The InteRail pack

So over the summer i used InteRail to travel around Europe, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Its a very organised company but their printed material for their customers is poorly designed. All three books are different size width and lengths and they don't work together. 2 are portrait and the last is landscape.  There is no reason why these cant work together.

The leaflets are designed with a bold red and a bright green which i personally don't like and think it makes it look cheap. I want to make these documents look more of a set and look stylised for its travellers.

The three printed leaflets you get once you have bought your ticket are:
1. A map of Europe. This has all the train lines on and was actually very useful but its a bit overwhelming. We wanted to be writing on it and drawing our travel routes on it but its so full of colour and big red lines anyway that it did help if we drew on it.

2. A Travel Guide. This is a book on the pass and how to use it and useful numbers and sites for each country. The book is a mish mash of colours and is a bland layout that doesn't consider the body copy very well as it cuts of sentences of half way thorough to place an image!

3. InteRail Pass. This holds the pass itself and a survey form to send back to the InteRail company after travelling.

Tom Bourne

These book covers by Tom Bourne are based around the planets in our solar system and there is one for each of them. Very simple image using the texture of each planet as the back ground image. One thing i really like about these covers is that the white circle shape changes size to represent each planet more accurately. It would have been easy to use one generic white circle but it shows that he has thought about the design. 

However the overall design doesn't work for me, i think it has become to simplistic and the contrast between some of the photos and the vector images don't work together.

Astronomy - Glen Simonov

These designs by Glen Simonov were designed for April's Global Astronomy Month, they include solar events throughout the year within our solar system.

Very simple designs and little colour that work well in showing the information in a visually pleasing way.  I would really like to see something like this with a more crafted approach as most of the visuals iv seen based on space have been vector. So If I'm going to aim my project at kids aged 8-12 then i think this will be a more successful way to involve them.

Enormouschampion Studio

Browsing through Grain Edit again and was reading an interview with enormouschampion studio and found these packaged wood animals. They are part of a series called 'The Kingdom Animalia' and they are all lazer cut animals finished by hand.

However its not the product i'm interested in its the packaging for them. Each animal has its own little box and its the packaging that shows how special these animals are. It states information such as 'this is not a toy' and its measurements, which is only portrayed on the packaging that this items is meant for adults really. The style of the packaging is something similar to the way I am wanting to work within the next year, very simple block shapes for imagery and a big focus on layout and colour.

Astronomy - Sue Doeksen

Ok i have literally just stumbled on this little gem, Sue Doesksen is an illustrator which is not particularly what i am wanting to look at but the way she work is brilliant. The few pieces I have put on here really get the sense of the hand made approach across and deal with layout. This hand made approach is something i am focusing in on this year and so felt this work really relevant to my practice.

Also another major reason she is on here is that her work is very suitable for children and this is my main audience for most of my projects this year. Very colourful, very fun and getting kids involved.

If i can get an element of this in my work then i think it would be perfect to connect with kids.

Astronomy - Simon Page

Simon Page is a designer who I have been looking at all summer and who has inspired me for my first chosen brief on producing an astronomy pack for kids.

It was his series of posters for the International year of Astronomy 09 that I first saw and I just realised how simple something can be to give a message. These posters are made up of circles and lines and even without the title we understand what the subject matter is about. I think the simplicity of these posters is why they are so successful.

I am aiming to use some of these simple techniques in my own project to connect with kids and connect with them about astronomy

A new beginning

"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible."

Arthur C. Clarke

Ok im feeling motivated.

This is the start of the 3rd year, the final year and the year to show who i am.