Logo design and branding

The last few week I have been working on producing a logo and overall branding for myself, as a photographer. I found this difficult as I found so many inspiring designs that I began to get confused between a style that I liked and a style hat best suited my photography.

For me the design for Mareiner Holz shows how a good design should flow throughout the business and reflect the work and service that a company produces.

Mareiner Holz are leading wood processors in Europe. What I like about there branding is how simple it is. The logo is a woodpecker, which is a bird that is often linked with woodwork. The style in which there photographs are taken reflect the woody earthy feel of the business and so does the paper that they have chosen to print there booklets on. Everything has been considered. The branding looks professional and the quality of the printed work gives you the impression that there work will be to as high a standard.

I need to look at my work and analyse where my work fits best and how I can create the branding to complement this. After looking through various paper types, quality and colour it really highlighted how using the right material and printers can immediately typecast your work. People will prejudge the quality of your work based on the first impressions, the first impression being a business card, your website or a leaflet.

Jill Cole

Jill Cole came to visit us in the college to discuss our work on the national forest brief 'Photo Canopy'. Its the longest brief we have ever had to work on and seems that many of us have forgotten to work on this project.

Personally my project had to change from my original idea. I experimented for a while with the concept of maps and layered images printed on acetate. Mid way into the project I received confirmation from the FA to work on the documentation of St. George's Park. The area i will be photographing will be within the National Forest so my idea is to combine the 2 projects.

In Jill's lecture she expressed her difficulties with the project, the main one being that she lives 150 miles outside of the National Forest. However Jill researches deeply into her subject and had gathered material from annual reports, maps, leaflets and walking guides. 

She questioned what a forest is? what it is used for? why the forest is in the location it is. She became focused on the fact that the forest is continually changing everyday.

There were a set of about 10 final images that Jill shared with us that were inspired by the maps she had been continuously referring too thoughtout her time in the forest. Jill described how the layers of the forest played a part in her inspiration, how they land will be changed, how the seasons change etc.

The final images consisted of a number of photographs layered upon each other to reveal textures, lines and shapes.

I'm interested to see how she will edit down the final images for selection of the exhibition and how they will be displayed.

IKON

The current show at the IKON gallery features work from Stuart Whipps and John Myers.

I went to view the show last week, it was nice just to see some work, we get so used to viewing peoples work online you forget how great it is to view work as it is intended by the artist to be viewed.

My favourite part of the Stuart Whipps exhibition without a doubt was the main body of the exhibition “Why contribute to the spread of ugliness?” The focus of the work was on 486 boxes of paperwork from John Madin’s Architectural archives. Within this work are photographs of the boxes themselves, their contents and the building in which they represent.

I particularly liked the abstract architecture photographs and felt that presenting them on a medium format slide projector did them justice. The size and detail within the print room photographs felt like you could step out of the exhibition and into the photograph.

I recently showed my portfolio to someone who said they would like to have seen it as a projection display. I have used projectors in my work and had never thought about presenting my portfolio via a projector. I also think that some of the work I am currently working on could look really interesting in a large format. 

Jonathan Safran Foer

At the cinema a few days ago I noticed a poster advertising the film adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foers book extremely load and incredibly close. I read this book last year and if you have read it you know how the design and layout of the pages adds to the story.


As a photographer having visuals, for me adds a deeper understand. In this case of the story and an insight into the characters personality and state of mind.


Within the book are pages of text overlayed multiple times to the point it's almost a black page, words are crossed out or ringed with red pen, some pages just have one word on them and some pages are completely blank.


I wonder how they are going to reproduce this book visually, when the book is so engaging already.

Another book that Jonathan Safran Foers has recently produced is "Tree of codes" the story within this book is produced with words in layers. In some cases people highlight words within books or cross them out when they are editing. In this case some of the words have been cut out entirely and as you read the book you can see deeper into the book.

I have always been interested in books and over the last few years have been interested in more creative and unusual books, book that have other elements within them. With ipads and apps making reading digitally more appealing and easier the desire for a physical book is disappearing.  I have been looking into the thought of how the role of a physical book could be in years to come and personally I believe that books will go back to being treasured items, and it will take the diverse, creative and interactive element to give them an appeal that can separate them. you can read words on a page or you can read words on a screen but books have the possibility to create another dimension with ideas like the tree of code book.