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The advert's finished! I did like six different versions and just when I had one I liked, Matt pointed it out it focused on the product rather than the people. So now I've made a version that focuses on the people, with no hint of the product in sight. Writing that down I might have messed it up slightly, but it looks good and it's intriguing so I'm happy!!

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The video's done! 15 or so versions later it's finished and looking really strong! I've been planning out potential adverts all morning and I spent the afternoon trying to get an escalator concept to work. The idea is that the songs on each step go into a tape player but I just can't seem to get it right.

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Okay so I've spent the day redrafting the video over and over. I set my laptop over night to render out the footage and it ended up taking up and entire day longer than I was expecting. It was a nice little break but now it's back to work. I'm showing the video to Matt, as well as everyone else who I can persuade to watch it, so hopefully I'll get some feedback from that before the end of the day.

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First draft done!! It's not perfect but it's stronger than I was expecting for a first attempt. I haven't rendered the footage for the tape player from blender yet so I still need to replace the placeholder images I have in there. I also need to record an extra sentence from kit as I'm not quite happy with the gap in narration over the player. I've found about 20 little tweaks that should really boost it so I'll add them in, render out the video and get some feedback from Matt and some of the course whilst I wait so I can hopefully have the video near enough finished this time tomorrow!

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Okay so I've done the first 40 seconds of the video! It's working really well!! I've taught myself to rotoscope, though I'm not happy with the footage is used so I'll probably redo this later, and the flows working really well. It's going much quicker than I expected thanks to the storyboards so hopefully I should have finished a first draft by tomorrow.

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I spent the morning making a story board on illustrator for each scene in the video. I find this much more useful than drawing them as it allows me to tweak the design until it looks just right, without having to guess on colours and stuff, as plans on paper never quite translate to screen perfectly. I've got 60 boards but I now know what footage I want to use in each section and I can start putting the video together fairly rapidly. I also asked Kit to record the narration for the video as he has a really good voice for getting that energetic tone I wanted and I was desperate not to have to edit my own voice for the next week as I think I'd throw my laptop at a wall by the third day.

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I've been analysing my favourite D&AD winners from last year to try and find what I like and dislike. This has given me a really good insight into the standard my video needs to be, as well as some key mistakes to avoid. From this, I've distilled the videos into an essential narrative structure, which has then allowed me to build it back up for my own project. With this, I began writing a script. It took a few rewrites to get it just right but I'm really happy with it now. I think it has just enough humour and personality to be playful without losing sight of its purpose.

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So I spent the afternoon deciding what to incorporate in the video outcome. This will be the main thing I submit to D&AD and will be one of my main uni touch points as the primary advert for Spotify's new feature, so I need to get it right. I don't have access to any video cameras so it will all have to be animated or stock footage. I think I'll go for stock videos as the time it would take to get the emotional the emotional response I need from the animation would be totally out of proportion with the rest of the project. I want to include shots of the final tape player, as well as the app in use, but these should only be small parts of it. This isn't a service about a product or an app, it's all about that human connection. The tapes are just a facilitator for that. I'll include some of the benefits of analogue technology, the recycling aspect and the brand values.

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I finished the logo sketches this morning and I've been creating my favourite ones on Illustrator. There's a clear winner, for me, and so I've made improvements to it and the logo design is pretty much ready to go. With this, it's time to start looking at the video!

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I spent today looking at the brand language (not visual) I want to include in the project. I ready want to get a sense of playfulness in there. The sub-brand can't take itself more seriously than Spotify does, and preferably it should be even more informal. The information should never be overwhelming and nothing should feel useless or disconnected from the process. I want to avoid orders or instructions and instead focus on friendly suggestions and notes. I also looked at Groove and Innocent's language in order to get a sense of what this might look like in practice. I've started sketching logo concepts. I really like the idea of using that retro/80s look in order to get the primary colours in. It shouldn't be too over the top but a little nod to that era in terms of colours and shapes would be great.

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I really liked Connect, so I decided to create three sub-brand values for Spotify Compose; Curate, Communicate and Connect. These can then become the driving force of the service. I also began working on a slogan for the launch of the new service within Spotify, using a similar strategy to the name by writing down around 50 slogans, narrowing them down and settling on 'Share Something Real'. It creates a little intrigue and mystery about what the service is, but still makes sense once you know by hinting at the physical tape aspect. It also links to curation and quality and informs the viewer that this is a social service that connects people. It doesn't link to music but between Spotify and Compose, this should be pretty obvious already. It clearly relates to all three of my sub-brand value, however, which is perfect. I also like the idea of swapping the first word to play something real, hold something real, find something real, etc.

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I've got a name!! I spent the morning writing as many possible names as I could think of down. I got well over a hundred. I then narrowed these down to 16 names, and wrote the pros and cons of each. I eventually settled on Spotify Compose. It brings an element of classical music and letter writing, which adds craft and poetry, whilst keeping the music element clear and giving an instruction to people inside the name so they can figure out what the service is rapidly once they start using it. It was either this or Spotify Connect but I ultimately decided that connect didn't have the same poetic feel, nor did it give any clue as to what the service is about.

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Okay. Had a little reality check today. So I had a learning team meeting with Matt and everyone this morning and he made the point that I've skipped a big part of the process. Kinda embarrassing I didn't even have a name for the service! I think I basically got so excited by but project that even though I did a huge amount of process work early on, as soon as I got to the bit where I needed to plan the design aspects, I just jumped right into the actual making stage with blender! So I've booked a one-to-one with Matt on Friday morning and I'm going to spend the next three days putting some serious graft in to figure out exactly what my brand is.

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Okay the app design is really taking shape now! I've built the main body of the app in Figma now, I just need to create the profile section and the Bluetooth setup area! It's looking pretty good too! I'm really happy with it

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I've been designing the confirmation and order pages. I hadn't realised how much information was needed for shipping something. I think I'll scrap the confirmation page until the end of the process and go straight from the curate section to writing a note on the tape, to basket, shipping and payment. Even then, I might have to split the pages up a little more as each one has so much information to be collected.

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Okay I'm starting to get somewhere. I like the idea of having the first song you pick affecting the imagery of the page somehow. I think it gives weight to the idea of each song selection, as well as the order, being vital to the mix. I've also scrapped the music notation idea. It was a nice concept but it just didn't work in practice. I've created the curate page in Figma and it's looking good! So far it's the only page but it gives a rest strong baseline for the next one's so hopefully I can start designing and building them a little quicker each time.

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I'm struggling with the music notation concept. I've done more sketches for the app design today and I just can't find a structure that looks good and also allows the song art and titles enough focus. I want people to be able to quickly look at their mixes as a whole and decide if it's right; that's hard to do if they can't barely see which song is which. I've also moved on from the remix feature to auto-build the mix. This just doesn't make sense with the curation element I'm going for. Each song needs to be totally thought through and there for a specific reason.

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I've spent the morning looking at the most important page of the new app feature; the curate section. This is the face of the new design, as it's where users make the tape itself and record their own voice notes. I've decided on the calls to action, the surrounding pages, the objective and the aesthetic. I also did an initial flow diagram for the page structures. There's a lot of them but if I can nail the look in the first few pages I come to design, I should be able to knock out the more supplementary ones pretty rapidly. I've started sketching potential routes for the curate section. I'm liking the idea of using a music notation style for the added songs, as well as possibly having an auto-fill button to fill the mix with similar songs, like Spotify's song radio feature

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It's time to work on the app! I've watched a quick Figma tutorial video and the good news is that it doesnt look anywhere near as difficult as blender to learn. It's essentially illustrator with the ability to make buttons. That's great as it means 1) I don't have to limit my ambition to my ability and 2) I can get straight to work instead of spending time learning the program.

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Okay I've made all the improvements to the tape player that I can for now. I'll come back to it in the future, as I'm sure the project will evolve over the next few weeks, but this way I don't need to worry that I won't have the ability to make a decent looking tape in a short amount of time at the end.

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Wow that really helped! I've made all the tweaks. Some worked and some didn't but the difference is massive. Going into my second draft of revisions, I want to improve the earbuds, as I only modelled them quickly to see if it would work, reduce the depth of field on the camera, reduce the bump map a little for a subtler effect, and play with the colours to see what works best.

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Well that went better than I expected! I've got a first draft of the model. I'm not quite happy with it yet but I've just spent some time going over the entire model and finding areas to improve. The main issue so far is a lack of scale. It's really hard to have a 3D model as a product shot, will no element around it, and make it clear what the size is. If I adjust the camera scale, add a texture to the materials, add some recognisable ports and some headphones, this should really help. This is where I'm lucky to have been using 3D software since I was 12 as, even though I've never used Blender, I do have some experience troubleshooting what makes models work, or not. I also need to adjust the dark material to make it look more premium, as well as adding anisotropic shading to the buttons.

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Okay! So I finished the blender tutorial this morning, as well as my intial plans for the tape. Althought it's still early in the project, I want to make the tape now before my new Blender skills fade. I also have a huge amount of complex final outcomes so I might as well get started.

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I've spent the day sketching possible routes for my tape player. I want the design to feel retro and modern at the same time, like a new Polaroid camera. The colour scheme will probably be green and black, as this isn't the place to stray from the Spotify classic brand, not with such a large deviation from the app format people expect. I like the idea of combining organic and geometric shapes, as circles can bring back the Spotify brand whilst hard lines keep it clean and modern. The Blender tutorials going well and I'm about halfway through. It's great as it's teaching me pretty much every skill I'll need to then go and make this player. I prefer to leanlrn programs through trial and error but I haven't used 3D software since I got to uni, and never Blender, so it only makes sense to gets good overview before I set out on my own. Luckily, the 80-20 rule seems to be in full effect.

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I've been giving more thought into the essential features my tape player will have to have. It needs analogue controls, but Bluetooth and usbc charging. I think I'll have to create another feature in the app for connecting the player to Bluetooth speakers, like with an Amazon Echo or the Mighty, an iPod shuffle alternative I've researched. I've also decided to teach myself Blender as the platform to build my player on. It's totally free, meaning it's future-proof once I'm no longer a student, it's industry standard and it doesn't have paid plugins or a horrible user experience like Maya. I've found a tutorial series by Blender Guru, a YouTuber I'd come across in the past whilst looking at VFX tutorials, which I should be able to complete over the next couple of days whilst I figure out what my tape player is going to look like.

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I've done a little more research into Spotify's visual branding, in terms of colours, typefaces and logo usage, in order to better understand how to keep the Spotify feel without being constricted by it. I also spent the afternoon doing further research into tape technology, problems, benefits and popularity over the years. There's been a slight increase in recent years, likely due to the retro nostalgia, but vinyl is still king for retro music resurgence.

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Continuing my research into Spotify, I've been looking at their new design principles from June 2020. It essentially streamlines the design process for their design team into Human, Relevant and Unified. This basically means any Spotify design should be 1) all about people and human connection, 2) never be a one-size-fits-all experience and 3) everything should look reassuringly Spotify. These are going to be really important to remember in the future. My design should certainly focus on Human and Relevant, but Unified is more up for debate as Spotify isn't looking for someone who can copy their brand language. I could easily make a design that looked exactly like everything else Spotify does, but that would defeat the point. I'm trying to build something new, so I need to find a good balance between it not being 'Spotify' any more and not bringing anything new to the table.

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I spent today researching Spotify, as a company. I wanted to know where its main revenue sources were at the moment and how the past year had affected it. I dont want to have to write down all the numbers again but essentially it's seeing record listening, especially with massive podcast growth, but it's still struggling. It needs new revenue sources from non-premium users and despite increasing its listeners, its revenue per user is falling. There's been massive fluctuation over ad sales and the pandemic has made them keen for a new revenue source that's more stable, to ease the pressure of fluctuating ads and premium memberships.

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I've been trying to figure out my final deliverables for the project. I've decided that I need packaging for the tape player, the player itself, a prototype for the app section, social media links and the tape design. The packaging I'll probably use illustrator and dimension for. The mixtape and tape designs will likely have to be 3D models as I have no facilities to make them physically at the moment. This means I'll have to get back into Maya or teach myself a new modelling program. The app design will be Figma. I've never used it before but I know that it's what Spotify use and they specifically mention it in their D&AD brief pack. The social media links will probably be illustrator as well.

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I've been doing the WHAT, WHY, WHO, HOW challenge, today. It's been a great exercise to try and cut off the dead weight from the project and get a really clear sense of what I am trying to achieve. What is it I am trying to achieve? The sharing of meaningful music across distance. Why is it important? Instant music streaming has taken the heart from the listening experience. Who is it aimed at? People who have lost connections with friends and family. How will it exist? A personalised mixtape curation feature in Spotify.
Once I had done this, I began trying to write my main brief, followed by cutting this down to 16 words, then 8, then 4, then 2. My final two word brief was craft mixtapes, though I now prefer curate connections.

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I had a fantastic feedback session with Sam today. I've never spoken to him before but I really liked him and I can't wait to see what he comes up with! He had some really great points for me as well! We talked about how to make the product affordable for everyone (to make it representative and accessible) without it become cheap and throwaway. He also pointed out that I should do some research into tape technology and problems to decide whether I want to keep the actual tape in the casing or replace it with modern tech. My favourite point, though, was a recycling exchange program for old tapes from the 80s in exchange for discounts on your next order. This could really address some of the sustainablility issues of promoting new products. It's also vital not to try and beat phones at there own game. This isn't a rival to the Spotify app, it's a different thing with a different objective.

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I'm trying to figure out how best to slot this concept into the D&AD brief. By having the ability to save a mixtape as your own, kind of like a personal bio in Instagram, that kind of gets the social trendsetters concept in there. I also need to remember that this is a digital core. I need to strike the right balance between UI/UX, as with the D&AD brief, and the more graphics based approach for the course. I should also look at having a global focus in the promo when I come to do that.

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I had an informal feedback session with Kit Watson, this morning. We talked about whether the idea of having multiple mixtapes, like a record collection, weakens the idea. I think this comes down to how the product is sold as I want these tapes to be really special things that you only own one or maybe two of. I also need to avoid becoming distracted be product design, rather than how to communicate with the audience, when I come to make the player itself

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I've been trying to break down my brief a little more to check it for cracks and leaks. I started by writing out my brief proposal, so that I was fresh on exactly what I wanted, and then used the SCAMPER technique to take it apart repeatedly. Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate and Reverse is a technique I came across online a few days ago and wanted to try out. It's similar to the iteration technique we were taught in first year and I found it really helpful today. I won't use most of the ideas that I generated but it was really helpful for forcing me to question the brief mercilessly. I now have a much clearer sense of the audience, potential partnerships and problems that the brief will raise.

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So I've decided to work with the mixtape brief. I spent today doing further research into how music can be used in the battle against isolation, both currently and historically. Some really interesting concepts have come up and I'm curious to see how they evolve. I like the idea that music is universal and that we can understand the topic of songs that aren't in our own language. I wonder if there is a link to tackling xenophobia in there. Maybe if recent immigrants put together mixtapes of their own music taste to send to others.

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The final brief centres around a modern redesign for mixtapes and tape players. People can curate a 'mixtape' of songs for a loved one which is then delivered as a physical product rather than just a digital file. The idea is that music is universal and can be used to communicate complex emotions that many people struggle to get across using words. The tape player could attract younger users through a retro aesthetic, playing off the current 80s nostalgia, and would be analogue and simple enough for elderly users to enjoy. So far, I think that this is my favourite idea.

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My second idea was a virtual dinner party package, combining ingredient delivery, video calls and cooking instructions into one package. People can easily cook the food whilst talking to other people at the same stage of cooking. They can then eat the food together with friends and family, despite being in completely different houses. This is obviously a Covid-centric solution, which I am not sure how I feel about. I think I would rather take on a project which looks to solve a problem highlighted by Coronavirus, rather than one that is dependent on it.

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My first brief was a produce delivery service, the packaging of which could be turned into a planter to grow food from the leftovers. This could become a shared project for people living together but with nothing new to talk about (loneliness in groups is a problem I am really interested in) or a personal project for people living alone to give them an addition purpose, as well as something to talk about to friends and family. The product would also allow people living without gardens the chance to grow plants in a cheap and sustainable 'window box'.

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After I found my 'smaller' problem this morning, I came up with three potential solutions to it.

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So I spent this morning trying to recreate some of the tasks that I didn't feel went as well as they could have done. In particular, I thought the breaking-down-problems task had a lot of potential but I wasn't happy with the topic I originally chose. I decided that the idea of loneliness and isolation was, sadly, much more a part of my life at the moment than any of the other 'hates' I identified. I researched the symptoms of chronic loneliness, then broke it down into an inability to communicate and then into not having any new people to communicate with.

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Wow the workshop today was great! I found the idea of using something you love to combat something you hate really helpful. I was less convinced about making problems smaller and smaller, though. As a concept, it works. However, I think I just chose the wrong topic to try and break down. I turned Loss of biodiversity into microplastic build-up and that just didn't lead me in the direction I wanted for this project. I also wasn't sure if I made any progress with the four Ps as I didn't realise understand the difference. Again, though, that could be down to the topic I used. Overall, I've got some really interesting ideas here that I'm looking forward to expanding further.

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This module's really intimidating. Not having a set brief and being open to choose whatever we want is almost harder. There's so many possibilities and just the choice of what brief to follow through on could massively impact my grade.

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Today was the first day of the design directions brief. I technically started yesterday when I brainstormed a few potential brief topics, but the workshop today was where it really felt like I had some traction. I've found a few ideas that I'm curious about but I dont really know where we're supposed to go from here. The problem with having weekly workshops is that they encourage you to go slower. Even though they say you can move ahead if you want, it's really hard to ignore the feeling that you're just wasting time and you can only get a strong brief by waiting for the next workshop.

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I've finished the branding project! I'm starting to work on just the boards tonight but I've finished my last deliverable. I'm really pleased with how the project turned out. I felt that the workshops represented a bit of a slow start, especially as they made it harder to get ahead due to the fact that we had to work to their timetable for the first three weeks. However, the last two and a half weeks of the project were far more productive and I'm quite surprised by how many deliverables I finished. Fré now has a logo, logo animation, custom typeface, two custom products, a fully functional website, a video ad, a video ad mockup, a still ad and two still ad mockups. Overall, the project really helped me to understand more about the branding process, which is something I'm considering specialising in later on, and I can honestly say I'm proud of the work I've done, both in terms of quality and in branding continuity.

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Only one more day before I get on with the boards. Joy. At least I've finished another advert today. I wanted to use the black and white contrast from the logo, website and packaging to illustrate the flow tagline in a different way. I used a sand image from Photoshop and edited its curves to split it along the middle, on opposite sides to the split on the first bottle. I also used the same tagline as the video advert as they're going to be used in combination with each other in commuter areas. The still ad, which I've mocked-up on bus stops and tube stations, can reach people in the areas that don't have DEP screens yet. It's also a good opportunity to showcase the product packaging itself, which I believe would really speak to my target audience in terms of the design language.

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That was surprisingly difficult. But it's done! I looped the footage and its showing the video ad's opening ten seconds. I could have done it for the whole ad, but it would have taken at least another day to composite and time's just too tight, This, at least, gives a real sense of how the advert would look in reality!

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I rendered the DEP video animation this morning and it's looking pretty great. The only problem is that it's lacking context. I really need to mock it up. I don't have time to do the entire length of the video but I've found a video online of the DEP screens and I could loop a few seconds of it to give me a ten second or so video of the animation in practice. I think this could really help to make the idea more fleshed-out.

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Okay so I've spent a couple of hours planning and I think this idea has some legs. I’ve finally found an advertising concept that I’m happy with. Essentially, it’s going to be a DEP London Underground escalator screen advert campaign. The Fré bottle will appear on screen and will begin to pour upwards, against gravity, into a glass at the top of the screen. Ice cubes will then fall upwards, from the bottom of the screen. I’ve recorded various slow-motion videos on my phone and high quality images on my camera and am now compositing them on After Effects. I can just use curves, blending modes and alpha tracks to hide the bits of the videos that I don't like, which is so much more efficient than the last idea.

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What if I just had a thin stream of liquid flowing against gravity instead of loads of it flowing sideways? That actually illustrates my tagline a lot better and it would be way easier to achieve.

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🤬.
This ad's just not working. I've spent hours working on the flow, trying to make the background semi-transparent so I can use images behind it, but it's just not looking right. I might be able to fix it with another week, but I don't have enough time for that. It's a shame as I really like the idea.

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I spent today filming a coke bottle in slow-motion whilst I move it around. So that was fun. I've got an idea for an ad where the liquid from the bottles flows across the screen. Behind it is an empty room in black and white. Through the liquid, though, the scene lights up with colours and people having fun together appear. I don't really know how I would go about doing this in practice, whether it's through chroma keys or blending mode shifts, but it could be quite a cool way of visually tying into the 'break the flow' tagline.

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Today's been an entire day of my least favourite part of web design; making the site work across different devices. It's boring and tricky and not particularly creative. Luckily, though, it's done and the site's working on my phone as well as the desktop. I still need to test it out on as many devices as I can get my hands on but for now the website is looking pretty much done. I'm really glad I didn't just make a mock-up of it; it just makes the brand feel so much more fleshed-out!

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I've spent the whole day working on the website on webflow. As normally happens with my website projects, the bulk of the site has been built pretty quickly. Almost all of the assets are now set up. The tricky bit now is getting them to behave in the right way. I've got quite a cool way of highlighting the product itself on the landing page but I'm struggling to get the background on the brand story to look right. I'll spend the rest of the evening trying to sort that out and then hopefully by tomorrow all that I'll have to do is to make the site work on all devices.

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I started planning Fré's website today. I've decided to use webflow, a site that is somewhere between fully coding the website and using a platform like Wix or Squarespace. It will give me far more control over the site and I am already familiar in how to use it as it's what I used to build my portfolio website over the summer. I want to include a product highlight section, the brand history, a shop, a contact page and a social media link. I've sketched wireframes for the whole site and collected the assets that I'll need so tomorrow I'll begin to build it.

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Okay so I've found a third Unsplash image. This one's a window full on condensation. I've wrapped it around the bottle and filtered the hell out of it until I got a condensation effect. This, combined with the contour lines from the wrapper have really helped to ground the glass visually. I slightly warped the text around some of the bigger condensation droplets and it finally looks like it's part of the bottle. This design's really working so I figured I'd try and make a second option quickly. I wanted to use the colour scheme from the sunrise a bit more so I removed the contour lines and added a gradient. There's now a really serious and a much more fun design. They also serve as a masculine and female aesthetic, which was an important consideration for the brand.

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I've figured it out! I scrapped the rounded rectangle and I've painted a metal wrapper around the bottle! It's looking really realistic and some scratches with the brush have really helped. I still can't quite get the brand name to sit right but I'll figure that out tomorrow.

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Little setback today. I followed my plan for the actual labelling on the bottle and I can't quite get it looking right. I'm really struggling to make the Fré logo look correct on the bottle and the rounded rectangle with the information on it just looks ugly. I'm not surprised; my plans never quite work out when moving from sketches to digital. I've given myself a break and I'm working on the cork stopper instead. I've got the warp effect looking good where the cork passes through the rounded rim.

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So today was the first day of the product design in Photoshop. I've found a bottle and a cork on Unsplash. The bottle is totally the wrong shape and is covered in a label, but it had a good blank background and was high resolution. I've removed the label and used the warp and liquify filters to reshape the bottle into the form I planned yesterday. It's looking pretty good so far! I used like ten adjustment layers to change the liquid from orange to transparent on a black background. I also removed the plastic top of the bottle and built a glass rim. It's early stages but I think this design has legs so far.

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I've started designing the bottle! It's looking really cool so far. I'm trying to combine rustic and elegant, with the brand's history of luxury whisky and illegal poitín. The colour scheme is based off the sunrise and I think it will work quite well, though it's always so hard to tell until it's mocked-up. I have no idea if I'll be able to Photoshop this thing but I'll find out tomorrow!

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Today I finally got the chance to get back into motion graphics. It's not something I want to specialise in but I do really enjoy the occasional opportunity to do it. I wanted to produce a logo animation for Fré to use in any videos I might make in the future. It also makes for quite a cool social media ad in itself. The motion is as smooth as possible and all the elements are timed so that the transitions don't feel too rushed or too slow. I wanted the animation style itself to reflect the brand visual identity.

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I made another custom typeface! I really like Everleaf's way of using their logo typeface across their website. I felt that it really boosted the continuity of their visual language. They might actually have done it too much. However, I wanted to do something similar for Fré, so I built a custom typeface, based off of the logo, that can now be used across the brand.

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I found some really interesting bottle packaging with wrappers during my research, which I really wanted to try out. I used the photos of the sunrise, with contour lines overlapped, to make a wrapper that could be placed around the final design. I really like the final outcome, especially mocked-up, but it just doesn’t fit with the style I want to create for Fré. I might come back to it in the future but for now I’m putting a pin in the wrapper.

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God, I'm knackered. I decided a few days ago that I wanted to experiment with sunrises as the basis of Fré's colour scheme; black, coppers and pinks. For some reason, I then decided it would be a great idea to wake up early and get photos of the sunrise over the beach to use as sources. Admittedly, it's winter so it was only 7am, but still. I'm really happy with the colours in the photographs I took and I was able to get a really nice, minimal colour scheme.

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I've spent all day planning and designing an updated logo for Fré. I really liked the logo from the workshops, but now that I have a stronger sense of the brand, it no longer fits the image I want to give across. The new design has icon and type-based elements which can be used in unison or apart. It looks far sleeker and more minimal than before and I feel that it could really speak to my target audience. I've also settled on 'Break the Flow' for my strapline, something which I think comes across in this design just as well as in the previous one.

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Today, I created a visual language guide for the brand. I really wanted to do this now as I feel that the brand is fleshed-out enough that I know what it visually requires, and the earlier that I made the guide, the more consistent the branding for each deliverable can be. I also created a page summarising each deliverable in terms of the new visual guidelines and how best to implement them in that context. I feel that this has put me on a really strong path for my future designs.

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Competitor analysis today! Wow there's a lot of non-alcoholic spirit brands. I took the six best branding examples I could find and analysed them. I've learned a lot from the process about what to avoid to improve the brand. So far it feels that Pentire and Caleño have the strongest brands for reference, though Pentire is probably closer to where I'm looking to take Fré

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I've been exploring possible shapes for my bottle today. I'm really keen to avoid the idea of just finding a bottle on the internet and slapping a sticker I designed onto it. I want my product to feel unique and to reflect the brand itself. I'm trying to combine the rougher elements of illegal poitín production with that of high-end whisky packaging, true to the brand story.

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I spent today planning and writing my brand story. I realised that, although I now roughly what I want to make in this project, the brand itself feels very flimsy at the moment. I hoped that, by writing a thorough history of the brand, it would feel more real and help inform my design decisions moving forwards, which is exactly what it did.

"We’ve always been obsessed with distillation-quality drinks. Two hundred years ago, our founders were brewing poitín, an illegal spirit at the time, out of potato farms in the Republic of Ireland. A collection of local farmers and their families became the most successful distillers in the area, building their expertise from experience alone.

A century later, in 1920, their descendants became fascinated by the idea of more sophisticated distilleries and of crafting high quality Irish Whisky. They spent years honing this craft and learning everything there was to know about the art of distillation. This tradition continued until 1987, with our company rising to among the most highly regarded distillers in Ireland.

Just ten years before our original drink of potín was legalised in the country, tragedy struck our family. As a company, we realised we could no longer allow ourselves to make profit out of other people’s pain. We needed to be responsible for creating memories; never for destroying them. This realisation was the birth of Fré.

Taking what we had learned from two centuries, and eight generations, of distillation, we set out to create the finest range of non-alcoholic spirits, filled with the flavour notes of true Irish Whiskies.

‍

Our mission is to provide a sophisticated and delicious outlet for people to use in any social setting. You should never have to drink when you don’t want to, nor compromise with colas or light beers. We want people to break free from the myth that you need to change your identity to have fun. You’re perfect just as you are; so go and make some memories."

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I've started work on the branding of Fré today. I've been trying to figure out the kind of deliverables that would be best for my target audience, as well as the ones that are vital for any brand. So far I'm hoping to make a logo, strapline, brand story, website, packaging and a mixture of adverts. I'm hoping this is doable in the two week deadline but I'll have to do them in a specific order of most to least vital in order to maximise efficiency.

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I finally finished my logo design for Fré today! I started by deciding on 'Break the Flow' for the tagline, which I'm really pleased with. I feel that it represents the brand values well and is catchy enough to be memorable. It also provided an interesting visual starting point for the logo icon, and I was able to create a classical logo design of liquid rising out of a glass. I used an edited version of Pillar, my custom typeface from the publication project, for Fré itself. Overall, I'm really pleased with the design, name and slogan and I'm comfortable with the rationale for the choices I made. The logo will likely change as I continue to develop the brand but, for now, this one is working well.

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Very productive workshop today! We did six tasks to really start to build the brand. I've settled on Fré for my brand. I found that, whilst brainstorming names, I kept writing down 're...' words, like remember, relive, relief, etc. I decided that if I added an F to make it Fré, it would keep this link whilst become easier to pronounce. It also then links to the idea of breaking free from needing to drink alcohol. I sketched some ideas for a logo as well but I'm not totally happy with any of them yet. I'm going to spend tomorrow planning it and then hopefully I'll be able to finish and upload the last of the tasks.

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Our kickstarter project this week was to find an example of good and bad brand language. This was helpful to get my head into the right gear for the workshop later in the week. I chose Lidl bad slogan and Asda as the good.

"Lidl’s tagline is designed to reassure customers about the brand’s products. It reframes the idea of ‘cheap’ products, which can be taken as negative by some, as an overwhelming positive simply by being bold enough to mention quality. Although slightly longer than Tesco or Asda’s slogans, the tagline has a good rythm to it and even manages to get the company name in there, making it seem less alien as a foreign word."

"Adidas’ slogan isn’t particulary awful but it is certainly uninspired. When competing with one of the most succeful taglines in history, Nike’s ‘Just Do It’, you need to come up with something special, and this just doesn’t cut it. Although the reordering of the classic phrase is passingly clever, it subsequently feels jumbled and difficult to say. By forcing the customer to take that extra half-second to understand the meaning, the tagline loses a lot of its power."

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I've finished the 'Day in the life' task! I also created a moodboard for future visual reference and I found the task really useful! I definitely now have a much clearer sense of who my audience for this project will be, and therefore the kind of brand I need to create in order to speak to them.

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Today's workshop focused on Audience. It was a great opportunity to get some work done in teams. First, we figured out a variety of different personas who might choose to drink non-alcoholic spirits. Then we split them up and each focused on one. We also began to create a summary of one day in our person's life. It's a really great exercise so far and it's really helping me to get a better picture of who my audience is. So far, I'm thinking upper middle class- 40-60, ambitious, M&S shopper, commuter and has a focus on image.

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Today, I had to chose a brand that I really associate with and that I feel 'talks to me'. I chose RedBull, because of how friendly and familiar it feels, even though I have very little to do with the brand.

"I chose RedBull for ‘You’re Talking to Me’. Interestingly, it’s quite hard to explain why. I don’t drink much of it and I’m not involved in any of their events. However, RedBull’s brand is so univerally appealing that it just feels comfortable and really does ‘talk to me’. By infiltrating so many different events, whilst having such friendly and catchy advertising, RedBull have side-stepped Monster’s position of being only for the ‘extreme’, and have instead become an ‘every-man (and woman)’."

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We've had our first workshop this morning. Not the most efficient use of time I've ever seen but it was quite interesting. I chose to research Adobe's brand values and then began to think about my own non-alcoholic spirit company's values. I chose clarity, disruption and community. I actually found this exercise really helpful! I expected to decide the brand's audience and other basic details first, but I actually feel like I'm now in a better position to figure out these details by knowing a little more about the brand I am going to be creating.

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I think I would like to explore the non-alcoholic spirit company. It seems like it would allow me the most time spent actually developing a well rounded brand identity, rather than spending days faffing over details that aren’t actually relevant to brand skills, like the exhibition brief.

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Our new project looks really interesting! Branding is an area that I’m considering specialising in so it’s great to have the opportunity to experiment more with it.

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The branding project kicked off today! Pretty light start; just uploading an image that represents us to Padlet. I chose an empty coffee cup: "Over the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of time in cafés working. It’s become a big part of my creative process and has really come to be something I identify with work that I’m proud of. The empty mug of coffee is now a signifier of a satisfying round of problem solving". It's also because I drink wayyyy too much coffee at the moment, but I blame that on uni.

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I've spent the evening finishing off the cover design and completing the introduction and third article. It took less time than I was expecting as I just had to use the same format as the other articles and having a black and white page for each gave a surprisingly effective starting point for ideas. I'll go into the studio tomorrow and get the final magazine printed off!

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GDE210 Typography - Publication brief_Magazine_Front Cover

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I’ve decided to use black paper with white ink on for the cover and first and last pages. I think it will provide a really nice visual beginning and end to the magazine. I’ve been sketching ideas for the new cover all morning and I’ve got a design that I’m really excited about. I’ve mocked it up in InDesign and it’s already looking more sleek that the last design. I've also decided to use Black & Trans as my third article. It's the perfect length and also happens to be extremely interesting.

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I'm so happy with how the magazine is looking! Had a few issues getting it printed but its all sorted now and the magazine's just been handed in for the exhibition.

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GDE210 Typography - Publication brief_Product Photos_1

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Great; I've now got all the pages done and the hand-in is in two days! No time to redo the contents, etc. so I'll mock up the magazine tomorrow and then hopefully find some time to redo the other pages in the week after.

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I finished the I, Rosebush spreads!! I'm really pleased with how they're looking. I've printed them out today and the yellow highlights look excellent on paper. I feel that the pull quotes really stop the pages from becoming too boring over the additional pages that are needed for an article this size. I also applied a similar style to the Truth About Grass Fed copy and it looks really good. I think it only needs a few small tweaks to get it right! The title's too long for a character-image so I'll have to find a new way to display it without loosing the continuity between pages

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I made the introduction and contents pages for the final magazine today. I like the way that they maintain the visual language from the article spreads with the hierarchy and highlights, but they feel a little too colourful and playful. I want the focus of this magazine to be on the article information, and these pages make the colours seem almost like a gimmick. They'll do for now but if I have time before hand-in I would like to revisit them.

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I went into the screenprinting studio today to produce the outer cover of the magazine. I struggled to find a good paper choice (tracing paper was too transparent whilst newsprint obscured the page beneath almost entirely). I also found it difficult to get the numbers screenprinted in the correct position so that they perfectly overlayed the title beneath. Fortunately, I kept the oiled paper from setting up the boards. This evening, I was experimenting with the designs when I realised that this paper actually ended up being perfectly translucent and gave me total control over number positions and last minute tweaks.

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I've now completed my template spread. I removed the image, which felt out of place even though it brought colour to the design, and instead used a bold yellow highlight for the pull quotes to inject hints of saturation to the design. I also used the Photoshopped 'I' from earlier in the project, as I was really happy with how it turned out and it seemed like a good accent piece for the page.

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GDE210 Typography - Publication brief_Magazine_Test 4_02

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I began creating my final template spread for the magazine today. I really liked where I got to. I think I'll try to have a single colour highlight for each article. I'm very happy with the contrast between the copy, quotes and headings and I think it finds a good balance between sufficient white space and visual interest. I'm not quite happy with the image yet; I might see if I can find a more relevant photo tomorrow.

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Had a long day today. Experimented with a variety of options for the front cover. I've found one idea that I'm quite excited about where screenprinted numbers are overlayed on top of the title. E.g. a 2 turned 90degrees over the N or an 8 over the B. I also tried exploring layouts a bit more for the articles, ignoring grid systems for a while as I've been finding them a little constraining to consider whilst just sketching initial layout designs. I then tested possible article number highlights, as per my last entry, but with them as separate pages to stop the articles becoming too visually cluttered.

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GDE210 Typography - Publication brief_Cover Tests-01

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Spent today looking at possible ways to use the article number as a repeating design feature and potential grid structures for the copy. I sketched and built a range of possible outcomes, but none really capture the visual style that I am hoping for with this project. I think I'll have to go back to the drawing board; I'm still a big fan of using the article numbers as a way to ensure flow throughout the magazine.

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GDE210 Typography - Publication brief_Grid System Tests_12-13

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I was really inspired by the NYT High Life issue by Matt Willey, featured in the week 3 lectures. This, as well as my usage of various condensed typefaces over the past few weeks led me to set myself a challenge to plan, create and build a fully functioning font in one evening. I wanted to design a unique typeface for this project alone, much like Willey himself does. Between 5pm and midnight, I sketched the characters, created the files in Illustrator and then used Icomoon to build and download my new font, Pillar. It is now on my laptop, available for me to use in any future projects and was a really interesting exploration into a high impact header typeface, which I hadn't explored before.

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As this is only a two week project, once you remove the time spent working on the design sprints, I had to make my initial proposal summarry already today. It focuses on contrast as much as possible and hopes that, by using type as imagery, I might be able to create a really visually interesting magazine that doesn't contain more imagery than it should. I also spent time researching numbers in action, such as house numbers and the lottery, to get some visual context behind the title.

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GDE210 Typography - Publication brief_Numbers In Action Moodboard

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As this publication is meant to be primarily type focused, I decided today to research other designers who's work could serve as inspiration for this. I used my audience research to select David Carson, Herb Lubalin and Bradbury Thompson. All three have very interesting work that really reflected the 'type as imagery' concept that I found helpful during the design sprints.

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GDE210 Typography - Publication brief_David Carson Moodboard

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I spent today gaining a better understanding of the audience that the Numbers publication would be aiming to. Whilst its obviously mostly students and faculty, this allowed me to then explore the visual languages that would appeal to these groups the most. I've also reminded myself about some of the binding and publication production theories that I was rusty on since the narrative project.

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GDE210 Typography - Publication brief_Visual Language Moodboard

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The main themes that I split the title of Numbers into were impartiality, universal and unique. I also explored their design functions and features. I enjoyed the idea that numbers have no essential connotations, and instead rely on context for meaning. This is the opposite of words, which inform context through their own inherent meaning. They are also widely understood across all languages, even ones which developed entirely separately. Unlike words, they usually don't have genders in latin languages and each number is entirely unique and has no synonyms, with a few exceptions such as a dozen.

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Trying to decide what diversity, as a theme, should mean for my publication was key for this project. I found that I was drawn to social or environmental design as a topic, with an interesting series of ideas around colour and imagery in order to reflect the idea visually. I also spent some time looking at how numbers represented diversity, both from the original group presentation and my own ideas, before realising that it required its own breakdown to get into it further.

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I spent today breaking down the brief, the theme of diversity and the title of numbers. I feel like I have a better grasp of the deliverables and content that needs to be included now. I always find breaking down a brief at the start of the project provides a really good groundwork in my mind to build off of and I almost always notice something new.

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A selection of my written notes and sketched ideas from the Berlin Typo talk by Barnbrook. I'm attempting to get more familiar with both his work and his character and I definitely feel like I'm not in a far better position (considering the short turnover of this project) to create a poster paying tribute to Barnbrook without simply copying his style.

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I've just finished a 30 second pitch video for our group project in After Effects after mocking up a logo. Not sure if we're allowed a video pitch but 🤬 it; they didn't say we couldn't. I'm quite disappointed we might not actually get to produce this magazine; the group proposal and design specifications are getting really interesting.

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Another interesting point of Barnbrook's lecture for me was with regards to graphic design's role on changing society. He claimed that the only meaningful change that graphic design can make is through the use of placards, posters, etc, for protests. Graphic design in this instance, he argued, is only even a secondary cause of change (the primary being the protest itself). Whilst he says graphic design can still influence people, for him it seems to be far more commercially based, leading to his description of graphic designers as 'corporate whores'. This design was a quick play on this idea by incorporating the vital information surrounding Barnbrook into a poster that both serves only the purpose of a bloated business and also would be nearly invisible to most people, so used to this kind of advertising have we become.