Bushido:: Exhibition Promotion_Existing

A worthwhile exercise to look into existing promotion for exhibitions in terms of formats and the kinds of features they all contain, to kind of know the rules so I can create something which kind of breaks them and is fresh and new.

I'm leaning towards TATE Modern, in London as it has the right balance of art and design in terms of Print, Tate Britain seems to have more sculpture and Fine Art. Tate Modern is also the most frequently visited and in central London so it's in a suitable location for the younger demographic I'm targeting.

TATE Website

You get a good idea when seeing all the promotional material invovled and the organisation of an exhibition when looking at existing ones - for example one on at the moment is Lichtenstein - A Retrospective. As I'm going to propose a website design it's been helpful to see what kind of information to include

Exhibition information

Booking page, choose time and date, promo codes and different prices for different groups. Admission is free but access to certain exhibitions is at a cost. 

Important exhbition information:

Title of exhibition

Length of exhibition

Price for Adults, concessions and children

Opening times

Book Now

Store links

Important museum information:

About Tate

Getting Here

Access & Facilities

School visits

Contact Us

Related events

Private view

Members' private view: Lichtenstein: A Retrospective

Tuesday 19 February 2013, 10.00 – 17.15

Thursday 21 February 2013, 18.45 – 21.30

Thursday 4 April 2013, 18.45 – 21.30

Wednesday 1 May 2013, 18.45 – 21.30

Courses and workshops

Wham! Print! Pop!

Mondays 25 February – 25 March 2013, 18.45 – 20.45

Architecture: art meets sound with Adjaye Associates

Sunday 28 April 2013, 12.00 – 17.00

Film

Roy Lichtenstein: Three Landscapes

Saturday 9 March – Sunday 24 March 2013

Roy Lichtenstein

Sundays 7 April – 12 May 2013, 12.00 – 13.00

Roy Lichtenstein: Tokyo Brushstrokes and Reflections

Sundays 7 April – 12 May 2013, 14.00 – 15.00

Talks and lectures

Curator’s talk and private view: Lichtenstein

Monday 11 March 2013, 18.30 – 20.30

Lichtenstein Dinner

Thursday 11 April 2013, 18.45 – 22.00

Curator's tour: Lichtenstein

Monday 15 April 2013, 18.30 – 20.30

Conference

Global Pop symposium

Thursday 14, 10.15 – 17:40 and Friday 15 March 2013, 10.30 – 17.45

Lichtenstein and Pop Study Day: Other Worlds of British Pop

Saturday 16 March 2013, 10.30 – 17.30

Daily activities

The Pop Room

Friday 29 March – Sunday 5 May 2013

The Shop

Selling my branding material is a realstic path to take as Tate already sell souvenirs print and merchandise through the online store and when visiting the art shop sells a variety of books and products which would be perfect for exhibition related books, posters and sets.

Visual Outdoor Promotion

Some interesting examples of promotion for exhibitions, events and introspectives I could consider, it helps to know the foundations and recurring characteristics of material by seeing what's already out there.

This rustic and a bit more of a sort of paste-up style is the image I want to go for, for a sort of viral campaign for the exhibition rather than the kind of stuck up, bourgeoise kind of promotion and demographics that art galleries try to attract.

These are all posters communicating an event or exhibition but do it in an interesting and effective, playful way. I'm going to produce work similar to this. I want each poster to be different and unique yet also part of the set. As if a different designer worked on each poster.

All promotional posters above hold information about:

the venue

date

admission

title of exhibition

address

I want my posters to be more cryptic as they need to be quick to digest and inviting you to find out more. So the information I will include is:

Title of exhibition

logo of exhibition

Mention of specific 'virtue' of bushido

Art gallery logo

Length of exhibition. e.g. 21 may - 30 August

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I plan on starting working on the posters tomorrow, or the latest by Friday which gives a weekend to solely focus on the posters and make some progress. By the end of next week the posters need to be done hopefully. 

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Bushido:: Visual Style Inspiration

I'm now going to brand an exhibition aimed at a younger audience to engage with and attend an exhibition to learn more about Japanese and Far Easter history specifically in terms of the idea of a warrior throughout history, culture, media and art.

I will focus more on the branding and I will not propose the exhibition layout and organisation itself, it's almost as if the museum has asked me to brand the exhibition and not work on the exhibition as a space itself.

I'm going to have a much more loose visual style now, as it relates to me and my design aspirations and portfolio and also gives a more cutting edge visual style not associated with this topic of the Far East. I'm inspired by studios such as HORT who have worked with Nike and took a fairly generic topic such as Basketball and turned it on it's head and portrayed so much movement and character and an experimental quality to it. 

I plan on taking notes from this towards the idea of the Samurai. Giving Samurai and Bushido imagery a contemporary and experimental twist, referencing the source material but creating cutting edge design which appeals to the idea of a modern exhibition and the demographic I'm targeting in London.


Can't wait!

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Publication:: Binding

Right now I'm leaning towards this form of binding as it'll be simple to prepare for in terms of print, I won't have to print the leafs and individual papers out in the form of a booklet - which could be a bit of a headache when working with A2 size double page spreads -

I can print off each page individually double sided as you would with a perfect bind and doing this also eradicates the problem of the book functioning and when the book is finished you can flick through the posters

Doing this also allows me to perforate the edge so the user can rip off a poster or page to stick on a wall if they so please which will add a cool touch.

This publication is almost like a minaiture version of what I'm looking to do! I just want a separate booklet binded at the front with the pages at the back also separately usable.

The only issue with this type of bind is you have to account for the binding area in your inner margin and it can get quite tight in the inside margin, especially with a lot of pages so it might get ab it unweidly to use. I'm going to mock it up tomorrow as best as I can so I can crack on with the publication, time is not on my side at the moment.

This is the kind of aesthetic style I want to capture with different sizes and different forms of interactivity, once the binding is nailed down I can play around with the format and scales of individual pages.

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Publication:: Mock-Up 1

I made a mock-up yesterday to better gauge thei nteraction and format of the publication. In terms of my concept it's very simple, I'm applying fundamental design theory to existing design by recreating the poster in either the European or Japanese graphic design movement of the 50's onwards in the post-war period. Although both are modernist I feel they approached progressive design in a different way and I want to illustrate this.

I've been scratching my head in terms of how to make the use and interaction of the product befit the topic I'm covering, I was inspired by the Tokyo '60 Design Conference. I love the difference in colours, stocks and formats. I really enjoy the way it's all layered and geometric yet also so colourful and playful.

Beautiful design ! The main concept in terms of usability is to reference this and have  the feeling of a variety of different products, formats and stocks somehow bound together to create this sort of scrapbook of visual debate between Europe and Japan. What I'd be referencing is also a very important event in Japanese graphic design history and bridged the gap between the rest of the world.

This is just a mock-up yet and I want to go to town more with the layering of formats and think about the colours and stocks more but I feel this is the best way to go, for my own visual development and for the brief.

With everything opened out on face value the information will be seamless throughout all the individual leafs, everything will line-up for example the title of the publication will run over the booklet and onto the stock underneath it creating an interesting effect.

Book is the first thing you'd read, this is more of the debate side with the layout and purpose of a standard book, I may have tipped in sections and little books within the book, this will be an extension of my essay laid out in a modernist format with facing pages in a separate layout, showing the conflict and agreeing elements between different takes on modernist design.

Once booklet is read you see the posters with a small cover which explains "How would X look if Europe (or a specific European designer) got their hands on it?" and similarly "How would X look if Japan (or a specific Japanese designer) got their hands on it?". The small cover will show the original design and the recreated poster underneath it.

Turning the small cover reveals a quote on the back of it which reinforces the design principles of that designer/movement and the recreated poster reveals itself. 

Turn a poster to see another poster and cover which recreated the same original artwork. 

It's almost as if the book is one product in itself which works as a book and the posters also form a sort of book. There will be a minimum of 6 posters, so at least 3 pieces of design will be recreated both in a European and Japanese design sensibility.

The issue for me at the moment is binding methods, tomorrow I'm going to discuss this with other students and see what they reckon. The issue is how I can bind a book to individual leafs (the posters) and still make the book function and not be tacked down and immobile.

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I'm going to look into this more and give myself no more than a day to finalise exactly what I'm going to do and how it will be put together in terms of format and binding to find the best solution.

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Type & Grid: Concertina Booklet: Existing examples

As a culmination of type & grid sessions with Phil I'm creating a football magazine which is in a concertina fold format as I feel this wil be a refreshing change and brings interesting possibilities in terms of flicking through a page at a time or simply opening it all up to create one big spread with ease.

A good call before starting this is to see what's already out there and the kind of visual style I want to aim for. I want this to be more of a premium supplement, not in terms of price, it'll be more collectable and exclusive to certain stores such as the Village book-store in Leeds. Catering for the consumer interested in experimental and considered layouts with design sensibilities.

Below are examples of football magazines and match programmes I like for various reasons such as scale, colour palette, layout and communication.

The Good

I've highlighted these as I feel these have a much more considered layout than match programmes you might find these days with bold text, less emphasis on the players and more of a class and collectibility about them. The images are more considered and have less emphasis on layering players and sticking drop shadows and outer glows around them

West Brom 68

Arsenal '54-'55

Ajax '75-76

Arsenal '71-72

Arsenal '63-64

One of my favourites! Simple yet so bold. 

You wouldn't see something like this now. Cheeky bit of helvetica

FA Cup '67

City v United '75

Portsmouth v Wolves '39

United v Derby '70

The Bad

Don't mean to sound like a hipster but it seems decent design kind of got lost through the years in terms of match programmes and I definitely wouldn't bother keeping any of these. This is the design style I want to steer away from.

This isn't the aesthetic style I want, won't go anywhere near it. I feel it creates a certain image of football I want to steer away from, it feels and looks cheap and tacky. 

Existing Footy magazines

My magazine will differentiate itself from most magazines out there and market itself towards a specific audience to be more a coffee table magazine, rather than a throw-away magazine as a lot of football magazines are.

FourFourTwo is a stop-gap between cheap football magazines targeted at the younger schoolkid demographic and between high-end glossy coffee table magazines.

All these magazines target a certain demographic and probably are successful in doing so but they create quite a stereotypical, dare I say 'unintelligent' image of football fans with grungey and loud text with overcrowded front covers. Football fans are human like the rest of us and appreciate a nice bit of design too. 

I feel in the past football magazines didn't feel the need to be so loud and the communication was more pure, like here...

Against the norm?

There are a few magazines out there which break the trend and have found success such as Howler magazine a US based glossy which has a highly illustrative and well designed approach to football coverage.

My magazine will most likely be a free supplement available on the stands at select football matches or maybe all. It will be inexpensive to produce and won't hold a vast amount of content but I aim for it to be clean, clear, experimental and a change from the usual stuff you'd receive. And also importantly, collectable.

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