Alphabet Soup / Visual Thinking

For this task I had to produce a set of 10 letters which explored and communicated the interpretation of the word 'condense'. 


I based my letter form from an existing font 'helvetica', i wanted to use a simple legible font which i could develop and expand my ideas from. The format was 15 x 15 cm, with a limited colour palette of black and white. 


Initially i found the word condense hard to work with, unsure what definition to side with, or whether to develop letters that resembled the word as a full set, or as a ongoing set, or to have each letter individual. 


I began to work on the 15 x 15cm scale, and produce letters which i felt related to the words condense, for e.g 'to reduce to a smaller scale' therefore i was working within the letter form itself, designing patterns and working with scale and size of the inner part of the shape. eventually i developed 10 letters, which overall was very time consuming, therefore my initial ideas were in fact my final 10. 
i'm happy with the style of letters i designed, but i don't feel they fully suit the word condense. 


Never the less, here are my final 10 designs: 

HOW TO . . .

After having another crit session, we got positive feedback about the concept, approach and final designs, therefore we were able to plan ahead for the presentation approach; printing suggestions and preparing. overall i believe the group worked well and the final outcome was successful in delivering the message ''how to stay healthy as a fresher''.


Here are the final 12 of josh's beer mat designs we agreed were best fitting for the brief

HOW TO . . .

 A short questionare created by lisa and andrea to gather information on alcohol intake!

This is the questionnaire which was passed around 20 different freshers students:

Which of these alcoholic drinks gives you the worst hangovers?

Tequila Slammers   ......

Sambuca            ......

Red Wine            ......

White Wine            ......

Beer             ......

What would you consider to be the best hangover cure?

........................................................................................................................

On an average night out during freshers, how much alcohol do you consume? 

(what you would drink and how much?)

........................................................................................................................

On average, how many nights a week would you go out during freshers?

..............................

When drinking, do you honestly know where your own limit is and when to stop?

.............................................................................................................................

How many calories do you think you consume from alcohol on a night out?

........................................................................................................................

Have you ever suffered from memory loss the morning after a night out of heavy drinking?

(Circle the answer)

Yes / No

After questioning the students and collecting the results. We will use these results to provide data and fact for the beer mat designs. 

HOW TO . . .

Wording for each of the beer mats:

General facts / calorie content facts: 

Front: Pints pile on the pounds! Think when you drink. Calories in a pint of beer: 182
Back: Stay fresh for freshers

Front: Pints pile on the pounds! Think when you drink. Calories in a pint of lager: 248

Back: Stay fresh for freshers

Front: Wines a weight gainer! Think when you drink. Calories in a glass of wine: 180

Back: Stay fresh for freshers

Fact or fiction?:

Front: Hang over cure - eggs

Back: Fact or fiction?

Front: Hang over cure - water

Back: Fact or fiction?

Front: Hang over cure - bananas

Back: Fact or fiction?

Front: Hang over cure - burnt toast

Back: Fact or fiction?

Front: Hang over cure - black coffee

Back: Fact or fiction?

Front: Hang over cure - fatty foods

Back: Fact or fiction?

Questionnaire answers:

Front: The average fresher considers a cup of tea and a cigarette to be the best hangover cure...

Back: Stay fresh for freshers

Front: The average student binge drinks 3 nights a week...

Back: Stay fresh for freshers

Front: The average student consumes 1528 calories through alcohol on a standard night out...

Back: Stay fresh for freshers

Now that we have the wording for all the mats, we can create the designs for each one. Following on in the same style and theme as Josh's designs, we are using the same fonts, (Myriad pro and SD Cammello) plus layouts of type mixed with live traced illustrator images. The designs will just stay one colour each and once each one has been created, we will change colours around so that they all work as a complete coherent set. 

HOW TO . . .

- post initial design for a beer mat
scan in and post

HOW TO . . .

Further development

After a tutorial/ crit session with Amber, our group has changed the direction with which our project is going. As the original How To question was "How to stay healthy as a fresher", we decided that it possibly would be too difficult to promote a welcome pack about staying healthy to students. The subjects and topics we had come up with for the leaflet in the welcome pack were quite generic and the sort of thing that after a bit more thought, we realised students wouldn't really be interested in. 

We then decided to focus more on the alcohol aspect of a students life and how to stay healthy or avoid becoming ill while still enjoying nights out. We brainstormed the different things we liked about nights out and came up with the idea of how students manage to collect items they find on nights out.

 We think the idea of beer mats which promote drinking healthily, that students could collect is the best way to progress with this brief. We want to create a collection of collectable beer mats that could be placed in different pubs and bars, each with a unique fact about staying healthy while drinking on them. They will be designed to appeal to students, and contain information that students would actually be interested in.

We intend to research into beer mat designs and find research of what we can put onto the beer mats through looking at calorie intakes from alcohol, questionnaires of what gives people hangovers, etc.

HOW TO . . .

HOW TO STAY HEALTHY AS A FRESHER!
The first group project of the course is focussing around the concept of "How to...". We began by brainstorming 50 things which are new to first years at university, then dividing them up into categories, before narrowing the list down to just 10 items. The short lists of 10 things from each blog group were then split up, put in a box and each group picked 5 out at random. From the 5 subjects we picked, we then had to write a "how to..." for each one. Our group then chose the final question of "How to stay healthy".

From this subject we brainstormed more specific how to questions:

·                     staying healthy during freshers

·                     staying healthy during periods of stress

·                     staying healthy when away from home

·                     staying in a healthy sleeping pattern

·                     staying healthy on the Graphic Design course/ a high demand course

We settled on the idea of "how to stay healthy as a fresher" and began looking into the ways we could promote a healthy lifestyle to freshers as the majority of information given to freshers about events and nights out advertised drinking alcohol and wild partying. When each of us moved into our student accommodation before starting the course, we were each given a "freshers welcome pack" which contained flyers about all the freshers events and nights out, plus energy drinks, sugary sweets, chocolate, hand cream, tooth paste, etc. In general, the content of the boxes wasn't actually useful and purely promoted an unhealthy lifestyle. We wanted to work with this idea and, targeting the same audience, promote a healthy freshers week. 

We decided upon a list of things we would need to research and ways to develop the brief:

·                     questionnaire and interviews (asking friends and flat mates)

·                     looking into current healthy guides

·                     planning an outcome - already sorted

·                     research specific places in Leeds which apply to the guide 

·                     research hangover cures, and items to put into the boxes

·                     research winter box objects and "staying healthy tips"

·                     research logos, typefaces, designs and layouts that are used on existing packaging of a similar theme 

·                     research into a more "long-term" resolution - making 2 packs (one for freshers, one for winter time) to make the outcome unique from existing freshers welcome packs

·                     leaflet design

·                     leaflet wording

Then, through planning and group discussion, we made a list of outcomes we wanted to use for the resolution:

·                     a box of "staying healthy during freshers" things and a box of "staying healthy during winter" things

·                     design packaging, branding, logos, labels 

·                     write and design a short pamphlet/booklet 

·                     possible power point presentation?

More specifically:

Freshers Box:

·                     leaflet 

·                     smoothie

·                     vitamins

Leaflet:

·                     contents page plus introduction

·                     where to eat healthily in Leeds (map)

·                     5 a day

·                     drinking water

·                     healthy tips

·                     daily recommendations

·                     cost cutters (where to shop cheaply) 

·                     cheap meals

·                     alcohol - a staged night out

·                     hangover cure recipes

·                     weekly planner

“cool facts” included throughout

and we decided that the winter box would just be a proposal instead of attempting to create all of the branding, labels and work needed for the two boxes.

Summer brief

Graphic design- summer brief (produce an alphabet that visually communicates ME as an individual)

For this task I thought it were essential to demonstrate my contemporary skills; drawing and photography to produce the alphabet, I felt they were both an appropriate media to create the visual piece representing myself.

I have chosen a selection of letters from the series which I felt were most successful and which describe me best.

L - My forename initial, Lisa

     London where I lived from September 2010-july 2011

     I studied Digital Photography at London Southbank University

     Living in the capital was an amazing Life experience 

D- Salvador Dali: My favourite artist/madman/genius

R- My slight obsession for collecting Retro cameras, and making weirdly wonderful imagery with them

I – Illustration is my much- loved media to work, particularly portraiture

To produce work comparable to Laura Laine, Tansy Myer or Mark Ryden is a goal!