Padd Solutions

1. What practical skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I've definitely learnt that well documented and appropriate research can inform your design decisions. For example if I had not have done those questionnaires for the can project I may have not thought about creating the book I did. Punctuality - 5
Motivation  - 4
Commitment - 4
Quantity of work produced - 3
Quality of work produced - 4
Contribution to the group - 3

Friday was the final crit day. I'd worked my socks off all week and was feeling tired and agitated because I felt like I had done loads but not progressed as far as I would have liked. As Amber and Jo said I had stuck to the same idea from the first crit and developed it as far as it would go, but I felt like the idea was good enough to work with, which was why I stuck with it.

Overall, I was a little disappointed with the crit, as I had worked hard. However, I know that I am still learning and I need to be steered in the right direction. I don't think it was totally clear what I was doing with all that I presented, so I will have to look at how my work is made up, and add bits in.

The last two days of last week did me no favours. I had printing and binding time planned and I had to re-assess what I was going to do as the digital print room was closed for two days. This put me majorly behind schedule. However, I did manage to get the packaging done for the CD so that's all ready to be printed up and crafted.

My action plan is helping, as I have all that I need to do mapped out for next week. Just need to get in the right frame of mind.

I thought I'd better post up some images that were required for the 'What if..?' brief. Our group looked at density and overcrowding in Leeds. Vickie developed the map and we decided this should be displayed as some sort of handy leaflet that people could pick up and walk around the town centre with. They could find areas to avoid and have a more pleasurable shopping trip as a result.

I put the leaflet in the St Johns centre as this was one of the key areas of the city. I photographed it in various areas where people congregate.

These are the layouts I'm looking towards. I felt that a simple type and image format would work and get across the message. I would then use the skills I had learnt and the skills I had from photoshop sessions and use those. For example, using one spread and doing some layering work, and maybe colourising another.
It's a really simple concept but often those are the best.

I've had a real grueler of a week. If I'm being dishonest I almost died with the amount of work I've been doing. Luckily, I have taken a good long look at the time I have left and the way I can actually make these books. I feel I have to be realistic.

The flipbook is not going to be print based anymore. I have decided it will be digital. When I first thought of going digital with it, I felt I may be taking a step back but I have managed to develop my ideas further and have come up with, what I feel, is a better solution than I had. The flipbook is something that has been done quite alot before so in this computer age I feel digital will fit much more. After thinking without constraints about can shaped USB pens and stuff I decided I would burn a video CD.

To develop my idea further I felt the CD would also need packaging to go with it. Seen as most of my designs have been shaped into cans I felt this should be too for continuity. So the CD would fit inside my can shaped packaging, and the user would open the top and 'pour' out the CD. I know it's hard to explain but hopefully the visuals will help. I'm still working on how it might open from the top (possibly a ring pull) .

Here's some images of my final designs for the front and back cover of book 1, and the net and CD for the flipbook.


















On a side note I found a good little guide on how to bind a paper back book, which is essentially what my book is going to be. link

With time running out and my background work looking thin, I may have to submit spreads for the fact book idea as I just can't seeing me having enough time to develop them into a final piece or even finish all the spreads.

I still have other briefs like what is a line to look at further and the photoshop brief to do. I feel a little stupid as I've left some stuff till the last second and spending all my time making my mock up books looking pretty. The upside to that is that I don't have to change much on my artwork book, I just have to finalise the layouts and come up with a way to bind it.

The flip book idea is working, and I have all my images in a suitable format. All I need to do on that is lay them out and print them off. Then I cut crop them ready to be bound. I talked to Roger at vernon street about the possibility of spiral binding but he said they didn't do it there, but he did say we could shape my other books to look like cans which was unexpected. Never the less, I may either to try to do it myself or think of an alternative. I've uploaded a video of the final images and I have touched up and cropped and I think they work quite effectively. You can judge for yourself though :)



Apart from that I working on a belly band with a ringpull attached which will act as opening device. It's a really simple thing but hard to explain. The idea is that you pull the ring pull and the band as a perferated edging which tears and allows you to access the book.

Now I have those ideas down, I need to start working on my fact book spreads. These were what I envisaged them to look like but my fellow students in the crit suggested that the fonts should replicate the fonts seen on the can designs. This would make them link much better, rather than doing something for arts sake.






















I also did a gaudy looking 'This book belongs to..' page, it is suppose to look like an 80's but once again I designed for arts sake rather than to fit in with the can theme.

I have been toying with the idea of a flip book. I think I have that sorted now and it will go with my original idea for a book which is all about the artwork of can. The flip book will show a can opening, being drunk and then being crushed to make up 100 photos. The interesting part comes now, in that the can changed in every frame so as its being opened the can changes.

Here are some of the photos below.

Now I have decided to make a third book which will be full of interesting facts to do with drinks cans and their contents. There will be 100 facts in total and I have all of the facts I need so I all I need to do is concentrate on an appropriate layout.

I have also decided that these three books will be packaged in one huge hollow book. All of which will become clear when I make a mock up later. Again, I have not decided what this is going to look like yet but I'm thinking of a plush leather cover that will have an retro looking style to it.

Just noticed this on another blog. I not only like the shape of the book itself, as it still looks like a traditional book but I love how the bookmark doubles as like tea bag or something. The 'Book Cup' comes in a variety of colours and I think they are just really neat and simple. I would say I prefer this type of book more than some of the sculptured 'books' I have seen.

This book designed by Thomas Keeley also caught my eye. The way the two books interlink like this makes for a nice set of hugging books. Again, its a really simple format that doesn't move away from what I perceive as a book but does make two individual books work together.

I decided to research into flipbook design rather than jumping into designing because there maybe things I did not know about what to do and what not to do when designing a flipbook. My initial little attempt was in a portrait format to fit in the book but this didn't work as you couldn't see half of the image.

I like this idea of using a pull tab. It would eliminate people having to cover the artwork just to grip the book. Either that or a landspace format would work best.

Below are other flipbooks that caught my eye.

I recently had a couple of crits to discuss where my ideas were going for this book design brief. The first one entailed four people evaluating my work whilst I wasn't there. They wrote my feedback on the sheet and gave me a mark out of 20.

I was suprised but also pleased to find that they appreciated my ideas and found my book interesting. I got 19/20 which was the highest in the group, which was both satisfying but also embarrassing. Having good feedback was great but I didn't get any comments on how I could improve which would have been nice. However, this also tells me that the idea I had was good and I just have to build and expand on what I have. Fred suggested looking at other cans and look at content, but I feel that this work should be dedicated to drinks cans only as I feel it will be too general if I expand the topic to incorporate other cans.

The thing that I now need to do is too look at ways in which I can make this book more interesting in terms of its interactivity and its design. This could be in the way it opens, how it is bound, stock and other things too.

The second crit meant that I could present my ideas to a small group and get feedback that way. I decided that I wanted to incorporate a flipbook into book I already had. This would be placed as a watermark on the opposing pages to the artworks in the book. This means the reader can read the book and then flip from back to front and see a nice animation of a can opening.

The group liked the idea but wondered if this could work as a seperate book. I agreed, so I am beginning to look at flipbook design and also work out how I can make two seperate editions of my book.

This week has been pretty hard and pretty easy going. Hard in the sense that I had to produce a book of 100 in 32 pages, and only had 4 days including today to complete it. However, it was also easy going in the sense that we could just get on with it. Yes, we had other things timetabled in but I have been happy with my efforts this week, and I have set up things nicely to do my full book.

The crit on friday was good, and meant I could present my ideas to unbiased audience. Some were feeling it and some weren't but sometimes you have to do what you think is right. Yes, there is constraints but I felt like that the feedback I got did not warrant me changing my idea. I know the book I produced this week needs tweaking and developing further for my follow up book (luckily, I get 5 weeks to produced that).

Here's some of the images I used in my book.

1. State the title & focus of your work in response to the brief.
My main focus is on soft drinks, alcoholic and energy drink cans and their designs. 

Alex Ostrowski's website caught my eye whilst looking for ideas for my book design brief. Take a look at his work.

As research for my photoshop brief I thought I might look at some examples of others work. I have done some small alterations in the past myself and would like to use some of the methods in this brief. 

I was just searching through loads of web pages to do with can design and stumbled upon this quite addictive tool on a random website. You too can go on and design your very own can, based on a template obviously. I 'designed' this nifty thing to tie in with our course. How grand is that?!

You can find the website here

I am unsure of the best way to design a book. It seems like a pretty standard format. Most books I know of go for the general front cover and separate spine and back cover designs. Does anyone change it up a bit?

This is a slightly different approach which allows the design to spread from cover to cover for easily. It's very simplistic but I just felt it gave a different feel to the book. The name of the book is 'House of Leaves' and it was designed by Joe Paul.

This book by Daniel Eatock entitled 'Imprint' features a finger print which is made entirely of type. Although it is quite an easy thing to replicate and quite a simple subject and concept I feel it is a strong piece of design. There is a video on his website too where the books are being packed and he is marking a finger print on the spine of each copy, which is a real nice touch I feel. It takes the book design away from the mass production and brings abit of life back to the design.

We decided to go for a day out in Bridlington today. The sea was choppy and the harbour front was freezing but I got a few more shots of drinks cans. Whether they are crushed, discoloured, cut up or in perfect condition it does not matter because that will give me more ways to categorise what I have.

I love the way the ones in the grass really work with that sort of texture. The long blades make the shot look much more interactive. Its cool. Last can count I had was around 35. Still a long way to go though.





This isn't related at all but I was practicing my camera usage and manage to take this lovely shot of a seagull. He/she modeled brilliantly too.

The question seems more relevant now I actually have some books thanks to my folks. I got four books for christmas. Two of which are full of graphic design nonsense and two dedicate to great british comedy.

My first thoughts on the question is that a book is something full of information dedicated to a certain topic. Books can be based on both opinion, depending on the author, and facts. Books help us gather a greater understanding on the topic in question.

A quote from a dictionary I have right here, which is also a book says "A bound set of printed or blank pages; a literary composition of fact or fiction".

An extended definition is as follows:

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an e-book.

Books may also refer to a literature work, or a main division of such a work. In library and information science, a book is called a monograph, to distinguish it from serial periodicals such as magazines, journals or newspapers. The body of all written works including books is literature.

In novels, a book may be divided into several large sections, also called books (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, etc).

I don't think I'm gonna be able to get 100 different cans in 3 weeks, but I'm trying.. *hick up*

New Brief Alert! That's right. I have another research brief for over the christmas period. Yes, I wouldn't have thought they would give us any sort of time off to do nothing. It's another 100 brief and so I have set myself the challenge to find 100 pieces of research on drinks cans.

A lot of these I will buy outright to add to a collection, but I have already thought this may be quite expensive as not many stores sell cans in ones nowadays. So, I'll photograph a few in store too so I don't end up spending £50 on cans.

I have an example of the type of thing I am looking at. I have a small collection building up already and I shall be collecting more alcoholic, soft and energy drinks cans in the near future. I'll then be categorising them in terms of shape, size and contents, etc.

Forget christmas, it's drinksmas.. err yeah