logo research

Today I started some more logo research for Philipa's Patch, after trying to produce some logos of my own, which were hand drawn and I don't believe were very successful. Below are a few of the images I found on the Internet, which I think are very successful that I'd like to emulate in some way.

From looking at the logos, you can see a clear influence of the Art Nouveau movement, which I'd like to incorporate into my own work, which I've already expressed saying I want to incorporate flowing lines and natural shapes and colours.

A few of these logos inspired me to look at the artist Aubrey Beardsley, who was a prominent artist of the art nouveau movement, and who is famed for his flowing lines and organic shapes.

Work by Aubrey Beardsley

mixed media.

Today we continued some mixed media work, working into images with acrylic paint, bleach, scratching materials etc. The main focus of this piece of work was to layer different materials to create a very textured effect. I learnt a lot from this workshop and I love working into the images and I'm hoping to upload some of the images from today that I felt were the most successful. 

exploring branding.

Currently reading the branding book: 'iDentify' as a starting point for my Philipa's Patch work, I think as soon as I get a logo together, everything else will easily follow (hopefully!). Hopefully the book will give me a few ideas not only for this project but also for the Exploring Graphic Design project, an interesting point to play with is one the book quotes from Jan Tschichold's book where he says: "the aim of a typographic layout is communication and that communication must appear in the shortest, simplest, most penetrating form." I think to some extent this is true, I don't like too much fuss, but also I think it's definitely worth playing round with this ideal. Exciting times.

masthead research.

Today I've been doing some very basic research on mastheads from magazines, looking at some images through the web. This is all so I can start to put together a masthead this week for my magazine, which needs to show what the magazine is about as soon as the viewer sees it. Below are a few examples I've found that I like.

Architects Journal

Blueprint Magazine

Architect Magazine

Architecture Today



Architectural Review



Considering the name of my magazine, 'H-SHAPE', just after looking at some of these designs, I think I'd like to go with something like the Architect's Journal masthead, which shortens the name of the magazine and makes it a mini logo almost. These have given me a good idea about where to start exploring typography and shapes, possibly from some of the photos that I'd already taken from the architecture I'm going to explore in Liverpool.

I'm having a bit of trouble branding Philipa's Patch, which I want to try and do before I start thinking about putting a website together, because then colour themes and typography will come much easier. I need a tutorial on this and intend to get some books out tomorrow in order to try and help me along my way.

dreamweaver.

Today we had a session on Dreamweaver, today we were taught about Cascading Style Sheets, which allow for more organised and better looking layout. There are some presets already selected which allow for easy use. There are different types of columns that can be used in order to allow different browser 'experience':  I've included some screenprints of this process below.



Choose 'CSS Style Sheet'

Selection of page layout













Here I can edit different aspects of the layout.



narratives.

Today I've been researching some names for my layout brief. I haven't quite found one that has caught my eye, but hopefully a little more research will do some good.

I've also started to think about what kind of layout I need to have, and I intend on doing some experimentation with the books we learnt how to make last Friday, cutting pieces out etc. I also need to find the information I am going to use in my narratives, and so intend to visit the Liverpool library tomorrow to see if I can get some local information.