~ End of year show branding - Brief ~

End of Year Show Design Competition - Prize £750

The Brief

We want Leeds College of Art students to design

the concept and promotional materials for our

annual end of year show. This will include the

Foundation End of Year show which takes place 18

- 25 May 2017, and the Degree End of Year show

which takes place on 9 - 15 June 2017.

The shortlisted entries will work with design

agency Peter & Paul to develop their concepts,

and have the opportunity to present the final

designs to our Senior Management Team. The

winning design will be applied to a suite of

promotional materials produced by our marketing

team.

The Concept

The concept should reflect the essence and

purpose of our end of year show - namely

showcasing the hard work and talent of all of our

exhibiting students.

The end of year show is a College-wide exhibition

and includes higher education, further education

and short courses. The design needs to be

representative of all these courses.

Competition entries must be innovative and have

a strong visual identity. The concept should be as

creative and eye-catching as possible, and

imagery/photography can be included. The Leeds

College of Art logo must be visible and legible on

every design.

Considerations

This is a large and exciting project that requires

professionalism and an understanding of how to

respond innovatively to a creative brief. The

project offers significant publicity and is likely to

appear in regional and national press.

We will accept submissions from individuals or

small groups. Groups can be made up of students

working across different courses at Leeds College

of Art.

The competition is organised by the marketing

department; the winning students should expect

to work closely with agency Peter & Paul and the

marketing department for the duration of the

project.

The winning work may be used as a piece of

graded coursework, by prior consultation with

your tutor.

Mandatory Requirements

A0 Poster

For the poster towers in and around the city

centre and Hyde Park, Headingley etc. Poster

must be bright and bold to stand out from the

‘noise’ created by other advertising.

Private View Email Header

A high quality digital invite sent out mainly to

industry contacts/friends to promote the show.

Animation and interactive elements are welcome.

Flyer

A6 double sided flyer to distribute around bars

and venues in Leeds.

Online Graphics

Several graphics for our website, social media

channels and online advertising.

Publication Adverts

Several adverts for printed publications.

External Signage Blenheim Walk

Signage covers the four sides of the brick folly,

each panel measures 2260mm x 4030mm.

Exhibition Guide

A printed guide handed to visitors at Blenheim

Walk to guide them round the exhibition.

External Signage Vernon Street

Usually includes 3 or 4 pieces of external signage.

What is Leeds College of Art?

Founded in 1846, Leeds College of Art is one of

the few remaining independent HE art

institutions, and the leading independent arts

institution in the North of England. Our culture is

that of a creative community - supportive and

open to new ideas, progression and

experimentation. Our staff are engaged with the

creative and cultural industries – many of them

are practising artists or work in the creative

industries as freelancers or consultants. We are a

small and friendly institution based in Leeds – an

exciting and lively city for students, with a strong

arts and design community.

The following values reflect who we are as an

organisation, and could be considered as part of

your concept.

We are:

Student-centred: maximising potential, nurturing

talent, respecting individuality, holistic,

Focused on specialist creative communities:

collaborative, interactive, multi-disciplinary,

studio-focused, externally engaged,

Critical in our thinking: aspirational, challenging,

researching, questioning, analytical, innovative,

independent thinking,

Professional: relevant, contemporary, ambitious,

achieving, international, employable,

entrepreneurial, networked with industry,

Progressive: beautiful, unconventional, risk-

taking, experimental, radical, responsive

Target Audience

The concept and design should aim to encourage

people from the target audiences to visit the

show, including:

• Local feeder schools, teachers and pupils

• College students, parents, staff and

management

• Students that have applied to study here

• General public in Leeds/Yorkshire

• Alumni

• Local artists

• Creative industry professionals and

businesses

How to enter the competition

1. You are required to submit your design concept

within a pdf that demonstrates the

thinking/meaning behind your proposal.

2. You also need to submit examples of how the

concept will be applied to the promotional

materials – ideally to the poster and postcard but

you can submit more examples if you wish.

3. You also need to submit an example of how the

concept will be applied to the private view email.

Multiple submissions are allowed per student

team.

Competition Deadline

• Final submission to the Marketing department by

5pm Monday 6th March

The winners (or shortlist of applicants) will then

work with Peter & Paul prior to presenting the

concepts to the Senior Management Team on

Monday 20 th March.

Deadlines for the finalised design concepts and

assets will be in late March.

Prize money

The prize money will be paid by cheque once the

project is complete. The prize is per team not per

member of the team. It is up to the team to

decide how the money will be divided.

Contact Marketing

If you would like more information about the

competition contact the marketing department.

Lucy.tee@leeds-art.ac.uk

0113 202 8131

1 st Floor, Geoff Hodgson House

160 Woodhouse Lane (Church opp The Fenton)

~ Personal trainer branding - feedback session 1 ~

I consulted with the client at this point, showing him my designs so far and asking for any feedback and direction from what I had already experimented with. 

The feedback was 

- Try some new names, Fox Fit, Shaw Fit... Others ideas?
- Experiment with making the letter A into things, pyramid? someone deadlifting?

Further feedback was...

Hi Izzy

Clever those :))))) Thanks for doing this. It's really good of you and is very much appreciated.

I've attached a couple of fonts I really like the look of (the Gentona ones) and a couple of image designs which caught my eye.

In attachment 4 (GYM logo), I like how the person pushing a barbell overhead has been used to make the letter Y. I thought it could be used as the letter T in FiT but it might not work as well in my logo.

I also like the idea of not all letters in shawFiT being upper case or lower case but mixed, such as:

shawFiT (larger characters - don't know whether you can do this using the fonts I've attached)

personal training (in small lettering)

or

ShawFiT (larger characters - don't know whether you can do this using the fonts I've attached)

PERSONAL TRAINING (small lettering)

with personal training underneath.

I also still like the kettle bell idea....don't know whether an eye-catching kettle bell could be put before or after the company name. I still like the idea of 'personal training' being written underneath the main shawFiT logo in small lettering. And I like the other design (attachment 5) of man and woman exercising.

Hope this hasn't confused you...(crazed grin)...

Jay-Po

~ Brief overview so far ~

~ Posters of a tale - Idea generation ~

This is a research lead brief - for this I need to conduct a body of research into a particular written text or group of. My ideas for such categories so far are...

- Roahl Dahl books

- Well known/most iconic philosophical and/or phycological texts

- Books by Jane Austin

- Books by Sylvia Plath

- Iconic feminist writings

I chose categories of reading/research that I feel I would personally find interesting and could really get stuck into in terms of developing a good concept. 

I felt the most interesting for me in terms of context and in depth research will be the philosophical and phycological texts. It will give me a greater understanding of context and application within design.

My personal areas of interest initially being (5 of each)

http://io9.gizmodo.com/9-philosophical-thought-experiments-that-will-keep-you-1340952809 

I found this article on philosophical experiments for a source of initial inspiration. 

Philosophy

- Plato - The algorithm of the cave

- Panopticism - Michel Foucault

- The Chinese room - John Searle 

- The experiance machine - Robert Nozick

- The replacement argument - Plantinga

http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today

I found this brilliant article on 10 psychological experiments that were so extreme they wouldn't be allowed to happen today. They are considered to be exposing human activity and the way we think and interact in the most extreme ways, environments and situations. 

Pshycology

- Freud - Oedipus complex

- Phillip Zimbardo - The Stanford prison experiment

- John B Watson - The little Albert study

- Solomon Asch - Conformity

- John Darley and Bibb Latané - The bystander effect

~ Posters of a tale - Brief ~

~ Personal trainer branding - Logo design ~

The client wanted me to experiment with names for his business alongside the branding, which left it really open to interpretation. I felt it was most appropriate to start with experimentation purely using his name.

I used my research into different styles of logo design as a point of reference for experimentation. I began with trying out some monogram styles, J&S proved to be difficult letters to incorporate within one and other. 

These were the final outcomes; I chose to create a sans serif monogram as I feel bold, clean cut sans serif typefaces are more iconic of fitness. Unfortunately this style of type doesn't look very effective when used for a monogram. 

Next I decided to experiment with some symbolism surrounding fitness and personal training. The main I felt being free-weights. I created this simple negative space design; but I felt it's lack of 'multiple meaning' made it too simple and not eye-catching enough as a finished logo.

My next step was combining the two previous ideas; trying to produce a design using the initials and symbolism of the free-weights. I couldn't find a way of combining the two effectively.

Experimentation and decisions regarding typeface - I felt the most effective type used for this would be all-uppercase as this is representative of strength and boldness. A bold/heavy version of a typeface also portrays this; or a condensed version. 

This is a simple version of the monogram within a circle. I felt this was too delicate and not representative of strength enough. 

I then created something 'opposite' of the previous design. Using sharp box shapes, a bolder typeface and additional symbolism of weights (again using a negative space theme).

 This logo is a combination of the simple negative space imagery and the bold simplicity of the strong badge shape.

Further experimentation with the negative space symbolism of the weights. But once again I felt a focus on curves and smooth lines wasn't as direct and informed by the context as it should be. 

Discussion with the client lead to him discussing the idea of simplicity and 'boxes'. So these are just some simple explorations of this idea.

A monogram experiment using the weight symbol within the negative space of the S.

Monogram trying to communicate/visualise speed and movement.

Simple experiments using negative space.

At this point I felt my creativity and ideas were warmed up but I needed much more sense of direction from the client. So I showed him the design experiments created so far to get more direction and feedback in order to find a final idea to run with.

~ Starpack - Crit 1 & 2 feedback ~

For these crits I presented initially my concept - all agreed this was successful and would be a perfect solution. 

It was suggested I simplify the brand identity and consider simply using the shapes seen within the packaging. 

The feedback told me that a solid green colour choice would be most appropriate as its iconic of healthy food and portrays the brand well.

~ Starpack experimentation ~

The starpack brief is mainly focused on creating a clever and innovative packaging solution for a healthy fast food brand - health in a hurry. But I want to completely brand the concept so that the packaging can coherently work together with a well informed aesthetic. My initial ideas surrounding the brief are...

INSERT INITIAL SKETCHES

- Creating a hexagon shaped packaging

The design of the actual packaging needs to be innovative and effective - not just your average. I wanted to completely avoid the typical GRAZE box rectangle style design as it has been done time and time again. 

Instead I thought using a hexagon would be effective.

- Visually it stands out from standard rectangle and square format packaging.

- It can be stacked and packed tightly next to one another for ease of transport and effectiveness of using space.

- It can be spilt into a multitude of different shapes and sizes.

My idea is to create a hexagon shaped package out of many smaller possible shaped boxes. Each shape and size has a potential purpose. Larger for main meals, medium for snacks and the small triangles for carton packaged drinks. The idea ensures that no space is wasted and the customer can customise their order to their tailored needs/wants. For example they could potentially order 2 main meals or three drinks and a main or a main, snack and a drink - the possibilities are endless. 

With this idea I will then need to figure out a way of keeping all the Segments together within their hexagon shape, wether that be by using a larger box to house them, a belly band style design or something else. 

Once I had decided on a basic shape and concept for the packaging I decided to focus on the branding for the company its-self to ensure it could be easily transferred onto my nets once designed. 

One problem I addressed early on with the design process was how complicated things could get for the people actually having to pack and fill the boxes with food. To solve this problem I wanted to devise a system that would in theory make this process much simpler.

My solution was to create a numbered system like you see used in Chinese takeaways. The numbers could appear on stickers and be matched up with labeled boxes and the set meals according to their specific numbers. This idea became an integral part of the branding process as the stickers and numbers for the packaging would need to be a consideration. 

The use of colour was something that is important. The brief specifies the main material used should be carton board which is characteristically brown. This meant to be bold and visually appealing colour needed to be added on top of this stock. This consideration into contrasting colour effected my colour decisions within the brand identity development.

One idea was to create a unique gradient for each product/meal. The colour of the gradients would be informed by the colours of food/ingredients used within each. The gradients could be used upon each label and also within the web branding used when customers wanted to order their food. Each product would then also have a number to further identify them. I experimented with different shapes of label, simple web layouts and mocking up what the labels would potentially look like when placed onto the hexagonal packaging itself. 

The brown carton board stock will look more recycled than white stock. This recycled aesthetic will be appealing to a health conscious audience as it shows consideration into environmental impact. In theory someone who is more health conscious is also more likely to be environmentally conscious also. 

This consideration is something I thought about when experimenting with colours and alternate brand identities. 

I experimented with adapting the hexagon as its an identifying factor of the packaging that will be key and needs to be memorable. 

I also experimented with some very simple type based logos, using the green colour as it has connotations of health and nature making it informed by the product itself. 

I experimented with the actual physical shapes that my packaging would take form in. I created a diagram using the simple thin line aesthetic previously used when doing simple website mock-ups. I was experimenting with this idea as if it was incorporated within the branding/logo it would be very obvious and apparent from the get go that what you see is what you get with this product. 

 From this I experimented with some initial, very basic mock-up designs of how the UX of the website would work. This is key in tying the packagings concept together and making it clear how the order system would work. 

Fluorescent green is a possible consideration in terms of brand identity. Green being iconic of healthy food and the brightness adding a bold and contemporary twist to the design that would definitely be memorable.