After reviewing the design criteria of “what makes a good design”, I noticed that there are many ways that I can further improve my design.

Firstly, I think that something I did well on would be design criteria 1, “The logo is the face”. This states that the logo’s job should be a representation of the brand, not an illustration of the product. For my design, I think that I incorporated the criteria successfully. At first, I experimented with an illustration of the actual product. But soon later, I refined the design into a more abstract and geometric symbol.

Experimental Illustration:

Something that I can improve on would be making the logo function in black and white. My current logo is dependent on the red colour of the cherries. However, after reviewing the design criteria, I realized the significance of designing the illustration in black and white.

My goal for the lesson would be to complete the logo and refine the design so that it is less reliable on colour.

Current Logo:

Share and Reflect

Which examples are most important? Which examples influenced your design choices, and why?

Padlet:

Above is a Padlet page that contains examples of typography posters that inspired me to create my own. I have left comments on each poster on the reasons that I got inspired by.

I think that the second example, the poster containing four Chinese characters, inspired me the most. When I first saw the poster, I felt that the poster was very unique and aesthetically pleasing. One of the most important factors of this poster was the usage of contrast. The contrast created by the red letters against the black background created this very distinct, it highlighted the keywords of the poster. The usage of the element of contrast both demanded the viewers’ attention, and also made the poster aesthetically pleasing. Another significant factor that was inspirational to me was the usage of Chinese characters. The different language made the poster look very unique, this made the poster “stand out” from thousands of other posters. This idea inspired me to create my poster in different or multiple languages too.

Which songs did you consider and what led to your selection?

I think that one of the most important steps in the design process is brainstorming. It is a process that would create a general direction for your final design. I have spent a great amount of time on this process and made multiple decisions that shape my final design.

At first, I checked my music playlist on my phone, gathering multiple of my favorite songs. However, I found myself struggling to narrow down my choices. This lead me to relisten to every song I enjoyed and finally picked three songs. I think that relistening to my music was an immensely important step because it allowed me to both pick three songs (童话, Stay, 花太阳彩虹雨) , and to understand the lyrics at a deeper level. I was able to connect to the music’s style and communicate it onto my visual poster.

At last, I settled upon the song “花太阳彩虹雨” because I felt that it meets my criteria of containing multiple languages, in addition, I was able to connect and express the musical style and identity from the music.

After deciding upon my song, I started to create different sketches and design ideas on paper. I worked relatively quickly on the designs in hopes of discovering a design that best expresses the musical style of my music.

Some examples of the sketches I made are:

Because I worked relatively fast on the sketches, I felt that the sketches were very simple. However, I thought that the use of simplicity was a great idea. I also realized that examples of posters on my Padlet also incorporated some form of simplicity into their designs. This leads me to decide to incorporate simplicity into my design too.

Detailed development drawings:

After brainstorming multiple ideas, I began to make detailed drafts that would better represent the music picked. My first draft mainly focused on the element of contrast, usage of different languages and fonts, and simplicity. I experimented with multiple variations of this draft, however, I, at last, decided to keep this one.

I liked this design because it showed contrast between the white letters and the rainbow illustrations with the black background, however, I felt that this draft was too simple, it was lacking communication from illustrations. This would cause viewers to be unable to understand the style of the music I picked.

To improve the first draft, I decided to add more illustrations from the lyrics of the song. And this is what I came up with:

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I felt that this poster was much better than the previous draft, mainly due to the increased amount illustrations. This would better communicate the style of my song and allow viewers to better understand it. However, a drawback this had is the aesthetics of the poster. The illustrations seemed very natural to me. The sunset almost seemed random, this made me reconsider my decisions and further improve my poster with the help of feedback.

This is my final draft:

I was very happy with my final draft as it succeeded to meet all of my criteria for the final design. The most significant change in this poster would be the rainbow illustration in the background. It helped communicate the style of the music and, additionally, made my poster ascetically pleasing. The poster also kept many of the ideas I came up with at the beginning of this unit. Contrast is still clearly seen from the lettering and the rainbow background, the usage of different fonts and languages were also used. Overall, I was very happy with my final design.

Evidence of Peer Feedback and Response:

What was the feedback, what did you change in response to the feedback?

After completing my first draft of the lyric and type poster, I shared and received feedback from my partner. This feedback session was immensely useful and contributed significantly to my final product of this unit.

Some of the comments I received from my partner were the admiration of the use of contrast, color, and different fonts and languages. The contrast was especially important in terms of communication because it highlights the letters and demands the readers’ attention.

I feel that the most important piece of feedback I received from my partner was the lack of illustrations. My partner specifically said: “The addition of illustrations that represent or symbolize the lyrics and music would better support the communication of emotion.”.

This made me reflect on my first draft and reconsider some of the design choices I previously made. As a result, I decided to add illustrations that would improve communication while being able to keep the viewers’ attention on the main concept, typography.

After the feedback session, I was able to add a background illustration of a rainbow for the purpose of communication. However, I was not completely satisfied with this background illustration as it seems too distracting and would take attention away from viewers.

With the help of Mr.Griffen, I was encouraged to experiment with different visual effects. At last, I found a useful effect named “Gaussian blur”. This effect helped to exceed my expectation of being less distracting.

Draft before feedback:

Draft After feedback:

Demonstrate Growth in Technical and Design Skills:

I think that this unit had taught me a lot in both technical, and design skills. The design skill I learned is very important as typography is something I would defiantly use for my day-to-day life. I think that this design skill would be is very beneficial to me even if I do not do graphic design in the future.

The improvement in technical skills can be shown in the usage of effects I learned. Before, I did not know when and how to use the effect tools to improve my poster. However, after asking Mr.Griffin for help, I was able to discover multiple different tools that would help me complete my poster.

Create a High-quality Design:

Hi Mr.Giffin, if you are grading this right now, please ignore this part, I do not have a PNG of my poster yet, but I will make sure to upload one here tomorrow in class.

PNG place holder

Explain the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Process and Product:

Some of the strengths my poster has would be the usage of contrast, different languages and fonts, and communication from illustrations. These were many of the key components of my poster, and I think they successfully communicated the style of the song. Some weaknesses of my poster would be the lack of variety in my poster. I feel that my illustrations were all very similar to each other. If I were to do this again, I would choose to add different types of illustrations that would communicate better with the views.

One thing I did well on was to manipulate the letterings to help communicate the style of my poster. I used different languages and fonts to make certain words stand out. An example of this would be the word “rainbow” in my poster. The world rainbow was written in English, also in different fonts and sizes. This would highlight the word and demand the viewers’ attention. Because most of the other words were in Chinese, the fewer English words would seem unique and display contrast. I also manipulated the word rainbow by making it the only lettering-styled word in the poster. Every word except rainbow was written in a very consistent, typography style, this would further show contrast and support communication of my poster.

Overall, I think I did quite well on this project as I have learned much new information about the element of typography. I think my poster was very successful in terms of communicating the style of my music, and I was very happy with the final draft of my poster.

Illustration PDF:

E_P A4_Poster template

What is the role of design elements and principles?

Elements and principles are essential to graphic design. Designers use these elements and principles to create visually appealing effects and help convey the art piece’s intent. Without this, the illustration would seem incomplete and less meaningful.

What is the design task all about?

The design task is about educating students on the topic of design elements and principles. It helps us understand the importance of elements and principles of graphic design through a creative and engaging process. This design task also allowed students to create and communicate their own understandings of elements and principles through the illustrations that originate from themselves.

Why did you choose to design your illustration this way?

I chose to design my illustration this way because I mainly focused on displaying the critical concepts of the design element, tone. My original objective was to create an image that clearly represents the element of tone. Therefore, I illustrated simple 3-dimensional shapes with the application of light. Another choice I made was the use of color. Because my goal was to communicate my design element, I only used different shades of white, grey, and black. This isolated my design element, causing less confusion and allowing me to concisely communicate the element of tone. Overall, I think the illustration I created strived with simplicity, making the artwork aesthetically pleasing and informative.

Different variations and drafts of my illustration:

After the feedback session during classtime, my partner told me that my designs were all too simple and lacked visual aesthetics. This made me reconsider my choices. Because of the helpful feedback, I decided to add details and a variety of shapes in my final illustration, ultimately making my illustration more aesthetically pleasing while remaining informative.