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Explain step by step how I got to my final outcome:

To begin my project, I started thinking of ideas on what I was actually going to write my brief on, I thought about the Balfour Beatty and Double Concentrate briefs, these two briefs both allowed me to create a specific design for a company, one being a logo, and the other being a t-shirt design, this helps me use my creativity skills to my full potential. So after thinking about these two briefs, I came up with making a logo, which would be incorporated onto an advertisement/propaganda poster. I just couldn’t think of what company to do it for, therefore I began to think about problems that are still effecting people, which is where I got the idea of drug addictions and alcohol abusing. I researched a couple of companies that promote help for these two problems (drug and alcohol abuse). I then came across the main company, which was Talk To Frank.

Afterwards, I began to write my brief, starting with the intentions to create a logo for the company itself out of my own designs, along with an advertisement poster, which would promote awareness for drug and alcohol abuse, after writing my 3 tasks in my brief, I started my work.

Task One:

First of all, I created a research page on the actual company, Talk To Frank, adding information about the navigation system of the website, the information on the website, the colours they use and why, I also described their current logo, explaining once again why they used that particular font, colours, etc. I also wrote my opinion on the company and its website, I also criticised the help that the company has to offer, which I found out, the entire website was helpful, they had an A-Z section, listing every single drug, after you clicked on the certain drug, it redirected you to another page, where a profile on the drug would appear, it would show you what the drug looked like, it would describe the effects and side effects of the drug, it would mention the damage it does to you, and the page would also list a lot of ways to overcome the drug and help deal with the addiction or the abuse.

Secondly, I created 2 artist research pages, focusing on either logo designers, or propaganda/advertisement/awareness poster artists, I concentrated on the two artist, Shepard Fairey and Olly Moss, mainly because Fairey creates awareness posters and propaganda posters, such as his famous HOPE poster for Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign, while Olly makes recreational movie posters, his most famous one is his Star Wars: A New Hope movie poster, I also thought I could implement some of their work into my final outcome, because their work was similar to my brief.

After that, I created a moodboard on the topic of advertisement, I found a few images on the internet of posters that mainly promote awareness for problems, or advertising new movies/companies, I also used primary sources, I took some of my own images of advertisement, and added them to my moodboard, once I completed this work, I finished Task One.

Task Two:

To begin Task Two, I created 5-10 thumbnail designs; these designs were just quick, rough sketches, showing a rough idea of my logos. Once I had finished creating these thumbnails, I developed 3 of them on a larger scale, I decided to develop my 3 favourite logos, the ones that looked the most professional, they are all shown on this page.

Once I finished developing these designs, adding colour and detail, I scanned them onto the computer and recreating each of these 3 designs on Cinema 4D, just so I could see which one of them looked the best after being designed digitally and rendered. Each of the 3 digital designs is also shown on this page.

To create these designs, I used the linear tool, which allows you to create the outline, connecting all of the letters; the linear tool is shown to the right. Once I created the basic outline of the logo, I used the Extrude NURBS tool; this tool allows you to add a 3D effect to your outline, the outline created with the linear tool is shown below.

After I added the NURBS to my logo outline, I had to create a material (colour) to mask onto the outline to give it the 3D effect, the effect that is created when doing this is shown below.

After I had done all of this, all I needed to do was render the outcome, to show the logo in the highest possible resolution and quality.

Then after I repeated this for each of my logos, I saved them, and edited them, adding different textures and lighting, just to have a bit more of a variation when choosing my final design, for example, the TTF logo design which is shown to the left, instead of having red and black lettering, I changed it to pink and black with a marble texture overlaying the pink material, which is shown to the right.

Task Three:
After I had all of my ideas and thumbnails created to a suitable standard, I began creating my actual poster design. I always had the picture of what I roughly wanted my design to look like, I wanted a person in the background who is sitting down with their head in their hands, showing that they are suffering from depression/anxiety problems, mainly because of drug/alcohol abuse. At first I used an image of the internet just to mark out where I wanted that person. After I realised it would be better if I used primary images in my project, I wen into the studio and began taking photos from different angles of one of my close friends, who has also battled drug problems in the past.
I gave the background a gritty look, by adding a grunge texture overlay to the background, this overlay image would also mask the image of the model seen in the poster, this helped with giving my poster a serious, darker look. Not only that but I added a smoke texture overlay as well, which was used because it relates to drugs (burning/smoking, etc.), I also made the main text of the poster a white colour, using the smudge tool on the end of each letter, this was done to give the typography a cocaine look (or any other powder base drug).

The logo and contact information is all located at the bottom of the poster, where I added a black to transparent gradient, there isn't much reason behind why I done this, apart from the visibility, it is much easier to see when at the bottom of the page. The main title of the poster reads the words "Just Say No", meaning, everybody has a choice, it is your choice to take drugs or stop taking them. This text is the colour red, yet again used for the meaning danger, which also allows the audience to realise that this poster is serious and it shouldn't be taken lightly.

Why I have chosen to create this brief:

I chose this brief because I like to think I’m pretty good with the technology I’m using and find that logo design is something I am good at. I find it very enjoyable and have noticed throughout my time here that I get better with each visit to the software. I have no problem with Cinema 4D nor Photoshop and can use them very well to create things like posters.

The whole idea for my brief was to take something simple like a poster and give it my own personal spin on it. I don’t really like the whole flat poster design that you see a lot of today and prefer the big flashy ones that I am capable of creating so that’s what I did. I wanted to take something rather serious like a Talk To Frank poster and give it a really flashy edge to it.

I used the research I did of the Talk To Frank posters and took some quotes then made my own poster using the quotes. But I found this this wasn’t really good enough for me, I didn’t want to just copy the same layout that the Talk To Frank had and wanted to make it more personal to me. So I decided to get my friend to be the model on front of the poster. My friend has had some drug problems of his own so I thought it would be a lot more in the spirit of the poster if I put him in it.

With the logo I made sure to use the right colours as I wanted to be very specific with each colour and use the right ones to give off the right effect and I found that Black and Red worked in the best ways as the colours both represent different meanings that both work very well with the Talk To Frank poster. Black represents authority and Red represents Danger. Both of these colours connect very well with the Talk To Frank meaning, the black symbolises how us, as humans, have authority over all of our actions, and we have the power to overcome our personal demons. I also made the colour of the main font white which is the colour of cocaine. Something that is very related to Talk To Frank.

What I could have done better:

If I could have done anything better, I would have changed the scale I was working on for one, I would have probable went down to an A4 size, mainly because I do not own an A3 sketchbook, plus everything would be benefited due to the tidiness of my work, if I was working in a sketchbook, everything would have been together, in order.

Secondly, if I handled time management better, I probably would have gotten all my work completed to a higher standard and maybe even completed more work, it took me quite a while to actually come up with the idea of my brief, and certain parts of the project took longer than they needed too, while other parts were rushed, and now look sloppy.

But other than these slight problems, I think I have done fairly well with my project, I personally like my final piece, I think it looks quite professional, but I know I didn't do my best throughout this project, when I should have really went for it.

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This is the brief I have written and I will be referring to throughout my entire project.

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Today I am going to continue work on my evaluation, hopefully finishing it, I have also changed my brief adding a new piece of work into task one, where I have to create a moodboard, selecting images, primary and secondary of propaganda posters, graffiti, advertisement posters, etc. this will be hand made, therefore I will have to print out the pictures, I will also be working on the same size scale as the rest of my hand made work.

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I have finished the final piece, and rendered it, so now I will make a start on my evaluation for the remainder of the day.

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I will completely finish my final piece and render it on Photoshop to the highest resolution.

If I have enough time, in the 2nd session of the day I will at least make a start on my evaluation going in to depth and detail.

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I have finished scanning my 3 designs onto the computer, recreating them using Cinema 4D, I have also chosen my final 2 designs, where I will do a quick survey with a few people on the course to see which one they think I should use, tomorrow I should begin my final piece.

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Since last week I wasn't able to make a start on my digital developed designs, I only scanned them onto the computer and saved them to my H drive, so today, I will recreate each of my 3 thumbnail designs using Photoshop and Cinema 4D, adding colour, texture and tone.

I will afterwards add certain effects to the typography in Photoshop to help the text actually stand out.

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I have now finished my 5-10 thumbnail designs. creating 7 designs, I then chose 3 of my designs to create in further development. So today, I aim to finish my 3 refined ideas, afterwards annotating each of them, explaining why I used them, and if there was any changes, why?

I also would like to make a start on my digital designs, I will recreate each of my 3 chosen thumbnails on Cinema 4D.

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I will aim to finish my 5-10 thumbnail designs, with the use of detail and definition.

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I will refine my artist research pages before self directed study ends, adding a better definition on why I chose the two artists, Shepard Fairey and Olly Moss, I will add more images of there work to my research pages as well. After lunch I will make a start on my 5- thumbnail designs for my logo that will replace Talk to Frank's current logo.

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your written artist research is very nicely done although i think that you should consider adding more images though apart from that i can find little wrong with it

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I will finish both my digital artist research pages, and also make a start and complete my hand written artist research pages along with my company research page, the hand written artwork will be on A3 size ONLY.

I will also alter my brief slightly so it not only makes sense and lowers the complications, but makes work for me easier.

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Today, I began researching the company that I am making the poster and logo for, I chose Talk To Frank as it seemed the most professional and well known, after that I researched 2 logo/poster artists; Shepard Fairey and David Airey, I only finished my artist research page on Fairey, as I didn't manage my time enough to finish the two of them, but I have started the 2nd artist research page.

I could have managed my time better to finish all of my targets, but I will finish them tomorrow.

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Very well detailed research (talk to frank) that explains how to receive help on drug abuse. You could research other artist that have also documented drug addicts. Good artist research

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So far you have done research on talk to frank. Very detailed use of words and you have explained what you will see on the website.

Look at Corrine Day her photography might relate to your brief :)

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I will research 1 company, which is Talk To Frank, which is to fight the addiction of alcohol and drugs, I will create a word document and discuss the colour used, the certain text used and sizes on their advertisement posters, how much detail they go into on their website, is it easy to navigate the website, for example; finding contact numbers.

I will add screenshots in my word document to help me describe my thoughts on the company.

I will also research 2 artists that create logos for big companies like Nike, Levis, McDonald's, etc. Once I have found my 2 artists, I will do similar to what I done before, I will describe their style, fonts, etc.

This will also be done via word document witch a combination of text and screenshots to assist me.