Today was the first day in which the part timers dove tailed back with the full time people, which means we’re all working at the same place now. I don’t have any time left as an advantage! Scary thought!
Mike briefed in the Resolution project, which we’ve had since the beginning of the year, but it was good to spend a day with it with everyone else so give it some space. I was then asked to show my posters and work thus far to the group which was a little much!
Mike explained that this (for them and I guess for us) was a time to experiment and play around with the project. And that most people don’t really know what their project is going to be until around June of this year! Which struck me as worrying as I feel like I’ve already got a strong idea of where I’m going; a series of posters and a poster book with an overview of WDI, the analysis of the designs and a philosophy of visual culture at WDI. So if I work towards that, will it morph into something else? Or will I have not done enough research to start making the analysis at this point?
We have a prototype review in just over a month, which I think would be a good place to present the ‘book’ version of what I’m doing. Mike keeps talking about doing an A2 poster book but I think that’ll be too much ad would much prefer to do one at slightly larger than A3. Like the current Disney coffee table books and the copy of Grammar of the Ornament thats in the university library. Mine isn’t quite as nice.
This would also be a good time to showcase the foiling work we were discussing for the cover, although I can’t remember the name of the machine so will need to email mike about that. I’ve also reached out to Andy Bega, a local sign writer I know so I can can an understanding of window decal sign writing and gold leafing. I’ll also need to look into book binding. And grid systems for book publications.
I spoke to Matt in the printing studio about the full colour printing I attempted last week, and it doesn’t sound like I was too far off my attempt last week, but the order in which I did things was round the wrong way. Turns out you don’t split the colours and then halftone them you halftone them and then split the colours. At least thats how Matt did it. For reference the process is; convert design to CMYK. Filter>Pixelate>Colour Halftone. Then set the the halftone to 8 frequency. 1-108 2-162 3-90 4-45 which is much different from what I was shown online. After this print each channel in black digitally. I’ll test this when I get back from France. Hopefully I’ll find the time.
The issue I know have having joined up with the full timer’s is that I only have one day to do everything, so if we have a full day of tutorials or something, I don’t get enough time to print as well.
Part of the brief was talking about where the project would sit in the larger world of graphic design and other audiences. I’ve always said this project would be of interest to Disney fans, graphic designers and the combination of the two. Which I still believe, but think that maybe a straight reproduction of GOTO might be a little dry and stuffy. So I’ll need to make my version a bit more visually interesting. I’ll also try to include some informational design work in the book where I can. I’ll have to see how the analysis come together and what information is common across the studies in order to find out what this will look like. This kind of speaks back to the idea I had early on about creating top trump cards for each design, saying where it is, when it was made, who made it (if possible) etc etc.
Lastly, I’ve got my first interview lined up with someone that has worked with WDI. A guy called Rob Yeo who has made a few posters and sign work for DLP. I think as a freelancer but I’ll find that out when speaking to him. I need to make some notes about his work and what to ask him. One thing I want to know is how they printed the posters and did he think about that during the design process? I think I remember seeing in the poster book they used to screen them but don’t anymore. That would make sense.