Hello, This book explores the big issue. It is all based upon type and layout that communicates social, health and educational issues. As a graphic designer my interests lay mainly within this area and I have a great passion for designing for briefs that are for ‘ordinary people’ allowing me to communicate strong values and messages. I enjoy the challenge of problem solving for this area in graphic design as I feel it is sometimes overlooked as it is not known as the ‘big money making’ area within the design industry. The structure of this book relies on the interviews I conducted as research for this project, they provide a great insight into type and layout for social, health and educational issues, my analysis can be found at the beginning of chapters and in the coloured boxes.
Pg 1
About
My Work
Jane Mitchell - 3 Minutes To Think / 3 Minutes To Think / Climate Change / Climate Change / Emergency / Neuroscience / Neuroscience / Phobias / Phobias
Contents
About
1
My Work
2-3
Contents
4-5
Introduction -Public sector / Private sector
6-7
Design Considerations -Concept development -Process and format -Audience
10-15 16-17 18-21
Clients and Identity Guidelines
22-27
Budgets -Approaches to budgets
30-31
Interviews In Full -Rare -Eleven -Human -Raw
34-36 37-40 41-42 43-46
Resources -Books -Websites -Studios
49 49-50 50
Contributions -A word from me
52
Introduction
The public sector employs more than 25 per cent of the workforce in the UK and includes:
• • • • • • •
Central government departments and agencies. Local authorities. The NHS and its local trusts. The Ministry of Defence. The Northern Ireland Assembly, the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Executive. Universities and colleges. Design work procured by this wide range of organisations includes marketing, graphic design, print materials, branding, publicity, information design and signage.
One of the obvious benefits of selling design services to public sector organisations is the sheer volume of projects which are constantly available. They can make good customers too: they have to be fair and honest in the way they choose suppliers and pay promptly within agreed contract terms, generally 30 days from invoice. They also have to employ tendering processes that are transparent, provide essential information to potential suppliers and ensure a fair chance for small businesses. Service companies Whilst most companies and organisations are providing a service of one type or another, for some businesses customer service is the dominant part of the offer. Business to business Many businesses market their products and services directly to other businesses, not the public. But the principles of effective design apply in just the same way in the B2B sector as elsewhere. Source: Design Council
Pg 6-7
Public / Private Sector
Design Considerations
Cartlidge Levene / Cartlidge Levene / Sean Freeman / Sort / Sort / Deep / Element 5 / Pentagram / Mash Creative
Concept development is vitally important in solving any design problem. The task of creating type and layout for important issues is not easy. The designer has to get inside the audiences’ heads and really connect with them to get the clients message across and even in a lot of cases get the audience to react and make some sort of action as a result of seeing the designs.
Raw’s brief ‘Room’ is a great example of where a concept really works successfully. The brief was to generate more enquiries and increase the amount of foster carers in Wakefield. This was for their client Wakefield Council. Raw’s concept for this campaign was to focus on the literal and metaphorical ‘room’ people need in order to foster, and highlight what it can offer them, financially and emotionally and the result was...
“A 400% increase in enquiries and a minimum of 42 new foster carers to be approved by the end of the year, a staggering 1000% increase on 2008’s figures”
Source: Raw design website.
Pg 10 -11
Concept Development
Love creative created a strong concept for the National Year of Reading 2008. The brief was to make reading more enjoyable and accessible for all ages throughout the UK within the year of 2008. The concept they ran with was to avoid bookish cliches and create an identity that would be personal to everyone. This was made possible by making use of online interactivity where the audience could go create their own logo to celebrate the event, this made the event accessible easily to the audience and raised awareness for the campaign which was supported by other promotional material making use of quotes children could relate to from popular childrens’ television programmes etc. and in turn made reading more fun and enjoyable. What aspect also strengthened the concept of this campaign was Love Creatives risk in using many different fonts and colours throughout the campaign. This could have been a risk as it could have made the visual identity if the campaign less consistent and recognisable. I feel this approach really paid of for Love Creative and looks really exciting and still consistent enough to tell it is all from the same brief.
Pg 12 -13 D8 have worked for the client Greenpeace for the last three years. They developed strong concepts to get the message across to the audience for example imagery supported by clever copywriting shows how type and image are equally important within layouts to make certain concepts become successful.
“Our creativity pours into campaign strategies, so we often need help with making what we say sound and look really snappy. For example, D8 are diverse, robust, efficient, obliging, alert, attentive, understanding, committed... But you see we’d usually ask D8 how to say that better; they seem to come up trumps when it comes to cleverness and creativity. “Put simply, they give us what we need, in a way that we just didn’t know we needed it... and importantly this gives us more time and better materials with which to save the world.” Viola Sampson, Marketing Manager, Greenpeace.
The Sustainable Education Project by Ranch shows how the concept runs through the whole of the resolutions, it aims to teach school children about green issues. It takes form as a mailer, aimed at teachers, and is a single piece of 100% recycled board printed with vegetable based inks. Business cards and a bookmark are detachable from the mailer. Another concept driven project that caught my eye was ‘Concern’ by Ranch. Concern needed an identity for ‘Unheard voices’ a campaign to help poor farmers. We created a simple solution using two graphic quote marks, that we combined with very strong black and white photography. This brief shows that a simple idea can really pay of and look and work effectively for the clients needs.
Pg 14 -15 “You need to fully immerse yourself in the subject. This is a great part of a designer’s life as they get to learn about all aspects of the world and hopefully do their bit to help. For example, at the moment we’re working on a breast-feeding campaign and a couple of us have attended breast-feeding support groups and interviewed several people. A client may come to you saying they’d like a poster to advertise a charity it’s really easy to design something nice and send it to print. The approach we prefer is to identify the problem and solve that. The problem isn’t that they need a poster, it’s that they need volunteers / contributions etc. Copywriting is extremely important and is often the difference from a good design and a great design. If the text can really speak to the target audience and engage with them, the rest comes easily.” Tom Heaton, Raw.
In depth research pays of when developing a concept. Clients want designs that work not just pretty pieces to look at. It is essential to really knuckle down on the problem being asked to solve and engage with the audience through a strong concept and as Tom says a good copy writer can work wonders.
Raw Design Client: NHS Barking & Dagenham Brief: Domestic Violence online resource for health professionals.
Pg 16 -17
Process and Format Process and format need to be concidered carefully when designing type and layout. It is not only the typeface, column size etc. that need to be concidered. We cannot over look the importance of stocks and print processes that can really make a design shine. With publications for instance should the type on the cover be varnished or the stock 90gsm or 170gsm, as a designer it is important to know how the tactile quality and over all look of the finished product will enhance the communication of the message to the audience.
“Layout or arranging forms IS design. The forms might be letters, paragraphs, images, white space etc. Using them well is the goal. We all love print because you can interact with design in a very tactile way. The feel and smell of the paper, the processes that can be applied. It’s like when you go shopping; you can buy the exact same jacket online, see it in detail, from different angles and paraded down a catwalk. But there’s no substitute for actually walking into a shop, feeling the fabric and trying it on yourself.”
Print design is not just about the idea but the feel and tactile quility of the stock used to communicate the design with.
Tom Heaton, Raw.
“Its probably easier to define our approach by what we don’t like - which is adding unnecessary elements and gimmicks to design. Sometimes this can involve quite a bit of hard work with clients as many of them are looking for ways to make their boring projects more interesting, but as far as possible we try and persuade them against ‘jazzing up’ a project and try and focus on what it is that makes their project worth talking about.” John Gelder, Eleven.
Process is key to communicating the message no amount of ‘jazzing’ up a project will make up for a rubbish concept. Process and concept need to link seemlessly.
Raw Design Client: NHS Barking & Dagenham Brief: Encourage the people of Barking and Dagenham to make simple life changes to improve health and life expectancy. A new health brand using a gambling metaphor included a pocket sized booklet and a web site. Focus on 52 tips that educate and help people to make small changes to improve their health and well-being.
Eleven Design Client: University of Huddersfield Brief: A suite of publications for The School of Education at the University of Huddersfield.
Pg 18-19
Audience As graphic designers we would not have a job if the audience did not exist for us to communicate to. It is important to pin point specific audiences for each design problem to make the designs successful in delivering the message intended for them. This chapter looks through examples of where and why audience is king in the process for creating type and layout to communicate social, health and educational issues.
“Both sectors have very different audiences, with different needs and restrictions. B2B marketing is often very targeted at one narrowly identified audience, whereas Public Sector can be focused on a wide audience type and so the approach must be broader. But in essence, the need for strong communication and a desired response / call to action is important across both. For me, the ability to understand, design and create campaigns for many different audience types makes for a better designer.” Bryan White, Rare.
“The pct was different we were task with making an impression with teenage pendency and we felt the hand hitting poster campaign did just what it said on the tin.” David Hughes, Human.
Knowing your audience is vital when designing anything for social, health sectors etc. If you don’t know your audience you are targeting, how can you get into their heads and get them to act on what they are seeing? Human’s design work for PCT campaign shows an impactful way to get in tune with the intended audience. Here they used thought provoking designs.
Human Design Client: PCT Brief: Thought provoking advertising campaigns for Condom Week.
Pg 20-21 “With these types of brief, there always has to be a strong element of inclusivity, and care not to alienate or offend anyone. Having said that, quite often there are hard hitting messages to get across to instigate changes in behaviour. So therein lies the challenge! I also feel that we are all becoming immune to many levels of message and imagery, and therefore it becomes harder to have impact without pushing things even further. One contact I can give you is www.divacreative.com in Sheffield, as they specialise in Social Marketing working on campaigns for teenage pregnancy, anti-smoking, local environmental issues, sexual health” Bryan White, Rare.
Shock tactics may get the audience’s attention for a second but do they really get them to act on what they have seen? I personally believe it is not the most effective way to communicate. Really tapping into the audience’s head can be more effective, meaning to find that key aspect that taps into their conscience, pushing for a response. It is then that the design will have been successfully executed.
Diva Creative Client: NHS Brief: Sexual health campaign to encourage young adults to get health check-ups and test for Sexually transmitted diseases.
Diva Creative Client: Diva Creative Brief: Company value diagram.
Diva Creative Client: Longley Park Sixth Form College Range of branded publications for Longley Park Sixth Form College including prospectus, student filofax and college newsletter.
Diva Creative Client: Know Your Stuff Brief: Teaching resource - series of games highlighting issues around drug use.
Clients and identity guidelines
Three Rooms / D8 / Deep / Eleven / Ranch / Ranch / Socio Design / Raw / Raw
Pg 24-25
Clients and Identity Guidelines Working with clients is an integral part of being a graphic designer, without the clients there obviously isn’t the work. How do designers deal with jobs that require them to stick within certain identity guidelines? This is very common within the areas I am interested in, I have already come across strict NHS guidelines and NBS guidelines within my work experience within a design studio. This chapter covers some studio’s experiences with clients and identity guidelines.
“With any project, it is always worth considering whether staying on-brand is the best approach or whether challenging the brief offers the best outcome. With FreeBee, the new free bus project needed a name and style and we were given existing brand guidelines to consider. But we feel the quirky nature and character of the suggested name and design (that was outside of the restrictions of the brand) created something recognisable and that the public have bought into in their droves so worth pushing the boundaries” Bryan White, Rare.
“St. Lukes had a fairly recent rebrand (not done by us) that wasn’t particularly successful, we were asked to streamline the identity and develop the new print materials. We recommended that they keep their typeface and simplified the colours, we also developed the design style for printed materials” John Gelder, Eleven.
Pushing the boundaries of brand guidelines can pay off in the communication of the message intended. It is our job as designers to find that ‘spark’, that great idea that makes a design work.
I found it interesting that a recent rebrand wasn’t seen as successful, but as a designer you have to find a way to work around this for the client.
Rare Design Client: South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive Brief: A brand identity solution for a new free bus service to operate in Sheffield city centre, targeting shoppers, parents and commuters.
Eleven Design Client: St. Luke’s Hospice Brief: Refreshed the brand identity and created Publications that reflect the character and nature of the organisation, and that were appropriate for the patients and their families.
Pg 26-27 “Public sector work can be quite strict with regards to brand guidelines and there is a real danger that you’ll produce the same thing over and over again. We’d get bored really quickly doing this so we try to approach each job uniquely. We work WITH the guidelines rather than following them. You usually find more freedom with private sector clients. Plus, it’s great working directly with the decision maker as you can strongly align visions rather than having them filtered down a chain.” Tom Heaton, Raw.
Tom describes the challenge faced by designers working for the public sector it seems the chain of command in this area slows the whole design process down.
“We have strict guidelines when working on NHS projects with regards to typeface, colours, sizes etc. Here’s a whole site dedicated to them: http://www.nhsidentity.nhs.uk although there are discussions that we regularly have when we feel the need to bend the rules slightly. For example with the youth-targeted projects. If a teenager looks at something that looks like it’s part of the NHS they’ll immediately switch off.”
Discussing with clients seems to be the best method when it is in their best interests to bend the rules of their set guidelines.
Tom Heaton, Raw.
Raw Design Client: NHS Brief: Various publication designs for the NHS.
Budgets
Sort / D8 / Creative Lynx / Love Creative / The Consult / Mash Creative / Mash Creative / Cartlidge Levene / Eleven
Pg 30-31
Approaches To Budgets Budgets are an important part of the design process. How much has the client got to spend on the artwork and the production of the graphic design. It is vital to get a clear indication of the budget before starting any design work. From my research it is clear that a huge budget is not always necessery or available to create amazing graphics. The projects and design studios that accomplish great graphic design on a small budget are really inspirational.
“They have to share similar beliefs to us; this might cover ambition to create something interesting and engaging. Ideally the perfect client will want to create something fun, beautiful, interesting. They will have a healthy budget and they’ll push a project on their side as much as we will push on our side.”
The ideal client is having a healthy budget. Finding out the budget for a brief should be a first.
Tom Heaton, Raw. “The public sector doesn’t get the mega budgets that huge global brands have, but we have still been able to work on some good projects for public sector clients. Its our experience that if you can show clients interesting work you have done, they are more inclined to trust you to push their brief a little further. With this in mind, if we think we can get a good ‘portfolio’ job we will be prepared to make less money (often no money!) This applies to private sector clients also - since we are a small team we don’t really work for any big private sector companies, but some of the small businesses such as Spoilt for Choice and Sereniti have led to quite nice pieces of work.” John Gelder, Eleven.
The public sector doesn’t get the big budgets but I still feel draw to this area, design to me is not always about the money but about great ideas and great designs. I also like the prospect of the challenge of working to smaller budgets.
Eleven Design Client: Sereniti Brief: A high-end, professional corporate identity that would appeal to senior executives and business owners. For Sereniti, a consultancy and training company.
Interviews in full
Love Creative / Love Creative / Deep / Cartlidge Levene / Cartlidge Levene / Sort / The Graphics Company / D8 / Mash Creative
1.) How many people work at Rare? Currently 14 2.) Your website shows you are included in the Recommended Agency Register from your client feedback etc. What do you think determines what type of clients you will accept work from? We actively market ourselves out to prospective clients from the Construction / Renovation / Home Improvement Sector as it is our main specialism based on our past experience with clients in this field. However, our current website reflects the work we do in other areas such as Public Sector and other B2B clients across a wide range of sectors – so whilst we would actively promote ourselves in one area through targeted campaigns, we are likely to accept most work that comes our way in relation to design and marketing. 3.) Your work has been for a varied amount of clients, would you say from experience that you prefer to work on briefs for the private or public sector within graphic design? Both sectors have very different audiences, with different needs and restrictions. B2B marketing is often very targeted at one narrowly identified audience, whereas Public Sector can be focused on a wide audience type and so the approach must be broader. But in essence, the need for strong communication and a desired response / call to action is important across both. For me, the ability to understand, design and create campaigns for many different audience types makes for a better designer. 4.) When working for a client such as Freebee, Leeds city region or similar clients do you have the freedom to be as creative as you like or do you usually have to stick to specific design
Pg 34-35
Rare
guidelines such as typeface and colour schemes like you did for the University of Leeds brief? With any project, it is always worth considering whether staying on-brand is the best approach or whether challenging the brief offers the best outcome. With FreeBee, the new free bus project needed a name and style and we were given existing brand guidlelines to consider. But we feel the quirky nature and character of the suggested name and design (that was outside of the restrictions of the brand) created something recognisable and that the public have bought into in their droves so worth pushing the boundaries. As with LCR, the brief was for a document style, with no existing look and feel, but Rare decided to create a brand identity as part of the proposition that would help the materials tie in, and again has been very successful. So even when it seems that there is little freedom, it is our role as consultants to offer the best way forward and not always be bound by the brief. 5.) Your designs bring across a strong use of layout and print, how important are these to you all as designers at Rare, did you always want to work with these elements of graphic design? As per answer 3, communicating the key messages to the right audience in an appealing way that creates a response is always key to any project, and therefore the way the material is seen, used and understood is highly affected by good layout principles, as well as strong messaging. The materials used are also a key factor but can be overlooked if budgets are restrictive. 6.) I currently want to get more involved designing type and layout that communicates awareness of social, health and educational issues, whether its for charities, government schemes, medical publications etc. Have you got any general advice you could give me, or possibly any past briefs, or clients
Pg 36-37 you feel relate to this area and could help give me a guideline of what to expect? With these types of brief, there always has to be a strong element of inclusivity, and care not to alienate or offend anyone. Having said that, quite often there are hard hitting messages to get across to instigate changes in behaviour. So therein lies the challenge! I also feel that we are all becoming immune to many levels of message and imagery, and therefore it becomes harder to have impact without pushing things even further. One contact I can give you is www.divacreative.com in Sheffield, as they specialise in Social Marketing working on campaigns for teenage pregnancy, anti-smoking, local environmental issues, sexual health, etc. Their work may have specific interest to you. Hope this helps. Also look into Social Norms Marketing as a method of approaching these types of projects. This is an American model that has been a success over there and now used un the UK. Bryan
Eleven 1.) How many people work at Eleven Design? Three full-time designers, two part-time admin staff 2.) Your website says you work “across a variety of sectors including education, the arts, SME’s, charities and the public sector” what determines what type of clients you will accept work from? We would accept work from any type of business with the exception of ethically dodgy organisations. Our work has tended to evolve in certain fields - primarily education, as clients gain confidence from seeing work we have done for other organisations in their field. We also pick up a lot of new business through word of mouth from people working in related industries - for example we have done work for Sheffield Hallam University and because of this we picked up work for the Centre for Science Education (an organisation based in SHU but with staff from various science teams from other universities and businesses) in turn this lead to us picking up work for the Science Learning Centres, the Photosynthesis Teaching Pack, National Science and Engineering Week and various others. 3.) Your work has been for a varied amount of clients, would you say from experience that you prefer to work on briefs for the private or public sector within graphic design? There is no preference for either sector. The public sector doesn’t get the mega budgets that huge global brands have, but we have still been able to work on some good projects for public sector clients. Its our experience that if you can show clients interesting work you have done, they are more inclined to trust you to push their brief a little further. With this in mind, if we think we can get a good ‘portfolio’ job we will be prepared to make less money (often no money!) This applies to private
Pg 38-39 sector clients also - since we are a small team we don’t really work for any big private sector companies, but some of the small businesses such as Spoilt for Choice and Sereniti have led to quite nice pieces of work. In the longer term we hope to be able to compete for work with some larger private sector companies. 4.) When working for a client such as St. Lukes Hospice, Photosynthesis - A survival guide and University of Huddersfield - Want to teach, (I love these projects) do you have the freedom to be as creative as you like or do you usually have to stick to specific design guidelines such as typeface and colour schemes? For those projects it was a mix. St. Lukes had a fairly recent rebrand (not done by us) that wasn’t particularly successful, we were asked to streamline the identity and develop the new print materials. We recommended that they keep their typeface and simplified the colours, we also developed the design style for printed materials. The photosynthesis pack was a one-off so there were no guidelines to work with. University of Huddersfield have brand guidelines that cover typeface and colours, but there are no restrictions on layout and we were also able to commission photography so its still possible to be quite creative. Whilst its great to be given a free rein, working within guidelines can also push you to be creative in other directions - if you have a look at our flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/elevendesign there are some nice visuals there for a job we pitched for (RADAR) but weren’t successful, which work within brand guidelines. 5.) Your designs bring across a strong use of layout and print, how important are these to you all as designers at Eleven Design, did you always want to work with these elements of graphic design? Whilst we don’t have a prescribed approach to design, there are certain
principles which all agree on. Its probably easier to define our approach by what we don’t like - which is adding unnecessary elements and gimmicks to design. Sometimes this can involve quite a bit of hard work with clients as many of them are looking for ways to make their boring projects more interesting, but as far as possible we try and persuade them against ‘jazzing up’ a project and try and focus on what it is that makes their project worth talking about. It has to be said that whilst we have managed to produce some nice work, there are also jobs that we don’t like to shout about too much! 6.) I currently want to get more involved designing type and layout that communicates awareness of social, health and educational issues, whether its for charities, government schemes, medical publications etc. Have you got any general advice you could give me, or possibly any past briefs, or clients you feel relate to this area and could help give me a guideline of what to expect? The main thing about working in the sectors you mention is that many organisations have little or no money to spend on design, so on its own its not a good way to make a living. However, if you can get other work elsewhere to supplement your income it can be a satisfying area to work. I would suggest in the first instance that you target some organisations that you are interested in and offer to do some projects free of charge - as I mentioned earlier, doing good work helps to build your portfolio and gives other people confidence to employ you so if you are going to work for nothing you need to be pretty sure that you can get some good work from it. Often people working in charities have limited experience in marketing so you may end up helping to plan the brief as well as doing the design - that’s not as difficult as it sounds and is definitely good experience, but
Pg 40-41 its a good idea not to assume that your client knows everything about their organisation! Another option would be to research which organisations have in-house studios as this could be a good way to work in the sector and still get paid. Either way having some ‘live’ jobs in your portfolio will help. Also a good idea would be to try and publicise any work you do using Twitter, Facebook etc - keep in touch with as many design studios and potential clients as possible. I hope this answers your questions and gives you the detail you need for the project - give me a shout if you need anything further and let me know how you get on with the project. John
Human 1.) How many people work at Human? 4 people work at human 2.) Your website shows some really nice comments from clients, what do you think determines what type of clients you will accept work from? Clients come in all shapes and sizes, because of the mix of clients we already have we happily work with 1 man bands to large plc companies. 3.) Your work has been for a varied amount of clients, would you say from experience that you prefer to work on briefs for the private or public sector within graphic design? Once again we have no preference which sector we work for. We pride ourselves on being able to meet the briefs from public or private. 4.) When working for a client such as Coalfield Regeneration Trust, Doncaster PCT or similar clients do you have the freedom to be as creative as you like or do you usually have to stick to specific design guidelines such as typeface and colour schemes? For the coalfield we work with a brand and guideline which have already been set. The pct was different we were task with making an impression with teenage prednacy and we felt the hand hitting poster campaign did just what it said on the tin. 5.) Your designs bring across a strong use of layout and print, how important are these to you all as designers at Human, did you always want to work with these elements of graphic design?
Pg 42-43 My background has been in typography. I owned a type company from the late 70’s, and I have always been associated with the print industry from leaving school and working on a newspaper in the production department so I think this shines through in the design. 6.) I currently want to get more involved designing type and layout that communicates awareness of social, health and educational issues, whether its for charities, government schemes, medical publications etc. Have you got any general advice you could give me, or possibly any past briefs, or clients you feel relate to this area and could help give me a guideline of what to expect? A really good written headline normally sets the tone for the design. You can tell your imagination go with how this is laid out and so type is king, you just have to look at the layouts you see nowadays, normally the use of type for me sells the design, if you know what I mean. I have worked with a creative copywriter for 20 years plus and his creative ideas have been a backbone of a lot of designs. Teamwork! hope this helps. kind regards David
Raw 1.) How many people work at Raw? 7 in total, although the numbers in the studio vary from day to day. We have a creative director, managing director, 2 designers, a project manager and a part-time copywriter and web developer. 2.) Your website shows some really nice awards for your work for clients, what do you think determines what type of clients you will accept work from? They have to share similar beliefs to us; this might cover ambition to create something interesting and engaging. Ideally the perfect client will want to create something fun, beautiful, interesting. They will have a healthy budget and they’ll push a project on their side as much as we will push on our side. We love trying new techniques and working in new areas, but we don’t just take on every job. We work best working with like-minded people. 3.) Your work has been for a varied amount of clients, would you say from experience that you prefer to work on briefs for the private or public sector within graphic design? It’s nice to dip our feet into both sectors. Public sector work can be quite strict with regards to brand guidelines and there is a real danger that you’ll produce the same thing over and over again. We’d get bored really quickly doing this so we try to approach each job uniquely. We work WITH the guidelines rather than following them. You usually find more freedom with private sector clients. Plus, it’s great working directly with the decision maker as you can strongly align visions rather than having them filtered down the chain.
Pg 44-45 4.) When working on a brief for a client such as designs you created for your award winning campaign for Room, NHS Barking and Dagenham¹s Annual report and Domestic Violence or similar clients do you have the freedom to be as creative as you like or do you usually have to stick to specific design guidelines such as typeface and colour schemes? We have strict guidelines when working on NHS projects with regards to typeface, colours, sizes etc. Here’s a whole site dedicated to them: http://www.nhsidentity.nhs.uk/ although there are discussions that we regularly have when we feel the need to bend the rules slightly. For example with the youth-targeted projects. If a teenager looks at something that looks like it’s part of the NHS they’ll immediately switch off. With the Room campaign there was a deliberate intention to make it look separate from the council and to create a brand in its own right. This was really successful and it was great to illustrate that the concept worked. We’re actually tweaking this project for phase 2 of the campaign and the style has to be changed. This is because the council is trying to reinforce their own brand. It will be interesting to see how it effects how many new foster carers they get.
5.) Your designs bring across a strong use of layout and print, how important are these to you all as designers at Raw, did you always want to work with these elements of graphic design? It’s extremely important to all of us. Layout or arranging forms IS design. The forms might be letters, paragraphs, images, white space etc. Using them well is the goal. We all love print because you can interact with design in a very tactile
way. The feel and smell of the paper, the processes that can be applied. It’s like when you go shopping; you can buy the exact same jacket online, see it in detail, from different angles and paraded down a catwalk. But there’s no substitute for actually walking into a shop, feeling the fabric and trying it on yourself. 6.) I currently want to get more involved designing type and layout that communicates awareness of social, health and educational issues, whether its for charities, government schemes, medical publications etc. Have you got any general advice you could give me, or possibly any past briefs, or clients you feel relate to this area and could help give me a guideline of what to expect? You need to fully immerse yourself in the subject. This is a great part of a designer’s life as they get to learn about all aspects of the world and hopefully do their bit to help. For example, at the moment we’re working on a breast-feeding campaign and a couple of us have attended breast-feeding support groups and interviewed several people. A client may come to you saying they’d like a poster to advertise a charity it’s really easy to design something nice and send it to print. The approach we prefer is to identify the problem and solve that. The problem isn’t that they need a poster, it’s that they need volunteers / contributions etc. Copywriting is extremely important and is often the difference from a good design and a great design. If the text can really speak to the target audience and engage with them, the rest comes easily. Paul Belford of This Is Real Art has produced some great advertising layouts for charities and social issues: http://www.thisisrealart.com/ (Click on RSPCA, Dept. for transport etc.)
Pg 46-47 Wolf Olins work with Macmillian cancer: http://www.wolffolins.com/macmillan.php Michael Johnson’s work for Shelter: http://johnsonbanks.co.uk/ (Click on problems solved/the evolve or evolveproblem/Shelter) Here’s a few additional typographic gurus: http://www.davidpearsondesign.com/ http://pleasedonotbend.co.uk/ http://www.designbybeam.com/index.html http://www.davidquaydesign.com/ Hopefully this is helpful, and it all makes sense :) All the best, Tom
Raw Design Client: NHS Barking & Dagenham Brief: My book: a diary for 14-16-year-olds, communicating health and social messages in an accessible and novel way.
Raw Design Client: Vitality Brief: A website and advertising materials to promote Ladies Only Ltd’s COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) exercise programme.
Resources
Pg 48-49 Books Materials, Process, Print: Creative Solutions for Graphic Design by Daniel Mason and Angharad Lewis How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy Creating Great Graphic Design on a Budget by Scott Witham Design Issues: How Graphic Design Informs Society by D.K. Holland Design Play: Empower Graphics, Format and Concept with Clever Twist by Gingko Press Websites www.avalanchecreative.co.uk/ www.blueblindfold.gov.ie/ www.cubecreative.co.uk www.design21sdn.com www.designagainstcrime.com www.designcouncil.org.uk www.designigniteschange.org www.divacreative.com www.elevendesign.co.uk www.face-group.co.uk/ www.guardian.co.uk/service-design www.good.is/ www.graphics.coop/ www.greenpeace.org.uk
Pg 50-51 www.designbyhuman.com http://kerina.net www.madebysawdust.co.uk/ www.manifestcomms.co.uk/ www.mashcreative.co.uk www.moreassociates.com www.morsebrowndesign.co.uk www.navig8.co.uk http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/ http://pidgeon.com.au www.rarecreativegroup.com www.rawdesignstudio.co.uk www.saatchi-design.co.uk/ www.sbt-design.co.uk www.service-design-network.org/ www.sociodesign.co.uk/ www.spin.co.uk/ www.tentacledesign.com http://thinkpublic.com http://thomasmatthews.com www.thompsonbrandpartners.com www.typotheque.com Studios Cartlidge Levene Creative Lynx Consult D8 Deep Element 5 Eleven Human
Love Creative Mash Creative More Associates Pentagram Ranch Rare Raw Socio Design
Sort Three Rooms
Contributions
I would like to thank all the people who contributed towards the making of this book. Thank you to all who contributed time for interviews and to express their valued opinions and knowledge which aid designers like myself in developing further in the graphic design field. I also feel it is appropriate to thank all the tutors who have helped me focus on my direction as a graphic designer. It has taken three years and a lot of hard work and without their guidence I would be another graduating student left for the lions out in the ‘real world’. Having gained a realistic approach as to what to expect when I leave education, I know I will never stop learning as a graphic designers and I look forward to all the challenges that lay ahead of me. Thank you again, Jane.
Pg 52
A little word from me