Weeks three and four of VCD102 for task 1 involved further understanding of the tools of Illustrator and developing our skills abroad on the software that I can integrate into my own poster to make it as visually appealing to the viewer as possible. Both weeks three and four much like the first two weeks of VCD102 was involved with the exploratory phase of the design process for the overall task as we began prototyping for the task.

These two weeks had a main focus around the typography, functional layouts, drawing and manipulation of shapes and colour schemes itself from adobe colour. We explored ways to create graphs created into more visually appealing views for the audience through 3d effects and colour manipulations. This also led us to learning ways that we can represent data sets but without the use of graphs. This was the use of shapes in order to create and manipulate into an icon such as people or houses for example which help to represent a population.

Week 4 was pivotal in learning poster layouts and various settings to do so.

This was best shown in the tutorials where we were given an already constructed document in Illustrator and making graphs out of datas on them as well a manipulating various  shapes or type into something unique. After the commencement of week 4 tutorial I was able to go away now and create my own poster with trial an error with colour schemes and typography as well as manipulating shapes and constructing graphs out of my own data gathered on Terrorism found in weeks 1 and 2. The data gathered giving me thorough statistics on issues such as where in the world terrorist attacks occur the most. The rate of fatalities in the world and who on most commonly as well as the most common ways in which this awful attacks occur the most. 

The final design I have decided i will go with will be titled “Terrorism” with various icons around the title such as a jetplane. Through learning about text border manipulation I was able to put the text at a slant of about 25 degrees to create effect and less simplicity. I will then flow down the page with a world map to give the viewer a geographical reference to where abouts in particular my poster is taking the viewers understanding with facts written into it. This being a geographical graph, this being one of the primary features of the poster. I then will flow down into a pie graph along side a column graph which will include numerous shape built characters to represent population. Then finally to section off the bottom half of the poster I will have a red bandana type bar that will include statistics on terrorist organisations around the world that are most threatening as well as a final feature on the bottom that has type statistics and icon representation. This being a number in bold and big to draw the viewers gaze to and be able to understand the data straight away.

I hope that this poster will turn out as planned so that I can represent my statistics in a visually appealing way for the audience without having heavy verbal statistics all over the poster making it a boring and disengaging read.

The proceeding of week 6 saw us see the commencement of our VCD Task 2 major project. This was a response to the design brief, designing and prototyping an interactive response to the brief, this being an Adobe XD website, game interface, interactive way finding system or app design. For this I decided that I would create a music festival for a certain genre of music in which I go further in depth to.

To begin the project proposal phase of the design I had to define what I was to do. For something so broad a mind-map was perfect for this. Funnelling down the essential details such as what genre of music festival I would do, location in which I would hold the event, who would attend the event (artist). As my original mind-map created in class was destroyed due to water damage from rain I had to re-create one online. I had to brainstorm all possibilities that would need to be considered into the entirety of the music festival. I had to make sure that I considered things that would play mass factors into the festival such as the listed venue, time and date and names for example. As well as looking out the goers of the festival by considering the transport to and from the event.

MOOD BOARD –

Next was to create a mood board, this is a gathering of competitive sets of ideas that I found similar to those of current music festival websites and ideas for the rap culture already. This means finding similarities that I find visually appealing from these music festival websites. I included icons in which I will include into my own personal rap poster such as the Sydney harbour scape as this will resemble to the viewer  the location straight away due to the recognition of Sydney Harbour. I have included pictures of music festivals today that are current and throughout the season of summer to express the relaxation and chilled vibe of a summer festival. Everyone coming together and enjoying the same music, along with icons that resemble summer to a viewer. The colour palette in which I have included in my mood board will be what I use for the websites identity and I will be sticking with this.

Goals in which I wish to exceed for this site is to be an easily navigable website for the user that includes cool visuals throughout the site. I will base my site roughly from the similarities to the Rolling Loud posters. I want my site to have lots of visual cartoon icons, things such as a Lamborghini driving into the sunset with a city scape depicted in the background followed by the artist lineup for the event. Simplicity is always key with things such as a website so I am happy to work beyond a basic poster of work. I want the users experience to not only be easy but also real them in. Creating an appealing site is key to keeping the viewers attention at all times. I plan to include interactive icons so when a user clicks on something such as the Lamborghini icon, the car will drive forward and then it will take you to another page with the artist lineup. The colour scheme I have chosen is the one attached in the mood board, a black/grey to purpley colour. I chose this as it is a nostalgic colour scheme that is not too in the face of the viewer when they are in it. I have decided to use the “flood std”    as it is a grungy-hard rap typeface which I feel as though perfectly suits the music festival hip hop theme. The motif I am going to follow will be a theme of Rolling Loud. This in the words of its creator Tariq Cherif “Rolling Loud is an experience for all in which the billboards and websites created are intended for all viewers to easily read but be drawn in at the same time. The theme of Rolling Loud is hip-hop which is a cool hype vibe theme”. I too want to follow along this hype vibe on my website by creating pop art icons that grab the viewers attention.

The design process stage of the project major work is to come up with an overall design of your logo and website and link it back to the fundamental idea of semiotics and its science of signs. As well as gathering key icons, symbols and indexes and realising how they can come into play with your own design. The design process is an overall analysis and at this stage becomes an evaluation of how I personally got to where I am in the project and how I got there, making me question things I could’ve done better and/or changed to make my entire process better.

Initially I gathered my thoughts and ideas for a logo from the internet as well as using semiotics to brainstorm some ways that I can use a symbol or sign to signify something to the reader, the fundamentals of the science of signs. After our lecture in week 5 and from learning about it previous semester in another subject my understanding of semiotics was thorough. I realised that if I want to perceive something in my logo without having to write it I would have to use the idea of semiotics to make this work. Of course in my logo only people with good geographic knowledge would be able to recognise the location of my festival as it is an icon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This enabled me to display the location within the logo without having to write it making it seem un-formal. I also used the science of semiotics in my middle icon being a microphone which is a symbol of the idea of what the festival type is… music.

The process of the design process was that of lots of brainstorming and researching ideas that are out there now in regards to hip hop music festivals and festivals in general. From this I narrowed down to four main music festivals that I used to gather ideas for my own logo, Listen Out, Groovin the Moo, Rolling Loud and Field Day. I then made sketches of ideas that came to mind once viewing these festivals. I then decided I would buy a sketch book from the Unishop on campus at Wollongong to keep all my ideas in one place. I began drawing up 9 logo ideas that are all related to genre of hip hop and rap as well as would incorporate the symbol of Sydney in it as well, obviously meaning I would need a city scape. I did some iterations and duplications with other designs I came up with to give my this final design concept.

Next I constructed my website layout as I wanted to have an idea of how I was going to present all my pages of the website into a visual form that I could edit and come back to without properly starting and making effective changes. I too researched various music festivals around the world that all have a website to go with their festival and analysed their layouts theyve chosen as well as how each animation or click works and where it takes you. I noted key headings that I would need to include in my website being a splash page, lineup page, info page and contact page. All in which take you to various pages within pages of that. I did this by sketching all my various ideas for each page down onto my sketch notebook and making any noteable changes I thought could be removed or added as well as visual effects that work well for the website. Attached is the images of this.

The prototyping stage of the major work consisted of various sketches and illustration concepts of designs for our way of thinking of our website logos and website layout. I purchased a small notebook for this stage of the project as i could draw out my initial sketch ideas and duplication that I came up with of the sketches and then put them into an illustrator page and make further duplications and iterations to the design whilst also bringing it to life at the same time. This idea of the notebook also worked well when drawing out my website layout as I had all the layouts in order and in the one place so I did not lose them.

The goals in which I stated in my rationale in which was to create a music festival specifically hip hop… in the Sydney region of Australia for patrons over the age of 18 whom all share a great interest in hip hop music today. I also outlined my intent to follow along the roughly similar scheme of Rolling Loud and Listen Out in creating a visually appealing website and more importantly make a statement with the logo and splash page of my website, something that the viewer will be drawn into and remember due to its colour explosion, details included and the way in which its laid out.  The prototype in which I created is more of a two part, the initials that you find is a city scape with a car driving into it on a road with a plane in the sky, Sydney harbour bridge in the background and the sun too but in the middle you too see a microphone image with Hip Hop written inside which is what I mean by the second part of the logo as that branches off seperatly throughout the website, purely because I could not have this huge image on every page everytime so making it into a segment worked best creating a sense of two parts.

This concept meets my desired look as it is very colourful and draws the viewer into so many different aspects and parts of the image with its various symbols throughout. The logo without needing to be written conveys to the viewer where the location is with Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background and the city scape in the foreground as well as the idea of the season in which it is held, summer. With the sun in the background blazing heat. The overall logo of the microphone tells any viewer that the festival is that of a hip hop genre due to its name of the festival and it being written in the centre. The words Hip Hop worked perfectly with the microphone idea as they moulded perfectly around the microphone shape i.e. the microphone handle to resemble a hand in a way?

I gathered feedback from peers in two ways. The first way was the exposure of the logo design to the class as my teacher showed the class what I had done. This was both for an instructional tutorial on how to use Adobe Capture as well as becoming beneficial for me as I gained verbal feedback from my peers when they commented on the picture saying, “wow that really cool!” and “oh you drew that yourself ?”. I also gathered feedback from another peer when I showed them my concepts (9 various ones) and asked their favourite and then revealed my chosen final idea. This feedback was good as the one in which my peer selected and commented… “I like this one the most as it relates to the genre as well as this one as it shows the location within the logo”. This made me brainstorm and realise that I could mould two of my designs together to make the ideal logo as well as fitting the rationale I intended.