Mock ups

After doing my drawings and creating my initial drawings, I can now move on to mocking up some initial ideas to create a mock up version. I believe creating this mockup is a big step to a finished design, as a crit will also give me some sort of feedback for my designs and what needs changing.

I printed out different test versions to make sure the alignments matched up together and worked as a design. Below are the print out tests lined up next to each other to show progress. 

These are not the final piece they are just quick and simple mock ups to test out whether the design will work. I had to look into this to make sure I had a good and working layout before paying to print it.

Information for leaflet

I need content for my leaflet so I decided to take the information from both the mind map I created, and writing up the order of my design process. Below are the steps I take: 

1. Background research 

2. Initial Ideas and Thumbnails 

3. Refine Ideas and mock up designs 

4. Crits + improvements 

Practical Experiments (Study Task 2)

After completing the research for leaflets I decided to look into creating some folds myself to see where these ideas take me, I like some of these however I had one practical experiment that I really liked. 

This practical experiment has an interactive aspect to this design, it allows the user to find the B in the design. I like this idea I am working with at the moment. The concept is all about getting from A-B and the paths you take getting to B. I Like the way that B has been found which in theory, would be the final design. 

I think I will take this design further and see where it ends up. I believe it is the strongest design I have and I will enjoy working with this.

Thumbnails

After deconstructing the brief and getting the research together for this brief, I started sketching up my initial ideas, I started jotting down the different aspects I would need and what I wanted to include in my leaflet. 

This page started off the whole "getting from A to B" concept, I started thinking about a way of connecting one aspect of my design to another and realised using circles and folds to provide a gradual path to the end.

I find this idea gives a strong relation to my work flow. Saying that the start of my designing is A and the final design is B, there are lots of aspects that are needed to get from the initial to B. Research will be produced then initial ideas and from there, the designing starts.

I believe this concept reflects how I work with distractions as well, sticking on the path allows my designs to be produced quicker and more efficiently without being distracted. Using the concept of following the path from A-B gives me room for initial ideas and gives a pretty strong idea to base a leaflet on.

Below the image shows me working with 4 different sections to a design, Having different tabs folded over to give each section of my design process. I like the way the user would have to unfold each section to reveal the end section. Therefore it sticks to the concept of following the path from A-B.

My first Idea was to have some sort of folded leaflet that gets enclosed into the folds making it hard to open unless you get the right order to open. The design would have a design through the folds that can be seen enticing someone to open it to see what is on the inside of the design.

What is my design process? (Study Task 1)

MY DESIGN PROCESS?

After making a flowchart to the various ways my design process takes place, I believe there are certain main points in my design process that have to be achieved so the work is completed.

1 main focus point to my design process is making sure I am in a comfortable working environment. If I find myself under pressure with loads of people about me, I struggle, I like to have the comfort of a room, or studio, to freely work at my brief without the distractions. I find that having distractions really affects the way I work, changing both the quantity of work, and the quality.

After creating the flow chart, I found out  that my design process if very planned and ordered. One point has to be finished before the next problem can be started. It takes time and effort going through the points and staying on the path to finishing the design is needed. I like this ordered technique, I believe it works for me and is the only way I can work.

My flowchart has 4 main aspects that need to be considered

1. Research: looking at the tone of voice, context of the product, all my initial research for the brief, creating mind maps to produce a vast amount of ideas and theoretical research.
2. Initial Ideas and Sketches: after the research I will have a range of ideas and ways my design can be taken, taking my research, I will sketch up my initial ideas, make thumbnails, and create a range of designs that my product can take me. 
3. Mockups: having a range of sketches that can be turned into designs, I will now take my strongest ideas and mock them up, create digital outcomes for them, and see which my strongest design is. 
4. Critiques: having initial sketches and mock ups to hand, it is now time for some feedback to see where my designs can be taken from there, having feedback is always a good stage when I am struggling to progress further, so some feedback from other creative minds really pushes a design further. 

Research into leaflets

After getting the brief and realising that looking into leaflets and how they are designed. As the leaflet has to be folded I will look at more intricate designs that include a range of folds and designs. I believe most leaflets are boring, uninspiring, and a pain to read, so instead of looking at these leaflets, I researched into specific leaflets that interested me, that included unique folds and designs. Using this research I will mock up some ideas and see which ideas go the best. 

Having sections cut out the leaflet are an easy way to take a design a lot further. I could experiment with cuts to make the paper shape more interesting and interactive.

This leaflet includes different folded sections that allow different inserts for more types of inserts.

This fold uses the fold to create this sort of negative space aspect to the design, creating an interesting design. 

making cuts and folds allows room for different layers and a range of tone coming through the cuts provided.

Having folds allows text and designs to have a interesting design distorting and giving the text another layer to the design.

I like this design as it links both the printed section of the design to the cut out sections and works together. I would like to incorporate this sort of interactive aspect into my ideas to make the leaflet more entertaining. 

I believe it is important to get this research before getting my initial ideas so I have these creative folds and designs fresh in my mind when creating my designs.

During the creation of my leaflet, I will look at research for both different types of folds, and then research for design of leaflets so I know what information I need and what is necessary for my leaflet. I have taken these folds research and created some folds myself to see where these experiments takes me. I like the way having certain folds makes a whole design look a lot more interesting so I am going to test out some of these to understand what makes a good fold.

Studio Brief 01 - "My Design Process"

After receiving the first brief, I was excited to get back to work and get back to work. The brief makes us think about our own design process, and how we apply it to our own work. I believe this brief is important for a first brief as it gets us thinking about how we design more after the long summer break. It allows us to question our design process and see it with other peoples process's and see if there process is similar or better than ours. 

The next stages I will take to complete this brief are as follows: 

- Research into leaflet designs, get inspiration, look at some of the existing leaflets and see if I can get any ideas and see where that takes me. 

- Make note of how I work, what methods I find best, what I find difficult and how this affects my work load. Collecting this information will allow set text and design that can be used in the final designs. 

- Produce some hand drawn and hand made leaflets to get the ball rolling and to see if any of the folds I produce could be used in a potential final design. 

As this is a short brief, I will split my days up and split the workload into these 5 days.

Day 1: Deconstruct the brief, complete research
Day 2: finish off research, start sketching initial ideas
Day 3: Initial Ideas sketches and start mock ups
Day 4: Crit with work I have now
Day 5: change suggestions from crit, finalise design and print.
Day 6: Day for problems and finishing blogging.

Using this plan will allow me to complete my work in the required time without problems. Sticking to the plan allows me to work professionally.