Drawing the detectives

In order to design the book Passenger to Frankfurt I first looked for a synopsis and read a little bit what the book was about: a bored diplomat that is approached in a not very welcoming airport by a woman whose life is in danger and he accepts to give her his passport and boarding pass to help. Due to the plot and the name of the book I thought using a typeface that represented an airport could be an interesting approach. Even though, I had other ideas before.

I tried to have a pure typographic approach using german typefaces. I found one that I first thought it could work, called Shelley designed by Andrea Fusinski. I was not able to use this typeface as it was not available to download and I could not find anything similar, so I had to come up with another idea. Even though I also considered other classic ideas such as Haettenschweiler, Copperplate Gothic or Braggadocio, but the approach was not entirely clear to me.

 

It was then when I started to look through airports and the way they have (and had) to display information. So I decided to make a panel where the letters work as little squares.

 

After knowing what I was going to do, I made a first draft in Illustrator using a grid dividing an A4 13 times by 19 with a gutter of 1mm and using the rule of thirds to place the elements in the composition. I used yellow typography to make it more vintage and older, looking more from the seventies, when the book was released.

I thought the approach was right but it was lacking detail, so I decided to go bring some three dimension to the design. I considered my previous work of Games Workshop re-branding when making this decision, but the field was different. It is not the same the purpose of a logotype than the purpose of a book cover. Maybe I was taking the wrong decision, but I said to myself that in order to progress I have to know where the limits are.

Following the same principle then but using different tones of gray and an addition of two wheels I created for each square to rotate I designed one slot and duplicated it until I had the panel to write in Illustrator. Then I used the typeface Arial as it was one of the most common used in this kind of technologies. The name of the author is written in Baskerville to stand out with the sans serif shape in white, making Agatha Christie the presentor of this work. After the word 'to' I added one of the squares caught changing to nothing to bring some balance the design was lacking. Once the design was done I exported it to Photoshop in order to add a black fade, so the vision of the panel was more natural and not that sharp, and also a soft texture to add some imperfections and mistery to the cover.

 

Colour Relativity

In order to better understand colour relativity we have been assigned to choose our least favourite colour (in my case a light brown) and try to make it work alongside other colours for a children cover book.

I think light brown is my least favourite colour because it has bad connotations as it is easily associated with dirtiness. Although, it is one of the most predominant colours in nature and maybe that is why is not special to me. The earth and many variations of hair, animal and human skin are in this colour. All the chosen colours are uncoated as it helps to make them merge.

 

This redviolet shifts the brown to something less banal and, at the same time, the brown softs the overpower the redviolet has, resulting in a pleasant combination.

         

As brown is predominant in nature so it is blue: the water and the shore, the sky and the mountains or a satellite picture of the earth are some examples where these two colours go together. That might be the reason why is comfortable for the human eye to see them next to each other. Blue animals are usually considered beautiful because there are not many and they look impressive in their brownish environment.

As well as blue, green is also very commonly present in nature and it gets along with brown in the same way, so the association might be the same one. Camouflage gear usually have these colours as well, based on the predominant tones of the nature, but this military design has connected fashion and nature in a unique way, transforming the original assumption of a cloth wore by soldiers for something urban.

Depending on the level of luminance and saturation a colour has it may has very different connotations. Where in the image on the left we see a happy farm, in the right we can appreciate darker feels that might imply something not very nice is happening in the story.

The Vignelli Canon

Two weeks ago or so I finished to read The Vignelli Canon, a short book that states the basic procedures for a successful design from Massimo Vignelli's perspective. I eventually bought it because it was impossible to get it in the library, but I do not regret it at all, since I foresee I will be glancing at it quite often in the future.

Despite it does not get into much detail, I found this book very useful and interesting, especially when explaining intangible concepts like timelessness, ambiguity but also on how the simple use of grids can empower a design. These are just a couple of examples, but this simple guide can solve many problems a graphic design might encounter. It helped me to understand what elements are involved in a design and identify them with names and concepts.

I feel very identified with Vignelli's point of view despite I do not agree at a 100%... but maybe a 98%. I cannot completely agree about how he call other's work 'contamination' because it is design made from other principles, but I totally agree that with the revolution of technologies there is a jungle where it used to be a cared garden. Jungles are great in many ways, but human nature makes us want a garden for our homes. As he says, it is human nature to give order to what we consider chaos.

I strongly believe this is a valuable piece of work, both very easy to read and very useful. A tool to be consulted at any time with a timeless and generic approach, applicable to almost any style. And I love the design of the book.

Colour theory

During the last session of Design Principles we had to group up with other peers in order to choose two colours for four different book genres that we had to pick from a list. The chosen genres were: Historical Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction and Fairy Tale.

We not only had to pick the ones we estimated the most appropiated and interesting colours for the genres, but also the less obvious and conformist. The colours on the left are the general ones, while the ones on the right are alternatives.

- Historical Fiction

      

These two dull colours were the ones we decided were able to represent the genre printed on uncoated paper, as they have an old look which could represent historical alternative stories. Books like The fort, Heir to a Prophecy or Fall of Giants influenced our decision and they seemed to us that shared similar colour palletes.

- Romance

          

We thought the most obvious colour for a romance book would be red, so we tried to stay away from it but without becoming confusing. Many romance books had blue on them, but we were not quite convinced by that idea. We also agreed that this genre is mostly followed by women, so books like The Captive or Now or never. It would be printed on coated paper to help to convey the passion and sophistication.

- Science Fiction

         

For this particular genre we wanted to use neon-pastel colours following old colour palettes used in comics, magazines and other kind of publications betwenn the 50's and the 70's but keeping it contemporary printed in a coated paper. An example of it can be The Sundered Worlds or The Cosmic Computer.

- Fairy tale

         

This time we decided to mix uncoated for the crimson and a coated for the golden one, as an addition of a magical component to something trivial but adorable at the same time. Some publications have followed this pattern, like The Usborne Fairy Tale treasury or The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales.

The group task allowed me to experience how we all share a common understanding of colours but we also can give new meanings to it. It is also a challenge to find new colours to represent something really obvious like romance, for instance, which normally is represented with red and glossy colours.

Blogging Lecture

Today we had a series of activities in order to improve our blogging skills. In order to do so we first got a lecture to know exactly what content is relevant and how to articulate it followed by an activity consisting in analysing the Whitney Museum graphic identity development.

Before working in the mentioned task, we first had to explore different vocabulary in order to be able to use the right words for the right purposes.

 

Once we had this we discussed the logotype and the development process in order to write a post as a group. This was the result:

"Whitney is the museum of American art and they presented the last re-branding work consisting in a light ‘W’ that can be flexible in shape.

When checking the design process on the website it is appreciable that the theory is a bit contradictory, as they claim the design is complex, since it is a zigzag but it looks very minimalistic and simple. Another interesting fact in the process is that they proof how the spaces in the ‘W’ can be used as a container for images and text. In the video presentation the logotype is portrayed as a very flexible and adaptable element carried around the screen with a very suitable modern music played with cellos and other instruments and elements.

The members of the group agreed that the design process looks rushed, unfinished, like it was made in a work document. The layout of the images were very inconsistent and proved some other negative points with these examples, like that the logo is not as flexible as it looked in the presentation. It is a logo that needs a justification and might work only as a poster, but not with an extensive amount of text."

These activities of today were useful to clear doubts about blogging and to improve the process itself.  However, I think it would be very helpful to have a chosen glossary for us to refer to and also get used to the jargon within the sector. I will follow the recommendations of Simon about reading different blogs to see how different people write about art and to learn from them, nevertheless a glossary is always a nice tool to have at hand when writing a post. I will probably use this website I found out looking for a glossary to start building a extended vocabulary to be able to critique art. 

Re-branding Games Workshop Feedback

Last Friday we had a critique session to help each other to improve our designs and see if we were in the right direction.

I thought I probably had some aspects of the design to be improved, but surprisingly I got mostly positive feedback from my peers and Danny:

- 'Definitely works better than the previous one' 

- 'I would not change the logotype, but it's clear they want to move on from old times'. 

- 'Interesting reference to Games of Thrones'.

Although I was happy I was in the right direction I made some questions to see if any of them had something to say:

- What do you guys think about the 'O' replacement?

They told me they think it was appropriate to replace for the symbol of the Age of Sigmar and it still perfectly legible.

- And the bevel and emboss effect?

I asked this question showing them how it worked without that effect, and they also thought this time my decision was right. A three dimensional logo enhance the purpose of the company much better than a two dimensional one.

- Does the 'R' with the long leg works for you? Do you have another solution for it?".

My peers told me it was not a problem at all, that it fitted quite well into the whole design. Although, Danny suggested me to have a look at a very interesting book called 'Marcus Aurelius - Meditations' whose title was written in a very interesting and ancient roman way which allowed to trick the kerning with a technique consisting in re-sizing or merging some letters to make them look like one single character.

I experimented a little bit with this but I concluded this is an useful technique to be used with a longer text, as I almost had no letters to modify, just the 'R', and this modification takes all the attention in the logo as it is taking place right in the center.

Another interesting recommendation from Danny was to check the Mason font designed by Jonathan Barnbrook. I would have liked to try this one but it is not free and it costs £43.99 pounds, but I tried on the website to see what it looked like and to know if it would be a suitable typeface for the design.

After taking a screenshot and re-ordering the words (sorry Jonathan) to have a preview of what it would look like I liked how the text looked more modern and it reminded me at the typeface you can see in a medieval book. Although, it was clearly less forceful, even in bold and serif bold, and I reckon it would suit much more appropriately in something specifically related to the medieval age, as Trajan is more subtle in shapes, and maybe because of that more adaptable.

A final comment from Danny was to check the artist Dave McKean and check his work with typeface. I was able to see straight away how he used Mason typeface quite often and the modifications he has done to it depending on the context. In the first picture it is very interesting to see how he keep a close kerning with different sized letters. As my design is most likely going to be three dimensional it could be interesting to see how different letters could work as a block, so I decided to give it a go.

After some experimentation re-sizing and merging letters trying to follow McKean's logic (something I found extremely difficult) but also trying to think by myself how to deal with the problem with this solution I realised that the logotype I designed has infinite variations but many restrictions if the general aesthetic of the typeface is wanted to be kept. Despite I liked how the new modifications worked the purpose of the logotype as an image for a company was a bit distorted, looking as a film title or something similar now, as this is the kind of lettering found in this sector, like in the film title "Pan's Labyrinth", even more noticeable in its original version in Spanish. This time I decided to stick to Vignelli's canon of not modifying typography (we have to be careful of pollution nowadays) unless is totally necessary.

Despite I tried to implement the ideas given during the critiques I believe the logotype previously designed is the right choice because of the problems explained earlier. Even though, without this recommendation from Danny I would have not been able to experiment the logotype in this line and see the possibilities a typeface like Trajan and others similar to it offer when lettering is being carried out.

Re-Branding Games Workshop

Last week we were briefed in order to pick an international company with a shop in Leeds so we could re-brand it not just from the information we would be able to gather on internet, but also from doing a primary research personally. I chose Games Workshop, the tabletop miniature wargame specialists. Despite I am quite geek it is not my passion to collect miniatures and customise them, but I know the company quite well as I have some friends that enjoy the hobby and because it has a complete unsophisticated and outdated logotype which does not represent the current ambitions of the company. I also thought that I could use some of my experience in the field to apply it to the empire company, as I participated once as Graphic Designer in a crowdfunding project called Dark Skies: In the land of the empires.

Original logotype

1.- Research

Games Workshop has been quite a controversial company in the last years when the mission of the company change radically, a decision that made them lose old fans that grew up with their games and decided to invest in new alternatives like Mantic, River Horse or Corvus Belli through crowdfunding platforms. For many people the 90's and the 00's were the best decades of Games Workshop, time before the direction team changed.

On their website they are very straight forward with their statements: 'We make the best fantasy miniatures in the world and sell them globally at a profit and we intend to do this forever'. This direct clarification of their intentions is to those who has publicly manifested their false expectations accusing the company for not accomplishing them and it is also a proof of a one-way communication between the company and the customers, stating they are not interested in suggestions or feedback of any kind. They also clearly state their values: they are passionate manufacturers and their priority is to invest always in improving the quality of the miniatures. People interested in collecting will choose the best and this specific kind of costumers is willing to pay a high price for this level of quality, they claim. It makes me think that whoever is interested in this hobby values quality rather than a game, and they do not seem like they want to compete with the videogames industry, which I think it would be an irrational decision.

After understanding their mission, values, mission and personality, and despite all the controversy, I thought it would be beneficial to find a way to widen the target audience and not just to bring back the old lost fans (nowadays they are mainly men between 25 and 40 years old), but also to make more people aware of this hobby and, therefore, of the most important company in the sector: the one that set a hobby and nowadays is an empire, something that I believe is not well reflected in their current logotype. It is clear that is not a hobby for children (mainly males between 15 and 25, or even younger), but many fans of this type of games started when they were very young, so I do not think it is a good idea to ignore this sector of the audience.

I visited then their small but cosy shop in Leeds where they have very friendly and passionate staff. When speaking to them you do not feel you are talking to an employee, but to a very informed geek that is there to help you, which I think is great. It was clear to me that they emphasise the miniatures placing them on the center of the store on a big table with impressive battlefield details, ready to be used for a game and check how awesome the miniatures look during a game. Everything is very three-dimensional, pleasant to touch and crafts are definitely involved, as there is a big shelf with different types of paints, brushes and other tools to customise the miniatures.

It is also important to notice that earlier this year they radically changed the appearance of their headquarters in Nottingham, which is also a museum and the dream place that every fan wants to visit. I was there once two years ago or so, something I thought I could use as well to redefine their identity. They released the Age of Sigmar, a new era for their most popular game, Warhammer. This supposed the replacement of the iconic Space Marine for the Stormcast Eternal Astartes and the Imperial Aquila for the Age of Sigmar heraldry. With this maneuver, it is clear to me that Games Workshop wants to leave behind what they used to be and set a new era, something that is clearly missing in their logotype. Another interesting fact is that the Age of Sigmar makes the new games unplayable with old miniatures, something that really bothered many fans of the company as miniatures are not cheap and it takes a long time to build an army for the game.

Before

After

It is clear that they want to start a new era in the company, but this radical decision seems to many an attack to loyalty rather than a fresh start. And this conflict of interests also served me as inspiration and an opportunity for Games Workshop to show their fans that they are actually bringing the best for them and this is why they decided to move on instead of sticking in the past, where they did pretty much everything they could. It is also important to notice that despite they also manufacture an important game as it is Lord of the Rings tabletop wargame, they clearly want to brag about Warhammer universe, which is entirely created by them.

Age of Sigmar symbol

2.- Idea generation

After the research I made a mind map to see how the facts I gathered could be leaded into a new design. I first stated the visual identity. The logotype needs to reflect the empire they are, therefore it has to convey power. The tone of voice also has to be epic! If their games are about fantasy and adventures that is also a must to be included in the design. And if their most important goal is to sell the best miniatures in the world then it was also important to do something three dimensional that looked high end, like their miniatures. I also considered to include the iconic Space Marine as some possible negative space as a tribute to old fans' loyalty, but it was not just impossible (I vectorised the contour of this statue and tried to place it in different parts of the text), but I also realised that is not what they are looking for in their mission statement. I also made notes and I also made some scribbles and sketches on paper.

Mind Map

Sketches

I started looking for some inspiration in different companies of videogames, tabletop games and comics with very similar aesthetic, such as Blizzard, Marvel, Wizard, Wizards of the Coast or Martian Manhunter. None of these approaches really convinced me, so I checked epic products instead of companies, such Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Starring at these two logotypes for a while and thinking why they work so well I realised that these two products have loads of fans even though they are not necessarily geek. They managed to reach that amount of different types of audience and of course the reason was not just the logotype, but surely it had something to do with that fact. That was what I was looking for.

Researching a little bit more, I realised that roman typefaces such as Trajan, Cresci, Andrade, Cantoria or Garamond were not just into the aesthetics I was looking for, but also they were useful for many other purposes (Vignelli knew well when choosing Garamond amongst his top 6). Then I started to experiment with these typefaces.

Top - Cantoria, Mid - Trajan, Bot - Garamond

Top - Cresci, Bot - Andrade

Trajan inscription on stone.

I thought Trajan gave me a much better result because its clearness and how the lowercase is designed as an uppercase, something it really attracted me to convey the epic feel I was mentioning before, so I decided to produce the logotype using this typeface. Another element I thought important to include in the logotype was the logo of the Age of Sigmar, replacing the last 'O' of 'Workshop' with it.

Age of Sigmar vectorised symbol

3.- Production

I first started with the word 'Games' aligned with the 'W', as most of the people that know the company refers to it just as 'GW'. But there was a problem with the balance and I decided to do like in the original logo, making it also easier to recognise for people that already know the company. I opted for a tight kerning but leaving enough space between letters, so in smaller scales they do not overlap each other. This type of kerning felt appropiate if I wanted to keep the same general shape as the old logotype, and if I decided to use an unkerned design the word 'Workshop' would occupy a massive space. I also had to modify the leg of the letter 'R', otherwise the 'K' next to it would look quite far away. I also tried to make the leg closer the stem, but it did not work and made look the letter pretty unstable.

I experimented with red a yellow colours trying to keep a similar palette to the original logotype, but if I wanted an epic three dimensional logotype I had to get rid of that plastic feel the original logo has. Then I tried golden colours and I felt quite happy with the result, as at the bevel and emboss phase it matched very well with the three dimensional look, making the letters like if they were made of metal. This process made the logo look darker, but after some readjustments of levels, bevel and emboss and saturation I had the result showed on the bottom-right picture.

Once I finished this first draft, I thought it needed more quality and the letters needed to be thicker to make the bevel and emboss effect stand out more and make it work better in the added symbol. So I went back to the first phase and made the letters bigger and thicker in Adobe Illustrator. Once in Photoshop again, I painted the letters with a dark golden colour (#978253) and applied the bevel and emboss effect with hard chisel, very sharpen. Despite increasing the size to have a better result with bevel and emboss the Age of Sigmar symbol did not came up as expected, but the result was more than acceptable. I thought I could either keep those details as they were not too relevant to also please detail-aware customers (an usual kind of customer in this sector) or I could easily polish it in the future. I decided it to keep them for now. I also replicated the lighting done in the original logo, making the light coming from the top-left and projecting shadow on the bottom-right.

At this stage I was quite happy with the results. Even though, some kerning was necessary. When adjusted, I wanted to see how it would look at the end of some kind of epic animation, so I added this image as a background and used a screen blend mode with a white layer below it plus a hue and saturation adjusting layer to add the golden colour. The result was an image that seemed extracted from an animation about a battlefield just after the conflict, when everything is over. I also included the logo in the website and on some products to see how it works in those contexts. Sometimes the background can affect the legibility of the logotype, but a stroke around it should sort this problem easily, making it look a little bit like the original logo.

The logo was ready to be shown at the group critique to see what things can be improved as I did not know what else to do to it. I have another week after it to work on the final outcome, so I will use it to experiment with the advice I will get from my peers and tutor.