Brief 6 - Final Evaluation/Reflection

While this brief was very simple in terms of content and execution, I did find it to be enjoyable and educational for myself with the content. It is a subject which I knew quite well to begin with, and now I feel that it has taught me a lot more and has certainly helped me in considering the impacts of this content in my future briefs. Typography is always something I have enjoyed, so to finally do a brief dedicated to just this as a subject is something that I was very happy with and found to be enjoyable.

This brief has also allowed me to further my book binding skills and learn an entirely new kind of binding in coptic binding. This is a style of binding I have always wanted to learn, and while it was a bit tricky to begin with, I am now very confident in my ability to replicate this style of binding whenever I want. I think that this binding was one of the strengths to the project and gave the finished publication a uniqueness and professional appearance.

It was a short brief, and I am definitely considering taking it further in a secondary brief, potentially creating more content and more deliverables outside a publication. However as a single piece I do think it works well and consistently throughout the publication.

I think that the simple style of the layouts and imagery worked well in putting across the information in an informative and straight to the point way. While I was initially a little worried that the design would look sparse and not very professional, when printed it works well and the simple layouts help in showing exactly what each page is about and illustrates the importance well. The use of only two colours also aids this decisiveness of the content.

I enjoyed this brief and found that as I knew a lot of the content I could make informed decisions in terms of the order and layout of the information. I have always enjoyed creating publications, and now I have learnt another binding technique which I will continue to utilise in the future.

Brief 10 - Final Evaluation/Reflection

While I was not originally too enthusiastic about doing this brief with the subject I was given - retirement home - I did find that running it as a one day brief was a good break from my other briefs that I was currently doing.

I found that doing this as a one day brief made it more productive as I had a time restraint. I also don’t think that I needed more than one day to complete this brief. The concept I came up with wasn’t incredibly creative or original, however it was quite realistic in terms of what could actually happen, and I think I did quite a good job in terms of branding and design of the website.

Overall I did enjoy doing this brief in the end, however I do think I would have engaged more and enjoyed it more if I had another subject. I found that this subject was quite limiting and was definitely the one that I did not want to do. I did find it a bit easier than I thought, however I do think I would have done a better job with another subject.

Brief 10: Design Boards

Brief 9: Design Boards

Brief 8: Design Boards

Brief 6: Design Boards

Brief 4: Design Boards

Brief 3: Design Boards

Brief 4: Final Photos

Brief 10: Do Something More Live Brief

Design studio Something More gave a brief to create a 'big idea' and change the perception of one of six organisations.

• Water supplier
• City council
• Train operator
• Library
• Retirement home
• Recycling scheme

The organisation I was given was 'Retirement Home'.

I wasn't originally going to do this brief as I was currently working on two individual briefs and a client brief at the time, however it was said that this was to be made mandatory. So I decided to run this as a one day brief. I decided this because I had a lot of other work on and I had previously seen how much work I could create in a day, so thought this was a valid amount of time to work on this.

First Crit

As I had not intended to do this brief, I went into this first crit with no solid idea of what I wanted to do, however I had experience of going to be a retirement home so knew what it was like and what was missing/needed.

In this crit a lot of people spoke about how retirement homes are places that people don't really want to visit and they're not particularly nice places to go, they weren't personal or friendly. However in my experience, with a family member in a private retirement home, I have found that their opinions of this are very one sided and they are only looking at what they know and what is publicised, not what is actually out there. The private sector to the retirement homes has a lot less publicity because of the state the state funded ones are in.

I put across the point that these private homes are actually incredibly nice places for both the residents and for visitors, and all of their ideas were focussed around creating luxury places/resorts, which would certainly be in the private sector of retirement homes.

The concept that I suggested was that, while these private homes are friendly and luxurious, they still fell at the same hurdle of being a place that family did want to visit and spend time there, so I wanted to create a home which embodied the idea of being a place for the whole family to enjoy and not a place where family had to visit once a month, but somewhere they wanted to visit.

This concept was well received and different ideas were thrown around in terms of how I could do this. It was said that if I focus down to one aspect that I wanted to promote about this, it would fill in the gaps of the concept and give me something to work with.

Following the crit I decided that I would move forward with doing this as a one day brief and leaving it at that. With a concept like this, the hardest thing to come up with is a name, logo and slogan. Following this it would be easy to find the information I needed and write the content.

Rationale

The main concept of this brief is to create a retirement home which would be enjoy by family and friends as well as the residents. With this, the home must have features which are of interest to both the older and younger generations.

The name ‘Hearty Home’ puts across the friendliness and lovingness of the brand without being too cheesy. It represents the main ethos of the brand, creating a friendly and family environment for all who visit/stay.

The aspects of the concept is to get a younger audience interested is with the inclusion of family areas and entertainment areas, which all can enjoy. These include facilities such as  games rooms, cinemas, a large garden area, and restaurants. As well as this, there will be times available for residents to make trips away from the home with their family.

The main point to this concept is the inclusion of a visitors wing to the home. This is an area of the home where family/friends can have the option of a short-term stay at the home. As there are a large amount of facilities available, it will feel much more like a hotel than a retirement home. This also means that visitors from abroad are able to visit and spend time with the residents.

Branding

In terms of design for the logo and type, I wanted to mix both old/classic with new & contemporary, so it's taking into account both the residents and their younger family members, appealing to both of them.

I decided on the gold colour as it reflects the classic and older side. This mixed with the contemporary logo design and typefaces, it reflects the idea and concept that I wanted. The fonts chosen are Museo Slab and Museo Sans. I kept the logo design very simple and clear and literal to the name.

Following this I started by designing the website. This is the main output of promotion for the brand, where all the information would be, so it seemed like the best place to start as I can get the main aims of the brand all down and narrow it down to what I want to move forward with. It also means I can come up with a solid design identity as well.

I found some imagery online of a retirement home in America which I thought would be fitting to use for this brief.

I also found some images of what would fit with the interior design of the home.

I integrated these into the website design as I felt imagery is important so potential residents and families can have more of an insight into the home.

Website design:

I added a third typeface - Charter - a serif typeface to add a bit more of the classic feel to the brand. I will be using this for quotes or small pieces of text across all media.

I decided on having all the main information on one page as it makes for ease in accessibility. The navigation bar at the top will be fixed in place so will be constantly present when scrolling up and down the page. As well as this, there are smaller links in the sections which take the user to more specific information.

The content on the front page is split down into the following areas:

• About Us
• Accommodation
• Our Care - further links to: Bespoke Care, Staffing, Independence
• Daily Living - further links to: Food & Meals, Outings, Activities, Hotel Services
• Visiting - further links to: Accommodation, Activity planning, Food & Meals, Hotel services
• Contact Us

About Us

A brief explanation into the retirement home itself and what it offers the residents and family.

Accommodation

A detailed outline into what accommodation the home offers, including what is in each room and what is possible for the residents. Information into the in-house activities available as well.

Our Care

A look into the care received at the home and how each resident will be individually seen to and get the care they need and want.

Daily Living

A brief overview into the daily living at the home. Further links broken down into the specifics of this.

Visiting

A brief overview of the visiting aspect to the home. Further links broken down into the specifics of this.

Contact Us

Contact information for the home.

Following this I created a few mock ups to help realise the concept and give some visual representation to what would be expected.

From this content I created a presentation for the final crit.

Presentation

Overall I did enjoy this brief as it was short and once I had the concept and brand sorted, it was just a case of creating collateral and content which reflected that. I think that I achieved quite a lot for one day in creating a full concept and all the branding and collateral to go with that.

Photography Slot

Today myself, Anna, Grace and Charlie had a photography slot booked so we could each photograph our work well for the end of our individual projects. In preparation for this we had each got all of our collateral printed and made, ready to photograph.

Unfortunately some of Charlie's work didn't print right due to a different printer being used and a colour being completely different to the rest. Charlie decided that she didn't want to photograph it with this colour in as it was not how she envisioned it to be, so she did not join us in the end.

I had two projects to photograph, my client brief 'Wheatless & More' and my individual brief 'Type Principles'. I had originally intended to photograph my 'fonte de vita' brief also, however didn't want to rush this brief to finish it in time for this slot.

This was the first photography slot I had done so it was the first time I learnt how to set up the equipment. Working as a three we managed to get all the lights set up relatively quickly. As we were in the small studio we used the table to set our work out. There was already a black roll on the table, so we looked over our projects and decided if there was anything to be photographed on this.

I decided that my type principles book should definitely be photographed on this as it is white. Anna also decided for her book to be photographed on this, so we started with those two books.

Following this we moved onto using a white roll and photographed Anna's second project, Grace's project and my client project.

Some photos:

As clearly seen, the photographs taken on the black roll worked extremely well and aren't in need of much editing at all, just a bit of changing to make the pages as white as they actually are instead of the yellowish colour that they currently are.

The photos on the white clearly need a lot more work in terms of editing. This is something that is interesting to me as I took the photos on the black with my own camera, but then used the college camera for the white roll. Also on the camera screen, the images looked a lot brighter than they actually were when transferred onto my mac. The images above are just lightened, without any other editing, so it shows the difference. I took some of the closer photographs on my own camera and they turned out much better than the other photos with the college camera.

While I am happy with the final result, I think in future I will use my own camera. I think it shows that I am much more capable of taking better photographs with it as I know how to use it well and know how the photos will transfer across to my mac.

Overall the quality of the photographs is much better than creating a make-shift studio space, and I have found that it clearly heightens my works appearance. I will definitely be using the photography studio again for my work.

Doing this has also shown me that I should go to this with a plan already of how I want to photograph. I think that the Wheatless & More work needs to be photographed against a grey rather than a white. This way, all the work can be seen well against the background. The white on white clearly doesn't work so well, so I think I will re-photograph this in the future and definitely consider the background colour and layout of the work.

Brief 6: Final Photos