Author: ElenaRogers

Oyster Outcomes

Background
Oyster outcomes LTD is a consultancy business which offers several different services. These include multi-disciplinary management, governance and assurance, coaching, mentoring and coach supervision, mental health and wellbeing consulting. The idea behind the brochure, was to advertise digitally and through print, the services that Oyster outcomes can provide. Embedded in the brochure are recommendations from previous clients and key characteristics of the business that promotes engagement from clients. The brochure will be both a digital and printed, advertising on the website, through emails and as handouts to future clients.

Restated brief
Oyster outcome is a relatively new business and will be reaching its third year in the beginning of April. Oyster is looking for a way to format and promote their specialities in the form of a brochure/ leaflet, to cater to their possible future clients to promote what Oyster outcomes has to offer with their services. The broad aims of the project were to communicate what the business has to offer. Further, to promote Oyster outcomes in a way that targets their audience in the public sector, commercial and charities, and any prospective clients. As for production, the objectives include producing a square size brochure, ideally with a high-quality thick paper. Alongside this, will be a digital format of the brochure, to be exported and used for the website and website distribution. Initial research involved looking at the website provided, understanding their previous design approach to their website and branding for insight to a possible similar approach to leaflet. It was later decided, through the development on this project, that a printed version of this brochure would not be printed through the university, but rather externally after submission. Included in the submission, would be a PDF of the full brochure for email and website, and a PDF ready to print for both the covers and interior pages for the brochures to be printed after artwork handover was sent over.

Research and ideation
Audience

As I began the project, I used several sources as a way of inspiration to begin our design process. I use several previous existing brochures to do this, looking at brochures that are similar to the topic of consultancy. Through research many businesses, similar to Oyster outcomes, don’t over complicate the design, and prioritises the information over images. This allows for a professional approach that was necessary to the audience I was catering towards. Though observing the way of the production of print was necessary, these decisions weren’t necessarily in my control as later in the production it was later decided that my submission was strictly digital. Alot of my ideation was determined by what appearances the business used in their advertising thus far. Alot of my inspiration for the brochure was from the Oyster Outcomes website.

Colours and type
During our first meeting, we were introduced to the branding guideline. This included the colours, fonts including type settings, images to and any logo variations. This set my approach to the project early on. This was helpful in order to satisfy the client and ensure that the brochure is consistent with their website as well. The colours were different shades of blue and a serif typeface throughout the branding guidelines.

Square brochure inspiration

Content transformation
Through analysis, its noticeable that many of the brochures used very limited text, however the provided text copy from clients was extensive. Later agreed with the client, many texts were minimised to enable an easy read and allow the brochure to appear less intimidating. It was easy to discuss with the clients to change this part of the brochure, explaining that in order for the brochure to become more appealing, change in text was necessary. Mutual understanding was essential in order for the design process to be easier to manage with this change, and for it to be beneficial for their brochure.  This was changed through trial and error, overall vastly improved the look and feel of the brochure.

Design development
Oyster Outcomes has a heavy ocean theme throughout their website. They wanted this to be included in the design of the brochure as well. This was slight issue in the design process, though they have used this theme in the website, once the design process began, my supervisor highlighted the problem of it complicating the topic of consultancy, and would be confusing to future readers as the images they were interested in using gave connotations of a holiday feel to the brochure, instead of the topic of consultancy. In my mind, I wanted to approach the design in a more mature, sophisticated, and timeless approach. Though elements of the ocean theme could be incorporated, it was necessary to find the right balance of both themes in order to not confuse readers and clients.

Oyster outcomes branding guidelines
Oyster outcomes branding guidelines 2
Oyster outcomes branding guidelines 3

A lot of the design process was somewhat restricted with the branding guidelines that they had requested. This included colour choices, branding logos, picture inspiration, fonts, and brochure sizing. This very much helped guide me in the right direction in order for my clients to be satisfied with the final product and match the website visuals. However, this limited my experimental abilities in the design process.

brochure version 1
brochure version 1
brochure version 1

This was one of the final completed versions of the brochures. At this stage, it was sent to the clients and they were very satisfied with the design. However, many changes were made to the design after my partner in the project could no longer continue working with me for the project. There were many flaws in the design, the design did included in the design were a little too overbearing for the text and was lacking consistency. The next developments would need to be able to highlight the text correctly and promote the good recommendations from previous clients well.

Mockup brochure development 2
Mockup brochure development 2
brochure development 2

In the next stages of the design most of the elements were changed. I focused on categorising the text and colour better to highlight the separate sectors of the business. The type size and grid was changed in order to promote legibility. I limited the use of the ocean aesthetic photos to help promote the correct topic of consultancy. In replacement of this, and with the consent of the clients, I implemented the use of different imagery including work spaces and welcoming employees to help encourage a welcoming feel to the consultancy business.

Final stages
During the development stages, there were issues regarding communication between me and the clients. This set me back in terms of meeting for the final stages of the design which slowed down the process over. Included in this was the deadline of this real jobs was to be extended due to the work load I had to take on independently after my partner could no longer participate in this real jobs.

During my final stages, small changes were made to my design from my supervisor to ensure everything was correct in my brochure. This included small tweaks to leading, alterations of navigational devices, and finally, ensuring all my documents were print ready for the client to continue with. I had help during the final stages of my process, when it came to preparing the print ready documents including bleed marks for the correct documents etc.

As we will not be printing this off through the University, the brochure is still intended to be printed independently, therefore I printed the brochure off to ensure the sizings are correct and legible and the colours print correctly too.

brochure final development
Brochure final development
Brochure final development
Brochure final development
Brochure final development

Reflection
As this was my first real job, there were many first-time experiences in this process. Unfortunately, there were problems with communication via email. Though I did continue the work as far as I could during these responses I received, it was still a reoccurring issue. I feel as though a lesson on my first real job, is that often you are on a different schedule as your client, they may be far more relaxed when it comes to estimates deadlines than you are yourself especially as a student with very limited free time. When continuing in the future, to avoid this from reoccurring, a simple follow up email and/or calling the client may be a better approach in some circumstances in order to find a better way to communicate with them.

Another reflection I would say, that was a particular problem in this project would be to ensure all participants in this project keep an up-to-date shared folder of all content to ensure both parties have all the same contents. This was a particular problem after my partner left the project and attempting to gain required documents wasn’t possible at times. Regarding future real jobs, it’s extremely important for all participants to have a shared folder to include any progress in the work. In this case, unfortunately some of the documents I could not acquire, and many documents were recreated.

A final reflection for my project would be the importance of balance between designer and client. Many for their ideas they may be firm on, however at times their ideas may not be what’s best for the success of the project. As a designer there is a better understanding on what makes a successful design, and to have a mutual agreement and level of understanding in order to continue the design for both designer and client.

In summary I am pleased with the final look of my brochure. Though there were some issues during the process, I am happy with how it turned out, and I am sure it will reflect well on the business. The clients are happy with the brochure turnout aswell and are happy to recommend me in the future as well as potential work opportunities after university.

TY1SK podcast postcard Rogers, Elena

InDesign

Section 1

Design idea

My first design was inspired by a previous podcast cover, but I also took inspiration from one of our first seminars at reading university. We were given a typeface anatomy sheet that covers the basic parts of a type face, and I wanted to include this in my rendition. I liked the baseline and cap height lines that gave the lettering structure and wanted to include this in my design.

postcard 1

Design process

As mentioned previously, I was already inspired by the type face anatomy handout before I had begun my design. So, I knew that the cap-height, X- height and base line was going to structure my type. However, I did struggle with the layout of this and it is clear I was experimenting with different typefaces during this development. This shows my stages of development before my final version displayed above. I was not satisfied with the sizing of lettering and the fonts I had chosen. It was noteworthy, when moving from development 1 to 2 and playing with the layout, that my design was too simple, and an additional element would be beneficial for my final design. Adding a microphone covered the spacing well.

postcard 1- development 1
postcard 1- development

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design idea

For my second design, I wanted to play around a bit more with my text and for the design to be a little more exciting with a layed back approach. Using words of improvement from my lecturer about how I should manipulate the original image a lot more, I focused on a certain section of the image and used the coffee cup element to base my text around. I used light pastels in my design to give it a more feminine appearance and I loved how this turned out, matching well with my snappy ‘let’s talk graphics’ title.

postcard 2

Design process

Before settling on a final design for my second podcast, I was previously experimenting with layout and text. In development 1, you can see I was trialling out including the colour theme tool as a side margin. However, I decided this made my design look too cluttered and did not add anything to my design. On my second development I included aspects of my podcast cover, but reproducing it using different tools in InDesign. However, I felt this was too similar to my previous podcast design. So, for my final idea I settled for circular writing framing the coffee cup.

postcard 2- development 2
postcard 2- development 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design ideas

For my final postcard, this was also inspired by a previous podcast. I wanted to include miscellaneous shapes and forms in the background to add body to my design. I took this inspiration from my original podcast cover too. However, unlike my podcast, I added additional elements e.g., the opaque boarder and the focused figure on to the page. I feel that this postcard has a very serious yet has a modern look about it, which I enjoy.

postcard 3

Design process

As I mentioned beforehand on trello, I wanted to involve more to my design to keep it busy and exciting. From my development 1, you can see there was not enough to my design, there was a clearly too much spacing in my design and there was a lot of room of improvement in my first draft.

However, there was a little more improvement in my second draft. I trialled with different lettering for ‘podcast’, experimenting with duplication. I did not mind this, however I feel this did not add anything to my design. At this stage I added an opaque boarder. I kept this in my final design, as it makes the title of ‘graphics etc’ more prominent.

postcard 3 development 1
podcast 3 development 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Section 2

Software tutorials

Before starting my postcard, I watched the tutorials suggested in the brief. This covered a lot of basic information that was essential to know to complete the task for week 6. These covered how to set up a new document, how to save, and goes through what each individual tool does in InDesign, so as a beginner in this software this was very helpful. Though these videos were useful, they only included the basics, to develop further skills in InDesign, we had to find software tutorials ourselves for our designs.

From my postcard design 1, I did not need to research much further in this design and used the basic tutorials we were provided as this was my first design and I was adjusting to the new software. Involved in this design, however, I used tutorials for photo placement and layering in order to produce this final outcome.

Moving to my second design, I was more open for experimentation. This involved photo manipulation, watching tutorials on how to crate circular text (using on the line text tool) and in one of my developments for the second design I also followed a perspective text tutorial from YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg732m5bTOc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKOSnQ2RXJI

For my third postcard design, in order to create the miscellaneous shapes on this design I focused on using the shape tool, and to do this I followed a tutorial to get to grips with this new tool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgprXvKAozw

As InDesign is a large software that holds several different tools in order to complete successful designs, I understand that there is a lot more I can learn about it. There are some software skills I’d like to become more advanced in, for example masking and overlapping my texts to make my designs appear more professional. Truthfully, I’d like to become overall become more comfortable and confident when using the software, e.g. be able to experiment a lot more, and learn more keyboard shortcuts to enable faster design skills.

section 3

resources for research and inspiration

As mentioned previously, my first podcast was inspired by the handout we were given in the beginning of the academic year. This type face anatomy hand out inspired my layout as I had included the lining and connotations in my postcard.

The resource I used was the actual handout that I had kept from the lesson and used that. However, I also found other layout examples of typeface anatomy from the book ‘thinking with type’ by Ellen Lupton. This is a book about typography for designers, that covers typeface anatomy as well. Specifically, the front cover of this book uses anatomy as a decorative element.

http://thinkingwithtype.com

For my second design, I wasn’t so much inspired by a certain source, however I wanted to follow a feminine yet cartoon like aesthetic. Since my postcards were designed from out podcasts, I took inspiration from others I had previously listened to. A podcast that I liked the most and was inspired by was ‘looking up’ by courier media. They follow a cartoon aesthetic and use similar colour schemes as I have. This majorly helped me with my idea development of for my second postcard cover.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/looking-up/id1535812482

For my final design, I used a different podcast as inspiration, this one was called ‘becoming wise’. It is clear that I took inspiration from this podcast. I liked the range of different shapes they used and wanted to include this. Further, it can be argued my design for my postcard is very simple, but I believe this is from the source of inspiration. It is somehow calming due to the spacing it uses, and I wanted to incorporate this element in my own work.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/becoming-wise/id1095068557

After finishing this task, I grew interested in other topics I would like to explore myself or possibly throughout the rest of the year. I have always been interested in logo design and advertising, and how I can apply my new software skills to possibly move towards this area of graphic design. To do this, I could possibly branch out to other software for this, for example illustrator.

Obsession

I had chosen the theme of obsession. In this theme, tells a story of a woman frantically looking for a rat in a room. This leads to her dismantling the bookshelves piece by piece, stripping the wood off the wallks and the carper off the floor.

In my project, I wanted to get across the point that the rat was the torment of the woman in the story, as this was the way i had depicted the story.  Therefore, I included the silhouette of a rat behind a disfigured, frantic woman. The idea was that this placement of the rat figure towering over the woman would symbolise the power the rat holds over her. This influence is evidential when the woman ‘dismantles the bookshelved piece by piece’.

 

Love/abuse

In this project we were told pick a contrasting topic with the word provided and create a poster this displays this contrast e.g. in a gif format.

I was given the topic of love. I felt as though the term ‘abuse’ was contrasting to this topic. In my final product, I included figures of a newly wed couple as i felt this represented an act of ‘love’. In order to contrast this and refer back to my contrasting tem topic of abuse, I included subtle give away signs that a relationship is abusive.

On the second slide of the gif, in contrast to the happy figures of the couple, I added dark bruises on the womans arms, shoulders and chest. Looking closer, i included a blue tear on the face of the figure too represent the emotional side of abuse. Further down the poster, i dropped red paint to symbolise blood.

Drake’s choice

My partners 3 facts were:

  • likes chocolate
  • likes R&B
  • has a bulldog

my 3 random words were:

  • teeth
  • treadmill
  • sandwich

i decided to focus on 2 topics of R&B and sandwich. This resulted in a final product of a sandwich which was sponsored by a well known R&B singer Drake, and his chosen sandwih choice.