Catching Bullets

   25/11  Scanning the photos were fairly straight forward.  Getting them out of the old photo albums after 50+ years was not, but I got it done without any full thickness tears.  I lost some material off the back of the older ones but no images were damaged.  I decided to colourize the parts of the photos where my parents were and included them as backgrounds in the text reveal.  The images are not directly associated with the letters, but show how they both traveled extensively, both separate and together. 5 hours 2/12 to  8/12 Once the letters and message were scanned, along with the photos I put them through Photoshop to colourize the photos and cut out the relevant parts of the letters.  Once I had those files organized I started up with the After Effects project (see image above).  I made the image full HD but in vertical because of the format of the letters.  The AE project involved a lot of masking, line by line for the lett...

27/11 Over the weekend I worked on the logo and variations.  I settled on a monogram (DSD) and a secondary or alternative one of a sheep formed from the DSD.  Here's my ideation from that weekend, it also includes some work on the concept that Ian gave me of tilting the Ds (this came in the next week). I also researched the typefaces.  I stuck with the two Royal Mail fonts (Banks & Miles Doubleline and Chevin), and selected ITC Kabel Book as body text.  Work was also done on the colour blindness considerations of my pictures. I also built the grid during this time. I wanted blocks of text and a asymmetric layout.  There are three  different column widths, and four large horizontal blocks.  This resulted in some discussion later, especially about my intolerance with people who will not read the guide. 5 hours Weekend of 29 Nov-1 Dec I wrote up a lot of the guide.  I added Tahoma as the accessible font for products.  I researched the colour...

 This took a long time to figure out. 18/11 My first idea was to do something about optimism. I thought about the how Berlin held out during the blockade and how the 50s and 60s had unlimited optimism about the space program. I considered how space research leads to a huge amount of Earth based benefits. Material sciences, climate research, etc. This seemed a bit blah, but the initial plan where I would incorporate video came from this. (red box) The next idea was to do something about my medical problems and how it has affected my personality. Nope. (blue box)   So I was sort of stuck. 4 hours 20/11 Finally I was going through an junk drawer and found a post card from my dad. This evolved into documenting a series of letters between my parents in the late 80s. My dad's correspondence is typed, my mother's written. I think this will be a nice contrast in typography. I've also scanned some photos to give the viewer some more insight into my parents. I started working on the ...

18 November So, a logo, more than that a branding package and identity.  My first reaction was, oh another logo.  This would be the fourth design a logo for yourself assignment during the program.  Not very exciting. Fairly quickly I decided that I wanted to do something based on my maternal grandparent's heritage. Not sure why, but once it crossed my mind I couldn't get rid of it.  The mood board incorporated items from Royal Mail, my grandfather worked for them from before the First World War to after the Second.  It also laid out some of the values I wanted to incorporate. Early on I went through a few ideas for the logo.  The use of Norn (Orcadian norse) and runes was considered.  Incorporating the sheep from North Ronaldsay that eat seaweed seemed like a good idea. As you can see from the image below I went through four names before I settled on Dulse Sheep Designs. Ignore the red stuff, unless you want to learn the name of the F1 typeface. Under ...

 So I forgot completely about the cost and time information. Better late than never I guess. Good thing we talked about the price of printing today, right? Costs: Materials: $0.30, I already had the vinyl backing for free. Three sheets of my own, previously purchased, cardstock tabloid. Bond tabloid is included in printing costs. Printing costs: Twice as much as needed. 9 colour copies ($1 per), 5 BW prints ($0.20 per) Total: $10.30 Time: Concept development: 3 hours Ideation: 4 hours Product development and research: 3 hours Drawing and final work: 10 hours Production (digital arranging, printing, physical assembly): 5 hours Blogging: 2 hours

 So I can't really draw. I made a digital sketches in Procreate and two pencil sketches (only 1 pencil sketch attached). The concept was to show two people using caution around hazards and then reporting it, warn people from doing hazardous activities, and a hand and foot. The hand was not used. The foot is designed to be used to demonstrate a hazardous activity.  For backgrounds I had two photos that I took years ago. While both were in North Africa, the colouring in these could be altered to show different environments as there is both ground and vegetation present. So I struggled with the sketches, finally I decided to try the Generate Vectors function in Illustrator 2025. This produced very happy people with no legs, but it was a something I could work with. I changed the faces to be more serious, and added legs. I applied the Generate Vectors to my foot and it produced a nice bright beach sandal that just needed a colour adjustment. With these assets in hand I set about a...