OUGD503 - Banner Design Brief - Developments Further from Whitecoate's Feedback

Although not selected as the final design, I decided to further develop my banner designs in response to the feedback received from Whitecoate Primary School themselves, which was mainly that the text in boxes detracted from the overall design.

To solve this problem, the text was therefore removed from the boxes, which were originally taken from the shape of the tabs found the school's website.

After this change, it was found that more development was needed rather than simply removing the text from boxes, since the black text did not stand out as well from the background colours, working on some but not others. Using white text with a black outline was also considered, in order to try and mimic the original design whereby black text was surrounded by a white box, as well as to attempt providing consistency between the white text with black outlines used in the larger text. However, this was found not to work as effectively on a smaller scale as it produced a harsh effect on the eyes when looked at for too long.

To produce more consistency throughout the design, these areas of text were therefore changed to white, which was found to work better on all background colours as well as still providing some links back to the colours of the larger letterforms to show how these are linked together in terms of the name of the ASPIRE system and what each letter represents. This text could potentially have been made larger too, however it was felt that keeping these the same size allowed for more of the coloured background to show which was found through initial research is something which children engage with from a very early age.

Further from this, in removing the boxes surrounding the text, this also meant the foundation for some of the illustrations was also removed, whereby the end of the image would rest against the flat top surface of the box such as the raised hand situated on the 'enthusiasm' banner. Without this base, it is felt these illustrations seem slightly out of place on the banners.

In attempting to solve the above problem, the banners were even further developed by extending the length of the flag pole so that it reaches the bottom of the banner. The hand holding the megaphone was also manipulated by reflecting and lowering the image slightly so that it could reach out from the side of the banner. The raised hand on the 'enthusiasm' banner, however, proved to be more difficult to manoeuvre so that it didn't seem so out of place. Instead of moving this therefore, an extra detail was added to the end of this illustration, representing the end of a shirt sleeve, which has been kept the same colour as the background so that this blends in better as if it's emerging from the sleeve and again won't seem so out of place.