initial idea

Myself and Andy Ashwin have decided that for the next meeting, we are going to produce mock ups of leaflet or hand out ideas to show them to get the ball rolling for format of design. We havent actually had the final list of elements from Bath university yet so we havent created any final symbols, but to convey my message I have been designing my own set of symbols. They are by no means refined yet, but I feel that they communicate the message effectively.

I have been thinking about the initial presentation that we had and have come up with a list of the most rememberable facts of the day. I need to clarify the facts with the Bath Uni client. I have tried to write them in as few words as possible in the aim to make short, punchy, powerful facts that people remember and want to find out more after reading. They are:

• Helium should cost two hundred pounds per balloon
• Smartphones contain, on average, fourty extremely rare elements
• Without chemicals there would be nothing. Literally. 
• In 20 years there will be no oil 
• Enough light falls on the Earth in one hour to provide energy for an entire year
• Cars produce ten kilograms of carbon dioxide per gallon of fuel
• The energy used to make one thousand plastic cups is required to make one ceramic mug

There are seven facts here. For the final handout idea, I think it would be good to have ten facts. But for now, I am going to experiment with format for these facts and also come up with some initial symbol designs to illustrate them. 

The above symbol shows stacks of cups. However, I have realised that this symbol will not work when it comes to being a stencil. The middle triangle shapes showing individual coffee cups will fall of of the stencil when it is cut. 

This symbol needs to be refined if it is to be used as one of the final symbols, but to illustrate my concept for a small handout in our meeting it is ok. 

Balloons are particularly difficult to create in illustrator, it is really hard to get a smooth curve. I have created this by making it in two halves. Once the left half was made, I duplicated it and reflected it vertically. Then, a symetrical balloon shape is created. 

I really dont like this world symbol that I have created. It is definitely a symbol that needs refining. I need to come up with another way of illustrating the message that everything is made up of chemicals. For now though, it is fine for illustrating my concept. 

I am really pleased with the outcome of this car. I think it looks great. However, it may need simplification when we come to design final symbol ideas as it does use quite a few elements. 

I really like the design of this book, and so did Bath uni. They loved the idea of having actual stencils in the handout. I used very simple layout to convey the messages. Where possible, I tried to have only one word per line. Also, I numbered all of the points with hashes. After every symbol page is a blank white page so that the symbol is white when the book is opened and viewed. beneath the symbol on this lower page I will place a small amount of further information about the fact. 

Though, I do have a problem with this booklet. I imagine that the cost to print it is going to be extremely high. It depends how large their print budget is. I will get it costed. I also shown them an idea where the symbols were not cut out. It is not as dynamic but still gets the message across in a bold, powerful way. 

Concept visualised

Now that we have the concept firmly established, we have set about designing a document which shows the concept to Bath university. They may reject the idea, but we feel that we must put a lot of effort into visualizing the idea to give it the best possible chance.
Myself, Andy Ashwin and Nathan set about this task. Andy had ordered a helix science stencil online which had arrived, so we set aside a few days to work on the visualisation of our idea.
First, we all came up with potential logos for the branding of this concept. Andy Ashwin had come up with the idea of playing on the rather overstated description of the IT technitions at Apple. Their genius bar is well established and iconic, but they are not really genius's. The chemistry guys at Bath Uni really are. So Andy suggested that we play on this idea, branding the bath uni guys actual genius's and playing on the existing genius logo.
I liked this idea and set about developing some logo ideas based around the word "genius" and "actual genius".
Their current logo is an awful green and black colour.

I thought that the best place to start with an idea for a logo is with this. They have mentioned something about not being able to change the logo despite its awful appearance, but I am going to try it anyway and see if the idea is a possibility in our meeting with them. 

It is quite amazing how much of a difference this new colour scheme has made to the logo. It is so much more punchy and powerful as a logo. It looks more refined and sophisticated. I am going to develop this idea and see if I can come up with a logo that is completely unique for branding this idea. 

I actually really like the above idea that I have created. It plays on the hexagon shape that is used in chemistry diagrams. It is made playful by the way that genius runs in a ring around the word bar. It uses the din typeface. Din is such a nice sans serif font. It has a science, clinical feel about it. It comes in various weights including light and medium which are used here. The only problem with this typeface is that I read sbarn it is viewed from left to right. 

I quite liked the above logo. I am playing around with perspective and chemical structures. I heavily kerned the word genius to give it a lighter, more sophisticated feel. This balances the unsophisticated nature of the image of chemical bonds. However, then I got told that it looks like a cat. This has ruined it for me as now that is all that I can see!

I quite like the orange logo of these two. the fine line on the light typeface and the light stroke around the hexagon shapes which underline the word genius give it a sophisticated feel. The heavy kerning also helps with this. I was experimenting with typeface on the black attempt at logo. I thought that perhaps a more rounded typeface may be more effective than the din typeface because it is more friendly in appearance. However, we are trying to advertise genius's and playing on the apple genius logo, I think it needs the sophisticated feel. 

Now that the three of us had some logos designed, we set about creating a pdf presentation of our concept. 

Andy came up with a nifty 3 dimentional model that was created in 3d modelling software. He created an idea where the black board behind the figures would be used to draw on with chalk, through the large stencils as the science guys give their talks and demonstrations. 

We have decided upon the typeface of Din. This typeface has a stencil version which is great for when we come to put text onto our large stencils. 

Me and nathan photographed the helix stencil that we had and then we set about doing some nifty and convincing photoshop work where we enlarged the stencil to visualise the size of the finished object. I am quite happy with the result of this. It took us a lot of attempts to photograph the stencil so that the lighting across it was even, but also so that it had a transparency it. In the end, we used remote flash and flashed the stencil both front and back during the shot. 

Nathan then put all of the content that we had created into the pdf ipad app and we were all set to go and present our concept! Thankfully, they were very impressed with the concept and we have finally got them excited about the project and about our ideas. The meeting was in a pub. This was a good idea, it was a relaxed atmosphere and ideas flow when you are in this type of environment. We now need a definitive list of things that they are going to talk about in their presentations and talks so that we can create symbols to illustrate what they are saying. We also decided that we will have a weekly meeting every Monday from this moment onwards. This seems like a good idea. We can regularly reflect on progress made and the project should move on quickly. 

New approach to the brief

Unfortunetly, I could not be in Bath for the visit to Bath uni to see where the people from the sustainable chemical technologies center work. It was a very last minute arrangement that I could not attend. However, I arranged for Jordan to take notes for me. We had decided that we were going to collaborate on this project. When I arrived back in Bath today, I was updated with what had happened in their meeting at Bath University. Andy Ashwin had documented the visit and so I got to see photographs of what the labs look like.

They are exactly as I imagined them to be. They are littered with test tubes, clonical flasks and large scientific experiments .On the walls are chemical structure diagrams and chemical equations. 

I was also told about their meeting after the tour of the labs in the bar of the uni. It has been decided that the project will now be a group project as there are only four of us that are wanting to be involved in it. This is quite surprising considering that there was over 15 of us at the initial presentation. I presume it is because of the lengthy wait that we have had between the initial meeting and this catch up. 

During this informal chat they have brainstormed ideas. A break through idea has come about which is a solution to all of the 4 science briefs.When thinking about associations with science and chemestry, something that immediately springs to mind is the orange helix stencils. Everybody has seen one. They are used at schools for designing experiments.

 The symbols are extremely simple but illustrate the chemistry equipment with great effectiveness. Imagine at the science fares if these stencils were created on a massive scale, using symbols which illustrate the 4 talks! This idea is the breakthrough that we have been searching for and the idea that we are going to take forwards. The strong orange and the white shapes could be the colour scheme. If everybody from bath uni at the science fare was wearing this colour and the entire stand utalised this intense orange then they would stand out from the rest of the stalls. Now that we have commited ourselves to an idea that we are going to take forwards, we need to prepare a document which illustrates the idea to the Bath uni guys in the meeting that we have arranged on Monday.