Evaluation - Art Fund - Competition Brief

The purpose of this brief was to create a design or campaign which would encourage students to buy the student art pass and to consider going to museums and galleries as a break from day-to-day life. The 'Let Your Mind Wander' campaign achieves this in a number of ways. The design immediately shows the art pass in the center of the design with a clear focal point suggesting what the campaign is about. Surrounding this are well constructed details and imagery which indicate the benefits of having a student art pass.

The brief also suggests that museums and galleries should be shown to be 'relaxing, inspiring and sociable'. By having the two figures at the bottom of each design is shows how a going to these places can be about companionship and shared experience. The large open space against these two miniature figures shows how relaxing museums and galleries can be - with large spaces to breathe. Whilst the lines drawn from the heads of the figures directly illustrates how the minds of the figure's minds are wandering and are feeling inspired by the large sculptures.

Students are deeply influenced by technology and the brief suggests that the design should offer an alternatives to this way of thinking but to also consider that this is a primary route of communication for students. As a result the designs show to figures physically experiencing the museum - it is photographed based to remind students of the importance of physical experience. However, I have also included to designs which show how the campaign would use Instagram advertising. These have worked well and are consistent with other types of advertising on the platform. They are colourful and exciting and the amount of information has been heavily cut down so that when users are swiping/scrolling they wont be put off stopping to read the campaign. This also considers that the Art Fund specifies a low production cost.

Finally, the designs themselves play on student culture, as the brief suggests they should. Students are away from home for the first time and are looking to celebrate. The majority want to go out and have fun and exciting exciting experiences. As a result the designs show balloons in each of the compositions, these are made to look like spherical sculptures but their obvious balloon shape should indicate how galleries and museums can be exciting and celebratory. They are not just about traditional art but are also about experience and immersion, which these designs highlight well.

Final Production - Art Fund - Competition Brief

For the Final Production of the posters I decided they would look best on photo paper. This meant the colours and detail of the photographs came out crisp, vibrant and electric. This was important as the loud and exciting colours are what the students viewing them should be most attracted to. With this saturated gloss the exaggerated, metallic colours will stand out and are likely to gain a lot of attention.

One problem with printing this designs onto such quality paper is that in some respects the photographs show too much detail. When the sets were bring built and the photo-shoot was being conducted, the crayon sculpture created some markings and damage so that the white ground section of the piece. This was not viewable in the digital edits but is quite obvious in print. This is something I will need to edit in future so that the designs appear professional and considered.

Social Media - Art Fund - Competition Brief

I then created versions of the designs which would be seen on Instagram, as the brief stipulates that the designs should consider digital avenues as this is often where students are most receptive.

These went fairly well, I briefly experimented with the size of the pass and the amount of information to display. It was important that these designs were incredibly simple, as they would be seen on small screens with viewers who have highly reduced attention spans. If there is too much information, the viewer will immediately swipe past. This is why I also experimented with making the pass as large as possible, as the designs needed a striking focal point which would attract the eyes of the viewer. The colours do this already, it was just a case of arranging the information so that it can be incredibly easy to digest. As a result the information has been stripped back to only the pieces that are most important.

I then experimented with creating my own mock-ups for the designs.This involved mimicking Instagram layouts, typefaces and symbols which seems to have been successful. The designs are immediately eye catching and should attract viewers who are interested in the colour and concept. I have added a little more information to the Instagram story, yet this is because these adverts are slightly larger and should attract a little more attention.

Final Poster Designs - Art Fund - Competition Brief

I selected the designs I thought were most successful to create three separate posters. Each poster says something slightly different about the student art pass and they were be placed in and around student areas. The layouts have been slightly modified so they are all consistent in where the text has been placed. The colour of the text has also been changed to give a more colourful aesthetic, complimenting the other posters in the sequence.

After creating these layouts I realised that the illustration for the Student Art Pass wasn't quite correct. It felt like a mediocre copy of the real thing and the low opacity meant that a different tone of blue was shown in each poster design.

After studying the art pass further I created a far more realistic copy in illustration, adding the addition of the price in the top corner to indicate to the viewer how much it costs. This version with the curved corners, larger text and full colour felt a lot more professional.

The three final designs are strong, vibrant and student-friendly. Each uses a different statement to make a campaign which entices the viewer with the different benefits of the pass - yet not overwhelming them with the details all on one design. Each poster also features slightly different content to subtly show the different institutions which can be visited with the pass. The text colour in each design has been picked from the other posters, meaning that the pallet is kept consistent and conveys a general feeling of creativity and colour -rather than just using black as I have in previous iterations of the design.

Further Layout Experiments - Art Fund - Competition Brief

Crayon Image Experiments

I then began to conduct further experiments involving text and the thought strands. I also began including a small illustration of the Student Art Pass, to convey the nature of the pass and the price. I found that in a lot of the previous Student Art Pass branding an image of the pass was included and I wanted to replicate that. This pass illustration seemed to balance the larger statement of text which I felt necessary to explain the passes benefits. The text is a lot larger here than in the original designs as from feedback it was suggested that the information was not being conveyed clearly.

I tried outlining the pass in white, then adding yellow as this is on the actual pass design and then I also created a blue opaque design that seemed to work well. Being opaque meant the photographs behind could still be visible but it also meant that because a lot of different colours have been used, the tone of the blue pass changes slightly in every image. This could be further refined.

I also tested changing the colour of the thought strands. This worked quite well in the one hue images which I made sure to pick colours which would compliment the backgrounds. But in many ways the white may be more vibrant. The text was coloured using the eyedropper tool - using per-exhisiting tones from the image for consistency.

The multiple colour images seemed to work even better, especially with the pass design laid over the top. I did however need to make sure that the blue of the pass could still be seen against other blue hues. Some of the experiments below don't work so well for that reason.

Tree Image Experiments 

These experiments followed the layouts I tested previously and they seemed to work quite well. Again I preferred the muticoloured designs and by colouring the text in a red hue it seemed to add to the image This was something I hoped to replicate. I also found that placing the pass in between the two thought strands meant the pass was a lot more involved in the piece, especially with one strand in front and one behind it looked tucked in between.

Brick Image Experiments

Something that worked quite well for these experiments was making the text even larger so that it filled the page with information. Although this meant there was less negative space to 'breathe' in, it also meant the information was a lot more legible and confronting for the reader to view. It also appears a lot more like an art institution poster and is bold and exciting - the design definitely isn't playing it safe.

Gallery Flyer Inspiration - Art Fund - Competition Brief

I decided to collect some gallery and museum event flyers in order to familiarise myself with the type layouts often used by art institutions. I noticed that for a lot the text was large and bold, even the statements such as 'You can go anywhere with art_' on the Art Fund pamphlet used large text - this was something I hoped to recreate.

On the flyers I also looked at the backs and how these were organised. I found that a lot just used plane white backgrounds which meant the information stood and was not crowded. I need to remember that often a more controlled, refined response can be more appropriate and informative. Another thing I noticed was that one of the Hepworth flyers used an effect on an image similar to that I have experimented with, so the designs should fits well within the market.

I also looked at Pinterest for inspiration and found lots of aesthetics and layouts which were useful. I hope to use this research again in future.