Graphic Design - Level 6

‘the simple fact that the traditional primacy of the record cover as the principal visual component of a band or musician’s image no longer holds true. When the great album covers of the past exerted their magic it was because they were all there was. Today there are many ways to experience music - TV, the internet, live gigs, movies, festivals, clubs, countless radio stations and even mobile phones. The result is that the album cover is now only one of many platforms for the visual expression of a band’s identity. And for a new generation growing up in an era of downloading, the record cover is increasingly likely to be viewed as an irrelevancy’ -   Adrian Shaughnessy. At the start of this project, I intended to rebrand an album; to design an album cover, logotype, posters and more for an artist, and to produce a record sleeve with my design on. Pretty soon however, the irrelevancy of this idea become abundantly clear. As I researched further for my essay, I read bo...

When developing my wireframes, I started by adding in all the images of my products, this made some basic changes to the layout and ratios - I used square images for the products in order to appear large on the page, making for bolder visuals, but also so the layout was modular and concise. As some more research, I looked at the Urban Outfitters application which has a very bold layout, with images filling the screen and different sections utilising interesting typography - this is definitely an approach which would appeal to my demographic (16 - 30) so I experimented with a similar layout for my homepage - my first design was quite convoluted, with different colours and typefaces clashing a bit, so I decided to tone it down a bit, using a more refined colour palette and selection of typography. Finally I did the individual pages for two of the products; I used the colour from their individual visual identities for the text on their pages to give them a stronger sense of ...

These wireframe designs show my initial ideas when i was still deciding on a logo and visual identity. I experimented with different layouts and initial loading screens. The main piece of research which informed the more developed pages within the app was looking at the Ui and Ux of supermarket applications which are very rational and easy to use. However I also want to combine this with a bolder UI that prioritises imagery and visuals, I also want to create animations for the loading screen which will suggest music and auditory experience in order to highlight the music side of the application.

Daniel Jackson BA (Hons) Graphic Design 2019/20 How Important is Graphic Design in the Consumption of Music? 5,499 words Contents Illustrations - p. 2 Introduction - p. 3 Main Text - p. 4 Conclusion - p. 15 Images - p. 16 Bibliography - p. 21 Illustrations Figure 1:   ‘Smash Song Hits by Rodgers & Hart’ - the first album cover, designed by Alex Steinweiss [Available at:  https://illustrationchronicles.com/Alex-Steinweiss-and-the-World-s-First-Record-Cover ] Figure 2:   The Rolling Stones’ ‘tongue and lips’ logo [Available at: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/rolling-stones-logo-iconic-design/ ] Figure 3:   Iron Maiden Album Covers [Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/ironmaiden/comments/7yq3cz/all_16_eddies_from_the_albums_who_is_your_favorite/ ] Figure 4:   Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis’ cover for XTC’s ‘Go 2’ [Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_...

For the final posters, I added in the shots of the products that I took and ended up enhancing the brightness even more, just to replicate products in supermarket adds as much as possible. I also resized the price bubbles positioned them better, slightly overlapping the product. Finally I changed the hue of blue for the New Music Market general branding poster; in a crit with my COP supervisor when discussing the brand identity I had created, we discussed how the incredibly bright blue I used was quite powerful and overbearing, meaning that it hijacks the eye in whatever composition its in, so I toned down the blue to be a bit more subtle.   I’m happy with this final set of posters; not only do they work well as a set, appearing as if they’re all part of the same brand, but they effectively combine supermarket poster design, with individual stylistic design decisions like type and colour, meaning each poster can be evocative of the album/product its promoting, whi...

I created a poster for the promoting of NMM in general; I like the finished outcome, the bottom blue section is reminiscent of the dual sides you often see in supermarket advertisements, the typography with the fluctuating letterforms matches the logo/brand identity well and along with the gradient waves which visually represent sound/music, there is a fair amount of visual intrigue created.   In order to create a set of posters with a coherent visual identity linking to NMM, I need to establish a baseline visual device or layout which can be used in all of the posters.   Contemporary Graphic designer Kunel Gaur was an interesting point of research. Gaur creates digital mockups of packaging design, however throughout every single package/product, there is the same monochromatic minimal visual identity. All the designs are very subdued and rational; none of the type is decorative, simply appearing in Helvetica, and all the illustrations are v...