Final Major Project - Fictional band - Develop 3: Unit 12/13

 Final Major Project - Fictional Band:

Develop - Promotional assets/Outcomes

Now that the logo, character designs, and (most integrally) the actual purpose and narrative of the band was established, I could begin creating various assets for the band's promotional campaign.

I began by creating a poster promoting the band's debut performance in Bielefeld, this would be a secondary outcome to support two primary outcomes. I analysed other gig posters, noting the visual styles and key information included in each of them. When developing my own poster, I used a gradient background and placed the band and logo on top of this. My first iteration was too compositionally imbalanced, with most details featured on the bottom third of the layout. I fixed this by moving the placement of the band members, changing the placement and scale of the logo, and adding my created pattern to balance the detailing of the poster. I then added relevant information and texture overlay to finalise the design.

I also decided to create stickers of the bands logo as another secondary outcome. To do so, I approached Sayedul from the printshop at Rave and discovered how to create the right file type and shape stroke using Adobe Illustrator to then send to print as stickers. I created two iterations - the first being just the logo, and the second featuring a gradient background. I chose to go with the gradient iteration, as it added more colour variation and interest to the design and accentuated the logo.

As one of my primary outcomes, I created a visualiser for the band's debut single. I did this by creating a layout using the programs CSP and Photoshop, saving the backdrop as a .jpeg and the other assets (characters, logo, song title) as .PNGs to allow me to layer these up in Adobe After Effects. Once in After Effects, I created key frames to rotate the logo as a basic animated element, and also added a static TV visual effect for more variety in the movement of the visualiser. 

My second primary outcome was a 7" vinyl record sleeve for the band's debut single. To design this, I used the logo as the focal point of the front cover and created a background using a secondary colour from my colour palette. I then added two textures on top of the image - one to add a worn edge effect and the other to add a grain texture to the design. I repeated this for the back cover - instead adding relevant information (band name, track listing, writing and recording credits, production credits, copyright label). At first the overlays caused the colours to appear dull, so I adjusted the hue, contrast, and saturation to rectify this issue. I then sent for this to be printed by an online record printshop. Originally, I was planning on printing this in-house with Sayedul and then using the Zund cutter to create the fold lines to then manually build the cover myself. However, upon discussing this with Sayedul, I discovered it would be more time and cost effective to instead outsource this process - which would also benefit my final outcome, as this would also lead to a more refined product instead of a prototype.

As my final secondary outcome, I printed the logo onto two t shirts. I bought two tops with a high level of elastane at the advice of the Atelier's Aubyn, as these would lead to the best results using heat-press printing. I chose heat-press printing as it was the most cost and time effective printing method. I printed one red logo and one black logo on to each shirt. The black logo had an unintended greenish tint and the red logo burned the t shirt material, so in future I would experiment with the heat-press more using other materials to test and buying additional garments as a failsafe.

This concluded my outcome development, so to capture each outcome in the highest quality possible, I booked in a photoshoot session with the Rave photography facilities. I provided my photographer with a moodboard of desired shot types and backdrop colour, and then went on to have my outcomes professionally photographed.