Evaluation

Evaluation

In this project I began by analysing three of the different government videos relating to road safety to try and raise my understanding of what makes each one different, how the time in which it was created changes and influences the tone of voice and structure of the videos. I then created some initial design ideas thinking about how I could insure my content is engaging and understandable. Through creating a number of design ideas I feel I reached one I was confident with and knew had a wealth of interesting content to research into to inform my ideas. This idea being based on the book and film adaptations of ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ written by Douglas Adams informing the viewer on ‘Road Safety on Earth’. I knew right from the beginning of this project I wanted to pick a subject I could immerse myself in and really push my designs through research and development work to try and create something engaging and fun!

I needed then to analyse my target market for my idea as this would form the basis of my content, design and tone of voice. I decided that if I was created a leaflet in the theme of ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ that it if designed correctly it could be enjoyed by anyone even if they have no knowledge of the books and films. On top of that be even more engaging and exciting to fans of the books and films. Creating my designs with close analysis back and forth between my research into the 2005 films animations clips, design sketches and research into information design from the book ‘Information is beautiful’. then allowed me within my workings to successfully emulated the aesthetics, tone of voice and style of illustration that is shown animations in particular in ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ This would there for be relevant and engaging to the given target market.

I then considered how existing information design had been effective and try to pin point exactly what it was that made them successful. Looking through the book ‘Information is beautiful’ I found that the simplest ideas worked best and that the attention to detail in choice of colour, the layout and hierarchy of information was what made the designs so engaging. Within my design these design techniques would be key to making this project enjoyable not only to the viewer but to me as the designer. As my workings and ideas developed through this project that my research was much more insightful and useful if it was informed by my designs and looking at similar design projects.

Feedback within this project is an aspect I feel I could have improved upon, even though when I spoke in group critiques about my work the comments were useful and helped formulate different aspects of my designs most of the time they had no knowledge of the context of my ideas and I found that talking with friends and peers with some knowledge into ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ about my working one to one much more insightful and gave me much more competent and helpful feedback that then informed my design ideas. I feel talking about my designs with friends as an ongoing thing throughout the project helped me in understanding what they think would work considering the target audience and what wouldn’t, additionally looking at paper folding and paper stock choice asking a lot of questions about what they had done and if it worked or not assisted me in picking an appropriate fold and paper choice.

Looking at my design process and outcomes on the whole and how I would have improved upon them I think firstly some more research into existing government leaflets my have helped me analyse what makes the designs so uninstructive and dull and how I could avoid this. Additionally I would like to have tested out a few more of my initial design ideas to see how they would compare to my chosen designs. I also believe that when picking paper stocks I could have carried out more experimentation into some more varying stocks to insure I did pick the correct and most appropriate paper for my designs and target market. Lastly I feel that within the text content of my leaflet there was an opportunity to really push the writing to be much more descriptive and even further push this elaborate tone of voice I identified that is used throughout ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’.

On the contrary to this I have identified a few aspects of this project that I think is definitely improved my design practice within graphic design and can really help me push my design process for this and future projects. Firstly I found creating a large amount of drawings an ideas on paper,testing how the hierarchy of information is seen and how it translates to the physical copy very useful this allowed me to adjust my designs relative to how it is read and interacted with. On top of this I found that printing out my designs throughout design process while working on the computer extremely useful and allowed me to make design considerations and changes that I would have never done if I hadn’t done this. Moving forward in design I think my understanding of experimentation has greatly improved not only in creating a lot of ideas to find the most appropriate one but testing the ideas in the context and physical copy to get a more informed final outcome. Finally I think how I approach each project has changed within this design process, at first I was extremely tentative about the brief and thought it would be uninspiring and something I might not enjoyed designing, but I realised that with work like this it is up to the designer to make it engaging and inspiring, taking influences from things that we do find interesting and translating this into something that is much more enjoyable.

Considering my aspirations within this project to create an engaging publication that related to ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ I think I have successfully interpreted the brief to suit my way of working and what inspires me. I have tried to implement what I learnt from my research throughout this project to create more informed and planned out design decisions that are particularly relevant to my target market.

Overall I am pleased with not only my quality of outcomes but the way in which I have come to these decisions I think my designs are successful in created an engaging and understandable leaflet formulated from experimentation and conscious design decisions. 

Information Design Presentation

Slides for my 2 minute presentation on my Information Design project.

I have looked at placing my designs into a digital mobile/tablet format as government information leaflets are often extremely uninspiring and dull. I felt my designs could translate effectively into a government app to inform a younger audience on the importance of road safety, they app could be animated and interacted with by the viewer. Using a more digital format would create something that the younger generation would want to interact with and could inform them in a much more alluring and engaging medium. This could be the first of many parts in the app that could educate the viewer on other important  issues that the government wants to inform young people on. This app design is something I would defiantly consider creating along side my publication to make the information as interesting and inspiring as possible.

Printing final design

 Once I was pleased with my designs and the message that they communicated I used a much higher level of print quality as apposed the standard print quality of my other leaflets. The image directly above shows the level of quality the digital print room could produce compared to the printer I used previously, the designs were much crisper and had no streaks or colour fades. I printed my designs on 200 gsm matt/gloss paper, this paper could be folded with ease yet was rigid enough to feel tactile and personal when reading it. As I was printing double sided this limited the paper stocks I could experimented with. I think that the 200 gsm paper worked for the designs I created and would allow the publication to be printed multiple times cost effectively. After I printed the designs the two pages accurately aligned double sided so didn’t need to stick the pages together manually. I printed four copied of my designs to make sure that out of the four designs I allowed room for error within my folding and scoring. I have found overall that my printed final designs felt tactile, informative, something much more engaging to the viewer.

At this point I feel I have experimented and refined me designs enough and overall I am please with what I have created. Printing out these designs is my next step and making sure the colours are how I want them. I have changed slightly the colours on the background and the charts on the left hand side of the page I have done this ti make the designs stand out a little more and be more consistent to the rest of the leaflet.

Mfred vs Gotham

 

Picking appropriate typefaces for the back cover along side the thumb illustration symbolising the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. The Mfred typeface on the left is clear, very legible and works within the rectangular space but appears to spread out and overbearing The Gotham Ultra typeface on the right is much more circular and looks much more together with the round thumb and planet illustration. The much smaller shape of the lettering of the right type is much more subtle and is a contrast to the cover. I subsequently feel that the Gotham Ultra type is more appropriate and is not dissimilar to other examples of the DON'T PANIC design in existing works shown below.

   

Printing and Folding Leaflet Designs

 

 

At various points throughout my designing I printed my work out to see how it folded and if the colours looked right in print. I found printing out of the 202 computer room's printer the quality of colour was so much more precise compared to the graphics room printer would often be discoloured and it was difficult to see if the colouring was legible. If you look closely to the folds you can see how the colour can crack and look ruff if it is not scored correctly this is something I want to look into when picking paper stocks and how I cut and fold the printed designs. I feel I still need to have a look at the colours and make some small changes but at this point I am please with the overall aesthetics and quality of the leaflet.

Designing the last two pages in Indesign

I began by creating a pretty simplistic design using the 'Stop, Look, Listen, Think' slogan in large capitals in Mfred type. I thought the colour choice was fairly appealing and related to the Hitchhikers Guide animations usage of colour combinations but the design was too similar to the rest of the leaflet information and something different would be appropriate.

 I have used a similar horizon line to the Hitchhiker Guide animation once again using the colour swatches I took from the videos and tried to create what I thought a car would look like implementing the animations style of illustration. I experimented with two different ideas on the Stop lettering one being the fumes of the car spelling the word and the other being written in the clouds. I thought the clouds would be more visually appealing due to the more natural style and colour scheme. I also created two design ideas for the different shadows of the car I wanted to experiment with the way the type looked within the shape and how the negative space made it readable. I thought that as the image was clearly in day time that large exaggerated shadows looked slightly out of place and became over barring compared to the rest of the design.




I removed the shadow of the car and used Ultra Black Gotham typeface large as the pattern of the grass the thick san serif type looked like the lines cut into grass. I tried to make the colours similar so the design is not overbearing yet shows the message clearly and simply. This technique of using the environment to spell out words is used within the video design the image bellow shows this. The 'Hyperspace' work has been written out of a complex maze of lines yet the word Hyperspace is readable and engaging. 

For the look design shown above I created this grid system with consistent angles and spacing for each letter this was to maximise the readability and make the designs look like a road crossing. 

I then included arrows pointing both left and right to show it is really important to look both ways when crossing the road. I then felt using a much lighter tone of green that is similar to the grass, this added a level of subtlety to the arrows that the very would see on closer inspection of the leaflet. At this point I was happy with the message the page displayed and how it was a interesting change from the rest of the leaflet. I wanted to see how the colours related to the rest of the leaflet and experiment to create the most consistent and visually similar design across every page of the designs.

Design ideas for the final two pages.

I have sketched theses designs for the final double page that will be opened up in my publication. I felt that considering so far my designs are fairly information and text based that a large double page spread that showed an illustration or image to help with road safety. As you can see from the images below the progression of my ideas changed slightly as I was drawing I tried to refine it as best I could so when using Indesign I knew exactly what to do.

These are my six design ideas that progressed and changed as a drew each one. I wanted to try and look at creating an illustration like the animation I have analysed using the same level of detail in type and colour as the Weapons of Reason magazine by Human After All. I began by trying to use the character Marvin the robot from the films and book that is famous for having a pessimistic point of view. Using this character allows me to use a particular tone of voice and he is a recognisable and interesting icon of the film that viewers would recognise. I wanted to use Marvin in the middle of the road with a evil and scary looking car about to hit him. I then created a much more type based and direct designs that informs the viewer to STOP LOOK LISTEN and THINK before they cross the road. I then took this into a more illustrative design with more of a landscape. At this point I had an idea about using different parts of the landscape like the road, clouds and refection of the car to make up the words. Doing this would create something much more engaging and inviting but at the same time displaying an important message. 

I created these much larger drawings of my text designs this allowed me to plan out the shapes of each letter and when designing in Indesign and Illustrator I would have a reference point to work with. 

Human After All. Design Studio.

Weapons of Reason magazine uses info-graphics and data design to promote important global issues that relate to our climate around the world. Human After All studio founded by designer Danny Miller's work shows how using important information and designing it in a simplistic style yet with a real attention to detail in the aesthetics and quality can make the content much more engaging and fascinating to the viewer.

This design of the different indigenous groups that live in the Arctic circle shows the beautiful attention to detail in picking colours and type throughout the magazine. The colours of the map in the that spreads off the page are of a similar shade yet remain distinguishable and the dots to represent the different people and how many live their is clearly communicated in an inviting fashion.

This design shows a much more simple design accompanied with text on the changes in the planets sea level. The two diagrams of the different warm and cold phases in the worlds atmosphere really stand out and invite the viewer. This is due to the contrast in colour of red and blue. The style of illustration throughout the designs including the cover of the magazine used a loose and flowing curves and there is not many sharp edges. This kind of illustration is again used on the pink and white page on the left the clouds flow of the page and divides the page in half, this creates very eye catching and incising spread. This design takes fairly simplistic data and information and transforms them into fascinating and alluring publications.

Printing out and Folding Designs

At this point in my project I printed out my designs on the laser printer in the graphics room to see how the finishing and colours looked and if it would fold correctly. This process proved extremely useful as my designs we not correctly alined and it wasn't until I had printed out both sheets cut them to size and glued them together that I found my designs were not placed into thirds thus not working as I wanted it to. 

 These two sets of images above show the difference in the designs before and after these alterations. The two print outs on the left show that from the cover page it is hard to see the difference but the second larger image on the right when the designs are folded shows how the the folded page on the right overlaps the other and the information can not be read without opening up the page. This shows the importance in testing my designs to insure each page can be read when folded.

Designing the leaflet.

I have began to design my leaflet in Indesign using my research into the animation videos, my initial and more finalised design ideas and my new found insight into information graphics to try and create an informative and engaging design that stands out as something a little different for a government leaflet.

 

These three images above are my first designs of the front and back cover and the inside first page. I have tried to use type and illustrations to make the information as clear and give it a sort of spacey modern design. Using the type face MFred allowed me to make the large capital letters really stand out and be read from a fare but remaining quite slick, modern and current. The type faces only uses capital letters and is very powerful for titles and bits of information that need to make an impact. At first I wanted my designs to just stand out and be read easily I looked at the tracking and kerning trying to make it as clear and concise as possible allowing the information to speak for itself.

This image above shows the different swatch colours I had taken from the video clips to use within my own designs. The seem slightly strange hear but the colour combinations and how they work on the page was allowed me to chose colours with easy and know that they would communicate what I wanted effectively. The different combinations of blue and greens are something I looked at frequently when creating my these designs.

Laying out my indesign document with the screenshots from the animation as shown above allowed me to consistently refer back and forth between the video and my work to see how my designs looked in context and if it related and used the same styles. Doing this also helped me to pick a appropriate typeface for the top yellow menu for the leaflet that had a strong resemblance to the one used in the animation. VAG rounded medium had the same sleek modern feel to it yet remained readable and friendly. I thought that this friendly aspect was important especially as the leaflet is for government information.

In the videos the use of this hitchhikers thumb is very prominent and I felt I would be effective if I used it in my work. I looked at using the same colour choices and general design to create a version I could use throughout my designs. 

The image on the rights colours then informed my designs for the back page using the same red, dark blue and yellow cream colours in a similar style. The image below shows how my designs were progressing and how I incorporated the same colour palet and layout the animation used. I used the little star from the thumb illustration and used it on the stars in the background of the right hand side page to add extra level of detail and make the leaflet something you might want to pick up and read rather than just throwing it away. You can additionally see the illustration I created of the Earth and difference in quality from the initial designs. I felt these small details are what make the leaflet that more engaging and personal to the reader. I wasn't shore about the use of colour on this Earth illustration at this point and knew I defiantly needed to make it stand out more.

Once again using the colour pallet I had created I experimented with a variety of colours and finally settled on these colours. I felt this design needed to be as inviting as possible as it would be read first after opening the leaflet. I wanted to use one of my statics along side with this illustration to make the reader want to know more and learn how to be safer on the road. I decided that 'The 9th most likely way to die on Earth are car accidents!' with '3,287 deaths a day' along the bottom like shown the the left would be quiet shocking to the reader and something they did not know and make them want to read on. When laying out the type I wanted it to be easy to read direct and informative, experimenting with type sizes and kerning allowed me to create a pretty well informed and concise page layout.

The next stage in this project was to start designing the other back page of this leaflet. This I have found to be much more challenging creating engaging illustrations and info-graphics to do with road safety is a difficult task and needed a lot of consideration and experimentation.

 I started by using the same spacing for the border and the yellow headings as the page before to try and keep it as consistent as possible and then simple placing the remaining facts and statistics I had found with a very different colour combination from the first page still using my colour pallets I had previously created.

 As the corresponding page that would be along side my '3,287 deaths a day' page is blue and these three pages above were red and pink I decided the information would read a lot better and work more effectively when read if they were the same I created this design above. I wanted to try and make the point that cars in a way pose the biggest immediate danger to people on earth and I though carefully on how I can show this and looked at the stats for deaths per year for things that we would usually associate with danger being lightning and guns and show how car deaths a year totally overshadow them. I created this info-graphic as a kind of podium with car deaths being clearly a lot more frequent out of the three. I am very pleased with how the designs inform the viewer quickly and in a concise manor on the genuine problem of deaths on the road. As you can see above the two very different designs colours did not work together along side each other and becomes a little harsh and overpowering. This is something I am going to look at addressing within the next stages in my project.