As a comparative piece to the earlier Airplot post we thought it would be interesting to round up some of our preliminary notes, sketches and worksheets that informed the finished identity.

On the occasions Airside has presented its process talk ‘I Don’t Like It’, were puzzled by the audience’s surprise at just how many sketches and worksheets contributed to a finished design.

We hope that by presenting the ’scrappier’ parts of a project that most agencies would seek to hide, a lot of the mystery behind the design process can be swept away and reveal the work that goes into such an undertaking.

Pictured above are a collection of sketches (gleaned from both computer and sketch book) that document the design team’s initial response to the first client meeting. Those with a keen eye may spot the beginnings of the finished identity, but interestingly there was an overall feeling of tessellation emerging from these very first ideas.

As the project continued the idea of using type as a constructive device became the favoured route, however the design team were concerned that the concept of ideographic type would be hard to explain.

After culling the directions considered unsuccessful, we approached Greenpeace with the above idea. From our point of view it was important to communicate how fields could be abstracted into an underlying grid.

This point was crucial as it would allow us to use the field metaphor, but through a much more manageable form. To explain this point we presented the 4 sequential images featured in the above presentation to hammer the point home.

Once the idea had been explained our attentions turned how the identity should feel. The design team did not want it to look too sterile, so it was decided early into the project to avoid using a computer throughout the typeface’s creation.

We quite liked the sketched typeface we were using in the first sketches, so taking the letters already used we were able to expand these into thick, medium and thin sets, which were then extended across the entire alphabet.

Pictured above are a couple of scanned sketchbook pages illustrating the evolution of the Airplot typeface.

These rough weights were then scanned, cleaned up and printed back out to be mounted and turned into cardboard stamps. Much arduous printing followed – we found ink to be too thin so we opted for acrylic paint instead, this proved to be a messy choice!

Unfortunately no black paint was to hand, but blue was, and in huge quantities too. In the following days not only did I slowly turn blue, but most of the make-and-do-room did too.

When the letter sheets had completely dried the alphabet was for a final time scanned back into the computer to be cleaned and set.

The typeface had to look ‘natural’ but still be readable so in places where the type looked a little too natural the letter was either re-printed or tweaked digitally.

With Airplot Thick, Medium and Thin ready to go we set about compiling the identity. For the results see the previous post…

This month Greenpeace announced their plans to oppose the expansion of Heathrow Airport and introduced Airplot, a campaign with an identity designed by Airside, to question the construction of a third runway.

In 2008 Greenpeace secretly bought a plot of land within Heathrow’s proposed expansion zone and asked Airside to develop an identity that would be able to weather the storms of what could be a very long, unpredictable and difficult protest.

With the need for clear communication amongst fast changing circumstances, Airside’s goal was to create an identity that would stretch much further than a single logo. Greenpeace’s latest campaign would have to communicate many different things to many different people and considering Airplot’s abstract form of protest, Airside made a conscious decision to make what needs to be communicated central to the identity. A volatile campaign such as this needed a language.

Protest marks are often quite confrontational, which considering their cause is entirely understandable, but for this campaign Airside wanted to create something a lot more conspiratorial, reflecting a more intelligent form of protest that Airplot represented. Acknowledging that land was central to Greenpeace’s protest, Airside created an identity based on the colours and shapes synonymous with the rural fields Airplot seeked to occupy.

Abstracting the iconic imagery of how patchwork fields look when viewed from above, we developed the Airplot typeface: an alphabet of letters and blocks consisting of 3 weights (thin, medium and thick), which were hand-printed onto paper and scanned back into the computer. With this typeface we can easily create blocks of type that mirror the ebb and flow of the countryside’s fields.

The typeface was used to create a Airplot logo-type which is able to comfortably house the changing call to actions that Greenpeace’s needs to communicate. Not only does this function well on a representational level, conveying the duplicity of the fields Greenpeace occupies but it allows the type to be set across whatever space or media the identity needs to occupy.

Using this graphic language we have created a graphic language that allows Greenpeace to render Airplot’s rapidly changing messages and call to actions in a way that is instantly linked to Airplot’s identity and is recognisably Greenpeace. This way the things Greenpeace need to communicate within the identity can remain current, relevent and for a project with such a long term scope, consistent.

The logo is the first stage of our collaboration with Greenpeace and we will continue to document the project as the rollout continues.

Paul Neave has some great Flash experiments worth playing with, like the one above where balls bounce in response to input from your computer microphone.

Rather lovely visualisations of flight paths over north America here.

 

Just came across this rather frightening ad for a feminine wash, Lactacyd. It’s not even on YouTube anymore… Watch it here.

(Made by Grey, Amsterdam).

 

O wither has my lady wandered?

I’m probably behind the times, waaaay behind, but I heard Fleet Foxes’ Mykonos yesterday for first time and thought – what a gorgeous melodic nostalgic thing of a song. And look at them, if they don’t scream ‘hey nonny-no’, my dad’s not Tim Buckley.

 

It’s been a while since we’ve had news from Stitch parents, but thanks to the Hill family, we do now.

Nice to see their woolly lot partaking in the festive activities, even if Sherry is not a Stitch’s best friend…

Visit the Stitch blog for a full posting. Visit Airside Shop to adopt a Stitch.