Urban Regeneration

 Urban regeneration, which can also be called Urban Renewal, takes place when the physical, social and economic characteristics of run down urban areas have been rebuilt as part of a strategic plan to improve an area. Housing, industrial locations and dock side developments are typical regeneration projects. Urban regeneration typically goes beyond the redevelopment of the physical area of a location and will tackle the social and economic activity there as well. As a consequence urban regeneration projects are radical interventions requiring substantial economic contribution from both the public and private sector.

Source :  http://www.urbanregeneration.net/

 

Urban Regeneration Project

New project, I have been commissioned to create the graphic design for the promotion of the London Road Brighton project. A fictitious regeneration project. I have to develop a consistent visual language across a range of print pieces, using typography and a graphic style in a way that creates a visually coherent campaign. I have to produce a folding leaflet which promotes the project overall combining text and images, and a series of at least three magazine ads or posters which focus on a specific aspect of what’s on offer in the zone (such as a bar, the hotel and the flats). The ads are for distribution as full page ads in relevant magazines including Time Out in London and Latest 7 in Brighton. The posters are to be placed in London and Brighton bus stops and train stations, and London Tube stations. You will need to create these print pieces at suitable aspect ratios and mock them up into a photo of a location or magazine to show their impact in situ. 

This kind of regeneration has slowed right down in the current recession, but for this assignment I have to imagine that London Road Brighton is being redeveloped into a gentrified urban center attractive to the young and single or couples without children. Flats, bars, restaurants, shops, a hotel and a club / music venue are designed to be attractive to the target market of 18 – 39 year old well off students and professionals.

I have to devise the concept for my campaign (inspiration, imagery, tag line, colour, font, layout etc) from research and design development processes including brainstorms, mood boards, sketches, mock-ups etc and pitch this concept to the group and my tutors for discussion. My design development work will be shown in my sketchbook.
 

Final Thoughts

On some levels I found this assignment out of my comfort zone compared with the last. The only thing I have drawn in illustrator would have been a box!. I feel that while a have a vastly better understanding of illustrator I can see that there is so much more to learn. The use of layers and stacking of parts of the image was the biggest revelation to me and once I felt I understood that aspect it made things easier. I enjoy every aspect of the assignment. The research, the exposure to many designers I had never heard of, the thought process for the design and lastly the generation of the poster.

Crit

I enjoyed the crit. I found it very interesting to see the final work of every one in the group. I felt that their citric was very helpful in refining my posters to gain a better finished results. Some of the thing they felt needed to be changed were the toning down some of the colours used on the fonts. Changing the font to a narrower type more in keeping with other works of this designer.  On one other of the poster they felt that it needed a few embellishment to make the image stronger. This included cracks in screen and a kink in the shadow. On reviewing my work I felt that all the changes were for the better. It was good to get input from others in the group this helped to reaffirm and enhance my design decision.

After the style of Tom Eckersley c1947

After the style of Tom Eckersley c1947

After the style of Abram Games c1946

Inspiration from Abram Games

After viewing the work of many graphic designer post 2^nd world war it was this poster by Abram Games that seem to resonate with me. I love the strong angular image of the man face. The way he has used many different gradients to describe its contours. The poster appeals to a different world. The war has ended but the army still need men. You are not being asked to fight for King and Country, but to do a worthwhile job in the services of his majesty. You could be proud and strong like the image of this man in the poster. Though the man is not looking skyward blue sky’s and better days are ahead. We are reminded of the danger of the job in the army as the man is wearing a helmet.

Working through the idea in illustrator.

 

I did not believe I had the skill set to be able to reproduce this image and morph it into a poster to highlight an aspect of social media set out in the brief. But I was determined to try and could not stop until I had made a passable facsimile. I hope you feel that I have achieved something in that direction.

More Designers

Lewitt & Him

In 1933 Jan Lewitt and George Him set up a design partnership in Warsaw. In 1937 the undertook a commission in England. With the outbreak of the war they stayed. They undertook commission for the Ministry of information , Post office and the Ministry of food. After 1954 the went their separate ways Jan Lewitt into fine art and George Him continued to work on his own as a graphic designer. 

References George Him. Jan Lewitt.

Han Schleger

Along with Lewitt and Him England became Han Schleger adopted country becoming naturalised in 1938. Born in Germany to a jewish family in 1898. He began his career designing publicity material and film sets for the film company Hagenbeck. After working in New york return to Berlin to work for the English advertising agency Crawfords as art director. When Hitler came to power he emigrated to England. Well know for his post WW2 corporate identity designing for ICI, the British sugar corporation, Fisons pest control and John Lewis. During the war he designed poster for London Transport, General post office and government propaganda. In 1954 he set up his own consultancy.

References Hans Schleger

                   Hans Schleger 2

Abram Games

Born Abraham Gamse in Whitechaple London in 1914. His father was a latvian photographer and his mother Sarah a seamstress was born on the boarder of Russia and Poland.When Abram was 12 his father anglicised the family name changing it from Gamse to Games. He left school at the age of 16 and went to St.Martins School of art. Disillusioned by the teaching he left after 2 terms. In 1935 won a poster competition for London City Council. He work between 1936 -40 as a freelance poster artist. From 1942 work as official war artist designing 100 or so posters. His clients included ,Shell,Financial Times Guinness, British airways, ElAl United Nations. He work for over six decades, dyeing in 1996, his work is essentially a record of era social history.

I have also included a more links to two videos.
The first is a short extract talking about Abram work.

The second is  video using Abram images.

 Reference Abram Games

Tom Eckersley

 I look at many different designer from that period The first Is Tom Eckersley. He was born in Manchester in 1914 and had a long and distinguished career in graphic design. He design his first poster in 1935 and continued until 1995. He made an important contribution to design education, teaching at the London College of Printing from 1954.

Tom Eckersley

Running left to right, World Wildlife Fund concert at the Barbican London 1986. Keep Britain tidy campaign 1963. The kings troop, The royal artillery Museum 1977. Lost property for Transport for London 1945.

 

The poster above is from a campaign for the Royal Society for the prevention of accidents c1947. This highlights some of the design elements that I like in Tom Eckersley design. There are only a few elements to the poster, The simple representation hammer and nails. The shelf they are sitting on. The Man and his shadow, the shadow could also be a representation of a man fallen over, hit by the hammer. The stylised shadow of the shelf pointing at the man. The perspective giving you a feeling of height.  Lastly the text “ Stow tools safely” and “Watch out for the man below”. With the Man below in brown to accent the massage. The simple and effective text can be read as individual messages and you would still get the clear understanding of the poster.

Mood Board

After doing some research I settled on the period just as the war ended to the mid 1950's. I made a mood board which contained some aspect of life at that time. Money, train tickets, examples of chocolate rappers.  A selection of art works and posters. Petrol coupons and ration books, rationing did not end until 1954.

First ideas

I started to think about the word "Facebook" and drew the first things that came into my head. A face cut out of a book.

 I thought about a face made up of book in the back of my mind the room made by Salvador Dali of Mae West.

My next thought was of many faces coming out of the pages of a book and lastly mug shot as a foldout leaflet.

I returned to my first idea and turn the idea round having the pages at the back of the head.

Poster analysis.

 

Use spades not ships by Abram Games (1914-1996). The poster, designed in 1945, to promote home grown food rather than imported food, brought to England by ships. The shape of the spade has a dual use. The right-hand side is a ship with waves following the line of the horizon. The left-hand side is a spade with the land in contrast to the sea and plough farrows running vertical in the poster. The shaft of the spade is wooden and on the ship side the funnel of the ship is in shadow, giving a hint that smoke is coming out of it. In the centre of the ship/spade is written use spades not ships. Spades written on the spade side and Ships on the ship side to reinforce the image of ship and spade. Written at the base of the poster is written “Grow your own food” and in smaller text “and supply your own cookhouse”. “Your Own” is highlighted in yellow to emphasise the words and smaller underneath to reinforce the massage of the poster.

This poster was created by Tadeusz Trepkowski (1914-1954) in 1952 two years before his death at the age of 40. During the 1950's the threat of international conflict inspired many to promote peace. The poster evokes memoires of the destruction brought on poland, Tadeusz, native country during the second world war. The bombing was so great in Warsaw that only one in four buildings remained standing. The background of the poster is blue, giving you a feeling of sky. The Bomb has been place in the top of the picture. This gives the impression that it is falling into the bottom of the picture, and at the same time the sense of movement compels you to move your eye to read the text. The Bomb has a dual role in the poster not only is it a Bomb, it also acts like a window showing us the destruction it is about to cause. The buildings and the sky inside the Bomb are predominantly red, reinforcing the sense of death and destruction. As your eye follow the trajectory of the bomb, we see the word NIE!, and it's a word that seems to shout out from the poster: NO!

Sources:- The Museum of Modern Art New york.

Wikipedia.

History

The Times 1805 51cm x 38 cm

As I have indicated in a previously with the development of printing technology hand in hand came the development of posters. What is a poster? The Oxford English mini dictionary defines a poster as “a large sheet of paper announcing or advertising something, for display in a public place” and if we see examples of posters from the early 1800's they are simple text, small in size and still printed using moveable metal type. 

 International Exhibition of Antwerp 1885 typo-Lithograph 225cm x 120cm

Later we start to see the influence of lithographic printing.  Images now combined with text and an increase in size. The poster above is over 2 meters by 1. Posters by their very nature are designed to be seen at a distance.

Renine de joie par victor (1892) by Henri de Toulouse -Lautrec, poster to publicise a novel.

In the beginning poster were usually thrown away after they had achieved there intended objective. Some early posters have survived to give us some insight into the societies they represent. Towards the late 1800's in England and France poster began to be valued as collectable works of art.

L'Aureole du midi (1893) by Jules Cheret  advertisement for lamp oil.

Looking at an advertisement from the late 1800's we can see that design and content have become important. The poster has been created to a specific brief and is now developing it's own language to get its message across.

1                                        2                                       3

 At the start of the 1900’s the language of design was utilised in the propaganda created in many nations during the First World War. Each country employed imagery and text that would appeal and generate a reaction in their own countries.  1. Keep the bloody boots off the USA and buy war bonds to help the war effort. 2. The Red army needs your money with Freedom loan. 3. British propaganda to encourage men to leave their families and go to war.

Printing

The Altamira Cave painting in northern Spain. Paintings from the Lost Tomb of Nebamun

 

The visual image has always been important in the communication history of man. From the cave paintings of the early man to the wall decoration of the tombs of the Pharaohs. With the advent of moveable metal type (Johannes Gutenberg 1440), for the first time mass production of books was possible. The draw back of the movable metal type was that it required a heavy weight to press the paper into the inked type. Although it was good for type it was not so good for images,  because of the size of the press it limited the size of the paper to be printed on.

Gutenberg press and metal type.

It was not until the discovery of the lithographic printing process (Aloys Senefelder 1794), and his drive was to come up with a process that was cheaper than early types of printing. Larger than book sized prints and images were able to be printed.

  Lithography press for printing maps and Lithography stone and mirror-image print of a map of Munich

The litho process exploits the fact water and oil repels each other. Originally an image is drawn into a coating of wax or an oily substance applied to a lithographic stone usually limestone and this is the medium that transfers the ink to blank sheet of paper, producing a printed page. This process allowed for multi pass printing and the advent of colour printing.

What is Propaganda?

Propaganda is communication designed to persuade and influence a community’s thoughts and actions. Although it is not impartial in its message, it presents information and facts often in a biased way, propaganda is not inherently bad. However we are all aware of its use in Nazi Germany in the 30's and 40's. The efficient Nazi propaganda either provoked an action or allowed inaction through its reinforcement of what people already believe to be true.

The poster on the left blames the Jews for German defeat in WW1 and shows the Jew loyalty to Britain.

The poster on the right " The eternal Jew" and shows untrustworthy and evil looking men, with stereotypical large noses.

Though we may be unaware of its influence, propaganda has the ability to change our habits for the good. If we think of road safety campaigns, from the 70's to promote the wearing of seat belts, or in resent years in matters of public health, for example the campaign of AIDS awareness, the benefits are obvious.

1970's road safety campaign & AIDS awareness campaign.

Etymology

The English term is a 17th century coinage, from the Latin neuter plural gerund of propagare "to propagate", originally in Congregatio de Propaganda Fide "Congregation for Propagating the Faith", a committee of
cardinals established in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV.[1] In its turn, the word propagare is related to the word propages, "a slip, a cutting of a vine"[2] and refers to the gardener's practice to disseminate plants by planting shoots.[3]


Sources:-

The world Book Multimedia Encyclopaedia
10 Things you Need to Know about Propaganda by Nancy Snow
Wikipedia

Web 2.0 Propaganda Poster

The Brief

I Have to produce at least one poster promoting as aspect of Web 2.0 Social Media which can be printed at up to A1 size. I will choose social media from the following or discuss an alternative with my tutors:

The design must be based on propaganda posters from a period of the twentieth century.     I have to research, collect and analyse examples of propaganda posters then generate ideas which match these to social media services, creating a suitable slogan which links the design to the service being promoted.

I will have to generate ideas for this project based on research and design development techniques (such as brainstorms, mood boards, sketches) and I will prepare a pitch which puts forward my proposed design solution with a review of how I reached those decisions.    I will need to explore type choices, colour palettes, poster designs and layouts in this pitch. Illustrator work in progress can be shown as part of this.

My colour palette, graphic style and type choices must reflect the style and content of posters from my chosen period. The graphics will be entirely vector and I will create the artwork in Illustrator at A1 size.

I will keep a blog of research materials and project development, including research into propaganda posters, placing these into their historical context and analysing their design characteristics, design decisions, problem solving, software techniques, comments on drafts and crit, with notes on changes and improvements made in response to feedback.

I will also develop a sketchbook of visual research and analyses, sketches and idea development, experimentation in things like colour schemes, typography, drawing style, and proofing.

 

What is Web 2.0

Before web 2.0 the web content mainly static images and graphics and information. Which was displayed with no dialog between the user and the website. With the development of web 2.0 the World Wide Web has become a transport mechanism for interactivity. We communicate in real time with others and that interactivity has spread over many different platforms from your desk top computer, portable devices, mobile phones and tablets. We set up our own networks via social media sites such as Facebook, Google + , express our opinions via Blogger and Twitter, up load and watch videos with You Tube and Vimeo.

reference

 

Final Thoughts

Preparation is essential. It implies you need to understand the brief, research on the techniques to carry out the brief, what is demanded for the photography, and what work is required in Photoshop, in response to the photography to produce the final image.

Once you have the method you can concentrate on the image you wish to produce. Technique will set you free.

The main thing I have learned from shooting the panoramic is the use of space and content and to follow tried and tested techniques.

The main thing I have learned about Photoshop: The editing process relies on the quality of the original images to produce a good panoramic. In Photoshop, being methodical is essential, especially when dealing with a large number of images and a broad range of techniques to produce the final image. Every pixel counts.


Crit


I found the whole process very rewarding and interesting. I was pleased that the response to my work was very positive. I enjoyed the opportunity to see other peoples work and to hear their thought on  how and why they created the images they did. I felt inspired by their efforts. I particularly liked Jamie and Liana work both I felt were inventive for different reason and both were different.  


View My Panoramas

Swop and chop

After you have placed and blended all of your images together You need to save them in PSD format this keep them in there layers so you can reedit if necessary. Now the saved the images can now be flattened. This will reduce the file size and convert the image into one single image. In preparation for the web it needs to crop so you have no visible join. These are the steps I used.

Step1. Flatten Image.

Step 2. Ensure the snap is on in view.

Step 3 Using the selection tool, make a selection from the left side of the image to a point approximately ¾ towards the right had side stopping at a place of no interest.

Save this selection, I called it Left hand. This will help you later on.

Step 4 While the area still selected press Ctrl J, Apple J on the Mac. This creates a copy of the selection in a new layer.

Step 5 As before create a new layer above the background layer and fill with white.

 Step 6 Turn off the visibility of the top layer and select the layer below.

 Step 7 Using the move tool move the selection to the far left ensuring snap is still on.

 

Step 8 Turn on the visibility and set the opacity to 50% of the layer above, and with the move tool move it to the right ensuring it does not move up or down.

Step 9 My image was a little out on the over lap.

Step 10 Once in place use the free transform tool. If you hold down the Ctrl/Apple key while using the centre handle you can skew it up or down leaving the right hand side of the image pixels still in place. 

Step 11 As before once you have a good match for position let it transform the image and the put the opacity back to 100% and add a layer mask to the top layer. 

 

At this stage I saved a copy of this image as PSD file. Now I flattened the image and cropped it, ensuring that I did not crop into the image at either end or out side of the image at either end. The top and bottom is not as important, so it you can tidy the edges by cropping them. If you crop in at the ends you find you have a dark band at the join and if you crop out side of the image you find you have a white band. I then saved this Hi resolution image as a JPEG. Finally I reduced the image to 400 pixel high by ? at 96 dpi. The image was finally saved for web using Photoshop in preparation for it's use with the supplied HTML/CSS/jQuery code. 

Finished panoramic

A stich in time.

This is just a run through of how I stitched my panoramic together. I saved all my sequences to individual folders. I employed this method for all of the panoramic. The steps layed out here presuppose you have some understanding of Photoshop.

Step 1 Open all the images from a sequence in Photoshop, compile them into stacked and layered image.
 

Step 2 Using the crop tool extend the background.

 

Step 3 Create a layer on the bottom and fill it with white. This will help you when you drag the layer across later.

Step.4 Turn off the visibility on all the layers except the bottom white layer and the top two.Turn the uppermost layer to opacity 50%.

  
 Step 5. Activate the layer below and drag it across using the move tool.

Step 6. Line it up with layer above it. Choose an area in from the left around 1/3 of the image which has a natural break, i,e, the chimney pots in the sample image. You will not be able to match the whole image. You only need to match a thin strip.

 

Step 7. Activate the layer above and return opacity to 100%. Add a layer mask. Use the brush tool and black. Paint the mask, in the area you want to erase on the image, ( the unseen part of the image) This is non destructive action, you are only hiding the image with the mask. If you paint too much change the colour to white, by pressing X and remove the dark painted areas.

 Step 8. I turn off the visibility of on the layer just worked on and activate the layer below turning the opacity   to 50%.

 Step 9. Activate the layer below and drag it across using the move tool.We are starting to repeat the process in step 6. 

 Repeat until all layers are in place.

If you need to adjust the colour, density you can insert adjustment layer acting only on that layer. I have found another way of blending a different sky density between two adjacent layers. I set the brush to 50% opacity and 50% flow and use that in the sky area building up density in the mask until the sky matches.