Design Practice: OUGD406 - Communication Is A Virus (4)

The starting of our promotion is with the stickers we plan to put around, so we all went away to create our own variations. I decided to keep them simple and stick to the same aesthetic as the type in the logo we are using. I created a couple of variations, all simple, but stand out enough to be seen if used as stickers.

In the end we decided to go with the stickers created by Adam, Grace & Anna. We printed them on white paper, and some on transparent sheets to be stuck on bus stop/lamp posts.

Stickers

I am designing the E-book/Downloadable & printable book which is about the do's and don'ts of twitter posting - the 'Twitter Etiquette'. As we are unsure about the contents for now, I drew up a few designs for the front cover page, and then digitised them. I have used two typefaces here, Monoline Script & PicoBlackAl (The twitter font).

Designs

Design 1:

I found that when this was created digitally it looked very plain, and didn't look much more interesting when colour was added:

Because of this, I decided to skip the second design as it was the same type format.

Design 2:

Design 2 goes back to the logo design much more, using the bird face and type style. I think this looks much better than the first design as it isn't just a couple of words stuck in the middle of the page. It looks a lot more thought out and stylised. It definitely looks better with the outline as a line instead of a block colour. In the block colour it looks a bit too bold and not as sophisticated as the line.

Design 3:

This one works the best so far I think. The focus is more on the words and not on the bird face, like above, where I think because it's right there and in the middle you immediately look at it. In this one, you read the words first and then see the bird face, which is the way round it should be, as the bird face is just the logo and not so much what the book is going to be about.

I tried it in a few different colours to see how it would work, and if it would work. So far I can say I think it does, but I have to be selective on which bits are in colour, and which bits are in white, especially the 'Etiquette'.
I also tried the bird face with an outline, just to see if it worked better. I can't say it looks any better or worse, so for the moment I will be keeping it without the outline as it fits in with the way everything else has been produced up to this point.

I also looked at switching the colours round so the darker one is the background and the lighter colour is the lettering and bird. I found this was a lot worse visually as to make the bird face clear, I needed to use an outline around where the eyes are, as the colour and white seemed to fade into one and weren't noticeable at all.

Along with the bird face and title, I wanted to add what the book was about. 'The Do's & Don'ts of Twitter'. In my initial designs I used a block font, so started there.

However, I found it didn't necessarily fit in with the rest of the page, so started to look at other options to use. As the tone of voice of it all is informal and aimed at a student/teen age range, it needed to be something that went along with that and was more approachable than the block capitals used.

Typefaces looked at

My initial instinct was to use the typeface at the bottom 'Swagger' as it had a bit more personality to it than the other hand written typefaces.

I tried it in two different formats (Adding the final colour change in) and decided that it was definitely better to the side so I would continue with it there instead of at the bottom.

Caviar Dreams

Architects Daughter

Apple Casual

Out of the four typefaces I tried, I wasn't convinced on any, as they all seemed too polished and perfect, especially for handwritten typefaces. Instead of trying to find another typeface on a font website, I decided to use Adam's handwriting instead as it was clear and easy to read, looked like it could easily be made into a good typeface and was keeping with the casual and informal tone of voice.

Adam's handwriting

I got him to write out the alphabet in uppercase, lowercase, eleven glyphs and all numbers, that way it could be used in whatever way needed.

Alphabet by Adam

From here I put it into Illustrator and vectorised each letter, number & glyph, and from there too it into Fontographer and created a basic typeface which can be used to type with. This means that anyone in the group can now use it for whatever they want, be it the posters, leaflets or desktop backgrounds.