CHRISTOPHER DAVIS

EXTERNAL POSITIONING

EGRD3013

CONTENTS PAGE

4-19 rsa stamps

20-25 handmade and bound

26-27 independant external work

28-33 penguin bookcover

34-35 company research

36-37 following

38-39 evaluation

40-41 bibliography

RSA STAMPSbrief bThis brief asked us to create a set of six stamps that would encourage out target audience to be more aware of being green and become eco-friendly with there everyday life styles. Choosing brief B gave me a chance to improve the public’s awareness on the subject, this was something I like do be-cause it might have the effects of motivating peo-ple in the form of graphic communication.

To begin with I researched on what I thought eco friendly was by brainstorming the topic, then I thought about researching each key element indi-vidually e.g. water, light and how to save energy. This would give me more of a clear understanding on the brief and help give me an idea for a de-sign/theme.

Some of the websites I went to visit to understand what the na-ture and how people describe what is an eco environment. Trying to gather as much knowledge of the topic to start developing ideas for the stamps.

RSA STAMPSstarting pointAfter looking at websites and book on how I could encourage people to be more environmen-tal friendly, I started to look at stamps and the different styles they had already out there. Mainly searching online and looking at past and present stamps to get an idea of a layout and understand the formats and look of post stamps. I found this process really helpful because I didn’t know how far back the date of stamps went and how they have evolved over time. This also gave me some inspiration and motivation for me to develop my own stamps.

Here are a few examples of some of the stamps I came across

RSA STAMPSlooking back at the pastMy next step was to look up old RSA stamp entry and see how other approached the competition, I came across some inter-esting pieces displayed a strong message. Below are three designs I really like the look of with all having a message and displayed in a way that is simple. Also the medium use for each is different from one design done my illustrated drawings of the elements to photos of four areas of the world that could be changed to coming together to form a globe. To finally have a set of 6 stamps in silo ret of six ways of saving the world, theses really gave me some good ideas on how I could start my development process.

RSA STAMPS (picture board) developmentAfter having a one to one with Bev I found myself looking this brief differently to how I started off. When I first developed an idea of just showing how to save energy but al-ready taking information that was already written up for in-stead of researching my own life. So after being told to look at my own life and see what small things I could do to save energy, for example “turning of you light to washing on a cooler wash our a few things that could help. I found even the smallest effect could still make a difference. The images on the right were from me taking a camera around the house and taking pictures anything I could find that related to my theme., hoping I could use then in a set of stamps.

Examples of the photos

RSA STAMPS 1st set of six“small things make a difference”Taking the images from my pictures boards I moved on develop-ing the first set of stamps that is based on saving energy. Each stamp had an image of a household object as the center-piece. From turning the light or computer console to run-ning taps and recycling correctly, each stamp is to show that the smallest change can save the tiniest bit of energy. Using this as starting point and develops similar designs.

Uploading the images onto Photoshop and editing the images to a point of satisfaction, I cropped them to fit the stamp tem-plate provide by the RSA for the competition. Changing the color of the queens’ head to a shade that matches the image. Plus a boarder that goes across the head and further down.

Here is the final set of 6 stamps called “small things make a difference

Another route I took with the stamps was to instead just showing how to recycle or save energy I wanted to show what you could save. Directing the public attention to going green and protecting nature. Using a cannon camera to take pictures of the roots growing in my garden from different angles to communicate an image of nature itself. This was just an ex-periment to how the stamps would look in the small stamp for-mat. The queen’s head again has changed color with the class of the stamp in a lighter shade. I class these stamps as an extension of the first stamps and all representing the same message but communicating in a different way.

RSA STAMPS 2nd set of six“go green”

Final look at the “Go Green” set of six stamps.

RSA STAMPS 3rd set of six“turn your lights off”An extension of the first set of stamps I did but changing the theme slightly to just fo-cusing on saving energy by turning of your lights. Each stamps has an image of a light or the blub turned on, taken from different positioning of the light. Trying to capture a high quality image and editing to make the light being over used, this is a message to show that smallest change of using less power can help the world. My next stop for this set of stamps is to research quotes and facts that will be placed on the stamps, mainly to inform how they can help the environment.

RSA STAMPS 4th set of six

developmentWith the design for the fourth set of stamps I want to take two elements and mix them together, one being illustration and information graphics. While research the environmental side of this brief I came across a lot of information on how recycling correctly can benefit the worlds energy greatly. To start my developing process I brainstormed what key infor-mation I thought best suited my stamps and from there I start to develop drawings to best represent the quotes or facts I choose for the six stamps. I hope to draw up the objects and then transfer them to the software illustrator. The objects when through a transformation when I first had the rough set of stamps up I didn’t feel they looked like the objects I wanted, so I had them look over by my housemates who agreed that the tin can needed a lot more like a can so I started from scratch and developed new objects for each stamps. After finalizing my objects I moved onto the lay out and started to play around with a green boarder to keep the piece together, not allowing in to overflow the stamp and not make sense when viewing.

RSA STAMPS 4th set of six

step by stepCaptions of the process I had taken for this set of stamps, from note taking to object development then to 1st draft of stamps.

Inspiration for part of this design came from me watching Moe Hezwani, an-other student in GD year 3. After watching her video on how you can recy-cle and make the world a better place. I felt I show felt that taking this information and sharing it with the world on a stamp was a prefect way of communicating encouragement to be environmental friendly. Her video really helped when at rough spot in my development stage.

RSA STAMPS 4th set of six

info stamps “change the world'Going from developing to finalizing was the last step for the rough set design for these stamps. Taking the design and placing on to the template, trying to make sure that every part fits correctly. For this look I choose a dark background to improve the quality of the green making everything pop out and you get a clear understanding and look of eco-friendly. I wanted important bits of the facts to clear so placed in a bold white font. Main objective was for me to show some sort of connection between the stamps, with each stamp sharing a bond for improving the environment but this was not visible so I drew up a globe and place on each stamp. The point for this was to take to stamps that had opposite globes and when together make one, this was just to represents the world com-ing together to make a better place to live in plus improve recycling and have a better future for the world.

I found this set stamps one of my favorite because it allowed my to use two sides of graphics I enjoy. One being informa-tion graphics and the other illustrator I think the end re-sult came to a point where I could push on and really make something of these stamps and hopefully submit.

Final set of stamps of set 4.

H&B(ANIMAL HEADS) “Starting Point”Having the freedom to design whatever you like and have it view by the public audience was a great opportunity to have. Homemade and bound gave us a shot to make our own stamp in the design world and either sale to a live audience or get critical feedback. I thought about experimenting with type, lino, screen-printing, just to find a starting point for this event. As it was mainly independent work and having no re-strictions I decided to work along side someone and Collabo-rating with Nick Mitchell and coming up with an idea to de-sign small A6 cards/Christmas cards that had animal heads on human bodies. We kept the animals to a limit of 5 and stuck with a theme of Christmas/forest creatures, which are:

• Fox• Rabbit• Badger• Owl• Stag

Looking at different styles of drawing to help us with the positioning and look of each animal, making sure that each card kept in the same style of one another. Mainly drawing out the outline of the animal and then added any texture or shade bit by bit to when it transfers to screen it would be clear to print and have no errors. When processing. Using a light box to show me clear view of the finished sketch so I can move on to the next stage of transferring from paper to screen.

First draft drawings of the animals that when fine lined and finished would be scan on to a computer, where they would be quickly edited for printing on to acid Tate.

Example of the rabbit

Final looks at the fully edit version of the animals

Having all five images done and ready we transferred them on to acid tape when a strong UV light embed it. Burning the im-age onto a screen so that we can print on to the A6 cards. During this process we had a bit of trouble with the sizing and quality of the outline of the original image. Firstly the scanner need not pick up the full black ink outlines of each drawing so we had to import them into illustration and live trace them. Doing the same process for each card and making sure the sizing was exact size an A6 should be so when print-ing.

After transferring the image on to the A3 screen we then printed, for card we chose 4 colors to see what suited best. The process went smoothly and the outcomes were a success and I was really happy with them.

H&B(ANIMAL HEADS) “Ready to screen prin”

H&B(ANIMAL HEADS)

“final look”After many attempts of screen-printing and get that per-fect print, we finally got our finished prints of each ani-mal. Each has been done in black or to different color paper. We handed them to get any response we could firstly start-ing with the university and most people said they were a good idea for a Christmas cards, the size and look was prefect. Also a mention was the fox and stag being most people’s fa-vorite design, whenever this was brought up we spoke about pushing the two of them further as a t-shirt. For each top there would be two colors involved one being the top ands the other being the outline. Chosen colors being:

• GreyandBurgundy• NavyandWhite

Both being a popular and something that we both want to do next. Our next site was the public and just handing them out to see what buzz or reaction we could get them. The main thing they wanted to know was what we were doing and being thankful for the free cards. To sum up the whole homemade and bound experienced I really enjoyed doing something that I don’t get the chance to do every day. Screen printing and il-lustration is an area I don’t pay much time in and this was great chance to jump in and experiment with martial I rarely use, plus having my work out there and having publicly viewed was great just to see any reaction and take feedback to help me improve my craft and how I design.

Final look at the cards Nick Mitchell and I designed for this project.

Another path of the design investigation was to get work i got in contact with a family friend who allowed me to come to his workplace in london. a freelance photographer and film-maker. i asked if I could come down and help him out with anything or just learn more about being a freelancer and pick some knowledge of software. during my time i helped in some small projects that he had going with doing page layout snd editing photos, plus over shadowing and learning how a free-lance designer works.

Screen short from HIS WEBSITE THAT SHOWS HIS RANGE OF WORK

other work

“ddm”

Another small bit of work I did was business cards a friend of mine asks to me do for me. He wanted something simple that showed 5 basic ways of contacting him.Taking each bit of information I wanted to place an icon next to it to represent it. Plus using a complete different color for the icon to make it stand out and be independent.

In the final image of the card the company that my friend works for have placed there icon in the lower left hand side card.

Movement for Gloom is a DDM Productions new comedy web series ‘Movement For Gloom’ charts the rise and immediate fall of an uninspiring and dysfunctional collective of people with mediocre expectations as they attempt to get elected to office. Showcasing new British talent, videos are topical and satirical, drawing influences from The West Wing, Thick of It and Arrested Development.

gloom

The second competition brief I looked at was the penguin book cover competition, for this brief we had to design a cover for the book: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Designing a cover that meets the judge’s requirements and what they were looking for. To being my research I looked up the all the book covers I could find that artist and designers have used for this story, I wanted to use this as a starting point so that I can gather enough information and inspiration on how to approach the brief. During this process I found different interoperation for the book cover from the uses of imagery to typography. Each cover had its owns style and brought some-thing to the cover.

one of the four examples that i will show of bookcovers used for the story

PENGUIN BOOK COVER

“STARTING POINT”

The other 3 examples of how the book has been design over the years. Showing the differences from generation to another, each having their own style.

This is set of images that I took when I went to former hospital. This is research/work that I will be using for my bookcover, the page shows the ranger of pictures I got during the day.

PENGUIN BOOK COVERDEVELOPMENT

My idea for the book cover was to be set around the theme of a hospital or some sort of medical building. Remembering that I had already went to an abandon hospital and got some interesting shots of the place. It still had some of equipment laying about the place, with a dark vibe over shadowing the place. The image I have used on the cover was from that day with the wheelchair placed in the center of a long corridor, slowly editing the image and fitting it to the template provided by penguin.

The choice for my image was to make it look dark and creepy, using the story and try-ing my best to represent it. Using dark color and nothing bight to keep the mood and look to small faction plus no movement keeping the reader focus on the chair. I have used the text in a simple and easy layout with reader having no trouble of reading it. The information on the back cover had to be adjusted because the image was too bright for the text so it made it very difficult to read so I made it less bright and darker.

After doing this I hope to develop more book cover with using the same set of photos but mainly work on the layout and come up with some new and interest ways of viewing.

PENGUIN BOOK COVER

FINAL ROUGH DESIGN

Final look at the rough book cover I de-signed for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

company research Research of some of the company’s I looked at for my external unit. These would be some of the companies I would want to work for after I graduate.

We are an independent agency, based in London and Surrey, that look to create long standing re-lationships with those that we work with, offering a personal service that delivers round-the-clock resourcefulness.

Having a team built of people from a variety of creative dis-ciplines allows us to apply a rounded vision to the projects we are tasked with. Our approach combines both creativity and strategic planning to produce in-spiring results that provide real business value.

http://www.htdl.co.uk/index.php

http://www.thinkingjuice.co.uk/home.html

http://www.purethoughtdesign.co.uk/

http://www.londoncreative.com/index.

Thinking Juice is a strategic ideas busi-ness built for the way business is done today. An advertising, branding, creative and digital agency rolled into one truly integrated team, that moves fast and thinks big.

We are a results driven agency with a head for business, using creativity, insight and experience from some of the world’s leading agencies to create powerful campaigns and brands.

We were recently named RAR Best in Creativ-ity 2011 and Best in Effectiveness 2011 and ‘Marketing Industry UK Advertising Agency of the Year 2010’.

And since our launch in 2003 we are very proud to have built a reputation for be-ing incredibly effective, creative, easy to work with and great value for money.

There’s nothing we like more than a chal-lenge from TV, social or digital campaigns, through to packaging design, b2b marketing or brand strategy. No matter how large or small, whatever the sector, we get the big-gest buzz finding new ways to engage, build brands, driving loyalty and sales for our clients.

Now in our 15th year, we are a strategic agency that thrives on giving our cli-ents extraordinary ideas and making them work on a business level.

We deliver on time, on budget, extraor-dinary work – that covers design, broad-cast, cutting edge digital, creative services, exhibitions and marketing con-sultancy. Last year, despite the econo-my, we saw record-breaking growth as a company.

This year we chose to take each one of our clients on a day out to listen care-fully to them. To find out what they liked about us, what they wished we would do more of and to generally find out why they have stuck with us over the years. We hoped that this process would help us as a company scope out our growth strategy for the future.

The results amazed us. They told us, that we are known for robust delivery, extraordinary ideas, round the clock professionalism and a friendly, val-ue packed approach. In fact, we’re so proud of what our clients said, we have published their transcripts in a docu-ment that we are happy to send you. Just email us and ask for a copy.

BrandingThe DNA of an organisation. branding is the way we treat a suite of lit-erature, the web site and the cor-porate identity. Branding can raise the profile of an organisation or product to any level. We will also undertake a complete brand review for clients and put forward propos-als. More...DesignOur core discipline is design, which permeates itself into everything we do, from a logo to a report & ac-counts, a website to an exhibition. We’ve won numerous awards for our design work, it’s what we do best. More...AdvertisingOften an integral part of the mar-keting campaign, our experience of advertising has a broad remit. We conceive, produce, plan and book the appropriate media to run a success-ful ad campaign. Our portfolio cov-ers TV, radio, press, outdoor and direct mail and is always creatively led. More...

following Different ways I found myself externalizing and getting my work out there. I found the follow webpages to be the key areas of where I did most of my external work. Also I started to follow key companies that I had an interest with so that I can keep up to date with the latest news.

Examples of the web-pages or apps I used.

The main area of my focus last year was doing mainly work then the other two, be-cause it was just myself plus being I had direction. These projects were mainly for us to work on and always ended up with a final outcome. Being I find that I work a lot better when being directed by my tutor or following a brief on a live project. Plus working with fellow designers gave me a personal insight and also working on a time limit helps, this improves my knowl-edge on my own work and how others works too and hopefully the world of design is the same.

When looking at freelance I never really took notice of last year because it was something that didn’t appeal to me that much when working on class projects. Also it was an area I had no experience so I felt I should not spend as much time look-ing for work when I had my own to do.

I found doing my own work interesting be-cause it was me as a designer discover-ing the areas I would like to do, but also found it a bit difficult. Trying to start of and without direction was the one source of motivation I was missing. At the time I was use to being told what to do and how it should look but now on my own I thought my work was not right and my con-fident levels were at a low point so I choose to slowly work on my independent work.

After finishing my degree I would to go and work in a design agency or some sort, ranging from editorial /layouts to adver-tising. Having a small passion for them plus this would mean I would have a ver-ity of work and not working towards one style of work. I’ve always enjoyed working in small groups and going into an agency would suit me well, with learn from other and working as a team.

If there was enough time I would to take up small project or competitions, I find though work is important I still think I should have some focus on my own style of work and by doing these projects it would help me as a design plus add to my port-folio. Participating would not restrict me to just on form of work, so I wont get bored and just throw it to one side. While doing this I would get critical feedback which would help me improve my craft and experience in live briefs.

then now future

Mainly this year I have focused on my own independent work and competition brief for the external unit. The work load this year has been limited with it mainly only on the other two, other then that all we have done I the early video projects we did at the beginning of the year. Understanding what area I would like to push myself was the main topic of the year and where do I see my self-going after I graduate. After working on my independent practice I be-lieve this has given me more of confident boost in the areas I wanted to develop my craft.

For the external area it allowed me to more live competition brief, which made me, do work that could go in front a judg-ing panel. Looking back at the paper co experience and remembering the good feed-back and time I had doing it I decided to take up two briefs. This unit was to open up different ways of developing our ideas as designers and thinking of new ways of communicating to different audiences. I felt with each stage of developing I felt my designs got stronger.

EVALUATION

then

work

independant

freelance

now future

This page holds charts of how high or low my levels were for each area of work. Looking back my past self to how I am now as a designer to where I would see myself in the future. The bigger the size the more I put in so it just a way to indicate where the majority of my focus was. Plus I have pointed out the areas i have experimented in and how I percentage them as a whole.

Information graphics- 30%

Branding- 7%

Layouts/editorial- 20%

Advertising- 13&

Photography- 15%

Printing- 5%

Film-10%

Bibliography

websites “why go green”(2011), http://www.greenbusinessalliance.com/go-green.aspx

basic information, http://www.renewablechoice.com/

stamp collection (2011), http://shop.royalmail.com/personal-shop/stamps- collecting+gifts/icat/cat111

10 ways to be ec0 (2011), http://www.ecolivingadvice.com/

http://www.worldwatch.org/mission

rsa stamps examples (2010), http://www.carlyjones.co.uk/index.php?/projects/rsa-stamps/

rsa stamps examples (2008) http://www.cascademedia.co.uk/category/ravens-bourne/page/2/

rsa sramps examples (2009) http://www.elliefranklin.co.uk/graphicdesign/stamp_designs.html

rsa postage stamps brief (2011) http://www.thersa.org/projects/design/stu-dent-design-awards/rsa-student-design-awards-201112/postage-stamps

penguin book cover, http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/pen-guindesignaward/penguin_brief.php

DDM PRODUCTIONS (2010), http://www.danielmoses.com/gloom/

http://www.eyemagazine.com/opinion.php?id=185&oid=534

http://www.empireonline.com/magazine/jobs.asp

http://www.id-mag.com/joblist

http://www.cmykmag.com/

http://www.printmag.com/JobList.aspx

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