John F Kennedy Research

After looking at the different speeches I decided to base my trailer on JFK's inaugural speech  because after the research task we did I realised there was a lot of backdrop to the speech and it was more interesting than I had originally thought it to be. After deciding this was the speech I wanted to use I researched further into JFK. 

Brief biography - 

Full name - John Fitzgerald Kennedy 

Date of Birth - May 29th 1917 

Died - November 22nd 1963. 

JFK was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22nd 1963 aged just 46. The assassin was shot two days later before a trial could take place. 

The Speech - His inaugural speech took place on Friday the 20th January 1961 at 12.52pm.  



Historical and Political backdrop - At the time of the speech the two big backdrops were the cold war and the civil rights movement. The cold war 

"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

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And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." I chose this part of the speech because for me it has the most powerful quotes which  I think can be linked to very strong imagery and is also the most famous part of the speech so it will be recognisable.

Summary Of Speeches

Kinetic Text

Kinetic text refers to moving text which is something I have been asked to use in this current project so I looked deeper into kinetic text and some examples of it's uses. Typing Kinetic text into youtube gave me loads of examples of different speeches or film scenes that have been made into kinetic text it also showed me that it is hard to be original with kinetic text because they were all very similar just there colour schemes and occasionally an image in the text made them different.  


Looking at a few examples I found a couple of different styles or techniques that I would like to try.  Here for example is Community - Kinetic speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aHCCDki1y4)

It uses a technique I think would look good by continuing the text moving on the background. So here the text "you are" stays on screen at all times as it finishes and starts the next sentence. I think this looks good and it a good visual way to move the text on without breaking it up, this is a good visual way to move the text along to the next part. It is a method I think would be effective if I had the right text to use.  

Another technique I would like to use is the literal use of the word for example in many of the examples I looked at word like fire were flaming or smoke had smoke coming out of it. It is again a nice visual part of kinetic text and help make it more eye catching and unique. 

For example here the ...............









It is something I think is worth trying with my text for example I have the word shrink in part of my speech which I plan to use kinetic text on so having this word shrinking my be a nice visual element to my text. 

AF105 The Brief

For this project I have been asked too create a TV trailer for a new series of radio programmes called "Moments in Time" on radio 4. The show is about great speeches of the 20th century and I have a choice of 9 different speeches to base my trailer on. The trailer is meant to act as a teaser for the programme and should be 1 or 2 minutes long. 

The trailer must feature some kinetic text that is used to emphasise and show the importance of certain parts of my chosen speech. As well as this I have been given the option to shoot my own footage for the trailer or use existing footage which I am currently undecided on.  I also have the option to use music or sound effects for the trailer. Other things I have been asked to produce along with the trailer is 

• a number of sotryboards showing my progress

• A blog and Sketchbook to show my work 

Overall I think this is an interesting brief that is different to the work I am used too so I am looking forward to starting although I have no initial thoughts about which speech I will cover in my trailer. 

Evaluation

So I have now finished the book cover project and looking back I am happy with how most things turned out in particular the cover its self I think it really achieves what I wnated a fits the idea I had in my head. The art style is really close to what I had imagined it looking like, I feel this is down too my improvement on illustraotr as I now know my way around the program and can draw some things confidently with the pen tool which was not the case before, so this was a real positive for me in this project. 

Other than this I have learnt and understood what branding guidelines as well as creating my own which is something that will be useful going forward. I have also gotton more used to research at this level and I think that my research from this project really helped me form my ideas this project and gave me direction with my art style. I also learnt the basics on inDesign which I hope to use more in future.  There were sections I could've of improved on though for example the sketchbook didn't get that filled out because once I had my ideas and design it focused all on the digital work and producing my cover, poster guidelines etc. So updating this with some idea chnages or thoughts on my work would've been good in hindsight.

My poster would be an area for improvement as I feel like I spent so much time on the book cover I neglected the poster therefore I think it could have been better and my final product is not my best work. I would of liked to spent more time on it and really developed the idea I had for the poster because I thought it was a strong idea that had a lot of room to play around with. So spending more time here to design a poster that would look really good. Another area for  would be my sketchbook where I feel like I should of updated it but after I had my final idea solid in my head I could develop it digitally and stopped working on the sketchbook   so I really want to improve in this area. 

Overall though I think there are a lot of positives to take forward form this project like the illustrator work which involved more advanced methods as well as stronger drawing skills which I think showed. Also learnt about branding guidelines, inDesign and working to a very strict brief was a refreshing chnage a different sort of challenge than and open brief as it involved refining my idea more and think about how the work would look as a book cover and not just a piece of digital design work. So in conclusion I am happy with the progress I made on this project and feel there was a lto too take forward from it.  

Making my poster

For my poster I wanted something with a different feel so I created a dark moody street inspired from film noir, I drew a different looking man in illustrator in the same style using him in a leaning stance and dragged this into photoshop. I used the same Street light as I had on the book cover and added a lighting effect to this in photoshop I used the lens flair effect on 105mm and played around with the options a little to get to a brightness and size that suited the poster. 

I added a gravestone with the knight drawn onto it, I made this in illustrator and again dragged it into photoshop because the stroke was the key part of the drawing and they are better in illustrator. The hat on top links to the book and the time frame of the story, also taking the hat off the man then suggests it is his hat as gets the viewer wondering why  it is on a gravestone. 

Finally I added in the text in my primary font betty noir so it links back to the book cover and positioned this text in the space that I had then I changed the colour of the font to make it stand out and be easy to read.  

Changes Made After Crit

After the crit I made a few chnages to my book cover based on the feeedback I got the first one being recucing the carpet size on the front cover so there is some space between it and the table. Another chnage I made was tidying up the table design as some of the edges were uneven and over-run on the previous cover so making sure it was evenly cut off andsized correctly was important. 

A couple of other chnages I made relate to the spine where it was suggested the spacing was off and looking at it, it was with title being too low and the authors name not fitting correctly. So I moved the title up so there was even space between the gravestone at the top and the authors name at the bottom. I also slightly resized the authors name so it fitted on the spine nicely.

I also experimented with the colours trying out turning the light bulb whit but it just didn't look right so I reverted back to the yellow colour. I also added a very slight drop shadow on the title on the froont cover just too give it a bit more depth.

Here is the poster after the crit process as you can see I made a good amount of changes first of I took off the mans hat to even this out on the page . I also changed the colour of the font to make this stand out more and be readable, it really changes the look of the poster and balances out the light and dark elements well overall I like the poster now as it keeps with the art style and has a hint of mystery to it.

Making The Back Cover

My idea for the back cover changed a little after experimenting with a few differetn drawings of the Woman in the end I decided it was best to use an image in the style where she's walking away and place the street light behind her. I also added a distorded shadow on to the woman using a couple of different effects available to fit in with the background, as well as this I wanted here to be the main part of the back cover so turning her dress back added a lot of contrast to here and really made her stand out on the background. 

Fitting in the text was something I was not sure about but I tried to space it out so everything was readable and was not too close together so that it did not over power the back cover with text. I changed the fonts around making the quotes of the reviews really stand out from the hand written font of the blurb and the title font of the book quote.

Finally again the layout was worrying but I tried to space out the review quotes evently next to the woman so there was not to much empty space in one section or another. Also the street light slighty tails off the page as I wanted too keep the size the same as it fits next to the blurb which I really liked.

Making The Front Cover

On the front of my book cover I wanted to make the main character form the book Philip Marlowe appear to be moving a chess piece as it shows a key part of the book. I didn't want the whole of Marlowes character to be visible, this way he could be big but also add a sense of mystery too the cover as you don't know where he his, also putting the gun in his hand adds to this. I also wanted to create the effect that it is in some sort of room adding in a carpet like texture and a light, I experimented with having a light effect on the cover coming from the light but it looked a bit much and the cover looks fine without one.

Also the chess piece and the table it's on needed to be a big enough size so people could recognise the knight chess piece and understand what is happening. Another bonus of having Marlowe and the teble continue off the cover is that this was possible making it a big as possible.

With the layout on the cover I waated the above mentioned aspects to be the focal point and main imagery but I wanted to layout the etxt nicely as well having the authors name right at the top so it was recognisable on a book shelf etc. I also wnated the title to be in or aorund the center of the cover which can be seen in my initial sketches, the spacing worked out well in my opinion and the text has a good amount of space around it so it does not look cluttered and is readable. Overall I think the layout works well as everything has is own space with it all fitting on nicely.

The Crit

On monday the 7th of January I presented my almost final book cover and poster to the class, I received some really positive feedback on overall theme and feel of the cover with people liking the drawing style and the  effects used on the cover.  I received some important points to improve on aswell. 

The following points were raised 

• Make the carpet on the front smaller as it does not look right.
• Try just a black and white colour scheme for the character and objects on the cover.
• Potentially move the positioning of text boxes on the back cover.
• Reduce the brighness of the shadow on the mans legs

These were the main issues raised about my cover so I will experiment withhem to see what t on the cover. 

I also showed my poster which again was liked for the style and feel but there were also some helpful points that were raised for me to improve upon. 

The points raised were 

• Remove or edit the book cover on the poster.
• Change the colour of the text or background so the text is more visible.
• Remove on of the hats on the poster as it looks odd.
• Play around with text and it's spacing as lots of free space.

 So I will work on these points to see what lloks best for the poster, another point that people were undecided was the lighting effect on the poster a few people thought it was too bright whilst other thought it worked so I will play with size a strength to see if it can be improved.

Overall the crit was really helpful and the positive comments made me feel good about my work and design choices and the points raised gave me something to think about and improve on for the final dealine. 

Making the background for my cover.

For the background I wanted something that look stylish and fitted with the art style at first I was thinking of a dark shade of blue to use as the backcover but after trying it out it just didn't look quite right so I went with a light shade of grey based on a silver pantone colour that  I thought looked good but also made the content on the cover really stand out. 

So first off I started with just a filled rectangle of the grey I wanted covering the area of the template I can use. I wanted to add in some textures to give the background some depth and make it more aesthetically pleasing than being just a blck colour. 

To do this I used photoshop to bring in a couple of textures the first on being the patterns in the corners particulary bottom left on the back cover. I got these patterns into position and resized them in photoshop before dragging them into illustrator and live tracing them. The other texture I wanted to slightly overlay the grey and the spray patterns so in photoshop I added some blending effects to it to make it look right and make sure the colours were not to powerful or strong.

FInally I dragged this into illustrator and then just changed the opacity of the different layers to get the background to a point where I was happy with it. 

Illustrator Work - Drawing the Detective

The first thing I wanted to do in illustrator was draw the detective character I was going to use on my front cover. I knew what the art style was that I wanted to use so it was just a case of drawing the detective correctly to fit in with my chosen style. I used the pen tool and started to draw the dective free hand. I drew a number of different looking detectives some looked quite good whilsts other were either aesthetically poor or didn't fit the style I am using. 

This is the what I started with as the initial shape for my drawing tilted because the man is leaning over. 

Ii then added in the arms and legs seen here on the right. 












Another aspect of drawing the man was the shirt design I didn't want to leave just a white square as his shirt so I added some detail in to make it look better and be more effective.  I drew a collar and a tie in keeping with the drawing style I was using, I also made them contrast using black and white. 




 



One of the hardest parts I found to drawing the detective was getting the hat right as a lot of them looked odd or poor and  ruined the drawing. After drawing about 10 + different looking hats I finally made one that I liked and suited the drawing, on the plus side I can now draw hats with the pen tool really easily. 


After the hat was added to the man I edited a few paths until I was happy with how he finally looked, then I added in the final details such as the eye and the gun.

Branding Guidelines

For this project I have been asked to create a set of branding guidelines to go with my book cover, therefore I decided to research a little into what branding guidelines are and how they are used.  As the name suggests branding guidelines are essentially a set of rules to follow when designing for a company or business, they are important as they give your brand a visual identity and are how your brand or company is recognised by people this also means they must be consistent one of the main reasons branding guidelines exist. 

Branding guidelines will consist of the brand feel, typography, colours, imagery as well as potentially layout so there is a lot of information for the designer to work with. 

The guidelines come with ways to use a brands image and includes special exceptions on when you can change a set guideline for example when you should change the colour of a font as well as clears "don'ts" which show what you cannot do or change with the elements you have for example where a logo is positioned or the background it is on. 

Branding guidelines usually include the following  - 

The Brand Feel - The guidelines will explain the feel a brand wants to give and how they should come across to the consumers or the public it also lets the designer learn a bit about the company or brand before designing for them which would be helpful, because you would then know what kind of feel your work should give off and what it should suggest about the brand.

Typography - The guidelines will show the fonts that are used by the brand and how they should be displayed in particular the primary font used for the brand. As well as this the guidelines will also include the font sizes, kerning, leading and possibly other info depending on how detailed the guidelines are. They will also feature secondary fonts for sub-headings or other text on a design.

Colours - The guidelines will show the primary and secondary colours used by the brand and give there pantone values (if available) there CMYK values, RGB values as well as there hexadecimal value.Most branding guidelines will also give clear do's and don'ts on where to uses the colours and what they should and shouldn't go with. 

Imagery - The guidelines will suggest the type of imagery you should be using when designing for them, for example telling you what to avoid and what the images should be featuring.

The Pitch

On moday 3rd Decemeber I pitched my idea to the class using a presentation I had made, I covered the research I did into existing book covers for the big sleep as well as the main art styles that I got from the book. These being film noir but that was an obvious choice for the book so I wanted to mix it up a little and use a different type of drawing style for my cover, so I covered Saul Bass and modern interpretations of his work as the direction I wanted to go with my art work. 

I spoke about my colour choices that were heavily influenced by both film noir and Saul Bass so they would fit with the art style and give the cover the feel I wanted it too have. At the time I pitched my project though I had not made a final decision on my font choices so my pitch featured 5 different ones that I needed to decide on.

Finally I pitched my idea for what will be on the cover using the before mentioned art styles and colour.  


Feedback - 

I received some really positive and helpful feedback on my pitch which really helped me going foward. The art style was a positive with people liking it's different feel but agreeing that it would suit the big sleep and the colours were something else people thought would work. On the font choices I recieved some useful opinions which helped me make my final choice which was the betty noir font. 

It was also mentioned that one of my earlier ideas which was based around a gravestone that I had dismissed was really liked so I decided to try and use this in some way and bring it back into my designs whether it was on the book cover or the poster.

Overall the pitch was really helpful and made some of my design choices as well a giving me a few more ideas to think about.