Bobby      Abley

Week 1: 18th January

The group met for the first time, whereby we analysed the brief and discussed possible designers and outputs for the assignment. It was agreed that we would set the task for us all to go away and research into different designers and choose our favourites, and we would then decide as a group which one we would focus on the next time we met.

 

Week 2: 25th January

We agreed to concentrate on menswear as the majority of us had never focused on this for an assignment before, therefore it would be more of a challenge for us and exceed our comfort zones. We decided on menswear designer Bobby Abley, and evaluated his past collections and inspirations. He creates quirky and eccentric fashion which expresses his youthful, nostalgic charm and individuality, and this proved to be an exciting starting point for our assignment.

The group task in the workshop this week was to take an item of clothing and utilise it for another purpose, focusing on styling and creativity. This encouraged us to think beyond an items original purpose to create a whole new concept, therefore we took a scarf and turned it into a pair of sleeves, a turban, a skirt and a backpack. This also encouraged us to reflect this creativity in our assignment.

 This week we also took the opportunity to visit Whitworth Art Gallery to see if we could gain inspiration from its artwork for our own assignment.

 

Week 3: 1st February

We had arranged a meeting with our tutor to discuss our potential ideas and where we were currently. After gaining more of an understanding of what we wanted to achieve with our outputs we agreed that we wanted to focus on nostalgia as a theme, so set out to research into what children’s programmes, hobbies and interests our target audience would’ve enjoyed in their youth.

During the workshop this week we met graphic designer and typographer Ben Greenhalgh, and was set the task of creating something related to a given letter. We were given the letter ‘T’, and using tea bags we had several creative ideas which we then photographed and filmed in many imaginative ways.

 

Week 4: 8th February

We discussed what we had all found from our individual research and from this decided on our final theme and outputs. We decided to design a new logo, create a photobook, make a QR code, set up social media pages, design our own characters and then create our own original comic strips. We wanted the characters to relate to our own personal styles and personalities, as well as introducing Bobby Abley as a character and bringing our new logo to life too. We knew we had to develop a new concept for this campaign, therefore we could analyse the concepts he’s already used, for example Disney characters and Star Wars, but choose new ideologies to focus on. Therefore at the beginning of our research process we decided to look into programmes featured on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, comics including the Beano and the Dandy, as well as classic children’s toys, games and hobbies.

 

Week 5: 15th February

We booked an appointment with Paul at the Digital Innovation Hub whereby we discussed with him our potential outputs and how these could be created. We came to the conclusion that we would not be able to develop our own app with our characters due to the limited time we had, however he offered support and knowledge in developing our own QR code which we then created later that day. We also set up our blog, which would showcase all of our outputs as well as primary research and developments, so we were then able to link our QR code so that it will take users to our blog homepage.

Social media pages were allocated to each team member and set up during this week, and I was personally responsible for the projects Instagram page. Obviously we wanted to keep the social media channels synergised with one another therefore it was always communicated what we would be posting.

I also brainstormed and discussed ideas for our characters and new logo which would then be drawn by Carrie, and created the formative board which would then be discussed the following week with our tutors.

 

Week 6: 22nd February

We visited the Manchester Art Gallery to gain even more inspiration from its artwork, and found that their Core Interactive Gallery was extremely relatable to what we were trying to achieve in that it encouraged the use of child’s play and interactivity.

We had also booked an appointment with our tutors during the workshop this week whereby we gained support and feedback after describing our concept for our campaign.

The storylines for the comic strips were thought up during a group meeting and the initial characters had also been completed, therefore I started to experiment with colour and techniques by trying out the use of colouring pens and pencils.

 

Week 7: 29th February

After experimenting with the colours we all came to the decision that creating these characters digitally is going to look the most professional, therefore we scanned the penned drawings in and coloured them in using Photoshop. The logo had also been designed and finalised therefore we were able to digitally create that too.

The idea was then developed to transfer our QR code onto the centre of our logo, which could then be printed off and hung around Manchester for everyone to see and interact with. This would create a buzz for our campaign and widen our outreach, and when it was scanned users would be taken to the homepage of our blog.

The use of GIFS were also explored for our logo and comic strips.

 

Week 8: 7th March

During this week the comics had all been completed, therefore I was able to scan them all in and digitally bring them to life in the same way we did with the characters. With the help of Joanne we then added additional images, speech bubbles and text to the comic strips to make them appear more fun and realistic, as well introducing GIFS to certain boxes of the comics.

We were meeting with tutors during our scheduled workshop time every week, as assurance that we were going in the right direction and developing our ideas and outputs further enough.

 

Week 9: 14th March

During our final week we gathered all of our images and backgrounds to create our final output, the digital photobook. We also continued posting on social media, created a front cover and name for our comic strips, and finalised everything on the blog ready for our deadline on Friday 18th March.

 

Belbin Task

 

PL = 'Plant'

Characteristics

Individualistic, serious-minded, unorthodox.

Plants are innovators and inventors and can be highly creative. They provide the seeds and ideas from which major developments spring. Usually they prefer to operate by themselves at some distance from the other members of the team, using their imagination and often working in an unorthodox way. They tend to be introverted and react strongly to criticism and praise. Their ideas may often be radical and may lack practical constraint. They are independent, clever and original and may be weak in communicating with other people on a different wave-length.

Function

The main use of a Plant is to generate new proposals and to solve complex problems. Plants are often needed in the initial stages of a project or when a project is failing to progress. Plants have often made their marks as founders of companies or as originators of new products. Too many Plants in one organisation, however, may be counter-productive as they tend to spend their time reinforcing their own ideas and engaging each other in combat.

Strengths

Genius, imagination, intellect, knowledge.

Allowable Weaknesses

Up in the clouds, inclined to disregard practical details or protocol.