Showing posts with label IDENTS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IDENTS. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

>> E4 Fortune Teller

Front Back







The idea slowly developed from E4 pop up flyer. Dear good Simon, suggested me that I also should make some flyer that would be cheaper to produce, as E4 pop up is quite expensive to make. He remembered about the old hand made game he used to play at school with other kids, he was so exited about it, that even tried to make one, but just couldn't remembered how. After seeing him so enthusiastic trying to make that game I thought to myself that's it's probably good idea to make one myself - and call it E4 fortune teller. I think it's straight forward... playful...opens the heart ( brings memories). Suitable for E4 viewers as most of them are 16-34 years old. It also relates to my other work ( animations: involves hands action and looks like a flower).
I have never played this game before in my life, so I couldn't let it go without trying to play it myself. My question was : “If I ever be happy?” and it says: “ no” I never play this game again. It make me realize that I should put a warning on the flyer saying: "Do not forget it just a game". lol

Design Purpose:
  • Keep young and funky style, by using loads of white space, making a contrast with bright colours (e4 symbols) and using "hand writing" font, so it becomes more warm.
  • Make E4 symbol clear and more appreciable. Have instructions at back of the flyer how to make the E4 fortune teller.
  • Easy and fun to use - have instructions at the back.
  • Cheaper to produce.
Software: Adobe Illustrator - I've really enjoyed working with it- it's pretty straight forward, had some language issues as I didn't know the meaning of some tools and after translation it got confused even more, so had to try each option myself and find out what it does - took ages and made loads of mess, but was fun.

Feedback. Easy recognition. Good for all ages. Simple and nice design


Monday, May 07, 2007

E4 Game= "Look, it's E4"

Branding thourgh game:


"The channel E4 idents are good example of how to create innovative media identity.They engage the viewer in a game of recognising the brand. In this act of recognition, the viewer's own creative process is associated with the brand". Guy Birkin "Brand Identities"


The largest part of this project - ident recognision has been made through looking at playful and "young" side of it. Making a sticker, I haven't consider to much time on the design, as I wanted it to be just E4 logo, so viewers wouldn't have any doubt it's talking about E4 channel ( later on than it be more common it could be changed). So E4 sticker is nothing more just a number - E4 symbol. But the idea behind is a TV game: played during easter, xmas , valentines day etc.

Imagine you simple go to the news shop to get ur TV magazine. Inside you find E4 sticker. Little instructions tells you that's a game for all familly, you have to stick your E4 sticker on the house window, so it would be visible from a street and register online or by phone with your address. Leave the rest for your fortune. Than TV people would pick up the city to visit. To pick the house no.(only ones got E4 sticker on window and registered) they could ask to do that for kids in the street. They go see people living in this address and give them prizes: ( TV,DVD player etc). Simon and other people thought it be nice idea that the wining prize would hide in fortune teller. So they choose the colour, number and find out what is the prize.

This game unifes all my parts of the project together. Maybe in the future it be good idea to change the design of a sticker, maybe have E4 inside the heart (for Valentines day) or smth like that. For the first time I wanted it be clear and recognisible symbol - so it won't be no doubt it's E4 channel we talking about- great, young generous, funny etc.

>>PoP up E4 flyer

As soon as I’ve decided what I’m going to do for my E4 stings, I had the idea for my E4 flyer. What i have to think about was design and effect on the audience, so I’ve been looking in the shops, bars, different magazines to get some inspiration.

The idea for a flyer came up from a pop up map, my mum brought back from some journey than I was just a little girl, I used to like playing with it, strange enough, not like other toys I’ve destroyed I’ve saved it till this day. lol

Anyway, what I was thinking about is “survival”. Try to make this flyer to survive as long as possible. Using pop up technique might a bit more expensive, but the effect is much stronger, as people like hand made things, they more personal and more funny.
It’s more chance people would keep it instead of just cast aside.

Trying my flyer to become survival, I tried to find a subtle way to trying to get the flyer more personal and more interactive with audience.

From here my flyer became message/flyer. On front you it is a message with empty space where person have to write it’s own choice of what program he would like to watch. Inside, it’s E4 logo with the time. It’s made from three parts:

  1. Make curious -> Let’s watch …..”
  2. “Make an appointment” -> on E4 --:--h (also introduce channel.)
  3. Get a reply "Yes or NO"

So you gave a message/flyer that you can leave in the pubs, shops, or just give to the person you are fancy.

And the audience subconsciously “reads” these messages which can sometimes override explicit messages in text and images.*

>>The design

General

“Visual language is what the “heart” “read” after the mind has become quiet.” *

Before I start designing my flyer, I’ve looked for some books about basic design principles. It’s two I really liked as one of them describes the main points of visual language and other one also talks about technical issues of print design.**

*P.Bonnici.1998.Visual language the hidden medium of communication. London

Talks about visual language between colour, shape, text. It was useful of making a poster, as it helped to understand how to communicate with the audience better.

**B.Gordon and M.Gordon2002.The complete guide to digital graphic design. First edition. London.Thames&Hudson.


While making sketches for my flyer design and try to think of the interesting one, got too thirsty and went to a fridge get some drink, there my design has born. It was little fridge magnets…that got my attention! Quickly made some note and stuck it on the fridge so I could make a photo to imagine how it would like on a flyer – and I really liked the result.

I thought instead of normal magnets will use e4 magnet.

As it’s a message flyer – I think note on the fridge with e4 magnet would suit well.

The font I used was mistral regular. I wanted a hand writing effect as you still suppose to add your own writing so it would mach better.

Colour – mainly purple for background, used as identifying marker.




Click here to find out how to make it to a flyer.


Problems and improvement:

  1. Because of my poor knowledge about illustrator it was hard to make a paper look like read note.
  2. The background was purple with little e4 symbols, unfortunately after printing it was hardly able to see little e4 and the colour from purple changed to pink.

I don’t think it was my mistake as after reprinted it again the background colour was purple as it should be, but little e4’s were still invisible.

  1. I was a bit struggling with a message on the note, first I thought about “ will you watch … with me?” but after some consultations I’ve been told that it might be to personal, so I changed it “ Let’s watch…!” , now I think it might would sound better “Let’s watch…..together!”.
Price.I've emailed one of the leading in pop-ups and interactive marketing leading company [http://www.whitneywoods.co.uk ] with enquiry of how much it would cost to produce 10.000 of those flyers as they have a simillar example of flyer.They send me a price list back. About £3.500 quite a lot.

Feedback. The people I’ve showed it to says it does grab the attention and evoking emotional message. My friends from Lithuania told me, that they like the way for introducing channel. As if they come over the never heard about it, but than u get such flyer, it is possible at least go online and find out. It also related to my E4 stings, as it’s the action using hands and involves keeping your channel. The main idea of the animation.




Tuesday, April 24, 2007

E4 WEB PAGE CREATION

Creating My no1. web

Main thoughts:

  • Accessibility
Design a site to work for everyone."The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect."
-- Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web
  • Style and Layout
  • Information ( held in html file)
  • Software

Web Design samples-------


My 1st
try in photoshop

(click to make it larger)










My 2nd try in Photoshop.

Simon advise me to use
FreeHand or
Adobe Illustrator,
for a quality purpose.








>> Work In Illustrator <<


Black and white test to make sure is still look ok.


Accessibility. Make sure it is usable on the main browser flavors and versions
  • I've checked the colours to make sure it would look alright for colour blinded people.[see appendix]
    • (make black and white) the design to see if it still makes sense
    • haven't used more than 4 colours.
    • used lighter font colour on darker background
    • Ease of use = return visitors
    • Make it small, so it download quick enough
Protanopia test Deaternopia test

Appendix . Approximately one in twelve people may not be able to use your web site properly due to some form of color blindness. At best, your site won't look to a color blind person as you designed it, at worst, this could mean that text is unreadable, navigation unusable and elements are invisible.

  • Most color blind people can't distinguish between shades of red and green
  • Shades of these colors appear lighter to color blind people
  • The most common forms of color blindness are:
    • Protanopia ­ unable to receive red, and
    • Deuteranopia ­ unable to receive green

http://www.jessett.com/

Style and layout.I've tried keep the page structure simple and neat. I used sub-heading with heading to separate sections of test. Highlight important words. Used pale background with dark test, avoid colours that would be difficult to see for colour blind people.

As to read on the screen is much more harder than on paper, i make the sentences of the page are short so it‘s easier to read, avoid capitals and italics. I think navigation of the page is also pretty straight forward,more important things are kept higher of the page, so the visitors can locate things quicker.The top of the left i put the company logo, which is E4, I didn‘t add any text no more, but make ornamental background, so it make E4 look more playful and add some dynamic to the page. And also it separates the top links from a main body.I left maximum space for a content. I've tried make a balanced between content and design.


Software. Adobe Illustrator and Dreamweaver.

I've tried to use freehand at first, but somehow i didn't click with it, even after trying some lessons, so I tried illustrator and it qiock became my "good friend":)


Monday, March 05, 2007

2nd animation

E4 music Sting


As you can see it has been made using the same stop motion technique [see appendix], as for first animation, by thinking it will gane me more expierence and better understanding. This time it went much smoother and quicker, as I avoid the same mistakes and descover some more useful tools. e.g. for cutting bit of the picture it's much faster and simpler with magnetic lasso tool instead of magic wind (that i used for first animation).

It was quite useful,constantly check how the animation visually looks on image ready and if it needs any changing before getting to far,while making a background in Photoshop,



Magnetic lasso tool Test in ImageReady


Appendix>

Stop motion (pop. frame-by-frame) is a generic general term for an animation technique which makes static objects appear to move. The object is moved by very small amounts between individual frames, producing the effect of motion when the film is played back, as in conventional drawn and painted animation.

FeedBack.

Some of the people mentioned that artistic style of my animations looks simillar to late ones MTV stings. I have tried to look for some example, but wasn't succssesful.It would be quite interesting to find it and to compare it.

Simon mentioned that i should try to work with the music and try to expand E4 music logo at the end of animation, to add stronger accent for it an the music. ( it means more work for me)


Friday, February 23, 2007

E4 sting evolution

E4 sting evolution

>> Loads of "white nights" with loads of thought in the head, that 80% disappears forever in the morning

>> Constant interrogation of friends about ideas


>> Sketches everywhere i go in my minds, public toilets lol ( not really )

.....LOoooooooNG THINKING...THINKING...thinking...thinkinininig...


So finally considering my tinny expierence as a I‘ve gave u
p on all my "titanic" ideas and came up with the one described bellow in the " Goodies bag" That I liked , most of the people I asked liked it, hope the rest of the world will like it too:) Hope i managed to embody it.

I've never took so many pictures of the hands in my entire life.


Was much harder than I thought. As to perform 24 frame action per 1sec using photo camera was impossible. Finally 12 f/sec was a solution. So Big Thank you for Ian Sanders help in taking pic. and Andrew Love for amazing 10 MEGA PIXEL camera- yahooo!!! Even I took a mln of pictures for my animation (as I never was satisfied with a ones i took before), i left only with 72, (12f/s). So i had a real good practise using this fantastic camera:) Sure later I found out I could go easier way, just film the opening hands action and import it in Adobe after Effects as stills, remove the ones i don't need to create the "chop" effect on animation to make it look more abstract and surreal. Well, we all learning, finally I still got the same effect .

It's a first short test of the idea. The music has been made myself on Ejay dance 3. I like the effect of calm "growing" atmosphere on it, but i'm not sure if it's a right one to use. So I'm gonna get some more versions of Ejay, hopefully it will have more options of the sounds I could use to create the right tone.

Ok, here is an animation made . The process:

  • Imported all the pictures into Photoshop and resize to 720x576, cut the bits of every single picture I don't want to be seen.
  • Imported into Adobe Premier Pro and make a avi. movie

I had to change the background as I didn't have the copyrights for rose image. I'm not really good in drawing so I just played around with it in the photoshop, using different effects.Finally I stoped with a liquify effect as Ifound it easy to play around and, also I could changed it every frame so than playing back it looked like it's moving. Hopefully it is still possible get the idea that's it a flower. The colours are related to the main color at the E4 channel at the moment -purple, also made it look more retro style. The communication between animation and audience is quite clear, as it send various messages:giving (then e4 releases from a hands), keeping,teasing...

Trying diferent effects for background:


The shorter version of animation was made for idea of using it for more expensier time of the day and longer version for cheaper time of day on tv, in terms of saving money.

Problems:

  • I haven't saved single pictures as layers (psd.files) after working with them. So it was impossible to go back and correct it if i have to.
  • The first "test" animation I made using flash and i found out that it's really takes much longer time than using premier.
  • After importing stills in Premier, the animation would be very long ( 4min ), so it took me long time to learn that i had to export it as a movie than change a duration speed and render it again. Don't know if it was a correct solution, but it did work for me.
  • Have a visible flickers, that i want to reduce.

Monday, February 12, 2007

My "Goodies Bag" for E4

My E4 Package includes:

* 2 x E sting Video clip

animation for E4 music

animation for E4

* 2 x Flyers

* 1 x Sticker

* 1 x Website

E4 STING >>

* E4 sting animation using stop motion

* It’s no character or story involved

* Very abstract

* E4 + Hands + National English Flower

* Hands – keep it, love it watch it

* Rose – UK made programmes,

* Represents changes of e4 channel

* Logo stays the same

>>IDENT_E4_GO!!!<<

RESEARCH

Considering the lack of knowledge in given project, all seemed so new and confusing; research was a “life-saver” in this situation. It helped to gain better understanding and feel more comfortable with the start of the project. To make it easier the research was breaking down in to parts:

  • Advertisement research through internet mostly. Making a good branding is important to know a good knowledge of recent market and company. It’s worth reading the article found at the following web address, author J.W.Thomas says: “Advertising has the power to persuade...change markets and improve profit margins…The companies that master the creative guidance and the testing systems to consistently develop and deploy great advertising will own the future and the fortunes that go with it. Great advertising is a cloak of invincibility.”*. It means good research will impact good advertisement, this how big companies like McDonalds, BMW and etc.become strong among their competitors with big profits and long term relationships with customers.

* Jerry W. Thomas., 2007. Advertising Effectiveness By Jerry W. Thomas. [Online].
Available from:
http://www.decisionanalyst.com/publ_art/AdEffectiveness.asp [cited 15 April 2007].

Another good source of ident work for TV channels can be found at: http://idents.tv/blog/



RESEARCH FOR TV BRANDING (E4 channel)

E4 channel present:

  • The LOGO = Good logo is important

BBC-1 + globe.

ITV+yellow and blue box

E4 +E4=The E4 has everything a symbol needs.

  • Style :

Simple, but effective

‘70s looks fresh and suits the channel

Clear logo-you get what you see

Logo identifies the station

  • Imagination

Original

Different-grab attention

- The jumping E4s coming out of sardine cans and mechanical sliding bars

- The break bumpers

  • Consistency
We know we are watching E4, and, unlike the rest of the channels, everything doesn’t blur into one.


- The continuity is part of the enjoyment and not just something between the programmes or an opportunity to flaunt corporate identity as continuity these days so often is.

Everything E4 does shouts at you “E4” and it shouts it loud

"Nowhere else on digital TV will you see a font quite like the one E4 use, and the purple and white cements the station so that you are absolutely certain who you’re dealing with." James Pittman

  • Modern

E4 doesn’t have clocks.

It doesn’t have start-ups.

There are no in-vision announcers sat behind a desk with a suit, tie and a bowl of petunias.

Nothing is serious , feel of comedy

E4 stands out from a crowd of the ingredients of great presentation.


2005 E4 refresh their look. Here is how did they changed. Precursor (a design company) have refreshed E4's on air information delivery package.

  • The project include:all information ,menu stings, menus, promo endboards, and start and end of transmission stings.
  • Precursor's approach was to develop an E4 world,made of two spaces. The first space [ outside ] is a traditional environment kept for information. Dominated by the channel logo. The second space [ inside ] is white, it is a surreal and twisted anarchic place where anything goes and surrealism and juxtaposition are the rules.