Pins of the Week

I love Pinterest, I'm definitely one of those people who very often gets stuck in an endless pinning scroll!

I thought I'd just share some things I've recently found and pinned or re-pinned... It will probably seem like a random selection but here we go:

Lupita Nyong'O on the front cover of V magazine: love the contrast of the black and white photography with the coloured V design element, especially the bright hue's of it. Even the gradient I think looks very effective. The opacity being decreased also looks very effective, I love how they've even taken care to hide some of the V behind Nyong'O's face so that it doesn't distract from it or anything! 

CANNES VINTAGE POSTER: I love looking at vintage poster designs, this one for Cannes film festival from 1939 has that really classic look about it, almost looks like a fashion illustration. I think it does really well to advertise the film festival as gives off that glamorous and elegant vibe like when you think of old Hollywood! I think the typography actually looks very modern especially when you consider that this was in 1939, something I was quite surprised by!

FITZGERALD BOOK COVERS: When Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby film came out this summer I went through a little bit of a 1920's/Gatsby obsession (Check out my Pinterest board HERE) and I found these great alternative book covers to the Fitzgerald classics. I've always had a thing for the art deco style, I absolutely love the patterns on these books, they have such an elegant style which is exaggerated by the use of metallic gold, silver and bronze. I think I'd buy these just to have the patterns, I definitely want to have a go at creating similar patterns of these at some point! 

STILL LIFE: I found this whilst researching, it kind of reminds me of the artwork for Miley Cyrus' new album with the neon lights as typography and the jungle setting background, a very unusual combination but looks very interesting! I like how the neon lights also contrast really well with the dark moody colours of the jungle setting, it has a very edgy but urban vibe to it!

I might start making this 'Pins of the Week' a bit of a regular thing, will definitely help to keep me a bit more motivated and inspired by looking out for new things!

Newcastle Music Hub Logo Designs

This blog post shows my final designs for the Newcastle Music Hub brief. The four final designs have pretty much the same concept behind them but with different adjustments etc.

My idea for these logos came from using the image of a treble clef, but I wanted to rework the shape into a more modern style which would be appropriate for the company and appealing to the market of children to teenagers.

1. The first design shows the image of a treble clef shape with lines of different weights filling in the spaces. I did this in Illustrator and it actually took a long time to arrange all of the lines, there was probably a simpler and easier way of doing it but I at the moment I don't have a lot of experience on these programmes! I added the text too which I think has a clean look to it. If the text was any thicker than the weight of the lines than it wouldn't have looked very effective.

2. For this design I wanted to try something a bit different, so I used the treble clef shape to inspire a square shaped design. I think it looks quite good but I don't think people would associate it very much with music. I also filled one of the squares in blue for a relaxed look.

3. For the third idea I went back to the idea of the semi circles and kept it quite similar to the first design, however I did change the weight of some of the lines. I also filled one of the shapes in the blue colour from the second design just to help make it pop a bit.

4. The fourth design looks pretty similar to the first, the only huge difference being that I rotated the image which I think helps to highlight the treble clef shape more. I also had to rearrange the text so that it went perfectly on line with the horizontal lines on the motif.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with how my logos have turned out for this project as I wanted to go for quite a quiet and relaxed look. 

As these projects are done we now have to consider the next part of this module, which is again a live brief, of creating a logo and stationary for Newcastle College School of Creative Industries!

Branding & Corporate Image Brief

This post marks my first couple of weeks starting my Foundation Degree in Graphic Design!

After some ice breakers with the rest of the class we've already been briefed about the first module, Branding and Corporate image. The brief is live, which means we're designing something for an actual client which could get chosen by them to be used! It includes designing a logo for Newcastle Music Hub, which is aimed at a target market of young children to teenagers.

I've created a SWOT analysis to help me keep on track with this module:

STRENGTHS: A lot of logo and branding research will really help with my design work.

WEAKNESSES: I don't have a lot of experience on adobe programmes such as Photoshop, InDesign, or Illustrator as of yet.

OPPORTUNITIES: Gain experience from the previously mentioned programmes, and there's also a chance for logo to get picked by client.

THREATS: Time, should keep organised for deadline. 

Ideas of Music Hub logo need to be for an interim crit on Friday 5th October, so they can be put together on a computer because we also have to design logos and identity for another brief in this module!

FIRST TIME PLAN: