want too much colour - the whole idea was that the shapes would add a pop of colour to the spreads, and I think the contrast between the black and white and the soft green and blue works quite well.

I feel the first spread is a little bit simpler than the second one.

I really like the colours too, they're clean looking and work really well with a lot of white space. By changing the opacity of the shapes it helped them go with the photographs better, and also allowed for a pretty cool effect with the triangles are slightly over lapped like in the second spread.

I also went for quite a simple layout of the columns for text, I didn't want to make it too unusual as it would draw attention away from the overall design. But I did really want a specific quote to stand out the most, which I think is also done by having a lot of white space around it!

To conclude, I was really pleased with how this brief went and the work I came out with.

Development of Editorial

Today I have been experimenting putting together different kinds of layouts as part of my development for my editorial and typographical project. I don't really have a final idea thought up as of yet but it was a really good chance to play around on indesign with chosen images and to have a mess around with different styles and layouts.

The first layout I tried, I wasn't really impressed with how it translated on the computer I think it looked a lot better as a rough scamp in my sketchbook! Perhaps using better images for this one would have improved it and using a nicer font would have helped it too. I really don't think it looks very innovative or stands out at all.

I felt better with the results of this layout design. I wanted the headline text to be really large and off on an angle. I also wanted to try and place images in triangular frames which I knew may not work well sometimes due to the image being cut off in places and it not having the same effect but in this case I think it worked quite well. I kept the alignment very centered on the first page so as not to draw attention away from the header text but on the second page I wanted the text to go with the triangular frame of the image, which did prove to be a bit tricky as I soon found out that the triangle had to be the same measurements as the frame of the image otherwise the text wouldn't align correctly at all and would look very uneven alongside the image.

This screenshot is the same as above apart from a slight adjustment to the header text by moving it around a bit to fit better, and adding a splash of colour on it. I actually think I prefer just having it as black as I think it looks cleaner and more professional.

The next layout I tried is like a continuation of the previous style with the triangular shaped framed images but I also wanted to incorporate a quote with that style. I actually really like how this has turned out but I did have a problem with the speech marks as I wanted them to have a really classical look so I ended up having to use a different font but then whenever I changed the size the text alignment and layout would get all confused so I ended up having to use different text boxes for them.

The layout sees an image taking up the whole full bleed of the page. I absolutely love this image but I thought it needed a little bit of editing, just to have a play around and maybe make it look a bit more sophisticated. So I opened it with Photoshop using the links tab and quite simply changed the brightness/contrast and desaturated it for a nice black and white effect. I immediately loved the effect it had and begun to experiment with text on the next page, which I thought I'd keep it quite simple and minimal so as not to overpower the image itself.

Jelle Martens

I was on Pinterest one day scrolling around, and I found these really cool looking collage pieces:

These pieces are done by Belgian artist Jelle Martens, I absolutely love the overall effect this work has, it has a very natural and organic look to it, But the triangular segments give it a really modern style. My favourite in particular is the second example, I really love the striking turquoise blue colour.

Check out his website here for more cool pieces of work!