For the first project of my second Semester at level one I was asked to design the identity for a band. Specifically a band I had not heard of before so I had no preconcieved idea of how it should ‘look’. I must emphasise this was not for real. This was just a University project.

Throughout this project I went down 3 radically different approaches.

Spraypaint

The first was a Spraypaint idea. At University I continually encouraged to try different methods of working, to try and not just use the Computer to create my designs so I thought going physical with Spraypaints would be a great idea.

                   

I decided to focus on the idea of inverted space and the medium the music would be on, a CD in this case. Although I liked the outcomes in real life, when scanned in and printed out again they lost their tactile nature which was their strongest aspect.

When shown to my tutors they similiarly liked their rough textures and the idea of a broken CD but I did not develop this further.

Watercolour

The next approach was a unique combination of Watercolours, Acrylic inks and a Camera dust blower. I used the Watercolours varied colours to write out the individual letters and then blew them with the dust blower to produce a splattered typography.

I felt this was a stronger idea than the Spraypaint although beyond what I had done for the outside of the CD case I couldn’t think of how to fully develop the idea into the required 8 panel booklet and CD. This was not helped by the fact that this next idea came pretty late into the project and was my favourite.

Digital

Typically my favourite idea was the least original in terms of what I do but still it looked the strongest in my opinion and had a great identity, which was the key objective in the project.

Using an out of focus camera and the street and car lights of night time Southampton, although it wasn’t that late, being in the middle of Winter it got dark pretty early. The idea came to me whilst I was waiting for a lift it was that simple, but because of this simplicity it could easily be expanded to cover the requirement. And then some.

As you can probably tell I like Bitmap fonts at that time. In this case I was using Visitor from dafont​.com, that site is immensely for someone who doesn’t want to buy fonts. Of course you get what you pay for sometimes.

After coming up with the initial idea I got a little carried away with the booklet and included items. You see before having this idea the digital idea I was having was all map based and after reading this tutorial on making road maps I wanted to include this.

I’d take photos of the final outcome but my University used it in an exhibition I think and so I haven’t had it back yet as that was as I was leaving. I hope to get it back as it’s probably one of my favourite pieces.

I’m going back to Uni in a couple of weeks and I’m definitely looking forward to it, keeps my mind thinking like crowdSPRING. Thanks for reading.