Visit to Bank House

Bank House - Exhibition Venue //

The chosen venue for the licence to print money show is an office in Bank House. The building is situated in the heart of the financial district of Leeds. 

The building used to be the offices to the Bank of England.

When brainstorming ideas, we wanted to take into consideration the location of the show as much as possible and make this visible within our designs and concepts.

I tried to take pictures of the building from as many angles as I could so that I could get a good idea of the architecture and so that I could share them with the group. The architectural style is very much brutalist and includes a number of corners, edges and geometric shapes and patterns.

From this, I have decided that a good way to use the buildings appearance in the concept for the show would be to produced geometric shapes and patterns that replicate those found on the exterior of the building and use them in the designs for things like the posters, way-finding and other collateral. 

Licence to Print Money Exhibition

Exhibition Brief //

Earlier this week we were given our final brief of the module. This brief is our first group project and involves coming up with a concept, branding, identity and promotional collateral for the end of year show at Bank House.

Considerations to be aware of and include are:

- Location
- Times
- Content
- Exhibitors
- Social media, links, hashtags etc
- Contact Details
- Format
- Signage, way-marking
- Opening night Invites

The only restrictions being budget and production must be reproducible using the college facilities only.

The first step was to devise a group contract that each member of the team agreed to sign in order for the work load to be spread out evenly and fairly. The contract also outlined dates on which we would meet up to make decisions.

                                                                                                                                                  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Group 10 

Contract

Studio Brief 03

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our aim is to curate an attractive and engaging exhibition that designers and other professionals will invest their time into visiting the show and taking an interest into the content.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact Details:

Barney Beckman

(CONTACT INFO)

James Green

(CONTACT INFO)

Kate Higgins 

(CONTACT INFO)

Rosie Irwin

(CONTACT INFO)

Anna Farmer

(CONTACT INFO)

Lily Dennison

(CONTACT INFO)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All members of the team have to come to the agreement that we will have regular meet up sessions to discuss where we're at with the project. We have also agreed to spread out the work load evenly to play to each others strengths and weaknesses. Any noncompliance will not be tolerated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meeting Dates:

14 / 03 / 2016 - Afternoon

11 / 04 / 2016 - Morning

14 / 04 / 2016 - All day

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We have also devised an online Google Presentation that allows any member of the team to add or make changes to our presentation slides at any given time. This will make it easier, over the three week break, to stay on track and make steady progress.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

signed

Barney Beckman

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Primary idea generation

As a group we started to brainstorm and produced a spider diagram of all the various considerations involved in this brief. As this is our first group project this year, it is important that we get to know each others strengths and make sure that everyone has a fair share of input to the primary stages of development.

We successfully came up with a number of possible concepts to take forward. As a group, we made the decision to each research and develop on of the concept ideas. We will then come together on Friday and either choose one concept we like the most or combine elements from more than one until we come to an agreement.

I chose the Counterfeit concept to work on. The idea for this concept came from the fact that all the work displayed in the exhibition are in fact money counterfeit. 

Counterfeit 

- to imitate something

- fake replicas of the real product

- often produced with the intention to take advantage of the superior value of the imtated product

- counterfeit products tend to have fake company logos and brands

- counterfeit consumer products have a reputation for being lower quality

- money counterfeit is usually attacked aggressively by governments worldwide

- paper money is the most popular product counterfeited

- counterfeit money is currency that is a produce without the legal sanction of the state or government

- anti-counterfeiting measures involved including fine detail with raised intaglio printing

- on coins - milled or reeded edges are used to show that none of the valuable metal has been scraped off

An idea that came from this research is to implement anti-counterfeit measures into the design of the show

These include microprinting, foiling, holograms and other visuals that could be combined with the design.

This year, The US 100$ bill has been redesigned and uses a number of anti-counterfeiting measures such as colour changing ink, watermarks, blue ribbon and a few more.

Infographic of anti-counterfeiting measures around the globe

Lithography

- simple chemical process

- positive part of an image is a water-repelling substance

- negative image would be water-retaining

- when the plate is introduced to a compatible printing ink and water mixture, the ink will adhere to the positive image and the water will clean the negative image

- invented in 1796

Japanese Annual Celebrations

Japanese Celebrations //

For one of my concept ideas for the money brief, I had the idea of producing banknotes for a specific occasion. This idea stemmed from a project I found on Bēhance that included designs for a banknote for the Winter Olympics.

As I have undergone research into the Asian Tigers, I have then looked into annual celebrations in Asia, Japan to be specific.


Japanese New Year

Sunday, January 1st

Japanese people eat a special selection of dishes during the New Year celebration called osechi-ryōri.

Many of these dishes are sweet, sour, or dried, so they can keep without refrigeration—the culinary traditions date to a time before households had refrigerators.


At midnight on December 31, Buddhist temples all over Japan ring their bells a total of 108 times to symbolise the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief, and to get rid of the 108 worldly desires regarding sense and feeling in every Japanese citizen.

The Japanese new year offers a huge variety of exciting and colourful imagery.

Coming of age day

Coming of Age Day is a Japanese holiday held annually on the second Monday of January. It is held in order to congratulate and encourage all those who have reached the age of majority (20 years old) over the past year, and to help them realise that they have become adults.

Cherry Blossom

The Current Japanese Banknote

The Japanese banknote through time has remained the same for years and years. The design often consists of an iconic figure on top of an intricate pattern. There is also details of iconic Japanese imagery such as cheery blossom and architecture. Using this imagery will allow the banknotes to still remain traditional and cultural whilst at the same time looking modern through the use of typography and digital printing.

My redesigns will give the banknotes a much more modern and refreshed look using colourful and exciting imagery and patterns. 

I will be lino cutting on top of digital print to give the feel of old and new. The imagery I will be using will be influenced by Japan's annual celebrations mentioned above.

I will also be exploring different stocks and materials on to which I will print my images. The feel and weight of the note is important as earlier in my research I gathered that one aspect of physical money that people prefer to digital payment is the feel of it and the physical handing over of a note. 

Most banknotes today are made of cotton, however some currencies have already explored different materials for their banknotes. Australia, for example, have moved to using plastic banknotes as they're water proof and generally more sturdy.