Made In Brunel Challenge Day

A couple of weeks ago I attended a Made in Brunel Challenge day. The aim of the day was to, in groups, answer one of five design briefs to make this years Made in Brunel exhibition better than last years. The brief my group was given was to come up with a idea to help transport the book that is made for the exhibition.

As a group we wanted something more unique than just a simple bag, so we after a number of ideas, we created the design seen below.

The idea is to have a wallet like object made of recycled card with a silicone strap that would both hold the book inside securely, and help advertise the show. Inside would be the book and an area where useful documents can be placed such as maps, flyers or business cards.
At the end of the day, we then had to present our idea, along with the other groups, to a panel of judges. We had a full prototype at this point and rendered images which we used to present our idea. Overall it was a good fun day and allowed the first years a chance to work and chat to the second and third years.

Cocktail Recipies

A little extra feature I wanted to include in my Graphics Workbook, to tie in with the cocktails theme, were recipes at each of the major sections in the book. I realised that to just have the recipes by them selves would look dull, so using the recipes and Google images for reference, i created these illustrations of the drinks to accompany the recipes, the drinks I chose are all considered classic drinks and are:

 Caipirinha,          Daiquiri, Cosmopolitan

Margarita, Martini

 

Mojito & Pina Colada

These were all placed at the start of each major section, opposite the title of that section. With the drink illustrations I also placed recipes on how to make the cocktails (from the UK Bartenders Guild) beneath each of the cocktails.

Interactive Shop Design

This is a video of a CAD model I made in Google SketchUp. We were supposed to show this in a presentation given today in front of the rest of the year 1 design school, but when it came to showing the video, it just froze, so we had to do without.

As you go through the video, it starts at the round counter at the front where you can purchase your experience. It then move on to where the different moulds are stored, with an extra display for more special or seasonal ones. After that it's the chocolate tubes, where your choice of chocolate can be poured into the mould, and then round to the freezer and adding extra decorations, or visa versa. While the chocolate is cooling, the packaging for the chocolate can be coloured in at the next station. Continuing round, at the back of the shop is a counter where customers can get bespoke designs made by a member of staff, and further round on the right of the store is a section where people can buy premade chocolates. The brief given was to design an interface to facilitate the creation of personalised chocolates, which we were encourage to make chocolate models for. My team's idea was to have a shop, similar in nature to the Build-a-Bear Workshops. So using some sketches I created this model.

 

These are some more views of the shop floor.

New Year Resolution Wallpaper

Yes I know it's a bit late for a proper new years resolutions, but for this I was so inspired by the the work featured here, that I had to emulate their work and make a new year resolution wallpaper of my own, for my laptop rather than the iPads they choose.

I decided to copy the almost art nouveu/deco style of most of the designs, using this cursive script, and the plain textured (oxymoron there) background. The resolution is my own, as is more some basic goals to live life to the full and all that jazz. The text is centred as this allows me to see all the text when it is up on my desktop, where I will leave it for the year, or until I get bored.

Finally I would just like to emphasise having a look at the other resolutions done, especially for designers and anyone interested in graphics, here's the link again: http://www.toresolveproject.com/. Thanks

Final Poster Design

Well I know you've all been waiting for it, (small chance) but here is the final poster design I chose to go with.

The poster uses a number of elements, some more subtle than others. The main elements are obviously the mixer and the splashes of liquid, taken off the Internet, cut out and recoloured. Somewhat more subtly there is a row of drinks in the background, the same as the drinks from the earlier ideas. Then there's finally the text at the bottom and the logo. The tag line was probably the single hardest part of creating this poster (other than the mixer). So anyway, it's all handed in now, so that's a huge load off my shoulders.

Finally, you may know this, or not, but I am now on Twitter @george_thorpe , I'll be using it to tweet anything I find interesting, be it design, science, art, quotes or whatever, so hopefully I'll be seeing you there.

Poster Concepts 3

The final lot of poster concepts till I show the one I finally went with, again a mixture of photos and graphics made in Illustrator. These however done in portrait to see how it effected the designs.

Thanks (and apologies) must go to my wonderful model in the first two. Sorry

Poster Cocnepts 2

Some more poster ideas. The top two each use a photo that I took while the bottom two are made almost entirely in Illustrator. Anyway still a few more to come for tomorrow. And just to let you know, the drinks in the top right design: coloured water, though you probably can get drinks in those colours.

Poster Concepts 1

These are some of the poster ideas I came up with for my Cocktail Maker. They were made in Illustrator which I'm not too good at it so they aren't quite as good as I would have hoped, but they were good for more practice with the program. They are made of a mixture of Internet images, photos and graphics I made, along with the text.

A World of Drink- Infographic

So first day of the second semester over, and we've already been given a new graphics assignment. But anyway more of that later, for now its still full concentration of the first assignment.

If you remember the map of the world made of drinks I made earlier. The idea is for it to be an infographic, and that's what I have now done, with a bit of research.

While making it I realised I would have to make a separate image for Europe as there are so many countries with their own drinks. But anyway now this is done it can go into the workbook along with the other stuff I have done so far. But anyway time passes and deadlines beckon so back to work.

Cocktail Maker Words

So I'm back at Brunel now, which means there'll be more projects, more work and more posts. So here goes the second term.

Anyway here's a quick graphic I have done for my workbook. it is simply the Cocktail Maker with the image replaced by the names of different cocktails. The names have also been rotated and sheared to group them so they look like the different components. Done in Illustrator which I am getting better at....slowly.

Cocktail Maker- Finished

Finally it is done. At last I have completed the artifact part of the Graphics course. My Cocktail Maker is complete, minus a name, and a tagline, and a poster, and a workbook.......so mostly done......ish.

But anyway this is what I have done, and I am very pleased with it. It has taken a long time and it was very difficult to get it to look real, I still don't think it does, but oh well. Below are the main stages that went into the creation of this image.

After a very rough sketch I drew the Isometric (35 degrees) drawing on the left to finalise the design, followed by the more dramatic and eye catching two point perspective drawing on the right.

 

 That drawing was then scanned and imported into Photoshop where using the pen tool I isolated and created masks for all the different shapes, which took quite a while (100+ screenshots!!)

Then with the masks completed I was able to start importing other images and textures into the image, shaping them with the masks and transform tools and adding highlights and shading. Of course this took the most time requiring 200+ screenshots.

But anyway with that out of the way I can now get on with the poster and the workbook. With that in mind my late night reading today will be: The Visual Quickstart Guide to Illustrator CS5....all of it; better get going.