Evaluation

From the beginning of the final major project, my intention has been to produce a logo design, tickets and advertising poster to go along with it, for a fruit and vegetable festival called 'Fresh Festival' which will be held on Parker's Piece, Cambridge. This was going to be created using Illustrator for the initial design of the logo and structural areas of the pieces and then Photoshop to create more detailed pieces for example ticket final adjustments and poster adjustments. I decided I would be designing my logo from the way that the fruit is set out and positioned in my images and also by looking at the shapes in the fruit and colours, this way the viewer can enjoy looking at the logo.

To create my tickets and my poster I needed a bold logo design to put on them, which I created first. My selections were based on my observational drawings of fruit and veg and my images. I selected a strawberry because I believe it's one of the most famous pieces of fruit you can find because of the unique shape and texture and colourways that go with it. I decided this would fit my brief and also fit the purpose I was looking for which is to show a fresh and unique design using a combination of colour and shape and this is exactly what a strawberry does.

My technical understanding informed creative decisions by me along the way of this project by using my knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator to my advantage, so that I could create visually pleasing pieces. For example I used my understanding of Illustrator to change the colourway of different designs by creating variations of my chosen logo design to chose a final design. This was a good task to test my understanding and technical knowledge by making quick thinking decisions for new ideas to build on my logo design to make it stronger and stronger until the logo design was the most visually pleasing and ticketed all the right boxes in order to suffice with my briefs.

I have now completely my final work. I have designed my logo design, along with tickets, poster designs and also I have had a t shirt and hoodie printed with my logo on for the festival. These all have been created by working my way towards the final outcomes, using practical ways to work:

My observational drawings gave me my first insight into the way I can visually describe the fruit and vegetables. I did this by experimenting with line, shape, tone and in some cases colour which gave the pieces more of a detailed quality to them. I really enjoyed this way of working at the beginning of my project because of the way I can start expressing my first ideas and thoughts and get them onto the paper. This also set me up for later things like referring back to my first drawings to look at the simple shapes and structure of the fruit and veg I have used which helped in my design ideas, to the lead up of creating a simple logo.

Poster Design

My next objective was to create the poster design for the 'Fresh Festival'. For the poster I had four objectives I wanted to use to create the best outcome as possible. The first was creating a simple design, I did this by firstly displaying the main information on the page along with the logo design, so that I was able to move two blocks around the page to create the perfect setup to start from. To the left is the way I did this and my first steps of creating the poster. My final selection for the placement is the piece with the tick on, I chose this design because of the way the viewer can start at the top of the page and work their eye down while they take in the right information about the festival.
This then took me onto the next of my objectives which is clear information and messages. I did this by making the rectangle block of text so that it makes it easier to read.

The colours I have used for the design have come from the background, which is Parker's Piece, where the festival will take place. This then transfers into the text which makes up the fourth objective which is to make the whole piece fluid linking into the theme and the logo design. I believe that this poster has been a success because of the information it shows the customer however still has the same artist influences that I have been inspired by the 'smooth festival' and also artists like Micahel English with the smooth colours in the bottom of the poster.

Merchandise

In my client brief it shows that I will be designing hoodies and t shirts for the festivals merchandise, these will be made for customers and visitors to purchase at the event. After this festival in 2014 there will be one every year and the logo will stay the same however the colourways shall change to suit the year and time of the year.
The hoodie and t shirt to the left here have been Photo shopped to show what they will look like once printed.
I decided to use a plain white garment so that the logo stands out more, the logo become bright and powerful to the viewer. I chose a hoodie and t shirt becuase it shows a small variety of garments and items that could be printed. I would also see balloons, mugs, fruit baskets and stickers to be printed for the festival as well.    

Ticket Designs

Once I had created the final logo design, I carried creating the pieces that were highlighted in my client brief and developing the Fresh Festival to new levels.
To the left is my first designs of the tickets created for the festival, the customer has three options and exclusive activities to choose from but selecting an appropriate ticket. These are: Saver, Standard and Vip, all offering different types of options for the customer. In my ticket designs I really wanted to show the difference in tickets and display different colourways for the different tickets.
As you can see I have put together three independent tickets using my visual understanding on different qualities, for example I decided to use a bright yellow colour for the Vip ticket to dominate the rest and stand out the most as it's the most expensive ticket on sale.
I believe that the background colour and the colour of the logo overlapping it are right and work really well together. However I believe that the information and layout of the tickets need revising to create the best possible design to show off the sharpness and information displayed, this will make the ticket more simple and will also make it bold by changing the colours. For example I will be looking at the title of the ticket because on the saver ticket the black title does not appear to rule over the background and can see to become lost with in it.

Here is my revised and improved final ticket designs, on this design I have made a lot of changes from my previous designs, the main changes have been the colourways on the tickets, the same as the variations on my logo, I wanted to make sure that the atmosphere was not lost in a world of information and text, this was done by me making the information as discreet and subtle as possible by changing the size of the title and making sure all of the text was the right size so that it does not detract away from the main focal point.
For each ticket I changed the the colour of some of the main and important information and used the background as a contrasting piece to make the information glow on top so that the viewer looks at the information rather than the background, another option for getting this response from the viewer is to change the opacity down on the background so then it does not come across as visible, however then you could get an unclear effect that could confuse and distract the viewer from the main objects. I believe that this ticket design shows all of the correct factors of the festival by being clear and fresh, without making the piece too confusing and powerful as this piece does not have to be the main attraction to all of the creations for the festival however still go along with the theme of 'freshness' vibes throughout the whole project.

Final Logo Design

My exciting and fresh logo design that I have been working towards to produce the best outcome as possible has been created on Illustrator. Firstly I chose to work with Illustrator because of the wide variety of tools I can use to create the best shapes and colours. As my logo is of a strawberry, I wanted to reveal the sense of identity in my design by using shapes, Illustrator enabled me to do this by me creating the correct shapes for the right areas, the design was based on and image that I took and selected, I selected this angle because I wanted to give a different perspective on how a strawberry is usually seen as a 'natural' placement, so that this logo became interesting because of this new and exciting way of visually describing the well known fruit.
I decided to chose this colourway because I feel it's bursting with energy and at an artistic view point it has all of the qualities I need to create an 'interesting' piece of work. I made one small change from my last blog looking at the variations, this change was to do with the typography on the logo, I decided that it needed more attention, as it takes center stage in my piece, I made the 'FRESH' bigger and the 'FESTIVAL' smaller. I did this because I wanted something to strike out towards the viewer and be powerful enough to be the focal point, this was also achieved by changing the text colour to a solid white to enhance these qualities.

After completing the main logo design, I then decided that it may need more information with it, so that the viewer can identify what the festival is with a limited amount of information.
The content of this information consists of three things, where, what and when. I decided to use the three things because of the simplicity it holds, the benefit of this is that, at a glance the viewer can quickly see the information without ready a long sentence of paragraph.
Once I had decided of the content I then had to make a judgement on what visual qualities I wanted to display. These qualities were inspired by the 'Smooth Festival' logo and the way they linked the information with the logo, they did this using a solid and straight line as a barrier between the logo and information. However I did not want to make a barrier, instead I wanted to make the whole thing one piece. I used and transferred the same font and boldness of the font, and then added colour, for example the red of the '2014' has been colour picked from the main logo, and the green for the grass has been taken for the stalk. This then makes the whole thing one united piece and does not detract from the simplicity and confuse the viewer.

Variation On Chosen Design Idea

For my chosen design, I decided I needed to express the true atmosphere of the festival, I believe I could do this by changing the visual appearance with the bold colour to my advantage. I have been taking inspiration from the 'Smooth Festival' logo and the way that the logo's text transfers to the shapes by being smooth festival, by showing this with the smooth shapes.
Considering my festival is called 'Fresh Festival' I thought that the colours chosen should reflect this, at the top of my variation ideas is my initial colourway, which I felt needed changing so that the viewer did not have to know much about the festival however still have an idea of how the festival will be and what the atmospheric values will be.
Looking at the second one down I decided to use bright but natural colours to compliment the freshness of the festival. The natural colours consisted of reds, oranges, pinks and then tones of green of the stalk of the strawberry.
The third logo down gives a softer feel to the design, by using a darker red but contrasting the colours by using a brighter pinks and oranges. This also clarifies the fresh feel to the festival, however I feel the colourways in this third design may still come across too 'dull' and I feel that the design will all have to be bright and not have a combination of bright and dull. which I will be expressing in my next three designs.    
 

This second three of variations holds a new style of linking contrasting colours up to make colourways that represent the feel and atmosphere of the festival.
The top design shows off this technique to produce an interesting logo using a wide variety of colours. For example I have used unnatural colours in the first logo by using bright blues, greens, yellow, reds, pinks and then with all of the overlapped the middle of the piece becomes a dark grey that makes the text stand out more. However this does not fully translate the true message of the festival.
The next change I wanted to complete is the contrast between the stalk and the main fruit, I wanted to to create this because I liked the way that the strawberry in it's natural form makes the strawberry look so bold and I really wanted to add this detail and feature into my logo design.
As I am intending to be putting this logo design on lots of things like posters, tickets and merchandise, I decided that I will need a balance of colours to support the colours in the other pieces, with the last design I have tried to add this balance into my work, by adding colours that might not feel as bold and striking as the other colours I have used in the logo designs before this one however after creating this colourway, I re accessed the balance and came to the conclusion that this may not be what I was looking for, my reason behind this is because I need the whole logo to be bright and powerful otherwise I do not think it will stand out enough.
After evaluating all of the logo variations I came to the final conclusion to which variation I would go for and use for my final logo design. This would be the bright and bold colours of the second design with the subtle hint of blue in one of the stalks for example the third one down, I decided this because I thought that the design will still need to be eye catching but also have something more to look at and the stalk colour would give the balance that I need for the logo to be successful.