Evaluation://

Choosing to work on the theme of ninjas for this brief made the research process quite difficult to begin with as the amount of secondary research looking into the history behind the subject was quite limited. I wanted to keep the work quite fun, and because I was initially struggling with gathering strong appropriate research to help inform my ideas, I decided to look into gathering some primary research instead; looking at what people's ideas and thoughts are about the subject, this was later used as a basis for my research. I felt that this brief has been one of my strongest in terms of time management, constantly reflecting on my research to inform my ideas. I feel that I was able to categorize and order the gathered information to successfully resolve the problem.

Although I did look into various different production media, processes and technologies, I didn't want to force them onto my design. I tried out different production methods but due to the nature of my concept and design, I kept with a few methods like embossing and laser cutting which was more appropriate to my ideas. I found that as a whole I have learnt the most in this module, I feel that I've been open up to a new depth of design for production that I had barely considered before. Although I didn't practice / experiment that much on the different print processes, I do feel a lot more informed, and I strongly believe that this knowledge will stay with me and will have a strong influence to my work in the future.

This module had me thinking about every single detail of my design. Before I was mainly focused on the visual elements of my work, the use of stock, pricing considerations and print processes were often an afterthought. The module has taught me how the print production process can have such a massive impact on my work, and due to that I feel that the quality of my development and general work throughout the whole project seems a lot more considered than before. My in particular is quite minimal but the quality I feel is quite accurate to how I wanted it due to the print processes used.

Again, I feel that this is one of my strongest module so far. Might be to do with the idea of being a 2nd year, but I seem a lot more focused for once and my time in college seems to be more productive as a whole. As a result to this, my work seems a lot more organised which reflects my developmental progress throughout the module, I have constantly documented and ordered my work for the first time, and have kept records of my design progress and action plans which has effectively helped shape my development of the brief.

I feel that my final product reflects the vast amount of research and development that I have worked on throughout. The quality of my catalogue and my packaging seems to demonstrate my designs quite accurately. The only issue was that I could have spent more time exploring different materials and formats for the packaging itself. As the product's content is dependent on the research I've gathered, I ended up spending too much time on the product rather than the packaging. As whole I am rather pleased with the final product, but there are obviously areas that I could have improved and paid more attention to.

Things that I could improve on

1 / Time management - I was quite organised with the 'What is good' brief, keeping weekly action plans and constantly blogging my progress, however I did admittedly spent more time on what brief over the 16 page booklet. For future modules, I should also keep action plans on the different briefs and split the time between different briefs.

2 / Could have practically experimented with more print processes.

3 / Invest in some better stock maybe. Although I'm quite pleased with what I used for my final, I do regret not having looked into other options.

4 / Made more mock ups and practically tested my ideas - move away from design sheets more often.

Design for Print

The Catalogue://

A digital version of the catalogue of ninjas

Resolved?://

After many attempts and several trial and errors, the catalogue has finally been printed, bounded and packaged. There has been a few adjustments on the way but it has now been finalized. My final product is a 114mm by 148mm black & white catalogue containing 50 sleeves bounded together with a japanese bind, and packaged with a 150gsm black card for the back cover and a 150gsm black card with a negative emboss for the front cover. Altogether packaged in a black bubble wrap envelope which will transport, protect and be used to distribute in a mail shot method.

The envelope has been made out of clear bubble wrap sheets which have been heat sealed on the sides and sprayed with black spray paint to add to the ninja look and to hide in contents. I think the envelope is rather simple but is relevant to the theme and the purpose of transporting and protecting the catalogue inside while hiding the theme and the contents.

Scale of the envelope and catalogue.

The cover has a 1.5mm negative emboss of the number 45. It is named 45 because it is a collection of 45 ninja profiles, and it didn't want to just call it a ninja catalogue as this would give away the whole idea of it being stealthy and secretive. Instead, I wanted something quite subtle, something like a code word that readers would eventually understand once they read the contents.

The sleeves have been printed on double sided sugar paper as I wanted the stock to be slightly off white, I wanted the aesthetics of the catalogue to have a subtle resemblance to traditional kung-fu / martial arts manuals seen in martial arts films. (See below for example)

The contents of the book have been generated through primary qualitative research based on the 45 students on BA Graphic Design Yr 02. The catalogue contains a brief summary as an introduction on the first page, this was originally intended to be printed with a spot varnish on the back cover, but was sacrificed due to the lack of time to get it printed. The rest of the catalogue simply contains all the profiles of each ninja, their specifications, abilities accompanied by a profile picture://

All the ninjas featured in the catalogue://

It was intentional that I didn't use any colours throughout the whole book as I wanted to stay focused with the theme of ninjas and their image of being stealth, hidden and subtle, which I wanted the whole book to reflect, both aesthetically and with the contents.

All the profile spreads follow a certain grid format to sustain a consistent, systematic look throughout.

Final 2 pages, contain a 'recruitment' form and a 'hiring' form, completes the whole purpose of the catalogue.

Preview://

Final layouts, examples of the spreads that will construct the catalogue. First page will contain a brief summary of the catalogue's purpose along with a cropped image of every ninja featured. Final 2 pages are the 2 applications forms; the hiring form for people to fill in if they want to hire a ninja from the catalogue and a recruitment form. The ninja catalogue is a fast developing industry and we are constantly on the look out for talented ninjas://

I wanted the contents page to include a quote of each of the ninjas aswell as the page number, this idea was scrapped later on as I found that the limitations of the book size made it rather difficult to put all the information in while still maintaining the quality of the images.

Final spread layouts;

I ended up working on an 8 column grid format, this was sufficient for a flexible design format while still allowing the design to follow a consistent aesthetic throughout. Initially, I preferred the layouts with 4 columns of text but was restricted due to the page dimensions again and therefore making the text too small to comfortably read. I wanted to design one layout that would act as a template throughout the whole book, this was a challenge as it needed to contain enough space to place the largest amounts of text in, while still being able to look ordered and considered when there's hardly any text on certain profiles.

Hiring and recruitment application forms;

Again I wanted to keep these rather simple while still following a similar layout format as the rest of the book. The only issue was that the pages might still be a little too small, making it quite unrealistic to write on; probably one of the only things I'd change for definite if I had a 2nd chance on this would be to make the book dimensions a bit bigger.

Ninja Photos all done!

Finally! After several days of shooting, the ninja photos have now been collected, retouched and organized in order of their ninja names. So, 1 more week left pretty much, but only 5 more days till the final crit. I'm aiming to get the book and the packaging completed by monday so I have more time finalising and getting the design boards sorted.

Currently, I have tested, finalised and at the final stages of the contents and the book itself. All that is required is to get the whole thing printed and binded before I can resolve the packaging itself.

Below are the photos anyway, there are unfortunately only 39 out of the intended 45 of the class. There will be profiles of 40 people however, so I am missing 5 people due to the lack of time to gather the infomation.

Anyway, for the photos I have kept the same framing and composition just to have a consistent look throughout the catalogue. I idea was to allow each person to express what their ideas of a ninja was, with the only requirement of covering part of their identity. They turned out rather well infact, the lighting worked well and I have decided to make them into b&w images as it makes the photos seem more serious in a way. Also, the plan was the back the book completely out of black & white therefore the photos had to be monotone.
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Photography test shoot

Contents of the catalogue of ninjas will contain 45 ninja profiles accompanied by a photo of the each individual. Here I have just briefly tested out the comparison between hiding someone's identity through physical boundaries with the results of drawing onto the photos to cover up their faces. Although the vector shapes may be easier, I think the results of physically covering up someone's identity looks and works much better especially when it's viewed as a set of 45.

Each ninja is different, therefore I think it will also be rather interesting to see what each of them will do to hide their identities as a ninja for the photoshoot.

Ninja catalogue mockup://

Since my last post, I have moved on quite swiftly with the brief as the deadline is less than 2 weeks away now and I know that the packaging itself will take quite a few days to mockup and finalize, and then there's also the design boards to put together!

Aswell as working on the contents of the page, I have been developing a half scale book that would act as the mock-up catalogue. I wanted to test out the thickness of pages required, the dimensions of the book and the binding method. This mockup is roughly A6 with 50 individual sleeves binded together with a japanese binding technique. I also used 2 5mm wooden blocks, cut to the exact size of the paper to sandwich the book and sprayed the edge of the pages and the spine black as I wanted the whole book to be black and anonymous when closed. ( Cover will be made of black stock) This has turned out quite successfully, only issue would be the binding really due to the lack of experience, the thread is slightly loose making the whole book a little flimsy. In terms of the size, I think the thickness of the sleeves put together work rather well with the actual dimensions, but this will be tested with how the content will be displayed.




Due to the nature of the spray paint, a small amount of paint has leaked/ soaked through the paper, but this actually adds a nice hand made touch to the book*

Final Concept://

{ Click to enlarge }

Concept statement://

Crit feedback

Received some useful feedback from today's crit which has helped me to determine the direction that I'm going with this brief. According to the feedback given my problem and concept seems to be quite strong at the moment, with substantial research to back up. The main weakness with my work progress at the moment seems to be on the design development and visual quality, which I can completely understand. Looking back, it seems that I've spent too much time working on my research and trying to figure out and decide on a concept, and spenting hardly any time working on the visuals to develop my designs.

In response to this, I have now finally pin pointed my final concept statement and going to focus on the visuals and how my ideas will be resolved.

Few things to consider:
- find audience + purpose of product.
- Find visual understanding.
- Look into symbolic images & specify categories.
- Develop further ideas for inside catalogue.
- Specify focus on what's good about ninjas
- Consider ways to promote publication.

Ninjas | 忍者 | Progress so far://

Less than 3 weeks left on the print module now so thought I'd post a brief update on where i'm at with the 'What's Good?' brief. As concluded from my last post on this, I have been working on why ninja's are good, with a more focused interest on the ninja skills and abilities. From the research gathered, the majority of the people who answered the survey said that they learnt about ninja culture through popular culture, more specifically in films, cartoons and anime. In response to this I wanted to further my research into ninja skills and abilities through how they are shown in films, cartoons and anime etc. This would also make my research alot more accessible as I found it rather difficult researching into the history of the subject, espcially as majority of it seems to be considered myth.

Moving on with the brief, I decided to generate some quick initial thoughts and ideas onto paper as a starting point to work from. From this, I gathered a few worthwhile ideas working around the subject of ninjas. As it is a print module on packaging design, I had to some how put the subject of ninja's into a relevant context, initially this was quite difficult and my work pretty much stalled for a few days as I found it difficult to adapt the ideology of ninja's into something useful and not something that just carries novelty value. I wanted to avoid the obvious, so started looking into the idea of a hidden identity and the possibility of a secret ninja society that still exist today......which unfortunately didn't really get anywhere.

Had a brief chat with Lorenzo just before reading week for some feedback and was told not to be retricted by reality and that it didn't matter if I completely made something up. And more importantly, to have fun with the brief. This turned out to be a turning point with what I was doing so far, as I spent most the time working under tight restrictions that I thought I had to follow, which apparently was not the case for this. So after realizing this, I came up with a few ideas that package something related to ninjas ://


From the brainstorm, I developed some of the strongest ideas and started specifying stock types, ideas on target audience, the message and the print process that I considered etc ://




SO, final 6 concepts to choose from are:
- Book that instructs people how to obtain ninja abilities.
- Packaging a ninja costume.
- Spoof newspaper article on ninja activity.
- Ninja recruitment pack containing branding, identity and ninja booklet.
- Ninja catalogue
- Pack of ninja playing/ collective cards