Category: Negotiated Specialist Project

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Exhibition Prints

Final outcomes

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I am pleased with my project as I acheived what I set out to. Although reflecting on this work, I would have loved to expand my ideas further, such as creating a website and producing my own tutorial videos online. It would have also been beneficial to reach out to magazines for collaboration.  If I could do this project again, I would have developed this into a wellbeing magazine prototype, focusing on all the mindfulworkshops: including drawing, expression pages, learning a language etc, while also including sections on mindful movements, walks, yoga. This could also include local events, talks and interviews with people suffering with their mental health. If I get chance to return to this project, I definintely will!

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Final Designs

Final Cover Design

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Final activity pages

I feel my final designs are successful, I am pleased with the over-all aesthetic and visual. I think they hold different elements of my theme and will appeal to my audience. I have decided these will be displayed in A3 frames along a wall however I have bought A4 frames in the meantime. They will be exhibited starting with the cover, then learning a language, mindful expression and then how to draw a landscape as I feel this display will be the most balanced.

 

 

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Finalising Cover Design

Cover Design Development

After creating a body of potential cover design, I began playing in publisher with some of my best edited visuals. I had difficulty chosing wich colours to go with but I started with the yellow and green as they most popular and preferred on my instagram.

Instagram research

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I used instagram a lot to help decide on which designs to expand on this was a very helpful source for public opinion and input.

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I decided to combine the most favoured works and began exploring this composition, placing the mountains and sea landscape behind, I feel this adds depth and furthers a place of nature. I played around with bars of shade to represent steps althogh I felt this closed of the design. I also wasnt fond of the colours as they dont speak pop culture to me, I felt they look quite ghostly and eerie though I do like the purple undertones.

I then thought about using a similar design but in yellow like my very first mock ups. The yellow was the most prefered on instagram so I felt this worked out well, mirroring the designs with the landscape behind

Final Design Development

I started by recreating the design using the yellow version, I feel didn’t edit the background as I think the shade of purple is quite unisex and appealing.
I then tried out layering more circles in gradient tones to play with the design though I felt it looked forced and unorganised.
I then tried out inverting the design altering the colour of the boarder to black and white I felt this could explore my concept as it highlights creativity and colour in a black and white environment.
After doing this exploration I was able to see that this was my desired design, I enhanced the vibrancy to make the colours pop further and thought about adding final touches with the title.
After using the font Beatnik for all my activity pages, I felt it would be appropriate for the cover, I decided to position it central as to divide yet expand on the figures which works well. I lined up the letters with the circles which worked out very well, I then thought about alternative colours for the font. I thought light blue would work better than white as it is softer in contrast.

I spent some time developing this design, I really liked the yellow and purple as they are complementary colours, I much prefer this version of the design as it looks more solid and relative to my themes of nature, minimalism and pop culture.

Final Cover Design

final design
I am pleased with my final design, I feel it pops perfectly and holds perfect punchy colours without being overwhelming, I added a shadow effect behind the text to help lift it of the cover, I feel this works well. I also like the amount of white in the design I feel it is well balanced.
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Activity Page Design Development

Learning a language

Page Design

  • Development for activity 1.

 

I felt it would be a good idea to place this in the centre of the page, I found a good size and began editing the font style
I continued exploring font and adding content
I spent lots of time organsing my text and deciding what needed a place, positioning font and titles to complete the design, I then began cutting around the illustration using the magic wand tool.
After cutting around the image, I copied and pasted it filling it with a pattern I had made with my landscape photography and placed it behind, editing the opacity of the forelayer design, I really liked this as it adds to the pop plane of my theme. I then felt the background was a little too bare and unfinished so I thought about adding a boarder.
After experimenting with this idea, I decided to create the boarder by tinting the centre of the design and leaving a white boarder, I liked this and felt it worked well, finishing it nicely but I wanted to make sure the tones were still vibrant.
I then reselected the centre and changed the tone, inverting my selection to edit the boarder to a light blue. I feel this was successful in terms of design and aesthetic, it orientates ideas of nature, minimalism and pop without being to bright.

I started by referencing my design speficiation and began experimenting with my chosen fonts and compositions. Once I had a stable composition, I began playing with the design to push experimentation and provide me with extra options to fulfil aesthetics.

Design Experimentation

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Discovering tools: eraser tool, this helped me clean up my designs, especially my drawn illustrations. I used this around the wave in my previous design as well as below to ensure the page is crisp and proffesional.

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I found this a fun process and enjoyed discovering new helpful tools.

 

Mindful Expression

  • Below is the process of development for activity 2.

 

I began by composing my page and experimenting with gradients and font
I then kept pushing this by applying effects on the wave and increasing vibrancy
Here I changed the font colour and removed the background to achieve minimalism though I felt it needed something behind the font as I have remove the gradient background layer.
I tried out using one of my results from the activity, i then thought about filling the wave but to do this I had to make it into a pattern which fit the wave well, I experimented more with other patterns before decided this worked very well.
After finalising the waves, I altered the background and addedd in my instructional text to complete the activity page. I am happy with the result and didn’t expect the waves to look as interesting and fun, I really like that they are from my exercise as it furthers the theme.

I kept with the layout from my drawn exploration, structuring my ideas around space and inviting colours. I began in the same way as before inserted my visuals on an A4 page and began experimenting with tools, font, text, colour and composition. Once I had my desired composition I was able to further explore its aesthetic through experimentation which can be seen below.

Design Experimentation

 

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Landscape Drawing

  • Below is the process of development for activity 3

 

I then tried out adding in my instructional text, after adding just one box of text it became apparent that this wouldnt work out, there is not enough space for the writing making me think about other options.
I then re-arranged the image, I felt this looked good but wasnt practical. I thought about re-thinking the design and approach.

This was an enjoyable process as I had the idea of producing a website for my magazine, I felt the development of this piece was interesting as unlike my other designs, this has turned out nothing like I had invisioned so I am pleased with the final effect. I feel this designs balances the use of white in my other pieces.

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Cover Design

skillstacks

Magazine Design

Using photoshop I began playing with my edited visuals and photography experimenting with effects I have learned from my online course. I kept in mind key factors from the Japanese graphic design website like lots of colour, gradients, blocking and text. I like each design but feel they are too dark and lack my desired quality – calming quirky colourful.

 

Drawing on primary photography scanning it in and editing

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I wanted to further my experimentation so I decided to print out some of my photography and visuals, adding shapes and font from my speficiation doc, I wanted to involve a feel of traditional Japan which is why I added the mountains in the back. I used coloured pencils referencing my pintrest board as a colour pallet and using a rubber to remove ink, forming glowing outlines and highlights. I then scanned this back into photoshop to maximise potential.

I expanded on these by playing around with colour editing tools and the cut out filter, this helped break the tones and produce different styles when I changed hue. I like the effect of these designs, particularly the pastle colour version as it echos a sense of Japanese graphic design which I feel is a success.

 

Photography and illustration

– sharpie, photography and photoshop

Here I blocked out some areas and highlighted around them, I felt this highlights a geisha form, and draws the eye into the centre. I furthered this by outlining her in black and the other figures in pink to play with pop effects. This works really well and looks well finished, I like the shadows and complementary colours, I used this in my first cover design and felt I needed to express more independence and individuality so I selected a more appropriate image from my photoshoot.

I used the same ideas as earlier, applying shapes and font in different styles, I really liked the impact and effect but I preferred my the composition from another photograph in an earlier post, I felt this result isn’t as simplistic and calming as the one by the canal.

I decided to combine these ideas using my preferred photo and same manipulation, I decided to try this out digitally and feel it looks much cleaner and well designed, though I do like the hand drawn aesthetic, I may combine these ideas further however I am happy with the above results and experimentation.