WIG? - Place.

DAY 2

This morning I arrived at the studio and was told not to get comfy as Rob and I were going to be going over to the Whitworth art gallery on Oxford Road to meet the Curator and discuss the placement of some vinyls for a new exhibition that was is under construction there.

I was basically shadowing Rob and the Curator and observing the things that discussed. What I picked up on was that they talked about the visibility of the vinyls and what the viewers typically do when walking around the gallery and how this affects how they will see/notice them. This also covered topics such as lighting as some areas in the gallery would be in darkness or very low, soft lighting. They talk a little bit about the content but not extensively as this I would imagine was already designed before i began my work placement. Measurements of the wall spaces were taken throughout.

Once this was sorted we sat down and they discussed the leaflet for the exhibition making amendments and figuring out how to include the gallery map on the final prints. This was a good time to take notes on some of the things they talked about. The initial things were issues such as colour and legibility of the text, then they went on to more fine details such as the stock tone complimenting the colours of the image and the layout in terms of how the audience will open it up and read it. The one thing that stood out for me though was that they considered the conditions in which the leaflet would be read, for instance the lighting in certain rooms would make it impossible and in others very easy. This wouldn't have crossed my mind before hand.

This all took about 2 hours including travel time and speaking to Rob on the way back he told me that its quite a common thing to go on such visits and meetings.

Once back at the studio I was set to work designing some ideas for icons and symbols that would be suitable for the BBC project. I was given a copy of the brief which provided a lot guide lines what they wanted the work to look and feel like. Here are some of the designs I got done during the afternoon before finishing for the day.

I tried to produce these quite quickly and i found it hard to go straight into it and get designing digitally. I spoke to my desk buddy Neil (designer) as he was working on the project as well and looking at the way he worked helped as I noticed that he has a sketch book open most of the time where he draws very simple little shapes and marks to indicate what he's aiming for. I gave this a try and produced several thumbnails in my own sketchbook and it helped to visualise what i could do. Putting the rough images in my head down on to paper is a good way of clearing your mind and then being able to develop them.