Saturday 14 December 2013

COP3// Final Insignia Design

This is the final design of the mission insignia for DSI's Firefly and Dragonfly missions. The insignia attempts to imitate the elements of the space race mission insignia whilst bringing the design up to a more modern standard. The aim for the future is to try and get these either turned into commemorative patches, which may prove too expensive, or illustrate their use on the side of spacecraft by turning them into stockers and adhering them to some material. The final choice of colour I went for this the 90K black, which is used in the logo and the green and yellow colours which compliment each other, and the overall designs. The use of yellow for the firefly insignia illustrates the bug lighting up space in the design, reflecting on the missions goal of finding an asteroid. The dragonfly patch inverts the coloured shape and and hooks on the tail of the bug, reflecting in its mission to capture a small asteroid and bring it back to earth. Something I really do like about these designs is the use of very simple imagery to denote the Earth's surface below and the moon behind the spacecraft; placing it in a a location rather than having it just floating through empty space.

Thursday 12 December 2013

Resolving Your Research Project

Do this first to get things started.
- Write down the major aims of the project - a project self assessment.
- Give a brief summary of the work so far.
- Comment on your time management.
- Do you know what the final project will look like?
- What steps will you take to ensure it gets there?
- What areas of the project are you worried about?
- What 'risk management' plans do you have?
- What will you do with the remaining tutorials?

Set targets and increase motivation.
Draw up a plan and stick to it.
Plan a work/ life balance.
Lock down a final title.

Three or four references per page.
Introduce and summarise each chapter.
Main Intro should outline every chapter and summarise everything, the conclusion should mirror this and speak of failings and findings too.

Saturday 7 December 2013

COP3// DSI Visual Identity Manual

This post details the creation of the visual identity manual. As with the UK Space Agency manual from last year this is will follow the chapters of LEGO's visual identity manual as a benchmark. Above is the master page, I have chosen to mark the Text logo at the top of every page as well as the title of the publication underscored by a heavy red line. The aim of the Visual Identity Manual is to set about rules of what makes the new logo, how to use it and a few examples of it in use to contextualise. This will make up the core of my practical project to synthesise the ideas behind the new identity with what I found out in the dissertation project.

Front cover features the 'Full Logo' followed by the 'Text Logo' and the title of the publcation. I ahve given these names the the different marks to distinguish between the logo with and without the 'Encounter line'.

Contents page marks the contents of the publication and a short introduction to introduce the purpose of the manual. It important to note that I am designing on A4 size sheets with a double page spread spanning A3 here, the aim to to trim the first column of each side after printing so no design appears here in these screen-shots. This will give the final printed publication an unusual shape but the content will fit well in this layout.

First page to illustrte the different aspects of the 'Full Logo', introducing some basic rules of usage.

This DPS details the colours that make up the new visual identity.

Introducing the 'Text Logo' and some basic rules, some of which apply to the 'Full Logo'.

This page illustrates how the logo should be angled and goes on to give examples on how not to use the identity with a short description.

This page displays the colours which can be used in with the new identity as well as the terms of using other 'special colours' for use on things like mission insignia of animations.

These pages describe the elements of the Text and Full logos and what the design illustrates.

These two double pages display the fonts that can be used alongside the new visual identity. I practice these would be the typefaces that DSI gets licence to use on any products. This is followed by a notes section as typefaces could be added, taken away or changed.

The aim of this whole chapter is to illustrate the usage of the visual identity and contextualise it in real work examples. The aim is to illustrate how the logo can be used and its flexibility and adaptability to different situations. A short piece of text comes with each example to explain what is illustrates here.


Final pages of the publication list out contact details. These are not real details but are what I consider to be necessary in this context for the purpose of illustrating a real visual identity manual.

 The aim is to get the visual identity manual printed and bound in the next few days. The overall aesthetic should be corporate by approachable, so I would like to use bleach white stock with a more tactile cover.











Sunday 1 December 2013

COP3// DSI Dragonfly Insignia

The Dragonfly missions aim is to follow in the footsteps of Firefly but go one stage further. Here the small asteroid will be captured and bought back to earth for analysis. I have used a similar design to the firefly illustration for the dragonfly with the exception of the wings being outlined due to there translucent nature.
The process of designing this version was much simpler as I had explored the layout of the insignia during the Firefly development. Here I am just experimenting with layout and colouration. I have used the same illustration of the earth and moon to place the satellite in orbit visually. One concern with this design is that the DSI logo has to appear over the illustrations tail this time, however with the addition of a stroke the mark is still readable. I have inverted the shape of the coloured portion of the insignia here to follow the ridges in the bugs tail, I have also experimented with which colour combination to opt for. I have decided to go with the dark grey as the space portion of the design but the second colour is as of yet undecided and will go to the Crit.