OUGD403: Introductory Brief - Welcome to Leeds

Our first brief of the module was called 'Introduction to Leeds' and our task, in groups, was to create a bespoke map of Leeds that included several places pinpointed on the map. We could represent the enterprises through either photography, illustration, typography or symbol or a combination. Along with that we had to include a short description of each place.

The first thing we did was have a walk through Leeds to see the places we'd been given and once we had a good idea of what they looked like we returned to the studio and did some research into each place.

After a group discussion about how we wanted to approach this brief and what style we would be going for, we set off to do a few designs for each of the different places. Our plan was to create a minimalistic map with each of the icons to be enlarged almost as if they're zoomed in.

We settled on a group of colours that we would be using, we wanted something bright and colourful to represent the liveliness of Leeds and how it thrives as a city.

For the map background we wanted it to contrast well with the icons so much so that they stood out and dominated the illustration. Below was the first attempt (Unfinished). We tried it with a few shades of pink but when we layered the icons on top of it, the background took the attention away from the icons and made for more of a complicated mess as opposed to the clean, minimal finish we were aiming for.

(Left: First Attempt) (Right: Final Map Background)

Ultimately we settled on a subtle background colour which was different shades of light grey.

(Left: Art's Cafe) (Right: Liberty Park)

These are two of the logos I made for the Art's Cafe and Liberty Park, I was aiming for a simple look, but not too simple that you wouldn't be able to distinguish what place it is that's being illustrated. But after another discussion we again decided to steer away from our original plans and change a few things. We simplified the icons so that they appeared much more flat as shown below. Along with that we changed colours and limited it to a red/pink colour which contrasted nicely with the grey background.

The pointers were a challenge in themselves because the original way we decided to do it made for a clunky looking map which is not exactly what we pictured it as. So I did some experimenting with different styles, some rounded, some sharp and some dotted. We settled on the rounded dot pointer simply because it was cleanest and least bulky looking one.

Above is the style of type we thought would be most appropriate for the map and so we did a few experiments with different styles.

We thought it would be nice to have slightly varied pieces of type rather than making each title the exact same style.

After adding a title saying 'LEEDS' we then added each of the descriptions to the bottom of the map illustration to finish it off. Overall I was pretty happy with the outcome given how sometimes working within a group and having so many different styles between us can be problematic, in terms of no one agreeing with each other on how certain aspects of it look.

Finished Map