Strategy

The philosophy behind this project was to highlight the “I” newspaper to the student market. I began this project by researching the newspaper itself, and looking at other papers that advertise in a clever way, such as the guardian and the economist. This gave me an idea of what works and doesn’t work in regards of colour/layout.

I experimented a lot at the beginning of the project as I found a lot of useful books in the library which inspired me to try adverting the “I” in a way which hadn’t been done before. I particularly enjoyed the work of photographer “Brassai,” and adapted some of his images to include the “I” logo. However I wanted a more solid idea for the campaign and wanted to develop something which could be seen straight away on a busy street.

I wanted to get a students perspective on the paper so I arranged to talk to a number of students from different courses. I was aware that as a design student I may be prone to think that everyone will get my ideas so I wanted to see if other people from non art courses would get some of my concepts.

I mainly wanted to get their thoughts on the paper and find out what interested them most. I asked what form on advertising appealed to them and the majority said posters/web as they could excess the web easily and enjoyed collecting posters a placing them in their student houses. This was useful as it gave me a clearer idea of what the student majority could understand and what they cared about most.

When I was in the library I found a book called, “Graphic design since 1950,” which had a range of artists in it. Some of there posters were very bold and solid, were others were more textured and layered. Some of the images had a circular feel to them and reminded me of the dot on the “I” logo. I then thought I could maybe use these well-known images within the design of the logo itself. By removing the dot and replacing it with a well-known image people would maybe find the logo interesting and stop and have a look at it. They could then be used to highlight an art special within the paper. I also came across comic images of batman, which also made me think of the logo. Perhaps if I removed the dot and replaced it with batman’s heads it could be used for a comic special.

I tried these ideas but thought they were a little too flat and didn’t have enough punch to stop me in my tracts so I rethought the idea. I then thought I could add a 3D element to the logo to made it feel like a person and have a character of it’s own. I found ways to add emotion to objects on the internet and applied them to the “I” logo. However John and the group weren’t too sure about some of the concepts and the stories they were trying to portray so I went back to some of my research at the beginning. I looked though the guardian and economist designs and tried to see what worked best for them and how similar ideas could work for this project.

Both papers tend to use a flat graphic with minimal colour so I got rid of the 3D idea. John also suggested that I try repeating the character in a pattern, and letting some of the characters bleed off the page and maybe only showing certain parts of the object. So I tried these ideas and they worked a lot better. The ideas came across clearer and I got much more positive feedback from the group. However there were a few suggestions made. Some thought the black background was killing the “I” character too much and that a white background would freshen it up and allow it to breath more. So I took this onboard and made more changes which John felt worked better. He then also suggested I try a slight drop shadow to help lift the character off the white background. I was hesitant to do this at first as neither the guardian or the economist had used this idea in there designs. However when I applied it, it worked really well and added a slight 3D feel to the piece, which lifted the design. I then used these designs in a number of different forms such as t-shirt designs, billboards, ipad, bus-stops, web etc. I also showed how they would look in landscape form, which worked equally as well.

Over all I am pleased with how this project has turned out. I had to adopt my idea a number of times before it worked, however I believe I have ended up with nine strong posters which highlight the “I” newspaper in a different yet visually interesting way.