Studio Brief 4: Motivational Mantras outcome and Evaluation

I also asked fine art students before going to print, if they felt inspired or motivated by the colour choices and bold range of design advice aimed at undergraduate design students to reach beyond just graphic design and in to the arts itself as I want it to boost creativity and motivate. I mainly got the comment that its design was 'visually pleasing' and that they preferred it to a stripped back black and white/paler colour scheme as the eye is drawn to the advice, and that the overlay of my mono print on the cover combined graphic design with a layer of fine art that celebrated the unity of the two. Personally, I really enjoy combining graphic design with fine arts therefore this represents my style in one way, which I wanted to inject in to this brief and 'have fun with it'. Making it not too formal in it's style also appeals to the target audience of first years being inducted as it shouldn't be a scary experience and they should feel excited and look forward to the prospects of injecting their own style and fun in to design when they can. This design is intended to be welcoming and helpful in guiding first years in to successful habits and to act as a non boring reminder they can keep with them either pinned to their wall, on their shelves or on their desks.

The uplift format I arranged it in is ideal for making it easier to tear the pages out if they wanted to put some up on their inboard and despite really liking the glossier stock as it added a radiancy to the colours, I didn't think it particularly needed it as the designs are already quite bold and it would be cheaper to mass produce to hand out. The high gloss finish when I put it on walls to test, would get in the way of the wording in certain lighting angles.

The combination of structure with disperses of contrasting loud colour reflect upon what I have learnt this year; that in graphic design, you can have fun and inject your own personality and style in to your work but as we often work for clients rather than our selves we need the structure and order to justify and make our design the best it can be. This is a reason I chose graphic design as a degree, to organise and add some structure in to my often imperfect and messy art work which has been one of the most valuable lessons for me, and is important amongst our year group. Rules as such from the likes of Vignellis Cannon and learning through design principles is what inspired the structural design embedded in the colours. I overlaid this using the pink and blue combination (done for colour contrast and to be gender equal) from the front cover so that the effect would be consistent whereas affecting the other pages variety of mixes in an even way.

In production, what I would have differently is try and balance the colours and quotations order more effectively although I did try and do it so that no two similar combinations would be next to each other to keep the variation and visually pleasing aspect consistent and fresh. Furthermore, if I had managed my time better I could have really tried to get even more of the mantras from my year, although having a mix of theirs and my own personal perhaps fits the brief more as it is speaking from experience. Also, trying this design as a concertina to compare the difference in effect on production, or even finding a way to make the pages more tearable would be ideal. The design of the pages having to be lifted would be a lot easier for this purpose, however. For example, ripping posters out of magazines when I was younger in its standard orientation would often be really difficult and they would easily rip but if I turned the pages the other way it gave me more control. It would be easier as there aren't too many pages and it is only stapled, also. I feel it is a bold contemporary but cost effective easily produced piece that has my personality with organisation of graphic design contained within it, whilst being motivational and eye catching in its colour scheme and aesthetically pleasing alongside event flyers and posters freshers are bombarded with in their first weeks!