Graphic Design – Principals and Purpose

Design Style Influences

These are the things that a brand must consider when creating their branding and overall style.

• Business Type - What a business sells, creates or provides.
• Brand Values - What a brand cares about/aims to achieve.
• Brand Positioning - Financial placement of a brand.
• Economy
• Mid-range
• High-end

7 Principles of Graphic Design

1. Balance

This refers to the spread of the graphic design elements, like shapes, text boxes and images, of a design evenly throughout a layout. Designers can choose between a balanced (stable) design or off-balanced (dynamic) layout.

Symmetrical – This type of design is where the weight of the elements is evenly divided into both sides of the layout.

Asymmetrical – This type of balance employs scale, contrast and colour to even out the flow of a layout. It is usually found in websites, where two sides of a webpage differ from each other but contain similar elements.

2. Alignment

This aspect of a design creates a visual connection between elements such as images, shapes or blocks of texts. Alignment helps develop a sharp and ordered appearance by lining up similar or related elements in order to create a cleaner design.

3. Hierarchy

This method combines two aspects, dominance and priority, giving extra weight to certain elements of a design over others. It helps brands convey their message to the audience by focusing on a particular element of the design. Hierarchy can be achieved by:

• Highlighting the title using large or bold fonts;
• Placing the key message at a higher level than other elements;
• Adding shapes to frame the focal view;
• Implementing detailed and colourful visuals.

4. Contrast

Contrast is an important principle in any form of visual art as it guides the customer’s attention to the key elements of a design. It is essential for maintaining the distinction between similar elements in a design, thereby enhancing a layout’s overall legibility. Contrast is formed when design elements are placed in opposition on a layout, for example:

• Dark vs light;
• Thick vs thin;
• Contemporary vs traditional;
• Large vs small.

5. Rhythm

Rhythm brings together different elements to create a more organised and consistent look. Repetition of certain elements such as logos or colour can help make a brand easily recognisable and strengthen the overall look.

6. Proximity

Proximity helps in decluttering the overall design by creating a relationship between related elements. It forms a visual connection among important design factors such as colour, font, type or size, ensuring the layout is balanced to form a perfect design. It enables the audience to have a pleasant overview of what they are looking at, thereby offering a good user experience.

7. Colour and Space

Choosing the right colour can help define the tone of the design. Designers can choose from a wide range of colour combinations for the background and text of the layout. 

Space refers to the area around or between the various elements of the design. It can either be used to create shapes or highlight the important aspects of a design. Graphic designers use a colour palette to choose colours that can create contrast or even work together to complement other elements.

Google Doc Task

Task 1: Design Style Influences

For the following three business types, find an example (picture) of branding (advert, logo, etc) for an economy, mid-range, and high-end brand.

Supermarket

Tech Company

Fashion and Clothing

Once you have found your branding, use Google to find some information on the values of each brand (What they believe in, Why they started, What they wish to achieve, etc)

Task 2: Principles of Graphic Design

For each of our 7 principles find an example (picture) of graphic design that shows it in clear use.

For each image, write a sentence describing how they principle has been used.

Introduction to Unit – Visual Identity and Digital Graphics

In this unit you will learn to how to develop visual identities for clients and use the concepts of graphic design to create original digital graphics to engage target audiences.

Topics Include: 

• Develop visual identity
• Plan digital graphics for products
• Create visual identity and digital graphics.

Glossary: Visual identity is all of the imagery and graphical information that expresses who a brand is and differentiates it from all the others. In other words, it describes everything customers can physically see, from the logo to the interior design of a store.

The purpose of visual identity is:

• To create an emotional impression on viewers
• To inform viewers about the nature of the brand and services/products offered.
• To unify the many different aspects of a business through consistent visuals

Elements of Visual Identity:

Visual identity is essentially a brand’s visual language. As such, its individual elements are, like words, the building blocks that allow the messenger to create meaning. Here, we’ll look at these separate elements that come together to form a cohesive visual identity.

1. Graphics

2. Typography

3. Colour Palette

4. Imagery

5. Physical Brand Assets

Graphics

Graphics, in the context of visual identity, are picture assets that are drawn or designed. They can be as simple as forms and shapes—consider a Lego block or the Coca-Cola bottle and how these distinctive silhouettes signify their respective brands. Or they can be more complex, such as a logo, icons, or even full-scale illustrations or animations.

Typography

Typography is the shape or styling of the text you use in your branding. There are many different types of fonts, and each one can have a different effect on the viewer, including different degrees of legibility. For the purposes of visual identity, you’ll want to consider the wordmark to your logo, a headline font and a body copy font (which should be the most legible).

Colour Palette

Colour is used to identify a brand through a scheme of very specific hues, shades and tints. This means brands do not simply use red or green but shiraz and seafoam. When used correctly, colours can generate powerful emotional responses in the viewer.

Whilst often beginning with the logo, these colours should be repurposed for all brand materials. Designers will generally need to assign a primary colour (the main colour for your brand), a secondary colour (to be used in the background), and an accent colour (for contrast on assets such as a pop-up). Keep in mind that the absence of colour, such as black and white, is a perfectly valid colour choice as well.

Imagery

Imagery describes photography and video content as well as any spokespeople who act as the living “image” of the brand in advertisements. When it comes to visual identity, designers must curate only those images that are the most representative of the brand’s personality and, most importantly, its customers.

Brand imagery is the element most related to the target audience because people empathise with faces and naturally want to see themselves reflected in the brands they consume.

Physical Brand Assets

Physical assets are the material objects that contribute to a brand’s visual identity. This may not apply to brands who don’t have a physical presence, and the nature of these assets will vary even within businesses that do. But as this is an important element of visual identity for physical brands, it is worth going over.

Physical assets can include the layout and design of a store (think of how all Apple Stores look alike with white interiors and glass storefronts), the uniforms that customer-facing employees wear, and the crockery, cutlery and tablecloths used in restaurants. All of these send a message to consumers, including the lack of consistency.

Google Doc Task:

Task 1: Choose a well-known recognisable brand and find images that show their use of:

1. Graphics
2. Typography
3. Colour Palette
4. Imagery
5. Physical Brand Assets (If applicable)

For each, write a short description alongside your image.

Task 2: Refer back to our introduction of the purpose of ‘Visual Identity’:

1. What emotional response does your chosen brand aim to incite in their audience?
2. What is the overall nature of their brand/products/ services?
3. How are they consistent in their use of visuals across the different aspects of their branding?

Challenge: Create your own fictional brand and begin to consider the same aspects that you have just outlined above for this brand.

Magazine cover practical project

The best way to learn about a type of media product is to create one yourself. We are going to create our own magazine cover to learn the key conventions and design of magazines.

This will also be an excellent project for you to demonstrate your new skills on Photoshop.

Task: Choose an existing magazine and create a front cover for a new, original edition of your chosen magazine.

These are student examples that show what your work could look like: 

Magazine project: tasks

Create a blogpost called 'Magazine project' and complete the following tasks:

Task 1: Research and planning

1) Use Google images to research magazines that you could use for this project. Create a shortlist of three potential magazines and write what they are here. Extension task: embed an example front cover from each one. We recommend looking at lifestyle, sport or music magazines as these are easier to re-create.

2) Choose one of the magazines to use for your project e.g GQ or Vogue. Then do a Google image search to find three different front covers for your chosen magazine. Add them to your blogpost to show you have done your research. 

3) Write a list of things you notice about the magazine covers you have researched e.g. colour scheme, font, writing style, what kind of picture is on the cover, page design etc. What is the language or writing style? How are the cover lines written? What camera shot is generally used for the cover image? 

4) In your blogpost, write your main cover line - this is the main cover story that links to your central image. It must be 100% original - all your own words. Next, write the rest of the cover lines and any other text you need for your magazine cover.

5) Plan the image you are going to take for the cover - model, costume, make-up etc. At this point, simply describe the image you need to capture.

6) Sketch out your cover on plain A4 paper so you know where the title, image and cover lines are going to go. 

Task 2: Photoshoot in class

We will do a photoshoot in class next week with lighting and backdrop. You will need to bring in any costume or make-up you need for the photoshoot - plan this with your teacher and make sure it is appropriate and achievable. 

On the day of the photoshoot, while you are waiting to take your picture you can finish off your research and planning tasks. Once you have finished all of those tasks you can create a new A4 page in Photoshop and start adding the text to your magazine cover.

Task 3: Photoshop design

Use Adobe Photoshop CS6 to create your magazine cover. Create a new A4 page and then use the T tool to add the text you need. Once you have taken your photo in the photoshoot, you can add your main image to the cover.

Photoshop tutorials

The best way to learn Photoshop is simply to start creating your magazine cover and learn as you go. There are thousands of tutorials on YouTube to help you - here's just one example: 

Task 4: Save as JPEG and upload it your blog

Once you have completed your design in Photoshop, go to 'File > Save as' and save your finished Photoshop magazine cover as a JPEG image. Then you can upload the JPEG version to your blog. 

Task 5: Evaluation

Write a short evaluation of your work: have you succeeded in your project to create a new, original edition of an existing magazine? Does your cover look like a real version of the magazine? Why/why not? How professional is your work alongside real covers of the magazine?

Finally, what would you do differently if you completed this assignment again?

Extension tasks

Create your OWN magazine and design a cover on Photoshop. For this you will need to plan the following:

• The name of your magazine
• The type of magazine it is e.g. sports, music, lifestyle
• A slogan for your magazine
• Cover star and image
• Cover lines
• Any other magazine cover key conventions you can think of

Deadlines: exact deadlines confirmed in class

Denotation and Connotation

Understanding denotation and connotation is the starting point for all Media analysis.

Remember the definitions:

Denotation: the literal meaning of something
E.g. A rose is a garden plant

Connotation: the suggestion behind this literal meaning (reading between the lines)
E.g .The rose suggests romance and love.

When writing media analysis, you need to consider the following questions:

Denotation: what do you see?

Connotation: what is suggested? What does it mean?

Analysis: what is the effect on the audience? How is this effect created?


Example: Skittles

Denotation: There is some text with colourful streams behind each letter set around a pack shot of the product itself. The background appears to be sky.

Connotation: The advert builds on the slogan for Skittles ‘Taste the rainbow’. The connotation of the colour suggests that Skittles are joyful, fun and will provide a positive experience for the audience. The colours are vibrant and the sky in the background creates connotations of flying – this suggests to the audience that this is an exciting product. 

Analysis: The advert helps the audience understand the product as the colours reflect the actual Skittles themselves. In addition, the text across the top of the advert (referring to a ‘punch in the mouth’) uses humour to connect with the audience and suggests the brand doesn’t take itself too seriously. This adds to the positive, happy brand values that are suggested by the construction of the advert.

Denotation & Connotation blog tasks: advert analysis

Create a new blogpost in your Media blog called 'Denotation and connotation'.

1) Write an analysis of the WaterAid advert above using denotation, connotation and analysis. What can you see? What are the deeper meanings in the advert? What does the advert communicate to the audience? How might an audience react after seeing the advert?

2) Now choose your own choice of advert from Google images. Save it to your documents, insert it into your blogpost and write an analysis using denotation and connotation, explaining what the advert is communicating to the audience.

Extension: Print advert research

Read this design blog on some of the best print adverts of all time. Choose one advert that you feel is particularly powerful in terms of its use of connotations and analyse why it is so successful

Introduction to Photoshop: fruit bowls

The fruit bowl task is a wonderfully creative way to learn some key skills in Photoshop as well as develop our understanding of colour.

Once you have finished your fruit bowl, you need to post it to your blog. Create a blog post called 'Photoshop fruit bowl' and complete the following tasks:

1) Save your fruit bowl as a JPEG image in Photoshop - remember to save it in your own folder on the Media Shared drive in the Student folder. To save as a JPEG image, go to 'Save a Copy' and then use the drop-down menu for 'File type' and choose JPEG.

2) Post your fruit bowl (or fruit bowls if you did more than one) to your blog by clicking the 'add image' icon and locating the correct JPEG image from your folder on Media Shared.

3) Write a short explanation of the colour palette you used and the effect you were trying to create when designing your fruit bowl.

Welcome to Media!

Welcome to Media - we have a brilliant journey ahead of us and can't wait to get started! 

This year will be a fantastic introduction to the skills needed in the media industries - photography, editing and much more. 

Your first job is to start your Media blog and sign up to Google Classroom. 

You can find step-by-step text instructions to starting your blog here. 

Once you have your blog URL, email it to your teacher. The URL is the address on the browser that ends with .blogspot.co.uk or similar. For example:

Mr Pall's blog: http://mediamacguffingcse.blogspot.co.uk/ 

IMPORTANT: It is absolutely essential you use your Greenford Google login details to create your blog when using Blogger.

First blog task

When you have set up your blog, it's time for your first blog post! Click on 'New Post' and put the title as 'First 10 questions'. You need to answer the following questions (detailed answers in full sentences please) as your first post:

1) Which part of Media are you looking forward to the most?

2) What device do you use most to access the media? (The media = news, TV, music, film, social media etc.) 

3) What is your average 'screen time' (or equivalent) on your phone each day. Is this about right, too little or too much? Why? 

4) What was the last TV programme or film you watched?

5) What device or subscription do you use to listen to music?

6) Do you play videogames? If so, what do you play games on and what is your favourite game?

7) Are you on social media? If so, what social media do you have and why do you like it? 

8) Finally, do you think the media is a positive or negative thing for young people? Why?

Extension tasks

Watch this clip from acclaimed BBC drama series Doctor Who - recently revamped in conjunction with Disney:

Why was the casting of Ncuti Gatwa a significant moment in the history of Doctor Who?

What aspects of this scene do you think an audience might enjoy? List at least three things and explain why the audience would enjoy each aspect. 

Note: If the YouTube clip isn't working please let your Media teacher know.

Finish these questions for homework if you don't manage to get through them in the lesson - due date on Google Classroom.

Advertising case study 3: Represent NHS Blood campaign

Our final close-study product for Advertising and Marketing is the 2016 NHS Blood and Transplant online campaign video 'Represent' featuring Lady Leshurr.

This product provides an excellent opportunity to explore a range of different representations: ethnicity, masculinity, femininity, class, age, disability and ability and place. It's also a different type of advert as it's not promoting a product but instead is a campaign designed to influence the audience's behaviour.

Sample questions for Advertising and Marketing

In your Media exams, you are likely to get questions similar to these:

1) Why do advertisers use stereotypes? [6 marks]

2) Explain how advertisements reflect the historical context in which they were created. [12 marks]

Think about how you might answer those questions based on the CSPs we have studied.

Advertising campaigns

Some adverts are produced in a series as a campaign. An advertising campaign is a series of advertisements that share a singular theme, message or idea. These are used to raise awareness of an issue or of the brand itself. The best campaigns have an emotional impact on audiences.

An advertising campaign will usually appear across multiple media platforms - print, broadcast and online.

Represent: background information

Lady Leshurr is an English rapper, singer and producer. She is famous for her freestyling rap style and has her own clothing line. 

This is the advert CSP:

The two articles we read in the lesson provide details on the campaign and how it was developed. This also gives information on why blood from people with a BAME background is so vital. 

GLOW words to use in connection to this campaign

• Literal – the actual, obvious meaning 
• Semiotics - the message behind what you see (hidden messages)
• Reinforce stereotype – when a representation is what we usually see in the media
• Challenge/subvert stereotype - When a representation goes against what we normally see in the media
• Mass/mainstream - A mass or mainstream audience is made up of a large group of people (men, women, children, elderly).
• Niche - A niche audience is a small subset with a narrow range of interests or characteristics. 

Codes and conventions of rap music videos

• There are many low-angled, close up shots in hip hop videos, to imply the artists’ power over their audience. The low angle gives them the power, because they look down on the audience and the close up gives status because it implies they’re important enough to have a frame to themselves.
• Sections of direct contact with the camera (the artist usually spends a lot of time looking straight into the camera as if to talk or have a conversation with the audience and relate to them)
• Props regarding costume tend to be used, for e.g. gold jewellery (male rap artists are commonly known to wear heavy chains or prominent rings)
• Show a clear display of emotions – if the tone of the song is angry, the artist is likely to present this through their gestures and facial expressions.
• Strong editing cuts between concept / performance and narrative.

Represent NHS Blood & Transplant campaign: blog tasks

Work through the tasks in this blogpost to make sure you're an expert on this CSP.

Re-watch the Represent video and then watch the 'making of' video:



1) What does BAME stand for?

2) Why is there a need for blood in the BAME community? 

3) What does this advert want people to do once they've seen it (the 'call to action')?

4) Why have the producers chosen famous BAME celebrities to feature in the advert? Give an example of three well-known people who appear in the advert and why they are famous - make sure you write their names and spell them accurately.

5) Suggest some connotations for the slow-paced long shot of empty chairs at the end of the advert.

6) How does the advert match the key conventions of a typical urban music video?

You will have lesson time to answer these questions but will need to complete for homework - due date on Google Classroom. 

Extension tasks

1) How does the advert subvert stereotypes - this means present people in a way we don't normally see them in the media? Give three examples (e.g. ethnicity, masculinity, femininity, age, class, disability/ability etc.) 

2) How does the advert reinforce certain stereotypes of the BAME community?

3) Choose one key moment from the advert and write an analysis of the connotations of camera shots and mise-en-scene (using CLAMPS).

4) Read this MOBO press release about the "B Positive" campaign - the follow-up to the Represent advert. How does it aim to build on the success of the Represent campaign?

5) How is celebrity endorsement or star power used to make the campaign stand out?

Finally, research the following stars in more detail: Lady Leshurr, Ade Adepitan, Kanya King. Why are they famous? How do they help the campaign reach different segments of the niche BAME audience?