OUGD405 MODULE EVALUATION

OUGD405 Module Evaluation

For the most part I really enjoyed OUGD405. At first I wasn’t really enjoying brief 1 so I wasn’t producing very good work or vice versa so it took me a while to start producing work I liked and wanted to explore. Once I knew what I was researching for brief 2 I was pretty happy as it was something I was interested in and it way my own personal collection. As I said I was pretty wrong about this as it really was a boring and pretty tedious subject matter but thankfully due to crit feedback and a brief talk with Simon in my tutorial, I was able to come up with a topic which was much more ‘interesting and engaging’. If I were to do brief 2 again I don’t think I would change anything because that research led me to my brief 3 and 4 work which I really enjoyed doing and I’m happy with the outcome. I have learned from this brief how much research helps, and even when you think you have enough research you definitely haven’t; the more the better and if you keep topping up on research it defiantly helps throughout the brief.

Studio briefs 3 and 4 were really enjoyable for me as I could really experiment with things I had never done before, especially with brief 3. At the start it was a bit daunting having to create a book with almost no guidelines or restrictions and it being completely up to us. Then, as I looked into some layouts I really liked things got easier and then they got better once we had the interim crit. This interim crit really helped me as it was suggested I looked at Elephant Magazine and Matt Willey. Once I had looked into these I made these my inspiration for the design of my booklet. The main thing I learned from Studio Brief 3is to always ask others for help or opinions and then always follow it up. Even if you think you know exactly where you want to take your work like I did at the start, you could find something that will completely change your mind. The same goes for Studio Brief 4; I looked into a lot of ideas and formats of design before settling on a poster and what style of poster I wanted to design. Along with that research I also took on people’s opinions on colour to help me decide which was the best.

Overall, I have learned a lot from this module and at the same time really enjoyed it. I’ve produced some work I’m quite proud of and it’s introduced me to some things I would like to do more of which I never before had an interest in.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 4 | Evaluation

Overall I am happy with the outcome of Studio Brief 4. I am confident that my work is a suitable solution to the problem I identified within my research  from Studio Brief 2.

I think this because from my final crit that took place on Friday 16th, the feedback I received was very positive and helpful to me to identify what worked well and how it helped in more ways than I had noticed. I also spoke to multiple people in the studio who really liked the design and feel to my final poster.

This also came up in the crit; one person said that at first they didn’t really see how the design worked but once they noticed it was very clever and effective and suited the theme very well. I am extremely happy with this feedback as that is what I was going for. Although it is a type only poster I wanted something about it that would relate directly to the topic.

Although I am happy with the final outcome I do wish I had more time to work on this brief. As I would have liked to design more for the event to make it more clear as to what I had in mind for it as I am worried it is didn’t come across clear enough.

If I were to do this brief again I would definitely plan my time better so I had as much possible time to perfect and explore all possibilities that came with this brief.

One thing I have learned with this brief is the ideas of concepts, problem solving and designing with a purpose. I am happy I was able to find a problem in something that interested me and I hopefully designed a piece of work and a concept that would help solve it.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 4 | Mondo & Exhibitions

I'm a big fan of Mondo and everything they produce from posters to the books. One thing that I know they do extremely well is their exhibition openings where they display new artwork from a range of artists all based on a specific film, genre, director or studio. Examples of this is 'Nothing's Impossible' - their Disney exhibition, 75 Years of Batman and a horror based one they've done recently. At these events it's a chance to purchase limited edition posters, meet the artist and get the products signed and socialise with like-minded people. I know many artists host these sort of events but when I was thinking of ways to promote DVDs this is what popped into my head.

I think this could be a really cool thing to explore. If I were to create a store 'DVD Day' where Zavvi were to host an event where people could buy limited edition DVDs, meet artists that designed these special covers and so on.

OUGD405 Studio 4 | Promotional & Advertisement Research

Although I'm designing a poster and research in poster design is very helpful, I'm also looking into other areas that can inform many decisions. I'll look into things such as flyers, email promotions, magazine covers, websites and billboards.

Flyers

One thing I noticed straight away with flyer design and the ones above are just a selection, is that they don't stick to one font. I could play play around with this in my poster but so far I like the idea of having one consistent font across the poster. I feel like this is aesthetically more pleasing and subtle rather than shoving two or three fonts in the viewers face.

Websites

I chose Zavvi as the retailer I want to design for and who I will produce a poster for so I thought by looking at their website it will help me with choosing things like type, colour, layout, type size and many other things. 

OUGD405 Studio Brief 4 | Poster Ideas

As I buy many Steelbooks and DVDs from Zavvi, I thought it would be best if I were to use this as the base for my poster. I am going to design a poster advertising 'DVD Day', where Zavvi sell classic films that have been re-released and limited edition DVDs.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 4 | Poster Research

For Studio Brief 4 I put the idea out to a few of my class mates that I might design a poster to promote DVDs. This went down very well but I also wanted to have some other ideas to explore to make sure the poster is he best possible idea. After some discussion we decided that a poster to promote 'DVD Store Day' or 'Film Store Day' would be very interesting as it's a completely new concept. I then asked around and 'DVD Store Day' seemed to be the stronger name, but as there are no DVD stores, it will have to be 'DVD Day' - where limited edition DVDs of classic films are re-released for a good price.

For my research I looked into Record Store Day posters so I can get a feel of where to start.

But as I was essentially advertising DVD and promoting sales, I also looked into sale posters from typical shops on the highstreet. 

From looking at these it seems that the common theme is type only, I'm happy with this as I think it will definitely work well for my purpose; it will get the point across and it also give me the opportunity to experiment with many different aspects of design.

Type Only Posters

As I said, a lot of the sale and promotional posters are type only, so I looked into type only poster design. A lot of these posters create images by using type, which isn't really what I want to do, but some are just block text which I think is closer to the sale posters and I think this is more effective as it will get the point across very quickly and easily.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 | Evaluation

ll in all I am extremely happy with the outcome of Studio Brief 3. I think this brief went well for me due to the fact I did a lot of initial research to get me started, but then the interim crit gave me some extremely helpful opinions, ideas, feedback and directions to go in. Without the crit I doubt I would have completed this brief with a piece of work I like so much. 

Although my initial research was very helpful to me as it gave me the foundations of my designs and layout, the research I gathered after the crit due to the suggestion of looking at Elephant and Matt Willey was a lot more helpful and influential to my work. It was from that research I discovered ‘Port’, which also gave me ideas to play around with and I hope all of this is clear in my work although I don’t want it to appear I have just copied or take ideas from those publications.

This brief has taught me to always follow up other people’s suggestions; whether that be to change something, add something or look at something, because it won’t do any harm but may be of great use. In this brief I listened and asked other people for their opinion more and more and got great feedback every-time which helped me make some pretty big design decisions in my work.

If I were to do this brief again I would definitely try to get my hands on some physical copies of Port and Elephant as I think this possibly would have helped me a lot more than just looking at a very select few on a computer screen. Other than that I’m not sure how much I could do differently as I had set content to work with, but I am happy with my final outcome.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 | Final Outcome

http://issuu.com/danhartdavies/docs/studio_brief_3/1

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 | Problem

I wanted to print on this stock as I felt it was the most suitable for my booklet, unfortunately it kept jamming the printer which meant I was unable to use it. So I chose the closest stock to it that was able to go through the printer fine, it still works well but I would have liked the original.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 | Development

Once opening my booklet this is the first thing the reader will see. It’s a quote from a blog by ‘The Minimalists’ who believe collecting DVDs is a waste of time, space and money. I believe this quote is suitable for my book as a lot of people collect DVDs and it is talked about in my booklet quite a bit.

I also noticed a trend amongst film posters of the last year and thought that the link between DVDs and films is direct enough to use the link to benefit the design of my work. Although I don;t want to just follow trends, in this case I feel the link is extremely subtle and possibly not very noticeable but I like it and I think visually it works well with the rest of my booklet considering how I’ve designed it.

The idea behind this graphic on the left of the spread is it reads ‘DVD vs VOD’, which stands for ‘video on demand’.

I thought this was suitable as the spread is on the statistics part of my research and a lot of the stats are to do with how well DVDs sell and how much they’re watched compared to online and digital content. 

I took inspiration from the work I had researched earlier and I knew I wanted to experiment with pages for images only and type only, so in this case I sort of combined the two together. 

To get to this idea  played around with the layout and the format of it a bit first but these two were the strongest out of the designs. I asked around which of the two did people prefer and the majority said the one on the left. Like myself, they thought the other had slightly too much going on somehow, although it’s just one extra letter. I think the placement of it in the bottom corner plus the extra ‘S’ gives the impression it’s too squashed and cramped. Whereas the final one looks simple, clean and easy to read which is exactly what I wanted.

With my page to the right I took a lot of inspiration from one spread from Elephant Magazine. I really liked the fact the type has the effect it carries onto the next page, but it also does so for a reason, in this case the ‘W’ is the stating letter in the block of text. 

I wanted to take this idea further for my spread so this is what I came up with. The concept behind it is the spread is for the facts area of my research, part of the requirements for the brief. So it initially reads ‘ The Facts’ but then on the second page of the spread the type reads ‘Act Now’. My intentions with this and the way I laid it out are I hope the reader starts at ‘The’, reads ‘Fact’, goes back over the the ‘S’ and then that sets them up to read the body text. 

For the ‘Act Now’ page I first tried using the same font as the title but saw that for some reason it just didn’t look right; I changed the tracking and the placement of it numerous times but it wasn’t working. So I then used Bodoni (which is also used in the body text) and changed the tracking on that to give me the finished result. I think it works quite well and this is the page people like the most. 

OUGD405 Studio Brief 2 & 3 | Sources

http://www.slashfilm.com/netflix-streaming-average-93-minutes/

http://www.slashfilm.com/netflix-streaming-average-93-minutes/

http://www.bva.org.uk/media/89252/bva-morethanasupportact-with-new-map-for-bbc.pdf

http://ir.netflix.com/

http://ir.netflix.com/results.cfm

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101355387

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/NFLX/3344084167x0x769748/9b21df7f-743c-4f0f-94da-9f13e384a3d2/July2014EarningsLetter_7.21.14_final.pdf

http://blog.netflix.com/2014/01/new-isp-performance-data-for-december.html

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/23/npd-apples-itunes-accounts-for-67-of-tv-downloads-65-of-movies

http://www.pcworld.com/article/259040/google_play_vs_amazon_vs_itunes_store_how_the_content_stores_stack_up.html

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 | Elephant Mag, Port Magazine & Matt Willey

I first looked into Elephant Magazine online as I wasn't able to get my hands on a physical copy. Although this wasn't ideal it was good enough to be able to get an overall look and feel as to their design aesthetics. I was aware of Elephant Magazine before hand but I had never taken the time to look and take in the design of it, so this was a relatively new way for me to view it. Straight away I really liked what I saw; the white space, the experimental typography and the use of single images on pages along with many other features. I liked this so much I decided I wanted to incorporate more of this type of design rather than 'The City Talking' design aspects.

I also got told to look at some of Matt Willey's work. He has worked with Elephant so a lot of the stuff I had previously seen came up again but I did see a lot of new stuff. I really like his work as he uses extremely large type and it works so well because it immediately grabs your attention and you want to read it. As a lot of the Elephant layouts I want to look into single images on pages or a page dedicated to nothing but type and explore the use of white space. From looking into these I have a clear idea as to how I want my booklet to look.

From look at Willey's work I went on to discover 'Port'. Again, all of the design in this magazine in relatively similar to the previous work I have looked into. Nevertheless it is very helpful as it's just more to compare, contrast and evaluate.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 | Interim Crit

In this crit the thing I needed feedback on the most was on how to layout my work and if I could do it in a way that links back to my topic.

One  that was suggested I thought would be interesting to look into was to design my book like the booklet you sometimes get inside of a DVD. I will definitely y look into this idea but I'm unsure how the finished product would look and to be honest I'm not very confident that it will be able to communicate the information I have gathered.
A couple of other suggestions were similar to this such as making a DVD case with my information or just giving the impression that it was a DVD case.

Another idea I thought was quite clever and would definitely look interesting is making some graphs or visual interpretations out of physical DVDs.

I also got told to look into Matt Willey and Elephant Mag which do work similar to what kind of layout I was looking at doing.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 & 4 | Vinyl Records

Looking into DVD sales and statistics I saw that the sales are decreasing every year. This reminded me that vinyl records must have had a rough patch after CDs became the most popular way to play music which made vinyl records old technology. This may have been the case but even now people collect vinyl records for a number of reasons

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 | Page Layout

I really enjoy the newspaper 'The City Talking' which is 'a network of more than 60000 young people sharing news and views about life in Leeds'. The layout of this paper is really nice as it's noting like most newspapers that you normally see. Some of the things I like about the layout is the fact it has a border around the page, but the images often go beyond the border. Although it's just a little thing it adds a lot to the aesthetic of the paper. Another thing I like is the use and placement of images, they often place them right in the middle of a double page spread, this is something I will definitely look into for my publication. 

OUGD405 Studio Brief 2 & 3 | Questions & Answers

My last set of questions will help me to some extent with my new specified topic to look into, but I think more opinions would be helpful. I can still use the answers from a couple of my questions but I think the artwork one could be altered to help me more and a few more questions would get me the anweres I need.

• Do you think we will see the end of DVDs in the near future?
• How would you feel if DVDs were to stop being a primary format for media?
• What do you think is to blame for the decrease in interest for DVDs?

These questions will give me good feedback for Studio Brief 3.



Dad:
I think it will be a good while before DVDs will come to an end. I remember CDs becoming the next big thing after vinyl and they're still going very strong. There are still things that are on DVD that you can't get anywhere else which I think is a good thing as it provides a purpose for them.

It wouldn't bother me a great deal as long as everything that was available on DVD was available elsewhere. As I've said previously I buy DVDs for specialist stuff such as music and world cinema; if this was as easily as accessible as before it's just something you have to put up with.

The internet is clearly to blame as everything is so much easier. You don't have to leave the house, you don't need to spend time looking around for the product and you don't need any physical space.



Aflie:
I'm not sure exactly how long they'll be around for but I can't see them being a go-to kind of product for much longer. I think that the only people that will buy DVDs are avid collectors or people who argue that Blu-Ray's quality is higher than anything you'll get from the internet.

I'd be kind of disappointed as I personally love going and getting a new DVD, but then again I collect them and I know not everybody does so I understand that they're slowly dying to an extent. Also I've spent a lot of money on mine so it would piss me off if they become obsolete.

The likes of Netflix and iTunes makes it easier for people to quickly choose a film from their couch and play it immediately without any fuss. If these people aren't interested in the hard copies, why bother going through the trouble of buying physical DVDs?


Jack:
Unfortunately I do. Unless you're a clear collector of DVDs or you truly believe the quality is the best you can get, there is no need to go through the trouble of buying them when everything is online.

Yes but I'd understand how and why it's happened.

All of the on-demand services make almost all films ready to watch in an instant, which is what most people want.  

OUGD405 Studio Brief 3 | Initial Thoughts

The feedback I got from my Studio Brief 2 presentation was exactly what I was expecting, that the information was attention grabbing or interesting enough to an audience. From what got said and my own feelings, the most interesting part of my research was why do or don't people buy DVDs?

This question is far more interesting than just my personal DVD collection as it gets other people involved and makes the audience ask themselves the same question. DVDs are slowly becoming more and more like vinyls, an old format that is being kept alive mostly by enthusiasts for one reason or another.

I think some sort of publication that informs people of why people do/don'tbuy DVDs, who does/doesn't and then facts and statistics about these findings or how DVDs are doing is a lot more interesting to an audience. Although this is quite a specific question/topic, there are many routes I could go with this.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 2 | Presentation & Feedback

The feedback I received backed up my own thoughts and feelings on my research. I felt that the research was rather dull and boring as nothing really grabbed attention. This is because if I did facts and statistics on DVDs it would be umbers such as how many were sold in the year xxxx or how much data can be stored on a disc. Due to this I focused my research on my own personal DVD collection but to other people this is dull as they don't care what films I have or how many times I've watched a certain film.

I need to find a way to make my research more specific and more interesting for the audience.

OUGD405 Studio Brief 2 | Words

For this part of the brief I asked other people for words that they associated with DVD collections as well as my own thoughts and associations. I also wanted this to be about DVD collections in general rather than my personal one as some people may not like certain films that I own, and as DVD collection is very popular I thought the more varied the better.

Varied
Collectable
Sentimental
Eclectic
Emotive
Timeless
Decorative
Social
Desirable
Historic
Limited
Annoying
Classic
Informative
Wide-ranged
Art
Memorable
Specific
Reliable
Personal

OUGD405 Studio Brief 2 | Opinions

The Minimalists - http://www.theminimalists.com/dvd/
“Have you ever thought about why you own all those DVDs? Do you plan to rewatch the same movies three or four times? If so, we’d like to posit a solution: get a life.”

“Collecting is just hoarding with a prettier name.”


Alex Hern - The Guardian

“The thing I like most about being sent the physical media is, I'll admit, an idiosyncrasy: it's actually remarkably pleasant to be handed a movie and told "watch this, you don't get to watch anything else until you've seen it."”





Questions:

1) Why do you still buy DVDs when films/TV shows are so available online?

2) Does the artwork influence whether you buy the DVD or not?

3) What’s the most you would spend on a DVD?



Dad

1)“I usually only buy specialist stuff such as music or world cinema.”

2)“No.”

3) “If it’s a special edition a lot more but on average around £25.”



Me

1) I like to have them physically so I can always go back to re-watch them, also the special features sometimes intrigue me.

2) Yep a lot, more so if it’s a film I have already seen.

3) £50





Jack Ward

1) “I still buy DVDs and Blu Rays because I enjoy collecting them and having big collection of them; I alsoI believe they're more reliable and you get more your money. Films online can become unreliable and of a poor quality when watching them due to buffering, which can wreck the experience.”

2) “The artwork doesn't influence whether or not I get that film, because usually I will research the film or I will be drawn to it because of the genre, a director or a star who is in the film. However when I buy a film, sometimes they will have various front covers to choose from depending on whether it's been remastered or something - this will influence my choice because I’ll choose which one I prefer out of the selection.”

3) “The most I'd spend on a single DVD would be £10, and a blu ray would be around £15.”





Laura Harris

1) “So I can take them anywhere, for example here at uni. Also I like to have new, good films on DVD.”

2) “Yes, quite a lot!”

3) £10





Alex Robertson

1) “I don’t really buy DVDs anymore I just buy them on iTunes.”

2) “Not really.”

3) £10





Max Ardon

1) Personally if I see a film I love I like to own it so I can lend it out to people. I also like to watch all the special features such as the ‘making ofs’.”

2) Not really, I would only buy a film if I knew it was good or thought it looked good. For example the DVD artwork for Transformers often look good but the films suck so why would I buy them?”

3) “£15 but only if it has loads of special features and the film’s great.”





Alfie Banford

1) “There’s nothing better than adding more hard copies of DVDs to your collection, personally it feels better to own a copy of the film than just know that it’s available online.”

2) “Not particularly but I do find that the artwork can draw me in to looking at the DVD if I’m not looking for a specific film.”

3) “Depends really; box sets I’d be willing to pay up to £50 but a single DVD probably around £10.”



Zeb

“I’ve never bought a DVD sorry. You can make up my answers.”





Callum Grant

1) “I don't buy DVDs anymore but if I do get them they would be a present. I do watch films online nowadays, I don't even go to the cinema anymore."

2)“If there is a set of DVDs with relevant/good artwork on the case I would encourage me more to get them”

3) "I have a PS4 so I would buy Blu Rays but only if they are on offer and I would pay about a tenner for one probably."
 

Ellen

1) “I buy them if they’re on sale and even if wanted to watch it just the one time just because they’re cheap.”

2) “Nah”

3) “£10.”