Research - My Brief

My Brief

In essence, a carton is just a liquid container, a box which has liquid in, as is a fish tank. 

For my project I intend to interpret the word carton in this way, as one of my main hobbies before I came to university was tropical fish keeping. I use the word keeping because, contrary to popular belief, they are in fact fairly difficult to keep alive, and there’s more to it than simply sticking a goldfish in a glass mixing bowl with a plastic castle.

I think the general idea about keeping fish as from people who’ve never done it is that having fish is the easy way out of having a pet, you don’t have to take a fish for 2 walks a day, you don’t have to take a fish to the vet, you don’t have to pick up it’s faeces etc etc. All of these points, whilst immediately seem true, are incorrect to. If you notice your fish isn’t well, you go to the pet shop with a water sample so they can assess the water and give you the appropriate advice or sell you the appropriate products to make the fish better. When they tank is being cleaned, what exactly do people think is being cleaned out of it? Fish need their space, if you have too many in a tank they can’t exercise properly, like a dog being locked in a bathroom.

I did my work experience in year 10 in the aquatics department of a garden centre, and I know for a fact that people don’t consider anything like this when considering setting up tanks, and even most people who had tanks knew less about it than I did even as a year 10, something which I found astonishing.

Because of all this, my project will be based around the knowledge and difficulties of keeping tropical fish, something which I think that people may find relatively surprising and interesting when reviewing my work in crits. It is a subject that I’m able to enjoyably research and have a strong background knowledge on, so it make sense.

Problems I Will Be Looking At:

pH - If the pH balance of the water isn’t right, the wish can’t breather and so will die. Most filters use biological bacteria to clean the tank, and these bacteria need a slightly different pH to survive, so balancing the waters pH is very important and difficult.

Ammonia (Poison) - If the filter stops working for whatever reason, the water in the tank quickly becomes poisonous and the fish die.

Feeding - Too little food and the fish will starve/eat each other. Too much and the food will rot in the bottom of the tank and cause ammonia.

Cannibalism - It’s not as easy as picking a pretty fish from a shop, some aren’t compatible with others.

Lighting - The health of most tropical fish will deteriorate quickly if they don’t get between 8 and 10 hours of light a day.

Expense - A tropical fish tank requires a heater and a filter to be running on mains electricity 24/7, and a light to be running at least 8 hours a day. Then aesthetic things like bubblers also require a plug 24/7.

Cleaning - The tank needs cleaning at least ones a month otherwise algae grows on the tank walls and the filters become saturated with the bad bacteria taken from the tank to the point where they can no longer function.

Jumping - Certain species of fish jump a lot, and so if there’s no lid on the tank you can easily wake up one morning to find a fish beached on the carpet dead. Even if the tank does have a lid, it needs to be removed for cleaning.


Pet Shops - Tropical fish are bred in such huge quantities that their health is of no importance to the breeders, so there’s never a guarantee that you’re buying a healthy pet.

Transport - After you've paid for the fish it gets given to you in a little plastic bag with some water from the tank it was in in the shop. Transferring the fish from this bag into your tank can be very stressful for and the fish and just a difficult task in general to due the other fish in the tank being inquisitive as to what's going on, and often the new fish is very tentative about leaving it's bag.

How I Will Be Researching The Problems:


The various problems will naturally have varying methods of research.

• pH, Ammonia and Lighting will most likely be book and internet based research due to the scientific nature of the problems.
• Feeding, Cannibalism and Jumping will more than likely involve me speaking to people at various fish shops and gathering information on how to avoid it.
• Expense might involve calculations as to how much a tank costs to run and comparisons to what else this money could be used for.
• Cleaning and Transport is a case of documentation as much as anything. There's only so many ways to possibly clean a fish tank and force a fish out of its transport bag. 
• Pet Shops could be a difficult one, because short of stooping around the backs of their shops their isn't really much I can do other than draw comparisons between their fish and and fish at specifically fish shops, and draw conclusions based on this. 

I don't wish to just research this though, I want to research why people think keeping fish is easier than keeping other pets, and this will be done by interviews, surveys and questionnaires.

COP Lecture - Advertising

Today's lecture was on advertising, and the points behind it were as follows.

• Advertising could be perceived as prostitution.
• Advertising is a tool used by capitalism to change our established values within society.
• Advertising changes our perception of what we want and what we need.
• Advertising has changed society so that people are defined by what they own not how they think.
• Advertising is often accused of exploring stereotypes and sexism. 
• Advertising drives the global economy and creativity.
• Advertising shapes popular culture.
• Advertising can enlighten, inspire and challenge people.
• Advertising questions society.
• Advertising raises social awareness of issues. 

Photo Frame Research

Today I took some photo's of photo frames in shops for research. The general consensus is that they're very texty or with simple imagery in warm, clean colours.

Generic text based backs with information on that is generally
not read by the buyer as long as they know the size and to some
extent the weight. Goes with generic frames.

Slightly more decorated frame has a simple block colour
vector image with basic information displayed clearly. I'm
really not a fan of the colours, they're dark, ugly and not
very visually appealing.

Thick frame uses warm colours and this reflects the more
homely and safe feeling of a thicker frame. The colours are
still quite dark and dull though.

Cheap and tacky-looking photo frame uses a generic photo
of a foreign building. Sort of thing I'd expect to find in a souvenir
shop when abroad.

Plain simple frame with a generic photo of a woman who's hair
colour matches that of the frame for continuity. I was surprised
not to see more frames like this.

Old fashioned cross-hatch frame uses old style illustrations
of tools that produce the illustrations, a bit of a strange idea.

Same photo as earlier used in a similarly odd frame. I don't
think this photo does the frame justice, the photo is quite dull
and lifeless whereas the frame is sparkly and alive, this contrast
doesn't work in my opinion.

Black and white text contrasts with the sparkly, shiny
cubic frame. Comparatively classy background compared
to the fairly tacky frame.

Quite a nice, well crafted frame, complimented by a well-lit
classy iconic photograph.

Nobrow

Today we had a talk from one of the founders of Nobrow, a printing company that promotes the work of illustrators. The guy was talking about how he and the other co-founder didn't really know much about the industry but still managed to make a successful business, which has given me reassurance that I can succeed within the design industry.

Below are two postcards showing some of the work they exhibit. I chose these ones because I like the use of bright contrasting colours.

Module Summary - OUGD403

What I Found Hard

For brief 1 I was given the word ‘vernation’, and this scared me quite a lot as I had no idea how I could possibly produce 10 different outcomes from this. Because of this panicky stage, I wasted a lot of time just thinking rather than researching, something that I’ve always done, and the first brief has made me realise and change this.

I also struggled with the image poster in brief 5 because the message I was trying to communicate was quite a complex one, as there are no obvious signifiers of discrimination and incompetence. Also, I’ve never worked on a brief before where I have been restricted to just image or just text, and so I would consider this brief, which I found very difficult in all honesty, to be a steep learning curve for me.

Where I Feel I’ve Improved

My understanding of type has come on massively due to a combination of the first 3 briefs and the sessions run in OUGD404, and when I look back on some of the work I did at AS and A2 level I can really appreciate this new-found knowledge and understanding. I even think it’s obvious that I’ve realised the importance of type just from looking at my blog posts, where recently I have been changing the font from automatic to Helvetica.

What I Think I’ve Done Well

I think that the main thing I’ve done well on across all the briefs has been the research and the time management. Having one and two week briefs is something completely new to me and I’m really pleased with how I’ve handled it. In interim crits I’ve often been complemented on the depth and relativeness of my research, and whilst I know that this isn’t what a crit is for, I think that the fact that other people can see I’ve researched well backs up my point.

Out of all the briefs, I would say I was most pleased with the outcome from brief 3. I think this because of how mixed Sophie’s personality was when derived from the answers to my questions compared to how clear her personality was in person. It would have been easy for me to make a font based on what her personality in person (if that makes sense), but then I would have effectively just discarded all the questions I asked her, which defeats the whole point of the brief. I was particularly pleased with the feedback I got in the final crit, as the general consensus was that the personality traits my font communicated were positivity and progression, which were the two main things I wanted to get across about Sophie.

What I’ve Not Done So Well

Starting from brief 1 I wasn’t so pleased with the visual variation of my outcomes, but then again I was trying to avoid the obvious connotations of vernation and stick to the more informed outcomes I got to via my research.

I was fairly happy with brief 2 at the time, but in hindsight it bugs me that the straight strokes were thicker than the curved strokes due to me altering the ratio of the inner and outer radii of the curves. What I should have done was change the thickness of the stems to match the thickness of the curves, but at the time it didn’t occur to me because I was too excited about editing all the letters with all the ideas I had. I could definitely improved the manner in which I approached this brief by making it more calm and logical.

I have mixed feelings about brief 5. I think I set out to do too much. I wanted a set of posters that worked individually but that would only truly make sense when seen together. I do feel I achieved this to a decent extent, but I think this came at the cost of the ‘high impact’ part of the brief in places. I think this is particularly relevant on the image posted because of how refined and specific the message was. That said, in the final crit I noticed that a lot of other people seemed to have (in my opinion at least) confused ‘high impact’ with minimalist, and I think finding the balance between these two was something that most people struggled with, myself included.

Summary

All in all I am happy with how the first module went, if not slightly underwhelmed with some of my outcomes. I am pleased with the way in which I’ve approached everything though, because I was worried that the workload would potentially be too much for me at the module briefing, and this has turned out to be far from the case, and all things considered, I quite enjoyed completing the module.

CoP Lecture 5 - Print

• Print in it's purest form is very cold, all it does is tell somebody something.
• Printing first started in Japan in around the year 200, printing in Europe stared around 1400 years after this.
• Print provides knowledge, and knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you realise how much you don't know.
• 'The medium is the message' (Marshall McLuhan). No matter what message you communicate, the method of print you choose will always have a subconscious effect on the receiver. 

COP - Study Task 5

Comic Sans was designed in 1994 by Vincent Connare for Microsoft to replicate the style of comic book lettering for use in more informal documents, although today it comes under a lot of scrutiny and criticism for it’s over-use by the general public, most of which are in situations unsuitable for the typeface. In 1930 Beatrice Warde said that when considering print and typography “you may choose your own vintage”, it’s a good job she said it in 1930, because had she said it in 2013 the quote would have read “you may choose your own vintage as long as it’s not Comic Sans”, which would definitely have decreased the beauty of the whole metaphor.

Personally what I find interesting about Comic Sans isn’t the typeface itself, but the idea of a typeface which is so universally hated within the Graphic Design community. The 6 fonts endorsed by Vigneilli are generally all well used and appreciated, but really Comic Sans is the only font that is on the opposite end of this spectrum.

Despite not being a classically looking font, Comic Sans is a script font due to how it is meant to represent the individually natured comic book fonts. It’s difficult to define weather form was put before function when creating the font, as looking at it from an outside point of view, the odd curves and general shape of the letters would suggest form was put first, but then considering its intent to replicate comic book lettering, it could definitely be argued that function was prioritised. Personally I would suggest that because of its over-use in areas other than which it was intended for, more of an effort could have been made to make it more comic-unique, and so I would say that form was put over function to make it a more all-round attractive font, which, despite the criticism it gets, I would say it is due to it’s easy readability.

Originally the connotations would have been fun, aspiration, power, speed and other things associated with comic books and super heroes, and this is still true to those outside the design community, although the cultural codes that exist within the graphic community point towards a lack of knowledge, amateurism and childishness.

In summary, Herbert Bayer in 1971 whilst working at the Bauhaus said “new concepts will not grow on mere design variations of long-established forms”. In my opinion and from my somewhat limited knowledge of typographic design and history, Vincent Connare tried something new in the way Bayer implied, Connare and his font get for it is grief from people “in the know”, who have, in my opinion, reduced typography (in this instance) to the pretentiousness of fine art, something which Bayer completely agrees with me on.

Conservative 2010 General Election Posters - Research

These posters were used by the conservative party in the 2010 general election when the government at the time was labour, and was seen to be failing by many. This is a similar situation to world football at the moment, as a vast majority of people in the game feel that FIFA aren’t doing their job properly. The only difference between the two scenarios being that there isn’t really a major opposition to FIFA like the tories were to labour. It is for this reason that I looked at these posters, as the posters I produce will be anti-FIFA in the same way that these are anti-labour. The simple layout and bold text strike me as very high impact, so much so that I remembered the two posters on the lower image off the top of my head, despite having no interest in the general election at the age of 15.

Message and Delivery Posters - Final Crit

Today was the final crit for our posters. I was pleasantly surprised about the feedback I was given from the class as a hole, not because I had a lack of faith in my designs, but more because I was unsure as to how clearly the messages were conveyed as obviously I had gotten quite into the project and was worried that I'd convinced myself that the posters had worked when in actual fact they hadn't.

The first poster I presented was the purely image one as I spoke about the First Direct advert with the beatboxing birds and how this poster was more of a concept for design rather than a stand alone thing. The general feedback was that my final poster communicated the poor decisions made by FIFA in awarding the world cup to Brazil, Russia and Qatar because of the denotations of the flags and the very very limited connotations that the 3 countries share. The symbols of the footballs make clear that the poster is about the world cup, which then makes it obvious that the 3 wise monkeys are ironic/sarcastic in a childish manner, which is what I was going for.

Somewhat surprisingly, the text poster was the one that came under the most criticism. The general feedback was that while it worked well in that it further clarified the context of the other two images, it wasn't really "high impact" in itself. A specific example of this was my use of the full stops after the three "no evils", as apparently they make the poster look separated into halves. This poster will be worked on before submission to take these comments on board.

Peoples reaction to the text and image poster were quite interesting. Being stood at the front an being able to see peoples faces as they read the poster suggested to me that the poster was definitely "high impact". There was a brief discussion about how clear it was that the messages weren't genuine and were clearly ironic and sarcastic. I was however criticised for using FIFA's official logo on a poster which is so clearly and seriously mocking them, and this is something I need to address on both this poster and the image poster.

One observation that was made was that the style of illustrations and the way I positioned FIFA to look would make my posters suitable for use in newspaper cartoon strips, which was again something I looked at, and so it was suggested I print on newsprint rather than just the regular paper I presented my work on.

Alphabet Soup - Illustrator - Print Induction

This morning we had our induction in the digital print room, which included the printing of our illustrator font (here) on.

My Font

Message and Delivery Posters

Today, after building on the crit yesterday, I developed the image poster so that the monkeys were more in context with my research, and by adding the FIFA symbol and the flags, the denotations of the 3 countries along with the connotations of monkeys are enough to communicate FIFA's incompetence in my mind.

My Image Poster

Someone commented in the crit about the drawings reminding them of the drawings in newspaper cartoons, so I did some research into this to give me an idea of what font to use for my text poster, an this is what the result was.

However, I didn’t feel that this font was high impact enough. After experimenting with a few fonts, I decided that the above font (ironically called “impact”) was the most effective and high impact. I think this is because of how well balanced the bold-readable aspects of the font is. Another more subtle positive of using this font over “noteworthy” is that the “No Evil” are all much more clearly aligned, which gives a more organised feel, which is an important connotation of a serious poster in my opinion. 

My Text Poster

From here I decided that my text and image poster needed to tie the two together somehow. The obvious and boring way to do this would be to use the words from the text poster and the FIFA logo with the 3 wise monkey images, which was something I wanted to avoid. 

As part of my research I looked at the First Direct adverts with the Northern Platypus and The Beatboxing Birds. Those adverts originally came about my showing 10 seconds of a beatboxing bird on TV and that was it, no context (like the image poster my crit yesterday). Then about a month later a concept came in the form of the platypus (like my text poster), becuase it was obvious that this was the same concept when you compare the two. Then when the actual advert came out, everyone was enlightened as to what the platypus and birds were about, and the image and type poster was my chance to bring the 2 posters together. 

My Image and Text Poster

By using the FIFA logo I have clearly identified who the target of my posters message is, and used discriminative message extremely similar to the ones Sepp Blatter (the monkey) had said himself according to my research. These 3 posters now work as a set in that anyone who's read the text poster will associate it with this poster, and then this poster with the image poster.

That said, I believe they all work individually as well. The image poster has enough connotations and denotations for the message to be worked out by people who know about football, whereas the message in the text poster is obvious due to the nature of the poster. The third poster however works on two different levels. People interested in football will recognise the logo and associate the racist quotes with Blatter, pick up on the allusion to the 3 wise monkeys, and see the irony in Blatter as a monkey. People who aren't interested in football however, will be alarmed by the discriminative quotes, and then associate them with FIFA, which raises the profile of their incompetence and ignorance, which was one of the things I wanted to do.

Newspaper Cartoons - Research

The style of illustration I chose is quite childish for a number of reasons. As these political newspaper cartoons show, the using childish illustrations make it obvious that the person or people in the image are being mocked. But in the context of my posters, it will be quite important, as I could potentially be using ironic or sarcastic messages on the posters which could potentially be offensive, and having a childish illustration makes obvious that the posters are ironic rather than actual propaganda.

Message Delivery Posters - Interim Crit

Today was the interim crit for the message delivery posters, but knowing that I have all day tomorrow to work on the project, I have done a lot of research in an attempt to ensure that my posters give the right sort of message and are in the correct tone. Because of this, all I presented in the crit was my initial 4 sketches of ideas for the image poster and an initial mock up of the three wise monkeys poster shown below in an attempt to get feedback on the concept.

What I Showed In The Crit

Unfortunately people didn't really give much useful feedback, although this was only to be expected due to the lack of context I included.  However, people commented that the concept of the 3 wise monkeys worked well with the style of illustration, and that the style of illustration was quite childish, which was what I was going for.

This means that tomorrow I won't really have much to go on during the development stages of my poster, but hopefully there will be people around me who's opinion I can ask throughout the day.

COP Lecture 4 - Illustration

Todays lecture was about illustration, and the difference between illustration and drawing, which is that anything that is doodled is a drawing, but an illustration needs context, concept and image. 

First Direct Bank Advertising - Research

I looked at the strange advertising campaign for first direct, a bank, which is a serious business. Yet it uses animals doing strange things as it’s advertising campaign, something with the exact opposite tone to what you’d expect from a bank. It is also a bonus that these campaigns were in black and white, as it fits within the 2 colour boundary set by the brief. I looked particularly at these posters because of how the animals themselves are a concept that isn’t directly linked to the context of the advert, something which I wanted to try. The three wise monkeys as a concept have no link to FIFA, but in the context of my posters they will. Like the birds here.

Typefaces and Fonts - Design Principles

Today we had a discussion about the work we were set from last week (here), and how the differences between the standard, light and bold can define how well a typeface works. By this, a font could be really effective and efficient as a regular font, but it may not work in light or bold. We also had a discussion about what constitutes a font being italic and the generally accepted standards that come with it.

To build on this discussion and the work from last week, we further developed our work to make the bold, light and italics more recognisable so as to increase to functionality of the typeface as a whole.

My Development Of The Bold Characters

COP Seminar

In this mornings C.o.P seminar we discussed how, why and when typography became so important. Richard spoke about the Guttenberg press being invented in the 1450's, which made knowledge widely available to the general public (the enlightenment period), the way type has developed throught different typographical periods, and how all this has come together to reach its logical conclusion, the internet.

We also discussed the difference between Graphic Design and Fine Art. The main conclusion was that Artists communicate their feelings in such a way that it doesn't matter what the public thinks, because an artist is someone who communicates their own feelings. Graphic Designers on the other hand often have to sacrifice their individuality in order to communicate a message that's understandable by the public, because they are the target market.

We discussed the idea of form vs function, and how this too can be a distinguishing feature between Fine Art and Graphic Design. As well as being briefly informed about how art prices are so high because of a period in the 80's when art was purchased for increasingly high prices as a method of turning dirty money clean without the risk of an investment losing its value.

Message Delivery

Brazil

• Weak laws
• Corruption in government
• Poor public legal system
• Financial plans have changed since the awarding of the world cup due to the credit crunch and worldwide financial problems
• Investment for world cup is prioritised over the needs of the people, leading to an increase in poverty and crime
• Poor security in big cities
• Poor health service
• Most expensive world cup in history, $2.5bn over budget at $28bn, 3 times Germany in 2006
• None of the communal benefits that were promised have been delivered on
• Traffic and road improvements are working over budget and deadlines
• Fifa publicly announced it’ll make $4bn profit
• Airports are not big enough to support the influx of people
• Quick temperature changes and long cross-country flights will cause player fatigue
• Public riots/protests against the government
• Police often outnumbered by violent protesters
• Some of the refurbished stadiums are from clubs playing in lower leagues, so the stadiums won’t be used to their full potential.
• Hardly any trains
• Major roads are in a bad state
• Phone and internet signals are unpredictable
• Many shops sell badly made products at inflated prices

Russia

• Racism problems often documented at football matches
• Proposed boycott of black players
• Serious football hooliganism problems
• Anti-gay legislation that has caused divides between Russia and the rest of the civilised world

Qatar

• Climate is uncomfortable for players and fans
• 9 of the 12 stadiums don’t currently exist and the other 3 need major renovating
• The current transportation system needs major improvements
• 10 of the 12 stadiums are within 30km of Doha, meaning that more hotels are required

• Very little in the way of bars and clubs for fans nightlife
• Alcohol can only be drunk in designated areas
• A country with such a small population will more than likely not have a use/need for the stadiums after the world cup has finished
• Human rights issues with forced labour workforce

Blatter

• Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?
• I think in football there’s too much modern slavery in transferring players or buying players here and there, putting them somewhere.
• Please do not insist on the technology, the day that the referee takes two captains aside to study monitors and see if something is inside the box or outside is the day the spectators will say no, we are not coming to the game.
• I would say they (gay people) should refrain from any sexual activities (during the Qatar world cup).
• There is no systematic corruption in FIFA. That is nonsense. We are financially clean and clear.
• He should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game we shake hands, and this can happen because we have worked so hard against racism and discrimination.
• I could understand if it (match-fixing) had happened in Africa, but not in Italy.
• This is a special approach in the Anglo-Saxon countries. If this (Terry having an affair with Bridge’s wife) had happened in let’s say Latin countries, then I think he (Terry) would have been applauded.

• I know myself, I was always a striker. But it’s 50 years ago now, but I’m still a little bit of a striker. We tried to dribble, but when we could not go through and someone put his foot there what do you? You do a little bit more than you should have done. Is this so terrible? I don’t think so. At least it’s not so terrible that we should intervene after a match.
• Every game should have a winner. When you play cards or any other game there’s always a winner and a loser. We should have the courage to introduce a final decision in every game of football.
• The guardians of the rules are in agreement to lengthen the goals by the diameter of two balls, around 50cm, and to increase the height by the diameter of one ball.
• We will definitely use the technology in Germany next year if the experiment works in Peru.

• We had to push a little bit and I had to say, look, I have another solution in my pocket if you don’t work. (South Africa world cup construction)
• I will take care of it personally, to ensure that there is no corruption in FIFA.

Thoughts/Ideas

• Three world cups – Three Posters – Three Wise Monkeys
• Sepp Blatter discrimination propaganda posters
• Slavery showing some sort of Arabian-Black divide using Qatari flag.
• Stadium made out of human bones

Alphabet Soup - Typeface - Final Crit

Today was the final crit for the third studio brief. I went into the crit quite confident about my work as I knew that I had reasons for everything I'd done in the project, and could easily justify them. I was slightly concerned that it didn't aesthetically represent Sophie though.

The feedback was unanimously positive, and when Simon asked people what sort of personality traits they thought of when they saw my font, two of the responses were "positive" and "progressive", which pretty much sum up the attributes of Sophie I wanted to represent.

My Final Font Drawn On Tracing Paper And Printed On Paper

Typefaces and Fonts - Design Principles

Following on from this session and in preparation for Tuesdays session, I developed the letter X into Bold, Light and Italic in both upper and lower case to show how they would work as a typeface at this preliminary stage.

COP Lecture 2 - Type Production and Distribution

Todays lecture was quite a philosophical look at where, when and why type originated. There were a lot of quotes like "The written word endures, the spoken word disappears" and "Type is what language looks like". The general concencus is that written language started at around 3200B.C, so and so typography is a 5000+ year old art form.

We then were shown a brief chronology of the development of typography on computers, starting with the Gutenberg press, which set off the development in the 1450's. This also included the importance of the Bauhaus which had an influence in the modernist argument of form > function, and the introduction of the first Apple Computer to the public in 1990, which really started a boom in typography which has since seen the concept of type as image introduced.

COP - Study Task 4

This poster is an officially licensed poster for the latest batman film, the dark knight rises, designed by Olly Moss, which he uploaded to his blog on Sunday the 15^th of July, 2012.

Batman himself is denoted by the traditional black cape, the hood partially covering his head, and the bat shaped hole over the eyes. Without the text on the poster, these denotations make it fairly obvious that he is batman to anyone who has heard of him, despite how his depiction has changed through the years, as these are key signifiers of his appearance. Another key denotation is the use of black. Many other traditional superheroes are denoted by bright colours, whereas batman has always worn black.

The connotations of batman are generally things like darkness, shadows, stealth, coldness, speed, power and strength. This is reflected in the colour scheme, the black and white blurred background gives connotations of a lack of emotion, which also has connotations of coldness, relating to the cold nature of batman himself. The next is slightly shadowed by the cape not only adds another connotation to the poster, but also makes the cape look as if it’s set forward a bit, which is coherent with the 3 dimensional shading of the hood. The imagery in general is very effective, as a simple iconic sign on a poster for such a well-known franchise is often the most impacting way to get across a message.

The main code in the poster is that within our culture and most other cultures around the world, black is symbolic of the night, and anything shining in the darkness is a signifier of good. This in itself positions batman to be a “goody” in this poster, without us physically having to see an image of him beating up a villain. Another, more subtle, code that’s used is the stereotypical use of tall, narrow text as body copy in context of a movie poster, which is something that is very much an indexical sign of a movie poster, especially when used in conjunction with a much larger font that’s used for the title text.

These two codes alone come together to make a text that is clear in its message without losing any of the edginess that movie posters require. This is why to me, this movie poster is effective in both its aesthetics and its suitability.

Typefaces and Fonts - Design Principles

Todays afternoon session was about learning the differences between a Font and a Typeface, two things which until now I wasn't able to distinguish between. I now know that a Typeface contains many fonts, whereas a font is the lettering in one particular style. For example, Arial Bold at 12pt is one font, but Arial Bold at 24pt is another font. The Arial typeface on the other hand includes Arial, Arial Narrow, Arial Bold etc etc, all in all pt sizes.

We had previously been asked to choose a font that best describes the 6 production methods we'd looked at last week, and print out the letters A, B, C, X, Y and Z both upper case and lower case in each font. The fonts I chose were:

Stone: Times New Roman
Sable: Lucinda Blackletter
Bone: Zipfino
Wood: Gill Sans Ultra Bold
Metal: Geneva
Silicon: Cooper Black

We were today asked to develop the capital letters of one of the 6 fonts in a consistent style in order to create our own font. I chose to develop Geneva because it was the plainest font and so had the greatest room for development. We were then told that over the coming weeks we would be developing this font into a typeface.

My Font

For next week we have to choose a letter, and reproduce it in our style of development in upper and lower case, in light, regular, bold and italic.