Final Crit

Final Crit 

Today, I presented my final outcome in a group of 12 and Simon. I received positive feedback on my outcome. They liked the choice of stock and felt the gold screen-print gave it 'added luxury' which was the intended effect. Also, the choice of note and graph paper. Also, Simon suggested that I produce a couple of posters which fold up within the publication, which I will do. Everybody thought the, 'If in doubt, play table tennis. Come back in ten minutes would make a good poster. So I think I'll run with that idea. I left the crit feeling pretty happy with myself.. ha.

OUGD401: Content For My Publication

I began by researching women living in the 1960s. The aim of my book is to inform readers about women living during the 1960s. Below is my book content, some of which has been re-written. I will first begin with an introduction, followed by a small paragraph on 'The single Girl' (an independent women) followed by an example of a 'single girl' , Twiggy. Then I will go on into the fashion trends, mini-skirts and women wearing trousers. Finally I will finish on the greater freedom for women, which is good to conclude on.

Introduction

The 1960s featured a number of diverse trends. It was a decade that broke many fashion traditions, mirroring social movements during the time. In the middle of the decade, culottes, go-go boots, box-shaped PVC dresses and other PVC clothes were popular. The widely popular bikini came into fashion in 1963. Mary Quant invented the mini-skirt, and Jackie Kennedy introduced the pillbox hat, both becoming extremely popular. False eyelashes were worn by women throughout the 1960s, and their hairstyles were a variety of lengths and styles. 

The Single Girl

Fashion photography in the 1960s represented a new feminine ideal for women: the Single Girl. The Single Girl represented ‘movement’. She was young, single, active, and economically self-sufficient. Although the Single Girl was economically and socially self-sufficient, the ideal body form; that of the adolescent was difficult for many to achieve. Therefore, women were constrained by diet restrictions that seemed to contradict the sense of the empowered 1960s Single Girl. To the left is Jean Shrimpton a model who embodied the ‘single girl’.

Twiggy

Lesley Lawson widely known by the nickname Twiggy, is an English model, actress and singer. In the mid-1960s she became a prominent British teenage model of swinging sixties London. Twiggy was initially known for her thin build (thus her nickname) and her androgynous look consisting of large eyes, long eyelashes, and short hair. In 1966, she was named “The Face of 1966” by the Daily Express and voted British Woman of the Year. By 1967, Twiggy had modelled in France, Japan, and the U.S., and landed on the covers of Vogue and Tatler.  Her fame had spread worldwide.

Mini-Skirt

Mary Quant is a fashion designer and British fashion icon. She became an instrumental figure in the 1960s London-based Mod and youth fashion movements. The miniskirt, described as one of the defining fashions of the 1960s, is one of the garments most widely associated with Quant. 

Quant later said “It was the girls on the King’s Road who invented the mini. I was making easy, youthful, simple clothes, in which you could move, in which you could run and jump and we would make them the length the customer wanted. I wore them very short and the customers would say, ‘Shorter, shorter.’” She gave the miniskirt its name, naming it after her favourite make of car, the Mini. 

Rise of Pants for Women

The 1960s were an age for new fashion innovation for women. With it came the rise of women’s pants. Traditionally, pants had been viewed by western society as masculine. However, by the 1960s, it became acceptable for women to wear pants as well. Women loved pants because of their practicality, comfort and versatility. Women wore pants with tunics, shawls, and jackets. The women’s pants came in a variety of styles: narrow, wide, below the knee, above the ankle, and eventually mid thigh. These mid-thigh cut pants evolved around 1969, and became the modern shorts. By adapting men’s style and wearing pants, women voiced their equality to men.

Mods

Mod is a British youth subculture of the early to mid-1960s, focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of London-based stylish young men in the late 1950s who were termed modernists because they listened to modern jazz.

Significant elements of the mod subculture include fashion (often tailor-made suits); music, and motor scooters (usually a Vespa) the original mod scene was associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night dancing at clubs.  Female mods dressed androgynously, with short haircuts, men’s trousers or shirts, flat shoes, and little makeup — often just pale foundation, brown eye shadow, white or pale lipstick and false eyelashes.

Greater Freedom for Women 

The life of a woman before the 1960s, her life trapped in the home her entire life and discriminated against in the workplace. Then, the 1960s came along with it, the thought that women could have a say in their government, that they could perhaps leave the home without feeling guilty about leaving their children alone, and that they could receive a job and earn wages like men. 

The 1960s women gained new freedoms and advertisers began to recognise them as a target market as a result. The economic boom of the 1960s,  gave young women the opportunity to build up career if they so wished. Also a rise of women entering higher education, broadened their horizons and eventually evolved into the Women’s Liberation Movement

Speaking from Experience Brief

Speaking from Experience

Brief

Starting the Graphic Design course at LCA can be daunting. The fast past schedule, and multiple briefs can be tough, and many students struggle with their time management. The task is to design and produce a publication that will inform and educate the first years about time management and hints and tips on Graphic Design at LCA.

Mandatory requirements

·      Digitally printed publication.

·      Informing the reader with the correct tone of voice.

·      Deliverables

·      Thumbnails

·      Design sheets

·      Final publication

Speaking from Experience/Content

Book Content

Below is all my book content for my 'speaking from experience' publication on how to build a rock-solid routine, a list of blogs, definitions of our blogs, what is a crit? as well as a graphic design glossary.

Building a rock-solid routine

Great work before everything else

 Do your most meaningful creative work at the beginning of your day, and leave ‘reactive work’ – like responding to emails, blogging for later on in the day.

Jump-start your creativity 

Establish ‘associative triggers’ – such as listening to the same music or arranging your desk in a certain way- that tell your mind it’s time to get down to work.

Feel the frequency

 Commit to working on your project at consistent intervals – ideally everyday- to build creative muscle and momentum over time.

Pulse and pause 

Move rhythmically between spending and renewing your energy by working in ninety-minute bursts and then taking a break.

Get Lonely 

Make a point of spending some time alone each day. It’s a way to observe unproductive habits and thought processes, and to calm your mind.

Don't wait for moods 

Show up, whether you feel inspired or not.

Useful Blogs

Aisle One                                                   www.aisleone.net

Behance                                                    www.behance.net

Creative Bloq                                      www.creativebloq.com

Creative Review                              www.creativereview.co.uk

Designspiration                                 www.designspiration.net

Design Milk                                           www.designmilk.com

Experimental Jetset                      www.experimentaljetset.net

Font Smith                                                www.fontsmith.com

It’s Nice That                                          www.itsnicethat.com

I Love Typography                         www.ilovetypography.com

Infographics                                  www.loveinfographics.com

Information is beautiful            www.informationisbeautiful.net

Typography Served                    www.typographyserved.com

Typographica                                     www.typographica.org

Our blogs

PPP

PPP is everything to do with your Personal and Professional Practice, which is everything from PPP tasks through to module and project evaluations, exhibitions visits, networking, work experience etc.

Design Context Blog

Design Context is any/all the research you do for a brief. This is the place to post other designers work to analyse. It is also where you blog your lecture notes and Context of Practice tasks.

Design Practice Blog

This blog is dedicated entirely to your own work and group work. Anything you have produced or is your own goes onto this blog.

What is a crit? 

A crit is where you present your work to your group in order to receive helpful feedback, and any suggestions on improving your design work. There are two types of crit:

Interim Crit

An interim crit is halfway between briefing and the deadline. You don’t need a final idea or outcome. Just bring along thumbnail sketches and perhaps a rough mock-up of your idea. The interim crit allows you to present current thoughts and ideas, and receive helpful feedback on which idea to go with.

Final Crit

The final crit is where you present your finished outcome, so make sure your prepared! It is absolutely essential to bring your final outcome with you and that it fits in the guidelines of the brief. Unlike the interim crit, you will be receiving feedback on your final outcome and the  development behind it.

Glossary

Alignment

A term used to refer to the proper positioning of all typefaces and size variations along an imaginary reference line.

Ascender

The part of a lowercase letter, which rises above the main body, as in the letters “b”, “d”, “h”, and “k”.

Baseline

An invisible horizontal line on which the feet of all characters on a line of type are set, used for proper alignment of type.

Bleed

A printed image that extends beyond one or more of the finished page margins and is later trimmed so that the image “bleeds” off the edge of the sheet.

Body Text

The main portion of a book or other document, excluding front matter and back matter

Cap-Height

In typography, the distance from the baseline to the top of the capital letters.

Character

Any letter, figure, punctuation, symbol or space.

Colour swatch

A sample of a specific colour, either printed or stored digitally, used to describe a particular printing ink or combination of printing ink colours.

Crop-Marks

Lines drawn or printed on a photograph, overlay, or printed product to indicate the proper cropping of the image or print in question.

Font

In typography, a set of all characters in a typeface.

Gutter

In typography, the term refers to the space between columns of type,  usually determined by the number and width of columns and the overall width of the area to be filled.

Kerning

In typography, the reduction of letter-spacing between certain character combinations in order to reduce the space between them, performed for aesthetic reasons.

Negative Space

In design, the space not occupied by the text or images.

Palette

The collection of colours or shades available or used in a project, graphic system, or program.

Pantone

A brand-name for a popular colour matching system, or series of printed colour swatches used to match, specify, identify, and display specific colours or coloured ink,

ombinations

Pixel

Shorthand term for picture element, or the smallest point or dot on a computer monitor.

Sans-serif

In typography, characters (or typefaces) without serifs, which are lines crossing the free end of the stroke. “Sans serif” means “without serif”.

Serif

In typography, an all-inclusive term for characters that have a line crossing the free end of a stroke. The term serif refers to both that finishing line and to characters and typefaces that have them.

Tracking

In typography, the adjusting of the letter-spacing throughout a piece of typeset copy.

Typeface

In typography, a specific variation within a type family, such as roman, italic, bold, etc.

Weight

In typography, the lightness or darkness in print of a particular typeface, based upon its design and thickness of line.

Interim Crit

Today, I presented my speaking from experience work in a small group. We discussed each others concepts and whether they work.  They liked my idea, it was suggested that I look into different paper stock as well as book bind techniques and colour. They liked the idea of it being A5 in size. Below I have developed an action plan for the week. 

ACTION PLAN

Tuesday: 

Page Layout Thumbnail 

Wednesday: 

Design page layouts

Thursday

Finalise 
Digital print booked at 6pm

Friday

Bind book together 

OUGD406: Personal Organisation I use

Moleskine Diary

The personal organiser/diary that I use, is this planner moleskine produce, which throughout the year I have found vital and extremely useful. It is an small so I have it on me everywhere I go.. the simple clean layout makes it easy to understand the information on the pages. Plain and simple without pointless info.

Along with the days of the week, the right size is left blank, which is useful for me to note things I need to do and write down any addresses/emails, shopping lists etc.

Another really nice touch are these stickers which makes important deadlines, birthdays stand off the page.

iCal

The iCal application is apples method to personal planning/organisation, it comes with pretty much all apple products. You can label things in different colours, rank things etc...

The yearly page helps distinguish planning over the year, deadlines, holidays etc. 

The daily view gives much more info than on the app, but organises it in a really nice way, giving the user information about the date, month, and events for the day. It is extremely helpful when planning a busy day when a deadline is approaching. 

Monthly overview

This weekly view is helpful for creating a plan of action.

OUGD401: Links

http://issuu.com/vanessacain/docs/book

Here is the link to my book on Issuu 

http://abriefhistoryofwomen1960.tumblr.com/

and my tumblr 

OUGD401: Design Decisions

Design Decisions

Below are my definite design decisions that I have come to which will give my final book a clear aesthetic and easy eye- flow. As my book is on women in the 1960s, this has reflected my design decisions, I have made sure they are appropriate for my publication, by looking into whether the type would be around in the 1960s. 

1. Font

Headers

For my headers I used Bebas Neue, its a punchy clear font.

Folio System

For my folio system I used Cooper Black, purely becauseCooper Black is a heavily weighted, old style serif typeface designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper in 1921 and released by the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler type foundry in 1922. 

The typeface is drawn as an extra bold weight of Cooper Old Style. Though not based on a single historic model, Cooper Black exhibits influences of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and the Machine Age. Cooper Black was a predominant lettering style popularized by Oswald Bruce Cooper in Chicago and the Midwest of America in the 1920s, given typographic form. An earlier weight of Cooper's type designs, Cooper Old Style (later just "Cooper") was released first, though Cooper Black was what BB&S foundry was after. Cooper Black was advertised as being "for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers", as well as "the Black Menace" by detractors.

Notably it was used in Dad's Army during the 60s.

Body Text

I've chosen Didot as my body text as it is a vintage font with a distinct look. 

2. Stock

'Antique White' - A grainy, off-white stock, which will give my images a certain grainy look which I want . I want it to be 

3. Binding Method

Saddle Stitch, give a unique aesthetic. 

4. Size

A5 - Purely because it is a traditional zine size.

OUGD401: Binding Techniques

Binding Techniques

research into different binding methods that would be appropriate for 'A brief history of 1960s women' ... 

Elastic Band

Perfect Bind

Spiral Bound

Stitch

Saddle Stitch

I was thinking of stitching it like above,  I could use different coloured threads to the stock to create an interesting aesthetic like they have done above. This is because I want to show that some care has gone into it, i want the book to be something people want to keep and i don't feel that stapling the book does this. I think it gives it a unique quality and feel to it. 

OUGD401: 1960 Photographs

Revisited

Instead of posting all the images on my blog I have set up a tumblr account that will go along with my book.

http://abriefhistoryofwomen1960.tumblr.com/

Selection of Images

OUGD406: speaking from experience

Brief Re-written

To create a publication for first year graphic design students which will provide time-management tips, calendar, crit info, print methods, basic glossary and design blogs.