OUDG505 STUDY TASK VOTE

we ended up wih the idea of creating lectures for university students who are interested in learning more about the main 5 political parties. I was happy compromising on this because I felt that I was too busy with my other briefs to be spending too much time on this, I personally felt like a campaign to allow students to vote in universities would have been more effective, give that students have to give all of their information to the institutions when enrolling.

OUGD505 Product, Range and Distribution Design Boards 1

I used black and white photography to continue the concept of contrast, whilst adding a grain to suggest imperfection and corruption. Some photos are full bleed representing freedom whilst others have a heavy border representing restriction.

For the content I was originally writing it myself. This however as my project grew and grew became unrealistic. I decided to source the information from the internet, crosschecking facts and statements to try make sure that the information was legitimate and unbiased.

OUGD505 Module Evaluation

I really enjoyed this module. I felt like I learned a huge amount regarding editorial design as well as book cover design. It was also the first module where I truly let loose and pushed myself. I felt that the effort I put into this module was great, although with better time management I could have accomplished even more by working efficiently. I also attempted new things with the foil pressing, and as for screen printing I had only done it a handful of times previously. I will be revisiting the works that I created and making minor changes to them to perfect them so that they can be part of my portfolio. I want to carry this momentum onto level 6 and prove to myself and my peers that I am capable of being a great designer. The confidence that I have built up from this past module had made me want to try find some placements over summer and start my career.

OUGD505 - Covered

The usage of the Y as a martini glass is very cool. I also like the textured stock as well as the minimalist style. I feel like books nowadays that use photography or extensive illustration end up looking tacky and cliched. An intelligent and minimalist design always works better in my opinion. 

The restricted colour palette on this book would work for this brief. The handrendered type looks cool when placed inside of the lightning bolt, and the contrast of colours and size of the black and white is balanced nicely.

Covered Rationale / Evaluation

This brief was very strange to me, as I didn’t know whether I was creating a book cover to be shown in an art gallery, or a poster which was of a book cover to be viewed primarily at exhibition. I decided to create a piece of work which I believed would work commercially, but felt that my final piece would also work at exhibition because of the contrast between mine and other people’s work, highlighting it. After watching many videos of Noam Chomsky speak about his political and philosophical views it is clear that his opinions are impossible to distill or simplify. His polemic on neo-liberalism is unrelenting and his views on the U.S and other major powers are very aggressive. He identifies as anarcho-syndicalist which visually creates no imagery that isn’t clichéd. He is known as the father of modern linguistics which does conjure some images, however the book I am designing for is Profit Over People, mostly unrelated to his work with language. The topics covered include U.S imperialism and capitalism, the monopoly that oligarchs have over the oil market, terrorism and inequality etc. I sketched out ideas playing with different concepts eventually making a few in Illustrator but nothing seemed right. The problem was the use of colour and shape. The tone of voice in the book is incredibly serious and Noam speaks with confidence and is incredibly articulate. Nothing he says is made fancy or is jazzed up, which made me want to create an incredibly simple design. I decided to create an all black book cover, as the connotations of black being power, death, elegance and oil are all perfect. I added a slice going up to represent the diminishing oil and rising prices. The top half was foiled (all be it poorly after I was sold the incorrect binding glue), and the bottom half was matte. I chose Helvetica for the type (light and bold) due to it’s connotations with capitalism. I was very happy with my final design even though the actual exhibited piece didn’t come out as expected. The concepts I felt were intelligent and led to a smart outcome. I definitely believe the cover suited the tone of voice and topics in the book and it would work very well commercially. The audience for the book is mainly students who are studying political philosophy and people who know his name. His book sold very well even though the original cover was horrendous, so I think this book cover could expand the potential target audience to people who wish to learn more about society but are more influenced by things such as the book cover. The exhibition was very good and I was impressed with the work that the first year created. It certainly motivated to step up my game for 3^rd year and possibly do some cross-year collaborations.

DESIGN BOARDS COVERED

foil became damaged over time whilst attempting the foiling.

The wrong glue damaged my prints as you can see on the white one.

The tone of voice for the books is very serious and scathing, so I wanted the book cover to match that. I would not use colour due to the possible connotations of each colour. The connotations of black and white representing death, power, elegance are suitable. I used a line to signify oil diminishing and prices rising. the text is isolated like people are.

I screenprinted the text onto matte black paper. I then attempted the foiling of the oil section. This went poorly as I was sold the wrong glue, damaging all of my screenprints. At this point I had cleaned the screen of it's emulsion. I decided to foil press an entire a4 and then place a screenprint ontop, This was nowhere near the quality I wanted but in the short time I had it was the best I could do unfortunately. I believe that had my work printed and foiled correctly it would have looked great.