Friday, 5 March 2010

Wagamama end sting






















For this brief i have chosen Wagamama as the company i wish to develop and produce a 3-5 second end sting for. Wagamama was created in April 1992 by Alan Yau and is a pan-Asian style chain of restaurant's. The first opening in Bloomsbury London. The word Wagamama is Japanese and means childish or selfish. The core demographic for the chain is 25-35 year old professionals. Its ethos is fresh nutritious and light food in a contemporary environment. Interestingly the orders are relayed to the kitchen via PDAs and the company slogan Positive eating + Positive living.































I am required to produce an end sting
(the short clip at the end of an advert) for the Wagamama
chain of restaurant's. As part of my research i took
a trip to their restaurant in Spinningfields Manchester
to sample the Wagamama way. I needed to find out
what made them tick and how i should go about producing
an end sting appropriate to them they are very proud of their
logo and i would like to direct my efforts towards this ethos.
Here are some pictures of the restaurant.
















I spoke with one of the staff and they gave me a pack of various
products and the number of the marketing manager Ed Hughes
for Wagamama so i can research the company in more depth.
Here are the menus and various printed media.
















I particularly like the images used on the front of the menu
and i would like to add some music with a Japanese flavour to
the end sting. This was a helpful visit and will inform my
thinking during the early part of the project. The simplicity
of the Wagamama way is how i aim to develop my ideas.
Here is the first examples of the story board that i have
been ask to produce. It is a birds eye view of a table in a
restaurant, people are represented by stars. And the table
cloth is removed to reveal the wagamama logo.


































Eventually i had an idea through the repitition of the letter
"a". Dont know why but it came to me in the end. Abracadabra
a waga moment and i hope it pleases Guy as he was adament that
i would think of something eventually, i had my doubts.
















Although this needs finalizing i hope this is my abracadabra
moment i feel its appropriate to the logo too. There could
be many ways of using this and it is a universal language.
I wanted to do an end sting that showed typography and,
if possible, stick to the logo.
Well back to the original idea as my abracadabra moment
was not thought of as being that good an idea but i'm happy
enough to back track and look at the idea i had last week. This
involved using the a's in wagamama to suggest an arrr moment.
I do like the fact it is totally typographic and only uses the letters
and the star that appear in the logo. Here is my storyboard that
i have started to develop my final piece from.













Not to sure if the chop sticks are that important and have
not finalised if they should be included. I have made some
progress today with the project which was becoming a
concern to me.
Having decided not to use the chop sticks this has helped
me focus on using the logo only which is great progress as its
really the idea i had firstly that i have eventually returned to.
I wanted to add a sound track and came across one that i
have used as i found it appropriate with out losing the subtly
that i have been trying to evolve throughout this project.
I have produced this as my story board for my final piece.







There are two versions that i have included as
the difference is in that application of the sound
track and we were encouraged not to rely on
one finished piece.

Thursday, 4 March 2010

Alan Fletcher gallery visit
















Alan Fletcher 50 years of graphic work (and play).
I visited the Cube gallery in Manchester to see this
exhibition and i was surprised by the shear volume
of work that Fletcher has produced. He is a founding
member of D&AD and one of this countries fathers
of modern graphic design. I have catalogued his
work photographically and here are some of my
examples of the photomontages that i have produced
from the visit.

















The examples above show the wide range of work covered
by Fletcher earlier in his career Working with Crosby, Forbes
and Gill. You can clearly see the range of styles used here
from pastiche and parody through to bold playful type.
!n 1972 in collaboration with five other designers the iconic
Pentagram was formed from Fletcher stumbling across it
in a witchcraft book and the five pointed shape symbolised
their collaboration. They had a multi disciplinary approach
one that was to prove very successful and is very much apart
of today's design world.

















Here are many examples of the variety of work Fletcher
has produced since the early 1960's
































Some examples of one major client Pirelli.













































Optimist/pessimist is a theme he used and here are
some examples he produced using found ephemera.
































































The use of collage in the following sequence reminds me of
the dadaists of the early 1920's.
His visual curiosity has evolved with him since his education
in the 1950's as his themes have developed through the
passing years.






























































































Although it was not possible in the time space to document
all of Fletcher's work i have shown examples mainly of the
work that appeals to me. I must add that his enthuisiasm
for his profession was undoubtable thoroughly enjoyable
to view his ability to relate graphic design to real life is
unquestionable.




Thursday, 25 February 2010

Orion covers

The titles included in this brief are: Kipps, Ann Veronica, The History of Mr Polly and Tono-Bungay.



I have choosen to produce book covers for the D&AD brief. The covers are of a series of HG wells classice and are designed to have a contemporary feel to them in order to entice a new audience. Young literate creatives are the intended audience and i include research to show my progress on this brief. Here are the examples of photographic research that i have carried out.

















I started working with these images and here are some of my initial results



































































Here is the first finished visual for the History of Mr Polly by HG Wells
















I then applied this style to the other books in the series are this is my result















































I wanted to use imagery that i had generated and so i looked back to work i had produced during level 1 and brought these images into my work. Here are some examples of this cover progressing. Although i have now re thought and intend on a different direction. Mr Polly was an arsonist and nearly took lives through his crime. I have tried to work this part of the story into the cover here are examples. I have produced these images using my photographs and line work i produced and scanned.




































Although these efforts have help me
develop my adobe skills i dont think im
where i want to be so i guess ill just keep on
working on it. These next ones are my
latest effort that im more content with.

l












































I feel i have been making progress and i
have started to look at the work of Marion
Duechers an illustrator and designer. This
i believe has given me a more refined approach
and i now feel that i am producing the covers as a
set and using space thoughtfully. In these
next covers i have included a spine and back cover
as i hope i will finalise these as my finished covers.