Postmodernism site tweaks

I've tightened up images sizes, image descriptions, source links and the size of the word Postmodernism now looks proportional to the word Modernism (small thing I know but it makes the world of difference). Only thing left to do now is turn everything off when you hit that X. Check the development here.

Design adjustments

For the journal site, here are a few reworks and tightening up of the final design:

Journal site design stages

Here's how the site is shaping up graphically. You can sort the journals by color, size and year; you can find out about me, the author; you can see how the journals are made up of percentages of devotional writing, study, words and dreams; you can view a list of highlighted entries and click on pictures or entry to see that particular page.

T4 type conference criticism

The Theme
Does advertising have to be mere type on a page or can it be more abstract and beautiful and give more meaning? this is going to be a conference where people experiment and are inspired by getting away from the busyness and clutter into the wide open space and quiet of nature. This idea was informed by our logotype which has a more digital, man made side and a more organic, natural looking side.

Digital Video

The animation is constructed in a stop-motion fashion further emphasizing the analog development and nature of the conference. Although highly persuasive in nature, it also plays a poetic role. It is to be used as advertising on websites, blogs, and emails. We have created cut down versions of the animation for use in speaker introductions.

Printed Poster and Journal
The poster is a small 11 x 17 keepsake and will be printed for the conference only. All the other printed matter comes into one book which doubles as a journal for note taking and sketches. With just two pieces of print, printed matter is kept to a minimum.

Shuttlecock map third iteration

This time around I've added photographs of the four areas highlighted. I've reworked the copy to provide more interesting information, plus, I've reworked the map side to be a little more delicate and less bulky.

Shuttlecock map second iteration

This time the map has some sort of a key on the reverse. The depiction of the design building at the top should give the user an idea of north and south.

Journal site

Gotta get a handle on how this journal site is going to navigate. Here's a mock up of the book ends on the shelf.

New image photoshoot

There's nothing like doing a test photo shoot and then reshooting using the information gleaned from the first run. Here's the results after cleaning up the board, adding two lights and experimenting with different aperture and shutter speed settings.

Carte réduction!

The map suffers not further reduction but some additions: the addition of a green rectangle symbolizing the lawn of the Nelson and the color grey signifying the asphalt of it's surroundings. How poetic! Let's see if the novice can find his way to the shuttlecocks.

New conference timeline and concept map

It's nice to be able to have a full calendar as part of the timeline so the design team knows what they're supposed to be doing and when they're supposed to do it. The conference tag line and date are up on it as a constant reminder of what the conference is and what they're aiming for. This is important for team morale and motivation.

Doing this second iteration of the concept map in a square format enables visibility of relationships between artifacts. Each of these artifacts has either a practical, persuasive or poetic quality and is labelled either red (practical), blue (persuasive) or green (poetic). This also enables the design team to understand how the design of each artifact should behave and what the content should be like.

Conference things to think about

Concept map and timeline:

Due Monday 19th
Journal:
Paper color and type
Write bios:
Luke - Brody, Phillipe - write lecture series based on bio (200 words + 2 questions)
Tom - Hyde, Baines - write lecture series based on bio (200 words + 2 questions)
Find bio photos

Introduce logotype into the journal 

Motion piece (reshoot Tuesday 20th 1pm):
Storyboard
How many types of the motion piece do we need and for what context?
1. Email/website ad (20sec): animate logo, speaker names, tag line, dates + logotype, sound effects
2. Email/website ad (2min): animate logo, speaker names, tag line, dates + logotype, sound effects, voice over, story
3. Conference banner: 30 sec animate logotype only, loop

Shoot raw image for poster
Two new lights
White matte board
Laptop and card reader
Foliage
Shoot larger individual objects


Logotype Manual:
2 pages max - logotype, colors, font

Artifact: TypeLab Journal

This is going to be a beautiful 100 page book/journal printed on uncoated stock that conference attendees will be given as part of their registration packet. It's packed with conference and lecture descriptions, speaker bios, reflection questions, grounds map, schedule and plenty of ruled and blank space to write/draw notes.

I have a concept!

I love it when you find a concept that works! Here is mine for my flash website that will display both macro and micro views of 13 of my journals spanning 12 years:

Icons for Journal website

These icons are photographic. Out of the three illustration styles these obviously present the journals most accurately and with plenty of nice detail too.

These icons are hand drawn. Being representations of the originals I'm not sure they do the real things justice.

These icons represent the journals well. The only thing they lack is the dog-eared nature of the originals.

Map concept

This is a simplified map to find your way from the design building here on campus, to the four shuttlecocks on the Nelson Atkins lawn. You can see the similarity of line work to roads in the google map below it.

TypeLab first image attempt

So we're looking to reproduce the logotype using a combination of digital, man-made electronics and contrasting natural objects like leaves and flowers. Here's the result:

Final Identity for Type Conference

This is the final identity for the conference. It has enough stroke contrast to represent at small sizes.

This next graphic shows the logotype, color palette and font. We chose cool, quiet, blues because they not only imply the experimental world (electricity, ideas, mystery) but also the natural world (water, sky). Grotesque seems to have a nice even stroke contrast that won't hinder the viewer looking at all the lovely experiments that attendees will be making. It's bold, non-obtrusive and clean. We've chosen just one font as this is a small event and won't require a huge amount of text.

Further iterations of logotype

The next stage of our collaborative project Luke and I discussed each taking a word (I would take 'type' and he would take 'lab') and we would render the words using our experiments from the first half of the semester. Then we would try and put them together. Here's some of those combinations:

These are some images that depict our busy, synthetic, crowded, digital lives. Maybe we will emply these on the word 'type'. Luke is looking at doing the same for lab but using contrasting objects; water, natural things, leaves etc.

Battersea Power Station in London. Sold for £400m to an Irish company. Now Grade II listed and on the most dangerous buildings list!

We then took some of our type combinations and played around with them: