Cosy

This is such a nice ad which allows the Natural Gas company to be a much more homely name rather than the corporate looking and sounding Scottish Power, British Gas, NPower, etc.

The idea of it being softer than other gas combined with the handmade/kitsch/homey knitting gives it a much more appealing approach.  The advert will be noticed by more of all ages - not realising that it is for a gas company until the end.

Original Source

As part of research for the Body Shop packaging brief I am looking at Original Source packaging, after getting a bottle in my stocking. 


I was expecting to find that their packaging very 'green' but I am still unsure about the extent. There is little information on the website. The design for the new Original Source packaging were by Alloy who focused on the colours and shape of the packaging ensuring that it resonated nature.


I have found on the bottle that it is 100% recyclable, including the cap, but I thought that the environment would be much higher in their priorities. Through research for my Report I found that many authors writing about the environment say that recycling is like a 'get out of jail free card'. It allows for continual consumption but offers an aspirin to hide the pain.


I will look more at Original Source and other brands as part of my research for The Body Shop.

Vogue Layouts

SourceAn article on Creative Review Blog showed the covers for all of the 2010 editions of UK and Italian Vogue. The layered images show a clear template for the design of the covers. The outcome of the layered covers caught my eye. The eerie layouts portray a completely different Vogue to the one we know. It is also interesting to see the difference between the Italian and UK covers. The UK design being very light and colorful compared to the heavy and dark Italian design, is this because of the magazines that the UK popularly read? Celeb, glossy magazines have a similar appearance to the white and pink Vogue covers seen above.
Also interesting is the use of a template. A design consultancy I had experience with was recently faced with the suggestion of using templates for the majority of their work. I can see the advantages of this practice, consistency being the key advantage, but templates almost deem the designer void. Art-workers are mainly used to place work into a template.  However, in Vogue, im sure the designers have plenty of work to be doing and by using templates they can keep their covers consistent and recognizable whilst also being fairly quick to put together.
This does make me consider, what was a favourable option, a career choice into editorial or magazine design. 

Business can now measure the carbon impact of advertising

Article on Greenwise

Programme CarbonTrack will allow companies to measure the carbon impact of their advertising from beginning to end. This programme will allow companies to choose the best option for advertising. They can compare their other advertisiment analysis' with the CarbonTrack data and decide which will be most cost effective, effective and most environmentally friendly.

This is a great programme for companies but will it actually be used? The popularity of CarbonTrack will show us how much the environment is actually a concern to companies.

I am unsure of the workings of CarbonTracker but it sonds as if it may also be useful to designers who can use it to research the impact of the designs they are producing, letting them then develop and improve them so that the carbon impact is reduced.

Illustration Inspiration II

   

Sonia Roy, has quite a different, unusual illustration style. The collages always have a slightly awkward feeling about them that I like.

Her work gave me inspiration for illustrations for the competition brief which I started but soon realised that they weren't very relevant or suited to the brief. The illustrations need to have minimal colour that impact, also an image that isn't too complicated to have in a story - it can't detract from the story but add to it.

Illustration Inspiration

As part of my research for the House of Illustration competition brief I have been looking at a variety of illustrators. Who best to start with than Quentin Blake who has been one of my favourite illustrators since I could read a Roald Dahl story.

I think the reason I love his drawings so much is because of the identifiable style thats never precise - clumsy almost. Also, the use of watercolours create a depth and texture which gives further explanation of the image.

End of term

So I finally finished my Dissertation, Report 1. It is ready to be picked up and placed in the box with fingers crossed until result day.

My other projects have been put on the back-burner a little recently, but not forgotten about! I am almost there with my Illustration brief. The illustrations use minimal colors with lots of texture. They were developed from the experimental screen prints I did of one of the illustrations.

I have also been doing a bit of upcycling. Screen printing onto my old promotional postcards, which I no longer need, use or particularly like. They are now a collection of Christmas cards to be sent out in re-used, scrap envelopes taken from a studio.

Bringing it home

Climate change will cost people their homes, claims this article. Due to the rising sea levels countries will loose land and therefore people will loose their homes, Venice is already feeling the effects.

Melting Arctic Sea Ice May Actually Cause Colder Northern Winters

The article from Treehugger is very important to the climate change arguments. One of the most popular statements/questions is that, how can global warming actually be happening when it is so cold and we have so much snow? My understanding of this is that global warming is melting glaciers which in turn effects the transfer of heat, mostly in the seas, which is changing the temperature of Europe and other northern altitude areas.

This is definitely an area I want to clear up with my project.