finally, the websites up & running.

So after a technology-hating week, Johnny's website that I designed for him is up!

check it: www.johnnyhorganphotography.com

johnnyhorganphotography.com

Over christmas I've kept my mind busy by creating a website for Johnny's photography. He needed a portfolio for his recent work for his degree, but having the usual student account bank balance, a website was easier and cheaper (when your girlfriend makes it for free...).

Each section scrolls to the right in one long photo reel. Let me know what you think - should be up and running in a couple of days.

package it.

The second stage of the 'brand it' project was to then 'package' a product for your brand. This did not necessarily need to be packaging, but could be anything from advertising to web design.

My initial idea for my brand was to create a website which offered customers a place where they could essential find their missing link - the thing that would make them complete, make them one - kinda cheesy, I know - but this was my idea. I wasn't too keen on going down the route of actually making the site though, so opted to design promotional pieces for 'weareone.com'.

As you can see below, I created illustrations which capture the services offered in a playful way - one of my main aims. I designed a direct mail, which fits in with the circular completeness concept, and an advertising campaign for use on the underground, trams and buses, which I feel is simple, yet gets the mind ticking.

brand it.

This project asked us to pick a word from a given selection and create a brand using that word as inspiration. My chosen word was 'infidelity' - quite fitting with my last project. We were required to produce the brand pillars and elements, without yet considering the product which it would be used for. My brand was named 'one.' My concept was to draw on the word fidelity and play with the idea of two things coming together to create just one. As you can see from my presentation boards, this has been implemented with the use of secondary colours and other elements which symbolise completeness, such as circles.

wanker or genius?

Not a difficult question to figure out - pick a person from the list and decide whether you think they are a wanker or a genius.

Tiger Woods = wanker.

Now I had to come up with a way to put across my opinion. After reading piles of golf manuals (just how I love to spend my evenings) I began to notice a trail of innuendos. Rather fitting for a self-confessed sex addict? Well I thought so, and I set about designing a tongue-in-cheek manual called 'a player's guide to scoring', which instead of offering tips on how to score holes on a lush, grassy, man-made landscape, gives advice on how best to score a very different type of hole, yet using the unaltered terminology of a golfing manual.

I made the booklet humorous by using halftone collage and illustration alongside the serious instructions. The research side of it definitely reinforced my dislike of the man.

back front

contents page

a moment in time.

For this brief, our tutors gave us a date in the past with two events which took place during that year. With that as a starting point, we then had to come up with a piece of design which portrayed that event and era effectively.

My moment in time was the voting age being lowered, and I therefore researched the protests that went on, not only for the voting age to be lowered, but also for other events of the time such as the war in Vietnam. I decided to create a typeface, which I called 'picket type'. It was created using gaffa tape - typical of how type is produced on picket boards. I then imposed black & white images of protests and rallies into the letterforms. I decided to use all caps as I felt it relevant to the tone of a protest.

I then developed my typeface to be put to use in an exhibition displaying photographs of protest scenes. I created a poster for this exhibition which I named 'The Voice'. This poster was printed onto fabric to keep in line with the type of materials used in protests, alongside T-shirts and vests with slogans on.

When I presented these at my tutorial, the first thing Ellie said to me was "you've been enjoying this project haven't you"? Well yes, I have actually.

penguin competition brief 2011.

So I decided to enter my design for the 50th anniversary edition of Roald Dahl's 'James and the Giant Peach' to the penguin competition. No, I didn't win, but I definitely enjoyed designing for it. I decided to mix it up a bit by combining hand-drawn and folded elements and digital elements, and I'm actually pleased with the outcome.

Book jacket design is an area which has caught my imagination since my first attempt at it during my foundation course and I think its a sad truth that sooner or later there may not be a need for it... fingers crossed it won't die out while I'm still enjoying it.

design heroes.

I got lucky with this project. I was given Wim Crouwel as my design hero, who turned out to be a pretty good option. I discovered that he was mainly a typographer, most renowned for his 'new alphabet' typeface. The brief was pretty open as to what to design, so I designed (and made) this exhibition souvenir booklet. It contains fridge magnets of Crouwel's whole alphabet - upper and lower case. Crouwel also designed the national stamps for the Netherlands, so I decided to combine these two accomplishments and print the new alphabet onto stamps, similar to his.

During researching, I discovered that Crouwel was a big fan of those nifty little things we all love - grids, and I incorporated this in to my design. When I'd realised my design, I thought it was a neat little souvenir, worthy of a place on anyones art & design bookshelf.

back front

inside left inside right

head to bed.

It seems ironic writing this when I definitely did not get enough sleep last night. The brief for this project was to create an ad campaign to promote and encourage people to get the right amount of sleep.

The first stage was a collaborative project in which each group had to make a video advert to be used on TV. Ours was hilarious and got all the laughs as we somehow managed to get one of our tutors to put on a onsie.

The next stage was individual, and we were asked to create the poster campaign for the brief. I took the point of view that sleep is an all-natural source of energy. It seems funny when you start researching these things, that people attempt to replace sleep with a number of different concoctions from drugs, to coffee, to chocolate bars, when, when it comes down to it, they need to just make time to get the right amount of z's in (not that I can talk).

So I set about re-packaging some of these remedies to create a set of parodies, being sure to stay in-keeping with the atmospheres of the original product adverts. I reckon they're pretty successful.

magazine layout.

I am rarely ever grateful when given a brief which involves writing about myself, but I have to say, this was one which I thoroughly enjoyed. At only a week long, it was a fast paced project which involved writing an article about our time at uni so far, taken from which ever angle we wanted, and presenting it accordingly in form of a magazine spread.

I focused my article around my 'family' in flat 3 of H block, the obsessions of me and the girls and the antics of the boys - who, I hate to admit, were extremely pleased with the review I gave of them! Definitely being too nice there...

Editorial design is an area in which I have a great deal of interest and something I'd love to gain experience in and better my skills in.

attempt no. 1 at web design.

So I attended a Dreamweaver workshop, after which, we were asked to make up a basic website for ourselves - nothing too complicated, just to have a few pages and rollovers to show we're not completely clueless! These were my two basic homepage and portfolio pages, which were fun at the time, but I've never put them to use...

symbol design.

This project asked us to design a set of symbols for a chosen theme. The theme I picked was a farm zoo aimed at young children. I designed this set of symbols to guide people towards the enclosures, and also to be used on the signs for the enclosures. I have incorporated the animals names within the symbols to

add an extra aspect to their learning.

book cover design.

My first go at designing a book jacket. Not too displeased with it, although looking back on it I may have rethought the cringey Photoshop colour edit...