Report – Finished Project Exam

During these seven weeks I have spent my days at GV Reklame in Verdal, where I already worked as a graphic designer. In addition to my normal work days working with a variety of clients and projects, I did some extra work developing a brand identity for a business called TimeTrack, as well as improving some of the branding at GV Reklame. By doing this I got to design many different products, and also worked with different clients, preferences, and types of businesses. TimeTrack is a new established business, while GV Reklame has been active for more than 30 years and thus already has quite a strong brand identity.

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Looking back at these seven weeks as a whole and all the projects I have worked on, I’m very happy with the products I have designed.

The TimeTrack profile I believe has truly come to life now, and I feel confident that the client was happy with the finished identity, including all products. I had a great dialogue with the brothers in TimeTrack throughout the whole project period, and we shared ideas and suggestions from sketches to final designs. By doing this I ensured that the identity was one they were truly satisfied with, and one they would actually keep using.

For the GV Reklame branding I’m really excited to see that I got to do something entirely different from what has done before. The design of the business was getting a little outdated, so it was about time we made some changes. My boss of course has quite a few opinions for this design, and is in that way actually a good client to work with – however, I really got to put my own style and ideas into all of this design, especially the light boards. I’m very happy to see that I learnt much more about the light boards during this period, and knowing that the regular work days will now actually be much easier for all us employees since everyone easier understands the categories and types.

This seven week long project has in many ways been very challening and hard. I have had a lot to do, and a tight schedule to follow. What I find very interesting on the other hand, is that I managed to meet all the deadlines I set myself (despite having a few products actually added to the list) – without feeling that this challenged the final designs of any of the products.

The development and process of the two main projects (TimeTrack and GV Reklame branding) were quite complex, and I feel that the necessary research and commitment was put into every product to come up with a good, functional end result.

– This is an extract from the report I submitted, and the whole report can be read here: REPORT –

Until next time, stay creative,
Monika

Week 7

Due Week 39, Friday 02.03.18 at 4pm

The last week of the project exam was over before I truly realized it even started. I got a lot done, though, really refining and finishing off the project as a whole. I had to make sure all files were ready and good to go, as well as finishing my report and finally submit the whole project.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

This week I kept working on the signs for the building where many companies are renting offices, and I printed the signs for skiing/walking trails. I also began a couple projects where I need to decorate offices of two businesses. In addition to this the concert poster I designed a few weeks ago would be printed in the local newspaper, so I needed to adapt the design to the formats given by the newspaper.

Apart from this I did some work on more signs, as well as getting poster files ready for print.

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Monday and Thursday

The plan this week of course was to finish all the products I had planned to do – and so I did. So this week I finished the branding of our light boards, and the exhibition products/back walls for trade shows. Since one of the business cars broke down just recently I also was in charge of setting up the new design for this car. Below are a few examples from the work process, without showing the final products.

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And with all these products done all I had left to do was to finish my report. Luckily I did write on this every week throughout the whole period, which I’m very glad I did; with all those pages I never would have made it in time should I have written it all in a day or two.

Until next time, stay creative
Monika

Week 6

Due Week 39, Friday 02.03.18 at 4pm

I have to admit time flies by these weeks. A lot to do, and a lot to put my focus on. This week I kept working on the branding of our light boards, as well as doing some other work for the business that wasn’t actually planned, but needed to be done.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

This week I printed some logos etc. for a truck that will soon come in and get some new decoration, and also finalized and printed the motive for the fire trucks. I made some logo labels for a local business, and vectorised yet another logo we received. This happens quite often, as not all clients have the vector files of their logo, and don’t know where to get them – luckily though, not all logos are too hard or time consuming to trace.

A beauty salon in town got in touch, asking for a couple posters, so I set these two up. I also began making some signs for a building, where a lot of businesses hire offices in said building – so they need all these business’ logos on signs. Another project I worked on was to set up signs for different walking/skiing trails in the forest – “turskilt” – this is something we do quite often, and they all need to follow some quite strict guidelines regarding fonts, text size, colours, placement of icons, text, arrows, etc.

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Monday and Thursday

The first thing I did was to modify the logos for the light boards. Below are the before (top) and after (bottom) versions.

For the product photos I used my 50mm lens, and an external flash. With this lens I get a large aperture, and I get to place the focus exactly where I want it. This is an effect I personally like very much. I set up a little “studio” in a room at work, and brought boards from each “category” with me to get these photos. On some of the photos I removed the background, and added a reflection below. I figured this would look nice in the ad, and perhaps even on the website.

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Before starting the magazine ad I had a look through earlier editions of the magazine it will be placed in. Looking at the other ads in the magazine helped me get a better understanding of what works, and what doesn’t work with the ads that have been used by other businesses. The target group of this magazine are grown men, interested in trucks and driving, so this was important to consider. Through my research I found out that many ads use a lot of text and other elements; these to me came out as too busy, and thus not getting enough attention. So I wanted to try a different approach. I began doing some sketches by hand, before trying out some ideas in Illustrator. I won’t publish the finished ad on my blog though (but in my report of course), since I don’t want to go online with it before the business does.

Sometimes unseen and unplanned things happen, so it was at the end of the project period that something finally did not go as planned in my schedule. We suddenly had an ad request approved by the local paper, and had to get this ad ready in a couple of days. This ad was to simply tell people that the business exists, and did not focus on one product (as the magazine ad does) only. So instead of starting on the exhibition products as planned Thursday 22nd of February I had to work on this ad. Earlier our ads have always followed the exact same design style and layout; now however, my boss wanted us to go a completely different way. So I went to do some photography again; planning to have a photograph fill the background, and only add some quick text, logo and elements to it. I used my 50mm for these photos as well, as the large aperture of this lens allows for a blurry background, and to in this case have only e.g. the hands in focus.

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The newspaper told us they needed the ad in three different formats: 122x181mm, 146x181mm, and 580x400px. The latter will be published online, between February 27 and May 30, and the first two are for three different publication days of the newspaper. I decided to begin with the 122x181mm, and adapt the design to the two other formats after. As with the magazine ad for light boards, I won’t show the final result of this before it has been published by the newspaper.

Until next time, stay creative
Monika

 

 

Week 5

Due Week 39, Friday 02.03.18 at 4pm

This week I finished the TimeTrack project as planned, and began looking at the branding of our light boards for trucks.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

This week I set up decoration for a trailer, which included taking measurements and setting up print ready files, as well as doing some editing of the photos provided by the client in Camera Raw. I kept working on vectorising some logos, set up car decoration for a taxi, and set up some bingo posters ready for print. Some more parking signs had to be done, and I set up some simple labels for a company. In addition to this we made a store sign of about 2m in length. I also kept working on that fire truck motive I have mentioned earlier.

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Monday and Thursday

Monday was the last day spent on TimeTrack. This included finalising the website profile and icons for mittspor.no, as well as setting up print and screen ready files to send to the client.

When looking at the mittspor.no profile I first did some simple coding in the browser, before moving on to Illustrator to do more work. When inspecting the site in the browser I also saw better how the popup boxes were built up. I found out that the width is set to 220px, and height to auto. I also took screenshots of all the boxes, to see all the icons, and the different types of boxes. I checked out how the weather icons were made, and since this was quite a complex font integrated, I decided not to do anything with those icons, and rather focus on the icons I saw came from a different font.

Below are screenshots of the site before and after the update. I didn’t make a prototype other than this for this site, since the coding behind is very complex, and would be too much to build when only making a prototype.

Thursday was spent on research and planning out the next part of the exam.

One of our best selling products, my boss wanted to improve the branding of the light boards. A problem we have at work is that not all of us employees have a good understanding of the different boards as there are so many, so we needed to think of a better way to display them – especially on the website. In short there are three main categories of boards, but under each of these categories there are many types; one specific size and “format” for each truck.

So on Thursday I sat down with my boss and spoke about the branding and boards for quite a while, getting more in depth information. We set up a plan for what needed to be done: New logo version (they all follow the GV Reklame logo style) for one of the categories, and my boss would like to see all the three “logos” with some sort of 3D effect or similar. Set up a new advertisement about the boards, which we pay to have in a magazine about twice a year. Find better photos of all the boards, and write on the actual photos the name/article number of the board – this for the website, as people now don’t know which board they will need. Take product photos of at least the three categories. In addition to this I would set up a new table with more information about the article numbers of the boards, prices on each of them, extra information, etc. for internal use.

Thursday was thus mainly spent on planning everything out, and doing research, looking at how (the quite few) competitors present their boards. I also got quite far in setting up the table for internatl use.

Until next time, stay creative,
Monika

Week 4

Due Week 39, Friday 02.03.18 at 4pm

More than halfway through this project exam period, and almost done with the TimeTrack project.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

During the “regular” work days, I worked on a few diffrent projects, such as continuing some of the projects from last week, and also making a few new signs for businesses. We were also contacted by a graphic designer in Bergen who needed help creating signs for a building, both outside and inside, so I set up suggestions on sizes of these and asked our contacts both in Norway and abroad for prices.

The most fun and creative task of the week was to come up with a design for suitcases that will be used at the Beat the Wand convention in the US by local magician Boje Hoseth and his son Brian.

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Monday and Thursday

This week’s focus were the website profiles for the three websites operated by TimeTrack. Since TimeTrack (tidtaking) is the “main service” and “big brother” of the two other services, the purpose of the tidtaking.no site will be to quickly explain the company and all its services. It should also let the visitors easily get in touch with them, through a contact page. So after talking to my clients I set up a simple sitemap to visualise the pages needed.

When building this site and its content we discussed the questions “What is TimeTrack? Why does anyone need to know? What’s in it for the visitors?” as Designing Brand Identity (p.152) states that a website should always answer these questions quickly. Further, the book explains that characteristics of the best websites are that they are easy to use, they meet the visitor expectations, and communicate quickly.

In the end the content we had were simple descriptions of the services, as well as photos and contact information. We talked about either integrating the websites of liveresultater.no and mittspor.no on the site as “iframes”, or use clickable images that would take the users to the specific pages in a new tab.

Then came the sketching of the site, where I first began with the index page, since this will be the first page visitors usually meet, and thus be engaging enough to keep people’s attention.

Out of these ideas we agreed to use the logo as seen in e.g. idea 3, a header image as seen in idea 5, the menu as seen in idea 5, content as done in idea 3 or 4, and footer as in idea 2 or 3. And with this in mind I put these ideas together to further build the site structure.

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After this I moved my sketches over to Illustrator to better visualise and see what would work.

We were first quite certain on placing the logo on top of images, but realised we would either have to fade the photos quite a lot for this to work properly, or add a stroke around the logo. So we tried out some other ideas; the idea of using the logo on top was an earlier favourite, but it seemed to disappear a little – we therefore looked back at one of the first ideas and decided to integrate the logo with the TimeTrack stripes. The idea here was to have the logo start in line with the content. So we tried out this layout for all pages.

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Landing on this design it was time for me to start coding and making a prototype. The plan for all websites was that I would either make mockups or prototypes, and let TimeTrack do the coding on their actual sites – especially on liveresultater.no and mittspor.no this was quite vital since there is so much information already existing on the sites. Still, I decided to build the TimeTrack site with HTML and CSS, from scratch. This process will be described in the report.

Liveresultater.no – Before beginning this project, TimeTrack told me they have earlier tried changing the design of this website. However, because people are used to the site structure, some users complained as they didn’t find everything where they expected it. So we agreed not to change the site structure of this, but merely set up a new design through colours, mobile responsivity, fonts, adding logo and a footer etc., to better fit the brand identity.

When starting this task I went to the site and “inspected” it to see how it was built. I then did some simple coding in my browser to see what was possible, before I went over to DreamWeaver to start building a simplified version of the site on my own.

Below is my first idea – however this did not get the look or feel that I wanted, especially with the TimeTrack stripes at the bottom. So I removed the border around the page, and changed the stripes to the two hues of blue instead, which definitely fit the desired mood better.

The content of the original site updates regularly during a competition; what I have done is to use “static” content, so this is only a simple prototype of the site.

When coding this site I learnt more about tables, and also made the tables used more mobile friendly. The way it was before, people would zoom and scroll back and forth to see the content, which is not ideal at all. After my coding however, the table is a lot more user friendly, but still maintains the site structure people are used to.

Below is the website design before and after. I definitely think this is a great improvement, especially as the site now is a lot more responsive and actually adapts to the screen size used.

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I have started looking at mittspor.no, but will finish the work of this site (and the TimeTrack project in whole) tomorrow.

Until next time, stay creative,
Monika

Week 3

Due Week 39, Friday 02.03.18 at 4 pm

It’s fun to see so far how “correct” the time schedule I set up actually is. All the TimeTrack products that should be done by the end of this week are done, and three days of the week were spent on different projects as usual.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

During these normal work days, I first of all finished the concert poster I started last week – this has now been published on Facebook and is getting very positive feedback. I also kept working on the anniversary logo and a mug this will be placed on, and I’ve worked on some simple logo banners for a sports event this weekend, set up a tour list poster for a local band, and made some parking signs. In addition to this I went back to the shopping centre to talk to the janitor, and have after this set up new signs for the second floor.

Friday I was the only designer left at work after lunch, so I had to do all the design that needed to be done the rest of that day, and also had to answer the phone and meet all clients who came by.

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Monday and Thursday

My plan for this week was to finish the “small” TimeTrack products – clothes/uniforms, letterhead and e-mail signature, pens and pencils, tape, velcro and other fasteners, and tags to label equipment. For the pens and pencils, tape and fasteneres this mostly included just placing the logo, so not too much work was done here. However the other products needed some more planning.

Clothes/uniforms – Here I knew we were mainly looking at jackets, sweaters, and shirts, as well as gloves and beanies. The clothes needed to be clothes that fit the work TimeTrack do (meaning e.g. some need to be warm for use at winter sports events). I simply worked on ideas that can be used on different types of the mentioned clothes, i.e. choosing to use the negative version of the logo on blue clothes, or the normal version on black clothes, and some general guidelines for placement, sizes and content of different elements.

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Letterhead – For this we used a portrait oriented A4 format, which makes sense for this kind of product. I first drew up some ideas on paper before going to Illustrator, and finally choosing three for the client to choose between.

 

E-mail signature – We hadn’t talked about this prior to the project, but since a lot of their work is done online I figured an e-mail signature was good to create. I designed this in DreamWeaver, using HTML and was very happy to see this working out as hoped.

Tags – These will be made in different sizes to fit the equipment they’ll be used on, but the tags will use the same design and format. The purpose of these is to easily show who owns the equipment, and make people get in touch if i.e. the equipment is lost and found.

 

 

View this pdf to see mockups of all the products set up this week.

Until next time, stay creative,
Monika

Week 2

Due Week 39, Friday 02.03.18 at 4 pm

After the 2nd week of the project I’m still on schedule. As last week I’m spending two days on the most “creative” project, and the three others on the different projects we get at the work place.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

These days, the normal work days, have been spent on several clients and projects. I have for example set up a few different signs in many sizes and with different content (sizes from 15x22cm to 40x60cm, and with both warnings and informative content). A project I have been working on for a bit is also coming to an end, where we’re decorating some new offices in my hometown. I have fixed logo flags for two docks, and in doing so I have had to be in touch with a company in Poland to have them produce them.

At the moment I’m also working on an anniversary logo for a company, as well as some business cards. On Friday I visited a business to measure and talk about decorating the office windows – which I worked on setting up ideas for later that day. A new project that will need to be finished already next week is a concert poster – the concert is in early March, so it needs to be set up quite quickly.

Monday and Thursday

According to my schedule this week I needed to finish the design manual and business cards – and so I did. The design manual will be updated with examples as I set up and design the different products, though.

Before sketching up ideas for the business cards I went through the (now full) folder of business cards that have been designed through the years at the work place. I really enjoy being able to look through actual examples on paper, rather than seeing everything online which has usually been the case through these two years as an online student. When the final product is meant to be printed it is nice to see it when it has been, and not on a screen.

 

 

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We have added a few more products to the project as well, as they realised they needed a sponsorship poster for one of their services, as well as app icons. I have set these up now, and the poster will probably be printed next week.

Until next time, stay creative,
Monika

SaveSave

Week 1

Due Week 39, Friday 02.03.18 at 4 pm

Week 1/7 has come to an end, and so far I’m on schedule. As described in my project description, three days a week will go as normal at work, while Monday and Thursday will be spent on the more “creative” part of the exam. By doing this I get to challenge myself with different projects and clients, but also maintaining a close relationship to one specific client.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

These days were the “GV Reklame days”. This week I have worked with a few different clients as normal. These projects include, among others, decoration of a window in a flower store, decoration of the entrance of a local shopping centre, and car decoration for a couple companies. In addition to this I have been working on designing a motive that will be used on old containers that have been transformed to fire trucks. The purpose of the design is to hide the area on which the logo of the old business used to be; even though the logo is removed the logo’s contours still show.

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Monday and Thursday

My schedule was to spend Monday and Thursday on idea development and TimeTrack’s brand manual. This included reserach, setting up a moodboard and mind map, sketching up the TimeTrack profile, finding colour codes for different use, and adding some more colours to the brand colours. In addition to this I also made more logo versions. The TimeTrack logo is quite long and low, so a secondary format was in order for different use. I’ll only add sketches on these weekly progress reports, so the final results will show up first in the finished product.

Brand Manual sketches

Since TimeTrack offers three services we agreed to make a logo for the two services mittspor.no and liveresultater.no. Since these are all part of the same company they both follow the same profile and direction as the TimeTrack logo, but with some changes in the colours. For these two logos we have swapped the orange with a brighter blue, but still kept some of the orange when rebuilding the “i”.

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Until next time, stay creative,
Monika

Project Description & Schedule

Due Week 39, Friday 02.03.18 at 4 pm

To (almost) finish the fourth semester and my two years as an online student at Noroff I started my final project exam today. This time we were given the opportunity to do an internship/work in the graphic design industry, so this is what I chose to do. I already work as a designer at GV Reklame, so we have agreed that I will be there five days a week for the next seven weeks.

Summary of Project Description

GV Reklame specialises in car decoration and illuminated led boards for trucks (GV lysskilt), but we can also help clients with most other design elements and products. In addition to the clients I normally work with, I will also spend a couple days a week working with a client called TimeTrack. This is a local business, mainly working with different sport events which I will explain closer later in this description.

Work

As per today I work at GV Reklame three days a week, so our plan is that I will work on the projects I normally work on those days, and the two other days (Monday and Thursday) I’ll spend working on the TimeTrack project, as well as improving the branding of our led boards.

TimeTrack

I have already worked with TimeTrack, setting up a logo as well as decoration on a portable office (below) which they are very happy with, so during the exam period I wish to keep working on their visual profile.

Business/Concept

TimeTrack is a local business by two brothers. They focus on providing their clients with three main services:

• Time-taking for sports events (cycling, orienteering, cross-country skiing, biathlon, and more)
• Live results (liveresultater.no) – they show results from sports events in real time on a website
• GPS tracking of skiing trails and slopes. This is done on TimeTrack’s website mittspor.no, where skiing clubs can show where they have trails online, and when they were last used

Profile

The brothers behind TimeTrack want to be portrayed as a professional, modern, innovative and forthcoming provider of their services.

Vision

They want to keep a national standard on their services. Their goal is to have big national clients throughout the whole year. The dream is to be a requested resource, and also be in the front of technology and performance.

They wish to be easy to work with, and it is important to maintain a good client relationship.

Target Group

TimeTrack’s target group is mainly sport clubs, associations and unions. This basically means adults, and both men and women. They are everything from parents of toddlers, and up to top leaders in sport unions. Very often they are volunteer organisations needing professional support. It is important to maintain a good relationship to the existing clients, but TimeTrack always want to get new clients as well.

Most of the people they meet are committed, and engaged to what they do, which is very common when people work voluntarily.

Products

• Brand manual
• Business Cards
• Uniforms (decoration on clothes)
• Tags in different sizes to label equipment
• Letterhead
• Design for velcro and other fasteners for cables
• Website profiles updated
• Logo for one of their services (mittspor.no) and a sponsor poster for this

Design

They are very happy with the portable office, and wish to keep going in the same direction. It is important to really show through the design what they do, as the business name doesn’t necessarily describe it very well.

They prefer concrete, basic and simple over colourful and abstract designs – and think the portable office represents this and their tastes and preferences well.

CONCLUSION

Over the seven weeks of my project exam I intend to design for several clients, with a main focus on the local business TimeTrack, and some improving of GV Reklame’s branding. The TimeTrack project will include a brand manual to establish the brand’s look and feel, business cards, small products such as uniforms, tags, letterhead & document profile, design for velcro & fasteners, and other stationery, as well as an update of the website profiles. For GV Reklame I will set up a better branding for the illuminated boards and exhibition products, as well as working with the clients who daily come in and ask us for help with their branding.

I’m confident in this period being challenging, fun, and open for creativity.

Read the description in full and see the schedule here.

Until next time, stay creative,
Monika