Jordan Bohill completed a project designing three posters for three beers for the Brass Castle brewery. While he struggled initially coming up with ideas and felt his early work lacked professionalism, he ultimately redesigned the posters and was happy with the final high-quality results. However, communication with the client was limited. For future projects, he would seek a more detailed brief and improved client communication to better meet their needs and allow for stronger work. The finished posters effectively portrayed the beers' narratives through aesthetic design elements like radial color fades, though one poster had less depth than the others. Overall the project was a learning experience in designing under constraints and time pressure.

1. Evaluation
Jordan Bohill

2. Project Outline
I started out finding my client for this project and although I did take up one of
the clients provided you can see the efforts taken to obtain a client and I almost
had one to work with which I found myself but after meeting with the client and
discussing what they wanted providing I didn’t feel it suited me and what I was
wanting to achieve from the project so I turned their opportunity down and
instead worked to the Brass Castle brief which asked me to produce three
posters for three of their beers. I had 3 completely different ideas and styles to
work with for these three individual pieces but as the project carried on I didn’t
feel my work was good enough and professional enough so I took a huge
change to go with three different styles that all linked together well in the end
and I think it was the right choice to make when it came to producing these
posters.

3. Constraints
Before I started making my work I knew that the copyright constraints would be
a problem when it came to producing my work as there would be some things
that I would need to produce my final Images and as my client didn’t provide me
with any stock images they wanted me to use as it was quite a open brief. But
as the project went on without these things I found it easier to work around this
problem and also managed to work on my skills in Photoshop on using things
that I wouldn’t have used before but now I feel I used them effectively to finish
the projects posters. For some things I also used certain images that I need
through royalty free websites that I double checked to ensure I was able to use
the items on the website I only mainly used these for a few mocks and my ideas
developed and changed towards the end to something different that didn’t
include any copyright images.

4. Constraints
When I started this project I also looked into regulatory laws they may have
restricted what I was producing. As I was producing something for alcohol use I
especially had to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong that may coincide
with the ASA (Advertising standards authority) laws as this could later affect my
client if they chose to use my work. This included things like making sure my
work didn’t feature any provocative content that may either push or condone the
use of underage drinking or too encourage people to drink excessively in any
way. My work is also not aloud to show my products looking like its good to
drink them for social status to mix in with friends or to make drinking look like
something which has to be done by someone at any stage.
Financially I didn’t have any constraints as my project started off with no budget
to begin with and this continued throughout where no financial supply was
needed to complete any of the project.

5. Managing My Project
When scheduling my project I felt like this project was going to be managed well as I
had a solid idea of when all my work would take place and that I would get feedback
to help me through the project from the client. As the project got started though my
management went downhill and some of my ideas didn’t turn out how I wanted and I
ended up spending the first two weeks of the project very unsure with the ideas and
what I had made as I didn’t feel they had a very professional look to them this is
where I decided to change my designs completely but still carrying some of the
same characteristics over to the new work. As I was now on my last week in which I
scheduled to make just one of the three posters I was running out of time but
somehow still managed to create three really high quality posters within this week.
Reflecting back on it I feel showed my ability to work in a short time space under
pressure and still create some high quality work that I was happy with and feel like it
gave me some experience in working under pressure and bringing my ideas
together to create work that still was what the client was looking for.

6. Managing My Project

7. Managing My Project
Communication
My client for this project was also working the other students within my class so
made it hard for them to really communicate with all of us at the same time about
our work but I did hear back on my treatment where they said they were interested
to see what I will produce from what I explained to them and that I sounded like I
had a solid idea on creating something they would like.
Although I haven’t heard anything else from them on any developments or the final
pieces I think that they would be happy with the final pieces I had created as they
were something that I could imagine seeing in a bar or pub to show off the drinks to
customers. I think it also included everything they wanted from the brief which
included, Brass Castle logo, capturing the essence of the drink – creating its
narrative through artwork, following other styles with their own twist on them and
also to create all three posters with three different styles.

8. Managing My Project
Communication
Though I didn’t receive much communication from this client I did get quite a bit of
communication experience between me and another client that I was going to work
with on this project but I felt that what they wanted didn’t suit my project and what I
wanted to do with this and I felt it wouldn’t bring out the best in my skills for what I
needed.
I think from these two clients I have learnt that settling on something that you are
both comfortable with is the key to being successful when it comes to the actual
projects and making the things because if you aren’t happy then you are likely not to
produce your best work. Also having a more detailed brief would have made my
project much simpler as mine was so open I had so many possibilities to go down
that really left me in-between ideas and if I had more of a influence behind the work
I feel that the items I produced could have been much better and even something
that the client will use as it will be catered to something they want.

9. Finished Products
I think that my finished work turned out to be very high quality images although I
didn’t have any feedback along the way except for from peers. It was some of the
strongest work I have created thus far and I believe I did lots of things right in these
pieces.
In my research for making the posters I noticed a very repetitive thing within posters
which was using a radial fade in colours to create a central focus around the product
within the artwork. This I feel was something effective that also added
professionalism to work, this is where I got my inspiration for using this in my work.
It creates a central focus that draws peoples attention to the product which is what
people look for in something like this and is a very strong technical element within
my work.

10. Finished Products

11. Finished Products
My client asked of me to create a narrative within my pieces of work that represents the
drinks and I believe I achieved this. Not quite to the level I would have liked with them as
they are still quite simple but with only a one liner describing the drinks, which is what my
client provided me with. I feel like with little info I still portrayed as much of it as I could
have with my skills.
I specifically like the Lunatic design aesthetically as the colour palette really worked well
together and created a bright poster that didn’t look tacky which is what can sometimes
happen with using colour palettes like this.
I used many skills within this poster like using, opacity's and filters on Photoshop to create
some of the effects of the background images.
The other piece I liked to make was the Mind Sweeper design. I had lots of ideas for this
one that were all quite complex but in the end I decided on a very simplistic idea that was
probably the most professional looking piece of the three. The colours and the central
focusing worked very well to create good piece that was made well technically and
aesthetically. Looking at this there aren’t any big things that I would look at changing or
that specifically need improving within it, although, I would possibly like to go back and
recreate the bottle as the colours and the shading were very harsh and slightly too dark
but this is only a minor change.

12. Finished Products

13. Finished Products
The weaker design piece from this project was the poster for my Brass Monkey design.
What started out as one of my stronger ideas then turned into one of the harder pieces to
make from the project. As I didn’t think my ideas looked very professional to present in a
pub/bar I decided to push this idea to the back and the design ideas were very simple and
didn’t work so well with my new design style that I used. It was a very flat piece with not
much happening in the background white space like the other pieces which I think also
made it the weaker of the three.
Although this was a weaker piece I think it still fit in with the series of images to keep a
consistent flow if they were to use these pieces as a trio behind a bar.

14. Finished Products

15. Overall Evaluation
Overall I think my final pieces for this project was something that I was happy with and
feel they could be used within the world as a professional piece but as for communication
with my client and time scaling I think that I could have been much more successful in the
way I worked with these things and overall been much more professional about it as I
would be expected to have been in the real world with a paid or much more formal
agreement for the work.
But again design wise I wouldn’t make many changes to my project as I was happy with
them and had good feedback from others within my class and tutors that had seen my
work. But on one of the posters I feel it could have had more to it like two of the posters
but I felt this was the only one that let the design work down but it still looked professional
just didn’t have much of the narrative feel to it like the other pieces did.
If I was to do this project again I would look into finding a different client that I was more
happy with and that I could have gotten lots of feedback from to help me go through the
project easier this could have been someone who was local to talk to get a better
understanding and I also need to work on my time scaling and getting my work together
earlier to even go back to improve, although it was completed on time there was no room
for improvement.