FMP: Review Of Final Major Project

The final outcome of my project is a promotional reel for my own music festival ‘ICON Music Festival’ consisting of promotional posters, festival merchandise, web and app concepts and a festival electronic pass. A combination of research and concept experimentation from a variety of all mediums of art has allowed me to successfully develop my very own branding visuals for my music festival.By initially planning out my journey in this project using a final major plan has allowed me to not only stay motivated and on track but constantly reminded me of tasks I should carry out to help maximise my creativity. My blog has allowed me to look deeper and evaluate my own work on a regular basis to again push myself to further develop my work – by taking what works well and moving it onto the next step, allowing my work to move from strength to strength and dismissing as much weaknesses as I can.The first target I set myself in this project was to carry out effective primary and secondary research – trying not to go off subject but to be experimental; which I believe I successfully met by not just researching the obvious and going that extra mile to fly to Paris with a fellow class mate to capture and understand my theme more. The second target was to creatively respond to each artist I research which again I think I met – however looking back would of liked to done a bit more of. My last target was to finish my final pieces and effectively present them in a way that looks professional and authentic, I do think considering my health problems successfully met this target, however if I didn’t stumble upon those problems would of liked to do much more.Reflecting on my project overall I have thoroughly enjoyed it, but due to my serious health problems I believe I have been held back slightly as I focused on my health.Throughout the project I have received quite a lot of positive feedback for peers, with the main point of how much they like the openness of my research and then my response to each artist that links with my project, being a strength. What has been extremely useful for me is due to my broad artist references I was able to converse with my peers and tutors to get further artist and events that they think linked into what I was going for – however each advice point I received had a completely different creative viewpoint which allowed me to stretch myself even more.Over this project for me one lesson has been very prominent, that no matter how much you plan your steps – something can easily can become an obstacle and stop you in your ways, which in this case was my health resulting in me in hospital and missing out on a lot of time; a reminder to work efficiently and creatively whenever working on a project – and never waste any time! 

[Authors Own, 2014]

FMP: Update

Unfortunately due to a very serious illness I have - for the past week and a bit have been very unwell, which resulted in me being rushed to hospital and because of this haven't been able to fully focus on my  project. However I have been trying my hardest to get my final outcomes completed to be ready for the exhibition, which so far I am quite pleased with. I originally wanted to use this time to physically make some promotional pieces for 'ICON Music Festival' however due to being unwell, haven't had the time to, alongside being advised by doctors to take it easy. Saying that it may of worked in my favour as I think all the promotional pieces, for example Festival T-shirts that I was going to print onto, still look as authentic when recreated digitally; Also may work better in the environment of the exhibition after hearing the set up and what limits we get as a student.

FMP: Pattern Theme Making

[Authors Own, 2014]

When trying to respond to Meryl Pataky and Patrick Blanc I didn't have an effective back drop of my own so I wanted to try to create my own floral background. Also whilst responding to those two artist the response I did to Nielly Francoise kept coming back onto my mind and wanted this response to be inspired by what I did then. So here I created a full floral background at first out of primary pictures I took in paris - but then to add the renaissance theme back in - I decided to add pillars, chandelier and parts of a statue into each pattern I made to capture my floral renaissance themed backgrounds. However when I made them the colours to me didn't work - I was after something more powerful and iconic - therefore  I gave the first two patterns ( the most successful) a whole new colour scheme of white and greys - which gave it a much more heavenly and powerful theme to it. To make the posters pop I then decided to add my logo in a canary yellow which I thought worked well -as usually those are the two colours I never put together. As its a music festival it needs music! So I then added the festivals line up of artist on each day to see how it works with the pattern - which turned out successful and left me very happy with the result. However at times the pattern comes across quite harsh and makes the poster very busy and could be hard to read, therefore i'm starting to wonder if I should go with what I originally was thinking and sticking to the iconic colours of black and white? But will it be plain? or will it be simple and slick?

FMP: Patrick Blanc / Meryl Pataky

To bring a majestic atmosphere to the festival I think having a striking installation would be great. I have always loved the work of Patrick Blanc and how his work is so striking yet so clean and simple and Meryl Patakys work I only recently found out about and fell in love with and thought to combine the two would be amazing. So I went about playing around with the created logo and the effects neon and flowers/ plants can bring to it. I thought the neon against a grass wall worked the best however when thinking of it in terms of the festival - at day would it be as effective? So sticking with the same idea I thought what would it look like if I had a larger version of the logo hanging from trees, which is a possible icon festival location, in forestland. which is big enough to still make a statement during the day and during the evening would light up in neon white to bring the majestic atmosphere to the festival.

FMP: Logo Creation

[Authors Own, 2014]

This is my final logo design for my festival - I am very happy with the result as not only does it capture the powerful feeling I wanted it to give out, but it works well in three ways, shown above.
The main logo is the logo shown in the middle with both text and image, however the logo can work with just the image or text standalone. I believe both the image and text if placed alone would be easily identifiable and iconic enough of the 'ICON Music Festival'. I wanted to create a logo that many would be proud to wear, a badge/symbol that they are proud to represent and share - helping them to feel apart of the ICON family - something my target audience is looking for. 

FMP: Florian Nicolle

Although Nicolles style of art isn't what Im going for in terms of the visuals for my project - I really do like her style how she combines text, image and paint strokes together to create her pieces. I then tried it out myself drawing out greek styled statue heads, linking into my renaissance theme, to then digitally adding text and strokes to finally seeing how it works on a poster which for me doesn't work well, I just think its very busy and the image itself presents a problem when placing text on top of it.

FMP: Jee Young Lee / Martin Creed

Running through the Balloons:

[Authors Own, 2014]

[Authors Own, 2014]

Creating An Atmosphere

Following on from David Szauders work and how his still digital work can create an atmosphere, I now look at the work of Jee Young Lee and Martin Creed. Jee Young Lee is an artist that creates environments in a room using various props and materials, I thought it was amazing just how much atmospheres she can create using props, materials, colours and lights - something i want to be captured and shown in the branding of my festival - an atmosphere thats inviting and electric. So I visited the exhibition of Martin Creed 'Whats the point of it?' and what stood out for me is the balloon room, full of only white balloons that he allows visitors to just be totally free in, I felt as if I was a little kid again, free, lively and a silly side definitely came out too , where I would try to fall backwards into the balloons, try to find other people in the balloon jungle etc - that was all done just by filling a space with white balloons! So in response I tried to recreate a very dreamy yet surreal visual in my sketchbook - using cotton wool and circular cut outs of paper. Although I wouldn't use to as part of my branding project its a point of inspiration that could possibly help later on in the project. 

FMP: Jeremy Olson / Jananne Al- Ani / Richard Deacon

Jeremy Olson was the next artist I decied to look at due to my interest in geometric shapes, which my response to Dan Mountford reminded of. For me when going to a festival I feel as if we let go and almost show another side of ourselves - whilst dancing and enjoying ourself have no care in the world at who's looking, almost covered by the music - that same feeling I feel the work of Olson reflects, in his work you can still make out the persons face he scrambles but you don't really go to unscramble it - instead you enjoy and appreciate the scrambled version he creates using geometric shapes. So in response to his work using a primary picture I created my own geometric shape and 'scrambled' my models face. Once that was done I was experimenting with different effects and styles that could be applied to the image and came across one that made it look as if the face was a birds eye view of a landscape - which in response to an exhibition I visited by Jananne Al-Ani called "Excavations" I made the face a landscape/ map for the festival which I think would be creatively helpful if I was to shape/map out the festival.  I then continued to draw out my own geometric shapes as I had seen a particular sculpture in the Richard Deacon exhibition at the Tate Britain in Room 6 called 'Tropic 2007'
which I really liked in how you can turn a shape 3D.

FMP: Nielly Francoise

Nielly Francoise was an artist I recently stumbled acrossed, the style of oil painting for me was always something I loved the risen paint effect I always thought worked well when artist use it. But when looking at Francoise it was the bold and striking colours that caught my eye - it was reminiscent of the fresh and vibrant flowers I saw abroad. It then struck an idea to re-create the style in a floral patterned way, which I did and then transferred into patterns for poster backgrounds. I think the patterns that covered the whole of the posters worked well, however thought it might look better if I recreated it using photography of real flowers. I also do like and think the 3D stone I created is successful and could possibly used as a logo for the festival - however again I don't think its strong enough or easily recognisable.

FMP: David Mesguich

Continuing from Richard Deacons 'Tropical 2007', David Mesguich is an artist I have seen the works of that for me is a more modern take on taking geometric shapes and turning them into 3D sculpture. In response to his work I used the face I created previously and using paper just experimented with how it will look if was to be 3D. However as I am branding the ICON music festival and not creating sculptures for it I thought to myself ... how can I incorporate these shapes i have made into my branding? I then had a few ideas of how they can be incorporated. The first idea was to re-create a stained glass effect - which for me worked quite nicely however wasn't strong enough. I then thought i can have the shape integrated with the image - to do this some of the shape was in front of the image and some was behind parts of the image - creating a 3D effect. The stained colour effect was the next idea along with the shattered effect created using the shapes which although to me was quite appealing to look at - I just didn't think was was strong enough for the branding of a festival? would the audience easily identify and remember it?

FMP: David Szauder

When looking at Szauder, I wasn't really looking for ideas for branding the festival - but trying to visually express that 'other side' of someone which is usually shown/ let out during festivals. Szauders pixelated and digitally glitched themes for me represented just that - it took a very conservative and uniform sort of image and with its style brought a vibrant, electric and unexpected sort of feel to the image. So with some primary pictures taken in the Lovure in paris I tried to recreate that same feeling/atmosphere.

FMP: Dan Mountford

Dan Mountfords work with photo manipulation is really appealing to me, as I enjoy as a hobby to try out weird and unusual photo manipulations and to see the result. Mountford in his work merges humans and plants to create really interesting visuals that are very futuristic. He also in some of his work uses this dot to dot theme to create different shapes and then joins it with his photography. In response to his work I did just that - I took a few primary photos of people and using some of the primary pictures of plants I collected previously tried to merge and manipulate them together to look as if they were one which I  was pleased with the outcome however when placed in the environment of a poster didn't work as well as I wanted, for me there was just too much going on. I then moved onto his second style, his use of dots, and again with primary pictures taken tried to use the style to create an interesting visual. My outcome to this I think was very successful as it reflected a very iconic and strong atmosphere just looking at the visual alone - which I wanted for my festival. I then choose to further develop the style by adding more to 'the face' and then even had a go at creating a logo in the same  theme which I also liked but didn't think it works as strong as the face alone which is very iconic and slick.

FMP: David Carson

When responding to David Carson's work I noticed he worked in three main styles - where he first uses  hand written text styles to create this very authentic and specialised fonts which brings a real bespoke sort of feeling to his work. He then uses text in a very busy way where the text is placed very randomly and most often overlapped in their different characters sizes and styles. His last style I seemed to noticed is a style I really like to use in my own work, which is a layered text effect where the letters in a word sometimes are placed in front or behind the image in the design - creating a very vibrant, 3d effect - it also brings motion to his work. So when responding to his work i did just that! Using primary pictures I tried to creating festival promotional posters in his style and surprisingly I really liked the hand written style and the feeling it gives to my work. The title 'Icon' which was hand written stood out for me the most and I wanted to further develop and explore it. I then experimented with the hand written text that could almost pass as the logo, and each time I added colour, images or texture to it I personally thought it brought and reflected a whole new theme of festival each time, for example when adding the silhouettes to the logo - it gave off a very folk styled theme, so I made a folk themed poster to see if it could work for my festival. Unfortunately although i do like the style, I don't think it would work for what i'm trying to go for with my festival branding.

FMP: Collection Of Primary Pictures in Paris

[Authors Own, 2014]


To capture and be inspired by the renaissance side of my chosen theme - whilst visiting Paris I took these primary photos really trying to get the detailing and beauty of the buildings, sculptures, the colour themes, textures and shapes.

FMP: Primary Picture Collection In Barbados

To capture and be inspired by the floral side of my chosen theme - whilst visiting barbados I took these primary photos really trying to get the detailing and beauty of nature, the colour themes, textures and shapes of each plant can give me an opportunity of creative print making that could easily be transferred onto my festival branding products.



[Authors Own, 2014]

FMP: Festival Mania!

Here is a festival creative board I made to allow me to see how and what makes each of these successful festivals. As I look across the board there are a few things that stick out for me in what makes festival branding successful.
Heres what I found;

- A running colour scheme and use of shapes throughout every piece of promotional item.
- A striking yet memorable logo that isn't too complicating.
- Text dominant festival promotional posters - the artists that are playing is what they want to see!
- A dominant theme that could easily to used on any platform.
- Memorabilia is key! - to allow them to feel as they are officially part of the festival whilst in the festival and to remind them of the memories after the festival.

FMP: Music Festival Branding Project

In this project I aim to brand and construct a whole new advertising campaign for a music festival where I will explore the theme ‘floral renaissance’ which is a collaboration of my interests. I will explore the themes of the renaissance and nature, methods of how existing designers creatively express these themes and seek to experiment with design processes and techniques that I have learnt additionally to allow me to stretch myself and make my work professional yet innovative. Music festivals attract predominantly young adults, therefore my objective is to successfully market my concept for the music festival to their taste, which will be a challenge as the contents of theme I have chosen such as nature can be a cliché in which I hope to completely subvert. I will also look at how existing festivals are promoted and analyse what I think is successful that I could possibly incorporate into my work and what doesn’t work so well so that I can avoid making a similar mistake. Whilst in the production of my campaign I will be constantly investigating the many forms in which I can present my work allowing it to be original and effective. I plan to document the process of production, from the strengths to the weaker areas of the creation of my campaign through the supporting pieces of my project such as my personal reflective blog and sketchbook.

Mood Board: 

Festival Name Creation: 

Weather Project

For me the weather project has been a real challenge in terms of timing, as over the course of this particular project I became very unwell with a serious condition, which due to past experiences had to take extremely serious and focus on my health therefore I lost majority of the project time, therefore once I was back and well enough to work I had under a week to complete the project. After talking to the tutors about the project and my health they have advised me to try and think of the positives within the situation in which I see the short time limits practice for the real world of work - where I wont have long to develop and create work. For this project I focused on how the weather affects what people wear, so I created and branded a whole new app/ social networking platform where the users can share there outfits, comment, browse new trends across the world through other users of the network. I came up with this idea due to my interest in branding and advertising and thought it could be quite nice to add to my portfolio. For me there is a lot more space for development with this project for example the "O" in forecast could look more like a magnifying glass and other features like layouts however I am pleased and think I have been successful in this project considering the amount of time I had.

3 Projects in 2 weeks

[ Authors Own, January 2014 ]



[ Authors Own, January 2014 ]



[ Authors Own, January 2014 ]

3 Projects in 2 weeks

I really enjoyed these projects, the hidden treasures project for Holland Park for me being my most enjoyed project out of the three as I discovered a whole new 'treasure' in london that I would be definitely visiting for future projects and in my spare time. When creating the I wanted to first create a strong yet elegant logo to reflect the location and atmosphere of the park which I did successfully. I then experimented with coloration of the photographs I took of the park and although I tried all sorts of colours and effects the one I ended up picking was the nearest to the original image, as I thought it would make the campaign timeless and appealing to a wide variety of audiences. Furthermore I then experimented with the position and colour of the logo created on the posters so that they still look apart of the posters but still stand out strong.
The Subversive design project that I choose to do on the issue of global warming was also quite exciting to create as it still had to look like a land rover advert but yet the wording I would come up with would have to be short yet smart to display a strong message of cars such as 4x4's and there impact of CO2 emissions on global warming. It took quite a bit of time to search for fonts and re-create the effects of the existing land rover advert however in the end I do think it has paid off.
The constructed photo project for me had the most creative and strongest outcome out of all three projects as I think it really captures the word "Claustrophobia/ Claustrophobic". My idea of making the
images into a cube I also really like and think works well to put across the atmosphere of being Claustrophobic. To add, the extra poster designs I did, I also think work quite well and would be interesting to see how the group responds to the designs as we haven't had a group feedback session just yet. The posters are a play on IKEA style adverts, with there unusual furniture names, basic descriptions and small print of how nearly everything in the advert is not included, which I think works quite well in my posters.
For me these projects have been a real test for me as I had a degree interview at the end of week one therefore the whole of week one was lost for me to do any work on these projects - leaving me with just one week to complete ALL THREE projects. On the other hand I am still quite happy with the outcomes.

InfoGraphics: My Top 50 Played Songs

[Authors Own, January 2014]

I choose to visually show my top 50 played songs in the form of Info-Graphics. This project was for me probably the hardest project for me to start up as we had such a broad range of information to choose and visually present. However once I started to think about what would interest me I came up with the idea of showing my top 50 played songs, due to my interest in music, which helped me to stay interested in this particular project.  When doing Info-Graphics I always think clean cut designs always speak louder and don't scare away the audience, therefore I keep it very simple yet still appealing to look at and packed with lots of information. For me there is still a lot of room for improvement with features like colour and font size, however I am still quite pleased with the outcome and once developed more, could see it being used commercially.

Wayfinding Project: Wembley Park

[Authors Own, January 2014]

For the Wayfinding Project I choose my location to be Wembley Park, as its currently going through a revamp and I saw it as a great opportunity to map out the new developments in Wembley, my local area. To do this I carried out a photographic survey of the area, this allowed me to not only mark key locations / buildings within the area but allow me to see how Wembley is being branded- something I can incorporate into my work. To allow my work to be different and stand out I choose to design a Wayfinding booklet for children "Hidden in Wembley Park" to use and document whilst in the area of Wembley - adding to the 'Wembley experience' when coming down to see someone in concert, to see the football in the stadium, or just to shop with there family. What I did was turned each iconic piece of architecture, that I thought would be easy enough for a child to recognise, into a something fun and cartoon like with a clear link to how it actually looks. For example Wembley Arena into the 'City Jukebox'. I also took into account the current life and trends of a child and aims of Wembley Park and incorporated social networking links in which the kids can post pictures on there social networking sites with each particular piece of architecture once they have found them along with with its hash-tag; building a campaign and Wembley's profile for visitors to come. If I had to do this project again I would try and make it look just a bit more childish for example playing around with the colours used.

I received very positive feedback by peers and tutors with someone saying " It looks so real, and I can can see it being easily used by wembley" which really pleased me. However I also received some constructive criticism on the colours I used as they understood the clear link with purple and Wembley's branding but on the other hand they think I could of thought about colours a bit more. 

Wembley Park Photographic Survey

[Authors Own, 2014]