Science Fiction - Star*Crossed development

Covers - With colour and typography pretty much established for both covers, the main part of the development stage focused on how the type would be arranged on the covers. The designs from the initial ideas stage with the large scale type filling the cover were bold and had a higher level of visual intrigue, with the shape of the letterforms being larger and more dominant within the design. Some slightly more stripped back layouts were experimented with (1,2) these especially suited the Mars cover because the rational and uniform approach lent itself well to a more futuristic cover design. One aspect that worked really well was having the asterisk in the centre, surrounded by negative space. This asterisk almost depicted mars in space/the sky and its smaller scale paired with the negative space around it highlighted how distant the planet is. 








At this point, it was decided that the 2 covers didn’t have to have the same layout; this cover for Mars (3) was very ordered and sleek, with the aforementioned effect of the asterisk and negative space working really well. However this cover (4) for Earth was more evocative of Earth because the large type felt very organic and watery. Ultimately, this earth cover also worked well in contrasting the Mars cover  because of the difference in scale; while the design of the Mars cover gives the effect of the planet being far away, the design of the Earth cover makes it feel closer because the type is so large, which adds a level of narrative into the designs. The final cover designs were developed with embellishments to accentuate the style that each cover needed to communicate; the Mars cover (5) was given a simple grid which closed in the type while still retaining that negative space around the asterisk. This grid made the cover feel more sci-fi because the structure and order is visually evocative of technology. On the final cover design for Earth (6) the ‘petal’ droplet shapes from the asterisk were scattered around the typography to make it look more liquid and evocative of water. 






Inside Pages - The design decisions made for the covers were carried forward and applied to the editorial design of the content. For the Mars pages, this idea of negative space was utilised again (7) as well as the application of geometric and uniform shapes/lines (8). Ultimately this made the Mars pages feel sleek and rational with a lot of space. For the Earth pages, the main priorities were to mirror this immediacy of the cover by applying visual devices at a large scale, and also to maintain the feel of water and nature. A pattern of the surface of water was applied to the pages (9,10) and the asterisk and the shapes that make it up were applied heavily as well, with one design utilising them at a large scale where they like like scattered pebbles or petals (9) and another page applying the whole asterisk, which looks like a flower (10). The final change that was made to the Earth pages was changing the typeface of the headers from Montag to Aviano Flare. This font is still evocative of nature and feels organic because of its subtle curves, however is a bit more formal which matches the tone of the publication more effectively. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Out of Context - Design Development

Image
Poster - The main development stage of the poster design saw an experimentation with colour and the layout of the typography. From the initial red and blue design, an orange and blue design was made (1), orange and blue are complimentary colours so they matched a little better, and the orange was a bit less intense than the red. Next, the blue was toned down to a lavender hue and the orange was swapped out for a green (2) this colour combination was a bit less intense however the blue and green combination had quite a natural feel to it which didn’t match the tone of the exhibition. Finally, the lavender colour was paired with the orange (3) which ultimately gave the tone and, and the lavender contrasted the orange much less than the darker blue, giving a slightly more subdued composition. Although these 2 colours are very bright, when interjected with the grey, the design is not too overbearing. The final adjustments to the poster design were laying out the typography; with the title...
Read more

Rimowa - Pitch and Feedback

Rimowa -  It was really interesting for Commission to go through the presentation that they used to pitch for the Rimowa re-brand. Straight off the bat, one of the most interesting aspects was seeing the differences in their initial concepts, and the finished result, Chris addressed this by highlighting that when you’re pitching for a project and you win, that doesn’t mean that your designs will be applied as they are in the pitch, it means that you’ve won the opportunity to further work on it, and in Commission’s case, the project ended up developing in a few ways, a lot of this down to the CEO’s vision for the identity.   What also really struck me was how incredibly refined and thorough Commission’s presentation was, they created so many different aspects of collateral for the brand, and each was meticulously produced and photographed. They mentioned that they don’t normally do pitches, however this one they couldn’t refuse, and every member of the studio worked on the...
Read more

Rimowa - Development stage

As the visual identity for Rimowa was developed, it was prepared into a presentation ready to pitch to the design studio who actually rebranded Rimowa 2 years ago - Commission.   Logo - The logo did not change after its developments in the initial ideas stage, this is because it is effective and appropriate.   Posters - Developing from the initial idea of suggesting the grooves of the suitcase on the poster, this set of posters does this, but in a sleeker and more mechanical way. The grooves run across the page at an angle, referencing the diagonal grid systems often found in bauhaus design, and they were outlined instead of filled in, in order to reduce the contrast on the page and to further communicate this idea of space.   Notebook - The design of the notebook was not changed, except for the addition of 2 metal pins at the top which would hold it together. These were added in because they evoke the aluminium of   the suitcases themselves, and therefo...
Read more