OUGD 406 - Studio Brief 3

This brief is based around the idea of 'Communication is a Virus'. To me, this seems as though the aim of the project should be getting our idea or concept to be passed along, similar to how a 'virus' is spread. This could be through the means of hear say, or possibly social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter etc. I think that no matter what we do, we need to accomplish and solve this aspect of the project in order for it to be successful. To find out what would make people want to walk, and the different variables involved, we may have to think about constructing a questionnaire; this would give us an insight into different people's views and may give us an idea about how to tackle the problem.

Initial Idea:

As a group we got together and discussed all of the research we have done and any ideas that anybody had. We then spoke about which idea we felt worked the best for this brief, taking into consideration that we have 3 weeks to complete this brief so the idea had to be able to run for that amount of time. We also had to think about 'Communication is a Virus' which I think is the most important part to this brief; it is all about being able to communicate our idea effectively and ensuring that our message/concept/product can be spread and distributed easily. We are thinking about creating a brand that sells affordable running products such as footwear, apparel, gear and nutritional goods. This means that we could put our brand logo on all of our products which effectively would be distributed all over, meaning that people would be able to see it. It would be accompanied by a website and/or application that would help in the delivery of our message; these aspects would have to contain our information about walking and '10,000 steps' etc.

My Idea:

After having come away from the group meeting, I continued to think about things that we could include within our brand product range that would help communicate our intended message. From looking through my research and thinking about the ways in which we could target and communicate our message to a specific audience, I thought that maybe we could produce some sort of publication; this could contain all of the information that we would need to persuade people to start walking more, as well as educating people about the benefits and selling products etc. like a website would. We could make it completely different to the magazines and publications that are available on this topic now; we would achieve this by making the appearance seem more about aesthetics than content (making all of the pages look very visually appealing and easy to read, without cluttering it with useless stuff) If we have time, we could make the publication into a brand or produce a website that would accompany it. Aspects of our previous idea such as the leaflet/info-graphics could still be easily incorporated within this publication, as part of the actual publication or even just as supplements that you would get when receiving our publication. To continue with the idea of this being an 'affordable alternative', this could maybe be a one-off edition or just a free publication that you could sign up for somehow. In terms of content, it could contain the usual aspects of a health and fitness magazine: information (including maps etc.), photographs, products to purchase, stories from readers, other topics relating to health and fitness etc. Being a publication that is free or a one-off edition would mean that we could very easily answer the brief in terms of 'Communication is a Virus'; this being the idea that our message/outcome could be easily spread around, like a virus. These publications could be handed out in the street for free, put inside newspapers and magazines as a free supplement etc. We could even make digital versions of the publication which could then be put online or sent to people via e-mails or through online sign-up systems.
- I am going to take this idea to my group and see what they think; until then I am going to look into publications that I find visually appealing, as well as existing health and fitness publications, to show my group and give them a rough idea what I mean.

Concept Crit:

During the crit we presented our ideas and got feedback from Amber and Simon about the practicality of  our project. We hadn't previously realised that our outcome had to be real and applicable in the real world; we had to be able to go out and get feedback from whatever we had designed/thought about. Our idea to create a 'kit' that we would hand out is practically impossible, we don't really have the money or the time to create enough packs to get assessable feedback in time for the deadline. Cost is a huge factor within this project and because of this we are very limited to what we create and how we create it. Our current target audience that we felt we were aiming our product at was people aged 14+, as well as people that already go to the gym. Looking back, I feel that this is the wrong target audience; we should be aiming our concept at at wider range of the general public, especially those who are currently unfit.

Me and Sarah have been talking about these drawbacks and trying to think of alternative outcomes that would effectively resolve the brief whilst correcting all of our miscalculations.

Our Idea:

We think that our best idea and the resolution that most effectively fits the brief is creating a publication that persuades and informs people about walking 10,000 steps a day. To do this, we would design something completely different to the common 'health and fitness' magazine and much more aesthetic based. It could contain things such as information (including maps etc.), photographs (these would have to be black and white, half-tone, screen printed etc. to suit the requirements), products to purchase, stories from readers, other topics relating to health and fitness etc. as well as much more. However, a publication would involve printing many pages that could end up costing us a lot of money that we don't have; we do, however, have some solutions. To give our publication something unique, as well as cutting costs a lot, we could print it onto newsprint. This would solve all of our problems as well as making our final outcome look much more aesthetically pleasing. To further cut costs, we could create our own paper size, using the skills and techniques learned from our design principles sessions, that could mean we were able to print a full publication onto only a few sheets of cheap newsprint. As this magazine would be designed to be a free publication, this cheap outcome would make much more sense if it was to be produced at a much larger scale and would allow us to hand out a lot more for the same price or less. We could hand these out to people on the street which would allow our product to be quickly spread amongst the general public; copies of the publication could also be left in small shops, hair salon's, newsagents, travel agents etc. To further spread the communication and distribution of our product, a digital version could be made and put online for anyone to be able to access whenever and wherever they want. To involve social media networks as well, such as twitter, we were thinking about designing some form of sticker or badge that could be a symbol of our publication; people would be encouraged to go out on their own walks and take and send in photographs of themselves with the badges/stickers.

We then got together as a group and discussed our new idea. We decided that focusing on creating a publication was a good idea as it kept our project realistic and achievable. There are, however, some slight changes. Our publication will focus mainly on motivational statements and stories that are aimed to encourage and persuade people to choose walking on a daily basis; these will be backed up by info-graphics to prevent it from being a publication with only text. We will still be giving copies of our publication out to the general public but we shall be evaluating its success through the social networking site 'Twitter'. This will be our forum where customers and receivers of the publication can give feedback, whether it be positive or negative. We then wrote our own brief thinking about all the considerations that would need to be made when progressing through this project.

BA (Hons.) Graphic Design 10,000 Steps		LEVEL	4
STUDIO BRIEF

Brief

You are required to produce a publication that motivates and encourages the general public to keep fit by walking 10,000 steps a day. Your response should consider the context of where the publication will be distributed and consider what will be appropriate for your target audience. This is something which you will need to identify as part of your initial concept proposal.

Background/Considerations

What do you want to say? How do you intend to say it? What language is appropriate for your audience? Will the content be communicated primarily through type or image? If it is both what is the relationship between the two? How can your information be displayed through image? A limited colour palette, two colours plus stock. How will you tailor the content to suit this requirement? What are you aiming to achieve, how will you achieve this? What will you need to take into consideration in order to achieve this? How would this project evolve if it was to be continued in the future? What other outcomes would be made? How would this help deliver the message? Have you taken cost into consideration? What choices will need to be made? Have you thought about future mass production? What size will your outcome be? Will this be effected by your audience? Will this be effected by practicality? You should resolve this problem by the deadline stated below. However, if you have plans to extend the scope and ambition of your response beyond this deadline you should include these proposals in your presentation.

Mandatory Requirements	Deliverables
Your response should remain within legal boundaries. NB - Any activities that may cause damage, personal offence or involve acts of an illegal nature are not encouraged or supported by the delivery of this brief. You must seek appropriate permission for all activities associated with this brief.	Design development sheets. Concept/proposal appropriate to your idea. 3 x A2 presentation boards identifying: Concept Content Method of Delivery Publication encouraging walking.
Studio Deadline	Module Deadline
Friday 8th March 2013	3rd May 2013

We will later be assessed by what we have stated here, so we need to ensure that as a group we are constantly referring to this as a guideline.

Knowing now what sort of content will be in the publication I am going to think about some name ideas. To do this, I will use a thesaurus and generate a list of words associated with our theme(s).

• constitution - the physical character of the body as to strength, health, etc.
• eupepsia - good digestion
• euphoria - a state of intense happiness and self-confidence
• prime - of the first importance; demanding the fullest consideration
• salubrity - favorable to or promoting health
• vigor - healthy physical or mental energy or power
• jaunt - a short journey, especially one taken for pleasure.
• march - to go forward; advance; proceed
• pace - a single step
• perambulation - to walk through, about, or over; travel through
• promenade - a stroll or walk, especially in a public place, as for pleasure or display.
• ramble - to wander around in a leisurely, aimless manner
• saunter - to walk with a leisurely gait; stroll
• schlepp - to carry; lug
• stroll - to walk leisurely as inclination directs
• tread - to set down the foot or feet in walking
• rush - to move, act, or progress with speed
• advance - to move or bring forward
• amble - to go at a slow, easy pace
• patrol - a person or group of persons assigned to patrol an area, road, etc.
• wander - to extend in an irregular course or direction
• scamper - to run or go hastily or quickly
• 10,000 - As in 10,000 steps
• Walk the Walk - Similar to the saying 'Talk the Talk'

I have highlighted the names that I feel are interesting and worth considering; thinking about how it would be seen in context (e.g. Constitution Magazine)

• Constitution Magazine
• Euphoria Magazine
• Jaunt Magazine
• Ramble Magazine
• Schlepp Magazine
• Advance Magazine
• Amble Magazine
• Patrol Magazine
• Wander Magazine

In terms of the appearance of the publication, we decided as a group that it would be best if it was unique whilst small enough to fit into your pocket; the publication needs to grab attention as well as be small enough for the receiver to keep instead of just throw away instantly. So, thinking about the aesthetics as well as the practicality of our publication, I am going to go about creating my own paper sizes using the Fibonacci sequence. This will give us our own, unique and individual format that will give us the visual edge when compared to your modern health and fitness magazine. Whilst doing this I am also going to think about various paper types we can use to print our publication onto; my current favourite is newsprint as this is cheap and an aesthetically pleasing off-white colour.

The below paper size is the shape that my group like the most. However, this is too big for our purpose and so I am going to shrink it down by about 20% so that we can fit more onto a sheet of A4 or A3 paper.

Below is our final paper size that as a group we selected. We wanted our publication to be completely different to not only the common health and fitness magazines, but also all of the random publications and flyers you get handed in the street; this made us go for a more square like paper size that I created myself using the Fibonacci sequence. This means that my paper is fully proportionate and therefore going to be much more aesthetically pleasing in the end. We also wanted the finished publication to be small enough to fit into your pocket, thus encouraging people to keep them rather than just throw them away with everything else. This meant I shrunk the paper size whilst keep the scale the same; this will also save us a lot of money when producing the publications as with this paper size, we can print 3 double page spreads on a single A3 sheet of paper.

I am very happy with the paper size that I have created; trial and error and creating a variation of different sizes has really helped me to produce the size that suits our requirements. Now, we can look into the typefaces that we want to use, as well as other elements of the publication such as colour and other aspects of the content.

Group Meeting:

As a group, we got together to discuss the progression of our project. We discussed the paper size and everyone agreed that we had the correct paper size for our publication. We also talked about ideas that people have come up with. One idea was, due to our publication now containing mainly motivational quotes and facts etc., we could create a series of post-card like designs with our text or imagery on; these would be handed to the public instead of, or as well as, the publication. We think that people are more likely to keep a small flyer, maybe stick it on their wall or fridge etc. as opposed to a publication which would more than likely be thrown away. However, we still felt that creating a publication would be a good thing and would help us successfully deliver our message and fulfill our brief. We had the idea to create the publication using our quotes and messages etc. and perforate the paper allowing the receiver of the publication to tear out pages that they liked; this meaning that we could incorporate both our ideas into one. It would, however, mean that we would need to re-think our choice of stock. Newsprint is definitely not a suitable choice for this purpose as we are going to need something a lot sturdier for it to be able to withstand being handled and torn apart; something like antique paper would be much more suitable and still has the aesthetically pleasing off-white colour. Another thing that we are going to have to seriously consider now is the binding of the publication. Before this decision to perforate our pages and use stock other than newsprint, binding was irrelevant as we were going to put our pages together in the same style as a newspaper. Now, however, binding will be a huge factor in the production of our publication. I am going to look into these elements, typefaces and consider some colours we could use alongside our stock and black that will help portray a sense of 'health and fitness' and 'outdoors'.

For the margins, I decided that due to our decision to perforate our pages that we would need more empty space on the inside. I also decided that the margin would be slightly bigger on the bottom of the paper to allow for the reader's thumb, so that it wouldn't interfere with the actual design as much. The final margins are as follows: Inside - 18mm, Outside - 10mm, Top - 10mm, Bottom - 13mm.

Group Idea:

As we are currently planning on creating a publication alongside a set of post-cards containing motivational quotes and facts etc., we had an idea as to how we can spread our message as far as possible. Our plan is to take individual flyers and tie them to a balloon filled with helium; this would then be released outside and the balloons would obviously fly away. The plan is to spread our message as far as possible with minimal effort and this idea solves both of these problems. We do however have to think about the practicality of this idea. We will have to think about ways to make our flyers waterproof/weatherproof in some way as this will be a huge factor in the success of this idea. We could possibly laminate the flyers that are going to be distributed via balloon, or maybe simply place them inside a sealed plastic wallet etc.

As a group, we decided to go for the name 'Hit The Road'. I think that, although I prefer some of my own name ideas, this is a very effective name for our publication. It is a clever and creative name; short and catchy whilst instantly and effectively representing the purpose of our publication. From this name, I have created some logo ideas that we could use on our publication and flyers to make them instantly recognisable as a set.

Initial ideas and quick sketches:

I really like the idea of using a shoe with steps forming the sole. I am going to develop this idea further by creating it digitally.

 These are the various stages of my development from my original concept onwards. I started by quickly drawing out my idea before re-working it, this would then be re-worked etc. until I came up with the design I felt was most effective and suitable.

This is my final logo outcome. I think that it is very bold and eye-catching but also has a strong concept behind it. It is a shoe upside down and the steps form the shape of the sole. This represents walking and taking those first steps. It is fairly simple and I could play around with some different colour variations in order to see how it works best. 

This is a rough idea of what our publication may look like. I have used the colours that we decided on as well as the template that I create for everyone to use when adding their content in on inDesign.

or

 I have added this rectangle of colour down the center as this is the section that will be left after the page has been torn out (the outside sides of the shapes will be the lines that shall get perforated) This just makes the pages look a bit nicer and means that what is left after the pages have been torn out isn't just plain paper.

After looking at the layouts and page designs that the rest of my group have created, I prefer the way in which they have done them. They have done the left page the same as me but the page on the right, containing the fact, has been done differently. They have used a much smaller point size, as well as Helvetica, and accompanied this with a small info-graphic. This is a much better way of working as it stops our publication being only text and will therefore engage the reader more. The way in which I am going to determine the point sizes will be through the application of the golden number: 1.62. I have made my text fit inside my margin which makes it the size that we want, from this I can then figure out what size smaller or larger text should be by dividing by or multiplying by 1.62. For example, our main text size and the size I have used in the design above, is 39.5. This means that text smaller than this should be 24.4, then 15 then 9.2 etc.

Progress Crit:

We took in an example of how our page will look, including one of the icons that I created on Illustrator that corresponds to the the text. We explained our concept and ideas and walked them through our design process so far as well as what we plan on doing. We informed them of our idea to release copies of our flyers up on helium balloons. This was the double page that we presented:

Questions and Feedback we received:

How will we know its working? - As we are making a Twitter account for this project, we will be putting this on the back of our publication and flyers. This way, any feedback that people want to give can be quickly and easily displayed on our Twitter page meaning we can be constantly checking that our work is being received correctly and is working etc.

Where will we set them off from? - We were thinking about releasing the balloons from somewhere near college, possibly Leeds Met steps. However, like people mentioned in the crit, we would be better off releasing them from as high up as possible in order for them to travel as far as possible. We are currently trying to think of various places to go, perhaps going on top of one of the student accommodation buildings to let them go.

How will we attach them to balloons? What if the weathers bad? - We will attach them very simply through using string and tying them to the balloon. We have already thought about different weather conditions and are planning on either laminating the flyers if possible, or putting them inside a sealed plastic wallet. This means that they will still be in good condition when the receiver gets them. 

As we are planning on printing the final designs with all of the printers mark visible, because we think that these marks look very aesthetically pleasing as well as easily display elements of our publication such as name and page number, I asked Simon if this would be ok. This is because with the printers marks visible there is a small section of various colours in the top right hand corner which may infringe on the two colours plus stock rule. However, Simon said that we should be able to get away with it and to 'just do it'.

As we only got good feedback from the crit we decided that we are obviously moving in the right direction with our project. I then continued to create these icons and page layouts. Initially I have focused on creating the layouts that involve just imagery as these are slightly more straight forward. I am then going to go on to create pages that use text and imagery, or just text. Here are some examples of my designs and how they look in context:

In context:

I am going to show these designs to the rest of my group to make sure that they agree with the design decisions that I have made and to ensure that they all like the aesthetics and layout etc. 

They all agree that it looks nice, well laid out and considered and so I shall continue to add imagery and text to the remaining pages. As I have created the publication using actual double page spreads, when I have converted my InDesign document into a PDF it has made my book appear to be long and thin. This isn't how the final outcome shall look however, as it will be more of a square shape. I am going to try and create a new PDF that has the book as it might actually look when printed.

This PDF shows my final book with all of the pages in order. When I print my final publication however I am going to have to rearrange my pages so that they print correctly when put back to back. They need to be back to back so that when the pages are perforated and eventually ripped out, the image that corresponds to the text is on the back instead of on a different page. This is how I will need to arrange my pages in order for it to print correctly:

Although this does appear to be in a complete mess in terms of order of the pages, I have printed a trial run of this in black and white onto plain white A4 paper and it all works fine. I have made it so that it works when I print it, the correct text being on the back of the correct image. I need to ensure that I print the front and back cover individually so that they have nothing on the back of them, but other than that this is all fine. I now simply just need to print this off, including the printers marks for aesthetic value, and organise how I shall bind my book.

Groups Work:
This is the work that the other members of my group produced. We met frequently throughout the design process to ensure that everybody knew what was happening and had a chance to give an input however they wanted. We also communicated via text messages and Facebook meaning that we could be in constant contact with each other. This meant that the project as a whole ran very smoothly and effectively, each person was given a task that had to be completed by a certain time and generally this was achieved. This is the rest of the projects outcomes and development, created by various members of my group.

 

These are the flyers that Roxxie created, based off of the design work I had done for the publication. She successfully managed to keep her designs consistent with the work I had produced which meant that it worked very well as a set. These flyers were then attached to balloons and released, this being our main method of distribution. It is a very unorthodox and strange idea but I think that this unique concept gives our project something different and separates it from all of the other publications that you would normally be handed in the street. 

 On the back of the flyers was information about the Instagram, Twitter and Hotmail that we have set up for this project. People who receive the flyers or publications etc are encouraged to give us feedback and comment through one of these formats. This would allow us to evaluate its success and find out if our work is effective and actually working. These are images of our Instagram and Twitter accounts that were regularly posted on:

 

Instagram

 

Twitter

We also created a website that we would direct people towards. This would just contain some more information and inspirational quotes etc.

 

 http://designpreview.co.uk/2012/tenthousand/

 

These are some of the photographs of when the balloons were released. Originally we had planned on attaching one flyer to every balloon. However, we hadn't calculated the extra weight of the flyers being laminated. This meant that for every flyer there were two balloons attached which stopped us from releasing as many as we wanted. This was however the only real hiccup throughout this entire brief so I feel that this is a small price to pay. The balloons were mentioned on our Instagram account:

 

As more of a future development idea, we created a small selection of packaging. This would be for products such as water bottles, plasters, a motivational CD etc. The design work would be very similar to that of the publication and flyers; very minimal and clean with the same colour scheme and lay-out.



Our final publication that was shown in our presentation looked something like this:

However, since the presentation I have slightly changed the outcome. This is because I am not completely happy with how it came out. As there was me and another member working on the publication, at times it became a bit confusing what was going on. We both ended up creating quite a lot of pages which later had to be reduced meaning that some of our work wasn't actually used. The illustrations that we created were also slightly different in style and execution meaning that the consistency within the publication wasn't as strong as it could be. I also much preferred the publication when the text was on the left which it now wasn't; this being something I addressed when I recreated the book myself. When we first thought of this idea we had talked about creating a 'Leeds Edition' which was specific to Leeds; although this idea was basically abandoned it was still pushed through at the end meaning that we were left with a Leeds specific edition that wasn't really specific at all. Because a map had already been created earlier on in the project we felt the need to keep this within the final outcome. However, I feel that it seems a bit random and isn't really relevant to the outcome any more. This is the map:

As the publication was mainly my job I decided that the work that I created for it, which formed the vast majority of the publication already, was more relevant. I decided to go through the publication and remove the aspects that I didn't think still fit in with it. I also added back in parts that I felt needed to be in the publication, as much of the writing had been removed. This meant that I stripped it back down to how I had it before it was altered. I feel that this is now a much more effective and informative book. This is how my version of the publication looks:



After giving our presentation I continued to think about ways in which I could add more to this project. I feel that although the flyers and publication work very effectively in delivering our message, there could still be more efficient ways in which we could display our information in a way that allows us to keep costs low. Thinking back to our screen print inductions, in which we made a 'hot-dog' book, I decided to convert our information into this format. This means that we would be able to display a few pages of information on one side and a poster style lay-out on the back. We would therefore only need one sheet per hot-dog book, keeping costs very low. This is how the hot-dog book looks:




1. As a group what problem did you identify and why in response to '10,000 steps'?

 

For this project we focused more on the motivation, or lack of, that people have in relation to walking. 10,000 steps a day sounds like such a daunting task and we felt that the only viable and realistic way that we could get people to start walking more would be to motivate them. We chose to do this mainly through quotes and statistics we found online etc. which would then be illustrated. The format of this was a bit of an issue, as we all had different ideas about what to create and so by the end of the project, our idea was displayed through many different formats and media. We ended with a small publication as well as a website, instagram, twitter, flyers and a small pack containing some basic walking essentials and a music c-d.

2. What methods did you use to gather evidence to prove this was a problem and what forms did it take?

We all decided to go off and gather as much research about the topic of walking as we could. I looked into a wide range of different information ranging from basic walking guides and websites as well as looking into other cultures and obesity problems. I thought that by comparing the way in which for example the Amish life to the way that we live it would highlight further the problem at hand.

3. What methods of research did you find useful and why?

Secondary research was by far our main source of information; the internet being our main source. This meant we could gather information from a wide range of sources that covered all of the topics that we needed to cover. I did look at existing publications that I felt were appropriate to our idea but we ended up kind of disregarding these when creating our own publication, designing something completely different to what I had originally imagined.

4. What research could you of carried out that would have proved more useful?

I feel that if we had taken more time to think about research we could've gathered much more useful and relevant research through primary researching such as questionnaires and possibly photography. This would've allowed us to use completely new information as opposed to simply regurgitating information that most people already know. As much of our content was just quotes taken from the internet, it seems as though we are just doing what people have done in the past in terms of attempting to get people to walk more. I had originally thought that we were going to try taking this brief from a new angle which would've allowed us to look into much different things rather than just using the internet.

5. How did you manage the workload as part of a group?

I feel that, in terms of the workload, we could've worked much better as a group. Personally, I feel as though I did much of the hard work. A few members of the group seemed to not show much interest in the project, rarely being around or really contributing to the project meaning that we ended up with some work that could've been of much higher quality. Initially we delegated jobs to everyone in the group in order to get as much done as efficiently as possible. However, I did end up producing much of the work; a lot of the things that other members of the group did was made using my work, or based around something that I had done. I think that this was done more so that we kept the design work very consistent throughout everything that we created, but at times felt as though it was me doing the vast majority of the project.