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This week I have been ill with cold so I have dedicated time to further my research into marketing tactics. One way in which I want my design to stand out is to use an alternative method of distributing contact details rather than the standard business card. Although these can be affective as many can be produced for a cheap price, I want something more interesting to distribute in a similar manner. In built up areas, like the areas in which High Seas Inc seems to be setting up new stores, stickers can be seen plastered on street lamps, signs, walls, phone boxes etc. This can be quite good promotion for new businesses and events; particularly to a younger demographic. This therefore feels like an obvious choice of approach. I intend to design a few different stickers ASAP.

Another way in which I intend to promote High Seas Inc is through an older practice of matchbooks. Matchbooks are essentially an envelope like business card which contain matches. This was very popular amongst clubs and hotels. This I feel is becoming a less and less common method of promotion which I feel may give the company a unique image. Although I may be wrong, I feel that a number of potential customers to High Seas Inc may be smokers so, when smoking amongst friends, may be quizzed on where they picked up the matchbook and will tell their friends about the company. It wouldn’t surprise me if non smokers also picked up a matchbook to show their friends where they got their new tattoo. I will have a look at a few matchbook designs and create a mock up soon.

This week, I took a look at some existing tattoos and tattoo parlours to give me an idea of the kind of colour scheme to apply. After last weeks success with the logo I already knew black and white would be the key colours however I needed a few others. A lot of tattoos feature black and red so I included a red colour and a burgundy as I’m beginning to see it’s use more and more often. I added grey as a nice midpoint between the black and white and also a navy blue to bring it back towards our nautical theme. So far, this is what I have as a colour chart:

This week we’re back from Christmas and on with our new task of designing a corporate identity for a selection of fictional businesses. I have selected to design for High Seas Inc, an expanding tattoo parlour who wants to “maintain it’s Shoreditch appeal” as it increases it’s number of stores throughout the UK. This should be interesting as this is a new field for me. I don’t personally own any tattoos but I know many who do. To an extent, this will aid my design as I am designing from the perspective of someone who tattoos don’t appeal. For example, one of the reasons why I wouldn’t get a tattoo is due to the fact that many tattoo shops often look quite seedy to me. They have old, fading signs with the interior also decaying. This puts me off mainly as a hygiene flaw. You hear horror stories of tattoos and piercings becoming infected within days of application. Baring this in mind, I intend to market High Seas Inc as a more boutique shop with a crisp, modernist twist on their nautical themed name.

I had a go at creating the logo which I’m very content with at this early stage. I had a similar logo previously for a band however they no longer require it. The anchor to me is a key nautical symbol however it needed to look more modern to fit my design. I took inspiration from an umbrella design featured on a recent Bring Me The Horizon album. A weird source of inspiration however I liked how skinny the umbrella looks and how the white outline looks great on the black background. Using this as inspiration, this is what I produced.

This semester I think I have made progression; both in techniques and creative approach and I think I have managed to come up with some nice designs over the past 12 weeks. Personally I think that my typography work came out quite impressively and I achieved more than I originally thought I was capable of. I think this is partly due to my approach being influenced by a particular art style which I found fascinating enough to research. This I think is an approach I may re-try in these future projects to come. For example if I choose to do the facial hair companies brochure campaign I may try something based around Art Neuvo or if I do the investing company I’d probably aim for something more modernist.

As for the infographic considering that this was my first infographic ever I was quite satisfied with the end result as it was nice and clear with the information. This task I definitely had difficulties with; not any design issues per say but more understanding the information I had to explain in infographic format. Teaching myself Einstein was quite a big task which unfortunately ate into my design time. If I was able to do this again I would try to learn the content a lot sooner. Had I given myself more time this may have increased the quality of the end result. Other than this regret I can say I am pleased with what I produced. Perhaps if I had my infographic to learn from learning the theory would be quite a stretch easier. Still, I look forward to more designing next semester.

In this final week before deadline I have made all my adjustments as suggested to me in the workshop last week. Some of which were easier than others. To resolve the issue with some of my text not being visible, I opted for brighter colours to stick out more. The green colour is now a vivid bright green and the purple has now been replaced with bright orange. My main task in terms of the infographic this week was to add variation to my Einstein character. For this I produced 3 more variants in different positions:

This I think will make the infographic much less repetitive. Having the original Einstein made this a lot easier as this acted as my puppet so I could position Einstein into different positions.

Other than a few other minor bits of tidying up I’m hoping that it all should be good to go before the Friday deadline.

Checklist:

Submit before Friday 16:00 !!!!!!!!!!!

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