The Brief
We had a group chat about this brief straight after the initial briefing. Our group consists of Abi, Alex, Danielle, Laura and myself. We decided the best way to start was to discuss each others strengths to determine if as a group we would work effectively better with each other.
Skills
Abi- Iconography, UX design, Web design, Colour
Dannielle- Travel info, Illustration, Concepts
Alex- Branding, Concepts, Implementation (print), software skills
Sophie- Concepts, Packaging, Branding
Laura- Print, Layout, Art/Hand-crafting, Organisation
We decided that we would go away and think about the brief ourselves, come up with concept ideas, visual ideas etc and meet up the next day to discuss our findings.
When we met back up some had done more then others but we still didn't have a definite idea.
I thought about phrases and sayings that meant something was better and I thought about the phrase 'Apple of my eye'
From that I tried out some designs and quickly realised that it devalued the project and wouldn't necessarily represent what I wanted to display.
I then thought about another aspect. The north is at the top (pretty much) something being at the top normally means that it is superior to others, so as a visual I thought about a compass, arrows a pyramid etc, basically symbolising that the top (north) is better then the bottom (south). As the brief is asking us to encourage people to think about the north being a competitor to the south which is the capital. Trying to persuade peoples to change there perceptions of the south.
During the initial presentation, there was a visual that pointed out the four cities :
So far left is Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and then Hull
We thought that this line would be a good visual to use, perhaps in the logo. The above logo examples I produced have some examples of how it could be used, however ultimately it didn't really work. Also there are some examples of logo ideas in which use the idea of a compass or an arrow. I presented these ideas to the group and they liked the concept idea the most.
Alex came up with the idea of using the above geographical line as some sort of grid reference we could use.
We planned to meet up again before the crit, however during this time, many people with in the group got ill or had other commitments. Although we didn't meet face to face we still spoke within a group online chat via Facebook.
We met up with the gentlemen from DBA who set the brief and talked through our idea/ concept, we however were the last group they had seen, and they then went on to tell us that there were numerous groups within our year who had the same idea for the concept some better and some worse. They suggested that because we hadn't done much yet that we revisited the brief and try come up with a new aspect to the design. This left us feeling quite dis-heartened as we felt that we were just stuck already finding this brief challenging it didn't really help.
However they came back in and chose groups who they felt needed some more direction and help, and one gentlemen came to help us. He went to explain that he was from a brand agency and the most important aspect of that was coming up with the concept idea.
He drew us a diagram that should help:
So ultimately what it means is that when you work out the Region, Competition, Audience. We would then get how this can move it forward to the future. From that is the golden opportunity where they all work together to get the final outcome.
As Alex, laura and myself met with the gent from DBA we decided that we would take a section each, I was given the Us section to research as I am Northern, Alex chose Competition, and Laura was the Audience. We then arranged to meet up as a whole group to discuss our findings.
RESEARCH ON THE NORTH- THE GOOD OR THE BAD
Alex wanted to do the branding, Laura wanted to design the posters, Abi designed the whats on App and I designed the info graphic and way finding for the train. I was also supposed to design the exterior of the train however Alex designed it instead as he had the logo which made it easier.
I spent a lot of time attempting the design way finding for the train platform which was a waste of time due to the fact that it wasn't that important due to time constraints within our group. I started off thinking about the different signs you find on trains and I realised that the most noted signage you find is the signs that show you where the train stops. These signs are typically found above the train doors. As we had decided on a set colour scheme that represents each city I took this and brought it through to this design so the brand was consistent. I took the earlier design of using the geographical points on the map to show the stops on train rather then the typical straight line. We had decided that Liverpool was representing culture, Leeds was education, Manchester was business and Hull was politics so to represent this in the sign I created an illustration of landmarks or buildings that were appropriate to those categories.
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