OUGD505: Overall evaluation

SB1

The illustrations to represent how the influence of North America on Japan itself and Japanoise as a music genre, aesthetically explore this historical relationship.  The unusual food pairings from both of the countries ensure a feeling of discomfort, something present within the music itself and the aesthetically pleasing pastel colour palette ensures that it takes a more in depth analysis of the illustrations from the viewer for the message to be fully uncovered. Having no caption present removes clarity and insurance that the viewer will have to look past the aesthetics to notice the subtle Japanese influences to famous American foods and then consider the different elements being represented.
Although this design project seemed to be out of my comfort zone as I usually design with more of an editorial approach and final outcome, I have developed my Adobe Illustrator skills which can now feed into my preferred way of designing and enhance further. Now that I have started to vector illustrate but in challenging ways it is something that I would like to develop over summer and in my future projects as I think it could lead to some interesting ideas and even opportunities to animate. 

SB2

The booklet successfully informs the customer on synaesthesia itself and then the influences behind the Spa day and the treatments that are included. The size of this publication is an example of good design for context because in store this would be easy to stock in large amounts, cheap to print and accessible for customers to take away with them.  

The catalogue successfully explores synaesthesia in more detail, but in a way that all would understand through the use of illustrations to easily separate the different types, the small handwritten comments to put some things into context and then the visual representations from the variety of artists.

As a set, both of the publications are consistent with the style of Lush cosmetics as a brand and have been designed taking into consideration the ethical morals that the company has. For example, the hand binding method and the recycled paper show environmental considerations and also the personal experience that each customer will receive.
As a graphic designer in the 21st-century, this brief has shown me that we have the ability to visually communicate an extensive variety of issues and information within society and that we should take this as a positive. It has taught me that I have a lot of different topics and issues that I am interested in and that in my spare time I should work on creating visual outcomes for these so that I can personally challenge them but also expose others to something new.

The catalogue had a few printing issues so if in industry or to further develop the catalogue this would be avoided. The printing issues were caused by the paper stock and as it was recycled, it meant that some of the pages were stuck together and the double sided printing was therefore slightly disturbed. This was overcome through the use of extra pages and removing of others and as a final publication it was resolved well.

Overall OUGD505 has dramatically improved my research skills and the understanding to gather bother primary and secondary sources in order to gain a full insight on a particular topic. Research into the political influence on a music genre was not something I would have instantly thought about, but it did however prove to drive the visual outcome. This depth of research is now something I will take forward and use in both University briefs and in industry. 

Both of the modules allowed me to design using skills that I have not developed much in previous projects. One of them being designing as if I was working for a brand and trying to maintain the strong visual identity that they have established. I found this good, but if I was to improve this skill I would try to push the boundaries a bit more. Another skill that I have developed is my Adobe Illustrator drawing ability and confidence. SB1 was solely based on something that I have never done before and although challenging when having to think about the different perspectives of an object and the ways in which it needed to be coloured, it was very rewarding when it turned out how I expected it to. 

The middle time period of this module was the part where I started to struggle due to the overlap with the other modules, effecting the starting date of my experimentation. Upon reflection I would have liked to experiment with different visual languages in association to each of the briefs in order to test the boundaries a little more. 

In conclusion, OUGD505 has been the module that has pushed my own interests into a body of work which is something that has been to an advantage, I am passionate about the research. The research has however taught me that as a 21st-century designer it is important to keep up with the changes within the industry and keep an awareness of the different factors that could influence any topic at all. 

Synaesthesia: Prototype photography

Unfortunately the University facilities were unavailable to hire out to photograph the final outcomes, so to overcome this and still produce and professional outcome photos of the physical pieces, I hired a professional lighting, as well as DSLR camera. In order to create a natural curve, I purchased an A0  piece of white paper and curved it from the wall to the table. This allowed for professional images to be taken of the products without a studio. 

Booklet



Catalogue

Synaesthesia: Production

The production of both of the final publications for this brief relied heavily upon the use of Adobe software such as Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. The final designs were placed in InDesign to ensure that a consistent layout was achieved and that it was in the correct format to print. 

As LUSH cosmetics is a brand that considers the environment, stocks natural products etc. it seemed important to consider the stock that the booklet was printed onto. I decided that recycled paper would work the best as the stock to print onto. 

- 120 gsm recycled paper for the inside pages

- 350 gsm recycled paper for the front cover spread

- black card for the front cover of the information booklet 

- foiling for the front cover titles

- thread for binding

- acetate for extra pages within the book 

In terms of binding as the catalogue would be Japanese bound, each of the sheets was printed as double-sided but single sheets so that there is lots of room for binding considerations.  

Problem:

The use of recycled paper was effective in terms of brand representation, but because it is thin and slightly textured it meant that hen printing double-sided on a number of occasions the paper had stuck together and meant that within the book when ordered there were lots of blank pages. This is a problem because it is not how the book was designed. 

To overcome this problem I had to remove some pages in the catalogue and replace them with inserts on acetate etc. so that the page count still matched up with the contents page at the beginning. This was something that if planned was not meant to have happened, but as it is a book based on senses and perception it may have worked to the advantage of the final outcome. The printing on to acetate has emphasised some of the interesting things within the publications. 

Final production:

Booklet - pamphlet stitching
- evenly marked 3 holes down the spine of the booklet
- used the awl to make the holes on all of the pages
- stitched the spine
- bone folder to put a crease 
- laser guillotined all of the edges so that it was cut in line, using the spine as the straight edge to go by
- foiled the title onto the front cover

Catalogue - 3 hole Japanese bind 
- lined up all of the pages and clamped
- marked on the spine where the holes need to be 
- cut down the whole catalogue to size using the laser guillotine
- Japanese bound the spine of the book
- scalpel cut the title in the front cover page
- foiled the other part of the title on the front page

Just before I did the final front cover I did a large number of tests timing exactly how long I left the glue to dry before placing the foil on top and then how to leave it for etc. This was to ensure that the first attempt on the final thing went to plan and looked the best that it could. The experimentation's paid off and the front cover went well. 

The original idea was to have the word LUSH printed on the front cover in the black foil and then the word synaesthesia in the holographic foil underneath but when testing out the black foil, it did not work and it did not take to the glue as expected. This meant that I had to think of something else to do for the front cover. I decided that on the catalogue that would have more of a budget and would not rely on being made in mass, a hand cut of the word LUSH would work well and show the pattern of the next page through onto the front cover. For the booklet as it would need to be made in mass production I have decided to have all of the writing on the front cover in foiling.