What is Graphic Design?

What is Graphic Design?

Write a brief that defines what you consider graphic design to be. Describe clearly what it's aims and outcomes are. Once written produce that brief.

Graphic design can be a variety of different things - advertising, identity (logos and branding), publications (magazines, newspapers, and books), advertisements and product packaging. It should communicate to everyone, and where-as fine-art can be subjective, graphic design should be clear. We had to create our own briefs to try and show what we think Graphic Design is. For me to get a broader understanding and the different types of design I first made a typographical poster containing lots of different quotes of what design actually is, using a variety of fonts. Reading these quotes gave me a better understanding of what design was and helped me when I wrote my project brief. 

"When you break it down into single parts, we do book jackets, we do record covers, we do logo designs, it sounds really dry, it sounds really dull, and I think a lot of people don’t quite realise how much it touches on their lives or the subconscious pleasures it can give or the subconscious ease it can bring to their life." Huw Morgan - Graphic Thought Facility

For fun I also created a poster poking fun at the graphic designer musts: Thick rimmed glasses, pantone items, negative space etc:

For me, graphic design is sometimes doing something you don't want to do. You need to be paid, and sometimes you can't just design quirky posters for art gallery openings. Therefore my brief was this:

Graphic Design is sometimes doing something that you don't like, campaigning for someone you loath, or advertising a product that you know is rubbish. With this in mind, pick a topic you dislike and creative both a postive campaign, and a negative campaign, preferably only shifting the design slightly. 

When designing for political parties I wanted to show sometimes you have to ignore your own political views and try and promote your candidate in the best possible light. I used images of each of the MP's eating (except for Theresa May so I found one of her grimacing) as I prefer natural looking shots over styalzied forced pictures. I also think, from the perspective of a polictical campaign, that shots of someone eating make the M.P's (an often out of touch breed) seem more human. I sketched out images of each of my chosen candidates, and imposed them on a posters using the Tory blue for the Conservatives and Red for Labour. It's amazing how a pithy slogan and colour can completely change the political backing. 

Impressions of London

Impressions of London

A visual and typographic essay

I moved to London two years ago to move in with my partner and to be closer to the university. I knew that living in London would be different to my comparitivly small town in Sussex. I grew up in a Village outside the new town Crawley where everyone knew each others business and the patrons of the local pub where I worked all had their own glasses. In a way it was stifiling - everyone I knew who hadnt gone to university were setting up home with their partners and working in office jobs - and after frequanting the same two pubs in the town centre, and the one club, I knew it was time for a change. 

Moving to London was going to be a shock to my system but I felt an exciting one. My partner lived opposite the Olympic Stadium in Bow and I had friends in Bethnal Green and Brick lane. I pictured myself in cooler clothes, drinking in Brick Lane every night with a cosmpolitan selection of artists and eccentrics. But after the first summer my priorites started to change, and the urban bleakness of the old industrial estate where my flat was based began to grate on me. I began dreaming of surburbia, of a local pub - not an overpriced gin and tonic bar, and places to walk to at the weekend. This apparently is not an infrequant occurance - I call it the London Cycle.

I decided to base my visual postcards of London on this - making light of the cliche's that happen when people move, and the change in views as the years go by. I wanted to use photographic images of London with my own drawings on top of them. I was inspired by 'fashion dolls' - cut out paper dolls that you could put paper clothes on top of in any style you desired. I drew the images with black outline and left them white, leaving the sender free to personalise their cards for their own means. 

My postcards follow the story of a young girl moving to London. With an assortmant of suitcases and no furniture, she moves to trendy East London to escape her country life. Shopping on brick lane, only buying "vintage" clothes, she hopes to be photographed for 'Dazed and Confused' or similar. She gets a job working as a runner for a television production company, earning minimum wage to collect coffee's and try and source increasingly bizzare lists of items. Eventually the bills from the retro clothes shopping start to fill up, so she takes a job as a Personal Assistant in 'The City', telling herself its just for now and she's going to leave these corporate arseholes soon and act/write a book/become a artist. However she soon get's used to the money, and the people aren't really that bad. Now those nights out are becoming less regular because who wants to queue at a bar for half an hour for a £17.50 gin and tonic when they could pop to the local offliceance for a bottle of red instead? No, she'd rather spend her money at the amazing Borough Market and have her friends over for a few bottles of wine and a home cooked meal instead. At least they can hear each other now. Eventually East London becomes too expensive, she's paying £1200 a month for a one bedroom studio apparment. Some tree's would be nice, and a pub she can walk to for a sunday roast. So she moves to a place in Kent, where she can sit out in the garden and grow some vegetables.

The story is a mixture of my experiences of moving to London, and my partners. I see it happening to some of my friends, and I thought this really gave a personal view of the London experience.