Nicola Elvin
Design
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Using Type to Raise A Company's Profile
This project was a response to a D&AD brief
In short, the brief was to use typography to show the company new ways of seeing themselves. The brief response should contain the acronym LBi, and be fresh, engaging and entertaining.
I came up with several ideas, but decided on creating intrigue and playfulness to answer the brief.
The ideas is the posters are on the wall of the tube escalator, and the commuters see them on their way to work.
The posters form a puzzle. The letters L, B and i are made up of objects on the posters, and the viewer has to guess what the object is. Once they guess all three objects, they put that into a URL and get access to an exclusive event.
This example's LBi acronym represents Luminous Bubble Igloo, the event thus being held in a luminous bubble igloo.
These posters would change every month, to give people enough time to see them and work them out and to get another set in with a different URL to guess
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Designing a Set Design Portfolio Site
This was both a personal project and a university project.
My university project was to develop and research a Multimedia Product. My cousin is studying Theatre Set Design at Royal School of Music and Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow and didn't have a portfolio website. So I thought this would be the ideal project to chose, since I could develop a website for my cousin, and use the same website for my project.
I researched the subject area by conducting both primary and secondary research. I asked intended users of the product - set design employers - what they were looking for from such a website. I also took into account the Set Designer's requirements.
I decided to give the portfolio a theatre feel. I therefore designed the page to look like it was being displayed on a theatre stage. I used images from the theatre shows for the hover over links.
Click the image to visit the website.
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Postage stamp homage
My brief was to design a series of four postage stamps celebrating an original subject. The theme was to be applied in the style of one or more artists. I decided to chose 4 different artists/designers to illustrate my theme.
My chosen theme was "voids and fills", which was inspired by the work of Georgia O'Keeffe.
I researched my four chosen artists, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Charles Rennie MackIntosh and Van Gogh
The David Hockney inspired stamp was actually created in an iPhone app called Brushes. David Hockney has been recently using this application for his work.
The second stamp is in the style of Andy Warhol His image is that of a piece of cardboard with a hole cut out for hanging on a rail. We see this shape all the time in shops and in our Homes but aren't even aware of it. I used photoshop to apply some effects to the stamp to give it a silk-screen type appearance, synonymous with Warhol's work.
The next stamp is Rennie MackIntosh inspired. The image is of an eye, the white of the eye being the void. I created the MackIntosh style look using photoshop
The last stamp was based on Van Gogh's Boots. The inside of the shoe is the void. I made this stamp using oils on canvas
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Creating a Brand Identity and Developing Media
This project was for client who had found my commercial website through google.
The company was a new one and needed a brand identity developed. This included a logo, business cards, flyers and a website.
I began with brainstorming some concepts. I created a mind map showing all the associations I had with the type of company my client was. For each of these concepts I drew a series of small sketches of their logo.
I asked for feedback from the client, peers and designers to further develop the concepts, and the direction I was heading in. The strongest one, we agreed was the one you can see to the top right of the image. We felt this suited the company best because the logo portrayed what the company did. The client then decided against having a strap line, the logo and company name said it all.
I made sure that the chain was present correctly on the logo, I didn't want the chain to be an example of something being wrongly lifted!
The colours I chose were to reflect the building industry, I felt red and grey had a feel of industrial, building type companies. After the client was happy with the logo, I went on to develop the flyer design. I am particularly fond of striking typography and incorporated this into my design. The result is eye catching and to the point - "you could be breaking the law by not having your lifting equipment inspected
In both the flyer, website and business cards, I was aware of visual hierarchy, conveying the message to the viewer in a clear format, guiding them through the sections in the flyer, business card and website by way of grouping and covert visual guidance.
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A self-portrait using only typography
The brief for this project was simply to create a self portrait using only type.
I did at first plan to create a traditional self portrait - i.e. an image of my face, using typography. However then I began to think more conceptually and made a mind-map to discover what I thought described me. I came up with the words passionate, creative, natural I then thought about what objects were symbolic of these words.
A windswept tree seemed to me to be all of the above, a tree being blown in the wind. Plus I thought about how I had long curly hair too, which was similar to the branches of a windswept tree.
My face appears as part of the tree. I used a scriptive font to achieve the texture, and also because of the curves in it, again reminiscent of nature. I used white on black to create a mysterious atmosphere.
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Using Typography to illustrate a Quote
The brief was to chose a favourite quotation and illustrate the quotation using only type.
With the quote
The worlds collide but all that we want is a shady lane
, a quote from a song by a band called Pavement, I felt the most striking words were all we want is a shady laneSo I decided to emphasise these words using contrast of weight and size against the others words
To emphasise the imagery of collide, I decided to literally collide it with the word "worlds".
The sliding appearance of the whole sentence is to due the fact of the worlds colliding, everything has been upset and disturbed from their usual places, thus the sentence is falling apart.
However, you will notice that
a shady lane
is quite self-contained and protected from the above collision+ Comments
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Photomontage self portrait
My brief was to create a self portrait made up of a photo-montage. I decided what I would do was show 4 different sides to me in one photograph.
I had to take 4 different pictures in order to be able to place myself correctly on the background image. The background image was an image of the centre of Huddersfield. I chose a busy scene because the four sides to me aren't immediately obvious amongst the crowds.
I named the photo facets, as it was showing different facets to me. I removed one the vertically displayed shop names and replaced it with "facets".
The photo was created in photoshop. For each individual photo of myself, I had to make sure I took it in the correct light so that it wouldn't look out of place in the background image
You can click the image to view the photo in more detail and see the complete photographs that make up the self portrait.
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Branding
I created a brand for an imaginary festival, the rocky horror festival.
I created a moodboard to inspire me in my concept development. I decided the brand would fit in with the existing image of the Rocky Horror Show, and so I narrowed this down to a few words - racy, suggestive, bold You can see that from my moodboard the kind of look I was going for.
My ideas were taking shape and I decided to use 3 colours - red, black and gold. I thought they suggested the trashy elegance of the rocky horror show. The logo was developed to be bold & racy - I produced it by drawing Frank N' Furter's lips and enlarging them.
The strapline also had to be racy & suggestive, I went for go on, you know you want to" I thought this a good, provocative statement, and also, I imagined I could almost hear the star of Rocky Horror Show - Frank N' Furter saying it!
The branding was then applied across a variety of mediums including a poster, webpages and a letterhead.
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Art
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Self Portrait (oil on paper)
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Reading (acrylic on card)
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Shoe (oil on paper)
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Lone Leaf At Night (oil on paper)
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Goat Behind a Fence(acrylic on paper)
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Colour Model (oil on paper)
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