Personal Project Evaluation

For my personal project I was required to submit supporting studies, a linked personal study of 1000-3000 words and practical outcomes from my initial starting points. At the start of the project, after analysing the brief i came up with four initial ideas that could interlink with my previous project: The CD Packaging Project. The four ideas were: a clothing line, official website for my chosen artist, concert promotion and lastly advertising the launch of a new radio station which is the theme I decided to follow. I made this decision by using the artist (The Weeknd) that I focused my CD Packaging Project on as an overarching theme for this project and thought that it would be interesting to advertise the launch of a new radio station that will have live sessions involving The Weeknd to promote it, using posters as forms of advertisment.

I generated ideas for a logo firstly by researching four logo designs that I found aesthetically interesting. These were for two radio stations: Kiss FM UK and BBC Radio 1, as well as The Ministry Of Sound Logo, which all have been included in my personal study. I enjoyed analysing these logos as it enabled me to understand the use of different logo types for example: wordmarks and combination marks (which is the type that I created in the end). I was very persistent when creating a logo design as I first had to think of a name (which I eventually decided on being 'ease fm' in relation to the music the radio station will play) and then the actual typography which turned out to be bold and italic with a Si Scott inspired design incorporated within it. I went on an interesting journey when developing my logo as i experimented with a variation as I altered the design twice.This is due to the fact that the design I begun with was too bold and seemed mess as the outline for each letter was not straight. I decided it would be best to develop it as the initial design didn't connect to the theme if the word 'ease I did this by drawing sharper letters allowing them to have the same 'x height', and a variation of weight with specific areas of each letter. This development allowed me to eventually express the ideas I aimed to convey (that the music allows you to feel at ease), which was developed even further when I added the Si Scott inspired pattern. I associated Si Scotts typography with the style of music by The Weeknd in particular as the patterns portray a calm mood, representing the idea of going with the flow and these ideas relate to the chosen word for my radio station. Therefore, the use of a combination mark rather than a wordmark conveys my intentional ideas to the public, as well as using a symbol to make the radio station easily recognisable like other radio stations. With the three logo designs that I created as development (as shown in my book) I experimented with photoshop to add a gradient of colour. 

Once I had made a decision on the logo I was going to use, I experimented with ideas for the artwork of the poster. I focused on usingg Kandinsky as an inspiration as I appreciated his use of geometric symbols to express his ideas. I thought that it would be interesting to use this idea to visually present the form of music. I did a range of experiments for the artwork, consisting of handmade as well as digital experiments and decided that one digital experiment in particular was the best to use as it clearly related to the theme of slow, calm R&B, indie rock style of music. It presented a galaxy imitation as well as a variation of shapes ranging from circles, to straight lines and swirly lines. When analysing the artwork I believed that I could add more aspects to it relating to music to give it more perspective. I did this by doing Miles Donovan experiments which were not successful to begin with when I used a photoshop tutorial. However I perservered with this idea and used my own techniques to create my own versions of Donovan's style of illustration. For my final outcome I imposed tube station posters and placed my poster on top of existing advertisment. I decided to do this because London is seen as the centre of music as this is where the main radio stations (for example: BBC Radio 1 and Kiss FM UK) are located, therefore I am reaching a wide target audience due to the fact that people transporting from one place to another will be able to see it. I am very satisfied with my outcome as the skewing, rotation, scaling and distortion tools allowed me to fit the poster in perfectly, making the outcomes seem realistic which was my intention.