OUGD503 - Responsive [SB1] - Monotype - Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden is a former CIA employee and former contractor for the United States Government. Snowden released a plethora of files copied from NSA (National Security Agency) and GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) into the internet sphere. This sparked outrage from the public as it showed how secretive governments can be, and just how invasive our governments are towards us. Specifically in the UK, there have been collaborations with companies to create "trapdoors" into their systems in order for the GCHQ to eavesdrop on the UK public. However, until Snowden released these files, this was completely unknown and still to this day remains largely unnoticed. My campaign aims to bring subjects like these to light and although controversial, I believe the public has the right to know when their private lives are being surveyed.

$250 million is spent on covert surveillance by the Americans every year, which is funded fully through the taxpayer, to spy on the taxpayer. This concept if widely known I believe would cause shock and awe at how a government can be openly proud about freedom, while providing limited ability to be free. The counter-argument for this is for means of "counter-terrorism", but surely an invasion of privacy this deep calls into question how far governments are willing to go in order to prevent terrorism, and if there are ulterior motives involved. I personally believe there is a fine line between surveillance and breaching information without consent. 

If this information were to be more widespread, it could propose a change in how internet companies are governed and call into question how much information the government needs to be able to intercept in order to keep our country safe. Below is one of many slides obtained by Snowden that start to explain how deep the roots of data-manipulation go in the digital age and how alarming it is to see the shroud of secrecy around the whole subject.

OUGD503 - Responsive [SB1] - Monotype - ECHELON

Total Information Awareness

"Imagine a global spying network that can eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet. It sounds like science fiction, but it's true."

ECHELON is a codename given to a network of surveillance operations between the Five Eyes (USA, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada) that has been in operation formally since 1971. This network was originally founded to spy on the Soviet Union in the past, but has since been expanded to a global network which has become "a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications." Schmid, Gerhard (11 July 2001).

ECHELON is reported to have the ability to eavesdrop on faxes, calls, emails, texts and even bank accounts. Officially however, ECHELON doesn't exist. Sadly, this is only the tip of the iceberg for global spying operations, and these operations threaten to remove all online privacy altogether.

I think researching into projects such as ECHELON is extremely important for this brief as creating work for a cause that I don't fully understand the gravity of would contradict my passion for the cause itself. However, for this brief I feel I will try not to go as in-depth as possible because the aim of the brief is to inspire change, which I can achieve without overloading my audience with unnecessary information.

OUGD503 - Responsive [SB1] - Monotype - Initial Research

To begin my research, I first wrote down all the causes for change in the world that I could think of, to try and keep my thinking broad instead of going with the first idea I thought of.

My results were:

• Social
• Political
• Humanitarian
• Environmental
• Cultural

I had multiple sub-causes stemming from these major causes, including:

• Cultural Equality
• Poverty
• War
• Climate Change
• Surveillance Culture
• Austerity

I then thought of which cause I would be most interested in personally, and the cause that I think has not had enough exposure already. I decided surveillance culture was an issue that needed more exposure, especially in the digital age where censorship is slowly tightening its' grip on society and more pushback is needed from the public. Following this, I decided to do some extensive research on surveillance culture, how far it goes back and how much it actually controls in our lives today.

OUGD503 - Responsive [SB1] - Monotype

My second brief I wanted to undertake was for Monotype.

Monotype are primarily a font foundry, with some of the most influential fonts in their library including Helvetica and Univers. I thought working with Monotype would be interesting as I am very interested in type design but I find it intimidating only working with type as the subject of a piece of work. I find type hard to craft in a way that produces a piece of work without any accompanying elements, so I thought this brief would be a fun challenge. Below is the Monotype brief supplied by D&AD.

The primary aim of this brief is to create a typography-led campaign inciting change in the world, on any scale. The subject of this change could be anything be it personal or global, which should be a difficult task to undertake because of its' open nature. I think this brief will be very challenging because the campaign I create will probably not be as passionate in my heart as it is in every judge looking at my work. Because of this, I will need to create a hard hitting campaign that not only persuades me to look deeper into it, but persuade the judges to as well. This means I will have to affect them emotionally with a solid concept as well as creating an effective campaign from the get-go.

OUGD504 - Design Production - End of Module Evaluation

This module has been very rewarding to me in terms of progressing as a designer, and learning what creates an effective piece of design work. I faced many challenges in this module but also learned many lessons on how to maximise my efficiency, choose the correct stock and production methods and how to properly liaise with clients. Starting with the things I feel I did well, I feel all of my work has had clear reasoning behind it and there were design choices that always suited the content I was designing for. I would always look at the main points of the brief and go from there on how to effectively convey the correct messages to the audience. Compared to beginning this course where I simply designed things because they looked good, I feel this is a huge step in becoming a professional designer. Another element I was good at was my primary research. I feel that I always had atleast two opinions on all of my work which helped me spot mistakes I wouldn't usually spot otherwise. I wouldn't have been able to do this without being in a college setting and this gave me an insight into why working in teams can be benificial for everyone involved. 

One of the things I could improve on would be my time management. I feel like I need to be able to consistently work instead of only being able to work efficiently when I feel some form of pressure on me. This will haunt me in the future as needing stress to work well can only lead to disaster in my opinion. I should start writing in a diary of what I should accomplish for the day as I feel that I work well when I have a list of what to do and when to complete it by. I also feel I need to work harder to broaden my design skills in illustrator, as I feel making things such as vector art is still alien to me, and I feel quite intimidated by the thought of having to draw my own art. Finally, I should think about diversifying my idea generation. I do create more ideas than I did last year, but they are usually all similar concepts to eachother if not the same altogether. This makes it difficult for me to expand on ideas and I still have the problem of going for the first idea that pops up in my head, albeit more developed than I used to create. I feel it would help if I made sure I didn't get attached to any of my ideas and simply came up with as many concepts as I could, because going with the first idea in my head can sometimes leave my blog looking empty because of the lack of idea generation. 

Overall, I feel that this was an extremely rewarding module and although challenging, I definitely learnt a lot with the main elements being creating a concept and taking into account my methods of production informed by the context of the design and I will definitely use this in my future design work.

OUGD504 - Design Production [SB3] - Evaluation

I feel that my work was clearly influenced by the brief and every decision I made was informed and effective at sending the correct messages. This has been an important target for me since beginning second year, since I have realised that to make effective design you not only have to create good looking work, but create a solid concept too and without a solid concept, there is no design to be made. I found this brief hard at first to form a concept since the brief was so open and you could have a collection about anything, but once I thought about linking the imagery together via location it became easier to create, harnessing the creative vibe of London to create an original, informed publication. I have described the limitations I encountered making this booklet including the problems with the clips I used for binding and the pictures occasionally looking out of place. I also had problems with printing as the pages came out in the wrong order, and not even the print room staff could help me figure out why this was happening. However, this has taught me to test print before I print a final design as even though your document looks correctly set up, it could still have errors when printed and this did cost me a lot of money to fix. I feel that I experimented visually and conceptually on this project, achieving a level of effectiveness I haven’t achieved before. I feel I could improve on my bookbinding techniques and learn more of the common binds however, as I planned to perfect bind my book but conceptually I found the fastener clips to be closer to the aesthetic of a handcrafted book. In hindsight, even though my binding method was informed by the content of the publication, it ended up being more of a hindrance than an improvement due to the pages not sitting flat and this puts a hindrance on the reader, which gives more chance for them to stop reading the publication altogether. I also think I could’ve tried more techniques for the title, instead of tunneling on the first technique I really liked. I was going to try and screen print the front cover but it proved difficult to screen print the glitch effect with the amount of colours used. However, I could’ve experimented with some other production techniques and perhaps I would've found something I would be excited about. Overall, I feel this was a very fun brief and the way it tied into the summer brief gave it a proper sense of purpose and brought the summer and the first term together. If I could redo this brief, I would try to take pictures of the inside of the shops to show more context into how the signage is informed by the content, because I feel that a single picture of a sign isn't always enough to show the content of the store itself. I hope to do another publication in the future so I can further experiment with bookbinds and hopefully try a more difficult bind such as a coptic bind.

OUGD504 - Design Production [SB2] - Evaluation

I really liked the logostarter project and the briefs in the second year in general. They have been a lot more open and we have been able to specialise more as opposed to last year when we had to follow stricter guidelines which wasn't always representative of the industry. I have produced a piece of work that made correct usage of primary and secondary research in order to make a logo that clearly appeals to the audience, engaging them in two different styles, one being contemporary and the other being nostalgic. This primary and secondary research was more in-depth than I would usually do and I really feel that this helped me broaden my horizons in terms of the idea generation I produced. If it hadn't been for the depth of research I went into, I wouldn't have found how to effectively create a successful kickstarter campaign as advertising on kick =starter isn't the same as advertising in the real world. I have taken into account how my work will be shown in terms of print and web, and noted the limitations of both including legibility, scalability and colour, these all being important aspects of my final design. This was difficult for me, as I ran into quite a few difficult elements of my design such as creating a logo that sent mixed messages (three ice lollies doesn't commonly connote an ice cream parlour.) Although the brief was to make a logo for web, I have also explained the usage in print and in real-life scenarios including vinyl printing and the like. I think this is useful because it adds another element of planning to the brief, and shows more of what my final product would look like if the brief carried on. If I had more time, I would print a suite of collateral to show the usage of my branding in real terms. I think this would help to give a realistic look at how the logo would operate in different  In terms of things I could improve on in the future and what I have done well and not so well, I think I could try to create more physical mockups of my work, such as screen printing on some collateral like a paper bag, which would give much more of a vision of what I want my brand to look like. I think this would show more of what I have researched and why I think it would work. I also think I could become more diverse in my idea generation, which has been an ongoing issue for me. I need to be able to create a multitude of ideas without becoming attached to any before I have researched each of them. Overall, this was a fun brief and I liked that we were encouraged to contact the author of the kickstarter, I feel this gave us experience on how freelance graphic design would work and I personally found out how hard it was to get people to respond to you promptly. It was hard to get regular feedback from the person I was doing work for, even though they were getting the work for free. 

OUGD504 - Design Production [SB4] - Evaluation

This was a fun brief due to the fact we were able to choose our own artist to produce our work for and we got to talk to an actual studio about how they would go about this brief themselves. We had to choose an artist that we liked, and create a campaign for their new album being released, including advertising tours and album signing dates. We could pick anyone we wanted which made this one of my favourite briefs so far, if not my favourite brief. That doesn't mean I didn't find this brief challenging however, as the open-ended aspect of the brief meant I spent a long time confused on what to do and how to do it. I enjoyed that I was able to dab in web design even though it was creating wireframes, which is something I also experimented in before coming to Leeds College of Art. Web design is definitely something I want to advertise as one of my services when I leave the college, and I feel that web design is a sector that I need to research more as this would definitely help me become more multi-faceted in the design industry, helping my employability. One thing I could’ve improved would be trying to create more basic wireframes rather than rushing into the well-designed finished wireframes that look like a final design themselves. I feel like if I worked on wireframes before I delved into the final designs I would have many more ideas to choose from and could’ve made a design I was even happier with. Nevertheless, I am very proud of my wireframes because I have tried to create a clear concept which I think I have been doing well in the second year, as opposed to designing simply for aesthetics in first year. This helps me become a better creative thinker as well as designer because I am able to generate more ideas and I can solve briefs differently to before, where I was just creating good looking work now I create good looking work with a clear purpose and work that's effective at meeting the brief set by a client. This is definitely a valuable skill to have in the graphic design industry as creating something that firmly fits your clients brief will in the short term allow you to finish the brief in a short time compared to if you only created things you personally liked and hoped your client would like them too. In conclusion, this was my favourite brief of Design Production due to the freedom given and the feel of a live brief. I felt it was a breath of fresh air to be able to design something specifically to my interests even though I know that making personal projects for money will be extremely rare in the industry. I hope to create some more personal projects in the future by messaging musicians, artists and general businesses that I am interested in and trying to get work from them.

OUGD504 - Design Production [SB1] - Evaluation

I felt that my leaflet worked well in concept but in execution I made the net too complex to open and close, giving my audience too much hassle for something they would be reading for about a minute. I feel this draws away from my design but on the other hand, I have learnt from this and in future I will keep in mind to create things that strike a balance between originality and functionality. I thought about my demographic well and took into account my limitations in terms of stock and how easy it was to fold, how the text would show up and if the folds would effect the colouring of the edges. I think these are things that can be overlooked and the smaller details can add up to big problems with the concept. I feel the typography goes well with the informal tone of voice, and I think the tips given in the leaflet are original and make the leaflet more fun to read. The bright colours of the leaflet make it eye catching which attract the eye as my leaflet will probably be one of many so it needs to be able to cater for either a glance or an in-depth read alike. 

If I could redo this brief, I would definitely try to create more nets as I feel the four I made were too general, and didn't offer me enough of a basis to develop. However, one of my strong points was creating a net that also fit my informal tone of voice and this is something I should apply to more of my work, as I should take into account the production methods of my briefs more. I did take into account how eye-catching the leaflet would have to be, as if it was too plain it would easily be overlooked. I would also experiment with screen printing my designs, as originally I wanted to create my pages neon cyan and red which obviously couldn't be achieved with digital print methods. However, due to money constraints at the time I was not able to print at the highest quality possible and this is something I will definitely give more priority in the future. 

Researching into different leaflet designs definitely helped me try to come up with an idea that fit the brief, as I could see what the most popular nets were and act accordingly. However, I had to be careful that I didn't end up taking too much inspiration from other people and end up creating an idea that is hardly even mine anymore. I did this by brainstorming what made each leaflet successful, and instead of taking the aesthetic design choices away from the leaflets, I would take the conceptual design points away such as a leaflet cutting away part of the front page to reveal what was within which would interest a reader to see what was inside. 

In conclusion, I feel that this was a brief that I had trouble with, due to me overcomplicating my design to try and make something original, but I have definitely learned a valuable lesson from this brief.