D&AD Degree Show

The end has come...

we finally had our D&AD degree show hosted at The Manchester School of Art. The work included hand-made publications and books, screen-prints, vinyl work, branding, packaging design, posters, info-graphics and even laser cut sculptured pieces. To showcase exactly what the Design & Art Direction BA Hons course was about.

Our preview evening flew past, and so did the remaining days of the exhibition - here's a little sample of some of the work...





The show's site displays more of the students work HERE

The identity for the School's Degree show was designed by D&AD Graduate Jenny Davies.

The identity for 'Design &' By D&AD graduate Adam Brandon

PANIC

My submission for the Noise Lab exhibition 'Panic' by Design & Art Direction third year students.

"Panic slowly encroaches upon us, getting more and more intense until we fully acknowledge the fear. The familiar sense of counting down the days, hours or minutes until an anticipated moment is something we all know a little too well."

Oswiecim

After my trip to Poland and Auschwitz back in February I decided to use some of the photographs I'd taken on the trip to produce a small personal photographic response of visiting there. I found it easy to arrange my images in a way that would emphasize their composition, however I found it really hard knowing what text if I wanted any at all should I place on the images. I felt it required some narrative/explanation/poetry but I felt I tainted the simple interpretative language of the images. In the end I combined some found poetry with words of my own and produced a few small concertina books. The book folds out and on the reverse is a really poignant juxtaposition of two images of the same scene. The focus shifts. I began to think of the psychology of prisoners and how they may view what is beyond the fences.

I printed one book onto newsprint and when I began to photograph the book using strong lighting I realized you could begin to see the image on the other side of the paper, I though this added a new layer in the communication of the piece, perhaps I could contrast some images?

MMU Degree show pitch...

Rachael and I decided to work together and pitch for the Degree show identity. We both found ourselves being unusually inspired by Neil Grants pie charts.

I found it really inspirational working with Rachael we just took off one day into Manchester and photographed our surroundings. We were really excited bouncing ideas off of each other as we both felt like we were on the same wavelength. We were inspired by pie-charts, fans, wheels, cogs, factories, music, manufacturing and arrows.

We wanted to make use of all of the facilities MMU had to offer, considering letterpress, screenprint, laser-cutting, photograhy etc. We hopped into letterpress to get inspired.


We took the idea into a structure, ideally we wanted to create this large scale poster with all these mechanical elements to it and photograph it in the studio and produce that as the poster. The time constraint of three weeks really got us thinking outside of the box. We produced giant jigsaw like posters with movable parts. We created 3 looks, a neon one, a bright coloured on white and a re-cycled looking one.



Inspired by these windmill, pin-wheel structures we looked at their nets and tiles and began thinking along the lines of...



Towards the end of the project we did a little art directed photography around the buildings using textures within some square frames which we had made. I really enjoyed doing this, with each shot we considered the placement, distance and layout. We made a little concertina booklet and hope to make a poster of this little assignment.

Alexandra Arts

Jenny (Davies) and I decided to work together on the Alexandra Arts brief. A quick(ish) turnaround of about two and a half weeks, we've just completed it and I'm happy to say its off to print! The brief was to design an identity for Alexandra Arts (An organization which provides accessible arts and crafts workshops for local communities in Alexandra Park.) I think Jenny and I worked really well and didn't quite know each other before it but soon realized we had a similar style and could work well together.

We had to produce on A3 poster along with a double-sided A5 flyer. After seeing some work which Lotte liked (by Miami design)

We also knew that she liked the work of Si Scott. This is the solution we came up with...

We designed this logo which references the historical importance of the park and also by using a circular shape to reflect the unique eco-system of the park and its community.

D&AD Autumn Term Showcase

OK, so I know it was a while ago, but as these Jpegs overflow my screen I thought it time for a little clear-out!
It was quite daunting and exciting sumbitting work and 'putting it out there' but I'm glad I did. I submitted a four minute short film and an A2 poster for the Don't Panic 'Resistance brief'. (Yes I may have desaturated the img a little so you can see it, and it was pretty bright in dayglow pink but I was happy with it.)
I enjoyed seeing the other work around and I think The Holden Cafe is a great little venue. I hope other people related to my little short film, the audio really made the movie make sense and seeing it on those big old tellies was great!

Alexandra Arts

One of the projects I am working on involves designing an identity for Alexandra Arts. A creative community group which uses the facilities and space within Alexandra Park to host events, meetings and workshops. This Easter the group will host a series of craft and creative workshops and therefore require an identity, flyers and a poster. I'm working with Jenny Davies on this project and our first thoughts were to take a trip down to the park and connect with the surroundings, identify the community and users of the park and just get a feel for its style, space and the facilities it offers.

Silence Part II

For Silence Part II I made a short film (under 5 mins) which explores the effect the loss of a family pet can have on children and families, my aim was for it to encourage the viewer to think of their own memories and experiences and what other emotions we build with our pets. The doc/film also follows my own journey discovering and interviewing the professional and some relatives about their experiences. Below is a storyboard of stills from the film.



Here is a link to the actual film,

http://www.vimeo.com/8936167

HG Wells Book covers

I wanted to produce a clean and simple solution to this brief and this was done with condensing each books main theme into a basic visual metaphor. I feel the most successful design is that of Kipps, as it not only explains the book's main running concept but also how the character deals with this sudden change of social situation, his displaced name indicates he is feeling unstable and uncomfortable in high society. I'm also quite happy with the History of Mr. Polly because the simple outline of the mans body is in my opinion a perfectly suitable metaphor for Mr.Polly's desperation for an escape to his life (to which he fakes his death and creates a new life) the dotted line both suggests a dead body being found and also a design for a new life, (i.e. sketching out his ideal character.)

Don't Panic.........o.k panic

After playing with the colours and the design in screenprint these were some of the results - I ended up handing in the neon pink with black and the white with red and black.

So these two poster are the two final ones I have chosen, I will be doing a few screen print tests and I will just have to wait to see how they come out but for now these have been printed out super big and they are currently stuck on my bedroom wall.



Ironic that this project is for Don't Panic as that is all we seem to be doing at the moment. I've been working on my ideas for the don't panic 'resistance' poster, I'd love to do some neon-like screen prints. If I can squeeze some screen printing in i'll try to this week. Still based around the idea of the arrow(s) these are some further ideas which I have developed. Hitch suggested I try to not make the arrows and shapes so obvious, give it a little mystery....

Resistance

I chose the don't panic brief for this recent 3 week project. An A2 poster illustrating the theme of resistance.

I began to explore the idea that resistance is the last one standing, the last one left. The one that perseveres to hold onto what they believe in. Ideas on how to represent this came in the form of a last leaf on a tree, a bowling pin left standing etc. I didn't like the route these visuals were taking so I began looking at old Penguin book covers and I began experimenting with geometric shapes and physical barriers through shapes. I thought I could illustrate my idea using arrows. I decided to have lots of arrows following one direction and then one arrow which was going to opposite or taking its own route. This tests the idea of non-conformity, an example being the resistance to follow suit with the masses, the norm even society.These ideas I played with and developed them,
I liked how the layers and the white space worked together. I also did this sketch which is in a contrasting style but also works well by itself.
I began to think how else I could communicate this idea of one person, one mind resisting what its being told. I thought about lights, bulbs and lamps - how a mass of bulbs with only one on or just one not lighting up could symbolize a greater meaning or refusing, resisting or leading. I worked with the following illustrations and then developed these.
Ideally, when I first envisioned this idea I wanted to photograph the real thing. With the time constraints I just decided to go with the next best thing...an illustration of the idea.


Still unsure about which idea im going to run with - I haven't had any peer feedback so I think I'll see how it goes tomorrow!

Object......React with Johnny Hardstaff

I definitely think Johnny should come back up for another workshop - The only criticism I put down for the course feedback was that I enjoyed shorter briefs and one/two day briefs.

I visited the museum on Monday as I couldn't make the Wednesday trip. There were some fascinating items in the museum but for a certain reason I really connected with my chosen object. I thought It had a brilliant use and stood for something much bigger than its physical size.



I took this photo of the butterflies as the reflection in the glass showed the lights trailing down the wings. I thought it could be an interesting concept to have a butterfly display with small perforations in the wings which light shone through. One thing I was impressed with at the museum was the lighting of the animals and insects. Some of the bats and birds wings were beautifully lit.




The object I chose in the museum was a pair of gold eye covers which are placed on the corpses eyes before mummification so that they are able to see in the afterlife.



After Johnny came into brief us I realized the logical reaction I had to pursue with the object was to brainstorm ideas for how the exhibition could become an experiential museum exhibition. My ideas was to have the whole exhibition appear as if you were walking into an embalming chamber or a pyramid. Atmospheric lighting that flickered as if candle light, ambient sounds of whispers and prayers/spells being read out. Shadows projected through the surroundings. The information about the pieces would be printed onto sheets of cotton or papyrus that would hang from the ceiling. Screens fitted into position in the brickwork would demonstrate how the objects would be used and handled to give the objects context and purpose. These screens would have a thin, light material over them to fit into the environment. My idea for my object was that a large gold eye would display an animation of what a dead Egyptian may see when they cross over to the afterlife. Moving Hieroglyphics would transform slowly above the items referencing the objects which were displayed underneath. A voice over would be activated when a person approached the area and question their own visions of the afterlife - what do they believe they will see in their afterlife?

A workshop with Gary

Thursday 26.11.09

On Thursday Gary came in to help us with some of our projects. I'd been in touch with Gary about my Silence project - as it has taken me down a film path. Gary helped me figure out exactly what equipment I required to gain the best audio from my Interviews. Gary talked to us all individually and he actually sat down with me and taught my Final Cut Express, which has been useful - apart from it doesn't work properly in the Mac suite! So I'm just working on cutting up my footage and audio (I had over 50mins of footage to cut down.) Over Christmas I will be hiring the same equipment to get some better footage, now I'm more confident using all the equipment.

UTS work - Personal Directions

This assignment was quite confronting and we had to really discover what career paths we would attempt and what our strengths and weaknesses are. I actually failed this assignment....yes that is correct I failed it big time. I don't think I've ever failed anything before! But I'm so glad I did, I now realise it did fail as a communication piece it was mainly because the yellow text of the blue was hard to read. The original piece folds up into a booklet. I'd attempted something too complicated and wasted a lot of money printing it. LESSON LEARNED!



..............So, as I'd failed I had to re-submit a piece, this is what I handed in and it got me a pass as I couldn't get any higher from failing it. I was a happier handing this is in. Because the piece was crafted it felt more personal and intimate. It too folded up into a small booklet.

UTS work - Personal Identity/Branding design

Here is some work that I did over at UTS in Sydney. I will post up some more of the work I did. So this was the subject 'Concepts of Professionalism' we learned how to promote ourselves, organize invoices, communicate with clients, create style sheets, advertise our abilities and how to present to clients. It was a very interesting subject which provided me with some useful tools for the future.

**Business card and with comps slip**


**style sheet**


**Invoice and letter heading**


**Website - Homepage**


**Website - Work page**


**Website - Contact page**