Out of Context - Initial Idea and pitch

This initial idea of representing ‘out of context’ by using semi-circles, because you’re only seeing half the picture without context, was fairly rapidly adapted into a full initial identity ready to pitch. The approach to the design was very straightforward and linear, utilising this repeated semi-circle pattern in red and white. The colour red was picked because it was eye-catching and bold. This repeated pattern gave the identity a very horizontal gridded structure of rows, which made it ideal to lay type onto in a very structured way in elements such as the poster (1) and the flyer (2). The typeface that was chosen for this visual identity was Vidange Pro, a model sans serif typeface which combines both very uniform geometric letterforms, with letterforms which are a lot more decorative and break the traditional form of sans serif typography with some very angular geometric deviations. This typeface was picked because this range in different letterforms reflected the range of the students work on display at the exhibition. 

The feedback from pitching this design identity mentioned that: 1) its possibly a bit too bold and doesn’t quite match the subtlety and formality that the identity should evoke, 2) the red semi-circles on a white background are reminiscent of the Japanese rising sun flag so perhaps the colour needs to be changed. Another thing that was discussed was that perhaps the catalogue was a bit plain and straightforward; in the initial stages of developing these designs, the first idea was to do a poster zine catalogue (3), so it was suggested that this was a bit more engaging and different than a standard publication style catalogue. A good piece of feedback was that the gifs created as part of this identity for the email header and social media were very engaging (gifs in blog).

After this feedback, the first changes to be made were to change the entire campaign to be blue and white instead of red and white (4,5) however the fundamental issues of the it not having the correct tone and being a bit too bold were still prominent. So retaining this concept of using the semi - circles, but trying to make the designs a bit more subtle and formal, more poster designs were developed (6,7). In these designs, the bright white colour that was used before is swapped out for a dulled down light grey, this decreased the brightness and contrast. Red and blue were both applied to the first design (6) in bright but slightly toned down hues. This idea of repetition is also mirrored in the type, this reflects ‘context’ as a concept, because we see the same type and title in different coloured sections, suggesting it’s in different contexts. The next poster design (7) has a similar layout, however the typography has been changed. In an effort to create a more subtle identity, the type appears in the same grey off the background, and overlaps different colours and shapes, making it obscured and in some cases hard too read, however the visual effect is very interesting. In order to ensure legibility with this slightly more convoluted presentation of typography, the typeface was changed to Acumin variable, a very uniform and minimal sans serif font. This also made the poster feel more formal.