MiaKat Design

This is basic re-brand for the custom apparel business MiaKat Design. I created their first identity about a year ago and as my skills and designers eye has improved I have re-visited the brand and gave it a crafted personality that is expressive and flamboyant but clear and definitive. I hand drew this typeface based loosely from the handwriting of founder Maria Newton. I learnt a lot from his project through many sketches and drawings and multiple versions of vectors, my eye for balance and curves was put to the test and I have improved a great deal and have noticed this change in other typeface designs.

Letter Sketching

Just a quick sketch of a two tier lowercase a. Refined on Illustrator. Part of a new habit I am trying to get myself in where I sketch letters quickly on the go int he hope my technical type design skills improve.

Post-It Pixel Parlance

Post It Pixel Parlance is a fun stop motion animation created by me and a large group of people on the Huddersfield Design course. This project was a lot of fun and rejuvenated my interest in explorative typography in a time when my motivation was slacking.

Memories and Lies

Memories and Lies is a small piece created using the Processing code language. With fading and blending profile shots accompanies short phrases of 90% lies about our memories with some odd truths. The reason for the lies is to elect humour when unconventional combinations of faces and phrases show.

Processing Glitching

Using the Processing coding language (loosely linked to Java) I broke JPEG image data by looping random byte interactions.

The results were randomly generated which created some vibrant graphics and colours. I wanted to capture some of these images so I added some code which saved each frame where I can look for my favourites.

Resolutions

Throughout my design education I have had goals in the back of my mind which I set myself, the include improving my layouts, knowledge of typography, look into 3D software (this one did not go so well) and one year where I started to draw for a short while. So I thought again for this year I would set myself some more goals but set them in stone on this blog.

- Explore programming and web development more with more of an end game and purpose:

This I have already started to do and have documented here, I have joined the Code Club and am thoroughly enjoying it. I have also began developing a very basic site for my digital formatted broadsheet poster. I am motivated and excited each time I sit down and get my head into code and would also like to look into scripts for Adobe software.

- Last year I focused on improving my design skills, now this year I want to focus on my creative ideas:

This I have already approached this in my Conversation brief where my first idea was to stick with what I knew and creative a simple book with a number of essays on my research findings into A Conversation, however I knew in my gut this would not be good enough; the idea was mundane and the content would have been boring so I went back to the drawing board. From here I came up with a great idea that I was quite enthusiastic about: Type Talk. Type Talk was a fun perspective on typefaces and their styles which with my knowledge gained from my research on A Conversation I could show my understanding of typefaces in a new way. This idea was much more creative and captivating.

Wilsons Republic Two

I recently attended the second Wilsons Republic after seeing their first launch night earlier in the year. There was a much larger turnout of people from before and the atmosphere was electric, there was amazing music, good conversation and I got to speak to a number of new people. The talks from Peter O'Toole and Sneaky Racoon were funny and quite informative, one point I picked up from Sneaky Racoon was how she moved from one thing to another when she lost interest in them, constantly pursuing her goals and aspirations. I think this is an inspiration to may people as we get a tendency to get too secure in our lives and become scared of the risk of breaking out of it when were no longer happy. I would like to follow her example and always strive to do things that I am passionate about and what makes me happy, cliche as that may be it is still a good attitude to follow as I will always strive to learn and move forward.

One area of Wilsons Republic which I find interesting is their brand. Going against the host, The Engine Rooms' most basic rules the brand for Wilsons Republic never stays still, it is always changing with each gathering. Director Darren Evans laughed about this irony and disregard for rules. The Brand for Wilsons Republic is aimed to change with each meeting, a new designer or studio in the local area is tasked in creating another beautiful set of visuals to attract designers from around the Huddersfield area. This meetup's graphics were designed by the well known Aidan Nolan, AKA  - A.N.D Studio. I love this modular and interchangeable system of blocks which makes up the typeface and it reminds me of an earlier typeface from him which he designed for the Out of Hours 2 exhibition. It is such an ingenious idea which is simple and flexible whilst looking appealing to the current designer and creative trends.

Character Design

For this task we were asked to draw some rough sketches for a new character which we would be using for a serial box design. This was only an idea development stage so the sketches I did at first were very quick and basic, just to get my ideas down to develop from.

One character I came up with was this half drawn stick figure, it would possibly have a pencil shown drawing it too and the tag line would be 'creating your own world' or 'create your day'. This idea was good however it did not leave any opportunity for bright colours or interesting shapes for the character, as the stick figure is only made of the most primitive shapes and is typically black, and trying to re-invent the stick figure would ruin the simplicity of it. So I moved on.

My next idea was a large rounded character called Glob, he has a friendly monster style with his non threatening facial features but chinky legs and large teeth. His expression is plain which gives him a simpleton look that would be lovable like a pet. I loved this idea and could already picture him taking over most of the area of a serial box, building on the perception of his big size, so I carried the idea forward and developed the sketches.

I fine tuned the shape of his body and reversed it to see which I preferred, I tired multiple facial expressions and I also drew his body under the force of movement. And after the experimentation I still went with my original blank expression, closed mouth appearance. I then started to draw some mockups of the cereal boxes, following my earlier idea to have him covering most of the box and then having the typography look like it is struggling to fit around him, like it is being squashed against the side.

The Analogue Website

Nathan Bolton

The Analogue Website

Date: N/A

http://www.nathanboltondesign.com/#/the-analogue-website/

Here is a piece of work by designer Nathan Bolton which has inspired me with its genius idea and underlying use of a play on association.

The Analogue Website is a range of printed matter, ones include a poster and a book. I have a copy of the screen printed poster which is when I found out about the entirety of the project. The purpose of the Analogue Website is to show the relationship between print and digital design, which currently seem to be targeted against each other by most of the design community. Bolton seems to want to change this attitude and show how they can work together, he wants to draw your attention to one point in particular. Printed design is typically converted to digital design to keep with the modern times, making printed design seem redundant and unnecessary, however here Bolton has re-purposed digital design into a printed form by laying out reams of HTML code into a simple two column layout. So he has turned a website into a poster.

I love this whole concept as it attempts to put a stop to the feud between print and digital design and shows how they compliment and work together. I also find the clever thought behind it fascinating. Bolton has taken what we typically associate with a website, its digital form, and turned that familiarity with it on its head. It confuses the viewer at first to see a website in an almost naked form which we are not accustomed to seeing. It plays on our natural associations to inflict thought and consideration.

I have also reviewed this piece in my work for A Conversation for my Intermediate Studio Practice module.

Eco, The Poetics of Open works

Here is a short few words on my thoughts of The Poetics of Open Works,

Open work is a term used for a creative piece, be that music, art or even writing, that is constructed with multiple directions of interpretations. How the piece is interpreted depends on the viewers perspective and their initiative to string elements together to create a whole piece. How someone sees and interprets a piece depends entirely on their subjective thinking through a certain perspective, thus creating this openness as one person can not possibly think the exact same way as another. Artists like to harness this multitude of interpretations as it adds an infinite amount of layers to an artwork making it reflect the dynamic and complex human personality. The open nature of art and creative work results in the work constantly developing and it encourages the viewer to think harder to unravel the messages hidden underneath the years of different interpretations. It pushes art further forward and so encourages innovation in the way artists think.