OUGD406 - Studio Brief 3: Final Pitch

Below is the complete presentation that we used to present the final version of the things we had created for the branding for the exhibition:

We decided to go with this particular logo for the group as we felt it looked the most effective, and opening with it meant we were able to make the audience to the presentation aware of our group and who we were immediately.

Our concept is circles. When viewing the exhibition space we noticed that the adjacent space contains circles on the ceiling – we also thought about how circles directly link to cover – for example the way girls apply make up is in circles which is a form of covering up. This led us to the title “cover up” which we then added a hash tag too as we could use it for social media and believed it gave an edge to the name. When it comes to displaying our designs in the exhibition space we thought about creating long thin shelves preferably painted white to blend in, that we could hopefully produce low cost ourselves in the college, the designs would we placed on the shelf leaning against the wall slightly to replicate a book shelf which also means non of the design work will be damaged in any way.

After being told that a lot of our previous work for this project looked very corporate and similar to the branding of the NHS, we decided to keep only the blue from the circles in the adjacent space, and to feature a contrasting colour such as red to compliment the blue throughout the new pieces of work.

We went with Futura for the typeface for the project because we felt the boldness of the type complimented the contemporary modern feel we were trying to accomplish with the branding.

Keeping with the idea of using overlapping circles, we decided to recreate the poster using just 2 circles, and created it in a very minimalistic manner. We felt the grey type in this instance clashed extremely well with the red and blue circles.

Our previous invitations weren't very inviting at all, so we decided to include the word hello to instantly attract people into reading what exactly is on the invitation. We also felt less information, but vital information made for an effective invitation, as you wouldn't want to be looking and reading over something dull.

We kept the original design for the banner as we all felt confidently about the aesthetic of it, and despite how it would be the most cost effective thing to produce, we really liked the overlapping circles creating a sense of mirage within the space we found inspiration.

For the new badges we decided a more minimal approach would be better to go with, taking on board this we also changed the colours of the badges and made it solely about '#coverup', instead of the designs being bombarded with a variant of circles.

The stamp was something we felt should be created to be placed on things we had created, in order to show that the things made were for the #coverup exhibition, created by students of Graphic Design at Leeds College of Art.

The name tags previously being the strongest element of our branding, was kept the same as well as we found this the basis for creating all the other things for the exhibition.

The programme suffered the most due to lack of time, and despite a completely different aesthetic we all weren't pleased with the outcome. However, we still felt it was necessary to bring it with us to show the potential of a programme.

Our aim for the new design of the bookmark was for it to look more simplistic and clean. As we decided not to have the bookmark expand into a leaflet, we thought a was a better idea for it to simply be slot inside of the leaflet.

We simply changed the colours on our previous designs for the cover photo for the Facebook and Twitter page to match our new colour palette.

We then created a few variants of mock ups, as to where you would be likely to see some of the things we had created for the branding of the exhibition.

We also took a photo of some of the deliverables that we presented to the audience of the final pitch:

We decided as a group what we thought everything would cost regarding the project, how it would be displayed in the exhibition and how we felt we worked together as a group:

Cost:

For all of our collateral we chose to use a white background or white stock to keep the printing cost down but it also gave us the minimalist feel that we were going for. For the A4 posters, it costs 75p to print in matte in colour, so to place about 25 of them around Leeds, it would cost us £17.75 in the LCA Print Room which is on the costly side however we found a solution which was to buy our own stock to print on which would cut the price down to £5. We then thought that we could even take our designs down to just three colours (including stock) and screen print them instead. Screen printing them would also give an interesting effect because of the overlapping circles. Regarding placement, we would want to place the posters in and around Leeds College of Art, outside of Leeds Central Library, and in surrounding art galleries, as well as main advertisement points in Leeds city centre.

For the invitations, it would cost 75p for two, however we would need a larger quantity of these than the posters so we would also buy our own stock. We also thought that we could only send physical invitations to family members of the exhibitors but send an 'e-vite' to everyone else such as members of the library, etc. This would majorly cut down on costs. We also considered screen printing these invitations as well.

Display:

Regarding the display in the exhibition, we came up with the idea of displaying everyone's work on a shelf that, in context, we would have bolted to the wall. We would want the shelf to be white since the walls in the exhibition space are also white so that it would look clean  and consistent, and would not distract from the work. The point of this idea was to replicate a book on a shelf. Using this method also meant that the exhibited work would not be damaged in any way.

Evaluation:

We all worked incredibly well as a group - making decisions collectively, being honest with each other, and taking part and producing work equally. Communication was also very strong between us all, and we managed our time quite well.