H.Samuel - Background

Quick grab from wikipedia on background information, 

The H.Samuel story began in 1862 when Harriet Samuel (nee Wolfe) took over her father-in-law Moses Samuel's clock-making and silversmith business in Liverpool. Harriet moved the business to Manchester's Market Street and ran the mail order side. Her son developed the retail area.

The first H. Samuel retail store opened in Preston in 1890, closely followed by branches in Rochdale and throughout Lancashire. To accommodate the growing business, the company moved to large headquarters in Birmingham in 1912.

After the war, Harriet's grandsons Gilbert and Robert took over as Chairman and Vice Chairman. In 1948, the company was successfully floated on the Stock Exchange.

Gilbert was awarded a CBE for political and public services, became a Queen's Sheriff for the City of London and was elected Master of the Clockmakers Company. Meanwhile, the number of H.Samuel stores rose to over two hundred nationwide.

After the brothers' deaths in the late 1970s, Robert's son took over as Chairman. In 1984 he led an acquisition of the James Walker Group, which doubled the company's presence in the UK.

The website currently in operation, Although the colour scheme tends to be ruby red, gold and white, the current campaign is bright pink? not as fitting with the current identity. Mix of typefaces, and alot of repetition of information.

The christmas advert of 2007, a really effective piece of advertising but the same effect, quality and influence lacks in the rest of the design. Although, 'Helps you say it better' is the tagline, I can't find the tagline anywhere on the site, or in store..

Rob ryan - YSP visit

Back on the 5th February, a small group of us visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park for the Rob Ryan exhibition on at the time to see whats what. At first, I was really just going for the ride, I hadn't seen much of Rob Ryan's work and didn't at first attract to his sort of style. Quite delicate, time consuming and well.. feminine. But, with an open mind for more I still came and was pleasantly surprised. Yes the work is time consuming, but for larger one off pieces. His work was also produced in the form of window vinyls, screenprinting and laser cutting. Below are just a sample of the images collected from the exhibition of the techniques I wish to explore, and the rest can be found here. 

I think ever since we started the collaborative brief, both Becca and myself have wanted to atleast consider window graphics into the H.Samuel brief, and never twitched that we had collected some great examples at the Rob Ryan exhibition of vinyl graphics, both on clear and frosted surfaces, the window vinyl can give another depth/dimension to the window and is a prime location to apply graphics for retail spaces.

I really like the black onto frosted, I feel the white might have been lost a little on the material, but at the same time the black doesn't seem too overpowering. This, was exhibitions main piece of signage, above a long corridor leading to the main exhibition space.

The large frame pieces show so much personality and dedication, which is what we want to achieve with H.Samuel. The idea of buying a gift or jewellery should be a personal thing and be more of an experience, than just going to the shops.

Although not a great picture of the window composition, the effect is quite dramatic especially on a good day for weather when you get the reflections and silhouettes created from the design. Although not incredibly detailed like his framed pieces, the windows feel a presence but not in an over powering way.

A better image found on his website.

The variety of colour is great, experimenting with different colour palettes even with a similar message. This screen-print example still has the nice handmade quality to it, and even with a faster form of production, feels very personal. Is this something we need to achieve?

Window displays 1.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luke_hallam/sets/72157623384425481/ 

The flickr link to the collaboration brief photos taken.

For initial concept development, we explored Leeds town centre and collected imagery of store identities and window displays. Below are a selection of a few favourites of potential ideas, and techniques. 

 

 

Across the length of the Merrion Centre are vinyl graphics applied to the upper windows each design for each store. The successful aspect of the design is that the entire set would of been created by the same group of people, and gives some identity to the merrion centre with similar styled vinyl. The imagery is white with frosted sections to add some depth. Relatively inexpensive to produce, would be either a single colour print, or just vinyl cut material.

Just using a drop shadow instead of block type, still gives the user readable type, but because its less subtle to solid type, it doesn't draw attention away from the window display itself, and allows for large potions of text to be applied, without losing view into the store. 

A combination of window vinyl and instore display, allows you to concentrate and view a particular area of the display, drawing attention to particular products. The design forces you to interact with the display, and brings you closer to investigate, as apposed to just walk by.  

 
On the window of Reiss, was their logo applied directly to the window surface instead of a 2d vinyl. This effect gives the feel of quality even though in reality the cost of something like this wouldn't be much more than a vinyl design. It catches your eye because it isn't expected. With window displays, the designs are usually very linear in appearance, but this adds a little more. This particular design would only be possible in a shopping centre store and not the high street.  

This design shows landscapes made of cut acrylic, with a frosted backing to display jewellery. The brief states that they want to encourage buying outside of tradition occasions, and for self purchase. Could these displays show different scenarios of potential occasions- driving tests, 'will you live with me', thank yous etc.  

 

I originally found this design in GQ for type module and glad to see the campaign stretches across the company, the display is of window graphics and inwindow displays, same typefaces, and same weighted bounding box.

One more motion graphics.

Dan Meyer's 2009 Annual Report from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.


Just discovered this little beaut online while panning across my usual sites. Great motion graphics but with just simple motions and strong colour use.

Pulp Fiction

Title: Pulp Fiction

Date: 1994

Genre: Crime, Thriller,

Plot Summary: The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

Feel: Non Linear, Brutal, Violence, Dark Comedy

Key Characters: Vincent Vega, Jules Winnfield, Marcellus Wallace, Butch Coolridge, Mia Wallace

Key Scenes + Quotes:

Brett: No, no, I just want you to know... I just want you to know how sorry we are that things got so fucked up with us and Mr. Wallace. We got into this thing with the best intentions and I never...

Jules: [Jules shoots the man on the couch] I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? I didn't mean to do that. Please, continue, you were saying something about best intentions. What's the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort. What does Marsellus Wallace look like?

Brett: What?

Jules: What country are you from?

Brett: What? What? Wh - ?

Jules: "What" ain't no country I've ever heard of. They speak English in What?

Brett: What?

Jules: English, motherfucker, do you speak it?

Brett: Yes! Yes!

Jules: Then you know what I'm sayin'!

Brett: Yes!

Jules: Describe what Marsellus Wallace looks like!

Brett: What?

Jules: Say 'what' again. Say 'what' again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say what one more Goddamn time!

Tarantino Interview:

Inspirations:

DVD menus - slick!

Really slick DVD menus all created with the same sort of software Iam using for this particular brief. Obviously I won't be able to achieve similar sort of standards with idents to complete also, but something to strive for. James Bond, Trainspotting, Hot Fuzz and another good example of DVD menu.















The Hot Fuzz sequence shown here gives the illusion of panning around a large environment interactive with the numerous buttons and menus.







The trainspotting DVD menu is a fan based creation and not the original. It still demonstrates great use of the software and practical development of ideas.

Distortion effects

http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/vfx/create-an-old-tv-footage-effect/

One of the tutorials found on the internet to add effects to footage on after effects, to recreate the effect of old footage on a computer such as noise, flickers and distortion. I want to recreate graphics of the era in AE but they would look to crisp on their own. This has been useful.

DVD packaging.

The great Reservoir Dogs 15th Anniversary packaging. Shaped as a metal petrol tank (key to the story-line) features postcards of key quotes and a large matches pack from 'uncle bob's pancake house' (the cafe from the first scene)

The back catalogue of AC/DC, in a amp shaped package, that actually works as a guitar amp. Full of memorabilia, CDs, LPs and DVDs.

**update**

DVD packaging, as described previously found online by Rebecca Liggins, and what I want to recreate. Mimicking a VHS as a DVD case.