digital graphics level 3 first blog

Week 2 of level 3 Digital Graphics

So far on the course we have been given a blank outline of a brief to design four A4 posters at 300 PPI resolution on any subject of our choosing with an eight week deadline for completion. For my project i have decided on making the posters for a Japanese designer toy company called Kawaii Kiken Na (specialising in urban vinyl). I like this idea for the project as there is a wide variety of aspects to research and inspiration to be found on the subject.

My research so far has been quite broad as I’m trying to filter down my ideas into something more manageable. I have looked into several urban vinyl company’s to gain idea’s and inspiration from there styles and common themes used within the industry. Websites I’ve been looking at include: www.kidrobot.com , www.tokidoki.it . From looking into toy company’s and ranges available i have found common themes tend to be animal based figures more often than not in an anthropomorphic style with very simple rounded shapes that are pleasing to the eye and bright, vivid almost child like colours (there is evidence of my design studies of these aspects in my sketchbook). other aspects I’ve been looking at have been Japanese culture and British culture which i would like to incorporate into my final designs to give a grounding of where the idea’s stem from and the cultural heritage of the company and where its going i.e. a Japanese toy company doing a special British range of their latest figures.

I have also been looking at psychology of colours and shapes to help with design aspects for logo’s backgrounds etc from doing this i have discovered there are major differences between western and eastern cultures with what colours mean or imply. for example the colour white in western cultures gives a feeling of purity or cleanliness whereas in japan white is associated with death. yellow is another colour with contrasting meanings with it being associated with weakness, hazards, hope and fun (quite contrasting with just the western meanings) and in the east its associated with courage, sacred, and even proof against dead!

From my research so far i have a pretty good idea of where i want to go with this project as a lot of the other designs i have seen tend to veer towards a twisted dangerous paradigm of cute Japanese pop culture. So along with this and western horror traditions i have started heading towards a range i have called the Taxiderms which are anthropomorphic cute stuffed animals with a bit of Frankenstein’s monster thrown in for good measure. I am initially thinking of designing four basic toys (each one based on an animal) then making four different versions of each toy in different styles within four themes. The themes i am looking into exploring for this are Japanese culture, British culture, cute (kawaii) and dangerous (kiken na). so for example if i used a dog for one of the toys it would be produced in Japanese style, British style, cute style and dangerous style.

Aspects that i think i need to research more are the cultural aspects of Japan and Britain i want to include in my design.