Monday 15 November 2010

Pearl Fisher website review

Stella Artois Branding

Pearl Fisher are a branding company that specialize in logo design and rebranding. They have worked with big names such as Dairy Milk, Stella Artois (pictured above) and Absolut Vodka amongst others. They have been nominated for several awards, most recently for their design work for Jamie Oliver rebranding and Dairy Milk chocolate buttons.






Fortnum & Mason


While looking through the website, i came across this design for 'Fornum & Mason'. While Pearl Fisher designed a selection of products by this company, the biscuit range that they designed really caught my eye. I thought the design looked really classy and sophisticated, but also modern at the same time. I especially like the design of the clock hands and how it is a 'Five continent biscuit selection', so they point to 5 o clock. I also think the use of black and gold really helps to make the design look that bit more classy, and almost reminds me of a tin that you would see a watch or a piece of jewelry in.




Overall the work on the website really impressed, especially their designs for Cadbury and the two above. They have a really clean and professional outcome with each their rebranded designs, which is a constant theme throughout the work in the portfolio. Their logo designs really impressed me and will give me a lot of inspiration to take forward into my current logo project.



Sunday 14 November 2010

Student Union poster design project reflection




For my final piece's i decided to go with a simple design, but one that i believed would catch the eye of someone that walked past them. I decided to make my posters at first, advertise a false statement, then when read closer, the full idea is understand. Even though they are quite simple designs, i think that overall they work well, especially in a set of posters.

What i enjoyed about the project
I enjoyed this project as it was a live brief and i enjoy having to work to a set time line. It allowed me to explore into typography designs which is a route i wouldn't normally go down as i prefer to use illustration instead.

What i didn't enjoy about the project
Throughout the end of the project when i was finalising my design i thought that the idea i had came up with wasn't complicated enough and i think that held me back at first as i wanted to create something more exciting, but eventually accepted that sometimes simple designs also work as well and i need to get that idea into my head sometimes.

Problems i encountered
Being a project that the final outcome would be displayed to students i wanted to think of a design that was clever and funny as i thought that would appeal to modern students. Saying this, i found it really hard to think of something that was in-fact clever, and original at the same time.

What went well
I think once i got going with my ideas, i thought i developed them well and found it enjoyable to play around with layouts on Indesign, a program i had never used until this project.

What didn't go well
I think again focussing to much on trying to perfect one idea left me with little time to explore into my other ideas, one of which i also really liked. So if i had more time, i would of liked to develop that one further as well.

New Skills acquired
I think learnt to use Indesign quite quickly considering i hadn't used it up until this project. I really like the program, it makes the layout of pieces much easier
to manage and allows you to play around with your design quickly, which helped me greatly in my designs.

New Knowledge acquired
I think my research into posters helped me to  improve my knowledge of the way posters can be laid out or displayed, which i wasn't confident with
until this project, so i will take that forward for future projects on posters.

Time management
I think the design i decided on helped me easily hit my target, although i struggled with the development and research side of things due to missing a week of college, but in the end managed to get everything handed in on time.