Bookbinding, Tate Modern and more limited addition bottles

Wow I didn't realise it had been so long since I last updated! It would take faaar too long to update on everything I've wanted it to, so i'll just narrow it down to a few things for now.

First of all, i'll start with bookbinding. When we were first given our bookbinding project, I never realised how interesting an art it actually is. Now I have only been taught 2 techniques currently. Signature binding and perfect binding. Below are scr

eenshots of the techniques that I typed up for anyone who wants to give it away. I'll try and upload the diagram version soon as well.

(The second image is actually the start to stop any confusion, I can't seem to get them to go the other way around!)

Now I didn't use either of these techniques for my own book, but only because neither would have worked for what I wanted. So instead I went and got it spiral bound. Which for only £3 turned out really well!

So thats how my book turned out. The front and back paper is a sort of opaque tracing paper with a 'distress' pattern on it that I bought in a small card shop in Cheltenham town. The actual pages are printed on double sided satin paper. I bought this for about £25 from photopaperdirect.com. Now granted they got me the paper in 2 days, however I wasn't impressed by the fact that the packaging protecting it was open when it to me, therefore all the corners of the paper were bent, so I wouldn't recommend that site.

I found this blog whilst searching for bookbinding info: http://myhandboundbooks.blogspot.com and its an absolute minefield of tutorials, information and just general inspiration for bookbinding and design. 

Not only did we have to bind our books but we also had to do all the layouts for the inside. A great book I found for this was 'The Graphic Designers Guide to Visual Communication' (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/2880468108/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A1PNGZ27080QU) It's fantastically laid out, with great quality photos of a whole range of products from different designers. I will definately be adding it to my bookshelf when I can afford to. David Carson was also someone I looked at for his magazine layouts.

Moving on to the Tate Modern. They have an exhibition opening on 12th Feb, running until May 17th, featuring the works of Aleksandr Rodchenko and Liubov Popova. I'd say this was well worth a trip for any graphic designer. This is the section for it on the Tate website: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/rodchenkopopova I'll be definately making my way to London in the next few weeks to see this!

Lastly, since getting the limited addition coke bottle in the last post, I recently picked up another limited addition bottle. This time for Frijj milkshake. They bought out a new limited addition flavour (vanilla) and I had to buy it just for the bottle design.

It's done in black and white, with this kind of scribbling effect done on some of the text. The bottles also got one of those really nice, matt feels to it, rather than the normal smooth and shiney bottles. And just as a bonus - the flavour is REALLY nice! The normal bottle designs are done by the London based design agency Ziggurat Brands (www.zigguratbrands.com) but I can't seem to find if this was done by them or by another agency/designer.

I think i'll leave it at that for now. My deadline for the book is Friday, so from then till Tuesday I have some free days so there will possibly be another update then!

xx

essays and coke bottles...

Just a short update of the past few days I've had while I have the chance. Handed in my last module a few days ago so I've had a few days rest before the next one started up today! More about that in a sec. First I wanted to talk about something I found in London when I went a few days ago...

You know it's christmas when they release the new christmas themed coke bottles! Now I haven't been able to find any information on it like who the designer is, but I will keep looking. I just love the designs around the bottom:

Not the best picture I'll admit, but you can sorta make out the swirls representing snow/wind, against a purple skyline. I actually had trouble getting hold of this, as the barman thought i was gonna bottle someone with it. I don't think he bought my 'I'm a designer!' story. The lengths we go to.

Anyway. I'm currently writing a 1500 word essay for my course on the designer April Greiman. Never heard of her before she was bought up in one of my lectures, and shes a pretty interesting woman. She was the first designer to embrace the use of the apple mac for design so that's gotta at least put her on the map! And she works in all medias as well including posters, t.v, 72ft. tall murals ( http://www.xymara.com/inmyx/index/inmyx408/act-200804-index/act-200804-mural.htm) but trying to condense down her life into 250 words is whats causing issues. She's done a lot of stuff! If you like abstract, and pretty random looking stuff then I'd advise you to check out her work sometime. Or even get hold of one of her books!

Even though Monday's are usually my day off, we all got called in for the day today to kick start our next module: 'moving image'. We had 2 people from Aardman Studios (Creature Comforts, Wallace & Gromit etc. check their website for more info: (http://www.aardman.com/) and we spent most of the day watching the first 5 or so minutes of animated films, and a few shorts such as 'Oktapodi' (http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/09/02/votd-oktapodi/) and 'Pib and Pog (http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/pib_pog/). We were given our brief which is to create a 10 second animation featuring some kind of communication between a bird and a human, and we ended the day doing some very quick scrapbook type collages of our initial ideas for the brief. It was so interesting to see everyones different interpretations, done in the same 3 colours (we only had 3 different coloured papers) and when put together in a slideshow by our tutor they looked a lot like a storyboard of their own!

Talking of storyboards, one of te guys from Aardman bought along some of her sketchbooks showing her storyboards and character designs. They blew me away. And she started off doing a graphic design degree. Another career possibility added to the list!

Lastly, I bought a fantastic book when I visited London called 'The History of Advertising'. It may not be brimming with information, but it has all the basic features of each timeframe from the 1800's up to 2005. It's got amazingly clear images, and at the start of each chapter it lists the pioneers of that time frame i.e design agencies. Either buy it, or find it in your local library. Either way it does have some useful information in it, especially if you are feeling drawn to a career in advertising (obviously).

Next update will probably be an update of the list of books, websites etc I've got running, seeing as over the next few weeks I will be doing a lot of animation based research, so keep checking back for that update!

The wonders of technology...

Just a quick entry, after a HECTIC 3 days trying to finish my project, eventually coming to the conclusion: NEVER TRUST TECHNOLOGY.

Now this has been drilled into our heads since day 1, don't leave printing to the last minute, back your work up in like twenty thousand different places etc. etc. and yes I listened but as usual I never thought it would happen to me. THOUGHT WRONG. When it takes you from 9 in the morning, to half 3 in the afternoon to print 4 A3 pages, you know somethings not quite right. I went through a total of 3 printers, 6 hours of studio time, and 10 sheets of 2 different types of paper to print said 4 sheets of a3. All the while having to endure the sight of my lecturer doing the classic 'I told you so' face. Ok, so I got off lightly printing so badly last minute that it wasn't even funny. HOWEVER. Not all was bad. Having gone through said sheets of paper, I eventually sucked it up and bought some expensive stuff and boy was it worth it. The conclusion being, I now have a 'printing' save pot where all loose change goes, for future catastrophies such as today.

Now, it's not just printers. You gotta watch out for the temperamental apple macs too. Theres always one in the group that wants to be different, and decides its high time that all your work corrupts a wonderful 2 days before your deadline. But I was prepared for this one, with the spare memory stick I take around with me. A valid lesson I learnt from college, and one that I reccomend everyone doing. Yes you can back up on laptops as well, but having an extra usb tucked away in the depths of your bag can sometimes be a lifesaver!

On a side note, it's funny how all these incidents can bring people together. For example, theres now 3 people I know that I have never spoken to in my life, that I spent 12 hours of my life with yesterday trying to finish my project. It's amazing what a little bit of panic can do to a group of people!

No real updates on books, pens etc. This week has been soley focused on the project at hand. Next up: Motion graphics...fun.

A Month in....

It's been a while since I've updated, but that's not for lack of content. It's lack of time. Talk about an intense course!

Anyway, I'd like to start this entry with a small bit of advice for anyone going into further education next year. If you've done any research into graphic design courses, you may have noticed that some are called 'Graphic Design', whilst others are called 'Graphic Communications'. Ask you're tutor and they're likely to tell you that they're exactly the same course (mine did anyway) but in talking to some of my fellow coursemates from college I've come to the conclusion that this is a blatent lie. ALL GRAPHIC DESIGN COURSES ARE DIFFERENT. Pretty obvious you would think? Different university=different courses. Ok, so maybe it was just me that was oblivious to this small fact but still. It still came as a shock to me to find out just how different 2 courses studying the same subject can be so damn different. For example. My mates living it up in Cardiff, at UWIC university studying Graphic Communications. Her whole group has been split in half and they're currently studying 2 different things-typography and image. Here at The University of Gloucestershire, I've already on my second main module brief, and they both combined typography and image! Noticing the differences yet? Another thing, theres an awful lot more theor behind her course it seems, whereas mine is very....ideas based. I'd like to sit here and say the way my uni does it is the right way, but that would be pretty childish. It just makes me wonder if we scan over small points like this when applying for uni. Is it things we should have noticed beforehand? Or are they differences that only crop up when you finally arrive? Who knows. But the point of this (rather hefty) paragraph is this: do as much research into your chosen universities as you can. Pick up on these differences, any you could be on your way to making an even better judgement than you would before.

Ok moving on, I'd like to update with some designers, websites etc. that I've come across in the last few weeks that I think every budding designer should be aware of!

Designers:
-Alex Steinweiss: A must if you're interested (as I am) into designing music graphics. He was the first designer to put images on album covers, and his book "For the Record" features practically all of his designs right through the times. Some even sow how he worked them up from traditional media into digital. A definate must-read I would say.
-Samuel Flores: I was wary of putting him in with a list of designers, because his work is very illustration based. But this just makes him an interesting designer to study. With his own indiviual style, his work is easily reognised-the sign of a true designer.
E. McKnight Kauffer: An early designer, for anyone interested in the history of graphic designer. His work has a hint of modernity in it, what with its briht colours and simple shapes. He also did a series of clothes tags for anyone interested in the fashion side of design.
David Carson: One of the most well known typographers of his time. Every designer should be aware of his work. Thats all that needs to be said on him.

Books:
-"Taes Logos": One of the best logo design books I've come across in my uni's extensive library. All logos are categorised, and for a small book full of a ton of images they're all still of a decent size. Great for inspiration.
-"Handwritten: Expressive Lettering": One of the books on my christmas list. The title says it all really. A good read for anyone who wants to specialise in typography, and wants their work to stand out.
-"Stop Stealing Sheep": A weird title, for a fantastic read. Talks you through every element to type there is, including how it's used, when type was created and how to decide what fonts to use and when. I was stuck from front to back, and it taught me a lot of information that I took in easily due to it's easy to understand format.
My group have been given an extensive book list, of books they recommend we read. I'm currently making my way through the list slowly. And will update with any books I felt were particularly good.

Websites:
www.myfonts.com: Particularly the 'whatthefont' feature. It basically allows you to find any font used within a logo. For example, if you have a findness for Dove cosmetics logo, you can upload their logo to the site, and it will find the closest font to the one used. Clever huh!
www.ffffound.com: This site is cram packed with images. And that's not even an exaggeration. Taken directly from the site: "FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!" I won't go into any more detail here, so I suggest you go check the site out for yourself :)
www.universaleverything.com: Interesting for the fact that not only are the people who run the websites quite local to me, but they've never had any education in graphic design. They purely got their work out there by this website, and began to get a name for themselves. Pretty impressive if you ask me. As is their work.

Ok I'll stop there for now. Leave the others for a future update.

Moving on to markers (again!). I decided it was about time I experimented with a different type rather than just my copics. My workplace back in Trowbridge currently has a clearance sale on the markers called 'Tombo's'. They're dual tip, one end being a brush pen and the other being a bit like a felt tip-the first difference between these and my copics. I bought a couple different colours, and did some of my graphic work using them instead. The brush end is a joy to use, possibly nicer than the copic brush end. They just seem to flow across the page. However, it is slightly harder to get colour depth with the Tombos, although it is possible. Without a block end, it's harder to cover large blocks of colour, so there the copics are handy. But the felt tip end allows for slighter dabs of colour that the brush end couldn't handle. In conclusion? Have a few of both if you can, as they each do different tasks. This doesn't mean I'll be forgetting my belowed copics though. They're still my ideal choice!

And finally. I'd just like to talk about an experience I had in one of my studio days last week. To cut a long story short, my tutor told me he was worried I was thinking too much and not writing any of it down. He suggested I go away and write down EVERYTHING that was in my head, according to the subject I was trying to design posters for. He told me that it would help clear my head, to make it easier for fresh ideas to crop up. And you know what? It actually worked! Yes I felt a tad crazy doing it. But who cares if it gave me some pretty decent ideas that my tutor liked as well. This is now a pretty daily routine of mine, if I ever get over-stressed with my work. It's highly likely to be a technique I keep with me the rest of my life. Try it, you might be suprised.

Ok, I'm done for the day. That's a pretty long update already, and I don't want readers to start getting bored! I have no idea when I'm next going to get the chance for an update of this size, or even an update in general, so just keep checking back!

Finally here...or there for now?

Well, I got myself to uni, alive and well. And within freshers week(!) we were given our first project...

"Describe 'G' as in Graphic Design."

Yes that's all we got given. So now I have to fill an A3 sheet of what I believe graphic design to be, in the form of G's. Or something along those lines anyway.

So good old wiki came to play, and I spent an hour looking at the history of the letter G (yes it does have a history, a boring one mind) and any graphic terms beggining with the letter. There's not many.

And now I'm sat surrounded with pieces of A4 paper and scribbles of ideas all over them. Talk about testing my brain.

On another note, I did some copic testing using a few of the tutorials I posted last time, and I must say, it didn't turn out half as bad as expected! The tutorial I found helped me most was this one: http://www.mangarevolution.com/tutorial_display.php?tutorial_id=171 which I just realised I never originally posted...oops! But there it is anyway. Mine doesn't look much like that, I simplified it an AWFUL lot for my first attempt, therefore it turned out very...basic looking. Ahh well. Practice practice.

Now I best get back to my G's. Next update shall be with my next project no doubt!

Graphic markers?

New post finally, and it was inspired by the new "The Art of Wall.E" book that I got for my brithday, of all things. It features some absolutly FANTASTIC marker done drawings, of different stages of the films design process. And they inspired me. So, I went on a hunt for tutorials.

During this hunt, the first thing I came across was a site detailing all the good things and the bad about the different brands.

http://www.elfwood.com/farp/markers2/

I myself have a growing selection of copics bought from the only local store I know that sells them. But I never really learnt how to use them, so I thought it's high time I learnt. So here are some of the best tutorials I found.

First off then, some more beginner/basic ones:

http://toounit.deviantart.com/art/Too-s-Tutorial-Marker-Basics-29151189

Includes how to take care of your markers (copics in this case), and then a very thorough step by step tutorial of colouring a female.

http://myblogbycammie.blogspot.com/2008/08/anyone-can-color-copic-marker-tutorial.html

From another blog, this seems pretty simple at first, but you gotta start small right? And it also shows how to use the colourless blender effectively which many don't seem to use. Aaand it makes a change from a manga drawing =)

And some more advanced tutorials:

http://www.sheezyart.com/view/208180/

Is explained well and in detail, but I would think you need to know some of the basics first. Uses Prismacolour and Tria markers.

http://www.designertechniques.com/tutorials/markrandallmarkerrender01-page1.htm

And finally, a much more advanced tutorial, for rendering a car. Steps are written in detail, but seems like something best done by people with practice.

In the next post, I may well post my experiences with following these tutorials, and how successful I was, like a review in a way. Seeing as I only have 5 days till I leave for university, I could do with some last minute practice!

A pretty good blog to follow

Hey all, first update is here at In Design.

During my reaseach, I came across the following blog that I personally think is a mine of useful information:

http://www.graphicdesignblog.co.uk/

It's written by a freelance designer (I think) and if you look down the right side, all the posts are categorised into sections such as design books that are reccommended, and information about education. This is also the sort of blog that I'm aiming for (obviously it won't be as big) for all those following a similar path to me.

Bear in mind, I'm still relatively inexperienced with the whole blog writing thing =) As I get more into the swing of things posts will probably grow and be slightly more personal to me! This of course, will also come when I actully get to uni, when I have lectures and briefs to talk about!

More updates soon x