National Student Survey

The first brief we were given today is part of a nation wide competition to design a promotional poster for the NSS (National Student Survey)

The goal of the poster is to encourage students to actively participate in the NSS. It should reflect the purpose of the NSS, conveying the reasons why students should partake in the survey.

Optional strap-lines:

• Leave your mark
• Have your stay
• Be heard
• Your opinion matters
• Speak up

The target audience is all final year undergraduate students in the UK. The poster should be appropriate for display in a wide range of further and higher education institutions. All entries will be judged on the following criteria:

• inspires participation in the survey
• is dynamic
• can be reproduced easily on print/online

Back to work!

Back from summer and 2nd year has started with a bang! There was no time wasted in getting us straight back into work mode. Two new deadlines for the end of the week as well as submitting the summer project. Along with the new year came a new lecturer who had some wise opening words;

"If you don't know the answer, it's your fault"

                                                      Marcus Diamond

The emphasis this year seems to be on attention to detail and professional development. (The title of our first module)              

Anti-Urbansism

As part of this project we have to think about our potential specialism for next year. In my portfolio review I decided to continue with straight graphic design as I feel it is too early to focus on one particular area.

Graphic Design is not just about selling a product or making it look aesthetically pleasing but can also be used to express an opinion or evoke certain emotions. I've decided to focus on the topical subject of pollution - which is increased by continued urbanisation.

While researching Peter Saville for my 'Visual Career Case Study' I found a public awareness ad he created with M&C Saatchi. The TV commercial used Optical Illusions to warn the viewer about the importance of road safety.

On the Creative Review site there is an interview with Saville where he discusses the thought process behind the ad.

I thought this could be an interesting concept for the urban motion piece. I could create a public awareness ad on the harms of urbanisation and pollution.

Urban Proposal

As the task is more self-directed we've been told to come up with a proposal, a plan for the project. I got my idea approved on Monday, I'm basically going to look into the negative effects of Urbanism.

The title I've gone for is 'Anti-Urbanism'. I thought the title had a specific theme but was still broad enough to experiment.

I also stated that I was going to try and create a 'short motion piece'. Its an area we haven't really covered so far on the course but one that interests me and would be interesting to work on.

A few times when I've been looking at motion graphics on YouTube the creator has often used Adobe After Effects, as piece of software in the Adobe creative suite.  We're not really going to look After Effects until 2nd Year but I thought this would be a good chance to get a head start and have a play around.

After Effects' main purpose is for film and video post-production; combining multiple video sources in various ways (compositing), correcting brightness and colour, removing unwanted camera motion and adding visual effects.

Urban...?

Haven't posted in a while, had a very busy week with my new project "Urban...?". We've been given the topic and have to come up with our own title and proposal. Its a self initiated research task in response to the theme urban.

Urban ajd. of living in, or situated in a town or city.

In response to the research we must produce one of the following;

• A short experimental motion piece (no longer than 2 minutes)
• 4 experimental images
• 4 experimental typographic pieces
• 4 experiments type/image pieces