Augmented Design Research (SB4)

augment
verb

ɔːgˈmɛnt/
make (something) greater by adding to it; increase.

Your task is to produce a print-based advertising campaign across at least 3 print-based advertising deliverables (e.g. poster, flyer, billboard, etc.) to accompany your 'A brief history of...' website that features an (or some) element(s) of interactivity. There are several methods, platforms and technologies available that can be exploited in providing interactive elements to print media therefore it is important that you research these thoroughly in order to develop an effective augmented design.

Ikea 2015 Catalouge

Layar Creator

An interesting example of augmented design from Layar. What I like about this is that, although it may not be necessary, it blends the magazines content with what you are seeing on screen. The front cover becomes a video that is still surrounded by the original text. I think the buying feature is the most effective way that augmented design is used to encourage the user to buy something in this magazine as it links you straight to the product. However it doesn't appeal to me as I belive magazines and websites should be different experiences and defeats the reasons people by magazines.

QR (Quick Response) Codes

QR codes are small square barcodes that hold information and (although I have never used one) are a quick way of linking users to additional information. They work by scanning through your phone camera and opening the content onto the phone. I am unsure of how effective they can be as I haven't really seen them be used but can see the potential if someone wants to find out more about a product immediately.

Interactive Ads

Quicksilver

Moto X

Frontline

Some of these ads I found to be quite effective when put in the right context and are a good example of how the surrounding environment can be used to give your ad another dimension. These ad also extend seeing them first hand as they are things people would want to take photos of further extending their audience reach. 

What is the potential of interactivity in print?

There is a lot of potential for interactivity in print. What I think is the most effective attribute is that it keeps the audience engaged to the ad for longer and makes it more memorable. The potential is its ability to link users to other platforms and coincide with the growing use of technology. I don't think it is nessesary for successful advertising, traditional print advertising can still be as effective if it is appropreate to its target market and is well designed/made.

Can augmented design help draw people to your website?

Yes it can if I use it in the right way, I will need to research futher into interactive print advertising to find an effective one that isn't just a gimmick that has been used for the sake of it.

What kind of interactivity would be effective for my campaign?

I could use augmented design to draw people into my website by engaging with current film advertisements on bilboard posters, websites and magazines. As my site is to inform users about aspect of the films title sequence I could market my campaign to people who would be enthusiasic about the films themselves.

Monotype - Type Experiments (Responsive)

The Thing

As the brief is strictly type based I began to take the titles of the films and experiment in manipulating them. This distorted effect was created by displacing the text over a digital glitch image and repeated. 

Type manipulation based on one of the original posters. I decided to use a similar typeface as I think a bold sans serif distorts the best as there is more area to work with and I also like the original type composition where the 'The' sits in the middle.    

This is another experiment based on the icy environment the film is set in and the background colour has been sampled from the poster above. 

Although I could use a number of colours I think the background green works the best as it (to me) has connotations of dark, mysterious and alien.  

The Fog

Again I wanted to make the type look organic and take a hand rendered approach so they would work together.  

Added small breaks in some of the letters to give the sense that the type is in motion and can be interacted with.

Monotype - 80s Typography (Responsive)

After looking further into 80s design trends I picked out a few adverts with type that stood out to me. A common text effect was to extrude it as if it was literally jumping off the page - an obvious way of grabbing viewers attention. 

These adverts have a distinctive style which I want to play on when I start working on my type. I want to find a way of combining this retro/vintage design (to pay homage to the original films and to give my designs contextual reference) with more contemporary design processes.        

Monotype - Horror/Sci-Fi Film Posters/Typography (Responsive)

I Googled horror movie posters to get an overview of the type and images currently used. As you can see they make use of similar typefaces/colours/images which makes them bland and merge into one. 

Logotypes from 80s Films

Individual logotypes were often created for films made in the 80s giving each film its individual visual identity. I believe that this is part of the reason as to why the films have become so iconic- the type is instantly recognisable and doesn't need images to suggest what genre and what the film is about. 

Science fiction films also had their own logos which are in a style of their own yet still distinctive today. Some typefaces have been created using the letters from the original logos. Bold angular sans-serif fonts were often used and packed closely together with futuristic strikethroughs. 

Current & Recent Film Posters

As shown by a few of the titles below the type used is nowhere near as imaginative as it used to be. A lot of the posters I looked at used similar if not the same typefaces and weren't the focal point of the posters.   

It is is clear that designers for these posters seem to be following a design formula which is making type used in film poster design generic and is what I want to stay away from when starting my own type experiments. 

Monotype Brief - John Carpenter (Responsive)

John Carpenter

Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction films from the 1970s and 1980s.

Most films in Carpenter's career were critical and commercial failures, with the notable exceptions of Halloween (1978), Escape from New York (1981) and Prince of Darkness (1987). However, many of Carpenter's films from the 1970s and the 1980s such as Dark Star (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), The Fog (1980), The Thing (1982), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and They Live (1988) have since been seen as cult classics, and Carpenter has been acknowledged as an influential filmmaker (Wikipedia).

My aim for this project is to revive some of these cult classic horrors by rejuvenating them and introduce wider audiences who wouldn't have experienced them the first time. One of the thing that make these films distinctive is the era they were made in (1980s). This is a decade I am particularly interested in as it was the start of commercial digital advertising and computer generated design.     

All the images above the films original advertisements from the 80s.

The films I have chosen to include in my retrospective screening are: 

- The Fog (1980)

- The Thing (1982)

- They Live (1988) 

Images/Inspiration from the original films  

The Thing and The Fog have both had fairly bland and unimaginative remakes since and by doing so have hidden the original films even further. Most of the younger generation would most likely choose the newer versions because of the updated effects, cast and current advertising. 

Remake posters: 

The new posters look bland using typical colours and composition and aren't as interesting when compared to the originals.