Week 06 - 2D

Class Format

The class today operated in reverse to the previous weeks. The Practical (individual) was followed by the Exercise (group) and I'm guessing that this was to demonstrate that the design process operates in multiple directions at once. Featured this week was a rating system of our peers which I will comment more on in reflection.

 

Group Exercise

Design Perspectives

Draft 2 logo designs for your own design business.

• Design 01: Design in a style that appeals to a design Industry client.
• Design 02: Design in a style that appeals to a non-profit arts organisation.
• Draft in your blog with hand drawings and notes.
• Then draft your 2 designs in Illustrator or Photoshop if you have time.
• Incorporate the TAGLINE into both designs.

Design 01 is for my design company. The tagline for this company could possibly be 'Design from YOUR Perspective'. Design 02 could have a tag line like 'Colour in YOUR Community' (see design below). I am not sure that tag lines are my strong suit.

The design company logo after a bit of action in Illustrator. It still needs reworking with gradients and highlights, but you get the general idea. I am also going to look at working from scratch with the 3D rendering tools in Illustrator as well as Blender where I can do some animation.

To the left I have worked with the 3D tools in Illustrator, changing the angle slightly and employing the font 'Roadgeek Series C'. Below is the first render out of Blender, where the lighting needs some tweaking. The advantage of Blender is that the logo is now a 3D object that can be rendered with perspective and animated. It is possible to create perspectival images in Illustrator, it just complicated things when combining the meshes for multiple objects as was required here.
This was by far the best option for what I want to achieve. Further work will include changing the lighting, giving the the material a bluish brushed metal quality and of course animating it to slowly rotate.

 

Changing Perspectives

Using a scale of 1 – 10, each group assigns a quantitative rating for all the designs, based on the criteria below;

1. Accuracy in addressing the brief.
   - Cherill 8, Queenie 4, June 9, Katelyn 6, Andre 5.
2. Immediate visual appeal.
   - Cherill 7, Queenie 5, June 9, Katelyn 6, Andre 6.
3. Cross generational appeal.
   - Cherill 6, Queenie 6, June 8, Katelyn 5, Andre 6.
4. Suitability for print.
   - Cherill 8, Queenie 5, June 8, Katelyn 6, Andre 5.
5. Suitability for web.
   - Cherill 8, Queenie 6, June 9, Katelyn 6, Andre 6.
6. Monochromatic suitability.
   - Cherill 6, Queenie 5, June 8, Katelyn 6, Andre 6.
7. Simplicity.
   - Cherill 7, Queenie 7, June 8, Katelyn 5, Andre 5.

 

Research

Video

I found this tutorial particularly useful with my recent return to Blender. Cgboorman has an excellent collection on Youtube and I shall be collecting all of his videos. The main thing I gained from this video was learning how to relocate an origin point.

 

Images

Some sample images from the Blender website gallery, which can be found here.

 

Reflection

While I am sure versions of the numeric rating system featured this week do happen in real world situations, I was not convinced of its value in the context of todays class. I can see it being of use where a group of designers are working on the one concept as a democratic way of finding a focus (which in fact is an element of the IDEO strategy). I also believe it would also be more effective in combination with a more thorough group critique, although the time constraints of our time together may have been a factor here. It was an interesting approach.
There have been a few version releases of Blender since I last used it with any depth, which was version 2.4 on a Powerbook with an older single button Apple mouse. Currently I am running 2.6 on an iMac with a full keyboard and 3 button Logitech mouse, which is important for a couple of reasons. The experience of using Blender almost solely with a trackpad and limited keyboard is for the most part frustrating. The program has a heavy bias toward keyboard shortcuts and a 3 button mouse is an essential navigation tool. My point in mentioning this is that it is one thing to have the right software, but it needs to be backed up with the right hardware. It was also surprising how much the program had evolved in 0.2 versions, so the more you use it the more familiar it will stay.