George Eccles

I took some pictures to use as primary sources for my designs. You can see the images below.

I will first need to edit the brightness and contrast on these pictures and then I will cut the items out using the pen tool. I can then use the cutouts for my poster designs and maybe some other things. I will need to edit the logo from the camera also, using the patch tool. I would have liked to used an actual camera but I struggled to find an available one that I could borrow. I am happy with these pictures and am eager to see how I can use them in my designs.

I began to look at some large branding companies and the first one that caught my eye was Motto. Motto have worked with big companies such as: Google, Hershey’s, 20th Century Fox and NCM. This company caught my eye because they focus on designs for social media and creating a following for a new product or movie for example. I have worked a lot with social posts at my job and these can be important for advertising my festival.

Here you can see some of the designs Motto created for noovie. Another reason I was drawn to Motto is the amount of examples they show on their website. These help to give me inspiration and ideas for my own designs and branding.

Another thing I like about Mottos designs are, the simple style they use and use of contrasting colours which they seem to use a lot. I have discussed that I want to do something similar with my festivals branding and the greenr chocolate packaging has given me some inspiration.

A designer which I looked at was Chip Kidd. Chip Kidd has focused a lot on creating book covers. This means that his designs have a large focus typography.

These designs give me a lot of inspiration for how I can set out the text for my poster. I am a fan of the wide range of ways in which he displays his typography and he has used many different methods. I am not sure yet on wether I want an illustration or photograph for the background for my poster. Looking at these designs has helped to give me ideas on how I can display text on a photograph or an illustration. Chip Kidd’s portfolio is so vast and varied that I enjoyed looking through his work and it was a great form of inspiration for me.

I firstly created some basic merchandise which will be affordable for the people attending my festival. I created these in photoshop and used the Perspective tool when needed.

The t-shirts will come in different colours such as blue, black, red and grey. I now needed to look at the wrist bands for my festival. I will have 3 different colours for my wristband to show VIP and All-Access.

To get the Animaze logo to fit the shape of the wrist band I used the Type on Path tool in Illustrator. For the colour of the band I used multiple duplicated layers of the original wrist band and changed it used the Hue/Saturation took. This can be seen below.

 

I now wanted to create some designs for my logo to be placed on to see how it looks. This helps me to come up with a colour scheme and which colour will best suit my logo and festival.

Firstly, I created the background in Illustrator using the pen tool for the illustrations you see in the background. I created these illustrations to resemble tools needed for animation. I wanted to keep it quite simple and allow the logo to be the most prominent aspect of the designs. Out of these 3 colours i prefer the light blue. This is because I feel as if the logo contrasts the best with this background. These designs can be used for social media, for example, Facebook cover photos. It can also be used for things such as flags and a-boards for advertising my festival. I have super imposed these designs as seen below.

For these illustrations on the background I used the pen tool in Illustrator and used different stroke widths to add detail to my illustrations.

I have super imposed these designs as seen below.

These will be placed around the festival for decoration, advertisement and instruction. I also created a horizontal banner

To create these designs I used tools such as Perspective, Skew and Pen Path tool which can be seen below.

This is the final logo design that I have decided on. As mention before, I am happy with the font and I feel as if it correlates perfectly with the feel of my festival and the style I am going for with my poster designs for example. For the icon, I wanted it to be used separately for some designs and I feel as if the number in the same font as the text allows me to do this. I still need to see how it looks in some designs but I am happy with how everything has come out.

I now began to try and improve on the icon designs I had created earlier. I wanted to create a final design which I could use with my text and I started with the play button.

I firstly, added a small line to see if it would add anything to the design. As mention before, I want to keep the icon as simple as possible, but I just felt as if this didn’t do enough for the design and it was still not a unique design. I then tried to add the letter A for Animaze into the logo. I don’t mind this design but I just feel as if it doesn’t show the letter A clear enough for it to be a viable icon. I do like the idea of the letter A being incorporated into my logo because it allows the icon to be used more frequently on it’s own.

I still wanted to see how I could improve another icon design so I looked at the frame one I created first.

Here, I added another frame behind the help symbolise the idea for frames used within animation. I liked this design and I feel as if it is clear if someone is interested or has experience with animation. The main problem with the initial design was that it wasn’t clear enough that it was a frame and could have been interpreted as a polaroid. I still felt as if this design needed something extra to finalise it.

This is the final design and it is also the icon I am going to go with for my logo. I added the number 1 in the same font as the text to firstly, symbolise again that it is a frame and also because I have used the same font as the text this allows for the icon to be used separately from the text. This is because it helps to draw comparisons to the Animaze font and quickly connect that they are for the same thing.

 

 

I now needed an icon to go with my text. I need something that relates to animation but I want the icon to be simple and easily recognisable. The purpose of the icon is to use in certain designs such as merchandise, social media assets and my poster. Here are some of the initial designs I created in illustrator.

This design is supposed to resemble a single frame when creating an animation. I like this idea and it links back to the names FRAMES which I was leaning towards. I have some ideas for expanding on this design and how to make it clearer.

This icon is a simple play button and obviously links to animation. I just feel as if this icon has been played out for this theme and is a little stale. I am also struggling to think of ways to expand on this design. However, it can work if need be.

The final design I came up with was this pencil design. I like this design because most animations start with sketches and drawings and I think a lot of animators or enthusiasts can relate to this design. The only problem is that I’m not too keen on how it looks next to the text and may need some work until it works along with the font.

 

To start designing my logo I started by looking at some fonts that I felt suited the name ANIMAZE. Here are my best findings.

The first 3 instantly catch my eye and are easily my preferred fonts. My favourite from these is the third font. This is because it fits the style which I had in my head of casual and I feel as if it suits animation. For the first font I feel as if the striped design could cause problems with contrasting and can sometimes be more difficult for people to read due to this effect. For the second font, I like this style and the designs I could create with it but I feel as if it takes the theme of my festival down a more serious route. The designs would have to match this style and the grid effect could he difficult to re-create if needed.

I think that the third is firstly, the easiest to read, and it suits the feel which I am going for. I need to see this font on some designs and then create a logo icon to go with it. However, I am happy with this font and think it will work for my festival.

FLICKS, ANIMAZE, FLASH and FRAMES

To help me decide on a name for my festival I asked some friends and family to tell me which of the 4 are their favourite. The 4 names I am leaning towards are: FLICKS, ANIMAZE, FLASH and FRAMES. I asked around 7 people are 6 of them chose ANIMAZE as their favourite name. This is because of the link to animation and the play on the word amazing. They felt as if this name was the most clear and gave an instant idea of what the festival is about. I did like the name FRAMES because of the use of frames when creating animation but I can see where they are coming from. People may not instantly connect this name to animation compared to ANIMAZE.

I like the name ANIMAZE and the initial ideas which I can create from it. I agree that it is the clearest name for my festival and also gives it a more light hearted feel. I want the designs for my festival to be of a calm and casual nature and I think out of the 4 names, ANIMAZE allows me to do this best.

I had to do some research into existing film festivals and some of the current most popular ones. I need a location and time to hold my festival and I have to take into account the existing festivals. This is because they can have an affect on people able to attend my festival.

Europe is a very popular destination for film festivals and some of the largest film festivals in the world are held in Cannes, Venice and Berlin. This obviously means that Europe is a place where films are extremely popular and could be a good destination for my festival. I just have to be wary of the time and date and make sure it doesn’t overlap with the existing festivals. I feel as if Italy would be a great destination for my festival due to the beauty of the country and the interest in film that the country has. Verona is a good destination due to it being placed between Venice and Milan. Beside it being a large large city the fact that is between these places will mean a lot of people will be able to reach the festival. It can also serve as a holiday activity for people who are currently in Italy and have an interest in film.

I want to hold my festival at the start of July and I think that the 10th of July is a good start date for my festival. It will end of the the 13th of July. This date works because most of the famous film festivals begin in May and end at the start of June. This means my festival will be separate from these festivals. The fact that it will be in summer also helps to bring in customers who may be on holiday at the time.

The target audience for my festival will be people aged 25+ and people who are interested in animation or have experience in it. People will be encouraged to bring their animations and show case them and the fact that it is being held in Italy means that people attending will need to have excess money and a decent income. Obviously anyone is welcome but the location makes it more difficult to attend.