Panel Discussion 3

Being at the refinement stage, the feedback today mainly revolved around the details of the project and the importance of presentation.

I have listed below the feedback for each of the products.

Identity Crisis Book:

-       There should be breaks in the monotony

-       The cover page portrays a confused hierarchy, which needs to be fixed

-       The placing of the parallel men need to be thought about instead of being placed on intuition.

-       The rope on the last page should be extended

-       There could be similar iterations on the same page

-       When the final logo is displayed, it should look as if it is the chosen one. Perhaps some sort of specifications could come alone with the page.

-       On the cover page, I should give myself credit

Brand Manual

-       The cover needs to be refined in terms of margins, placement of the pig and the abstractness of the sky

-       Some of the headings need to be kerned properly

Poster

-       Impossibility poster has too many words, there could be fewer.

-       Placement o type and layout

-       Minor adjustments to make the message clearer

-       The size of the Newspaper poster should be reconsidered.

Notepad

-       The cover should be in sync with what is inside which is not the case right now

Presentation

-       Think of how the whole package will work together

-       How the two books will look together in terms of size.

-       How everything will be presented.

Documentation

-       There are a lot of ideas that are just doodles, and hence need to be digitised properly for the documentation.

02 Panel Discussion

My progress this time has been pretty much in terms of quantity, however, when looked as something which is final, there is only one logo symbol that has been finalised. Since I have been spending all my energies in creating an effective type integration, I have paid little attention to the other aspects of the branding project. Alison suggested that I work on things simultaneously, and even if the visual language has not been figured out completely, I could work on other things like the content flowchart for the website, or things that do not require the visual language to play a major role.

They had a look at my rejected logos, and liked the graphic design tool kit idea a lot. If some personalised DKM specific icons could be created, it could be taken forward in terms of application. They also liked the cluster idea, in which many DKMs seem to be fluttering... they suggested that it would look nice if the logo was disseminating like that.

Looking at the book of rejected logos, many ideas emerged, and the four of us brainstormed a little on how there could actually be booklets of my rejected logos, since they kind of show how much work goes into making the identity, and how the evolution of the final logo could actually be a flip book. If put simply, the process could be a collateral. Alison showed a poster that she had done which was an infograph on the making of the museum. Danika suggested some websites which print these booklets at a cheap price.

As far as the application of the visual language is concerned, they like the idea of visual collages a lot, since the logo too is a collage in a way. There should be stories behind each of these graphics, because that automatically adds value.

The review panel thought that I was thinking at various levels, one being the logo and the identity, one being the experience of creating a visual language for DKM, and one being the long term promotional ideas, which actually wont be part of my project, but they are still part of my thinking. I should perhaps, make a choice now. I should either start thinking of the "me" bit in this project and the "he" bit... if for any reason, the collateral and work is not enough then I should make collateral on my own, heedless of whether its taken forward as final production or not.

Mr. Ravindra suggested that it was time for me to define objectives and ask him a few questions, which though I have considered before, I haven't asked him properly. How much is he planning to expand? Is he planning to expand in terms of business or services? I should get his statement of "purpose".

And most importantly, I should chalk out my deliverables and the whole visual application alongside.

As part of the visual application, I was wondering if there could be a series of posters which everyone in the studio could produce on a particular topic. This would show variety and would be an interesting contribution. This would also show how the medium changes the message. This idea too was liked.

This meeting was also very important in terms of me familiarising the panel with what dev kabir malik design is all about, and the kind of work they do. This helped in everyone understanding the scope of the project.

01 Panel Discussion

August 4


After showing my progress so far in the project, certain core points came out of the meeting. Everyone encouraged me a lot to bring out the ‘wild’ side in me, and to try to push my thinking beyond the restrictions placed by the client. As a designer I should be confident about my ideas and convince my client, and if there is something that I feel about, I should go ahead and execute it, if not for the client, then for myself.

Both Danika and Alison gave me some references to look up, and questions to consider. They asked me to think about patterns of people surfing the web, and what is it in a website that keeps them coming back. Each gave their own example, and it was very clear from those examples that the basis of the concept for the website is going to be such user flows.

Currently it turns out that what I have done so far is very basic, and not revolutionary in anyway. I do have some ideas, but they have not been defined yet in terms of a concrete branding strategy. There was a lot of debate over one such idea, which revolved around having monthly themes for the website and product range. What is the point of such themes? How are they going to be applied? Is the logo going to change according to the theme? If the theme is, for example, pop art, then how does the medium change the message? Does the firm do a lot of pop art? To someone the appeal may be purely visual, but to someone else, it could have a political context to pop art. Can the themes be more in context to the firm?

Though I unable to clarify then, I wanted to say that pop art was just one theme from the top of my head, and not necessarily something that I was going to execute. There were other themes that I had thought related to typography. Here again, they helped in widening my horizons, by giving me more outlets in which type could be used like the history of type, letterpress, printing and so on.

Here, I also told them about the idea of having a website which has a blog like and personal feel to it. This is where a lot of suggestions came up as to what people around the world are doing with the power of the blog already.

Another such idea was the fact that the value of graphic design comes across only when absent. And this is one direction that I want to work with. Mr. Ravindra had pointed out a very important question here. My ‘strategy’ up till now works around ‘users’ and not potential users. When a firm decides to do a rebranding, the purpose is to get more clientele. How am I going to use graphic design to attract such clientele? Currently it is word of mouth and the portfolio the firm has. Mr. Ravindra also reminded me that being revolutionary does not necessarily need to be something that has never been done before. Just because a t-shirt has been designed before does not mean that I cannot design one now. However, there should be some meaning in that, and an idea which makes it unique. He also told me to think about the content of the website, because that will gravely affect what I do with it.

Since I am rebranding a design firm, I should be able to go beyond the boundaries. My logo iterations till now were considered a bit old school, where the argument came up that the client anyway wants something which would last forever, and young doesn’t last forever. They also suggested that I push the idea of using his signature, because it had a certain quality which kept them looking at it for more time than my type integrations did.

Here I realised that this was maybe because I have not styled my iterations yet. They still have not been taken forward. A lot depends on how a logo is executed. I still have faith in what I have done so far, and will make it work.

The very first meeting

July 8, 2010

The first review meeting really helped define the project for me. Up till now, I was still a little confused despite it being a simple project brief.

The first question that Mr. Ravindra asked me was "What is the design challenge in your project?" This question could be answered in two ways, one being the challenges faced while doing the project itself, and the other being what challenges I would be facing with my current set of skills and beliefs. Though at that time I only considered the challenges of the design brief, on retrospect I think there is more to it.

In my proposal my research questions revolved solely around branding. What about application? What was I going to design alongside? It could be a website, but it could also be something else. Mr. Ravindra also asked me to get into the skin of the company. What are their ideals? What is their mission statement? Do they want to project a funky image or something more suave? He suggested that I prepare a set of questions that would help me get a direction for the overall visual language of this project.

Alison and Danika both gave a lot of stress on finding out the expectations of the client and my own, and documentation. They really helped me spell out some of the loose ends of the project that I need to take care of. They suggested that I document even the slightest ideas, since each idea represents and depends on the experience of that particular moment. Even if these ideas are not taken forward, they could be the beginning of another direction now or later. My documentation will show how much I have travelled in the project, and how much I have been able to grow with it. They also gave me some feedback on client based project based learning, and how I should make the most of it. These are the months when I should make full use of my interaction with other designers in the field and learn from them.

There are a few things that are still not sorted out. These include:

-- Deliverables

-- Timeline

-- Expectations

The common feedback was that I should not forget myself in the project. Client based projects often become the do's and don't's of the client, and since the client here itself is a graphic designer, I need to make sure that the final outcome is me, and not him. This is perhaps going to be one of my biggest challenges through the project.