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Monday 9 November 2015
Tuesday 6 October 2015
Creative Writing - Fishing and Shooting Questions
Scenario - Dietitian wishing to set up a consultancy service advising airlines about appropriate foods to offer for people with special on-board dietary requirements.
10 Questions to ask stakeholders.
Except for questions 6 and 8, all of the questions below are "Fishing Questions" requiring stakeholders to explain and elaborate to respond to the questions. Questions 6 and 8 are "Shooting Questions" requiring a simple YES or NO response.1. What are the top specialist dietary requirements that passengers ask for?
2. Over the last 5 years have there been any changes in specialist dietary requests from passengers?
3. What proportion do specialist dietary requests make up compared to "standard" on board menu provision?
4. Demographics: What is the age, gender, flight destination of passengers with specialist dietary requirements?
5. Do you have more requests in business or economy class?
6. Do you currently offer foods for people with special dietary requests?
7. If yes to above, please describe what foods you offer?
8. Do you outsource all or some of you catering? Specifically, do you outsource the provision of specialist nutrition products for passengers with special needs?
9. What specialist foods do you believe should be offered on-board to meet passenger needs?
10. What price range for these products do you think passengers would be happy with?
Friday 2 October 2015
Creating Thinking - Learning Task 6
Monday 10 August 2015
Flash Assignment 1
Kitchen Disaster - I recently hosted a dinner party attended by a gentleman of Jewish faith. He passed on that not only does the Jewish faith prohibit the consumption of all pork related products, but that combining dairy with meat as well as the consumption of all shellfish was prohibited. My dinner party menu had to be quickly changed.
I mainly use the oval drawing tool and pencil tool for this with one highlight (linear gradient) added. I also added images obtained from the web that were photoshopped to remove backgrounds. I would have loved to draw the icecream cone and cutlery but will need LOTS more help with the pen tool before accomplishing that.
Friday 29 May 2015
Friday 22 May 2015
Thursday 21 May 2015
Learning Task 12 - Good and Bad Type
Good Type Examples
The letter shapes are generally rounded and friendly (except for the capital M with its pointy centre line) and there is lots of space between the letters making the title easy to read and suited to young children. The "Peppa Pig" typeface as baseline shift in a few of the letters and the squiggle on the last p (appropriate for pig character) enhances its friendly and appealing stye. I think the pointy capital M adds a bit of contrast to the other lettters drawing attention to it.
The italics, close spatial relationship between letters, choice of colour, gradient colour overlay and shapes of the letters (legs of k, smiley look to e and a and capital C), rounded curves and upward slants gives rich, decadent and appealing style. "Eat me" it says.
Clever use of baseline shift, irregular orientation/slant of neighbouring letters and plenty of space between letters in the main title of the book contrasted with close proximity of letters (kerning) in the Dr.Seuss label adds off-centre quirky interest and character. Block, capital letters of main heading with plenty of space between letters adds boldness while still maintaining child appear. Much like the stories.
What can I say that has not been said before. Everything about this logo works including the typeface. Big, bold letters, closely spaced together, forward leaning suggesting action and forward motion, integration between the E and the "tick" makes everything come together. Its simple typeface (no baseline shifts, no extra complicated bits) and clever use of negative and whitespace adds punch. Clean lines in the typeface - there's a concept!
Bad Examples
For a product that all hospital workers are required to use after and before every time they touch a patient or their records, the choice of the typeface in Aqium is surprising. The evil, dagger shaped tail of the Q, the pointy serifs in the other letters and dot of the I, close spacial relationship between letters and use of all uppercase makes the word look off-putting. Even the spelling is designed to repel not attract.
This from a school newsletter. The irregular, rounded shaped letters and irregular slanting between letters just does not fit with isometric drawings which have precise and detailed arrangements within and between all elements. The typeface suggests the opposite of that meaning.
Nourish typeface - While the rest of typeface on this packaging is appropriate, the narrow shape of the ascender and descender of the letters, particularly in the capital N, kerning between the u and r and the non-sensical baseline shift around the leaf shape (leaf shape?), makes the nourish word seem rather lean and hungry rather than nourished. Rounder, fatter letter shapes with lots of curves would have worked much better.
The Smiths - For an album called "Meat is Murder" the use of bold, block, straight, all uppercase, evenly spaced letters in "the smiths" typeface was incongruent with the album's name. Yes, I get that The Smiths is like a brand name but it was still a good example of how the use of typeface can enhance or detract from overall meaning.
From a school newsletter - I had to search quite hard to find many examples of use of bad examples of typeface in school newsletters. They are generally pretty good amateur publications now. However, this word and is part of a school's moto to help guide and inspire high school students. For such an important symbol, I think the school could do more with the typeface to help inspire. The letters are blocky and there seems to be too much space between the first S and T. Capials work but adding extra interest via experimenting with italics, different typeface, gradient and pattern or colour overlay would work better for the techno-savvy, design/media-saturated target market the school is appealing to.
The letter shapes are generally rounded and friendly (except for the capital M with its pointy centre line) and there is lots of space between the letters making the title easy to read and suited to young children. The "Peppa Pig" typeface as baseline shift in a few of the letters and the squiggle on the last p (appropriate for pig character) enhances its friendly and appealing stye. I think the pointy capital M adds a bit of contrast to the other lettters drawing attention to it.
The italics, close spatial relationship between letters, choice of colour, gradient colour overlay and shapes of the letters (legs of k, smiley look to e and a and capital C), rounded curves and upward slants gives rich, decadent and appealing style. "Eat me" it says.
Clever use of baseline shift, irregular orientation/slant of neighbouring letters and plenty of space between letters in the main title of the book contrasted with close proximity of letters (kerning) in the Dr.Seuss label adds off-centre quirky interest and character. Block, capital letters of main heading with plenty of space between letters adds boldness while still maintaining child appear. Much like the stories.
What can I say that has not been said before. Everything about this logo works including the typeface. Big, bold letters, closely spaced together, forward leaning suggesting action and forward motion, integration between the E and the "tick" makes everything come together. Its simple typeface (no baseline shifts, no extra complicated bits) and clever use of negative and whitespace adds punch. Clean lines in the typeface - there's a concept!
Bad Examples
For a product that all hospital workers are required to use after and before every time they touch a patient or their records, the choice of the typeface in Aqium is surprising. The evil, dagger shaped tail of the Q, the pointy serifs in the other letters and dot of the I, close spacial relationship between letters and use of all uppercase makes the word look off-putting. Even the spelling is designed to repel not attract.
This from a school newsletter. The irregular, rounded shaped letters and irregular slanting between letters just does not fit with isometric drawings which have precise and detailed arrangements within and between all elements. The typeface suggests the opposite of that meaning.
Nourish typeface - While the rest of typeface on this packaging is appropriate, the narrow shape of the ascender and descender of the letters, particularly in the capital N, kerning between the u and r and the non-sensical baseline shift around the leaf shape (leaf shape?), makes the nourish word seem rather lean and hungry rather than nourished. Rounder, fatter letter shapes with lots of curves would have worked much better.
The Smiths - For an album called "Meat is Murder" the use of bold, block, straight, all uppercase, evenly spaced letters in "the smiths" typeface was incongruent with the album's name. Yes, I get that The Smiths is like a brand name but it was still a good example of how the use of typeface can enhance or detract from overall meaning.
From a school newsletter - I had to search quite hard to find many examples of use of bad examples of typeface in school newsletters. They are generally pretty good amateur publications now. However, this word and is part of a school's moto to help guide and inspire high school students. For such an important symbol, I think the school could do more with the typeface to help inspire. The letters are blocky and there seems to be too much space between the first S and T. Capials work but adding extra interest via experimenting with italics, different typeface, gradient and pattern or colour overlay would work better for the techno-savvy, design/media-saturated target market the school is appealing to.
Design Module - Learning Task 11
A4 poster design of quote. Typeface used and related decisions for the following key words listed below:
- Main typeface used was Bodoni MT for ease of reading and contemporary style. I don't think Bob Marley was a "serifs" guy, do you?
- truth - white colour used as it symbolises truth in western culture. Extra spaces between letters to emphasise the unambiguous nature of truth. I used italics as it made the word seem softer. Also liked the rounded thick stems of the Bodoni MT Italics letters.
- Everyone - Book Antiqua bold used as I wanted something plain, square and strong for this word. I underlined for extra emphasis that this quote referred to "everyone".- Hurt - Impact Regular used along with kerning effect, various layer effects and icy white colour to associate the word with pain, steeliness and icy cold. The outer glow actually hurts my eyes.
You and Ones - Arial Black with inner stroke. Also made vertical height on some of the letters higher than others in the words to add emphasis.
Suffering - Chiller Regular - what a great font! It looks evil and chilling. I made some baseline shifts and applied some warp transformations to increase interest and draw attention to the punchline in this quote.
Bob Marley - Bodoni MT bold with inner stroke and colour overlay. I just don't have the skill yet to add a dreadlock effect to this text (and background) but I would have loved to do so. Or my thought was to have a silhouette of him with this quote hovering in the background/foreground.
Monday 18 May 2015
Design Module - Learning Activity 11 Type
Typeface: Century Gothic
Designer & History: Century Gothic was commissioned by the International Typeface Corporation based on Sol Hess' Twentieth Century designs and released in 1991. Sol Hess's designs between 1936 and 1947 started the ball rolling when he created a design based on the popular Futura typeface. It was then redrawn to be metrically match the Avant Garde Gothic typeface and released by the International Typeface Corporation in 1970.
Character: This from Wikipedia: "Century Gothic is quite a light typeface, especially in default weight. While its structure is similar to Futura, its regular style is between Futura's book and light weights. Its bold weight resembles Futura's medium style more than its bold style. It is a geometric sans-serif typeface. It is strongly influenced by the font Futura and Avant Garde Gothic, though with a higher x-height. Its higher x-height (height of lowercase letters) promotes readability especially at small print sizes"
Interesting Facts: It is among the small group of fonts used in 85% of all computers used worldwide. It has universal applicability and is often use in websites as well as in printed and other media. It was used in the "Star Trek: Enterprise" TV show and "Casino Royale" movie promotional materials.
oh dear, I see a tension point ...the z is too close to the border!
Designer & History: Century Gothic was commissioned by the International Typeface Corporation based on Sol Hess' Twentieth Century designs and released in 1991. Sol Hess's designs between 1936 and 1947 started the ball rolling when he created a design based on the popular Futura typeface. It was then redrawn to be metrically match the Avant Garde Gothic typeface and released by the International Typeface Corporation in 1970.
Character: This from Wikipedia: "Century Gothic is quite a light typeface, especially in default weight. While its structure is similar to Futura, its regular style is between Futura's book and light weights. Its bold weight resembles Futura's medium style more than its bold style. It is a geometric sans-serif typeface. It is strongly influenced by the font Futura and Avant Garde Gothic, though with a higher x-height. Its higher x-height (height of lowercase letters) promotes readability especially at small print sizes"
Interesting Facts: It is among the small group of fonts used in 85% of all computers used worldwide. It has universal applicability and is often use in websites as well as in printed and other media. It was used in the "Star Trek: Enterprise" TV show and "Casino Royale" movie promotional materials.
oh dear, I see a tension point ...the z is too close to the border!
Tuesday 12 May 2015
Design Module - Gutenberg Design
While its a bit hard to see my arrow head, the example above illustrates that the design aimed to move eye flow from the top left "Brilliant Gifts" tag or Primary Optical Area (POA) to the bottom left Terminal Area (TA) where the brand signage and perfume bottle are located.
I thought the text in the POA could have been slightly bigger to focus its priority more clearly. None the less my eye flow was from POA to TA in this case. There was white space in the fallow area of the top right page and a relatively non-distracting image in the other fallow area of the bottom left.
After going from the POA to the TA, my eye flow was then directed to the image "skin replenisher" image above the gold Clarins perfume bottle and then travelled up to the above image. This contradicted Gutenberg design principles which aim to reduce movement of the eye upwards and outward from the middle right position. However, the fact that the images of products were of consistent size, colour and tonal range made the overall design easy on the eye and did not cause excess eye movement/visual overload. The placement of product images also gave the overall design balance and. symmetry
Design facts not withstanding, for the life of me, I would still not want to buy these products.
Monday 11 May 2015
Design Learning 7 Grid Layout
Examples below from magazines where grid layout is used.
Examples of grid layout in (1) architecture and (2) car signage.
Examples below of images that do not use grid layout. David Carson (from my brief reading) has broken the rules of contemporary design to create images and publications that deliberately defy the structures and norms of devising designs that make it easy for most people to understand and engage in the pieces In other words, his designs demand viewers pay attention to them and delve deeper into what the image is trying to say. BTW, I found "Ray Gun" way too confronting. Let's just stick to the "oh so predictable and terribly patronising" Women's Weekly mag I thought. Guides - what guides?
Examples of grid layout in (1) architecture and (2) car signage.
Examples below of images that do not use grid layout. David Carson (from my brief reading) has broken the rules of contemporary design to create images and publications that deliberately defy the structures and norms of devising designs that make it easy for most people to understand and engage in the pieces In other words, his designs demand viewers pay attention to them and delve deeper into what the image is trying to say. BTW, I found "Ray Gun" way too confronting. Let's just stick to the "oh so predictable and terribly patronising" Women's Weekly mag I thought. Guides - what guides?
Wednesday 6 May 2015
Tuesday 5 May 2015
Identifying Negative Space
The background acts as negative space -focusing attention on Wolverine.
Two examples of negative space in nature - the water in the pond next to the grass and pier plus the black background surrounding the spider's web.
Friday 1 May 2015
Sunday 26 April 2015
Design Module - Learning Activity 2 Learning Focus and Hierarchy
Reasons for selecting from greatest to least emphasis:
1. Big size, captivating image, seems like "leaping off the page", position in foreground, white outfit set against blue background (colour contrast)
2. Red catches attention, size of letter Q, contrast between white of letter and red square. Position at top left of page: eye-catching.
3 and 4. Difficult to decide which comes first. I think the 50 stands out because of its red colour and contrast against white lettering but the big size of "The Who"- written in capitals and with stronger text than others also catches the eye. In retrospect, I would have changed the places of 3 and 4.
5. Photo catches attention, plane element draws eye and the tension point with end of paper. White frame around photo adds contrast with immediate text and space below.
6 and 7. My eyes were drawn first to the left (6) then to the right (7) even though no. 29 is big size, no. 6 had greater emphasis for me perhaps because its white text contrasted with the red plane above it as well as its position near top left.
8. I've grouped all the text below as 8. Their proximity suggests association and together they drew the eye. Their uniformity also suggested rhythm. Their position at the bottom resulted in their low placement on the hierarchy.
9. As for 8, their position and the bland non-confronting colour resulted in the selection last on hierarchy.
Friday 24 April 2015
Monday 20 April 2015
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