I have just uploaded some screen shots of some of our output material.
As mentioned earlier in the blog postings we wanted to really echo Artstation’s creative mentality that art is life. This became the backbone for the ‘mantra’ eat art sleep. It also became the idea behind out aesthetic for the design - hand made. Taking everything back to hand done - as this is where creation in whatever form begins.
We also decided to go with orange and blue as it was a fun, eyecatching contrast and it also doesn’t allude to anything in particular - we felt with the amount of colour we wanted to use the red would be a little bit harsh. We wanted a nice clean colour scheme and also with the ink splatters we were concerned that red could look like a slasher movie!
We have utelised the blog as best we can to make it look/function as a website would do. Here is a screen shot of the pages we have created to work like buttons on a website and have the necessary information about Artstation.
Since the workshop last Wednesday we haven’t posted anything because we have been really busy working on the changes we realised needed to happen.
The main thing that has changed is we are putting the video on hold/removing it from our brief. This is not because we wouldn’t have been able to complete it in time but we discussed it with Keren and Helen from The Common Room and felt that it was not going to actually contribute anything constructive at this point for Artstation. We realised that if we spent the time making the video it would show that we were more concerned with just making another output, but in reality it would just become a stagnant. In order to talk more effectively to the youth we needed to really capitalise on social media strategy - which meant putting our current efforts on steroids and really nailing a new online approach.
It was a bit of a gutting moment when we realised we had to ditch our video idea as a lot of hours had gone into it and we had already created a very cool aesthetic for a stop motion that involved lots of line drawn hands and a time lapse of a life drawing. So making the decision to let all this work go was hard but a good learning curve for us. Rather than trying to do everything under the sun in the 8 weeks that we have, if we cement some really solid strategy foundations that in the future these things can still happen. It is also likely that if we get our planning perfect now that aiming for a promo video etc has a higher chance of being executed more professionally with a concrete concept behind it.
So, with regard to the online movement we are going back to their Facebook page and revamping it so that it has a direct intent of hosting an online community that promotes discussion and feedback. The page will be a place for people to post work and classes to post work too. The value of facebook is the sense of imput and discussion, it is easy to comment and ‘like’ things.
Our blog is still going to exist as it was currently as an Auckland Arts feed page but we are now going to sync these posts with the Facebook page so that there is the ability to tap into the current Facebook following. We tossed up the need for a blog so much. Some seriously heated discussions and the opinion of practically our entire uni tutor team came into it. I think the fundamental swing for the blog was that creating a page that is lively and current that is not Facebook will be a really good lobbying point for the future of getting a completely stand site. There is the possibility that the blog alone will actually be the best device for this, however, having a blog that will have snippet feeds in the Facebook allows the viewer to click away from Facebook and be in a complete Artstation space. We looked at a few case studies of companies that use a blog and feed it via Facebook and came to the conclusion that it is going to be a good move.
We are also linking in a Twitter account because it seems silly not to utelise this method of communication as well and the greater stretch we can get on our online voice the better.
That’s all on that main move for now. Will blog some more details and images soon that show a bit of our progress with the other things we have been working on/have finished. (Committee logo, committee poster, letter send out, manual design etc)
Just a couple of screen shots from when we were playing around with headers and posters. Will have to post up committee logo updates too cause I don’t think that pretty jpeg has featured for a while..
This was a very early placement of the poster. We spent literally about two hours working on the text copy at the bottom. Can’t believe how hard it was to word well. But we have got something now to pop in. The text at the bottom here is more a place holder until we knew what was coming!
Yesterday I had made a meeting with Arch from Inhouse to talk about the logo design that they had done for Artstation a few years back. This was one of the considerations that we had initially outlined in our first video posting. I guess I felt that it was important to understand the direction they had chosen to take when they rebranded Artstation and if they had envisioned how other sub brands may fit in with this design. It was really good to speak to someone about the project as it gave me an opportunity to actually clarify things in my own mind and get a fresh opinion on it. Arch was really positive about the direction we were going in. He also made a really important point with design about establishing the difference between brand and initiative. With regard to the logo we have designed for Artstation Young Arts Committee he said that maintaining the identity with artstation was important and therefore the fact we had worked with the current aesthetic was a good thing. The logo for the blog, EAT ART SLEEP, can be different to this because although it is still a part of artstation it is actually an initiative that has been created. Therefore in the future when the committee puts things in place it opens doors to how they are branded.
We chatted for about half an hour about our process and the things we were doing and I really felt like it was such a valuable experience going through it all. Plus I love visiting design studios..
Check out the inhouse website here if you want to see any of their work!
http://www.inhousedesign.co.nz/
-Frith
