The use of colour in graphic design

  This book is all about colour in graphics, I found it is very related to this task, it talks a lot theory of colour in graphic design, I read some pages that is related to the task.

  To begin with, it is believed that the array of colours, images and languages that surround us is very large that we keep discovering new meanings to everything that we see everyday. The colour that make people feel unforgettable are natural colours such as sky blue or olive green as they are considered to be common or universal facts which mean they can be change according to the cultural, geographical and historical beliefs. Hence, in the graphic design industry, colour play an important role as it is the major part in the correct reflection of a brand.Also, colour can influence the decisions that you make or the decisions you don’t make. No matter the brand is small or big, colour will not judge based on how much cash you have to start.

  According to the way that our natural senses function, colour is the most influential, after that are Shapes, Symbols, and finally Words. Colour can make a company succeed faster or make bad companies fail faster, for example if a restaurant's logo use a lot of dark black, customers may think the restaurant is dirty and don't want to go. Other than that, if there is too many colours in the design, it can cause people feel messy and not have a sense of direction. Just applying few colours may even better than adding too many colours. Therefore, we can see most branding just have few colours in their designs.

  As I said before, colour change from culture to culture and the impact that a brand has their target audience so each colour has their own meaning. Therefore, the brand need to understand the meaning before apply to the design. Hue is the primary value of a colour and Saturation of a colour is the overall strength or brightness of the colour, while, Value is the lightness or darkness of overall colours schemes.
  I did a research on some popular chosen colours for the branding designs.

• Red – Action, adventure, aggressiveness, love, and strength.
• Blue – Trustworthy, confident, calmness, success, dignity, and security.
• Green – Health, wealth, luxury, nature, and tranquility.
• Yellow – Attention, caution, curiosity, happiness, and positivity.
• Orange – Affordability, drive, energy, youthfulness, and enthusiasm.
• Pink – Femininity, gentleness, gratitude, romance, and appreciation.
• Black – Simplicity, mystery, and tradition.

  I think it is common for restaurant to apply Green in their designs as it means health which can help to attract more customers.

  These two logo is the example of restaurant that mainly using green (Starbucks and  Subway). They also used other colours but not too many.

  Another example, they mainly used red and yellow as red mean love and yellow represent happiness. When I think of love and happiness, I can imagine candy because when we eat candy we will feel very happy and sweet.

  Just looking at these examples, it already show how important for a brand to choose colours for their designs. Therefore, colour is really important in graphic design, if a brand choose a wrong colour, it must fail or close very quick. For example, if I need to design the layout for a book or poster, etc, I won't use black or dark colour for my font if the background is already in a dark tone, otherwise people won't be able to read the words.

RGB and CMYK

  RGB is a system that represent the colours to be used on a computer display by using Red, Green and Blue. It can be combined in various proportions to obtain any colour in the visible spectrum. The level of R, G and B can each range from 0 to 100 percent of strength. Meanwhile, based on the RGB knowledge, When combined, red and green light rays create yellow, blue and green make cyan, red and blue produce magenta. Red, green and blue mix to create white (light).

  CMYK is considered as the "upside-down"version of the RGB". However, RGB is mainly for computer displays, while CMYK is used for printed colour illustrations (hard copy- printed paper). C stands for cyan, M stands for magenta, Y stands for Yellow and K stands for Key. In the print industry, cyan, magenta, yellow and black are used as the primary colours, when mixing all colours, it becomes grey. 

Pantone

  The first picture is the location that I choose for this project, the reason that I choose this location is because this is the place where I live, it is a street in Leeds that call "Springfield Mount" and I selected a part to focus.

  I found ten swatches from this image. Just looking at the sky from the image, I found different "Blue"such as White blue or Milky blue. After that, I looked at the building, I found brown red, dark grey and beige(from the windows). At last, I looked at the ground, I found a range of grey and some brown colour.

  After I picked different swatches, I found that it was very amusing because by just focusing a part from an image, can already find some totally different colours such as beige and dark grey, the brightness are totally different. Therefore, I arrange them from brightness to darkness to create a gradation. I believe it would look interesting if the book is in a gradation tone. 

Klein Blue

  Klein Blue is a deep blue hue that mixed by a French artist Yves Klein. The letter "IKB" represent International Klein Blue. Klein started to make monochromes  in 1947, it results attaining the creative freedom. In the early time, the works have an uneven surface, later on, such as the present work, are finer and more uniform in texture. 

  Klein suggested that this colour had a quality close to pure space and he believed it is related with immaterial values over what can be seen or touched. In 1957, Klein said that IKB could be maximised which could  create a rich velvety texture and an unusual appearance of depth. In the same year of his exhibition in Milan, he displayed 11 very similar blue monochromes and he said "Each blue world of each painting, although the same blue and treated in the same way, presented a completely different essence and atmosphere.". Hence, even we may see a lot of colours that very similar or even look like the same, however, it doesn't, it can create something that totally different.

  

  Nowadays, not only tradition methods can create Klein Blue, IKB has been digitalise, we can apply IKB in digitally. We can make IKB in different software by entering their RGB or CMYK values. For the RGB, "Red" is 0, "Green" is 47 and "Blue" is 167. It results "Hue" is 223, "Saturation" is 100, while "Brightness" is 65. For the CMYK, "Cyan" is 100, "Magenta" is 90, "Yellow"is 0 and "Black" is 0. By entering these values, we can easily to apply IKB to our digital designs.

Study task 2 (Make my designs digitally)

  After I scanned my sketches into my laptop, I traced it to illustrator and then made more details to some designs for example adding different colours to it or duplicated and replaced them. Actually, I really like the idea that cutting letterforms and replace them to form a pictogram as it looks the simplest and easiest to understand.

  And then, I did a simple mock-up to display my designs on a wall in a street in Leeds.

  As you can see it looks similar with graffiti for the first one so I tried to make it simpler which is the second one (mainly worked with black). However, I like the first one more as it looks more attractive. Also, on the floor, there has some arrows that I made with the letter "Q" (cut and replace).

  

  In the third mock-up, I just mainly put the "Beauty" pictograms on the wall which is totally different with the first two. 

Study task 2 (Objective Symbols of Subjective Things)

  In this task, we were asked to use only shape and colour, apply our developing understanding of pictograms and symbols to develop a series of visual symbols to effectively give the subjective the appearance of the objective. First of all, I choose three adjectives to work on which are Ecstasy, Beauty and Sensuous.

  And then I searched the meaning of these words as I want to try to see if there have any inspiration for me to design the pictogram for these words. After that, I got some ideas, for example, "make up" items can represent Beauty so I drew some make up items to represent the word beauty. Also, drugs can be the best example to fit the word Ecstasy. Moreover, as one of my word I choose is Sensuous so I want to be "attractive" due to the meaning of the word. Hence, I drew some magnet with an eye which trying to represent "attract people's focus".

  These are some examples in this task, I tried to cut from the letter "W" and replace them to form something, also I tried to use continuous line to draw the pictogram. Moreover, I tried to use type to stick some pictogram, however, the output weren't good as I thought.

Joseph Albers

 Josef Albers is an American painter, who related with Bauhaus. His legacy as a teacher of artists because of his extensive theoretical works proposing that colour other than form which is the primary medium of visual language. He was born in 19 March 1888 and he died in 25 March 1976.
Josef Albers believe that a colour a colour has many faces, and one colour can be made to appear as two different colours. In order to prepare for the second part of the demonstration, Albers suggested to cut out in red and white colour paper into 2 equal circles and dot the center point with black. By looking at the red circle for few minutes and then shift the focus suddenly to the white circle. It is called "Afterimage Effect".
  Moreover, Josef Albers often used shapes instead of realistic images to display his colour as he wanted the colour interaction to be the main focus so he used simple shapes. He did a series of paintings which named “Homage to the Square”, he only used squares but not other shapes. It is because he believed that squares are true and still, also is manmade shape which makes him feel more interest to use.
  He suggested that mountains in a film look blue from far away. Also, looking the pool close, it is visible and clear, however, when looking deeper or farther into the pool, things become darker and the water looks thicker. It appears that it is getting thicker at a constant rate but it isn't.
  Josef Albers also explained the fluting effect, it can be further extended if we make from dark(from left) to light(from right), it results extremely contrast.

Study task 01

(Video)

 In this task, we worked as a group to create a wayfinding and see how people reaction. In my group, we used balloons as a sign and we put them on the floor and see how people reaction for example would they kick the balloon? or  would they pick up the balloon? etc. Actually, we wanted to stick the balloons on the floor, however, there was a heavy rain on that day so we couldn't stick the balloons. Hence, we designed to just put the balloons on the floor. We put different colours of balloons because it looks more attractive, we want to attract people focus. Actually the result was quite good because in the video, we can see some people kicked the balloons and used their head to hit the balloons.
  Actually, there are different meaning of the symbols using in the signs. The square give a feeling of ceiling, walls, protection, etc because of the four points of the compass. While, the circle can make people feel more interesting compare with square form, it looks more like a command. For example sun, moon, football or balloons, etc. An arrow is a direction pointer in a sign system.

  By using balloons in our first studio task, we can attract more people and easier to get their reactions. In the book "Signs and Symbols", it said "With a greater effort of the imagination, calling up spherical volume, one is reminded of a ball or balloon.". So we used balloons. However, I think we can try to put something else on the balloon next time for example, we can draw something on the balloons or stick some paper on the balloons so that it can has something to look as well.

What is Supergraphic??

 What is SuperGraphic?

  - Large (billboard sized or bigger) graphic

  - They're usually simple, bright and abstract

  - Can alter how we feel about the size and shape of a space

  - Usually painted on walls, floors, ceilings

The Supergraphic in the MK Gallery

  I found that Supergraphic is really easy to read and understand which usually just used some simple shapes for example rectangle and straight line. It mainly used brighter colour for the background such as orange, red or yellow with the white colour texts. 

What is wayfinding

What is Wayfinding?

  The simplest definition of wayfinding is the Navigation from place to place which can show you the direction, where are you or where are you heading to. The main function of wayfinding is to inform people of the surroundings in the build environment so that it can help to guide people to a right direction.

  To be an effective wayfinding system, it has to based on human behavior. It shouldn't make them think which mean the system should be comprehensive, clear and consistent visual communication system with simple messaging. Also, an effective wayfinding system should only show what is needed, Show information which relevant to the space, location and navigation path.

Module evaluation

  In this module, I improved and learn different skills which can enhance my further practice. As this is my first module over this course so I felt very excited because it is really different with my foundation course from last year. For example, we are not just describe a work, we have to analysis it critically which mean we also have to give reasons that why we make that decision. I think it is really important to have about three crits per a studio brief because it is the main way for us to get feedback. Feedback is really important and helpful to us because it is the opinion or suggestion that after people looked at our designs. So we can understand which part is good and which part need to improve or change after looking at feedback from the crit. Compare with my foundation course, I really like the format of the crit because I couldn’t have a chance like this to get feedback from my foundation course so it is really useful for my study.

  In my first studio brief, I felt really excited as we were given a word randomly and had to design a logotype based on the random word. To be honest, I felt very challenging at the beginning of the course because English isn’t my first language so I need to pay more attention than others. Luckily my classmates are very nice to me, so I tackled some difficulties and started to enjoy the brief. Generally in this brief, I really like the productions it looks better than what I thought so I am proud of myself about that. As I am not very good at Illustrator. However, after the Illustrator induction, I improved a lot of my Illustrator skill. I learned some new knowledges from the brief like kerning and critical analysis which I didn’t learn in my foundation course.

  In the second brief, we were supposed to have a harder brief because we learned something in the first brief and we should apply those things to our second brief as well. Therefore, we were asked to produce our own typeface from A~Z, not just few letters. I think it is really funny and a good practice for me to improve my knowledge because it was a good task as I could use the skill that I learned from studio brief 1 which is “kerning”, I could designed my typeface by using kerning so I could experience it more which can help me understand more about kerning. During the task, I understand more about the characteristics of most typeface so that it can enhance my understanding and can apply to my feature study as I didn’t know much about different typefaces and different types of serif before. Overall, I am quite proud with my works because I was able to use the skills that I learned from the first brief to the second brief.

  However, I think I should plan my time better in both studio brief because I think I didn’t use the time wisely in both brief. I hope I can use my time better to work in my brief so that I can do my works better. Moreover, I need to ask more questions if I have anything that I don't understand. I think it is because I am afraid to ask questions in front of class so I really want to improve this.

Evaluation Studio Brief 2

  In this studio brief, I think it is more complicated than the last studio brief because we have to design our own full typeface in this brief, not just a few letters. However, I found it is really funny and a good practice for me to improve my knowledge. At the beginning, I didn’t know much about different typefaces and different types of serif but after I did some research, I can understand the characteristics of most typeface, it can enhance my understanding and can apply to my feature study, for example, when I have to design a poster, I know which typeface is the most suitable to apply. Bondoni is a good choice because it mainly used for displays, posters, headlines and logos,especially 
in the fashion scene. During this brief, I did about three crit and I displayed my outputs in the final crit and asked for feedback. In the final crit, I asked two questions.

1: When you look at the typeface, do you feel friendly?
2: What do you think about the idea apply to Casino?

  Many people said they feel very lucky when they looked at my typeface because of the horseshoe. However, some people suggested me to think about applying to other things other than Casino. In order to improve my work, I think it will also be a good idea to apply in "Horse Racing" as it is also similar to Casino, people want to be lucky so that they can get money from the horse racing. Also it is match with my idea with "Horseshoe". Overall, I think I can do better next time because my time planning in this brief wasn’t good enough, I planned to do the lower case as well but because I didn’t use the time correctly in sometime so I wish to improve this in the following brief. Overall, I enjoyed work in this brief because it is so amazing that we created our own typeface. Also, I worked more in Illustrator. Hence, I improved the skill of using Illustrator which is good for my future practice but I hope I can plan my time working on the task better so that I can produce upper case, lower case or even numerals.

Physical outputs

  As I want to display my typeface in a better way, I printed my typeface in different materials.

  I printed the poster in A3 paper because it can show my typeface clearly, if I just print in A4 size, people cannot see the details clearly. Other than just print my typeface in a A3 white paper, I printed it in some colour card paper because I think it would look better and more attractive if I print in something else other than just white paper. I printed my full typeface in a yellow and red card paper. I really like the one that the black typeface with the red card paper, I think it looks very clearly and easy to read. While, in the yellow one, I tried to development with my full typeface more, I made the typeface look like watermark. However, I think the middle one was failed as it looks too bold and unclear. Generally, I tried to avoid just printing in white paper because it looks too simple if I just print in white paper so I printed my typeface in different style with different materials. 

Productions with my typeface

  I created different things to show how my typeface work. I think it is really fun because designing a thing using my own typeface, I feel very proud of myself as I always use original typefaces to design things before. However, I use my own typeface and created different things this time so I feel really happy about that.

  This is my first production with my typeface,  I made this “Casino” logo  by my typeface. I quite like that because I used a new function that I learned from the Illustrator induction which is “Brushes”. I drew a straight line and then made it to an arrow brushes and then made a small curve with “Envelope distort”. This function allow me to create some decoration to the logo. I think I will use a lot of this function in my further practice. I designed the colour in a dark red gradient because I did some research about casino before and it shows that inside the Casino is quite dark, I think dark red is really suitable in this case because it seems a quiet colour but very cool. Also, red is energising which can encourage players.I want to give a message to people which is “Good Luck”. Hence I put a horseshoe at the top.

As I know, Casino have a member club which benefit players a lot such as cash bonuses  or free gifts. I made three different class of membership which are “Classic”,”Black” and the highest class”Gold”. Each class of membership have different benefits. Of course, higher class can get more benefits.  For the physical output, I printed in a very thick card because it is a membership card so it cannot be in paper, also if it is only in paper, it will break very easily.

  I made a "Casino Night" poster. In this poster, I designed a dark tone because as I said before, inside the Casino is quite dark so I made this poster in dark red tone. I created the symbol of poker and set them as the background so that the whole poster seem like a Casino poster more.

  Overall, I think my typeface work in Casino quite well because it fully show "lucky" to players.

Final Full typeface

       

          

  These are my full typeface with my final rationale. Generally, the typeface is quite bold because "Lucky" representing super happy emoji which looks bold and smile which can give strong impression to players. Also, designing a typeface for display use, I think it would be better if the typeface is in bold so that it can display clearly. I really like this typeface because it fully related to my chosen adjective "Lucky" I think the typeface look smoothly and active because of the wide curves which is really good to applying for logotype.

Final Rationale

Adjective: Lucky

  After I developed both ideas in digital form, I like the first idea with horseshoe more because it looks more lucky and attractive. It Inspired by Clarendon, Clarendon were designed as bold faces to accompany text composition. It is good for displaying so my typeface is a logotype, I will apply my typeface for the logo brand for a Casino so that it can match with my adjective as everyone want to be lucky in Casino. Generally, my typeface apply to Casino can let people feel relax and lucky because all letters are mainly inspired by horseshoe which can give strong impression or confident to players because the horseshoe symbol represent lucky. To fully show how typeface work, I will produce things by using my typeface for example logo, poster.

Second idea in digital development

  For my second idea, I looked at Univers because of its clean style font which is suitable for a formal way. I typed A~Z in upper case using the Univers typeface. As I wanted to join the dice into the typeface, I looked at a dice and I found that the dot from the dice is very interesting and it can represent dice. I looked at Univers due to it clean style which is same as a dice, don’t have a wide curve.

  For example the letter "A", I changed the details of the Univers typeface, I covered the triangle by a small rectangle and then clicked "Pathfinder" with "Unite". After that, I made a circle from the centre and divided to different parts. At last, I deleted the circle at the centre so that the empty circle look like the dot of the dice.

  For some letters, I want to make it quite special because I wanted to make some different with others but it also represent dice. So I just picked some letters randomly. For example the letter "J", there are some quite wide curves but actually the are the circle. I want to give a message that "Lucky is a cycle". I believe everyone don't just want to be lucky only one time, so I designed a half circle at the top, another circle in other place , etc.  And the letter "J" is really a good letter to represent the cycle because the "J" is from top to down and then return from the bottom to upper.

My second idea of the output of the full typeface in black and white.

First idea in digital development

  This is my first trial in digital form. However, some of the letter are quite different with my sketching ideas because after I traced the sketches to illustrator and drew it, I didn't like the output,  they look quite different than what I imagine so I just redesign it. Also, some letters have different typeface because I am not sure which one is better than the others. Therefore, I will ask opinions from my classmate or during the critique. Actually my typeface is mainly inspired by the horseshoe. However, I faced a problem, some letters don't have any curve such as "I" or "H". Hence, I felt quite difficult to develop it. 

  For example this letter "I", my sketching idea is the right one but it does't look exactly the same as what I want so I just looked again to the horseshoe and see how can I design with the letter.

  I think the top of the horseshoe is a good idea for me to redesign the letter. I joined two part together and made it straight to form the letter "I". It was really a good experience for me because if I face this problem again in the feature (not look exactly what I expect in digital form), at least I have this experience help to tackle the difficulties.

  I made it just in black and white because I want to show how does it look like in black and white.

Group critique(2) response

  After the critique, I focused to do some research with the horseshoe. The reason that horseshoe is considered as lucky is because horseshoe is made by iron which is a strong metal that keep fire, this gave a strong resemblance of strength and power. 

  Where do horseshoe appear in the past?
- For example, in Mexico, horseshoes are used to create a “El Secreto de la Virtuosa Herradura” (the secret of the virtuous horseshoe) which is a large amulet. 
- Another example, in Turkey and adjacent areas of Greece, the horseshoe is used as a magical protecting agent against the evil eye which is a look given by a person who is envious or dislikes you that is said to cause you harm or bad luck.

  Where do horseshoe appear nowadays?
- Nowadays, horseshoe usually appear in the Casino game "Slot"

- Also, it may appear in jewelry, like the past, it also use to be an amulet.

 But I still like the idea with Casino, it seems more interesting. I really hope I can get more feedback in the final critique to make my design better.