Final Team Meeting – Video Draft

The final team meeting was used to share our completed products and give comments for the final drafting process.There was not much to discuss in regards to either the poster or the video, as they were already consistent in style and essentially complete. There were a few minor adjustments that needed to be made to smooth out the animations before the deadline which have since been made.

During this meeting I took the opportunity to get a final draft copy of the show logo, to include in the final portion of the video. As the final venue and date had not been confirmed yet, we decided to use the latest information available to us. This information can be updated if the details change.

At this point, I was satisfied with my own progress as well as the team’s as a whole and just wanted to ensure that we had everything polished and ready for completion.

 

Initial Ideas

To prepare for the development of the promotional video experiments, and the drafting process, I noted down my initial ideas.

First, as a possible way to present the names of all participants, I considered the possibility of having all the names fly across the screen, similar to one of the videos in my research. This then led to the idea of perhaps making the names see as if they had been thrown into the air and fall back down again, like graduation hats being thrown.

To portray the number of different careers participants were aspiring to, I thought about having the words ‘We are’ static, followed by a flipping or rotating job role, transitioning from one to another. Though would condense the information in a way that would remain easy to read and visually engaging.

I knew that name of the show and the venue would have to be part of the video. I decided that initially this would come at the end, along with the logo.

Thinking about what I wanted to convey in the video, I listed some adjectives that may be of use later when coming up with further idea. Some of these were drawn from the exercise we carried out when deciding upon the brand name:

• Creative
• Collaborative
• New
• Fresh
• Bold

Promo Video Experiments

To have a visual example of the type of transitions I was thinking of using for the promotional video, I conducted a few experiments to share with the team. We had discussed the relevant information we wanted the video to get across, with an emphasis on the variety of specializations within our course. To achieve this, I thought a good visual way to each job role would be to ‘flip’ the text to the beat of music. The second experiment was focused more on visually communicating the connotations of our brand. For these to be developed further, all necessary elements of our brand style will need to be decided upon.

 

Second Team Meeting – Research & Experiments

As scheduled, there was a second team meeting on the 15th for sharing research and initial experiments. This is where I shared my brand style experiments and the research I had done for both my own side of the project and for the posters to help generate discussion.

This meeting was very productive, using our research to pull out aspects that we liked and to share our opinions. The discussion remained on topic and professional, which led to some good ideas and a firmer cohesion of our collective styles.

Whilst we did not choose to develop my logos any further, the ‘sliced’ style I had used on the word Above has been adopted in future iterations. We suggested some further changes for the logo that we did adopt, such as changing the background texture to something more subtle.

During the end of this meeting, we resolved to continue staying on track and reaffirmed our goals for the next meeting. Between then, I said that I would produce some motion graphic experiments now that we had a firmer idea of our brand style.

Brand Identity

 

Colour Palette

To help establish a consistent brand style, I took the colours used in some of the team’s mockups and created a suggestive colour palette. This was approved by the rest of the team, and so was adopted as the brand’s colour palette for the time being.

Typography

The type faces chosen to represent the show are Wicked Grit and Pacifico. These were used by another team member when creating logo drafts, and were eventually adopted by the whole team.

Textures

During our first team meeting, we decided to use a flat and minimal style. However, to avoid our work looking too ‘digital’, we also experimented with applying textures to our designs. Our first thoughts on this were to use a paper or cardboard style, to play on the word ‘cut’ with cutouts of the texture. After experimentation, our textured style drifted towards a subtle ‘grunge’ paper theme.

Initial Brand Style Experiments

 

In preparation for our team meeting on Sunday, I experimented with a few logo designs to suggest an initial brand style. The main reason for doing this was because we needed to decide on an overall style and typeface before we could begin to produce our drafts.

There had been some discussion about relating the word ‘cut’ to arts and crafts, and using a more natural (and perhaps papery) style, as opposed to something that felt very digital. That is why I decided to experiment with masking paper textures, although there is still room for further development.

Poster Research – Part 2

Having examined some more traditional student show posters, I moved on to find some more interesting posters. These ranged from posters that were presented in an interesting way, to posters that were more clear and concise about what they were representing.

Poster Research – Part 1

To help contribute some ideas towards the production of the posters, I researched some examples of poster designs. The first phase of this research involved looking at other student show posters, most of which I considered to be bad. However, this helped build an understanding of what our group would need to try to avoid doing when producing our own posters.

Gathering Information

If the video is to focus on sharing concise information about the show, then I will need to gather the relevant information as soon as possible. Using the designated Facebook group, I will contact all members of the show to gather the necessary information.

• Number of people participating
• Names of all participants
• Names of careers everyone is aspiring to
• Mediums used (video, print)
• Date of the show
• Venue

If the date and venue are not decided by the end of this deadline then a text placeholder will be used, ready to add the correct information when it is decided upon. Below is the information I gathered:

Career Aspirations:

• Graphic Designers
• Illustrators
• Web Designers
• Animators
• Film Makers
• 3D Modellers
• Programmers
• Game Designers

 

Mediums

• Camera
• Video Camera
• Pen / Pencil
• Computer

 

Participants

• 29 members on Facebook group
• David Saint
• Paul Barnett
• Joshua Groves
• Jake Guest
• Ani Choudhury
• Andrew Pledger
• Jessica Hislop
• Liam Rhodes
• Leo Bassam
• Daniel Ellis
• Ollie Whittaker
• Gina Allen
• Glen Myers
• Alessandro Tesoro
• Connor McNally
• Dan Mole
• James Jon Woollacott
• Nici Carder
• Poppie Oldfield
• Kerry Watkins
• Matthew Davey
• Terry Watson
• Jasper Cheyney
• Bradley Kewley
• Dean Ray
• Fiona Marion Davison-Trickett
• Joe Smith
• Paul David Lett
• Amy Patrick

Video Research – Part 2

As an alternative to a more motion-graphics based video, I also researched some videos that used film. However, since the gallery would not be set up during this production, nor has the location been confirmed at this point in time, some of these approaches are less feasible to produce. As I realised this, I began to look for more abstract examples. These were more

https://vimeo.com/97733525

https://vimeo.com/63202392