Assignment i.
Applied Arts and Design I
Assignment i. "Creative Brief"
For this project, I design a creative brief and I tried to make it very simple and clean. The hardest part for me was the writing of the brief, I tried as much as possible to make it short and understandable, which I think I did a fair job on that. While designing this brief I realized it's not easy as it looks, trying to make it not complicated was a bit challenging however, with the right sources , the right type, and always making sure the everything its in the right place it turned out to be good.
Sep 10, 2020
Creative Brief, Sketches.
(down below)
Mood Board, Mock up.
"Mood Board" for the Zine
I also had to deliver a mood board,to flash any new ideas,different topics, colour scheme, the company or a person that I would chose to create the zine for, which I ended up picking Paula Scher. think that mood boards fail as a strict explanation of 'what will happen' in the final design, but mood boards become more valuable when you're presenting to your professor or a client. Making a board It's a great process that really helps with building client designer relationships.
Why did I chose to make a zine for Paula Scher?
She is an inspiration woman in the Graphic Design Industry, as I want to pursue a career in graphic design field. Paula was the first female to partnership with the New York Office of Pentagram, She is very innovative with her design skills especially a lot of illustration with typography. She finds inspirations in different art styles, but the most common one that we are used to see are Russian Constructivism and Art Decor. Her design skills are something that I always admire, playful, bold, simple and the way she uses type. Which i hope in future, I will be able to be half as good as her.
Sep 10, 2020
Deciding in the topic, "LOCAL WOMEN ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS"
I changed my topic quiet some many times, and I ended up using the, "Local Women Artists and Designers" because I am very passionate about feminism and I wanted to include and support amazing women local artists and represent Paula Scher's design, layout, the use of font, colours.
Sep 12. 2020
RESEARCH TIME
I did some research to get to know more in detail about her style, the use of layouts, fonts etc. Her attention to detail is something that I want to learn from, because i am still trying my best but there is always something that i miss or forget. She plays a lot with hierarchy big fonts and small fonts with very bright colours like orange, yellow, bright pink. Also, I really tried my best to mimic the way Paula plays with different fonts because It is really fun and impressive to look at.
Sep 15, 2020.
STEP BY STEP
First, I started messaging a lot of women local artists here in Medicine hat Area and I was so thrilled to see the interest from other artists to be part of my zine. This interest from them made my project 1000x way more better, I was staying up late to work thats how much fun I was having working in it.
I ended up using 9 amazing talented women including myself in the end, here are all the names;
Jenna Hoffart
Sierra Levac
Clarie Hawker
Ashlynn Arnold
Kayla Chouinard
Kira Vilestra
Shyanee Summers
Brooklyn Schnor
Arberesha Salihu
Sep 22, 2020
Cover Page,
FINAL OUTCOME
Here is the final piece, after trying my best for hours and hours to come up with this amazing zine that I really am proud of.
For my zine I ended up using Agency Gothic and Roboto font. I really tried to register my hours in the website Toggl, but for some reason half of the time I forgot to Pause for this reason I am not one hundred precent how much time i spent. However, I would say around 35 hours just designing the layouts adding text and images in Indesign not including the time I spent messaging artists and designers around Medicine Hat Area.
Layout of the text,
Example of the layout I did for each page that had the name of the artist/designer. I tried to keep it really simple and clean, I tried to play with the placement of the text where you can see their names in front of the profile picture and their Instagram accounts.
Example of the title of each artworks.
Close up, of the caption.
ARTWORKS
For each artist/designer I include three of their best work that they have created or they favour and made sure everyone got credit for their work in my zine.
Oct 3, 2020.
PREVENT THE SPILL
#Preventthespill is a campaign designed for the encouragement of menstrual product donations and e-transfers to the Medicine Hat Food Bank. This campaign which runs from Oct 25- Nov 17 is designed to engage people of the community to donate to a valuable and urgent cause.
In this project we were assigned to work in a group with three other students and create two poster one for women and one for man and create social media content to help people to donate menstrual products to the Food Bank. We tried to use denotation and connotation because we wanted to create and evolve the word "menstrual product" because we wanted to create a powerful visual and verbal language which the audience have the ability to create their own perspective and create variety of message which can help grow awareness.
Last meeting with the group, we discussed about the outline, and brainstorm some couple ideas for the poster. Also, we created a mood board so we keep everything on track.
Time Spent: 2hr
Oct 4, 2020.
Update in the Creative Brief,
We got some feedback from Tara and we end up changing the target audience and couple changes to the outline as well. After, the feedback we went through everything we changes some elements that we though could be potential better version of what we had so far.
Mock up of the Outline brief for the #Preventthespill.
Image of the poster
POSTER
The poster itself is characterized by two elements one which is the wine and the pad.
The reason why we picked the wine it's because in Medicine Hat a lot of wealthy people drink wine and the colour of the wine is pretty similar to the period blood. We end up using the sentence as “ Wine a luxury, menstrual products are not”, because that one fitted the most with the poster. The pad in the poster is preventing the spill from the wine, we did originally had the pad with wine on it, but when we presented it to a few people they were more disturbed about the ‘bloody’ pad and couldn't move on to look at the rest of the poster.The title has ‘prevent’ in a bright red similar to a stop sign how the colour is the bright red to bring attention to it and make it eye grabbing.
While I was taking pictures of the wine and glass I was trying to frame and create content and elevates its importance as the focus of the composition.
Oct 16, 2020.
Final Poster of #PREVENTTHESPILL desinged by Arberesha Salihu
MY ROLE IN THE GROUP
First I would like to thank everyone in my group because everyone did their part and did a good job. Being in a group has its own challenges and difficulties especially with separating roles and not making anyone from the group feeling left out. Which I believe we were really a good group in terms of communing and understanding each other's ideas.
My role in this group was really fun, I got to take the pictures of the poster ideas that we decided collectively to work with. After, taking pictures me and McClay picked the ones that we really wanted to work with and edit them together.
I mainly designed the poster with the help of McClay we were always together rather in her phone or even video chats, every move we did together, the choice of the font, the colours the placement of the text. Furthermore, I was the person behind the camera and McClay was calling the shots for everything that was in in the poser, which I think she did really a good job.I was able to find a good quality of the logo of the lube oil, for the food bank poster Paige was the one who helped me. Also, i created the brief and we added information with all the group, I was in charge of doing the layout, colour, picking the font etc.
What I learned from this experience is that, I used to really love group work the diversity, different range of ideas and minds. However, this year I have been doing so much group work I am starting not to like it anymore as I used to, because I feel that I'm outshining and afraid to bloom and afraid to talk.
Time spent; 30 hours.
October 20, 2020
Assignment iii.
BRAND IDENTITY
How do I represent myself as an artist/designer?
HOW DO I REPRESENT MYSELF IN MY BRAND IDENTITY?
As an artist/ designer knowing what you are going to do after graduation can be very intimidating or feeling scared, confused, lost and not knowing where to start. This year being my last year in MHC it is very sad and exciting at the same time, I have learn so much about myself and improved my skills and ready to have a professional job.
I have learned so much from instructors from the past three years, I have discovered that design is such a small word but very impactful the world. As of right know I am trying to improve my design skills as much as i can with what I have available in front of me. I came to Canada knowing that one day I will be somebody and that is, "designer", seeing my other classmates their background, getting help from friends or not even have to worry about failing a class. That for me would be a luxury which still today I don't have, I am very grateful for the opportunity that has been given to be to have a proper education here, but I have to work my ass off "sorry for the language".
Not having all those opportunities has helped a lot of developing this empathy character that I have and I wanted somehow to apply in my brand identity. There are couple points that I wanted to focus in my brand:
Personality
Culture
Character
My Values
Time spent 2hr
November 14, 2020
RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH
I have a good habit of doing research If i am not sure about something or I need to find answers before i start designing anything because if I don't understand the topic most of the case i am not doing right and i just end up doing the wrong thing and wasting time.
The book from Alina Wheeler. "Designing Brand Identity" Second Edition in page 13 she mentions that "Brand Identity must be an authentic expression of an organization: it's unique version goals, values,voice and personality", which I aim for and opened my eyes that it's way more important that what I thought. Authenticity refers to my self-knowledge and to making decisions and choices that are congruent with that self-knowledge.
November 24, 2020
Self Branding Logo
My brand
Choosing a logo for my self branding it was the most challenging part of the whole project.I believe it was because I felt like this was an opportunity to represent who I am as a creator/artist.
I chose to go with my nickname "Besha",not only because I wanted to be very simple and catchy. Also, because this is what my close family member used to call me since I can remember, sometimes they would even call me "Breshka" which in English means turtle.
The story behind the logo
I always admired bold logos because thats what I would always remember especially the; Nutella, Target, Puma, No name etc, and somewhat I wanted to incorporate that in my logo, so it can be as much memorable as the other brands that I mentioned.
Icon, Index, and Symbol – Three Categories of Signs
An Icon has a physical resemblance to the signified, the thing being represented. A photograph is a good example as it certainly resembles whatever it depicts.
An Index shows evidence of what’s being represented. A good example is using an image of smoke to indicate fire.
A Symbol has no resemblance between the signifier and the signified. The connection between them must be culturally learned. Numbers and alphabets are good examples. There’s nothing inherent in the number 9 to indicate what it represents. It must be culturally learned
While I was creating I was making notes on how the audience is going to interpreter? Are they going to visual the message I was trying to create with my brand? Are they getting energy, positive vibe from it or are they feeling the opposite of that. A Symbol has no resemblance between the signifier and the signified. The connection between them must be culturally learned. Numbers and alphabets are good examples
‘For a sign to be truly iconic, it would have to be transparent to someone who had never seen it before — and it seems unlikely that this is as much the case as is sometimes supposed. We see the resemblance when we already know the meaning’ (Cook 1992: 70).
December 9, 2020
Time Spent 12hr.
Brand Guideline, Style Guide, Contract & Creative Brief
What is Brand Guideline?
The brand guideline document is designed to keep every element of the company’s branded content consistent and in line with the established look, feel and design of the brand. As such, it details key elements like your brand’s specific tone, logo, colour palette, font, wording, photography, corporate video and imagery guidelines, as well as the content’s general feel.
I started reflection on my own work, my fine arts, graphic design; illustration, photography serigraphy etc. I was aware of what kind of style I like, my colour palette, my personality as an artist/creator so that wasn't a hard task for me as I developed it throughout my two years of here in College.
What is in the Brand Guideline?
Welcome
I gave a warm welcoming in the first page and describing a little bit of what in the brand guideline. I also included one of my favourite still life pictures that I took in the lighting studio of me and my siblings. The reason why I included is that I am very family-oriented person, and for me it means more than anything in the world.
Bio
I gave a brief background about my brand, and I wanted to portray that kind of brand that values empathy, good energy and feeling welcomed, happy with the services.
Brand Values
Besha's Brand values a lot of things however, I wanted to include the top two; K- for Kindness and Sustain + Ability.
The main reason why I decided to pick kindness among other values its because I was inspired of how people can really help each other by doing a small generous act especially with the Covid I have noticed that this is what is keeping people from not going sane. I wanted my brand to be something that people can be part of the family and just enjoy a good time because life is short and it is a privilege.
Suistanbility is another thing that I want my brand to value because we want our products and designs to last as much as they can so there is less waste and being more innovative so our future can have a better and safe life.
Logo
I showed where I got my inspiration for my logo, and why I added the smiley face and why I made some changes it into a more balanced design,
Colour Palette
In the beginning i wasn't sure of which colour palette to pick, after some thoughts I decided to use Red, Black, Greys and White. I describe why I made these decision and I named colour in Albanian language so people can have fun when they try to pronounce them,
Typography
The moment I saw MADE TOMMY i just felt in love how clean and bold is that font. I chose two typeface one classical "Bodoni" and the one I use quite often in my other designs because the history behind it and the elegance that this serif font shows. The moment I saw MADE TOMMY i just felt in love how clean and bold is this sans serif font. The reason why I picked one sans-serif and one serif Its because I wanted to create more contrast and give personality to the brand and also because I use them quite a lot. I think I have grown so much learning how to use typography this year it just clicked for me how typography works, and how to play around with it.
Time spent 18hr
December 10. 2020
Business Card
I had really fun creating the business card, I wanted to look alike my brand guideline and I believe I did that successfully.
I left the front of the business card a lot of space so people can write all kinds of words in there so they can always think about besha's business cards.
Time spent 1hr
December 10, 2020
Mock-up, Besha's Business Card, front and back.
Creative Brief and Sample Contract
A lot of creators might say that these designing this type of documents can be boring, but I honestly I quiet enjoy it because I am limited to what I can do so my brain is forced to create something better than just boring.
Mock-up Creative Brand Identity.
Grid Breakdown
Sample Contract, Besha's Brand Identity.
My Final Thoughts
Branding is a process , not a skill to learn, One can only practice it.
Everything is branding, the culmination of hundreds of little decisions and interactions that can span across dozens of business functions and several partners and providers.
If you’re a hotel chain, thread count is branding. So is hold music, reservations systems, and real-time content. If you’re a retailer, inventory management is branding. So is the loyalty program, long-form video and mobile app design. If you’re a contact lens company, comfort is branding. So is packaging, research and development, and the rewards program. If you’re a software company, employee satisfaction is branding. Customers respond to amazing experiences by helping to build the brand – through loyalty, recommendations, advocacy, and even creating their own communities and subcultures with a brand at the center. Digital has given customers the power to share their experiences widely, making (or breaking) your brand along the way.
Brand experience is the new customer experience: Everything is branding. With the tools in hand to build the needed influence and create the right experiences.
My overall experience with creating a brand for myself was very challenging and very exciting at the same time , because it is a very big deal how you represent yourself to other amazing creator and having your unique that might help me from the rest of creative community.
Overall Time spent 42 hours
December 10, 2020
