The aim of this project was to rebrand a charity website, the charity (Signpost) being based in Essex with the aim of working with people who are struggling to find employment and training. This was my first real job project so I must admit that nerves got the best of me and that I didn’t start off as soon as I did, such as with organising a meeting with the client and supervisor, but when I did eventually get there it ended up being quite alright. My first supervisor meeting basically informed me of everything to do, there was a lot to remember going into this project so having this meeting really helped me make heads and tails of the whole process.
After that the next stage was to set up the client meeting and establish the brief, since the client was in Essex it would be more beneficial for everyone if meetings were organised via email and happened over Skype video calls. The client’s old website was hosted on wordpress, so this would be the program that the rebranding would be happening on, and it certainly wasn’t the greatest looking website ever made.
Research & concept
The next stage was to look for inspiration of other websites, Signpost already has its own branding however it was necessary to see what other charity websites were doing with their website and establish a similar look/structure through a moodboard. Websites such as ‘Rainbow Trust’, ‘Action for Children’, and even ‘Freebooks’ all have a consistent design style with appropriate use of the branding colours on the screen making the overall page more vibrant and friendly to look at over a plain white background.
Screen-capture from branding proposal doc, showing an analysis on ‘Action for Children’ website.
This developed from a moodboard and into a branding proposal mainly because I began to add things such as proposed branding colours and typographic and designed treatments of what the new website design COULD look like, this helped the client visualise the sort of things that the new website could do and feel like once designed and he was pretty happy with it to say the least. There was a lot of back and forth on this document as a branding proposal turned out to be more complex than I thought, there were a lot of considerations to take into account such as making it clear that the type used for the document wasn’t actually part of the branding proposal. Another aspect which I’ve found interesting (and will never forget) was in how I showed the colours, Having them simply in a row doesn’t really say much to the client meaning that it would be more appropriate to make the boxes bigger or smaller depending on much of that colour would be used on the page (such as with green being the most used whilst gold and dark green being the least used).
Proposed colour hierarchy.
Design Development & Deliverables
Next began the wireframing, the document for this was straightforward as this was basically a duplicate from the previous document, however the things shown on here were completely different to before. The design for this had to be compatible to show a sort of contents page for the wireframes, so that the client could easily go back and forth between pages from corrections (which was actually what happened, this was also useful for his board meetings), I didn’t go all out with the overall style of the wireframes as I mainly wanted to quickly show where certain elements could be placed. However for future reference it may have been more useful to have had some text prepared for this stage, as later on it was awkward building the page and then realising that the column that was meant to have a certain amount of text on the wireframes only had less than half intended, this was not such a huge issue along the road as I worked with the client in terms of telling him whether or not a page needed text and how much of it/what needed to be said along the lines of.
Wireframe contents.
The next stage would be to actually start drafting the website on wordpress. Admittedly this project had originally began as a pair, however there were problems which caused progress on this project to be halted, from this it was in the end sorted out and drafting of the website could begin
WordPress drafting
This was my first time using wordpress therefore going into it was very overwhelming, the UI seemed very complex to grasp and a lot of the features are there without any explanation as to what it does (leaving the only solution to basically look for online tutorials). However I did find that wordpress’s way of building a website was very groggy, what’s meant by that is that the way in which images and text work on here is very reminiscent to how images and text works on Microsoft Word. This obviously could not do so I delved deeper into what could be done about this issue, I was more concerned as to how the client would be able to work on the website and update it in the future after I’m gone (especially if he or anyone in the charity didn’t know how to code) so anything to make it easier for him would make me happy.
In my research I found that wordpress ran on themes and plugins that were basically like having extensions with special functions built in added onto the website, to explain in brief a number of plugins I used added:
Image carousel for the home page.
Contact form, although this is off the client can simply turn this on and it will appear on the contact page.
Optimised search engine, and so on.
The number one plugin that resolved the problem of maintaining the website for the future was definitely the ‘Elementor’ plugin. It eliminated the tedious use of wordpress’s default way of adding stuff to the page by simply drag-and-dropping elements onto the page, there is a row based grid at work but that’s okay because the website was built using this one plugin which made the whole process fast and efficient especially when compared to coding which would’ve taken not even 5x as long.
There was a lot of back and forth with the client in terms of what was needed on the website and what could be added on/changed next, this was a very lengthy process which after discussing this with my supervisor it basically came down to what was necessary on the website as it had been in a launch-able state for quite some time. However this does not mean that I had to make changes all based on the client’s wishes, a lot of what he said came from members of the board and also funders of the charity which made the changes in a way necessary to be made in order for the website to be able to launch. In the end we sat down together and went through the content on the website one last time before it was finally in a launch-able state.
Reflection
I must confess, this project took a lot longer than it should have taken. There were a lot of problematic factors that occurred throughout sure, but I blamed mostly my inexperience with time management for the client and also pushing people to do things that need to get done. With this project I feel like I’ve gotten confident with talking to clients about projects and making sure that they basically stay on task as well as making sure that I work efficiently by being more ruthless with my time early on so that I have more time to work on things in the future.
Another interesting aspect I’ve learned is about wordpress and appreciating the things that it is able to do, from my understanding it is very good at making posts (such as blog posts or articles) especially since the typo network is on wordpress. Mentioning that, the client did have an idea of having a sort of blog posts for each of the charity’s centres, even though I couldn’t do this I let him know that through wordpress it was certainly possible to do in the future.
The typography applicant gift was a project created to make a more personal means of communication with successful applicants, when congratulating them on getting accepted to the University of Reading. The applicant applying process entails prospectus students to showcase their work in a portfolio, where it will be marked by a member of staff in the Department. After this stage, applicants usually find out soon after whether they were successful in gaining a place on the course or not. The Department of Typography & Graphic Communication sends out two hundred offers a year to potential students, 30% of which choose University of Reading. With such a high conversion rate, the client wanted us to make the applicant’s experience on accepting a university to be more appealing towards the university and ultimately further increase the conversion rate. The best way to achieve this was to make the gift as personal as possible, which we could send out directly to applicant’s homes.
Our aims were to compile consumer research to inform our design decisions and establish user needs, which was extremely useful for finding the best solution to make the gift personal. Another aim was to find an efficient way to batch print around 200 invitations, which proved to be the hardest task of all due to us choosing to use letterpress as the print production. Overall, our main aim was to make sure the applicant knew how impressed we were with their application whilst connecting them to the Department in a personal way.
Restated Brief
The brief of this job was to design a typographic gift, using letterpress printing, for prospering aspects after portfolio day. This is in order to connect these applicants to the department through the use of a personalised gift with notes on letting them know how impressed the department was with their work.
During the first client meeting, we discussed the possible options that we could take, there was a lot to consider with not a lot of time so decisions had to be presented and resolved fast, to help hasten this process it was necessary to gather ‘consumer research’ in order to get a better idea on the content needed for the gifts and also reinforce on the format and other potential aspects not previously considered.
Research
Questionnaire
To get a better idea of what potential applicants were looking for when applying to universities we created an online questionnaire for a class of first years studying the same course. We felt that asking students that have just began their studies here would give good responses in terms of finding out what other universities are doing for applicants and how the department could improve with their application process. The questionnaire was made up of 11 questions, these were structured in such a way as to keep the participant’s answers open but focused as to not stray from the question, these were quite difficult to produce at first as there was a lot of back and forth to make sure that the questions were being asked clearly without room of misinterpretation.
Overall, we learned more than we could have hoped for, the students were able to answer the questions effectively and their feedback was really good. We were able to find out the areas in which the department was doing well in and also where it could be improved, an example being with the personal emails as students said “I literally showed everyone because it made me feel really special and wanted”, “morale boosting”, and “ [it] surprised me as no other uni had done this and it was really nice to receive such personalised positive feedback”. From this we know that students appreciate hearing what the universities they have applied to think of their work. They preferred more uplifting messages rather than being critical, as this calms their worries about whether or not they are right for the course or that they’ll fit in by giving them reassurance and making them feel more comfortable about their work.
User personas
These were influenced from the questionnaire results. Creating personas was useful to us as this allowed for us to explore the different kinds of applicants that apply to this course and create a number of scenarios based on their needs. We created four users with contrasting demographics, scenarios or circumstances for applying to the course. We began by creating goals for each user based on this. Following this were any concerns that they may have, such as if the course is right for the applicant or if they’ll fit in (these also relate to the answers from the student questionnaire that we did), and then the needs of things that would meet these concerns or worries from the user, such as by ensuring that they feel welcome and that they will be supported in their learning.
Ultimately however, these user personas weren’t really used very much as these simulated scenarios were straying away from the idea of receiving a ‘gift’ and leading more towards an ‘informal designed document’ of the department (such as with having a map of the department), which are already done through other means such as open days. However, there was no denying that a lot of these goals were related to the gift and therefore were still used to influence how we handled our design or also be used for another future project.
Design Development & Deliverables
First drafts of applicant gifts, on-screen.
Successful Applicant Gift
We were given a lot of freedom with the design, which we thus explored potential formats and inspiration for the letterpress aesthetic. There were a lot of ideas and concepts presented to the client and after a lot of back-and-forth we finally landed on a design that we were all happy with. To elaborate, there formats had to be of appropriate size so that it could fit inside an envelope and be sent to potential applicants after their visit on portfolio day. The material of the gift was also chosen to be card stock as anything below 250gsm felt very flimsy which wasn’t appropriate for a typographic gift.
We also had to consider how we were going to print in relation to it being letterpressed, so we explored the options available to us from within and local to the department. Our first consideration was to use metal type (small text) with a mix of large wood type (masthead). We did not use either of these as a) the large type has bumps and scratches from use over the years, and b) making the form would be time consuming to test the print quality along with being difficult to store once in a forme. Therefore, this process was made more efficient by suggested a more modern way of creating an impression that comes from a digitally designed document.
Polymer plate, from Lyme Bay press, mounted onto wooden block.Manually working the roller press machine, where we would each take it in turns.
Photopolymer plate printing, or post-digital letterpress (p98a), is a technique that takes advantage of a UV light sensitive material to expose and make a plate suitable for letterpress from a data. In short, we can make plastic plates from anything designed on screen and we can letterpress with it, which makes the design process more efficient and really gave us the freedom to explore the appropriate sizes and typefaces (able to keep consistent and use Helvetica typeface.
The final design featured a typographic pun of sorts, a gate fold that when closed read “You had us at Hello” and when opened read “You had us at Helvetica”, which we thought was a clever idea due to both representing the department’s playful side but also testing the applicant’s knowledge (something that only typographers would understand).
Roller press, with the rollers inked and the wood block mounted polymer plate inked, taken before the day’s batch began.
The printing process was planned way before we began, as we feared/predicted that hand rolling the plate with ink and creating an impression with the press would take way too long. Luckily the department had a roller press which contained a sort of automatic ink rolling system, which would save a lot of time by efficiently spreading the ink between rollers and also ink the plate evenly ready for printing. The amount of ink we used, as supervised, was recommended that we used at least the equivalent of a 20p coin to start with (a funny but efficient measuring system for inking) which would last for about 6 prints until we had to re-ink another 20p coin again.
Our design focused on doing two things, 1) it had be have a of letterpress aesthetic, and 2) it would contain personalised notes from us for the applicants. On portfolio days we would look at the prospering applicants’ portfolios and make personalised feedback on their work and write them on the back of their gift, taking the feedback about feedback from lecturers making applicants feeling wanted into consideration.
The limitations from this was definitely time, the gifts had to be printed and ready to be sent out asap before the next portfolio day (happened weekly every Wednesday) which meant that we had to letterpress the front and the back of the gifts resulting in two days a week being used up which was very heavy on our schedule. There were times when we physically could not meet the demand and because of this we had to print copies with the masthead printed digitally rather than letterpressed. This was of course very disappointing on our end but ultimately it was the best alternative to no gift at all. Another tricky aspect of this is that the gifts were written on the day, as we looked at the applicant’s portfolios, meaning that if this was a one person job then this task would have been virtually impossible to accomplish especially with a second deliverable.
Portfolio Day Takeaway Gift
Portfolio days are for prospectus students to come to the Department, with their portfolio and piece of written work, to see if they would be able to gain a place on the course. Originally, creating a takeaway gift for the applicants was not a deliverable, however after speaking to our client we agreed it would be a good way of subtly introducing the gift to them early on. Portfolio days for us turned into an all-in-one production day of interacting with applicants, gaining some information from them and then creating a card introducing them to another fellow applicant.
Firstly, we had to agree on what activity we could do with the applicants to understand what piece of design work we could produce. We knew that we wanted the applicants to feel as comfortable as possible and due to our main design using ‘hello’ we thought it would be ideal to do an activity that would introduce who people were. The workflow of the activity included asking applicants to sign their own names so we could scan these in and use on the design to feel as though they personally wrote the cards themselves. It also entailed asking them what inspires them about design and why they chose to apply to our University, whilst also taking a photo of them. All these aspects combined were intended to make the takeaway gift as friendly as possible, with the key feature being that they were double-sided. This meant that each applicant was being introduced to someone else on the day and learning something they might have never got to know.
Set of applicant takeaway gifts.
The design development had a few iterations, as trying to figure out the best way to make it clear that the card needed to be turned over to see the other applicant proved difficult. We came to the conclusion of using an arrow as a visual cue, whilst also asking the question ‘did you meet X?’ to prompt them to turn over. Overall, the design is quite simple as we did not want to overwhelm the applicant or be too intrusive to their lives. However, we did keep to the same identity as the original gift to link it all together.
The successes of this deliverable were that we were able to interact with potential new students to answer their questions or queries and to make them feel welcomed and comfortable. Connecting people together was also a good experience because we were able to make applicants feel excited and less nervous if they were to join, as they had already met someone in the same position as them. However, we did also face some challenges with this deliverable. This included getting students to open up and not be so nervous as well as the tight time deadline of producing a batch full of takeaway gifts within a few hours. Although, after the first portfolio day and making sure the work flow worked, we managed to get much faster with the production flow and leave the gifts in applicant’s portfolios to surprise them at the end.
Overall production consisted of: portfolio day, printing the applicant gifts (either digitally or letterpress), writing the gifts and finally preparing the envelopes ready to be sent to applicant’s homes. This was all done within a week for each portfolio week, which taught us how to work quickly in a tight time frame and was beneficial experience for future projects.
Pedro and I in the middle of the portfolio day workflow, where we are preparing the applicant gifts to be sent out.
Reflection
Overall, considering the quick turnaround, we managed to create something really special for the applicants. The feedback from lecturers and applicants have been amazing, it was also very exciting to see their reaction at the end of portfolio day and find the surprise ‘Takeaway gift’ we left for them. It is slightly harder to know how the applicants felt with receiving the personalised gift as these were sent by post shortly after their portfolio day visit, however our supervisor has received good feedback from those that were really impressed and got in touch.
Our client also helped us with printing on portfolio day during gaps when he was free, to both ready the next batch of applicant gifts to be letterpressed and the takeaway gifts to be trimmed and ready for the applicants to find (as these were produced on the day), he was very understanding of the time pressure that this was being put on us and was very pleased with our work by the end of it.
This project also taught us how to letterpress print in an almost production line manner, with 20 good gifts being printed every Tuesday, which has taught the limitations of manual production.
Thinking forward, the applicant gift can definitely become a yearly thing. The idea of having a pun/ play on words definitely has the potential to change through both its terms and design. We are proud to have started something new for the department and are certainly looking forward to seeing how students after us handle this brief.
SPVRO is a startup fashion company that take pride in sourcing from ethical manufacturers and promote social responsibility. They provide fashionable items to consumers and also support orphanages around the world; every item of clothing they sell, they donate an item to an orphanage.
BRIEF
The brief was explained to us by our client, Ali, the founder of SPVRO on the 15th February. He expressed he was in need of t-shirt graphics in order to be printed onto clothing. The client explained that there needed to be a range of creative designs that highlighted SPVRO as a fashion brand with a charitable angle, rather than a charity that sells clothing items. Guidelines given around the content of the designs were very brief, and this gave us a lot of creative freedom when developing ideas. The only preference the client stated was that he personally admired oriental design and mentioned how this could be popular in the target market of males ages 18–26. The only rule we had to follow was to include the SPVRO logo on our t-shirt designs. This logo had been previously designed and was supplied to us at the start of this real job.
The SPVRO logo supplied to us
RESEARCH
The client gave us some competitors that we could analyse for design inspiration and understanding of the product. While researching other clothing companies like Friend or Faux and New Wave we discovered that the ‘Oriental/ Japanese street culture’ ‘Miami Vice’ and ‘Indie’ styles were popular.
These styles typically include a-symmetric designs with bright colours in large areas.
This research allowed us to brainstorm imagery that could be associated with the popular styles. All of the members of this real job made various design choices based around these styles and others also explored the brief by creating individual designs and expressing creative freedom.
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
The first submission of designs was due on the 22nd February, which left members with a week to establish three successful designs. We all had varying design processes which have been detailed below.
LAUREN
Designs were created on illustrator as this software suited the visually complex content. The first design was inspired by the ‘Oriental/ Japanese street culture’ that the client had mentioned in the meeting. It featured an orange circle, reflective of the Japanese flag. This was placed against a dotted, gradient background that provided a frame for the design. In the right hand corner of the dotted background was the Japanese translation for ‘victory’. This design was relatively simple overall but had more detail in individual content, such as the dotted background and the hand drawn Japanese text. The back of this design repeated the dotted background but featured more text content with the English translation of the Japanese text.
The second design was also inspired by Japanese street style. When researching this style I discovered that the use of red circles and Japanese flowers were popular. The second design incorporated both of these things, along with a colourful gradient background. The flowers chosen for the design were Japanese cherry blossom, these were initially hand-drawn and then scanned into illustrator so that I could apply artistic brushstrokes to them, in order to create texture. This was then layered onto a red circle, placed on a gradient square (yellow, orange, red and black). Due to the front of the t-shirt containing a high amount of colour, I felt it important to keep the back of t-shirt simple. This was an opportunity to use the SPVRO logo, so it was placed beneath the neck on the back.
The third design was an opportunity to have a little more creative freedom as I chose to take my own direction and design something different to what had been previously produced. This was a risk, as it did not link to the suggested themes the client had mentioned, however, it was a success and the risk paid off as the client’s feedback was positive. It involved an illustration of two female figures that overlapped, surrounded by words ‘good times’, ‘moves’ and ‘boogie’. This illustration lent itself to high colour. A larger colour palette was used in this design which resulted in an eye-catching design that could potentially fit into the ‘indie’ style category.
I thoroughly enjoyed this real job as it involved a lot of creative freedom and pushed my organisation skills due to the quick deadline. I found that working in a team was effective as I stuck to deadlines and responded to emails promptly. Fenella posed as the leader amongst the designers and made it easy to communicate with her so that we received all the correct information and feedback from Ali, the founder of SPVRO.
Lauren’s t-shirt designs.
KYLA
All designs were created on illustrator, this programme allowed for detailed illustrations with high quality. The first design I created was a wolf illustration. A wolf represents strength and leadership which are qualities I interpret SPARO to have, due to being one of a few clothing brands who have such and ethical ethos and production. The illustration started by being image traced from a royalty free image to gain a lifelike basis, this was then highly edited to get a free hand drawing feel.
The second design I created was a bit more playful, creating an illustration of angel wings and placing these on the back of the t shirt to recreate where wings would go on the user. Again I used the tool image trace to create a rough realistic base and edited this until happy with the design, duplicating this for a symmetrical and clean outcome. The design outline is in red as this suggests danger or threat creating a contrast to the angel wings which suggest innocence, this playful juxtaposition means there is no one meaning behind the wings.
The third design created fitted the Japanese style suggested. The boxing gloves show power and strength, drawn in a red colour to stand out within the illustration. The Japanese type between the circles reads ‘ethical and sustainable’ to enhance the meaning behind SPARO, but not make it obvious as Ali emphasised the designs should not reflect the brand as a charity. The design incorporates circles as this was an occurring shape seen when researching Japanese fashion. Furthermore Bright and vibrant colours are used to make the design eye catching and stand out.
This Real Job was a good experience as it had a lot of artistic freedom, allowing us to interpret SPARO in our own way and create designs we felt fitted. Working as a group allowed us to give the client a wide range of designs as we all play to different strengths and have different design styles. As a group we worked effectively, all keeping to deadlines to ensure our client got any work timely.
FENELLA
I took on the role of client coordinator throughout this job. This including communicating with the client and organising all of the t-shirt designs into one client facing document which meant all t-shirt designs were presented professionally and consistently to the client. (see figure 1 for layout)
Fenella’s t-shirt designs.
All of designs created were using Adobe Illustrator which were suitable for the detail and complexity of the visuals featured in my designs, the Koi fish and zoom in of an oriental dragon. All three concepts have considered the brief providing my the client, considering the style of oriental X Miami and incorporating elements which are minimalistic and relate to these two themes. When designing I had to take in consideration that the client wanted these designs on either white or black which affected my design including colour choices.
My first design concept was based on the oriental koi fish. I created two final versions of this t-shirt, one featuring the full illustrated visual and the other slightly more zoomed in and cropped. This alters the composition of the design and creates different variations which the client particularly liked. I used bright, vibrant colours which can be linked to the Miami side of the brief. By layering the illustration also added texture to the t-shirt. This design is very versatile and will work on both black and white t-shirts.
My second design was based solely on the oriental theme mentioned in the brief. I chose to focus on the Japanese dragon, particularly looking at the details of the scales which were intricate and added texture. After exploring this, I illustrated the scales, on a zoom in of a dragon’s body. I incorporated the colours; red white and black which can be associated with Japan and their cultural representation. I also designed two variations of this, after feedback from the client. I looked at different compositions between the relationship of the illustration and brand logo to produce two final designs of the t-shirt which the client liked.
My third and final concept combined the two themes, oriental and Miami together. I used simple shapes and a vibrant orange colour to represent the Miami theme and incorporated Japanese typography to incorporate the oriental element of the design. The word chosen to feature in this t-shirt translates to ‘everyone’. This was topical as the client placed an emphasis that the whole production process will be ethical and fair. Although the client did not want this to be immediately obvious in the t-shirts, this subtly represented the brand values of the company and also suggests that this clothing brand can appeal and be worn by a range of people within the target audience.
EMMA
The designs I presented to the client were all produced using Adobe Illustrator, which allowed for high quality artwork. I designed a range of t-shirts which each took an element of the brief given by the client; oriental X Miami. The first design featured a Koi illustration, which is iconic of Japanese and Chinese culture. The word ‘koi’ in Japanese, written as 恋 translates to English as love. This I felt would be appropriate to incorporate into my designs. I initially designed the Koi illustration for a dark blue t-shirt, however with feedback from the client, I then altered designs to print only on black or white material. The Koi is created using a combination of gradient and white outline to create the simplistic yet intricate artwork that can be seen in much of Asia’s culture.
The second series of designs I created showed a more Miami-side of the brief, with bright colours and simple shapes depicting sunsets, which are iconic of oriental pieces of art. The first design in this series is based on Japanese cartoon-like illustration, with simple angled lines suggestive of sunset rays. The second of these designs has a pixelated approach, characteristic of both Asian and Miami gaming styles. This design is also loosely reminiscent of Hokusai’s Great Wave; a famous woodblock print based on Mount Fuji, in Japan. These two designs are relatively versatile as they are able to print on both black or white t-shirts and are neither too masculine, nor too feminine.
I also designed two other sets of t-shirts, which can be seen below. The first design imitates a neon sign along with the company name, which is seen throughout both Miami streets and Japanese cities. The second set of designs are bright bold colours that are reflective of the bright, hot weather in Miami, whilst being suggestive of sun and sea.
STEPHANIE
My first design took a more simplistic approach. The inspiration behind it drew from Japanese rivers. The silhouette was made using the pen tool in illustrator in order to draw the the area covered by the river. This silhouette was then taken to photoshop where I added a noise texture to it, as you can see in the stand alone picture of the river it is no a smooth texture. Initially, I used a neon purple river on a dark red t-shirt, however Ali had stated after the first feedback that he wanted my designs to be on either a white or black t-shirt and the colours to be more duller. As a result I changed the t-shirt to black and changed the river from a neon purple to a more pastel purple. The use of the pastel purple against the black t-shirt gave it a vibrant look without the use of neon.
My second design drew focus on traditional oriental buildings. I drew out these buildings using a pencil however when I scanned it through it didn’t give me the notion of fine art. It was important for me to carry this through the artwork. I also tried image tracing to no avail. Finally I redrew the buildings in fine liner and when processed through photoshop I was able to get the fine art aspect of the buildings. After this I used the paint tool in illustrator to draw symbols which represented these buildings in oriental culture. These designs were placed on a white t-shirt following the clients feedback of having t-shirts either black or white. I decided that these designs would work best on a white t-shirt due to the use of black lines in the drawings which would be hard to see on a black t-shirt. The Logo was situated only only on the top left, on the front of the shirt.
My final design was the word “wisdom” in Japanese on the front and oriental plant; the Lonicera nitida “lemon Beauty”. The designs again were drawn out by hand and taken into photoshop where I changed the colour to a pastel green on a black t-shirt, as per the client’s request. This real job was very enjoyable in regards to the artistic freedom the client allowed us to express through our design, however it was interesting to see that even though we had artistic freedom we still came across constraints that the client had not previously noted such as t-shirts being black or white.
Stephanie’s three t-shirt designs.
POLINA
I was inspired by Japanese street style (being one of the referencing points client gave to us) and a growing trend for bright colours, especially among the target market of males ages 18–26 (client specifically wanted the designs to be appealing to selected market).
One of the initial ideas included the words “kindness is cool” as a part of the design, however the client rejected it as being too ‘charitable’, and that is something he wanted to lean away from.
From that, an idea of having the artwork on the inside of a T-shirt was born. The concept was interesting in a way that the person buying a T-shirt was helping the charity, but no-one will know that from the T-shirt design, and that was represented in the placement of graphic element – on the inside.
Second idea has made the use of hand-made marks, the visual look of which can be connected to marks made by the brush as when drawing hieroglyphs or in asian-style paintings. Orange is dominant as that colour is strongly associated with the oriental style.
The last design featured overlapping graphic elements with the SPARO logo being the visual centre of the design. The ‘circularity’ of the design can be linked to oriental style and references client has given to us. The chaotic from the first look positioning of graphic elements represents the contemporary trends in fashion.
Overall, the project has allowed for the excess of artistic freedom, which, in my case, proved to be hard to work with as I failed to understand client needs. In case I encounter the similar project with the lack of restraints (as in more conventional graphic design practice) in the future, I will spend more time than usual communication with the client and trying to understand client’s needs and goals.
Polina’s three t-shirt designs
FINAL DEADLINE
Feedback from the client was delayed due to his personal schedule, this set us back a little and therefore the final deadline date was amended so that we could make final changes to our t-shirt designs. Fenella also had to communicate with the client to establish the format he wanted the designs sent in. Once it was established that he wanted the designs on a template of W:370mm by H:460mm we individually created print ready PDFs of out three designs and sent these to Fenella so she could compile them into one document, ready for SPVRO to use. This particular task of sending files to Fenella was something we could have improved, as members of the group delayed the process through missing messages or sending files in the incorrect format.
REFLECTION
On reflection, this real job really pushed independent working as the broad brief promoted creative freedom and forced designers to think ‘outside the box’ instead of following strict guidelines. Although we were working as a group, we produced individual designs which meant that members could give impartial advice on designs which was helpful for everyone. As the deadline was tight, it meant that we had limited time to meet up as a group and therefore most communication was over email or instant message. This meant that messages could be lost or misinterpreted which delayed the design process slightly. However, Fenella was an effective leader as she regularly gave clear instructions over instant message to make sure we had all submitted recent amended designs. The issues that occurred in this real job have been helpful in establishing the correct actions to take in future employment.
Our response from our client, Ali, was very postitive and he seemed grateful for the designs we submitted, he expressed that he would love to work with us in the future if SPVRO release any new clothing items. There is evidence of this below in an email we recieved from Ali.
An email we received from the client, detailing his appreciation for the work we produced.
The brief was to design a set of branding deliverables for two groups of environmental science students for a consultancy that they’ll be setting up in two months.
Soon as I was given this project I was given the opportunity to go and meet with my clients for the first time, this meeting was set up by my supervisor and the student’s lecturer making me think that this is something that happens every year and is set up by the two departments. My first meeting with the clients was very brisk as I spoke to each of them one by one, and we didn’t have much time, however I took the opportunity to ask and get as much information from them as possible including contact information (for direct contact and in case anything was missed).
The students weren’t able to answer all of my questions, such as “who will you be presenting to” as they have just been given this brief probably the same as I have, therefore I cut them some slack and asked if they could find out the information and send it to me later so that I could begin to write my brief.
The students also seemed very opened to the idea of me designing just a logo for them and were more than happy to do the powerpoint presentation and word doc by themselves, they were respectful of my time since we’re fellow students however I assured them that I would work with them on the branding and do as much as I could.
Research & concept
Whilst waiting for the brief to be signed off by my supervisor, I went ahead and organised a meeting with both groups to discuss possible concepts and directions to help each other in realising what kind of logo they wanted. To elaborate, we looked at already existing logos and discussed what elements could be taken forward, no sketching was done at this stage as this was primarily a verbal meeting with on screen visuals containing logos of similar concepts to basically make sure that both groups and I were on the same page (I saw each group at different times again).
The on screen visuals shown on screen were literally some quick google searches for logos with key words such as “water” and “leaf” which were concepts that the groups were thinking of going with. This meeting was certainly helpful as this was in a way helpful to again get on the same page, for example one group has a rough idea of doing a very complex illustration styled logo whereas I had to explain why something so detailed would not work on screen or on documents where it would be scaled to be small so this certainly saved some headaches along the way.
Design Development & Deliverables
Riverbank Erosion logo
Once the brief was signed off, I began sketching a number of rough logo drafts to show the students. The intention would be to show these to them, make sure that they are happy with the overall look and direction of the logo, and if not then the concepts will be reviewed and new sketches produced, rinse and repeat until they were happy with them so that I could then move on to digital illustrations.
My supervisor was overall happy with the pace in which I was going at, however concerns were raised with the first set of B&W illustration, the main concern being that because I used various levels of grey that some of the logos were looking a little bit too busy and also potentially losing the focus of the illustration (especially when viewed smaller).
Another thing that I admit didn’t go as planned was when I showed the first set of sketches to the groups, one group were very happy and voting on the best logo was a very smooth process, however with the other group it was quite clear that they weren’t too convinced with them yet as they were set on a concept which I ultimately wanted to avoid (especially since it tends to be overused in these styles of logos). I quickly mended the situation by producing a few digital illustrations that were not sketched out at first but rather I took the concepts that DID work which produced a better reaction from the students.
Water Quality logo
The stages that followed for the logos were mainly establishing branding colours, which fun and simple to do, and a lot of back and forth iterations and positive feedback from clients and supervisor. With the logos nearing completion I was confident to start creating the powerpoint presentation for them.
This was a first for me and admittedly I wasn’t too proud of the final design for either, it had a similar concept to InDesign as PowerPoint used master pages that acted as “templates” for the entire presentation. What this meant for this scenario was that each group were going to show pages with images, graphs, and tables therefore my responsibility was to create templates that were compatible for what the students wanted to use them for and once the file was sent to them I in a way supervised how they would design it to make sure that the pages were remained consistently well designed with the branding and pages. I didn’t have to do much as the pages mostly did their job, there was just one page that they created themselves which used a different typeface and such therefore I helped them fix that. However, as can sometimes be expected when working with students, there was only radio silence from the other group despite my efforts to contact them, this led me to believe that they were busy at the time as they did indeed reply back to me after their presentation.
Both groups were extremely happy with how the presentation went, there was also some good feedback from other groups particularly with regards to how professional the logo looked, there was no way that I could have been there at the presentation to access how well the deliverable worked but that feedback certainly told me that it did.
Reflection
It was a shame that I was unable to produce a word template for them as time drew closer to the deadline, the priority for them were the logo and presentation slides as the students let me know how they would only need the word document until way after the presentation. However I did offer to stay in contact with the groups with regards to any questions or suggestions they might have for when they did design the documents themselves.
My supervisor was very happy with my designs, particularly with my logos which I tend to be good at, however I would’ve like to spend a little bit more time learning about making templates on PowerPoint as this was the first time that I made a template and felt like it could have been designed better to at least meet the standard of the logo.
The Soil Science project was a university-lead project which required several flow charts and tables in order to explain information and educate individuals about soil science. The diagram designed in this Real Job worked alongside various other diagrams and were given to the audience as a handbook for a conference. The client I was working with on this Real Job was Alison Black, a research professor at the University of Reading, in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication.
Restated brief
The Real Job had a very quick turn-around time, of just over a week. Because of this, my supervisor decided it was not an effective use of time to create restated briefs to present to the client, and so this stage was ruled out of the project process.
Deliverable
The deliverable in this Real Job was a diagram handing a group of information about soil science. The client requested that all text was given in 12pt regular Arial, and that the diagram was able to print on one side of an A4 page, ideally filling two thirds of the page.
Research and ideation
The client was able to provide me with the existing diagram which needed to be redesigned in order to allow the readers to access its contents easily, with little confusion. My supervisor had previously redesigned an existing diagram and was able to suggest to me what the client expected. Once given the diagram to redesign I looked into different methods of expressing information. This included tables, flow charts and various other diagrams. Due to the stepped stages of the information in the existing diagram, I decided that producing a flow chart was likely to be the most effective way to style the information.
Design development
Due to the short turn-around of the Real Job, there was not a large amount of development with the design. I met frequently with both the client and my supervisor which meant that development was carried out whilst putting together the initial designs for the diagram. The client was very pleased with the designs that I was able to put forwards and issues were resolved quickly. Due to the diagram being used in a handbook for the conference, it was important that the design could work both in CMYK and in greyscale in the instance that the client needed to print in greyscale. The first design shown to the client is given here.
Initial design of flow chart
Outcome
The client and I quickly came to the final design and were able to agree on final touches that needed making. I provided the client with PDF, JPEG, PNG and Ai versions of the file so that they were able to place it in to almost any document that was necessary. The final outcomes, in CMYK and greyscale are shown here.
Final version in CMYKFinal version in greyscale
Reflection
Working in close proximity to both the client and my supervisor gave the Real Job a sense of achievement and it meant that I was able to react immediately to feedback I was given by both parties. The project, however, did not come without its challenges. Unfortunately, my MacBook was stolen during the process of the Real Job, meaning that I was briefly without any means of completing the work for the client. Despite this, I was luckily able to borrow a laptop and accessed my files online, meaning that I was able to quickly and seamlessly resume the job for the client. I personally feel that I was able to handle this situation with maturity and prioritised the completion of the job in order to satisfy my client, which is a largely significant factor in producing a successful piece of design for the client. I received very positive feedback from my client throughout the project, for presenting a quick and effective solution to the problem and remaining keen and enthusiastic about the Real Job despite the challenges I was faced with.
The MERL is a museum, library and archive dedicated to farming and the English countryside, aiming to maintain their relevance. Its collections span objects, archives photographs, films and books. It is affiliated with the University of Reading. Maria McKinney is a Dublin based visual artist. Her collection, Sire, is based on genomics in modern cattle-breeding, where she collaborated with genetic scientists and a pedigree bull-stud farm.
Brief
The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) approached us to design the promotional and in-gallery materials for their most recent installation by the artist Maria McKinney – Sire. This exhibition consisted of sculptures constructed from Semen straws, to represent different DNA of different breeds of bulls. The exhibition references several themes, such as science, agriculture, and art, so the design had to tap into each of these, whilst respecting the wishes of two clients: the artist and the curator. The deliverables required were posters of different sizes, an in-gallery brochure, A0 foam interpretation boards, postcards, and involved some cropping and editing of images for digital display.
Research
Initially we spoke face-to-face to the artist, to find out more information about her as an artist, what her collection means to her, and her thoughts on how she wanted to be presented as an artist. We took these answers, and produced a document of inspiration for typefaces, zines, posters and illustration styles. The artists in turn gave us opinions on each image, giving us a better idea of her preferences. We also met with the curator of the exhibition who showed us around the exhibition space. This allowed us to visualise where the exhibition materials would be to get a sense of scale that we could consider in our designs.
At this stage, we had a number of ideas for possibly producing illustrations that could later be adapted into animations for digital deliverables, or for producing patterns that could change as part of a series. Eventually, we agreed to focus on the work itself, instead of illustrations, and to pull colours for the identity from the sculptures.
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The fact that there were two clients with different background overseeing the design, meant that there were two contrasting ideas presented to us. The artist suggested we produce something like Zine – what tends to be more “rough around the edges” – and the curator suggested a glossy brochure, more in-line with the museum and university’s image. To begin with, we chose to research zines, looking at what is commonly done. Our resources included Pinterest, as well as materials the artist sent us herself.
Design process
A large portion of the project was designing the brochure for the gallery – it contained a lot of copy and required a flexible but strong layout to accommodate different text lengths and image formats.The compromise with the conflicting brochure ideas, was to produce a glossy brochure, but incorporate hand-drawn elements, and editorial design with more visual interest, such as indents and bold colours. We began by sketching out layout options for each page, before moving on to digital tests.
When presented and justified to both clients, they were pleased with the initial ideas and happy for us to take them forward. One of the suggestions, that was carried forward in a more pared back approach, was to use the artist’s handwriting for the titles in the brochure as well as have the interview section written out in her handwriting. The agreement was that this would present legibility issues, so handwriting was reduced to just one title, on the artist’s interview segment.
Alongside the brochure, we also produced the posters in different formats. These were shown to the clients in a face-to-face meeting and discussed to establish their best elements.
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We decided to pull colours from the artist’s sculptures in order to drive the colour-scheme. This ensured the artist felt that the exhibition was representative of her work. The main colours of the materials were yellow and red; this gave us strong colours that would build links between each deliverable and to construct a brand unique to the exhibition being held at the MERL. The typefaces agreed upon were Cardea and Source sans. Once the colours and typefaces were agreed, the arrangement of these elements on the posters could continually be reviewed and perfected, without harming the consistency with other deliverables. Once the brand identity was agreed, we could progress further with the deliverables required for the exhibition, using the key styling throughout. Designs were continually presented to both the project supervisor, and the clients. These took the form of both sketches and more polished documents.
The final deliverables
The final deliverables were as follows:
Posters in A4, A2, A1
A5 events diary page
External banners
A0 foam boards
Brochure
Postcards
The deliverables were submitted to and used by the client at different points of the process. One version of the posters was submitted early in the process, for use in the university events diary, and larger format posters were adapted and submitted for use during the exhibition period. The external banners were sent to an external printer a few weeks before the exhibition opening so that the museum could install them and promote the exhibit to passers-by. The brochure and postcards were also submitted for use during the exhibition period, and were found strategically placed in the entrance to the museum and at the start and end of the exhibit’s space. These varying deadlines and requirements meant needing to consistently keep up with work, be flexible to sudden changes or requests, and be in constant contact with clients and the supervisor.
Reflection
The long time period of 7–8 months meant that availability between us varied throughout the process. It was agreed that at some stages one person would design, and one would supervise. As well as this, we assessed our strengths, and shared deliverables accordingly. For example, while one was responsible for arranging the brochure layout, the other was responsible for the information design involved. Time management and organisation was also heavily affected by the collaborative element of this project. Deadlines across the project were relatively flexible, but still had to be agreed upon by multiple people each time. This meant that clients and supervisors had to be available to approve work, we, the designers, had to be available to work on the documents regularly and on schedule, whilst relying on each other to supply files, and printers and their deadlines would need to be considered in advance, to avoid last-minute prints. For the most part, this worked well however, as there were many people being relied on at any one point, occasionally deadlines had to be rearranged. Fortunately, the clients were very patient and understanding of the process, and were enthusiastic about the work and the project throughout.
Communication was mostly done by email, this being the most effective way for us to share files and messages with multiple people within a conversation, whilst also being a familiar service for us all. Exceptions were Skype calls and face-to-face meetings, where more in-depth discussions of ideas and feedback needed to be had.
This project brought a lot of new experiences and issues to us. For example, there were lots of deliverables that we did not have previous experience of sending to be printed professionally. With increased pressure for perfection, we had to have a keen eye for detail, as well as have a clear understanding of how the client needed the files to be set up for printing. For each deliverable, these requirements were different. For the large-scale banners for example, the external printer wanted a certain measurement of bleed, and needed an extended design shown, where the banner would fold over at the top and bottom to be attached to the pole.
One printing issue that occurred was that the brochure was originally intended to have a foldout map. Because of the number of pages, the printer called us back and told us this could not be done unless we could add or remove a page. We tried several solutions that would enable the foldout to stay but, they did not seem a comfortable fit for the pace of the brochure. In the end, the foldout was removed however, the client was still pleased with the outcome and grateful for our work.
Overall, we feel that this was a valuable experience which we have learnt from as designing materials for a large exhibition was something we had not been a part of before. This has allowed us to develop our skills as designers and become more knowledgeable in the design and production processes associated within this area. We were also fortunate to be invited to the opening of the exhibition. We met the clients as well as other attendees; here we were given a lot of positive comments of our work which felt like a rewarding end to the project.
The Brief During the end of my first year in Reading, I had invited to be part of the publicity team of the Typography & Graphic Communication department. I have always enjoyed sharing my stories and updates on social media, which I thought it is an excellent opportunity for me to develop my communication skills through this position; therefore I have taken it as my first real job. The job aims to increase students’ engagement in the department’s events, showcase student’s work to the public, and enhance the public recognition of the department by providing a global platform. Roles included blog writer, event organiser, event photographer and marketing material designer.
The Client Our team has the same lecturer as both our client and supervisor. As I am not a talkative person, I rarely gave opinions throughout the first few meetings with our client and fellow teammates. However, I started expressing my thoughts more after, and I noticed the importance of having every member of a team to speak up. Even if my idea were not impactful, it would lead the team to discover other possibilities when solving problems.
The Process We first started by having a job rotation system, but shortly, we have set specific roles in order to smoothen the process. During the whole experience, I did mostly event poster designing and some event photographing. As I am away in the second half of the year, I had decided to help the team a lot in the first term, especially for the Wednesday department events, since it is impossible for me to take part in the events in person. Therefore, I volunteered to design all the posters and social media graphics for the events in the first term solely, with one poster created as a group. The most memorial task I did was to write a blog to share my study abroad experience and to promote the opportunity for future students. The blog is written in a weekly format and in both English and Chinese, along with photos featuring throughout the blogs.
The Challenges I Faced As each event has only a short preparation time, there are always sudden changes in the plan. For example, once I was in charge of the poster making for an event and I was told to change the poster design the day before, which this frustrates me. However, after these experiences, it trained me to work better in the real world, where schedules can be changed in a sudden. For the study abroad blogging task, as my supervisor and I have not set an exact deadline before the end of term and I seldom check my university email during the summer break, therefore, I have missed the deadline my supervisor wanted. At the end, I wrote the blog in English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese and published them as soon as I received my deadline. This experience taught me to check my email daily to prevent creating any problem.
The Experience I Gained I have gained confidence in my graphic design skills through this real job. I still remember our team has to create the first event poster and refine the existing template few days before the event, which I volunteered to fully in charge. After showing my design draft to my supervisor, he was happy with the outcome, even though it was just the first draft. Even though it is not the first time my designs have been used by real clients, as the posters are stuck throughout the department hallway, I felt delighted and happy every time I passed by them. I found myself good at finding supporting images and creating designs in a consistent style as well. Since we have a fixed template for the event poster, all we need is to find the appropriate supporting images and edit the title and headline. Both elements have to be consistent with the posters that were made previously. However, I seldom have to change the supporting images after my first draft. Moreover, with the blogging task I did, it helped me to practice my writing and improve my translation skills. I have learned how to impress the readers, who might not know me in person and the program in the first state, but still willing to read my blog. The content choosing and placement have to be well considered, as it would affect readers’ curiosity.
Final Reflection Lastly, I would like to thank James. He is not only my supervisor and client but also the one who chose me to participate in this real job. As I have learned a lot throughout the process, even though I could not help much in the second half of the job, I pushed my limit to help my team in the first half and the blogs at the end of the year. If I could do this real job again, I would try to create a new template for the event posters and social media graphics. Even though the existing template is well designed, it has been used for the previous years, which it would be refreshing if a new template is used. To conclude, it was a fantastic experience to be a student publicity officer in this department. It broadens my future career as it provided me practices of designing marketing materials within a short period, and strengthen my writing and other transferable skills.
The Brief My second real job was to design posters with numerous illustration for Empiribox Ltd, a nationwide primary school science provider. My team was first started with two members, and one additional member has joined the team after my departure to exchange. The job aims to let the students discover science excitingly and enjoyably, broaden their horizon in the field of science, informing parents about science-related careers and positive impact of science education.
The Client The first client meeting went well; we were able to understand a lot from the client side, including their needs and expectations. As our supervisor, Alison Black, was not able to join us for the first client meeting, we have met her separately. Alison is a researcher on user-centred design; she shared many suggestions on how different users will interact with the posters, and how complex should the posters be. We have started writing our restated brief right after the first client meeting, as we wanted to have a fresh mind on what we are supposed to design. The overall idea is quite straightforward; we have to design 24 posters in total, which has changed to 12 later in the project. However, we have faced challenges in identifying the categories of the posters. As there are three subjects in science, and there are two different poster types with different audiences and functions, we were confused at first. In the end, we have solved the problem by making a table on dividing the posters, in order to make a clear mindset.
The Process In the pre-production process, we have made a few mood boards and initial sketches on the cartoon illustration and poster styles. In particular, I have researched both the general and science-related illustration and posters, in order to gain creative ideas throughout the process.
Mood Boards:
Layout Sketches Examples:
After our client has chosen the style that we should pursue, we have started on designing the main elements, including the layout, mascots and main scientists. I have designed all three mascots for different categories before my exchange program starts, and I am grateful that my mascot designs were chosen. With the layout, three of us have proposed different ideas to our client, and we all have decided on the most user-friendly one.
Mascots:
Illustration-wise, since my style is different from team members’, we started by separating the illustrations into three categories and each of us in-charged one each, while Fay helped to edit all the illustrations to the same style. However, after my departure from the United Kingdom, it was difficult for us to meet up and unite the illustration style. I have then gradually shifted from working on the illustrations to the fonts, header, footer and layout, in order to smoothen our progress.
Illustration Examples:
Moreover, since I have more experience with the Friday real job meetings than my partners, which they were new to it, I know the process quite well. Therefore, I prepared on the issues to discuss for the first few meetings. At the end of the real job, we have designed 12 A2 posters with numerous illustration. Although the company ended up not using the posters as they wanted to change the brand direction and the poster concept, our illustrations have been featured on their website. It is a grateful moment when we saw our design used in real life.
The Challenges I Faced I have learned that it is a hard task to work as a team when a member is away. Even though I enjoy creating cartoons, I still have to consider my team members and the outcome of the project. At first, we are working on all parts together, then we have separated our specific role, in order to smoothen the process. On the other hand, the communication between me and my team members has been affected during my away. It is mainly affected by different schedules, deadlines and time zones. My members did not reply my messages often; as I know they have tight deadlines in Reading, I frequently approached them that I can help on aspects outside my role, but their replies were always delayed.
The Experience I Gained I am not confident to use illustrator to illustrate before this real job, as I found illustrating digitally is quite difficult. However, I have gained confidence after forcing myself to apply to this real job. I found it is always good to challenge ourselves, in order to strengthen ourselves. Also, I have learned to approach our client proactively. Since my departure to the study abroad program and my team members might be busy with the coursework in Reading, we have less contact with our client in the second half of the year. Therefore, as we wanted to provide a more professional look to our client in year 3, we emailed and called her proactively. Unfortunately, our client’s company has been rebranded, and she only needs the illustration, but not the posters.
Final Reflection Even though there were many difficulties during the process, I have learned a lot from this real job, which could help me to develop my communication skills, such as contact both of my co-workers and client proactively, provide updates to people in-charge progressively, and the way to deal with unexpected situations. If I could do this real job again, I would set and follow a more detailed schedule for my team, my supervisor and our client. To conclude, it is still an amazing experience to work with my members, supervisor and client, especially seeing some of our illustrations are used in their brand.
The Brief My third real job was to design the Daily Hazard Assessment for the Met Office, which is the national weather provider in the United Kingdom. As the headquarter is located in Exeter, this job was communicated and delivered via phone calls and emails. The job aims to improve user experience with current user research and testing. As the final product is for future design referencing and the organisation has limited resources with this project, the goal is to create an easy editing document with Microsoft Word that could be edited by any employees.
The Client The first client meeting was communicated via phone call, and it went well; we were able to understand a lot from the client side, most importantly, the constraints from the organisation as they wanted an approachable and clean design that can be easily edited by employees who did not study design. During the process, our client has been changed twice. Our first client had left the organisation, and it was handed over to a temporary client. However, it was handed over again to a new employee of the organisation, as he needs time to adapt his duties, our schedule has been pushed back. Our clients were so nice that they were willing to accept our request to end the project as soon as we could in order to submit this as part of our real job submission, and we finished all the materials by early May.
The Process In the design process, we have first made initial layout sketches as the layout has considered the main issue to solve. With a clean and organised layout, it helps users to be able to identify their target information intuitively. At the same time, we had studied the user testing undertaken by the organisation. We have noticed the order of the information being seen, and the existing information order is not parallel. Therefore, we reordered them, starting from the maps, then summary and details, and ending with future issues. We have tried complicated and fancy designs at first. However, we figured out the usability is lower with these concepts and layout. After discussing with our supervisor, we then focused on making the design as clean and clear as possible, with less decorative elements. Afterwards, we have focused on refining the typographic issues, such as text length, rephrasing terms and copy editing. This is a new challenge for both of us as we were usually only correcting simple typographic issues like punctuation, readability and hierarchy with the provided text. We gave many thoughts on using the correct terminologies and erasing the unnecessarily needed sentences. During the Friday real job meeting, we have also discussed our problem with our lecturers and getting comments from both our lecturers and fellow classmates. These feedbacks are useful as the document is for emergency use, which the first impression and intuition of the information are important. My partner and I have consistently refining small details of the document in the later part of the project. As our client was happy with the layout and concept, we tried to refine the document as error-free as possible, in order to make the document to be used as smooth as possible. In early May, we have called our client for the final phone meeting. Our client has expressed his joy in receiving our design, which he thinks the document we created would definitely help and influence his team for future document design. He also stated the clearness and linkage between sections work well, while the way we ordered the sections are well considered.
Initial Ideas Examples:
Developing Ideas Examples:
The Challenges I Faced As this real job was promoted as a digital product, my partner and I thought it would be an app or website. However, we later figured out it is a word document that contains images made with powerpoint. Since we usually design fancy products with Adobe Creative Suite, this job is a challenge for us, as the aim of this job is to create a clean and approachable design with Microsoft Word. Moreover, as we communicated via phone call and email with our client, sometimes we might not receive their reply as quick as we wanted. Therefore, I have learnt that we should approach our client proactively when we want a quicker reply, as they might have other duties to work on and lower the priority of this project.
The Experience I Gained As we rarely use Microsoft Word as the tool to design, it is an exciting challenge for us. We had overcome it by the help from our supervisor and lecturer, Matthew and James. As images and text can be placed freely in Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Word has limits with this. This might due to the software’s target audience is the general public, while Microsoft aims to design the software with an approachable and fixed setup. Since most users used Microsoft Word as a text document, images have to be locked to prevent moving along with the text, while text should be placed in a table in order to create a less problematic file for our client for their future use.
Final Reflection Even though there were many challenges during the process, I have learned a lot from this real job. For example, as our client is working in a big company, the volatility of its employees and department structure change are high. As a designer, we should expect sudden change and allow more time for them to give us replies and comments. In addition, the employees might have many duties to follow up; the priority of the project might be affected as well.
The Kevin Kararwa Leukaemia Trust (KKLT) is an organisation founded after the tragic death of Kevin Kararwa who died from leukaemia 3 years ago, after he failed to find a stem cell donor. His mother, Veronica Kararwa, founded the organisation with hope that one day what happened to Kevin will not happen to anyone else. Through this project the aim is to create a strong brand which represents KKLT clearly and cohesively.
The brief
The aim of this project was to ensure the organisation has a professional visual presence when they visit events and promote the cause, by refining, updating and generating new branding. Specifically, we redesigned the logo, making sure it resonates with the target demographic and represents the brand as accurately as possible and developing a business card and leaflet.
The current logo, although it translates the main aims of the brand to the audience, does not have a refined and appealing appearance. The organisation felt that the redesign of the logo we developed during the Branding Project module, although dynamic and engaging, did not work effectively enough for its purpose and therefore we took on board their comments and developed something more useful. We also designed business cards and updated the leaflet thus that when the organisation attends various networking events they have means to inform people of the cause and stick in their minds. The requirements for the user are that the design work is friendly and intriguing so that they engage with the content.
Research
We researched successful donation campaigns that are similar to KKLT, to allow us learn more on how other charities approach their audience and discover more about what makes a successful campaign. The campaigns we researched are DKMS, Anthony Nolan and ACLT. We aimed to discover what makes them effective and translate the same to the rebrand of KKLT, while giving it it’s own individual identity.
DKMS
DKMS is a large multinational advocacy group with its own registry. DKMS is one of the most successful stem cell donation charities and therefore it can provide us with valuable insight into how to create a successful brand.
Anthony Nolan
Anthony Nolan is the most widely recognised stem cell donation charity throughout the UK and many people recognize the name due to the high-profile national appeals that have been featured in popular culture in recent years.
ACLT
ACLT is the most successful charity in the UK aimed increasing awareness and encouraging sign ups of people from ethnic minorities to the donor register.
Design process
Being that this project is a continuation from the work we completed during our Branding Project module (TY3BR), we providentially already had a relationship with our client and and an understanding of the organisations needs. The original feedback from our client, from our earlier submission, guided us in our initial approach and understanding of this project. It was clear that the logo we developed needed more thorough iterations to ensure it represented the organisation effectively. We also felt with more refinement we could produce a more effective and professional leaflet.
Upon our first meeting with Veronica she expressed her desire to continue with a bright and positive approach and suggested we experiment with the iconography from the original logo (the images of; Africa, hands), but in a more minimal and clean way. We also spoke with her to familiarise ourselves with other needs of the organisation and decided to also develop a business card which could be given out to people interested in the charity.
Once the deliverables we would be producing were clear to us, we spoke to the client about her printing needs. Whilst at first she expressed an interest in us printing the materials at the University, her existing relationship with her printer and the reduced cost which they provide made her decision to print the materials herself understandable.
The development of the logo took many iterations, most of which can be found adjacently. The subsequent feedback from the client guided us toward the logos which included the hand iconography (8,9). To refine these logos further we worked closely with our supervisor, Rob, who was supportive in giving us feedback and tips to improve the chosen logo as well as the other deliverables. We met and communicated regularly with him to discuss our process.
Logo
The client requested to use the finished logo on banners, business cards, leaflets and social media posts thus we aimed to develop a logo that can be used in all circumstances. When designing the logo we made sure to supply Veronica with the logo in; colour, black and white, and greyscale, in case she needs to use the logo in different background colours in the future.
Business card
The client asked to create a business card with only her details, as she was the director and founder. When the logo was finalised, a lot of iterations were made to ensure to the most appropriate version. We provided the client with a few variations and worked based on her feedback.
Leaflet
The leaflet was already designed from our previous submission. However, alterations had to be made to fit into the new brand identity, and check every is represented appropriately.
Reflections
Throughout the duration of the project we have built on our existing relationship with our client by ensuring regular communication throughout the process and ensured their comments guided our approach. This has helped us to better understand and respect the organisation’s needs, to ensure the eventual result was a brand identity the client could be proud of. We feel as though we have worked well with the organisation to understand their brand and consequently meet their expectations. One issue that we faced throughout the project was the possibility that our existing work could cause a hindrance in developing the most effective solution. This was due to its tendency to cause us to have a narrow mindset in our approach, as we felt we had already solved many of the problems. Therefore it had the potential to cause us to fail to explore alternative ways to develop the project. Fortunately our experiences in real job meetings and discussions with our supervisor forced us to gain a new perspective and highlighted situations where we needed to rethink our original decisions and approach problems in a different way. Specifically this became clear when designing the leaflet, which whilst we felt was originally strong from in initial submission – in actuality needed many other iterations until it was successful enough to provide the client for ‘real world’ use. This real job highlighted the need for a keen eye for detail and observance in our work as many times we felt work was ready to send to the client, but small discrepancies and issues were spotted by our supervisor which although relatively easy to fix, would’ve decreased the quality of the work if missed.
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