Creativity and the End User - Essay

Creativity and the End User is very much a theoretical module and is mostly word based, there is little or no design involved in this module at all. For our term one brief for this module we were told to write a 1500 word essay on how the videos of other artists we watched during lessons had inspired us and how we would now adapt our working practise. The artists we looked at included:

Carole Guevin















Katrin Olina

















Philippe Starck

Intro To Digital - Technical File (Theory)

Intro to Digital is the module where we learned how to use design software/ packages such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign.

The brief for this project was to produce a technical file explaining the design tools found within each one of these programmes and how to use them. The technical file also explains about different techniques that can be done using these programmes. At the end of each section I gave ten examples of the work I had created using that specific programme. The technical file was basically a reference guide for using these design programmes. An example of my tech file can be seen below: (Click to enlarge)

Pearly Kings and Queens: Winning!

I am pleased to say that our tutors were very impressed with our suit design as well as the thinking behind it and the creativity that went into it. Therefore my group was one of three groups to win the competition to have our suits put into production. From this week we will begin work on actually creating the suits and updates will be posted on the blog as production gets underway. Once the suit is completed it will be displayed in the University of Huddersfield Degree Show, the University of Huddersfield Library and hopefully the Vivienne Westwood Shop in Manchester. I say hopefully as negotiations are still underway. Updates will be posted.

Pearly Kings and Queens: Designing The Suit

Once we had a theme our group decided to combine the best features from suits that individuals in the group had come up with during concept development. After plenty of discussion we finally came up with a design everyone in the group felt happy with: (Please click to enlarge)

Pearly Kings and Queens: Getting A Theme

Once we had established what Pearly Kings and Queens were, we were then told that we would be creating our ow version of a Pearly suit as part of a class competition. There would be three winners of this competition who would get their suit design put into production and displayed at the University Degree Show following which they would be displayed in the University Library.

Unlike the Pearlies however,we would use badges, like the ones below, rather than buttons for our suits.


We were then given several themes for our suit designs. My group picked renewable energy.Following much discussion and debate decided that we wanted to go with two mini themes within the heading of renewable energy which were solar power and recycling. We decided to cover the solar power idea by spelling out the words solar power on the suit and using badges to create solar panels on the suit. To cover the recycling part we decided to make the badges out of recycled crisp packets.

Pearly Kings and Queens: Research

This module, Conceptual Design is the biggie worth 40 credits. For this first term project we were organised into groups and told to research pearly Kings and Queens. My group included Sian, Kuv, Jack and Graham. This is what I came up with for the research part of this project:

The pearly Kings and Queens originated in the year 1875 and were founded by Henry Croft (1862 - 1930). Some Pearly Kings and Queens still reign today in their various London districts. The Pearlies were costermongers or street vendors of fruit and vegetables, and their distinctive costumes are said to have sprung from a big cargo of buttons from Japan in the 1860's.

It seems that one of the costermongers sewed some of the buttons round the edge of his wide-bottomed trousers and the fashion caught on. Traditionally costers elected 'Kings' to lead them against bullies seeking to drive them from their pitches. Each individual area of London had a King and his 'donah' or wife. and both were elaborately turned out.




The magnificent suits, hats and dresses, handed down together with hereditary titles, are sewn with mystic symbols, stars, moons, suns, flowers, diamonds, trees of life, eyes of Gods and fertility designs. Each outfit can have as many as 30,000 buttons on it and can weight as much as 30 kilograms or more.

Nowadays these suits are worn at charity events, christenings, weddings and funerals. Where there is a special charity drive the Kings and Queens ride in splendour on their decorated carts. At the annual autumn Harvest Festival service at St Martin-in-the- Fields Church in London, the Pearly princesses take bouquets of vegetables as thank offerings.

Source: http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/PearlyKingsQueens.htm

Typography & Layout Design - Good Typo vs. BAd Typo

For this brief we basically had to find example of good typography as well as example of bad typography and explain why we felt these examples were either good or bad. So to find examples of different typography styles I went walking around the streets of Huddersfield city centre taking pictures of signs on builds, on cars, on poles etc.I collected numerous pictures but only needed to submit six for marking. The following are the six that I submitted:



I choose this font as an example of good typography because it is a sans serif typeface and therefore simple, uncluttered and easy to read.




I choose this 'mpeople' example because of its even contrast and bold weight making it clear to read and the use of ligatures between the 'm' and the 'p' giving it a more stylised look.

This last example on the left was chosen because it shows a good understanding of the weight of the characters and the spaces between them, which helps achieve the twin aesthetic aims of appeal and legibility.


This 'Merrie England' sign was picked as an example of bad typography because it has extensive 'ears', 'spurs' and bracketed serifs that make it hard to read and unappealing.




This was also picked as an example of bad typography because the drop out type added to the pixelated style of the typeface make legibility difficulty.


This is also a bad example of typography due to the extensive use of ligatures combined with the small size of the text makes the overall spacing a bit uneven and affects legibility slightly.