Extended Practice / Module Evaluation

Extended Practice has been an exigent and dynamic module that has given me an insight into my specialism through a variety of briefs. This allowed me to determine which briefs worked well and which did not, through analysis and evaluation. The briefs varied in scale, meaning I gained experience with working with shorter, fast paced projects, alongside projects which took 6 months. 

Diligent time planning  ensured the projects ran smoothly especially when some of them overlapped, although there were many things out of my control that resulted in me having to think on my feet and adapt; such as professional services not printing samples in time, or content not being sent by the client for long periods of time. This allowed me to gain knowledge in planning ahead and being prepared. This is a skill that can be taken forward for industry, as there will be times where I will be working on multiple projects in the future. 

The module demanded skills within problem solving, such as when things did not go to plan, for example within the Ceramics brief. Many prototypes broke, which resulted in me having to discuss new ideas on how to approach the next set to try and produce something successful. This also included problem solving within other editorial briefs, for example producing the publications and considering stock, binding and other treatments to ensure all error was avoided. Experience with this is helpful for after graduation, when things may go wrong or not work, and I must approach the brief in new and more effective ways to generate a successful resolution in the end. 

Research and contact/communication was another crucial aspect within Extended Practice. A lot of briefs needed primary research and contact from other sources, for example contacting sources for the research brief, conducting surveys and research to establish aims/goals/things to avoid and contacting potential collaborators. This was especially apparent within Brief 05, when I needed external collaboration in terms of producing content for the magazine, and Brief 09 when conducting research and testing the successfulness of the branding resolution. These skills can be taken forward after university, as communication and contact is always a beneficial skill to have within the creative industry. 

Throughout extended practice I feel I have attempted to produce resolutions that are as professional as possible, whether that be through professional printing services or ensuring effort and time was put into producing high quality design resolutions. As a result I have predominantly been proud of the projects I have completed for the module, and feel they have allowed me to explore editorial design to a greater depth, along with other design practices such as branding and identity, another area which I am interested in. 

The module has also allowed me to discover an aspiration in producing my own magazine, something I have been wanting to do in the future, and allowed me to put this into practice in it’s first stages. Demon Magazine has become a passionate project of mine that I hope can be explored further and developed again after university to hopefully become successful in the future. 

Overall I am proud of the effort put into Extended Practice and feel I have evolved as a designer, communicator and creative thinker, and will hopefully be able to translate these skills I have gained into the industry next year.

Metal Magazine / In Context

Here the magazine is shown in context within an appropriate environment alongside other high end publications within independent book stores.

Metal Magazine / Testing

I asked a few questions to peers relating to the aim of the brief, and whether this has been successful. 

Limatations to this study include asking only graphic design students within the class. Some may not be metal fans, it would be more effective to ask a focus group of just metal fans, maybe even some who do not do graphic design to see whether the design and content work. 

The results were extremely positive with 85% engaging with the magazine, albeit an ambiguous question, and also 100% of participants claiming that a metal magazine of this nature doesn't seem to exist. This is good news as I felt there was a gap for a magazine like this. I still haven't personally come across one, so this research shows that no one else has either.

The final question asks what is most effective in terms of appealing to the user. Colour was the highest score, which is understandable as the colour is the main feature which I feel creates the atmosphere and style of the magazine, and looks engaging and interesting.

Overall these results show a success within the project, in terms of appealing to a wider audience than kerrang or rock sound, and creating a new project with a USP which may not exist within the current realm of editorial products in the genre. 

Metal Magazine / Final Product

After much anticipation and suspense, the magazine did finally arrive from Pressision on the 12th. It is printed on 90 GSM gloss stock, with a  150 GSM laminated gloss cover, perfect bound. These elements create a high quality finish which I would be expecting for the price, and which suits the aims of the brief.

The colour was extremely important to the project and the main reason why I needed to use professional printing services. The colour turned out extremely well and is probably the main success of the product. The fluro pink is part of the project's solid identity, and needed to be as bright as possible. 

A problem I have faced is that due to the magazine arriving late towards the deadline, there is no time to take professional photos of it, but this can be done properly after the hand in. 

Overall I am extremely pleased with the result of this project, however it was definitely costly, but necessary. This piece can be used within my portfolio in the future, and also hopefully taken forward and explored further after university. 

Metal Magazine / Packaging Considerations

I considered and explored different ideas around the packaging of the magazine for when it is delivered to users online. 



The first idea I explored was spray painted bags. The idea behind this was to communicate the same format as the front cover of the magazine. I spray painted two bags using regular black spray paint, and surprisingly this worked fine. Problems I encountered were that once the paint dries, in the areas where it is thickest, it chipped off when bending. This means this wouldn't be suitable for deliveries and shipping due to being handled. 

Another element to this idea was adding the vinyl logo to bring out some colour. Although striking, I don't think this communicates the right tone for what I was trying to achieve. The magazine is a high end, stripped bag metal magazine, and this vinyl paired with the spray paint looks too much and may put people off. 

The second idea was a much simpler one, plain plastic sealable bags, with stickers. This looks much more professional and the glossy bag correlates with the glossy cover, resulting in an overall high quality feel, with the sticker giving the magazine a more credible effect. The stickers come in white and black, and are used to further seal the bags for shipping. 

Metal Magazine / Evaluation

Demon Magazine was my personal favourite project this year, as I felt I fully immersed myself into the brief, and had a lot of passion for it from the moment the idea was born. This brief was a self directed editorial project with collaboration internally and externally within the college. It involved the production and management of a contemporary metal magazine. Collaboration included several people writing content for the magazine.

This brief increased my confidence with managing a project by myself. I always feel the most comfortable when I am in control of a project, but at times it’s important to acknowledge you can’t do everything. The main problems from the brief was putting a lot of responsibility on myself - designing, managing emails, collecting content, writing content and organising interviews to name a few. With more help, I feel the project could have been more perfect. Even just having someone else to check the file would have been beneficial, which would have avoided small mistakes within the final product. However, I feel that managing so much of the responsibility was a great way to push myself and get things done independently. 

Communication was another area that was improved upon, as a large section of the brief entailed talking to bands and collecting content. I feel like I now have more skill in handling these things for the future. 

For this brief I chose to invest in professional production services, and requested Pressision to print and bind the magazines. If I had printed this myself, the colour and professional quality would simply not have been the same. I am extremely happy with how the magazine has been produced, and it looks like a real product. I learned how to properly prepare a file for print, including setting up a spot colour.  This will prepare me for future projects where the files must be sent to an external company for printing. 

The most successful areas of this project was concept and identity, and both of those aspects working in harmony. There is a definite gap in the market for a contemporary, stripped back metal magazine differing to the existing publications available in the genre, and has become a passionate project for me which I feel I can expand upon and develop in the future. Overall I am exceptionally proud of the project as a whole and felt it was one of my strongest from the last 3 years. 

Metal Magazine / Promotional Material

Promo Video 

To generate hype on social media, I created a promotional video advertising the magazine. The aim was to be ambiguous, but succinctly communicate what the magazine is all about e.g it's contents - news, articles, interviews and reviews. The aggressive footage at the beginning builds the video up to it's climatic ending, and sets the scene for what the magazine is about. Follows the same guidelines as the rest of the collateral, utilising the same typefaces and colour scheme of grainy black and white footage and pink duotone.

Distribution would be on the magazine's twitter page, and on other social media sites such as instagram and facebook. To gain popularity and buzz, this can be shared by users around twitter/fb.

Posters

Would be placed around city centres, within concert venues (key club, o2, leeds beckett student union etc) and in nichey book stores (Village). Can also be posted online on social media. 

Social Media 

Instagram

Twitter

Metal Magazine / Developments

Moodboard

The aim of the brief is to produce a 'higher end', contemporary metal magazine which has vibes of magazines such as Wonderland and Dazed, whilst still remaining true to the genre so as not to dilute the nature of the content too much. Sources of inspiration came from original black metal logos and their intricate forms, and the concept of pairing such an authentic aspect of metal music with contemporary 'minimal' compositions. A slight example of this is FORM, the combination of the metal style logo alongside interesting photography and bright colours offers an engaging juxtaposition. Alongside this I looked into type, and the importance of using type which reflects the genre itself, such as typefaces bands have made famous e.g Motorhead. 

Other things to consider; packaging and extra collateral. Will there be posters inserted into the magazines? Will it have packaging or is that wasteful and unnecessary? Stickers? Vinyl? It will all depend on the stock choices (if it is durable) and binding method, to determine whether extra packaging should be used e.g plastic wrapper or dust jacket.

The moodboard sets the scene for idea generation and creating an appropriate identity for the magazine. 

Band Logos

 

These images above showcase very famous logotypes by iconic metal bands. Each logo is different but adopts the same dynamic feeling, usually with a heavy weight and custom letterforms (the M and A on Metallica for example), which become part of their identity, like a brand. The aim is to channel this within the magazine, and create a custom 'logotype' which has the appearance of belonging to a band, which then can be identified as the project would grow. 

Perhaps due to the age of these album covers, the imagery on them seems a bit guady in this day and age, although classic at the time, stylistic choices within metal have definitely progressed. On the cover I will experiment with image and type only.  

Colour Choice

Existing magazines have been known to overdo the 'gothic' colour scheme of black and red. Black is a colour often associated with metal music, because of social trends and subcultures.



Cover Developments

Magazines usually feature a celebrity/artist/designer on the front, depending on the theme of the publication. I decided to try out using imagery and just type. Firstly experimenting with a dark theme and a photo of Code Orange who are featured in the magazine. These felt 'too dark' and metal, and I didn't feel as though they challenged the brief. Blackletter fonts seem to be a bit too much paired with the theme of the project.

I then worked with photos of Marilyn Manson from his edgy shoot with Vice, and found the feel for these images was more appropriate. I pushed this by using a 'spray paint' effect which reflects the inherent anarchy that exists within alternative culture and the frustration some may feel. It injects life and colour. I used the colour pink, as I felt this appropriately contrasts with the theme of the publication as it is stereotypically a girly colour, and I wanted to challenge this. The brighter pink works more suitably, as it connotes volume and looks more dynamic than a softer baby pink. The extended typeface is modern and current, and also loud and vibrant like the music featured in the publication. Offers good legibility too.

I worked with images of Slipknot to keep in with the content of the publication, as a mutual friend had interviewed Chris Fehn of Slipknot and gave me permission to publish this in the magazine. The duotone images look really effective with the 'scary' nature of Slipknot's masks, and the pink contrasts with what the original images look like. They look 'cleaner' and more contemporary due to just being one colour.

I experimented with my hand drawn 'death metal' style logo and found this to really work as a juxtaposition between the contemporary composition and colour.

Without imagery, all attention is placed on the logo. The logo is busy, and so it does not necessarily need any distracting imagery that could take away from it. Without imagery, the publication looks less magaziney, but more professional and classic.

I found that the most favourable cover was type and pink spray paint, so this was developed further. I created an A3 spray paint texture with bleed, as I wanted it to cover the back of the A4 magazine as well.

I then added the logo and relevant information. This is much more stripped back than other metal magazines looked at during research. The aim again is to create a magazine that is more minimal without unnecessary clutter such as article headlines etc. 

From determining the colour, personally I feel that this then sets the tone for the rest of the magazine, and allowed me to keep in with the theme of fluorescent pink, black, and white. 

Grid

The grid was designed for the use of columns, to create compositions which look professional and neat. Because of the purpose and audience, the magazine needs to look high end and as perfect as possible, whilst still communicating core values of the metal scene (big type, images with slightly distressed treatement, appropriate articles and features.) 

Images

I experimented with coloured images within my publication, but this would also increase cost alongside fluorescent pink during printing. I decided to keep to a guideline of greyscale images and fluro pink duo tone images to keep it vibrant and consistent, and cost effective. Having these colours spread across all collateral forms a recognisable identity.

 

Metal Magazine / Samples

To make sure the final printed copies will look how I want, I requested two samples of 90 GSM stock in gloss and without to see which works best.

When I recieved the samples I was very pleased with the gloss stock, it felt authentic to how a magazine usually feels. However unfortunately the pink had printed in a very light baby pink which was not what I was aiming for. I had approached Pressision because of their abilities to print bright fluorescent pink, and this shade could possibly be achieved if printed in the print room. 

I emailed Shelley to ask why the shade had printed like this. 

The print samples will be redone with more hits to achieve a more fluorescent pink. 

Metal Magazine / Local Bands / Interview 02

From seeing my post on various facebook groups related to hardcore music, James from the band The Disconnect messaged me showing an interest in being part of the magazine. I emailed him some brief questions:

Unfortunately The Disconnect were not very reliable with replying to me, so I sourced another band named Glass Harbour. This required me to think on my feet as the situation with The Disconnect put me in a stressful position. Robert from Glass Harbour however was extremely friendly and helpful, efficiently sending me answers to the interview questions the same night:

"Where are you guys from? We’re from around Middlesbrough and Newcastle, we all live dotted around the North East pretty much. How long has Glass Harbour been going? A little over two and a half years which has flown by like, mind it only started to get kicked into gear about 8 months after being an active band though to be honest! What are your influences? We have a massive range of influences which effect us musically and as people, but i’d say bands like While She Sleeps, Hundredth and The Ghost Inside, bands of that sort, have a direct influence on our music, but there’d be a huge list if i were to name every band that influences! What are your goals for the future? Tour tour and tour pretty much! And we should we really finish up our new record as well! But yeah, touring wherever we can really, we’re aiming to get into Europe as soon as possible as well!"

Additionally, Robert also told me he was a graphic designer and this lead to talking about the subject a little bit too, and forming connections in that aspect as well.

Metal Magazine / Distribution / Actual Source

After mentioning my magazine in my PPP presentation, Ben suggested selling it on the website actualsource.org, which I went to check out and really took a liking to the content on there. The publications on there are all very independent including a lot of limited edition items which resonates with this particular project. After the magazine is delivered I will contact Actual Source for more information and feedback.

Metal Magazine / Risograph Samples

One of the print methods available that can achieve the fluorescent pink colour I would need is risograph printing. Searching online and also asking James in the print room for any local services, I came across Footprinters, Footprint Workers co-op, which specialise in risograph printing:

Above is the colours and shades that Footprinters can achieve, from deep colours such as black and blue to bright pink and yellow. The nature of some of their inks is fluorescent, which is what I want to achieve within my magazine. I emailed Footprinters to see if I could get a sample of how the pink and black inks look:

I sent over an example of a spread that has pink and black on each side to see how they look together.

The colours where really pigmented, the pink was vivid, and the black was jet black, however a problem I discovered was that the ink easily came off onto fingers:

Because I was aiming for a professional looking finish, unfortunately risograph printing isn't the best option and most suitable for the brief. A more appropriate printing method is digital/litho, which would help me to achieve the standard I want, alongside finishes such as gloss and perfect bind.

Risograph, however, is incredibly appealing for more DIY / independent type briefs which may require achieving the said ink without worrying too much about professional standards. Due to it being cost effective, the print does look less refined than the samples from Pressision. Because of this, Presssion seem like the most suitable service providers for the job, even if it is much more costly, in order to achieve what I am wanting to out of the brief, a professional, contemporary rock and metal publication.

Metal Magazine / Research / The Death Archives

The Death Archives is a publication which tells the story of one of the most notorious black metal bands, Mayhem, who unfortunately have a very graphic and depressing story ending with one member committing suicide and another member being murdered.

What is interesting about this publication is the way it brings black metal and aesthetic looking publication design together in a similar way that I want to for this brief. The full bleed images are very focused and uncluttered, and the stock choice looks of good quality, alongside the professional looking cover which shows someone's back tattooed with the band name. The whole publication keeps the band's edge while stripping back the story and just displaying the right amount of imagery and information.