Brand This.

I have thought a lot recently (wow). About how advertisements have become a huge part of our everyday lives. I mean every thing which has a logo, is there to identify and promote that product. Whether it's the electrical company branded television in your front room, or the badge on the grill of your car. It is all advertising that product to other people, to get the name stuck in your head.

I mean I can tell you now that I am typing this blog on an HP keyboard, and viewing it on a Compaq monitor. Companies have always wanted their products to be identified as their products. Now, in this simplified form, it makes sense. If you put a product out into the public domain, you want people to know you made it.

So this comes down to everything, from buses to pencils, from microchips to microwaves. A brand name is there, to provided easy identification of a product or service. What ever you use has identification of some kind branded on it. On things like televisions, the branding tends to be just off the line of vision, as although your eyes aren't focused on it, your mind still absorbs the information. This is a popular tactic with logos, apply them in places which will it noticed. This is why you have branded clothing labels and tv channels, with the small symbol in the corner.

Because these logos, are something which are not actively promoted, there is no conscious thought process involved, and your brain takes in a lot more than you think. This is why logos and branding are so important to get right. Logos are the most important parts of advertising, get it wrong, and it shows your company in a negative light. Get it right, and it could become as well known as McDonald's 'golden arches'.

So as a designer, you need to be aware of what kind of message, the company in question, would like to convey. This is as relevant as the shape and colour of the logo, effects to how a person percieves the logo. A representation of one thing, goes as far back as the 17th Century, where a Coat of Arms, was used to classify a person. This was was a way of identifying one person from another, which is why people use logos for, for identification.

The main thing, which is needed when designing a good logo, is communication with your client. This makes sure that whatever you design, conveys the desired message. Its not doing what they say, its colaberating on it.

Welcome to another week, coinciding with me being ill and not able to face going outside at all. So been lying in my bed, making screen caps and just doing nothing. *sigh*

The meds I'm on are supposed to stop me feeling like this. My mum and dad, think its something I ate, which made me ill, but I have a feeling its all cause I work myself up into some kind of stupid state. I mean I try to think, that I'll be ok, and its just the 'blues', but ignoring the feeling don't make anything any easier. I can't face work, but I risk losing my job if I phone in sick. So I just end up making myself go to work, ill. And that's not good for anyone. So do I risk my job by staying off, or by going in and end up crying at the first negative thing a customer says.

See, I am stressing over something, I shouldn't have stress about. Plenty of other people don't give a shit about work, and I make my self more ill thinking about having to take time off. I do my head in completely.

So I sat and listen to music today

Up and at'em.

Well I'm up anyway.

I'm sitting here, still trying to get this design theory done, and what do I do? I decide to open up a website. I was sitting around last night, and I was thinking that I need to do something different, get an actual piece of the internet, that'll represent me completely.
And that's when I thought of Psychobabble. The word itself means, something that may only make sense to one person. And that's kind of representive of me in general.
The word itself came into my head, when I was walking home after a dead end shift on Kana, which is the Sky Help Centre, where customers can email in, rather than phone. It was everything from, 'you bastards for not refunding me for a box office i never watched, but never told you there was an issue till now', to 'I am 18 and want a job in your Uddingston call centre in Glasgow'. But it was a nice break from 'my sky isn't working cause there's snow on the dish'. Ugh. SO anyway..,I was thinking I need a way to get out of this job, so really need to jump on the whole freelancer, lets get my own work thing.

And thats when I started thinking about what kind of website I would like, well it would be slightly crazy and bright. The reason I am starting on the website is because whilst I have limited knowlege on building a website, I have no idea how to get a domain name, etc. So that's the main point of this. I learn more when I just work through things myself, so thats what I'm attempting.
See how it goes.

Its something I have NEVER done before, so it may all go dramatically wrong. But I'll never know if I don't try. So wish me luck.
In the next coming days, the logo will be done, and I'll be getting hosting and domain name sorted, hopefully.

Progress.....kinda

Well I am still writing this god forsaken essay on the history of Illustration. I know what it is I need to write, and what I want to say, but after 5 days, I have two paragraphs. So its getting there, but I think a snail has a faster pace than this essay.

Sooo, giving up for a bit to do the work on the artists. Because I think that will hold my attention more, as I have a thing about talking about artists. So hopefully that will go a bit better. *fingers crossed*

So the movement and artists. I am focusing on two artists per movement.

Art Nouveau- Henri Toulouse-Lautrec & Alphonse Mucha

Arts & Crafts - Eric Gill & Walter Crane

Bauhaus- Paul Klee & Wassily Kandinsky

Futurism- Wladimir Burliuk & Gino Severini

For my essay.
As I have already said, I am doing illustration. So first of all I am going to do the history of illustration, which I am currently working through. I need to mention two movements which were of importance to illustration. And then pick two artists from each movement, and why they I view them as important to illustration, and its progression through the ages.

Kind of confused with which I should do. So I'll do my artist work for my sketch book first. And then take it from there.
*crosses fingers*

Back to reality

And realising I am totally screwed.
Sitting trying to write an essay on the history of Illustration, my brain has frazzled, its offical.
I don't know why I leave EVERYTHING to the last minute, I do it all the time.

I am also feeling like a big blob of nothing today. I mean the state of me is horrible. I have put on wieght in the last year, because I was stressed, and to ease stress, I eat. And that just makes me more stressed, its just a big circle. :( Its also having the worst effect on my skin. I mean my whole body is covered in dry, nasty skin, and its so itchy. So, I'm going to have to start moisturising my whole body, to try and help ease the itchiness. And I am lazy, and moisturising takes me ages, cause I seem to have a lot to cover. So to make me feel better, I had a bath this morning, and then covered everything in moisturiser. To be honest it made me feel a lot more confortable. But the thought of having to go through that process every day, before college, is not doing anything for my lazy. I am expert at getting up and washed 10 minutes before I'm due to leave the house. But this means I am actually going to have to get a morning schedule, and be awake enough to adhere to said schedule.
I also am getting all the vitamins I should be eating as a vegetarian, as I don't think I am helping matters by not getting the right nutrients in my body. Which was made apparent, when in early December I was advised to eat fish off my doctor, due to me very sickly. So major attempt 2 at vegetarianism, and I am going to try and eat more than macaroni cheese and cheese on toast.. On a good thing, I had quite a hefty dose of veggies yesterday. But I am still not having a very big appetite. Its odd, and so unlike me. Also looking to get into swimming more, and thinking about joining a class. Dunno what kind of class, but something that I could go to, which would help me get a bit fitter.

Sounds like some sort of plan.

One step at a time though, and the main thing is the moisurising thing, because I can not live with this itchy skin.