Neon Cactus Brief-Initial To Do List

Initial things I need to get done or made actions for 
towards the Neon Cactus Brief.
The poster design part of the brief is live so needs
to be done first and the rest of the brief will follow
on, contextual research can be found here.

Module Workshop

We had a module workshop on Friday, these are some notes and 
key points I wrote down, there is definitely a lot to think about 
during this module. I am excited to get started, the idea of having
complete freedom to the choice of briefs is excited but also daunting.

Chosen Briefs

These are the 5 briefs I have chosen from my list of 10 that I would 
like to work on for this module.
I have highlighted reasons why I think these briefs would be good 
for me as a designer, using skills and methods of working that I want
to focus my practice on.
We have a brief writing workshop this afternoon so I will see how that
goes as it may change my decisions. 

10 Chosen Briefs

These are my chosen 10 briefs written out. They all need to be looked at in more detail and research needs to be down to inform the outcomes a bit more.
We are only going to do a minimum of 4 of the briefs for this module so I am going to look over them and choose the ones I think have the most potential for me as a designer.

Third Year Brief-Penguin

Each year Penguin set a brief to re-design the cover of a classic book,
this year it for The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, 
they ask for you to 'Try to design a new cover for a new
 generation of readers, avoiding the obvious clichés.
 Originality is key.'

I want to use this brief as a starting point for my own brief, 

I want to take well known, best selling, renowned cook books

and re-design the covers for them to be re-released as a new

series.

I will also propose all the promotional, online and in store

material for the books.

Third Year Brief- The Bakers of Muswell Hill

Baking is something I really enjoy and I also love the
atmosphere when you walk into a good bakery or cake
shop. There is a bakery where I live at home, The Muswell
Hill Bakery, it has been there for as long as I can remember
and it has always looked the same!

I want to propose a re-brand, of the bakery itself and its
identity. The inside and outside to be re-furbished
and a whole new branding and identity to be designed.
There are some amazing bakeries and restaurants about that
have great designs for their interiors and for their branding,
places such as the Hummingbird Bakery and Leon restaurants.

Third Year Briefs-Tigerprint

'The Tigerprint business was formed in 1996 to supply exclusive
 cards and wrapping to Marks and Spencer. We now design and
 manufacture over 1500 new products created every year. We
 continue to expand into new and growing areas like toys, games
 and stationery. Marks and Spencer is now the fourth biggest
 retailer of cards in the UK.'

I have already chosen a surface pattern brief but Tigerprint

have live competition

briefs in the surface pattern area of design.

They have had lots of great past projects and at the moment

their current brief is called Black and White,

The full brief outlines can be seen here http://tigerprint.typepad.com/competition/black-white-print.html

If I don't enter this competition brief from Tigerprint I would like 

use one of their briefs at some point during the first term of

third year.

Third Year Briefs-Ted Baker

This is one of the D&AD competition briefs from 2012,

'Design a new range of packaging for Ted Baker’s merchandise.
 The development of your design will focus on minimising
 environmental impact and maximising the
sustainable credentials of the packaging, from materials
 through to application.'

This brief would incorporate my dissertation subject with my
studio work, they want a sustainable packaging, not one that
send the message of environmental packaging but packaging
that has been thought out, as they put it 'deliver a great looking
range with a ‘hidden’ approach to reducing environmental impact
and avoid ‘banner waving’ about it.'

Their sustainability statement from their website,

Third Year Briefs-Restaurant/Menu Design

I love food and I love going out to eat so I thought I would combine 
these loves with my design work.
Zizis Restaurant has a talent collective and they often have 
competitions, the recently had one to design menus and at the
moment there is one to design their plates.

They have no open competitions at the moment but I am going
to take inspiration from them and re-design the menus and crockery,
and look of a restaurant, I was thinking of looking at Yo Sushi as a 
possible restaurant to work on.

They have a system of plate colour relating to price in their 

restaurant which is used in their menus, so that would need to 

stay but I am planning to re-design their menus, maybe look at more

Japanese imagery, working with illustration but keeping it simple and 

clean as that is the feel their restaurants have.

Third Year Briefs-Book Fair

For the past two years I have sold my work at the Leeds
International Book fair and I would like to do the same again this year.
Last year I did a collaboration with Sadie which I really enjoyed, we 
created screen printed concertina books.

This year one of the areas of design I wanted to spend more
time working on was book binding so for this years Book Fair
I want to concentrate a lot on the actual making and binding 
of the books as well as the contents.

Third Year Briefs-Neon Cactus

Neon Cactus is a Mexican themed bar on Call Lane in Leeds,
 they host events every so often and this Halloween they are 
having a Mexican Day of the Dead Party and have asked me to
 design the posters for it.
Along side this to make the brief more worth while and give myself
 a range to work with I am also going to do their re-branding, this isn't 
something they have asked for but I am going to do it as a hypothetical
 brief for myself.
This is their current website,

They use a lot of bright colours and Mexican imagery,

 I am going to keep to this theme but make it a bit more 

sophisticated and when designing the posters add a more

 dark side to the design as it is a Halloween party but still

 colourful as Day of the Dead is a colourful celebration. 

These are some of the old posters they have had for events,

Third Year Briefs-Surface Pattern

I have always been interested in pattern marling and surface
 pattern but I have never applied my pattern designs to any
 product, this is something I want to do in my third year.

I thought about the different types of products out there
that I could apply surface pattern too, but the idea I was most
drawn to was applying my designs to greetings cards, wrapping 
papers, tags etc, I could create a broad range of items in this
category.

The types of places that would sell this sort of product would be
places like Paperchase, art gallery gift shops, independent boutiques,
etc.

Products like this is the type of products I want to focus on,

Third Year Briefs-Precious

As well as being part of InPress I am also part of another
 multi discipline design collective, Precious, we put on 
exhibitions and events within Leeds. I designed most of 
the identity and promotion for our last exhibition in collaboration
 with the other members of Precious.

We have a logo and identity but it needs work and needs
 to be done properly, for this brief I want to work in collaboration
 with the other members of Precious and want to create our entire identity.
That will include, logo, typefaces, colour, business cards,
 letter heads, website, promotional posters, signage for
 exhibitions, stationary etc.

Third Year Briefs-InPress

In third year we plan to continue our work with InPress, 
working on collaborative briefs throughout the year, I know some 
briefs we have planned to go for are the Year Book and Prospectus 
briefs. We are also thinking of hosting the shop again at the end of 
year shows but possibly getting other students in to run it as we will 
be busy with degree shows.

They are both briefs we will have to pitch for and they will help
 us get our name out there as a design studio and not just events
 which is something we want to develop within the third year. 

Third Year Briefs- Collaboration With Sadie

Sadie and I have decided to work in collaboration for one of our third year briefs, we have learnt form working together on previous briefs that we work well in collaboration and have similar interests within design and also outside of design.
We brainstormed some ideas and we figured as we are both doing similar dissertations which both have some sort of focus on sustainability we should do a brief that centers around that. Complimenting both our dissertations and interests within design.
Here are some of our brainstormed ideas,

We came to too ideas, one which we wrote ourselves which was looking at sustainable print and promoting the idea to graphic designers and encourage them to be more sustainable in their work and the other came from a Yorkshire Water brief on RSA, 

We decided to focus on the Yorkshire water brief but still incorporate the importance of sustainability within our work, monitoring all the resources we use whilst working on this brief.

Level 05/06 Evaluation