Quote - Typographic - Design 1.

Given Quote:

“There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men” – John Locke

John Locke, born August 29, 1632 – October 28, 1704 was a British philosopher as well as an Oxford academic and medical researcher who was widely known as the Father of Classical Liberalism, regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers.

Common Questions Children Ask                                                                       

·      Why is the sky blue?

·      What is infinity?

·      Where do babies come from?

·      How is electricity made?

·      What are black holes?

·      What is infinity?

·      Why is the sky blue?

·      Why do we have a leap year?

·      How do birds fly?

·      Where do babies come from?

·      Where do you go when you die?

·      Why do people kill each other?

·      Why are some people born with disabilities?

·      Why are people gay?

·      Why does cutting onions make you cry?

·      Where does the wind come from?

·      Why is the sea salty?

·      How big is the world?

·      Is God real?

·      What makes thunder?

·      Why do you blink?

·      How do planes fly?

·      What is time?

·      How does Father Christmas get down the chimney?

·      Where does water come from?

·      What comes first, the chicken or the egg?

·      Are aliens real?

·      How much does the earth weigh?

·      Why is water wet?

·      Where do birds go in winter?

·      Why is the moon sometimes out in the day?

·      Where does water come from?

Poster                                                                       

The poster design is centred around Locke’s quote, which describes the innocent, naive questions asked by children are the hardest for adults to answer without being stumped by them.

The Design:

After drafting up various designs I chose to go with a design that would be visually simple yet effective and apparent to the viewer.

The design contains some of the many innocent questions asked by a child that adults find difficult or fail to answer and when in doubt generally respond with the default answer “Nobody knows the answer to that”.

The questions would be arranged in diagonal orientations (I experimented with horizontal orientations and it didn’t look visually appealing, instead it looked rather bland. I tried a vertical orientation and it was just too hard to read, negating the point of the design.

I chose for the type to be enclosed with the profile of a child, making it more visually apparent to the viewer that the topic relates to a child/children.

I experimented with and without the usage of a background colour and colour usage within the profile image.

After designing a poster involving a boy’s profile I decided to adapt the same design but involving a girl’s profile, feeling it would appeal to both the male and female demographic (possibly stronger for parents).

Potential Imagery Fonts                                               

I wanted the font of the questions within the image to represent a child-like hand writing, so for this I tested out the following fonts from my font library within Illustrator:

·      Handwriting – Dakota

·      Marker Felt – Thin

·      Marker Felt – Wide

·      Chalkduster – Regular

·      Ballpark Weiner – Weiner

Experimenting with these fonts I made my own conclusions on each font to justify my decision:

Handwriting  - Dakota

I feel that this font is too thin, italic and strung-out. When compiled within the image the typographic composition is too visually stressful.

Marker Felt - Thin

This font is better but still too thin, making the typographic composition too busy and distracting.

Marker Felt - Wide

The wide version of Marker Felt works a lot better than the Thin version, delivering the effect of a child’s pen handwriting and still clean enough to read clearly. This font also looks a lot better in the typo composition too.

Chalkduster - Regular

Chalkduster delivers that handwritten effect in the font design but I got the feeling instantly that it would over-complicate the design, making it look messy and chaotic.

Ballpark Weiner  - Weiner

This font is one of my personal favourites but admittedly it’s not best used for every design piece. I felt that over-usage of this font would make the piece unreadable, and negate the purpose of the design.

I chose to use Marker Felt – Wide font as the font within the imagery and the main typographic focus.

Designed by Pat Snyder who is an art teacher and son of a master sign painter. Marker Felt is exceptional in its combination of casualness with clarity and definition of form. It is particularly useful for delivering onscreen presentations to large audiences.

Quote Font                                                                       

For the quote I wanted to use a font that was more serious visually but not too harsh or bold. I chose to use my personal favourite Century Gothic – Regular. I feel this font has a certain elegant, visually tranquilizing and sophisticated design about it, Like a statement being told a serious yet subtle tone. The right colour usage for this font would justify it furthermore.

Colours                                                                       

I wanted to use a soft, subtle, child-friendly colour scheme that would be suitable and relevant for the topic’s design.

I chose to use a mint, eggshell-blue for the boy’s poster with a C.M.Y.K. of:

·      C = 48

·      M = 6

·      Y = 27

·      K = 0

For the girl’s poster I chose to use a subtle pink with a C.M.Y.K. of:

·      C = 0

·      M = 38

·      Y = 8

·      K = 0

I also experimented with using a light-dark grey for both the boy and girl’s profile image, acting as a bold contrast between the type and background. I decided against this design though, feeling it was darkening the image too much. The C.M.Y.K. used was:

·      C = 0

·      M = 0

·      Y = 0

·      K = 75

I wanted to make sure the design wasn’t loud, bold and too in your face and using these colour schemes gave the poster design a warmer, subtle yet striking effect to it. I used a plain white swatch (C = 0, M = 0, Y = 0, K = 0) with the design too; this was to portray a sense of innocence within the piece, relating to the innocence of children and their questions.

Evaluation                                                                       

I will admit that the final design isn’t anything unique, finding similar typographic design pieces online after idea drafting but the idea and adaptation is completely my own and I feel it works very well. In the beginning I was quite sceptical about the fact that what I thought was my own new and original design had been completed numerous times before but with the time given for the completion of this project I’d of rather produced and completed something similar to already existing designs than not being able design or complete anything.

Overall I am happy with the finished results. I feel all the elements used within the design do the poster and the quote justice. One thing I would change in the future is for the posters to be printed on a higher quality, heavier paper, similar to matt watercolour paper.

Chance or Fate?

My Religious Views:                             

I personally believe that the world could be a better place if we humans didn't have religion.
I feel that it's used to "justify" intentions of human acts i.e. "God wants this" and "Allah wants this" etc and contributes to the worlds problems (the holocaust, war on terror, Spanish inquisition etc.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmwBPsB0oaE

Example 1:
The Nazi's - responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews used Christianity to "justify" and back up their reason for The Holocaust. German soldiers had the words "Gott mit uns" (God with us) engraved on their belt buckles, encouraging the soldiers was on their side.

The Swastika, originally used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun , power, strength and good luck, recognised as a symbol of peace was taken by Hitler to symbolise their own intentions for an Aryan world peace, through hate and anti-Semitic murder.

 

Example 2:
The Crusade - Christian army lead by King Richard (Richard the Lionheart) into Jerusalem and massacred the Moors because of their religious differences and justifying that their where doing God's work.

Example 3:
The Spanish Inquisition - Used for both political and religious reasons. Following the Crusades and the Reconquest of Spain by the Christian Spaniards the leaders of Spain needed a way to unify the country into a strong nation. Ferdinand and Isabella chose Catholicism to unite Spain and in in 1478 asked permission of the pope to begin the Spanish Inquisition to "purify' the people of Spain, driving out the Jews, Protestants and other non-believers with the method of murder and horrific torture.

This is my poster design for this project. I wanted to produce a poster that would stir people thoughts about what life be like if religion didn't exist. This is where I stand with religion, I respect that people have they're own beliefs but it's just not for me. Like marmite, some people like it and others don't.
I have always been a fan of retro artwork, especially propaganda poster art from around the 1900's.
I had various other ideas for my design but I thought the most hard hitting would be one relating to 9/11; perhaps if there was no religion the Twin Towers may still be standing, with the workers still working inside. Depicted is the friendship between a Western Caucasian and Middle-Eastern, with no religious differences. The year is 2013 and the New York Twin Towers haven't been hit.

Alternative Youth Internet TV Show

Ideas: 

* TV documentary on it's own channel providing information about famous (not necessarily) i.e. Pyramids of Giza, Great Wall of China, Reichstag, The Shard etc. This program would come under the same category of program as Channel 4's Coast or Time Team.

* Could be viewed on Channel 4, Channel 4 OD (On Demand), Sky etc.

* Target Audience: anyone with an interest in the subject of architecture, especially students.

* Mobile phone App providing stat information of buildings when captured on camera (image - visual recognition).

* Sponsored by Google, Google Maps

* Twitter and Facebook pages

* Magazine / promotional article within existing magazine.

* Top Trump playing cards

*  Involvement in London's Open House.

* Website with a Design your own building page, Autocad, 3D schematics.

* Funding from BBC, Channel 4 etc.

* Info / data from architect firms, archives, historians etc.

Logo Ideas:

Phone App:

Are you one of many people who when walking the streets, stop and marvel at architecture without any knowledge of the building/s then continue on with your day and have forgotten all about it within 10 mins? Well what if there was an app on your phone that could provide you with brief stat info about the buildings you stop to momentarily gaze at. My idea would be to design an app that when a building is captured on the phone's camera it'd use visual recognition and and GPS to find the location of the captured building and within seconds (depending on wireless and signal strength) provide a Top Trump - like display of the the building's image and stat information such as: Cost to build, Architect, Started, Completed and it's location. Further information would be available should the user decide to find out more. This is perfect for quick curiosity when en-route to the office.

Channel 4 posters: