Critique of Press Pack
My initial inspiration was from Saul Bass; he was a graphic designer amongst other things from the 1950’s onwards. His poster designs are very minimalistic and he uses very few colours, one of the colours predominantly being black. I love the simplicity of his work, he often uses silhouettes and very little text to convey meaning; this is aesthetically pleasing as well as understandable. From this I decided that I want my work to be simple and effortless, but comprehensible. Therefore I decided to make the background colour black for all elements in my press pack. I believe the colour black reflects professionalism as it is quite a dominant colour and this would make my audience take the MPT Degree show more seriously. Using black as my background colour I didn’t want my press pack to be too sombre so I wanted to use a splash of colour with graphic elements, but very subtly. As a result, I used ‘Graphic Design: The New Basics’ by Lupton and Phillips for inspiration and to understand the basics of graphic design. Consequently ‘the line,’ which is stated as one of the building blocks of design, provided as my influence for my logo for my press pack. I created a series of curved lines, with a variety of pastel colours, overlapping each other. I further developed my designs by relating the lines to movement; I researched images of dancers and used the lines to follow their movements. This gave more depth to my logos, I then progressed the lines by changing some of the lines opacities; this resulted in the logo looking more 3-D and apparent. Similar to the work of Saul Bass, I used little text on the elements of my press pack. After discussing the Swiss Font ‘Helvetica’ developed in the 1950’s in class, I decided to use this font. The font is readable and evokes clarity. The simplicity of it flows with the theme of my press pack.
One could say in the 21st century nothing is original anymore and everything is inspired or influenced by previous work. Paul Rand stated, ‘Don’t be original, just try to be good.’ This reflects the ideas of post-modernism and that everything has already been done. I believe my work reflects post-modernism ideas, I didn’t try and be original with my work; despite not seeing other work comparable to mine, I am sure someone out there has created something similar to my designs.
To a third person I think my designs represent contemporary graphic design. The black background with simple white font and a logo of few colours, I believe, represents professionalism and certainty. Due to my press pack and designs being very minimalistic and simplistic, it is understandable and it conveys its intended meaning which is to advertise the MPT Degree show. To improve I could have not used lines as my logo, as some people might question their relevance, so I could have designed a logo which was more related to media studies. However, I have learnt that graphic design is very broad and open to interpretation, thus not everyone will like your work.
