Visual Communication In Context 2:
This unit of work was divided into a set of four projects: producing three posters for three different statements (one of which was a lie); creating an identity for our Visual Communication course, and all of the events that are run through it; developing a piece of spatial typography work from a word and a place that were both given to us; whilst finally, producing a series of book covers for three or more books.
The set of posters, or Truths posters as they were known, were completed in teams of two or three within our course; I decided to join up with Ollie Purssey and Matt Wright. I was reluctant to work with my close friends, as I wasn’t sure how much work we would get done when we were together, but we actually worked very effectively as a team and produced a set of posters that we are all proud of. The one thing that was noticed, on the Iceberg Poster and the Garbage Poster the statistics were set in larger type (so that they might be noticed first), whilst on the Island Poster the word ‘Earth’ is set larger - even though it is not the statistic. This was something that none of us noticed, but something that we all agreed was wrong with the Island Poster as it is inconsistent with our graphic system. Were we to do this project again, or alter it, this would definitely be something that we would bare in mind.
Creating an identity for the Visual Communication course was also done in teams, partnered up once more with Ollie Purssey and Matt Wright – two 3rd Year students, Sophie Youle and Sofia Kluge, were also added to the team. Although we hit the ground running with ideas, we couldn’t settle on any, which proved costly as the brief was only run over two days. By the end of the brief, Shift was an idea that we all felt comfortable with, the idea coming from the Shift key on the keyboard; this is often represented through an up-facing arrow, the Shift key unites us all (students and designers) in the computers/keyboards that we use, and the up-facing arrow represents the scheme’s positive transition and progression. Perhaps we could have executed our designs with more finesse if we were given more than two days to spend on the project; an extension was issued, but admittedly by then as we had worked so hard the team appeared to run out of steam.
Spatial typography was a brief set outside of my comfort zone; I knew that a lot of research was needed to help me become inspired, but I picked myself up and put a lot of effort into this project over a number of weeks. My word was ‘Dictate’ and my space was Meyrick Park (Bournemouth, England); from this I decided to water-spray stencilled letters onto the back of a wooden signpost to highlight the hidden intentions of the post, as it was actually the owners of the park dictating where you can/cannot walk. Concluding, I feel that my resulting piece was as close to my envisaged idea as I could get it, although I wasn’t confident going into this project, I have learnt to stretch out of my comfort zone, and when I put my mind to it I can still produce some work that I am happy with.
The final project of this unit was to produce a set of book covers for three or more books; I chose John Wyndham because the plot summaries of his books triggered off a lot of visual ideas in my head straight away. I settled with an ‘overlord’ theme, as a majority of his books find the human race fighting against some kind of greater presence (i.e. aliens, religious cults, possession etc.), from here it was a case of creating some images that represented my ideas. I’m altogether happy with my final covers, I think the graphic system works well, and although it is a minimalist design I feel that my idea is clear within each standalone book cover. I have received a lot of feedback for my designs, and from this feedback I have evolved and experimented with my designs - which resulted in changes often for the better.
