Superfly: Development 2

The process above shows the development of placing and the ways in which the design was changed in order to try and get all of the elements to fit toegether well and read fluently. The developments also looked at whether it worked better to have the tail of the 'f' or the 'y' extended and stretched to look as though it was coming out of the boombox. It was decidied that the 'f' work best as being the one that was stretched across. 

Adding an outline around the typeface seemed to work well and as the development continues this will be increased and explored more to see what combination works best. 

The decison to redraw the boombox was made in order to have something that was less bold, had more area for colours to be used and fit the design style of the rest of the poster better. 

Superfly: Development

Feedback in regards to the initial ideas and some of the developments that took place, suggested that this worked the best for the event and what the group needed. As an initial idea it does not have a new typeface and the layout if not right, but development will allow for all of this to be explored. It is important to change the typeface to ensure that the target audience does not see this as an event closely linked to the film, when actually it is a funk, soul, and disco themed event night. It would be good to have the wording appearing as though it is coming out of the boombox and that the text typeface may look better if it is different to the title, to create a contrast.

(Ignoring the colours) The original visual literacy suggested that the events group liked the idea of the writing coming out of the boombox into a type of speech bubble. Development started with this in mind, a bubble coming out of the boombox and all of the information confined within this. 

Development looked at the different ways in which the different elements could fit together to present the information in the most appropriate way. The area type tool was used to see if the text looked better when it fit within the outline of the bubble. The main title at this point had not beeen edited to a new typeface/lettering as the focus was on the layout and how the composition would look overall. The design seemed to appear better when the title was spilling out of the bubble, rather than all of it being contained within. A contrasting typeface was also used, seeing if it would work better together with the title to ensure that the two bits of information were noticed separately. 

Feedback from peers confirmed a couple of things such as that the writing within the bubble did not stand out enough being black and that maybe as white it would appear more legible. Another thing that was mentioned was that the bubble did not look right being a bit rough edged and that more of a geometric approach may look better.  

I then started to experiment with the different typefaces that I had found to use instead of the original 'superfly' lettering. The decison on what case to have the lettering also had to be made which originally started as having th first letter of each word capitalised, but quickly developed to all lowercase to help with consistency and the way in which the letters fit together. 

The divelopment shows the diagonal positioning of the 'fly' part of the title to add a feeling of movement and engery into the title of the event. Although this did work, it did not appear decorative enough for the genre of music that was being played at the event. Alot of the research showed the liquified effects that had been applied to alot of the lettering during the music time periods. This lead to the design development using one of the more decrative typefaces that would allow for manipulation in order to be composed to fit with the boombox. 

(Ignoring the colours)The developments above show the use of the 'funkydori' typeface which better represents the style of event that is being held. The developments show the different sizing options when placed within and outside of the speech bubble and alongside the boombox. The developments also started to experiment with lettering outlines in order to add more layers and interst to the design. 

Superfly: Colour scheme

The events group sent over some visual literacy that I could refer to when deciding upon a colour scheme for the poster design. I took the final poster design in black and white and then gradually started to develop the colour palette to see which combination was the most appropriate. Figure 1 and 2 show the two which I used as the most inspiration when developing the colour paltette for the poster design. The full colour development can be seen in the overall development process that was undertook in order to complete this poster design and overall visual identity. 

figure 1

figure 2

Both of the visual literacies that I focused on had a large amount of red/pink/peach colouring as part of the design. These colours were applied to the title and then the blues and purples were applied to the boombox. It was important to consider the depth of the boombox and try to build upon this by including the different line colours and shades of particular colours. I started off with black outlines and although this did match the visual style of the inspiration, it did not make the boombox look realistic as in real life a product would not have black outlining. 

I started to incorpoarte some of the colours from the text onto the boombox to ensure that there was fluencey and that they complimented eachother when placed on the poster. It seemed to work best when whe colours in the central speaker circles matched that of the text that was coming out of them. 

I then developed the use of a limited colour palette to see if visually this worked better to make the two elements work together without it being too busy. Feedback lead to further development onthe colour palette as it was said that although visually it worked, it was lacking the vibrance that an event like this would have and with the target audience as students, it would need to appeal to them more. 

The colour palette was expanded and is now more closely infuenced by the visual literacy which both have a large colour palette and lots of vibrancy. The brighter use of colours work well to add a contemporary appearance to the visuals, whilst still closely reflecting the genre of music that is being played at the event

Micro-genres: Japanese Graphic Design

Trends

Bright colours

• red, gold, black
• colour comes from the streets of Harajuku or vibrancy of Shibuya

Mixed Languages

• both Japanese and Roman characters in typography
• Japanese words are usually written with ideographic characters, mixed with Roman characters
• the contrast of the two languages makes for an intriguing comparison of the two cultures and a highly engaging typographical design

Custom Typography

• draw up the characters from a few words rather than creating an entire typeface
• type is custom created for each project and for this reason it features heavily in designs

Brush strokes

• traditional practices of Japanese calligraphy, also known as an art form called 'Shodou'
• messy, streaky, crude - no corrections to each stroke and each line should flow into the next

Gradients

• often used for backgrounds to bring life and colour to designs

Organic floral patterns

• Hanaktoba is the study of flowers
• certain flowers and their colours are tied to certain ideas, symbols, and emotions.
• pink flowers = curing of diseases
• red flowers = passionate love
• white flowers = virtue

Circles

• symbols of balance and harmony
• a common motif used throughout Japanese culture is the Mon, a Japanese counterpart to the European coat of arms
• the Mon is typically contained within a circle, have axial or rotational symmetry, abstract geometric shapes rather than realistic reproductions of real-world items

'Cute culture'

• exaggeratedly drawn cartoons
• funny mascots help to develop more intimate relationships and tell the audience that the owner is friendly and unpretentious

Information-dense design

• very information-heavy and densely packed with type and content
• minimalism does not have as large of a place in mainstream Japanese design 
• cultural meaning = details are a welcome aspect of communication and therefore web design too, as a website conveys information and sells the company and its products in place of a live salesperson

Collage and layering

• type, imagery and other elements are taken and layered over one another
• dynamic
• fun 
• bust
• clever composition
• strong concept

Designers
Ryu Mieno

• bold use of typography and lettering
• illustration, heavy pattern and fluid shapes = energy and bustle
• freelance designer in Kyoto
• 'Alternative Train' shows train stations from another point of view, combining photography and a busy collection of text, irregular layout to represent the conditions of a noisy or clamourous train station
• 'Sound Performance' was made for a music festival and aimed to depict the spirit of the event, physical interaction between the music and people by using the script and the sound swirl
• his practice is inspired by observation of natural form and shape that can then transpose to symbols and typography

alternative train

sound performance

Julien Mercier

• swiss graphic designer living and working in Tokyo
• a mixture of Swiss typography with Japanese Kanjis (adopted logographic Chinese characters known as hanzi, that are used in the Japanese writing system)

Tadashi Ueda

• Graphic designer, Tokyo