This freelance project (completed through the BA Graphic Communications Real Job scheme) was completed for the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, University of Reading. It was also my own degree show which made the whole experience more personal and accomplishing as my peers themselves were seen sort of as clients since the brand must showcase them as designers and their work.
My Role
I was asked by a member of the Department to lead, manage and be part of the design team for the degree show. My leadership role included scheduling, setting up and leading meetings (both with the clients and with just the team), delegating roles, solving conflict, time-management and overseeing team members' work for quality and as a helping hand. Alongside this I was also part of the ideation, development and designing of the deliverables, taking a lead in designing and creating the branding, printed invitations, signage and website.
Previous degree shows
As a team, we researched the previous two degree shows (2020 and 2021) hosted by the University of Readings BA Graphic Communications course, obtaining an overview of how they have previously been run and designed.
More than A–Z (2020)
The 2020 degree show branding ‘More than A–Z’ focuses on how we are about more than just typography which is something we thought was important to represent in our branding for 2022. We discussed how it would be good to find a way of including a representation of the areas outside typography in our design in order to represent the graduate's area in design more clearly represented in the branding. The branding is very colourful, however, this is not represented in all of their designs as some of the website pages compared to their social media had very little colour, we discussed in the team how consistency in branding across our platforms was essential especially due to our small size and following.
Think Rethink (2021)
The 2021 degree show branding ‘Think Rethink’ represents how we approach design and the design process, calling attention to our technical skills and attention to detail by using hidden characters. We found it had a nice way of showcasing the attention to detail that is developed on the course. Sometimes the hidden characters can be a little distracting while reading the text as they are quite prominent. The background elements are a nice way of showing the design process and there is a lot of consistency across the website and social media – the branding is clear on each of the pages. The colour palette is a lot more limited here and we think it would be nice to have more colour as a homage to the diversity of our students and their interests.
Branding
The degree show brand needed to showcase the department's credibility and teaching of typography and graphic communication, along with representing a large demographic of design areas and the students graduating.
Brand ideation part 1: General ideas
Brand ideation part 2: In-depth ideas
Design V1: Playing cards
This idea stemmed from a deck of cards, using different suits to represent areas/elements of design while each individual card would be a student.
Metaphors such as a pyramid of cards would be used to symbolise the final result of a design can not be reached without all the hard work of design thinking beneath it.
There would be more than four suits, each representing a different design. With a slogan such as 'we're redesigning the game' or something to that effect. Having us as a set of cards shows are able to work independently and as a group.
The symbolism of 'showing one's hand' could be used to show our ability to work well with our hands and show our 'cards on the table' to show our skills and reliability.
Ultimately, we decided to not move this idea further due to the complexity of it and the negative meaning of card games such as taking a gamble on us or being unsteady and fragile like a house of cards. Although this idea was not taken forward, it did give us the idea of Face to Face. This was from a group brainstorming for our brand, with someone coming mentioning having two faces playing cards facing each other to show graphic communication. From this, the idea of having a face-to-face degree show brand was ignited.
Design V2: Face to face
We moved towards just focusing on the fact that this would be our first face-to-face degree show since 2019 due to it being such a rare occurrence. The overprint technique helped create this look of two faces looking at one another.
Besides is the development of the placement of shapes and colour schemes. The final design was chosen to enhance the fall-off shapes so these could be dynamically used in other areas of our branding and design, such as social media. The colours were chosen to allow the word face that was the right way round to be more legible than the upside-down one so users would be able to figure it out.
Typeface choice
Choosing a typeface was a crucial part of the branding since it is representing students from the Typography & Graphic Communications department.
We were in two minds, either we choose a new, bold, and funky typeface that showcased a fresh and modern feel or use a traditional one to showcase our in-depth knowledge of typography and its history/uses.
in the end, we went for Noto sans, a global san-serif font collection for writing in all modern and ancient languages. It is available on Adobe fonts and Google fonts, making it accessible to all parties concerned and is a large family with a variety of fonts available.
Final Logo
Final master logo
Expended logo
Social Media
Grace Gibbs took the role of managing and creating content for our social media account on Instagram. To see more about this, check out the project page on her portfolio.
Printed Invitations
Trail and error process
Along with multiple emails, invitations send throughout the entirety leading up to the degree show. Printed invitations were also created.
At this point in the process, we were still experimenting with how the Face 2022 Face overprint branding should look and how that represents the students and department.
Traditional Overprinting text
We considered the use of wooden type blocks to overprint the word 'face' on top of itself however, could not find a typeface appropriate for the branding. The time scale was also an issue so a plate could not be made in time for us to hand print all the invitations.
Ink printer playing cards
CMYK ink created streaky lines in the printed design and also dulled the colours quite a lot. It also did not showcase the full potential of overprinting available to us.
Final Invitations
Attempting to get have a real overprint created a challenge for me as time was running short so individually overprinting the invites by hand would be a real struggle.
Instead, I created the design shown and sent it to a professional printer with a clear vanish to enhance the design instead.
Some of the degree show team and some third years helping place invitations into envelopes and place addresses
Website
Due to a mix-up in communication, along with a lack of commitment from multiple students on the degree show team which caused timing issues, it was left to me to create and design the website for the degree show two weeks before the event.
The first few days were used to create a 'Coming soon' page, so we could begin advertising it on our social media channels, printed invitations and digital invitations.
Gathering Data
I created a Microsoft form and OneDrive file space for my peers to place their information and work to be placed on the degree show website. The information gathered was used in their profile posts. Knowing that all the students had finished the course I tried to be realistic about how much work to ask from them, I decided on three pieces of work for each student with a 200–500 word description and three images for each project.
As expected, some students did not submit any work, after a week of gentle reminders and warnings there was no more time to wait. Asking the students previously to submit two projects, with a description and image for each for the Instagram page gave me enough content to still create a profile for each student graduating that year. Showcasing two projects for some students, compared to three projects for others does not disturb the design or make either stand out.
Learning WordPress/Elementor and creating a visual design
After sketching the website, gathering all my peer's data, along with chasing up multiple students on providing their work, there was a week and a half left before the event. This was a very challenging experience as I had to learn WordPress and Elementor from scratch along with designing the website. I am proud to say that I was able to learn the software needed within a week. With a couple of days used for editing the site according to the clients' feedback, I was able to launch the website a couple of days early (three days before the event).
My ability to work under pressure was showcased to myself and the department, with many thanks from them. This was not an easy task, however, it was certainly rewarding as my ability to work under pressure has improved tremendously, along with fast learning and independent learning skills to be able to teach myself new content management systems (CMS) applications (WordPress and Elementor) along with its features, such as plugin architecture, creating theme templates, pages, posts, and how these will react with responsive design in mind.
Signage
Planning
I created a rough sketch of the department to confirm the number of signs and their functionality, along with dedicating a roman numeral to each to make file sorting more efficient for my team, the clients and the professional printers.
Below are some images of the department to showcase to people in the team where the signs would be, along with creating mockups.
Creating prototypes and testing
Testing the film used for the large scale window graphics on a smaller scale to test the density of the ink. We needed to ensure light would still pass through.
Printing on paper and cutting out the letters to place above the door to check for scale and legibility
Placing the letters above the door using the department printers to ensure scale and legibility before sending to professional printers to be made into vinyl
A Photoshop mockup, created by Grace Gibbs, to see how out design would look
Final Signage
Reflection
It has been a new, challenging and rewarding experience managing and designing the 2022 Degree Show team for my year's BA Graphic Communication degree show. Gaining this experience has enhanced my leadership, time management and conflict resolving skills.
Designing and creating a live website gave me experience in the applications needed and their functions, along with a further understanding of responsive web design.
Since this was the first in-person degree show since 2019 due to the pandemic, a whole year before any of us joined the course, we had never seen the live event for the department or anything like it. We were unsure of what to produce and the timescales needed for the project. I also feel that the pandemic reduced the enthusiasm and commitment of many peers in the year group as they also did not expect the workload and requirements for the job. With all of this in mind, looking back upon reflection I feel as if my management skills could improve by learning to ask for help when needed and push/support my peers more to do the delegated work, rather than completing it myself when it is not completed after giving reminders. Overall, I believe the three core team members throughout, myself, Minh Nguyen and Grace Gibbs, to which I owe a huge thank you for all their hard work and commitment, did very well working as a team and delivered all the deliverables in the time frame given and with the circumstances that headed our way.
My degree show stand on the opening evening
