Action plan for next week.

This is an action plan for the rest of this week and into the weekend. I need to get these bits of research going in order to really start making some tracks with the design. Obviously this looks solely at the Manchester book fair.

I HAVE TO STICK TO THIS!

I also need to start looking at Daisy's stationary brief. Looking at what Fred was saying about it, this isn't going to be a substantial brief, but instead it's going to be more of a 1 to 2 week brief maximum and a part time one at that, so I have to find ways of turning that into a substantial brief, or just adding it as a little one on top.

Briefing Gasi

After a quick discussion with Dave I wrote and sent him this brief with the research I was talking about on my context blog as a starting point for him to begin designing me a typeface.



In it I've sort of specified it's function to give him as much information about it's usage as I possibly can, hopefully this means we can work together and get something he can stick in his portfolio and that makes my work look truly unique.

Working out content

Based on some of the research that is running parallel to this, I decided to try and organise the content and have useful information about what I was doing written in a tangeable and physical way.


I started with the illuminati/New World Order and Freemasonry conspiracy theories that essentially have the same premise; A secret society aiming to achieve a world government. Often this has an apocalyptic slant, the currency of this new Government being the 'mark of the Beast' which the bible talks about. I noted down the symbols that were appropriate and I thought were interesting. I could definitely utilize these to create some kind of mystery and intrigue around the book. I really want people to look at parts of it and go 'what could this mean?' and almost feel like they're searching for clues throughout the book. I made notes to address what I should and shouldn't include and I've concluded I could probably get away with 750-1000 words for this section.


I then looked alien conspiracies and found some glyphs and ciphers associated with the Roswell crash of 47 and the drawings of a guy called Adamski. This gave me a lot to work with as did the different patterns that crop circles make. This again gives me a wealth of strange imagery and symbolism to work with for my book. Again, I could probably do it in about 1000 words spread across two double spreads, but obviously that is subject to change, possibly dramatic change.


Then I thought I'd look at medical conspiracies which often link back to the Illuminati and secret societies, or at least the shadowy operations of the Governments. I think it's going to be a maximum of 500 words for each of the three medical conspiracies I've decided to look at. (there's more but they didn't seem particularly fascinating, plus a wealth of man made disease conspiracies which I'll just include under the AIDs umbrella.)


Assassinations and Deaths, I think I'll include this in the Illuminati section or it'll follow on from it at least and be very summative of all celebrities rather than in detail about a few because there is so so so much information and I can't include it all. In fact, the order is likely to be secret societies, medical conspiracies then hoaxes because they're all part of the same thing in a lot of cases, followed by Aliens.


Finally I looked at ways to make it interesting and fascinating based around the concept of hidden truths. I decided that it might be interesting to hide the truths throughout the books and there's a few ways I could do this, firstly I could spot varnish signs, symbols and messages over the pages making them difficult to read and hidden at first, or I could have weird fold out sections to my book, which would be difficult but possibly excellent and finally, I thought of using UV inks which I really, really like the idea of; Messages and symbols being hidden unless a blacklight is shone on them, at which point they reveal themselves. Obviously I'm going to try all of them out but I really think that the UV ink idea is really intelligent design and creates a really unique book with a unique concept that will sell at the book fair!

I thought about the way this book would be set up, i.e. the tone of voice for the booklet in normal light and then the tone of voice for the black light/spot varnish/hidden folds stuff. There's two options for the way I could go with this;
-balanced normal text and then the stuff in black light/spot varnish/hidden folds would promote the conspiracy theory as the truth.
-Anti-conspiracy theory normal text and then the unusual finish stuff would be pro-conspiracy theory

I'm not sure but I'll talk to some people about this and see what general consensus might be.

Right, now I need an action plan of what to do:
-Research why people are drawn to conspiracy theories with a series of interviews aimed at my target audience of art students.
-Research grids and start trying them out with the content I've started to select already, select appropriate typefaces etc.
-Start selecting appropriate imagery and make design decisions with it.

This gives me plenty to go away and work with and then I'll be back on here or my design context blog with findings and testers.

Daisy Shayler Webb's fashion label (LIVE BRIEF)

Ok, SO I just dropped Daisy a quick email and she's game, which is awesome! so I've quickly knocked up this brief. She really doesn't have a deadline for it but this is something I want to undertake immediately. it's similar to the magic society brief, but it's a life brief and it encompasses a lot more different kinds of stationary, so I'm thinking that I may just amalgamate the two. I don't want to do two branding briefs, especially if one isn't live.



I'm screen-printing some t-shirts with her on Friday so we'll have an opportunity to discuss the next steps then. EXCITED!

Analysing the briefs I've written

I actually did this on friday but after a weekend with my lovely daughter, I've only just found time to do this properly. Here are some of the briefs I've written (aside from the other two that I've definitely picked. As you can probably tell, I have discovered most of them won't get the results I'm really after.

This brief is for a free publication for the DIY scene in the North East, to be distributed in record shops etc. I'm quite happy with ti as a concept, my only issue is that it won't allow me to showcase high end print finish. I guess it's a bit of a compromise, low budget doesn't have to mean low quality in the slightest. It's a topic I'm really interested in having been involved in the scene a little over summer, so it's one that I still might undertake.


This is an interesting brief that would involve engaging young people about newspapers and probably involve interesting ways to present infographics. As I don't really want to do info-graphics, I've realised that this is a stupid idea unless it became a publication where I collaborated with someone interested in info-graphics, in which case it becomes something special maybe. Given this isn't live I'll probably look at collaboration at a later date, I really want to focus on my portfolio being my portfolio at this stage.




This brief suffered from false-live-brief-syndrome. I was too desperate to make it feel like a live brief when it shouldn't be. It's very high concept about fibonacci numbers. I think on reflection it should have been a publication about different mathmatical sequences and developing visuals and posters from this. My problem with this is that I don't really want to get neck deep in maths to come up with visuals. it's also a little bit too similar to my book fair brief and I don't want to repeat myself too much.


This is about the UK film council, I like the idea of doing something for the UK Film Council, but I really, really don't want to do something where it has to be mass production print or even web design because it means having to do a lot of budgeting, rather than focusing on high quality print production which is a major aim for this year! I have a few other briefs but they really weren't worth exploring. I put down that I wanted to work on fashion things when I did the 5 wants and I'm already collaborating with Daisy from fashion, so I'm going to see if I can do her stationary and labels and tags and stuff, which would be a really awesome live brief.

Workshop; Friday 24th September

Okay, so we were asked to come to the session with statements about 5 things you want to get out of the year/modue and 5 things you don't, stating why on each:

5 WANTS
Publishing and bookmaking-
I did a bit of work with this over usmmer for a personal project. I found the feeling of completeing such a solid body of work really gratifying. Especially if it allows me to work with type in lots of ways.
High End Print Production-
It's something I always want to do, but never give myself enough time, so I'm going to try really hard to ensure that I write briefs that give me enough time to experiment with paper stocks and unusual print finishes.
Branding-
It's again something I haven't done and I'm not sure why, really. I love the idea of giving something an identity and applying it across a series of printed medias. I think my experience of creating something uniform but with changes in colourways and such stands me in good stead for this. I don't want it to be big company branding, but more unique, high end and bespoke branding.
Typography-
Having decided to stop using illustration because I get far too precious and unwilling to bend with it, I want to do a lot with typography to try and really understand it. I feel I've got the basics down, so I need to just develop my skills and try and become a master at it.
Fashion-
I've already started collaborating with a fashion student called Daisy over the summer on some garment designs which I enjoyed thoroughly. I'd like to do some more garment design as well as piecing together things like look books and even perhaps their end of year show book.

5 DON'T WANTS
Design for web-
Having designed a template for my website over summer using dreamweaver, which is WYSIWYG, I've realised that there is nothing more difficult and strenuous to me and my practice...
Animation-
...Except for animation, which I find horrendous, I can't think sequentially and I hate having to work with the software. It just isn't within my skill set.
Font Design-
I tried this a little bit with my 10 bands publication. I absolutely hated this and scrapped it almost immediately. If I need fonts this year, I'll brief someone who enjoys font making and collaborate with them.
Mass Production printing-
I definitely don't mind cheaper production values, as long as they're well crafted and still feel of a high quality, but I don't want to produce things that are for mass print production or feel like they are. It's imperative that I avoid briefs where the required audience is huge!
Illustration-
I used ot love illustration. I realised towards the end of last year that this was a skill I have but I don't want to use because it's really really holding me back. It;s not an effective use of time for me and it also made me unable to produce work for a brief without a required stylistic agenda.

From this I was asked to make an umbrella statement for my design practice this year and pin it on the wall for everyone to see. I put:
'Concept driven publication and printed promotional materials produced with a high end finish.' Now, I think the high end finish bit is the least important, but it is something that I want at least 2 or 3 of my briefs from this module to reflect. Within the printed promotional materials I can do branding with stationary etc. and in fact both the briefs I've already begun work on will cover these categories. I need to ensure that the next few I decide to look at also reflect these interests or I need to start tweaking them to effectively communicate my design practice. Anyway, I was then asked questions about these statements, which I've written down, these are also something to refer back to when looking at my briefs:

-Does my preference lie in layout and editorial or the art of making books it's self?
-Does type as image facter into it? (answer:not really, will outsource that if I need it)
-Do I still want to use image making?
-What area of fashion collaboration is feasable for this year?
-What puts me off mass prroduct briefs?
-You want to avoid web, but if a brief requires it, where can/will you draw a boundary?

Some of these questions are important, some of them are easily dismissed, anyway, I then had to go through all the briefs I'd written making notes. I've done this but still want to go thorugh them all a few times to get to where I want to be with them and to ensure I pick and tweak another two worth pursuing. I'll probably put that in the next post I do sometime tomorrow evening.

Briefs I definitely wan to go forward with

Noth of these briefs I've already began researching on my context blog.


I really like them and they both provide me with the possibility of creating things that I'll enjoy, want for my portfolio and need for progressing into the field of print and publications. Using the briefs as a basis, I just did these quick diagrams of what the outcomes are, what the subjects are, what research I'll need to do and how I can manipulate them to give me the high end finish that I really want to start developing:



These will be useful to keep going back to, despite being ugly as sin, in terms of perspective of what I need to research and what I want to achieve out of this, so they may even stay on my wall.

THIRD YEAR BEGINS