Padd Solutions

I thought I'd post up some more images I found courtesy of FFFfound.com That's a decent website when you need some inspiration. They have tons of examples of all different styles of artwork. Definitely worth having a look at.

So these are some examples I have found so far which demonstrate what a line is pretty well I think.

So, in a nutshell, lines can help us find out where we are going, they can be used to demonstrate a vision or just make a cool looking typeface.

As part of my visual language module, I have been given a brief to investigate and explore the term 'what is a line?'. I have been given the following quotes/definitions of what a line could be and I can choose one to explore in more depth.

"A formation of people, objects or things on besides/behind the other."
"A connected series of events, actions or developments."
"The descendants of one individual."
"A mark indicating position, connection or boundaries."

The first thing I thought about when I thought about line was just simple line drawings. The kind lines in this sense are something that are definite to create an image. But then I started to think about when lines are not something that we can control. The types of lines we cannot manipulate to form a concept.

With that in mind I started a little sketch book to jot ideas in. I used a stamp set I'd bought to title the book and then thought I'd jazz it up a bit with some finger prints. Once I'd done one finger print I thought to myself how stupid I had been. A finger print is made up of a series of lines which identifies us as individuals and is something beyond our control.




I have then look at natural lines which crop up in natural circumstances like the grain in wood, and wrinkles on our skin. Could this be worth developing further and looking at in more detail, I don't know. I could be just waffling on.

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.