Tasks 2–4

This page lists tasks 2–4 and will take you 33 lessons/6.6 weeks to complete.
–note; time allowances are based on the best estimate of how students will progress through the course but can be subject to change depending on students' learning needs

Tasks 2-4    – 33 Lessons – 
21 sketchbook pages & dozens of digital files

Generating & Developing an Identity & Brand Position
this task has four steps and will take 16 lessons to complete
2A. Concepts, 2B. Developments, 2C. Refinements, 2D. Testing

This task begins with you developing an identity(logo) or working on a design such as a poster.

A visual Identity plays an important role. You have a name, a face, a history, a personality, likes and dislikes. All of these things make up part of your overall identitywho you are

Your design campaign is not yet real, like you or your friends are real. 
It doesn't yet have a name, a personality or characteristics. 
You need to develop these qualities, visually, so people can relate to your designs



2A – Logo Thumbnail Concepts --- Time Allowance: 6 lessons - four A5 pages AND Digital Files

Read through the notes below before you begin Sketching for your Typographic Designs
  • All concept drawings begin with sketching out your ideas so you can clarify your thinking and build  a specific group of CONCEPTS that you will later develop. 
  • You will find it useful to see these examples in Mr Soltero's Pinterest account; Click here
  • You're going to begin drawing by making Thumbnails – quick basic concept drawings that explore: 
    format, scale, basic placement, dark/light, positive/negative space.
    This link will show you examples of thumbnails, there are more on the LINKS tab. 

Use six A5 pages in your sketch book to generate DOZENS of thumbnail IDEAS – SKETCHES for the letter forms of your logo Identity – the Design convention you are focused on for these thumbnails is TYPOGRAPHIC DESIGN – LETTER SHAPES. 
  • These sketches need to use specific visual qualities from the logos you have pasted in your sketchbook from TASK 1. For the first stage, focus on the letter forms, shapes and styles that you collected in from that first task. 
  • Your sketches will visually explore different ways to express the identity and brand position. For example, the letter forms might visually reflect some characteristic of your design campaign like if the "S" in Swanndri actually looked like a Swann – it doesn't but you get the point.
  • Consider how your concept might be used in a particular function – eg how would a logo on a t-shirt be different from packaging or a billboard? Think! 
  • In the brands you're familiar with...Ask yourself if they use different versions of their logo? Does the logo also have a tag-line that sometimes appears beneath? How does their advertising change for different settings or contexts? 
  • Ask yourself 'which ideas communicate the identity for this (particular) purpose?
  • Now your Thumbnails are ready to become proper CONCEPTS - you need at least six different types but you might have up to ten or twelve. 
    • Select the best ideas and use the Adobe Capture App on your phone to turn your sketches into clean digital files that can be edited in Photoshop and then Illustrator.
    • Add colour at this stage – make sure it's focused and part of your established digital colour palette. 
    • Your group of drawings will look like a family – each will be unique but related to the others.
    • The sketches you select need to represent a range of at least six DIFFERENT Logo types. NOTE that to fully represent six, you might need 10 or 12 or more.
    • Print out the digital files of Logo Designs you produce and paste them in your sketch book on the last two facing pages of these 6 sketch book pages.




2B – Logo Developments --- Time Allowance: 5 lessons - four A5 pages AND dozens of digital files

Thinking back to your Focus; some logos perform better on packaging while some perform better on t-shirts and others are best for stationery. You may not know the answer as to which is best in which situation but consider these things while you're Developing the Concepts. 

A Development is when you take a concept to the next stage, and customise aspects of it for its specific function, demonstrating that you understand its use and how that use will be different to other Developed Logos.

Select specific aspects from your Digital Logo Concepts to DEVELOP.  You might even create hybrids where some aspects from one concept are combined with aspects from another. The first stage requires Two A5 pages – on which you'll Produce dozens of DETAILED thumbnail sketches exploring how you will Develop Logos for different functions

Consider these qualities; the thickness of line, positive/negative shapes and spaces, light and dark elements, colour choices, scaling (large and small), texture, contrast. You should bring forward specific qualities and characteristics in the logos and type designs you've pasted into your sketch book from Task One. 

Select the best idea uses, the Adobe Capture App on your phone to turn your sketches into clean digital files, then edit in Photoshop and Illustrator. Produce at least 6-10 digital files of Developed Logo Designs. Print these out and paste them in Two facing A5 pages





2C – Logo Refinements --- Time Allowance: 4 lessons - 1 A5 page - dozens of digital files

This task involves working digitally.
The teacher can help you scan any hand drawn work that you can't grab with Adobe Capture so you can fine tune in Photoshop and/or Illustrator. 

You're going to select the best qualities from your Developments to REFINE in some logos that will be produced in both B+W and Colour.

Remember to "SAVE AS" while you're developing digital work so that you produce plenty files for each of the stages, versions, concepts(eg; Logo1.jpg, Logo2.jpg, DetailedLogo1a.jpg, DetailedLogo1b.jpg, etc)

Print your designs out and paste them into one A5 page in your sketch book.





2D – Logo Testing --- Time Allowance: 2 lessons -2 A5 pages - 3 digital files

Test two of your developments and one of your final logo refinements
  • A test is when you put the logo in a real-life setting so you can see how well it works for that function or context. These are also called mock-ups. 
  • Choose logos from your Developments and Refinements that represent different functions or contexts - that are designed to fit different purposes or might function differently in a given context.  
  • You will find UNSPLASH useful in this task, or in Task 4. Either way, it's full of FREE IMAGES. Make an account so you can save your choices. 
  • You can use mockup templates and place your logo into the context, but you may also use images from UNSPLASH and simply photoshop your design into it. 
  • Here is a link to Graphic Burger where you can  find Mockups to place your logos.
  • Here is a link to a tutorial for making quick, beautiful Packaging mockups
  • Print and paste them into 2 facing A5 pages in your sketch book.





Task 3
Examine a Successful Design Folio
Research

3A --- Time Allowance: 1 lesson - two A5 pages

Use two A5 pages in your sketch book. One one page, paste a copy of panel one from this folio. On the facing page, and after reading the explanation below of what is happening in this folio, make notes about any ideas you get or thoughts you have about the ideas in the folio.

In this folio (Achieved with Excellence) you can see 16 different logo developments and a handful of refinements. 
In the logo developments there are visual references to subtle qualities related to the topic of exploring Christchurch during the re-build: bricks and blocks, rising up, speech bubbles representing people, tram-lines as might be seen on a map of the square, container shapes, concertina map-like fold-outs.
When the student applies logos to the next brief (a poster) they continue to expand on the exploration of how the logo functions to communicate the ideas. 
Look at how they've taken a cue from the block lettering logo Concept – a fairly mundane example – but they've enlarged the outline text to fill the single photograph. 
In the next few Developments they've stacked the block letters and filled them. 
Next they add some lines around them, indicating shaking movement. 
Essentially they've used type in a photo-overlay with a couple of different images: the bicycle shot appears in three, in one it's reduced to a grey/black duotone, in another it's opacity is significantly reduced and in the third it's a more severe duotone and cropped. 
Then there's four images of the sheep shot, mostly treated with a single colour backdrop and graphic elements. 
There's also the graphic figures walking past a brick building utilising a more severe contrast between graphic illustration and photographic imaging.
And then there's the first image of the close-up cones with large, cropped, open type. 
Notice that the colour scheme across the entire range is made up of basically two colours with a few accents and minor adjustments. 
Throughout the refinements the student allows themselves to continue the in depth investigation of text and image for the purposes of the poster and their final design subtly takes the shaking elements of the type and applies it in multiple directions. 





Task 4
Text & Image – Applying Specific Design conventions to your logos / Identity / Brand Position
this task has two steps and will take 14 lessons to complete
A. Research, B. Apply, C. Test, D. Complete & Submit
UNSPLASH will be useful in this, and most future tasks. 



4A – Research Established Designers --- Time Allowance: 3 lessons - six A5 pages

The main point of this step is for you to select particular processes, procedures, materials, techniques and pictorial conventions from established designers.

Select THREE established designers
NB: you're looking for a family of work – not just a logo on its own or a single stand-out project, but a whole campaign where the designer has been responsible for a range of related designs so you can see how they've applied ideas across the family.

Refer to the projects from the Designers you researched in Task 1 – OR research new Designers.
Use facing pages in your sketch book – eg you will use six pages in your sketch book
– paste images of their design projects on the left side and add notes on the right side, or S P A C E your images out to allow for notes and sketches
...you could even make small drawings in the "style of...”

Your written research will be in-depth, explore specific techniques and be supported with good quality drawings: 
What are the specific design characteristics in their work? 
– Describe their use of negative space?
How many font styles do they use, Describe each of them?
WHAT colours do they use and in what amounts?
– HOW does their use of colour and/or font styles change across the family? 
- Do they use different textures, patterns, symbols? In what way?
- Do they crop aspects of images? Are things all in focus or is some of it blurry?
- Are all shapes and images hard-edged or is there some edges that soften?
- Do they use gradients? 
- How is alignment used in their work?
- How is proximity used their work?
- How is space used in their work? 
- How is repetition used in their work? 




4B – Apply Specific Design Conventions --- Time Allowance: 10 lessons - Dozens of Digital Files

Apply Particular Conventions / Techniques From Established Designers 
 
NB: The work you produce for this task is equivalent to your first brief such as a poster (if that's relevant to your theme).

Select particular techniques from your research and apply them to your design campaign. For example it is useful to think of your first ideas as almost copying the style and technique of your established designers but using their style for your own work. 

The main point of this step is to use particular processes, procedures, materials, techniques and pictorial conventions from established designers. 





4C – Testing 1st Brief --- Time Allowance: 4 lessons - 2 A5 pages - Dozens of digital files.

Test three of your designs (eg one from the Developments, two from Refinements) for the TYPE of context they would be used.
  • Test your designs in real-life settings so you can see how well they work for a given function or context. 
  • Choose designs from your Developments and Refinements that represent different functions or contexts.  
  • You will find UNSPLASH useful in this task. Make an account if you still haven't done so. 
  • Use mockup templates. You may also use images from UNSPLASH and simply photoshop your design into it. 
  • Here is a link to Graphic Burger where you can  find Mockups to place your logos.
  • Here is a link to a tutorial for making quick, beautiful Packaging mockups
  • Print and paste them into 2 facing A5 pages in your sketch book.




Completion 
– Submit tasks 1-4 for Internal Assessment
The Due date is on the wall calendar in class

Following instructions for the correct layout, arrange your work for submission.
– Refer also to the assessment procedures.
You will need to have scans from your sketch book and use In-Design to put the submission together.


 NB: This is a Summative Assessment 
Level 2 – AS91310 v2 – 4 Credits
Level 3 – AS91445 v2 – 4 Credits





































Optional Tasks

Three optional tasks – the first can help you deal with clichés, the second can help you visualise your logo design, while the third can help you consider where your logo sits in relation to other similar brands.

Clichés can often lead you to poor design solutions. 
It's a common experience for beginners, so don't panic.

Examining The Design Process: Clichés and Idea Generation

Designer/Teacher Dan Mayer is an American Designer living & working in Berlin: Designer of Book Covers for Twisted Spoon Press, Contributor to Smashing Magazine, Webby Award nominee for web design, former Teacher of Design History & Theory at Prague College, and finalist at the Brno Biennale for Print Design.  

Exhibit A:
1. Why did the first Drink Drive message not work?
2. Why did the second Drive Drive message not work?
3. What's the Most depressing fact of all - why? - please give a full explanation 

Exhibit B: Designer Craig Frazier
4. there are three 'checks' the article lists for the successful design message - what are these?
5. There are also three things that make any 'good' design work - what are those?
6. How did the designer (Frazier) come up with his idea according to the article?
7. What type of 'direction' does the designer need to be 'willing to set out' in for the creative solution?

Exhibit C: Designer Art Spiegelman (nb: link not yet fully vetted by seems ok)
8. The designer (Spiegelman) didn't like his first idea- explain why in full...
9. Although his gut feeling was that it wasn't right - how did he treat his first design? What significance did this have?
10. What happened to his first design for the cover of the New Yorker?

Exhibit D: Designer Ivan Chermayeff
11. Ivan Chermayeff's office produces narrative style design images - Fully describe this kind of design style?
12. Would you agree or disagree with this statement: "In order to address the design challenge Chermayeff turned the title of it into a question"? Fully explain your answer.
13. What does the the hat in the middle of the illustration represent?

Exhibit D: Designer Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain
14. Fully explain the difference between the challenges of 2-D print focused design and the challenges of designing a typical web interface?
15. The designer wasn't happy with the first web design he came up with. He describes a quality about the brand that somehow wasn't coming through in the design - what was that quality?
16. What was the one thing the designer wanted to be in the 'spotlight'? 

Putting it Into Practice - this is the section with Starting Points you will follow for coming up with your ideas.

17. Meyer describes the works of the designers in his article as classic examples of a certain way designers like to work. Fully explain this.

18. There are five bullet point sections to follow. Each one lists important advice for you to begin the design process. Under the headings below translate the full advice in each of the five bullet points into a set of "To-Do" instructions for yourself;
     A. Start With A Sketchbook:
     B. Draw It Quickly & Don't Be Critical:
     C. Don't Try To Avoid Cliches - Let Them Happen:
     D. Jot Down A Few More:
     E. See Your Own Work Clearly For Its Merits:


Logo Mood Boards
The visual mapping and stylescape you've developed contain the start for your logo research. Now you're going to develop two A4 Landscape format mood board pages of images – demonstrating a range of visual directions appropriate for the Identity & Brand Position.
These will be printed out and pasted in your sketch book with notes. The more hand-made physical qualities you can bring to it the better, you can always light and photograph to present your mood board cleanly.

NOTE: The purpose of making a mood board is to help you make your logos faster!
It's like a mini Style-Scape But just for your Logo! Check out this link at 99Designs.com – it explains what how & why a mood board is.
When collecting images – ask yourself – Does this communicate my brand? 
There 8 types of images you can collect: 
  • Imagery
  • Colour (keep consistent)
  • Visual Metaphors
  • Art
  • Words
  • Letters
  • Texture
  • Patterns & Shapes


Putting it together – Remember in ArtDesign larger means more important and we visually read top to bottom, left to right.



Brand Position  
Produce CONCEPT drawings for the Brand Position using 1 A4 pages.
The position is usually expressed as a statement. 
Use colour and other visual elements and characteristics to enhance communication of brand.
Follow the same process as above – generatnig thumbnails, then developing and refining with attention to detail.
















Art & Copy – "Creativity can solve anything"

A movie that informs us about the history of the advertising and design industry, and introduces us to a few of the significant personalities who have designed some of the most memorable ads such as Nike's "Just Do It" or Apple's iPods. 

The central message, about creativity solving anything, is that designers need to identify the 'kernel' or core of their idea in order to communicate it. Identify whether the idea is best communicated through humour, a story, creating an experience, identifying with a community or group and so on. As a designers we can create any feeling we want - the question is what does the client need and how will we do it?