Reluctant Hero - Week 2

This is the second week of the placement and Lee has me and Michael helping him with the research he need to produce mood boards to send to the people at Hilfiger, one thing i didn't really consider part of a graphic designers job was communicating with the clients too such a lengthy extent, although thinking about it i was quite naive to think anything different.
Although this is a professional studio, i didn't expect the atmosphere to be as relaxed and informal, this studio has made me realise i don't want to pursue a job which is rigid and uptight because where i am at although they have deadlines the time plans aren't as strict as a regular job (set hours/breaks) and you could be doing something different at any point in time for example one second you could be researching for Tommy Hilfiger or helping Marc move a canvas or me and Michael could be sent to pick up a print.

Reluctant Hero - Placement, Week 1

Before i finished the course a few weeks ago, Rachel Boon asked me and Michael Elliot if we were willing too go on placement this summer at Reluctant Hero studio on Pink Lane. Reluctant Hero is mainly ran by Lee Fada and he works with companies such as Tommy Hilfiger, Barbour Jackets and Superdry also another designer/artist who is based there is Marc Ross, he is the artist behind the street art company known as Prefab77.

This first week has been eye opening, firstly i expected to be making teas and just researching (although this week i have been doing a lot of research) but when we arrived we were immediately task with helping Lee with producing small elements, in Adobe Illustrator and then trace them by hand, which he could use for a a full illustrative piece for Tommy Hilfiger Europe.

This week has made me realise the need for in-depth research, one thing Lee told us was "If you're struggling to come up with ideas, you haven't done enough research", so this week we have been doing a lot of research into typefaces, images etc.

I applied the same process to gain the stencil of Roots Manuva as the ODB stencil and then i dragged the stencil into illustrator and then expanded the image. Then on a layer below i create a pattern by duplicating and joining hexagon points together, I then used a quote with a centered paragraph setting.

Firstly, i'd like to apologize for the content of the typography (however it was a quote). How i went about this was i first gain an image from internet of the ODB and opened it in photoshop, i then continued to to duplicate the layer which the image was on in order not to change the original file, with the duplicated layer i changed the mode setting to grey scale and changed the brightness and contrast setting, i then increase the exposure, which left me with a less detailed image i then used the pen tool to pick out the important characteristics of the image so the personae is still recognizable, i created a bridge between the face and jaw to the outer white background, so if i did want to create a stencil i could which was original idea. I then move the stencil to illustrator as pdf file and used the live trace tool to remove the pixelation and meaning the image could be scaled without loosing details then i filled the stencil with cyan blue, duplicated the layer and added magenta red, then slightly offset the duplicate stencil and applied the multiply option to it (same process as the 3D poster i produced, its becoming a habit).
As for the squiggles i just used the pen tool and applied the same process, the squiggles where meant to represent the style and personae that the rapper carried as an individual and this lead to produce the rather  organized type arrangement usage because although he was rather a mixed up character, he was a rather talented lyricist.

 With my light house piece i was messing around with the pen tool and i traced the shape of an image of a lighthouse, i added a dark grey color with a lighter grey background in order to produce a contrast. i also added a gradient to a the shape coming from the lighthouse to give a sense of fogginess, i also thought when ships are lost at sea they look for a lighthouse, so i thought of the tittle lost in translation. If you look into the top right hand corner you can see my logo which is of a lighter grey, i tried to go with the abstract look and simplicity.

With 3D effect i produced a curved shape and copied and reduced the size of the shape and then placed it within the original, i continued this to the centre of the page, i then grouped all of them together and duplicated the layer. I gave the original group a cyan blue stroke and the second group a magenta red color and changed the layer option to multiply also i slightly offset the second layer to produce a slight bleed.
The text:
" I don't
really know
 where i
was going
 with this. Etc..."
I actually had sat on the 3D hole design thing for a while but i didn't know what to do with it, so i just type out what i was thinking and i placed the text in the sequence of two words per line (using the Helvetica Neue regular typeface) i then reduced the kerning between the letter to the left hand side so the were line up and i used the left hand side anchored paragraph style. I based the type layout on swiss design, for example using one 3rd of the paper heavily and leaving the other side rather bare, however understandable with the 3d effect in the back its slight less simple (at a glance) than swiss design, I then added my logo too the bottom right hand side.

With this piece i was just thinking about producing a random book of designs which would feature people that sit on my table as well as myself, with the piece above being the book/booklet cover. The idea was to promote the people on my table as well as myself. Personally, i like the look of the piece due to the combination of the simple shapes and cheerful/vibrant colors which is reflected quite well by the quite plain and serious typography and the overall design reminds me of seventies design also the cartoon "The Jetsons", however, the name "SPACE ODYSSEY" just came to me randomly. I will remove the grey circle which is meant to represent the moon.

With the piece above, i seen the quote because one of my friends was considering ideas for a tattoo and stumbled across the quote "He who wishes to grow rich in a day will be hanged in a year" by Leonardo Da Vinci, which i thought is rather true and so i thought since i need a few pieces to go into my book/booklet which i hope to produce by the end of the year. I thought i'd go with a mainly typography based look with very little images to depict the message, sort of like ideography and so i produced a diamond and a skull using the pen tool adding quite dulled color in order not to take away from the type, which was Helvetica Nueu. The quote itself was in light and Leonardo Da Vinci was in Ultra-light with a rather reduced leading which i though worked quite well. However if i were to change anything it would be the typeface, maybe change the typeface to something a little more detailed to remove the dominating black space.
The black space itself is an off black and it was lightened because a friend who sits on my table told me to avoid using black unless it is vital and once i changed the tone it instantly changed the look, as the black became less domineering.