Major Poject: The Crimean War

Major Project: Types of Card Games

Trick-taking games

The object of a trick-taking game is based on the play of multiple rounds, or tricks, in each of which each player plays a single card from their hand, and based on the values of played cards one player wins or "takes" the trick. The specific object varies with each game and can include taking as many tricks as possible, taking as many scoring cards (or as few penalty cards) within the tricks won as possible, taking as few tricks as possible, or taking an exact number of tricks. Bridge, Whist, Euchre, Spades are popular examples.

Major Project: Old and Modern Cards

One of De la Rue's earliest packs of playing cards c.1832, printed by letter-press but imitating traditional woodblock printing. The court figures are full-length. The 'Old Frizzle' Ace of Spades carries the duty of one shilling at the top and has the text "By His Majesty's Royal Letters Patent" printed at the bottom which had been granted to Thomas de la Rue by King William IV for 'certain improvements in making or manufacturing and ornamenting playing cards.' This Ace, with the extra legend, was registered in August 1832, whereas before the patent was granted a normal 'Old Frizzle' Ace was used. The Aces of Spades were printed in the Stamp Office at Somerset House and an account of the numbers of Aces was kept there by the authorities.

Major Project: History of Cards

A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games. Playing cards are typically palm-sized for convenient handling.

A complete set of cards is called a pack (UK English) or deck (US English), and the subset of cards held at one time by a player during a game is commonly called a hand. A deck of cards may be used for playing a variety of card games, with varying elements of skill and chance, some of which are played for money. Playing cards are also used for illusions, building card structures, etc.

The front (or "face") of each card carries markings that distinguish it from the other cards in the deck and determine its use under the rules of the game being played. The back of each card is identical for all cards in any particular deck, and usually of a single color or formalized design. Usually every card will be smooth; however, some decks have braille to allow blind people to read the card number and suit. The backs of playing cards are sometimes used for advertising. 

Major Project: BRIEF

Problem

An incredibly growing amount of games for smartphones and tablets makes people isolated from the real communication.

More and more interactive apps cage users’ attention, whereas traditional card games remain the same.

Goal

To create an alternative to a commonly known deck of playing cards, as well as a game based on historical events and cultural peculiarities of different countries for both educational and entertainment purposes.

Target audience

Teenagers and predominantly young people, who are interested in history and culture of different countries, and suffer from lack of real face-to-face socialisation.

Challenge

To break into a print games industry, and sell the newly created set of cards. Printed games have been influenced a lot by digital games and apps. However, they still remain popular, and need more variety to attract people of different interests and get them together.

Rob&Bob

More images here:
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Rob-Bob-Board-Game/8496555

Design Manifesto

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Design-Manifesto-for-Critical-Debates-in-Design-Module/8634655

Watercolour Backgrounds for Rob&Bob

Fonts of Victorian Era

In order to select a proper font for my Design Authorship Board Game, I looked through the newspapers and adverts of the Victorian era:

 

Village made of recycled bottles (Task8)

A bottle Vilalge in Simi Valley, CA was built by Tressa Prisbrey (better known as Grandma Prisbrey) alone, and the construction spanned 25 years. Though Grandma Prisbrey never considered herself an artist, her creativity is clear to everyone who walks through to marvel at the site.

Sustainable Design (Task8)

Sustainable graphic design is the application of sustainability principles to graphic design. It considers the environmental impacts of graphic design products (such as packaging, printed materials, publications, etc.) throughout a life cycle that includes: raw material; transformation; manufacturing; transportation; use; and disposal.
Graphic designers engaged in sustainable practice use techniques, processes, and materials that will help reduce the detrimental environmental, social, and economic impact of their designs, also known as the Triple Bottom Line.

Business For Design Progress

Adverts (Task 7)

Types of adverts I consider bad:

Packaging Design (Task6)

Role of Packaging:

- Protective
Protecting the contents from the environment and vice versa. The packaging is intended to protect the goods from loss, damage and theft.
-Storage
-Loading and transport
Convenient goods handling entails designing transport packaging in such a manner that it may be held, lifted, moved, set down and stowed easily, efficiently and safely.
-Sales and promotion
Attracting the potential purchaser's attention and to have a positive impact upon the purchasing decision.
-Guarantee
By supplying an undamaged and unblemished package, the manufacturer guarantees that the details on the packaging correspond to the contents.
-Additional
The extent to which the packaging materials or packaging containers may be reused once the package contents have been used. The most significant example is the recycling of paper, paperboard and cardboard packaging as waste paper.

Some examples of packaging I consider good:

Ecological Architecture Design (Task5)

Atkin's Architecture Group is to build Songjiang Beuty Spot Hotel in Shanghai in 2015.
This is to be an eco hotel, with a park on the roof, geothermal energy source*, etc.

Srtong Ethics Design Groups (Task5)

Zerofee (zerofee.org) is an ethical design agency, who create many designs for charities for free.
Zerofee have strong social responsibilities policy. They wouldn't support brands and companies that have a negative impact on the world. They don't work for clients if those put profit before people, blatantly disregard the environment or engage in any form of exploitation.

Logo 2

Playing around with typefaces for the MAP logo. 

Logo

Before creating a logo, I figured what my company is going to be about and created a tag cloud with main keywords.

CSR (Task4)

CSR is a process with the aim to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders.

Ethical and social awareness are important elements of CSR. Many organisations have ethics trainings, the aim of which is to help employees make ethical decisions when the answers are unclear.

Stepan Koval Clay Animator (Task3)

Daily route of Tramway 9 by Stepan Koval

Alexander Petrov's Animation (Task 3)

Alexander Petrov  

Advert: Russian Rail 175th anniversary

Phonetical Emotional Typeface

Wayout Typeface

Hand drawn typeface with arrows

Harrow Library Sign System (Task2)

Westminster Uni Sign System (Task2)

Natural Typeface

Futura (Task 1)

Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1927 by Paul Renner and commercially released in 1936 . It is based on geometric shapes that became representative of visual elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–1933.
Although Renner was not associated with the Bauhaus, he shared many of its idioms and believed that a modern typeface should express modern models, rather than be a revival of a previous design.
Futura has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness. The typeface is derived from simple geometric forms (near-perfect circles, triangles and squares) and is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. This is most visible in the almost perfectly round stroke of the ''o'', which is nonetheless slightly ovoid. In designing Futura, Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating non-essential elements. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals.

Types Developed During the Class

Scetchetik (Task 1)

 Sketchetik was designed by Ossi Gustafsson - another font designer from Finland.

I like this sketchy font, as it gives some freshness to the text. 

Sketchetik is really clean and cool at the same time. It was used for the various ads and in magazines.

SciFly-Sans (Task 1)

SciFly-Sans, created by Tomi Haaparanta, font designer from the Suomi Type Factory, for Flyerzone.

The Book I Like (II)

The book I really like is called Handwritten: Expressive Lettering in the Digital Age by Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic.
Even though I love computer graphics, I still adore hand written and drawn images and doodles that give so much personality to a drawing.
Furthermore, to me, when the text is handwritten, it automatically turns into a piece of art.

My Favourite Children's Book

Vasilisa the Beautiful with illustrations by Ivan Bilibin.

Critical Reflection

 Critical Reflection on the TubeTalk project: