Evaluation of Classwork and products
The evaluation acts as a summary of work I have produce, and analyzing it thoroughly to see where i could have improved, where i thought i done well, and how i have used the materials, techniques and processes of graphic design within my work.
1) Materials, techniques and processes.
To begin, the creation of a digital platform, on this website Blogger has really been of great use and i prefer it to using a book. It allows me to note my ideas faster without feeling like my writing wouldn't be feasible to read / wouldn't be relevant. Much like a book, all my resources of work are in one place, and it allows for me to easily refer back to the things i said / the work i produced during this time. Finally, this digital platform allowed me to present my work in a professional manner, printing the advertisements out and sticking them on to board is nice, but for me that seemed counter productive, especially because on here you can zoom in and out on the images i produced to see the minute details I've included. It gives a crisp, sharp and cleaner images, and allowed me to customize this platform as to how i wanted to present my work, so much so that i designed the entire blog around the steelseries color scheme (the company i chose to advertise their products), as well as used an photo i took of the keyboard for the header for extra effect. It's easy to navigate around, showing different columns for classwork and project work, and all are accessible at a very easily, very visible click of a button.
After being happy with the platform i created to present my work on, i researched the 3 core principles of this unit, Materials, Techniques and Processes.
Materials is an important factor to graphic design as it can apply physically and digitally. Physical stockpiles of material are created so that designers can order the exact specification of stock material they need for their product, and this is extremely important as some projects will be suitable for materials that others wont be suitable for. For example you wouldn't use Corrugated card to package a diamond ring, you'd use it to package KFC products. Both are packaging as a means of storing an object, but the material has to suit the purpose, unfortunately i did not use any physical stock material but i do analyse it and its purposes in blog post "Comparing packaging" for further exploration. This was because i was producing mainly digital based prototypes, and didn't have a need to print on to anything. Yes it could be argued that i should have explored in to magazine paper and stock material, analyzing how it reacts with different print types etc. but that wasn't part of my project. The part of the project that was most important is the designing of the adverts and making sure they're within specifications (trims, bleeds, gives, height and width of a page) rather than experimenting with printing itself. The graphic designer doesn't see the advert printed, that's produced by the publishing company based on the images with their required specs that the designer sends them, so looking in to magazine printing would have been irrelevant. Digital stock materials are a little different in in the sense that it refers to stock imagery, stock sounds, stock effects, etc. Seems i wasn't doing any animation for these adverts, i primarily researched in to stock imagery sites. I looked in to the terms royalty free and legality issues such as copyright and misuse of products from these websites outlined by these websites Legality section, to ensure i would run in to no trouble using the images provided on these sites to produce advertisements. I used the free ones because i'm not going to pay a subscription for images, but i found that these websites were EXTREMELY useful, and without having done this research and without finding a base to gather all my imagery from, i would have been stuck before even producing my first advert. Everything in my adverts imagery wise is royalty free, free to download stock imagery, from the statues, to the marble, to the textures of the table. The designs produced on these adverts (the accents such as the orange and grey triangles), the steelseries logo and the images of the product are the only exceptions. I did take the photos of the products myself however, and that's a key point to reflect on further down the line. Without this research in to digital stock materials, not only would i be stuck for imagery, but if these adverts were to be actually published and distributed, there would be a lot of legality issues.
Techniques of graphic design required me to explore the subtleties of graphic product, and mainly the things which we subconsciously think about when we see them and how much it compliments the design of the product. There are twenty key techniques to graphic design, and all throughout the creation process of the adverts i found myself referring to most of these principles. Ones which i will constantly be referring to when i go to analyse my strengths and weaknesses of the products i produced will be
1) Materials, techniques and processes.
To begin, the creation of a digital platform, on this website Blogger has really been of great use and i prefer it to using a book. It allows me to note my ideas faster without feeling like my writing wouldn't be feasible to read / wouldn't be relevant. Much like a book, all my resources of work are in one place, and it allows for me to easily refer back to the things i said / the work i produced during this time. Finally, this digital platform allowed me to present my work in a professional manner, printing the advertisements out and sticking them on to board is nice, but for me that seemed counter productive, especially because on here you can zoom in and out on the images i produced to see the minute details I've included. It gives a crisp, sharp and cleaner images, and allowed me to customize this platform as to how i wanted to present my work, so much so that i designed the entire blog around the steelseries color scheme (the company i chose to advertise their products), as well as used an photo i took of the keyboard for the header for extra effect. It's easy to navigate around, showing different columns for classwork and project work, and all are accessible at a very easily, very visible click of a button.
After being happy with the platform i created to present my work on, i researched the 3 core principles of this unit, Materials, Techniques and Processes.
Materials is an important factor to graphic design as it can apply physically and digitally. Physical stockpiles of material are created so that designers can order the exact specification of stock material they need for their product, and this is extremely important as some projects will be suitable for materials that others wont be suitable for. For example you wouldn't use Corrugated card to package a diamond ring, you'd use it to package KFC products. Both are packaging as a means of storing an object, but the material has to suit the purpose, unfortunately i did not use any physical stock material but i do analyse it and its purposes in blog post "Comparing packaging" for further exploration. This was because i was producing mainly digital based prototypes, and didn't have a need to print on to anything. Yes it could be argued that i should have explored in to magazine paper and stock material, analyzing how it reacts with different print types etc. but that wasn't part of my project. The part of the project that was most important is the designing of the adverts and making sure they're within specifications (trims, bleeds, gives, height and width of a page) rather than experimenting with printing itself. The graphic designer doesn't see the advert printed, that's produced by the publishing company based on the images with their required specs that the designer sends them, so looking in to magazine printing would have been irrelevant. Digital stock materials are a little different in in the sense that it refers to stock imagery, stock sounds, stock effects, etc. Seems i wasn't doing any animation for these adverts, i primarily researched in to stock imagery sites. I looked in to the terms royalty free and legality issues such as copyright and misuse of products from these websites outlined by these websites Legality section, to ensure i would run in to no trouble using the images provided on these sites to produce advertisements. I used the free ones because i'm not going to pay a subscription for images, but i found that these websites were EXTREMELY useful, and without having done this research and without finding a base to gather all my imagery from, i would have been stuck before even producing my first advert. Everything in my adverts imagery wise is royalty free, free to download stock imagery, from the statues, to the marble, to the textures of the table. The designs produced on these adverts (the accents such as the orange and grey triangles), the steelseries logo and the images of the product are the only exceptions. I did take the photos of the products myself however, and that's a key point to reflect on further down the line. Without this research in to digital stock materials, not only would i be stuck for imagery, but if these adverts were to be actually published and distributed, there would be a lot of legality issues.
Techniques of graphic design required me to explore the subtleties of graphic product, and mainly the things which we subconsciously think about when we see them and how much it compliments the design of the product. There are twenty key techniques to graphic design, and all throughout the creation process of the adverts i found myself referring to most of these principles. Ones which i will constantly be referring to when i go to analyse my strengths and weaknesses of the products i produced will be
- Colour
- Repetition
- Texture
- Typography
- Line
- Symmetry
- Randomness
- Framing
This is because they are all prominent aspects in my design which i almost subconsciously included anyway until i went out of my way to really analyse how these techniques could improve my design, especially after receiving the client feedback and possible improvements for my advert. Without this research i wouldn't truly understand the principles of graphic design to create a functioning body of products, which i did at the end.
Processes was perhaps THE most important piece of research i done for this project. it gave me direction and steps to follow to help prioritize the tasks that should be completed from creation, to finalization, to now writing this evaluation. Propelling my work forward, sticking to the road map outlined by the processes within the sections:
- Definition
- Creation
- Feedback
- Delivery
And even going as far to name the subsequent blog posts after the actions taken within these sections, such as Graphic design research, Sketching: designs and initial ideas, etc. It helped me keep track of everything I had done prior to the post i was currently working on, making it not only extremely easy to reference my previous work, but also work in an industry standard way of graphic design, to actually immerse myself in the experience of a graphic designer and their typical processes within advert creation. It also helps to show a complete body of work from start to finish, and every single piece of development between without anything left out, which was extremely important from this project, especially when referring to the mantra of always learning from your mistakes and that the customer (client in this case) is always right. It helped me respond to feedback and receive feedback in critical ways, it allowed me to define the theme i wanted to go for after developing mind maps and advert samples to see what ones are the strongest, it helped define a target market for me to aim my adverts at, it gave me the platforms for advertising both my digital and physical adverts on, on top of giving me the dimensions, it helped me analyze the steelseries website and find their branding color schemes so that my adverts form a complete synchronized body of work relating to their company image, and so on. Without doing this research, it's safe to say i wouldn't have completed this project, it has been so essential in hindsight.
2) Other classwork
The other classwork i found to be really just supplementary knowledge for materials techniques and processes, and seems i had done the research regarding these three principles, i didn't find it essential to complete these but bolstering the knowledge and research i have isn't a bad thing so i done them as much as i could by the end anyway, hence, why some remain incomplete because the adverts took priority and seems as the bases of research had already been covered, these where the last on the priority list.
However that does not mean i think the work produced for these tasks is bad, nor are they done without thought, meaningfulness, or effort. For example the text poster helped me experiment with the things i could produce on Photoshop, especially effects, such as stencils, hues and saturation, and LAYER STYLES and FX which ended up being essential means of producing a realistic image when producing my adverts from the pictures I took. The comparing packaging post was all about supplementing the fact that my final products had pretty much no aspect of working in the 3rd dimensions, other than the fact that it would be printed / on billboards but even then the graphic designer takes no part in those processes. it made sure i covered all bases of materials before going straight in to the deep end with 2D digital designs.
3) The project: DEFINITION PHASE
As we were already instated with a copy of a brief which said to chose which subsection of graphic design i wanted to focus on for this project, i used the definition phase to instead, rather than establishing communications with clients and receiving a brief for a product, weigh up the pros and cons between looking in to advertising, branding, combining the two, or going in a completely different direction and choosing to create a 3D packaging product. Taking in to consideration my struggles with producing 3D products in the past with tech and my struggles with hand eye co-ordination, making it much harder to assemble products, it narrowed down to the other digital options, branding and advertising. I was looking in to a way i could combine the two, and to be honest my justification just became weird and convoluted but the idea was there and i wanted to present this to show that i was heavily considering the choice i was making in terms of the products i wanted to create, rather than just choosing an entire subsection to a dedicated projection just off gut instinct and a whim. I came to the conclusion that rather than making a convoluted mess of work by combining adverts and branding, i just decided to stick with what the brief explicitly states to choose just one section. In such case i chose advertising. Without careful consideration and and thought in to what i wanted to dedicate myself to for this project, I could have regretted choosing what i did and hated the project and not put much effort in to it, which would not be great in a ways of helping me achieve the highest grade if i find little to no motivation in what i'm producing. Presenting my thought process to the examiner is always a good thing as well, as it shows the depth of consideration in to this subject matter, rather than just saying I've considered it with no evidence.
4) The project: GRAPHIC DESIGN RESEARCH
This was one of the longest steps within the creation of my products, and rightfully so. I needed to ensure that everything was correct before moving onward with the creation of any products, as i could be wasting time if i dint have the knowledge, dimensions, examples, sites and target market for example. This stage in summary becomes the "Measure twice, cut once" ordeal, as in once i had all the research required to create the products, it became so much faster and easier to know what i had to do moving forward without wasting any time or resources. In this section i researched
4) The project: GRAPHIC DESIGN RESEARCH
This was one of the longest steps within the creation of my products, and rightfully so. I needed to ensure that everything was correct before moving onward with the creation of any products, as i could be wasting time if i dint have the knowledge, dimensions, examples, sites and target market for example. This stage in summary becomes the "Measure twice, cut once" ordeal, as in once i had all the research required to create the products, it became so much faster and easier to know what i had to do moving forward without wasting any time or resources. In this section i researched
- The Steelseries Website
- Analysis of their promotions
- Collaboration projects
- Colour schemes
- Product presentation on website
- Brand featuring
- Composition and lighting
- Advert specifications
- Different types of adverts
- Different types of specifications (video length, physical dimensions (mm) digital dimensions (px))
- The sort of physical adverts i would be producing
- The sort of things this physical advert would be featured in
- The magazine the advert would be printed in
- Relevancy of product - magazine
- Target market and consumers
- Website addresses to advertise on
- Website traffic
- How the website traffic would effect where we advertise / our target market
- Top visited domains in relevant (gaming) category
- The average user on the most visited site within the category (helped define the target market)
- Similarities between advertisements (especially dimensions) on each website
All of this research gave me extremely solid groundwork to work from moving forward, and allowed me to consider this information before researching. It was here i found that the most common dimensions for digital advertising would be the:
- 728 x 90 px
- 300 x 250 px
advertisements, which laid the foundation of how i should design my adverts and how much space i would have when designing them. Same applies to the physical advert printing, i found out the specific dimensions, gutters, trims, bleeds, etc. so that my advert would be functional for printing and i'm designing it around these specifications, rather than designing the adverts first without guidance and then cropping it in to fit dimensions. (the specification for these designs was 210mm x 297mm) My research in to website traffic and interaction lead me to have a solid basis for a target-able client market range, distinguished by Curse's research in to their average users on their websites (Curse being the father company of the most viewed website in the gaming category, gamepedia) so on top of targeting the most common ad specifications so it can be featured on pretty much any relevant website, the adverts i create would be appealing to those common users of the largest site within the relevant competition.
The steelseries website drew a lot of conclusions for me in terms of design principles and representing steelseries correctly in my products to make it actually look professional, like a company made advert, and a complete body of work that not only functions with one advert to the next, but the entire of steelseries design itself, hence the use of the same / extremely similar typefaces (in reference to Arial, Arial Bold and the use of TW condensed, and even branching off this, the use of different colors within the product names, changing from off white to orange after a space.), same color scheme (Most notable the orange with the hexcode #FF5200, the iconic steelseries orange), same design scheme of randomness within a modern triangle design (featured in most corners of the adverts) The same lines, borders and shapes (Steelseries orange outline with a pure black rectangular interior), using these assets to frame my imagery (there is always a black rectangle at the footer and at the header of the half page, full page, and double spread advertisements for example, and then the imagery lies within this framework.) and texture (to make the textures of the background, and the "table" be relevant to my repetition of statue imagery, making them look very sleek and made out of white marble). The thought of a collaboration project for example was the thing that brought me to looking in to the idea of a neon palette for my designs, as in relevant news, a game called CyberPunk 2077 is releasing soon and there is a lot of industry hype building around it, so what not better way to get the viewer drawn in to our products as well as gain publicity amongst the target market. (However i didn't go with this idea because i didn't think the designs were strong enough, and judging by polls of relevant audiences i asked, nor did they). It made me also realize that within their product photography they always have brand logos on show, and the composition and lighting is always really sleek and easy to see as well as eye-catching, something which i needed to achieve to the same level. Without this research i wouldn't have the solid groundwork to build my adverts from whilst also making them professional and appealing to a specific audience. If i moved forward without this research there is a really high chance that all the products i produced would be irrelevant, unprofessional, unpolished, and lacking company theme and branding like the way i have done it with the research.
5) The project: Brainstorms and mood-boards
The brainstorms and mood-boards stage helped me establish two aesthetics which i wanted to use moving forward from my previous research in to the steelseries websites and presentation, as well as considering the target consumer. Mood boards were a brilliant way of portraying the imagery i had in my head in hindsight, and i think they do a good job of communicating the ideas i wanted using just relevant imagery and keywords as a pivoting point. To prove this its very easy to draw comparisons between the imagery shown in the mood board for classical, and my double page spread advertisement, albeit a few tweaks and changes here and there such as color scheme and background imagery, but thats just due to the subconscious development cycle of what i wanted to include, and a more apparent development cycle, drawing inspiration from the branding color scheme of steelseries and incorporating that in to my own products. I also had a third mood board, called interior rustic, but this was the first in the process of elimination due to the fact that it would be hard to find / create the assets for the vision i had in mind for it, plus winter imagery is hard to create in the summer for obvious reasons, nor do i have access to a oak wooden desk, nor somewhere that does and it actually looks good too. It was a good idea, but in practice it would have gone awful. This lead me to move forward with Neon and Classic after establishing relevant imagery and colors. Without this i would have not shown the careful consideration i took in to account when moving forward with the imagery i wanted to, showing next to no development and leaving me in a position where i could just say "i did consider the imagery..." but without any proof. This post establishes that proof as well as gave me a constant basis to refer to in terms of the design and imagery as well as feeling and emotions i wanted to evoke from the viewer, rather than just having these ideas in my head.
6) The project: Sketching and initial ideas
These initial ideas and designs are were i first begin to incorporate everything i researched about the techniques of graphic design, Shape, line, texture, Symmetry, randomness, framing, typography, and colour all begin to present itself, albeit in a crude, underdeveloped form when compared to my final products, but that's great because i'm showing visual development and contrasts between the products i first created, and then the last ones. Moving on, i developed two prototype adverts for the two themes i chose, neon and classical. This helped expand upon my visual ideas that i had whilst creating the moodboards and put these ideas to practice. It helped me realise that the neon idea whilst good imagery wise, was harder to execute, especially in the smaller adverts such as the 728 x 90, everything just looked so visually noise, and that was not what i wanted to present my products as. Referring back to my graphic design research, i stated that steelseries products are always presented in sleek and clean fashion, and i found this to be executed better with the classical theme. Not only that but it allowed me to expand upon my Photoshop skills by having these statues and objects interact with other objects around them, instead of just magic wanding and inserting imagery in to the advert, it required actual software knowledge and application of this knowledge to get the effects believable and just right. it also required knowledge of how shadows render, aspects of lighting and lighting points, and how each product will have to show this same global lighting point equally. This is all stuff we learn in Art and design, so it allowed me to have some application of those features as well. The imagery of the statues interacting with the products, wearing them, and the striking slogan i felt was much more compelling when compared to just an inserted piece of product imagery and a colorful background with a bit of useless flavor text that's wouldn't actually be readable considering the size of the advert. It was this evaluation, and the fact that the poll i took with relevant people within the target consumer market said that the classical was a much more compelling design, i moved forward with classical as my designs repeated aesthetic. Without this, i wouldn't have expanded further upon the moodboards i created, so creating them would have been like flavor text - great that its there, but ultimately a waste. this helped me expand upon my initial ideas and develop the first of my adverts as well as evaluate the true effectiveness of each design
7) The project: Refinement
This was the stage where i produced the whole body of work in relation to the products, brand and aesthetic. This was the first iteration of designs, and were created for critical response purposes, so that an outside source can give me pointers as to what needs changing, defining, redesigning, or just made better in the form of peer assessments. That didn't happen during this phase however, that comes next. For now this stage was about establishing that consistent theme, color scheme, aesthetic, composition, typography, etc (pretty much referring back to all of the techniques stated within my Graphic design techniques research!) to ensure consistency and professionalism within the products i was creating. it also required a lot of Photoshop works like stated before, nothing really changed from that process moving in to here. This acted as a stepping stone towards the developments made in response to criticism to produce the final body of work. If this stage was not here, it would not allow me to move forward and develop my ideas and designs even further, let alone show it across the posts. It's easy to see a difference between these first iterations, and the responses to criticism, which is actually shown side by side in an upcoming post.
8) The project: Presenting and revision
For this stage, i got my brother, a friend and a classmate to review the ideas i presented here (the first design iterations) and really view them with a critical eye, so i could respond to this feedback both verbally, saying and typing what i'm going to do to improve my designs in response to this criticism, and actually take action on improving the designs in response to their feedback. It allowed me to get outside sources of creativity, rather than designing these within a vacuum of my own ideas, and in hindsight this was REALLY essential, as the developments made in the revisions of the initial products make them look so much more professional. From simple changes, like changing a typeface from arial to TW condensed, or making something bolder, to more substantial changes like changing some of the designs in some digital adverts to incorporate more of the accents seen first within the magazine ads (the black rectangles with the orange outline for example). It was these changes that REALLY refined the products i produced to a professional tier standard, but not only that shows personal development in designs and the fact that i can respond to criticism, take it on board, and respond with an even better product efficiently, effectively, and professionally as well. If this step was not to exist in my process, i would be absorbed in to my own creative vacuum to the point where i wouldnt want to take criticism on board because i poured my heart in to it just for it to be scrutinized, not only that but no development would present itself in my work and my previous work produced would establish itself as the final products, which in hindsight, look very unprofessional compared to these products, especially when put side by side to each other as seen in the post "Presenting and revision: Updated adverts in response to criticism"
9) The project: Final Delivery
There isnt much to say about the final delivery, its a showcase of the end result. All of my products showcased on to one text post without much writing. But actually this really helped me see the consistent body of work i created, which relates back to now what i think is the most important principle in the techniques of graphic design: repetition. It wraps all the products up neatly, but not only that gives them a hint of professionalism and recognisability. I also created more advertisements here just by cropping my assets down to specific requirements, such as the 210 x 146mm advertisements (half a page) and 190 x 30mm advertisements ( Eighth of a page). I found this to be an extremely quick yet effective way of appeasing more design requirements for adverts, which in turn will mean more steelseries adverts are posted as a whole, totally equaling to more recognisability and sales. Here i also present my adverts in digital and physical real life scenarios, and to be honest they fit right in perfectly, demonstrating the professionalism that these adverts present from what I've created. This included the Curse website, the GAME store in Chelmsford, and a high street in America
10) Conclusion.
Throughout this project and even my work process, i referenced the 3 principles of graphic design, Material, Technique, and Process, each in unique ways but work hand in hand when put in to a project like this. The development of my work is presented evenly throughout this blog and it can constantly be seen because of this, whether that's due to peer assessment, or just personal finishing touches i wanted to add to ensure the products (adverts) i produced were as professional as they could possibly be. I think i have done really well with this project, and i enjoyed every aspect of it. I would say there are things i need to improve upon with the designs but i honestly think i'm at a stand still as to what i can do, especially seems as i have already done this once with my own critical eye and the critical eye of others. i think the work i produced and put out is at the best it can be as it is now.
5) The project: Brainstorms and mood-boards
The brainstorms and mood-boards stage helped me establish two aesthetics which i wanted to use moving forward from my previous research in to the steelseries websites and presentation, as well as considering the target consumer. Mood boards were a brilliant way of portraying the imagery i had in my head in hindsight, and i think they do a good job of communicating the ideas i wanted using just relevant imagery and keywords as a pivoting point. To prove this its very easy to draw comparisons between the imagery shown in the mood board for classical, and my double page spread advertisement, albeit a few tweaks and changes here and there such as color scheme and background imagery, but thats just due to the subconscious development cycle of what i wanted to include, and a more apparent development cycle, drawing inspiration from the branding color scheme of steelseries and incorporating that in to my own products. I also had a third mood board, called interior rustic, but this was the first in the process of elimination due to the fact that it would be hard to find / create the assets for the vision i had in mind for it, plus winter imagery is hard to create in the summer for obvious reasons, nor do i have access to a oak wooden desk, nor somewhere that does and it actually looks good too. It was a good idea, but in practice it would have gone awful. This lead me to move forward with Neon and Classic after establishing relevant imagery and colors. Without this i would have not shown the careful consideration i took in to account when moving forward with the imagery i wanted to, showing next to no development and leaving me in a position where i could just say "i did consider the imagery..." but without any proof. This post establishes that proof as well as gave me a constant basis to refer to in terms of the design and imagery as well as feeling and emotions i wanted to evoke from the viewer, rather than just having these ideas in my head.
6) The project: Sketching and initial ideas
These initial ideas and designs are were i first begin to incorporate everything i researched about the techniques of graphic design, Shape, line, texture, Symmetry, randomness, framing, typography, and colour all begin to present itself, albeit in a crude, underdeveloped form when compared to my final products, but that's great because i'm showing visual development and contrasts between the products i first created, and then the last ones. Moving on, i developed two prototype adverts for the two themes i chose, neon and classical. This helped expand upon my visual ideas that i had whilst creating the moodboards and put these ideas to practice. It helped me realise that the neon idea whilst good imagery wise, was harder to execute, especially in the smaller adverts such as the 728 x 90, everything just looked so visually noise, and that was not what i wanted to present my products as. Referring back to my graphic design research, i stated that steelseries products are always presented in sleek and clean fashion, and i found this to be executed better with the classical theme. Not only that but it allowed me to expand upon my Photoshop skills by having these statues and objects interact with other objects around them, instead of just magic wanding and inserting imagery in to the advert, it required actual software knowledge and application of this knowledge to get the effects believable and just right. it also required knowledge of how shadows render, aspects of lighting and lighting points, and how each product will have to show this same global lighting point equally. This is all stuff we learn in Art and design, so it allowed me to have some application of those features as well. The imagery of the statues interacting with the products, wearing them, and the striking slogan i felt was much more compelling when compared to just an inserted piece of product imagery and a colorful background with a bit of useless flavor text that's wouldn't actually be readable considering the size of the advert. It was this evaluation, and the fact that the poll i took with relevant people within the target consumer market said that the classical was a much more compelling design, i moved forward with classical as my designs repeated aesthetic. Without this, i wouldn't have expanded further upon the moodboards i created, so creating them would have been like flavor text - great that its there, but ultimately a waste. this helped me expand upon my initial ideas and develop the first of my adverts as well as evaluate the true effectiveness of each design
7) The project: Refinement
This was the stage where i produced the whole body of work in relation to the products, brand and aesthetic. This was the first iteration of designs, and were created for critical response purposes, so that an outside source can give me pointers as to what needs changing, defining, redesigning, or just made better in the form of peer assessments. That didn't happen during this phase however, that comes next. For now this stage was about establishing that consistent theme, color scheme, aesthetic, composition, typography, etc (pretty much referring back to all of the techniques stated within my Graphic design techniques research!) to ensure consistency and professionalism within the products i was creating. it also required a lot of Photoshop works like stated before, nothing really changed from that process moving in to here. This acted as a stepping stone towards the developments made in response to criticism to produce the final body of work. If this stage was not here, it would not allow me to move forward and develop my ideas and designs even further, let alone show it across the posts. It's easy to see a difference between these first iterations, and the responses to criticism, which is actually shown side by side in an upcoming post.
8) The project: Presenting and revision
For this stage, i got my brother, a friend and a classmate to review the ideas i presented here (the first design iterations) and really view them with a critical eye, so i could respond to this feedback both verbally, saying and typing what i'm going to do to improve my designs in response to this criticism, and actually take action on improving the designs in response to their feedback. It allowed me to get outside sources of creativity, rather than designing these within a vacuum of my own ideas, and in hindsight this was REALLY essential, as the developments made in the revisions of the initial products make them look so much more professional. From simple changes, like changing a typeface from arial to TW condensed, or making something bolder, to more substantial changes like changing some of the designs in some digital adverts to incorporate more of the accents seen first within the magazine ads (the black rectangles with the orange outline for example). It was these changes that REALLY refined the products i produced to a professional tier standard, but not only that shows personal development in designs and the fact that i can respond to criticism, take it on board, and respond with an even better product efficiently, effectively, and professionally as well. If this step was not to exist in my process, i would be absorbed in to my own creative vacuum to the point where i wouldnt want to take criticism on board because i poured my heart in to it just for it to be scrutinized, not only that but no development would present itself in my work and my previous work produced would establish itself as the final products, which in hindsight, look very unprofessional compared to these products, especially when put side by side to each other as seen in the post "Presenting and revision: Updated adverts in response to criticism"
9) The project: Final Delivery
There isnt much to say about the final delivery, its a showcase of the end result. All of my products showcased on to one text post without much writing. But actually this really helped me see the consistent body of work i created, which relates back to now what i think is the most important principle in the techniques of graphic design: repetition. It wraps all the products up neatly, but not only that gives them a hint of professionalism and recognisability. I also created more advertisements here just by cropping my assets down to specific requirements, such as the 210 x 146mm advertisements (half a page) and 190 x 30mm advertisements ( Eighth of a page). I found this to be an extremely quick yet effective way of appeasing more design requirements for adverts, which in turn will mean more steelseries adverts are posted as a whole, totally equaling to more recognisability and sales. Here i also present my adverts in digital and physical real life scenarios, and to be honest they fit right in perfectly, demonstrating the professionalism that these adverts present from what I've created. This included the Curse website, the GAME store in Chelmsford, and a high street in America
10) Conclusion.
Throughout this project and even my work process, i referenced the 3 principles of graphic design, Material, Technique, and Process, each in unique ways but work hand in hand when put in to a project like this. The development of my work is presented evenly throughout this blog and it can constantly be seen because of this, whether that's due to peer assessment, or just personal finishing touches i wanted to add to ensure the products (adverts) i produced were as professional as they could possibly be. I think i have done really well with this project, and i enjoyed every aspect of it. I would say there are things i need to improve upon with the designs but i honestly think i'm at a stand still as to what i can do, especially seems as i have already done this once with my own critical eye and the critical eye of others. i think the work i produced and put out is at the best it can be as it is now.