Inspiration

 

General research I conducted throughout this project by surfing on the internet such as the images I found above gave me inspiration for my designs. Looking at the images from my research intrigued me and inspired me on how they made these kind of designs. Above are just some images on what I found, which I could incorporate into my work. These inspirations are like a starting point to what I could design and develop my final idea into. As it inspires me to incorporate these designs into my idea as well as develop it further and unique and one of my own. 


Here is an example of one of my piece of work that i created on Photoshop, following the general research I found. I used the concept of nature such as leaves in order to create an effect of a persons face. I think this kind of design and idea is really effective and the overall design just blows me away of how good the design looks.

Toyota Vios Commercial Advertisement

This advert from Toyota is really stands out due to the fact it being different to all others ones created by other car brands. The way they have incorporated the text into the video as well as it being a video of the car being modern. As it shows in this modern day life of what features people are looking for in a car. Not only it being advertised by a famous music band I think it was a good way how they used the band for the commercial as it attracts younger audience and more develops interest to the car being advertised.

The way the text fits in with the whole video and how it leads on to another part of video is clever as it all fits in to the background design, each part of the video is well thought out as it incorporates both typography and visual stimulus which makes the car stand out.

Overall the advert from Toyota is unique and the actual deign aspect of it is something which I inspire to do with a few more tutorials on Adobe After Effects. 

Experiment on Kinetic Typography
Here is my Video using Adobe After Effects, experimenting on kinetic typography, However in the future I could add a background video with text on it like the toyota advert above.



Global-warmingill from Aadam Lambat on Vimeo. 

Calligraphy

Typography work of designers and artists really intrigued me, however as I was researching different typography designs I came across calligraphy work and different calligraphy writing, which made me further research more upon calligraphy and how it is done. I found that calligraphy is elegant and fancy. It gives it this feel, because of the elegant lines and strokes, which have been created using a calligraphy pen. As it looks very delicate it gives the illusion that is very simple.

Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a broad tip instrument, dip pen, or brush, among other writing instruments.

Arabic Calligraphy is really interesting and i have been looking at arabic calligraphy that has been produced already. Mastering such skill is difficult as it comes with years of practice. Most of this calligraphy is written in the Holy Quraan, as it is witten in arabic calligraphy. Arabic calligraphy interests me however it can be quite time consuming, but the final outcome is amazing and looks really effective on designs. Arabic calligraphy can be designed in many shapes, foe e.g. animals, shape of a heart. Here are examples of arabic calligraphy: 

I looked at some calligraphy artists and came across an artist called:

John Stevens

John Stevens is an internationally acclaimed calligrapher & illustrator, raising letterforms to the realm of imagery. Observing the excellence of the 2000 year history of Western Calligraphy, he embraces both tradition/craft, as well as expressive and experimental. Whether using a brush, quill, handmade paper, vellum or drawing a letter form in vector, he feels there are craft and high standards to be maintained and constantly sharpened or improved.

Calligraphy Experiment

After looking at calligraphy I had the inspiration to have ago of it myself. I tried Arabic, as well as simple calligraphy, in order to have the feel of what outcome is. Here is my calligraphy work:

I used an ink pen and pencil in order to create these calligraphy words. I used free hand drawing as this as the best idea and more flow into the calligraphy in my sketchbook. However, it is not a calligraphy pen that I was using as I think that would have a better flow of the calligraphy writing and see how it feels.

I got hold of a wooden calligraphy pen the next day, with some ink, which I could experiment on a piece of paper. As I was a beginner of calligraphy writing, I thought I would just write my name in arabic with the calligraphic pen, as a novice it would be harder for me to design arabic lettering in different shapes. 

Here is my experimentation of my name in arabic with calligraphy pen writing. My favourite is the arabic writing in the middle of the page as the stroke of the lines and the design of the calligraphy looks effective. 

Colour Psychology

Colour psychology was one of the topics that we studied in one of our lecture lessons. This inspired me to look further and research more on this topic. It intrigued me and influenced my work on how the use of colour's in graphic design can influence our thoughts and action on the design created.

Each colour has its own meaning here is what I think of what each colour represents:

RED Positive: Physical courage, strength, warmth, energy, basic survival, 'fight or flight', stimulation, masculinity, excitement. Negative: Defiance, aggression, visual impact, strain, danger. Being the longest wavelength, red is a powerful colour. Although not technically the most visible, it has the property of appearing to be nearer than it is and therefore it grabs our attention first. Hence its effectiveness in traffic lights the world over. Its effect is physical; it stimulates us and raises the pulse rate, giving the impression that time is passing faster than it is. It relates to the masculine principle and can activate the "fight or flight" instinct. Red is strong, and very basic. Pure red is the simplest colour, with no subtlety. It is stimulating and lively, very friendly. At the same time, it can be perceived as demanding and aggressive.

BLUE   Positive: Intelligence, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity, duty, logic, coolness, reflection, calm. Negative: Coldness, aloofness, lack of emotion, unfriendliness. Blue is the colour of the mind and is essentially soothing; it affects us mentally, rather than the physical reaction we have to red. Strong blues will stimulate clear thought and lighter, soft blues will calm the mind and aid concentration. Consequently it is serene and mentally calming. It is the colour of clear communication. Blue objects do not appear to be as close to us as red ones. Time and again in research, blue is the world's favourite colour. However, it can be perceived as cold, unemotional and unfriendly.

YELLOW   Positive: Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, emotional strength, friendliness, creativity. Negative: Irrationality, fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety, suicide. The yellow wavelength is relatively long and essentially stimulating. In this case the stimulus is emotional, therefore yellow is the strongest colour, psychologically. The right yellow will lift our spirits and our self-esteem; it is the colour of confidence and optimism. Too much of it, or the wrong tone in relation to the other tones in a colour scheme, can cause self-esteem to plummet, giving rise to fear and anxiety.

GREEN Positive: Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness, equilibrium, peace. Negative: Boredom, blandness, enervation. Green strikes the eye in such a way as to require no adjustment whatever and is, therefore, restful. When the world about us contains plenty of green, this indicates the presence of water, and little danger of famine, so we are reassured by green, on a primitive level. Negatively, it can indicate stagnation and, incorrectly used, will be perceived as being too bland.

VIOLET Positive: Spiritual awareness, containment, vision, luxury, authenticity, truth, quality. Negative: Introversion, suppression, inferiority. The shortest wavelength is violet, often described as purple. It takes awareness to a higher level of thought, even into the realms of spiritual values. It highly encourages deep contemplation, or meditation. It has associations with royalty and usually communicates the finest possible quality. Being the last visible wavelength before the ultra-violet ray, it has associations with time and space and the cosmos. Excessive use of purple can bring about too much introspection and the wrong tone of it communicates something cheap and nasty, faster than any other colour.

ORANGE Positive: Physical comfort, food, warmth, security, sensuality, passion, abundance, fun. Negative: Deprivation, frustration, immaturity. Since it is a combination of red and yellow, orange is stimulating and reaction to it is a combination of the physical and the emotional. This is particularly likely when warm orange is used with black. Equally, too much orange suggests frivolity and a lack of serious intellectual values.

PINK Positive: warmth, femininity, love, sexuality, survival of the species. Negative: Inhibition, emotional claustrophobia, emasculation, physical weakness. Being a tint of red, pink also affects us physically, but it soothes, rather than stimulates.  Pink is a powerful colour, psychologically. It represents the feminine principle, and survival of the species; it is nurturing and physically soothing. Too much pink is physically draining and can be somewhat emasculating.

GREY Positive: Psychological neutrality. Negative: Lack of confidence, dampness, depression, hibernation, lack of energy. Pure grey is the only colour that has no direct psychological properties. It is, however, quite suppressive. A virtual absence of colour is depressing and when the world turns grey we are instinctively conditioned to draw in and prepare for hibernation. Unless the precise tone is right, grey has a dampening effect on other colours used with it. Heavy use of grey usually indicates a lack of confidence and fear of exposure.

BLACK Positive: Sophistication, glamour, security, emotional safety, efficiency, substance. Negative: Oppression, coldness, menace, heaviness. Black is all colours, totally absorbed. The psychological implications of that are considerable. It creates protective barriers, as it absorbs all the energy coming towards you, and it enshrouds the personality. Black is essentially an absence of light, since no wavelengths are reflected and it can, therefore be menacing; many people are afraid of the dark. Positively, it communicates absolute clarity, with no fine nuances. It communicates sophistication and uncompromising excellence and it works particularly well with white. Black creates a perception of weight and seriousness.  WHITE Positive: Hygiene, sterility, clarity, purity, cleanness, simplicity, sophistication, efficiency. Negative:  coldness Just as black is total absorption, so white is total reflection. In effect, it reflects the full force of the spectrum into our eyes. Thus it also creates barriers, but differently from black, and it is often a strain to look at. It communicates, White is purity and, like black, uncompromising; it is clean, hygienic, and sterile. BROWN Positive: Seriousness, warmth, Nature, reliability, support. Negative: Lack of humour, heaviness, lack of sophistication. Brown usually consists of red and yellow, with a large percentage of black. Consequently, it has much of the same seriousness as black, but is warmer and softer. It has elements of the red and yellow properties. Brown has associations with the earth and the natural world. It is a solid, reliable colour and most people find it quietly supportive.

Icons

 

Iconography are designs and of symbols for representation, especially the conventional meanings attached to an image or images. Creating icons in my designs and using it as an idea is essential as icons can represent a variety of ideas which are effective. As shown in the picture above the icons represent: photographs, messages, printing, computer, WiFi, phone, android, headphone/speaker phone and a TV.

 

Social Icon












Here are some famous social icons that were made for there website. these icons are unique and creative as they represent the social media website. The way they have used illustrator is fascinating, how they used drop shadow and how clean there icons are. 


I created my own icons on one of the projects on Natural Disaster. I went with the black and white combination of icons as I feel that using traditional black and white coloring gives a more of an impact on the negative attributes and representation of these logos making them stand out more from the rest.

Logos

Popular Logos

 When creating logos I got inspiration from existing logo designs that look appealing which can be incorporated into my own design, in order to make my own ideas unique and creative, using tools from adobe illustrator. Logos are created using simple shapes or using just type in effective way where its pleasing to the eye.



Vintage Logos

As well as modern logos I researched vintage logos, which I thought was intriguing and effective, that I could experiment on. The way they have a continuous circular shape, with different kind of design around and inside, makes the overall shape and logo unique and effective, as it does not look like a simple circle.

As you can see here I have created my own Logo using ideas from the vintage logo researched. I used there idea as I thought it was interesting and complex. After I created the circular shape and a design around it, I went for the natural disaster theme to design something inside. 

Logo Designs

For one of our workshop weeks we had to create a logo, so here you can see a series of logos that I experimented and created on Adobe Illustrator. I went for the New Visual Language title in order to create a logo. As you an see I tried different kind of logos, one of them is the New York Yankees (NY) logo incorporated to an New Visual language logo (NVL). However I did not go with that as i thought it is not unique and not my own. The last logo I went for something different with a unique and effective design. 

Helvetica

From the lecture of Helvetica we watched a video on Helvetica by Gary Hustwit, which inspired me to use the font in my research work, as well as my design work. This type of font is simple and pleasing to the eye, as it is easy to read. There's not just one type of Helvetica font there are different kinds as shown. 

Helvetica is a widely used san serif typeface developed for over 50 years. This kind of font is so common that it is also found on road signs, directions and shop displays.

 

Helvetica Trailer

 
Here is the trailer of the Helvetica Movie which I found really interesting, as it gave me so many ideas on how a simple type could be used in such ways and many places.  As well as making it looks so effective and ergonomically efficient. Displaying this kind of font around the city is pleasing to the eye and gives and a good conduct of the city.

"The real achievement of the film is the way it sharpens your eye in general and makes connections between form and content, and between art and life." — Chicago Tribune

Glossary Of Terms

A

• Aesthetic- concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty
• Arbitrary – based on a random choice or personal opinion.

 B

• Bauhaus - an art school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicised and taught.
• Bleed - When a graphic object extends through another in an unwanted manner. It is then trimmed so there is no chance for a white line on the edge

C

• Consumerism - the protection or promotion of the interests of consumers
• Calligraphy - decorative handwriting or handwritten lettering
• Colour theory- the visual arts, colour theory is a body of practical guidance to colour mixing and the visual effects of a specific colour combination. 
• Culture- the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. 
• Contemporary -living or occurring at the same time. 

D

• Dichotomy – two contrasting and opposing ideas, the difference between them

E

• Ergonomics - the study of people's efficiency in their working environment
• Ethereal – dainty, elegant, seemingly not of this world 

F

• Futurism- an artistic movement begun in Italy in 1909 that violently rejected traditional forms so as to celebrate and incorporate into art the energy and dynamism of modern technology
• Flux - the action or process of flowing or flowing out. continuous change.

G

• Golden Record -A golden record is a single, well-defined version of all the data entities in an organizational ecosystem.  

H

•  Harmonic-  Image, logo etc all working in harmony in a design

 I

•  Ideology – a set of opinions and/or beliefs by a group or individual.
• Infographic -  a visual representation of information or data, e.g. as a chart or diagram
• Industrialization- The process in which a society or country (or world) transforms itself from a primarily agricultural society into one based on the manufacturing of goods and services.  

J

• JPEG (Joint Photographic Electronic Group) - A common process for compressing digital images.

K

•  Kerning - Modifying the horizontal space between letters.

L

• Layers - A tool within graphic software that permits the user to gather, organize, and re-edit their artwork.
• Leading -the vertical space between lines of type 

M

• Metaphysical – abstract theories relating to that of time and being. Relating to the first questions.
• Modernism ▪ a style or movement in the arts that aims to depart significantly from classical and traditional forms

O

• Oblique- A Roman typeface which slants to the right. Often confused with italics. 

P

• Perception- the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted.
• Post Modernism - 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories.
• Pixel - The smallest picture content that can be individually assigned a colour. 

S

• Semiotics- the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.
• Symbolism- the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities.
• Specifications - detailed description of the design and materials used to make something. 
• Surrealism - 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind.

T

• Typeface -  A typeface consists of a series of fonts and a full range of characters such as, numbers, letters, marks, and punctuation.

W

• White Space - In page layout, illustration and sculpture, white space is often referred to as negative space.

Artists & Designers

Banksy

Banksy is a Graffiti artists, whose work I found inspirational and very meaningful. Whenever I am doing my work I always look at Banksy's work, as his graffiti art work is not just good, but also has a emotional message behind his work. 

After looking at his work I felt like experimenting with graffiti as well as using typography and the city in the background.








Lou Romano

Lou Romano (born April 15, 1972) is an American animation production artist and voice actor. He did design work on Monsters, Inc and The Incredibles, and he provided the voices of Bernie Kropp in The Incredibles, Snot Rod in Cars and Alfredo Linguini in Ratatouille.
Romano had an interest in drawing and painting at an early age and studied theater arts. He also studied animation and completed workshops which, later went on to work as an art director and designer for animated projects, such as The Powerpuff Girls and The Iron Giant.

His work is quite unusual as well as his animated cartoon strips are well illustrated and laid out. The way the lay out of his designs are intriguing, inspired me to try out the way he works.

Here are some examples of his work that he created. As you can see its well structured into boxes and the use of colours are bright and eye catching.

Here is one design and experimentation I did taking inspiration from Lou Romano design. My illustrated work is on Natural Disaster, as each box is design based on a different disaster. I could develop on this and take it further, which would be more visually pleasing and effective like the artist himself.

Creative Digital Studio
http://www.creativedigitalstudios.com/#!custom-cover-design/cz79

Creative Digital Studio is a company whose work that is produced has inspired me. The work they create is always perfect and on point, which is always professional and to the best standard. The way they create there designs whether it is a book cover, website or logo, is created in many different ways and style, that it is unique and an effective design. 

Here are examples of there front page of the books they have created. As you can see each book cover looks modern and different. the use of typography and background image of the book makes the overall cover stand out. 

After researching different book design, I created my own designs for a book on Natural Disaster. Using different elements of the disaster and combining them for the front cover. Here are my designs of the Front and Back cover and one of the pages of the book.

Front cover

Inside Page

Back Cover

After Effects 3- Title Introduction

Global-warmingill from Aadam Lambat on Vimeo.


Another Process and Production studio took place on After Effects where we had to have a effective moving title. As i understood the software more, i could effectively make a video on the title global warming. the components were designed on illustrator, which thereafter imported onto after effects. when the video was made we downloaded textures to be placed onto the components we designed, aswell as the background.

Typography

Paula Scher

Paula Scher is an American Graphic Designer, painter and art educator in design. She was the first female to relate her work to the principal of Pentagram. Pentagram is a design studio which was found in 1972 and was found on the premise of collaborative interdisciplinary designers working together in an independently owned firm of equals.

Environmental Graphics

Her designs involved a lot of environmental graphics which, inspired me to have a go about it myself. As you can see she created different typography and placed it on various building and objects. I think her work looks effective and well thought out, the way the text is incorporated on various buildings. 

As you can see here I have created my own city typography inspired by the designer Paula Scher herself, I designed this using Photoshop. The way she put words on buildings I did my design the same way, however I took the building picture off and left the words on only, which I found to be more effective visually. 

Not only did Paula work with Typography on buildings, but she also had the vision of experimenting with maps and theater typography.

Face Typography                                 Shaped Typography

These typographic images are an inspiration as they influence me on how I could develop my final design and idea. I think these designs are well thought out and really well structured as it is unique and the design looks effective. 

Here is my work that I created on Photoshop using typography and Obama's face.

As well as face typography I created a design of the world using typography, using words of different religions.