OUGD603 - Brief 3 - Internal Collaborative - YCN Competition Brief - Art Fund - Evaluation against the brief and Project Evaluation

Evaluation against the brief 

The ‘Take time_’ campaign encourages students to take time out in museums, galleries and historic houses. The concept visually represents these places within clock faces with the underscore from Art Funds logo extending to create a line, which journeys through the clock faces to become clock hands. This extension of the underscore throughout the designs reflects Art Funds concept of the underscore being to ‘take the viewer on a visual journey’. ‘Take time_’ is a clear and concise campaign title and works alongside the key words within the designs to create a narrative.

The campaign raises awareness of the benefits of visiting museums, galleries and historic houses through the use of key words which were outlined in Art Fund’s Calm and Collected research. Statistics within the animation outline the problem of anxiety and how museums can help, with GIFs using questions to highlight the problem, whilst the message of the campaign provides a solution to this.

The aesthetic of the design is suitable for 18 - 24 year olds, because of the use of bright colours and playful illustrations. Feedback suggested the design was clearly for students as the information was quick and to the point, whilst things were represented visually making it instantly understandable.
The pace of the animation was purposefully meditative and the use of the line on a journey keeps students engaged longer than they typically would be on screens. The music has an energetic and upbeat feel whilst the change in tune reflects the movement of the journey. Feedback suggested the pace of the animation and music was relaxing but perhaps their could be a screen before the animation telling people to take a minute out to watch the video so that they know it is going to be a longer piece.

The design highlights how the Student Art Pass enables students to see things without financial barriers, by clearly stating the price of the pass on all the outcomes, featuring prominently on the poster and placed at the end of the digital elements so people would be encouraged to take action after.

Imagery within the designs is inspired by museums, galleries and historic houses across the UK showing the breadth and variety of places on offer in the UK. Places within the clock faces reflect places from different areas within the UK so people could relate to some of the places and see that they are close to at least one.

The call to action with the design is ‘Time to get a Student Art Pass’ which is followed by a link to the website. This acts as a clear call to action with the play on words linking back to the overall concept of the campaign.

The campaign follows Art Fund’s brand guidelines through the use of pastel colours, bright blue and the extension of the underscore in Art Funds_ logo. Feedback suggested the designs used the brand guidelines well in terms of tone of voice, aesthetic and use of brand elements. The Student Art Pass and Art Fund_ is referenced throughout the designs with details about the pass featured in the animation.

The campaign has a digital focus as this has the widest reach with the animation created to be featured on the Art Fund website and a series of GIFs were made which could be shared on social media. The changing imagery within the GIFs makes the content more engaging than static imagery. The campaign is effective across digital and print, with the poster design enabling people to see the campaign in a physical context rather than solely existing online. posters would be used in places with high footfall such as train stations and on digital billboards at bus stops.

Project Evaluation

This brief was done in collaboration with Megan Dobbyn from BA Illustration at Leeds Arts University and was produced over a few months running alongside other projects we were doing. Meg is a friend so we already knew each other which made collaborating easier and I knew I could trust her. We worked well as a team with both of us having similar work ethics and we could rely on one another to work independently. We regularly met up with at least one timetabled meeting a week and informal chats inbetween.

The subject matter of the campaign which related to museums, galleries and historic houses was what drew me to the collaboration as I have an interest in Arts and Heritage.

Initially I found it difficult coming up with ideas for the project as I had to consider ways in which both our work would come together to create something effective. This made me have to approach ideas in a way that I wouldn't necessarily within my own work, for example purely Graphic Design ideas had to be adapted or disregarded.

Although I had lots of ideas at the beginning of the project sometimes they did not always make sense to Meg and I felt I wasn't doing my ideas justice. I found it especially useful to develop initial ideas into mock ups so that she could visually see how things would look and how her work would fit within the ideas, with this approach helping me overcome this problem.

When choosing a concept to go with we both had favourites. I was conscious I didn't want to just be in charge of layout and type and that I wanted to produce a physical element within the design. Combining the two ideas that we liked allowed both of our interests to come together so that we would both get something out of the project.

Although the deliverables were digital we managed to bring a physical element into the production of the designs. In terms of designing within the project I particularly enjoyed making the papercut designs for the backgrounds. The use of one material layered up created an interesting 3D effect which I hadn't worked with before and one which we managed to capture within the images.

At the start of the project Meg had said that she had wanted to develop her animating skills, so we directed the outcomes towards this. We severely underestimated how difficult, what seemed to be such a simple concept, would be to animate.

I organised for a photography student to take pictures of the papercut designs, however they had to cancel on the day that we were due to take the photographs because of other projects. This meant I had to take photographs of all designs myself. I found it difficult to capture the colours of the papers used within the designs even with studio lighting, which wasn't ideal. If we had the photographer potentially we would have been able to get the right colour quality within camera rather than having to do so much post editing in Photoshop.

Potentially the project went on for longer than we both expected. Meg set a deadline at the end of the project so that we could intensively work on it to get it finished. I found this quite difficult as there was still quite alot to do and I didn't want to rush the final thing, however it was a good thing because it forced us to get the project done and we were both happy with the outcomes. It also highlighted the fact that not everything needs to be perfect and that little details are often overlooked by people who are looking at a design for the first time.

Although I was happy with the final outcomes and I thought we produced some strong work I found that I don't really have an interest in creating purely digital outcomes / campaigns but did enjoy the craft element of the paper designs elements.