The National Fitness Network Part 2

Although the client liked the brand me and Poppy proposed, he felt that it wasn't right for his company, explaining that it looked too much like a sports brand and as the attendees at The National Fitness Network's events will rarely be partaking in any physical activity it was misleading.
The client explained he was imagining circles and dots within the logo and he wanted to use orange and grey as the colour scheme. I began to work to these specifications. 

After spending some time sketching out some ideas and mind mapping around the subjects of fitness and networking I realised there were two ideas that I kept on drawing and as the forms were very simple but geometric in nature I transferred these designs across to digital formats. I sent across the work shown above as I felt that it was developed enough to receive some feedback for.

The client explained that he liked the design made of dots but thought there should be less of them. I continued to work the the line that was made from very simple forms of the initials of the company (example shown above). Looking at the work it had definitely improved but I felt the circle should look more spherical. This gives across the idea of a globe, which makes perfect sense for a networking company.

I changed the size and distribution of the circles and began experimenting further with type and colour. All of these variations I sent across to the client but my personal favourite is displayed below. The use of various different tints of colour and point sizes makes the design flow. The imagery is simple but bold and very transferrable to numerous brand elements. 

I sent the client this design alongside some mock ups of the design in situ. I experimented with various ways to use it on the business card and found that using the top two lines of dots framed the type nicely. 

I sent the colour and type specs for the logo across to the web developer for the design re-haul.

WIP - Restless

The National Fitness Network

Working with Poppy Young, a fellow member of Goat Collective we were tasked with rebranding 'LFX' a fitness networking company. They are completely changing the name and want a new logo design and brand specs to accompany. 

Brief - The National Fitness Network

I am looking for something ‘strong’ and vibrant that reflects the potential size and scale of a national network for people working at all levels of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) fitness industry. 

Something that could appeal to a senior manager/executive or a newbie personal trainer or exercise instructor.

It needs to look current in terms of font etc but must retain an air of professionalism and respectability.

I am particularly interested in having a unique brand ‘mark’ which in time will come to represent the network and will ultimately stand alone. So this needs to be significant and memorable from the moment it is seen! 

With regard to colour and style etc I am open to all suggestions as I have nothing in my mind that would influence a designer. I much prefer for a designer to be as creative as possible and then review things over time.

Current logo

The brief is shown above, the client left it fairly open but provided some good information to work from. 

We began by doing some simple sketches, from these we decided that using a heart rate beat was a fairly strong concept and we wanted to run with this. We had a few compositions in mind from our sketches but due to the angular nature of the forms we moved onto Adobe Illustrator to develop the logo further. 

As the brief defines the mark should be 'unique' and 'significant and memorable'. For this reason we wanted to keep a really clean aesthetic. We saw an opportunity to incorporate the mark we developed with the type. This would mean the type sitting at a 45 degree angle however we saw this as a positive thing. The uncommon placement made the logo more memorable, more forward thinking and also added a sense of movement (directly relating to the company's focus on fitness).

We decided to use a Sans Serif typeface as the client specified he wanted it to look current and retain an air of professionalism. After trying a few fonts we settled on DIN bold. The slightly square aesthetic worked well on the angle and was consistent with the structure of the 'N's'. The use of wide tracking makes the type look less static and balances the composition. 

A tapered line made the logo yet more dynamic and added connotations of speed. It also made the 'N's' more apparent as they seem to be separated from the rest of the line slightly.

After some futher experimentation we decided that within the icon form of the logo the N's should sit on one baseline. It is still essentially the same logo and is very obvious that it is a partner of the wordmark but aesthetically looks more balanced. We feel this slight nuance adds to the overall identity of the company and makes the mark more transferrable. 

We spent some time deliberating the colour scheme we would propose with the logo, eventually deciding that the logo should be displayed in black against white for the primary promotional material e.g. business cards and letterheads. Colour could be added to the logo depending on its application and appropriateness. Shown above are some of the colour options we displayed. This was just to illustrate the versatility in regards to colour. 

Throughout the process me and Poppy worked closely with one another. Every decision we made was a joint one. We developed and discussed every stage together. This is one of the first corporate briefs we have completed under Goat Collectives name and are both happy with the outcome. 

Shown below is the Re brand proposal submitted to the client including mock ups.

Dr Me Workshop Prep

Tomorrow design duo, Dr Me are coming to do a workshop with the class. I have collected some material to collage with. I also decided to look online at Dr Me's work, specifically pieces from their 365 days of collage studio project. I'm looking forward to work with this medium as aI have always enjoyed it in the past but never really spent much time on it. Below are some collage pieces I have been looking at for inspiration. I particularly like the pieces that link almost seamlessly to create one highly contrasting image. 

Day One Brief - YOU!

To start off third year we were asked to make something that communicates yourself as a person. I produced two outcomes, one combing the other, I made a background using Illustrator and Photoshop that included lots of interlinking shapes, stacked shapes and various layers. This was meant to convey how I like to work; with other people and bringing in lots of outside influences. The design is a bit chaotic. This conveys the way in which I work and my personality.

I made this gif incorporating the piece shown above as a background. This was the first thing that popped into my head when we were briefed and this is often the way that I work. I intended it to be humorous and light hearted as I feel this conveys my personality. I worked digitally on this piece but if i was given time I would screen print the background. I want to work across a variety of mediums this year so why not start with a little animation?

SB01 Development

I spent a long time trying to come up with a slogan or tagline for this project. The longer I tried to come up with one, the more I realised how forced and unauthentic slogans really are. This entire project is about getting people to live in the real world and stop being hypnotised by what they are fed on social media, and using a slogan would be employing the tactics of the people the project is attempting to oppose. 

A good friend of mine shares a similar viewpoint to me on this issue and writes spoken word pieces. I contacted her and asked her to put together a piece of writing I could use alongside my imagery. The piece conveyed the message in a really raw authentic form. 

I experimented using collaged images, acetate sandpaper and paint markers to achieve a lo fi aesthetic. The acetate with the cracks and the paint marker on the edges looked really effective.

I printed the text and cut it into strips, this is an aesthetic that I have seen on various punk flyers and I wanted to reappropriate this within my work.

The use of a monotone image also fits with the lo-fi aesthetic I am trying to achieve. I will continue to experiment with composition and develop some more designs in a similar style. 

I laid all of the text out and attempted to make it read properly by the way it was arranged. I used tape to stick the strips of paper down, again producing the lo fi aesthetic I was striving for. This may go on the back of each of the posters.

SB01 Photographs

As this project was based around the overuse of phones and digital media I wanted to use as little digital production as possible. I decided to take all of my photographs on film, this was a risk and unfortunately some of my images did come out blurry but others were exactly how I wanted them. The images had a grainy effect that suited the lo-fi punk rock aesthetic I was aiming for. A few of the unedited images are shown below

OUGD505 - Glitch Experiment

I discovered online that one way to achieve a glitchy effect with an image is to open it in TextEdit and alter the code. Shown above are a few outcomes from my experiments.

OUGD505 - SB01/SB02 Research

I found these images of a broken macbook screen by a photographer on Flickr called James Darling. The textures and colours are really interesting and I may look into incorporating effects similar to this into my work. 

OUGD505 - The Anti-Social Network

I came across this short film directed and written by Shae-Lee Shackleford, an Australian comedy actress. The film sums up the issues that I am trying to tackle with my outcome for studio brief 1.

OUGD505 - SB01 - Concept development

I have already defined the style that I want the posters to be designed in. I have defined that I want to use physical processes and materials and have started looking at designers that work with these processes to make posters. However one key thing that I feel this project is missing is a clear concept that will link all of my ideas. 

After looking back through my notes and reference imagery I decided that the strongest, most flexible visual element to convey my message is a broken screen. This can be used as a metaphor for peoples human relationships and interactions and how technology is destroying (breaking, cracking, smashing) these.

As soon as I decided to focus on smashed screens my ideas all seemed to clean themselves up, I took elements of various previous ideas and combined them with the idea of using broken screens and I very quickly came up with three ideas that I felt were strong.