D&AD Student Awards: Student Poster, Thing

My latest project was my first crack at a D&AD Awards brief. I really wanted to push myself with this one, particularly with the view to entering, and because of that I initially struggled to pick a brief. There were too many interesting ones! However, I settled on the slightly safe option of the It's Nice That brief under the Graphic Design bracket. However, as I was the primary source of research for the brief, I knew I could make something worthwhile. The brief was:

It’s Nice That’s audience has developed dramatically over the past few years – reaching everyone from freshers to creative directors. However, students have always been an integral part of the organisation’s DNA, and It’s Nice That now want new and exciting ways to stay engaged with their original audience.

This project gave me the opportunity to look back at my College studies, and identify what would appeal to students, specifically, what were they missing? One particular area immediately popped out. Graphic Design is a huge subject today, and it can be particularly difficult to cram it all into a couple of years. This has often meant, I feel, that important areas of design theory have been overlooked. Courses are so focused on getting students ready for the workplace, teaching them digital skills, explaining ways to structure projects. However, the theory behind why things are the way they are, is often brushed to one side. It has been touched on, but could we name who name who first used the grid system? Or who created Pantone? Or why does font sizes go up in 'Points'? 

Therefore, my idea was to produce a piece of free print, that would be made available to students that would cover areas of critical areas of design that are often overlooked, or may just appear downright boring. The 'theories' and history explained within would then be displayed in-situ today, showing modern, cutting edge design work that displays all those boring pieces of theory invented long ago. I felt it was particularly important to give evidence that all this 'boring stuff' was so vitally important today.

The idea would be produced in two formats. One would be a double side leaflet that folds out into a poster. The other format would be a Phone App that would compliment the printed version, giving additional sources to pieces of great graphic design, as well as biographies and blog links to work that relates to the editions theme.

Examples of my research into style and functionality

Because it was a subject that I was particularly interested in, the research process was very exciting. Obviously I had to try and make the leaflet on trend stylistically, but it also had to be functional and engaging for the reader. I explore a number of areas but decided upon the concept of a small leaflet folding out into a poster.

I then began to draft out how the leaflet would look, working with grids first on paper, then in InDesign. It was quite a long process. As i'm not particularly experienced in editorial design, nor do I really know the principles that well (ironically) there was alot of changing back and forth. In many ways however, I was pleased that it was a project that I was so enthusiastic about, that was a basis for this experimentation.

I also created a set of illustrations to run through the leaflet. After recently working on my illustration skills in Illustrator, I felt quite confident about creating these, and I was very happy with the outcomes of these clean illustrations.

Stylistically, I tried to keep it very clean and simple, but I also tried to push myself where I could with the composition of text. I added small pieces of information  to the composition such as paper dimensions which added to the on trend styling. I struggled with applying imagery to the written content side of the leaflet, and i'm disappointed with that. Designing the poster side of the leaflet was a far swifter process as I was able to be more expressive with the images of work I used, and create an interesting, fresh layout.  I regularly printed out prototypes to gauge the size of the copy and the layout also.

I then began creating the digital app mock ups to go with the leaflet. I again carried out brief initial ideas of how I envisioned the app looking. Again, it would follow the same visual guidelines as the leaflet, and keeping simple, clean and colourful were key areas to consider. I'm very pleased with how the app looked, as It was my first effort at such a piece of design. Key areas I encountered were thinking about how big the copy needed to be, as well as how big buttons would be, as well as keeping the overall interface balanced, so that content was the key focus.

 

My main disappointment with the brief was the printing process. Initially, the idea was to print the leaflet in A2, which in hindsight was far to big, however the printing process needed to create a double side A2 piece of print were hard to come by, and very costly. Therefore I had to redesign the leaflet for A3. I also struggled with the weight of stock. The stock had to be thick enough to not bleed through when printed on both sides, whilst also being thin enough to fold several times. I only had laser and inkjet papers at my disposal, which made for a less than satisfying finish, however, with better suited professional stocks, I would have found a satisfactory weight to use.

A photographer at my work placement, James, kindly helped photograph the print work for submission to D&AD which was a great help. Overall, I was happy with the project as a whole. I felt very happy with the concept, and in reflection, that was probably the strongest area. I probably would have looked again with the way the leaflet folded, particularly when it was in A3, but I feel that I have definitely improved my editorial skills, and feel more confident at attempting more complex pieces of layout work.