EXTERNAL PROJECT- KYAK MUSIC Research and Development CONTENTS PAGE

LOGO DESIGN 4 - 15 WEBSITE 22 - 37

RESEARCH ...... 4 - 5 RESEARCH ...... 22 - 23

INITIAL SKETCHES & IDEAS ...... 6 - 7 SITE MAP & PROCESS ...... 24 - 25

EXTRA RESEARCH ...... 8 - 9 WIREFRAMES ...... 26 - 27

SKETCHES & IDEAS ...... 10 - 11 PHOTOGRAPHY ...... 28 - 29

EXPANDED & CHOSEN LOGO ...... 12 - 15 DESKPTOP DESIGN ...... 30 - 31

DESKPTOP DESIGN ...... 32 - 33 MERCHANDISE 14 - 17 MOBILE DESIGN ...... 34 - 35 T SHIRT MOCKUP ...... 14 - 15 MOBILE DESIGN ...... 36 - 37 PRINTED PRODUCT ...... 16 - 17 ALBUM ARTWORK 38 - 39 MUSIC VIDEOS & VISUAL AID 18 - 21 EP ARTWORK PROCESS ...... 38 - 39 RESEARCH ...... 18 - 19

PROCESS ...... 20 - 21

2 3 LOGO DESIGN

Kyak is an experimental electronic music producer/DJ from Tredegar, South Wales. He creates a selection of music styles, most recently combining ambient, future, and bass genres. He started creating music in 2012, and has been practicing and refining his production skills since. He is currently attempting to further his brand’s online presence and expand the reach of his music, so that he can perform more shows and be viewed as a more professional and respectable brand/artist. At the moment he does not have a adequate logo or any legitimate original visual brand design.

Here is a logo he created for himself to use in past projects. However, this is a jpeg file and was created on Photoshop, meaning it cannot be transferred onto anything.

After speaking with the client about his brand, he showed me some other producers from Soundcloud that he believes he is similar to, and he also showed me some logos of which he liked the style, which will therefore acting as a guideline along with the original “logo”.

The artists I have researched are all extremely modernised, their logos are slick, stylish and all suit the artists music genre. The client needs a logo that will suit his ambience, something which is effective and something that will convey his name. KYAK ORIGINAL “LOGO”

4 RESEARCH

BURIAL VACANT DUBSTEP/AMBIENT AMBIENT/UK GARAGE

Burial’s logo is extremely Vacant’s logo is really modern. The word Burial is simplistic, the word is combined with a simplistic simplified with a san-serif symbol to create the well font and minimal lines to known logo. It creates provide modernism in a a simple atmosphere, sense. The thin stroke also and adds to the artists adds to this, all of which is ‘underground’ theme. effective for ambience.

PHISO PHELIAN DANCE/DUBSTEP DANCE/ELECTRONIC

This logo is almost This logo is extremely futuristic/robitic. It works effective. There is nothing well with the dubstep here to suggest it music it supports, which belongs to the artist, yet uses synthesisers etc. The people still know what it logo is very energetic, represents. On a closer which is an effective look, this is hand drawn, match for dubstep. which enhances character.

5 LOGO DESIGN

Originally, my ideas consisted of more edgy sketches. These are what came to mind- graffiti styled logos that would fit into an underground atmosphere. However, although these were still produced to a high standard, both me and the client agreed that these would not be suitable for Kyak’s brand, yet they could well be suitable for other areas of the clients brand- e.g merchandise, posters and possibly to overlay music videos.

6 INITIAL SKETCHES & IDEAS

After the first group of sketches did not suit the clients brand, I decided to focus on the letter K, as this is the most important letter of his performance name Kyak. I decided to try a back to back K, due to the name both starting and ending with it. The sketches were not of a good standard, so I quickly created some digital versions to see how well they actually worked.

As expected, these did not work well. Not only do they look unappealing and boring, Kim Kardashian uses this style of K for her company- two completely different people and two very different styles and professions. These were agreed by both me and the client that they are not effective, or even suitable. 7 LOGO DESIGN

I decided that using a ‘normal’ K would be too easy and boring. This research consisted of creative ways to portray the letter, which would provide some more direction onto a finalised logo. 1. This selection of logos includes a variety of creative, colourful and imaginative K’s. The idea of overlapping colours is effective, however this would not suit my clients brand, especially to the strength of colours. The shape of these appealed to me the most. 2 & 3. Both of these follow a similar style to number 1. This geometric style could be incorporated into the clients logo. 4. This is a creative design but is still bland, using a continuous line allows you to follow the design. 1. 5. This example is quite bland. In comparison to the rest of logos on this page, it is lacking. However, the idea of using separate shapes to create the K could well be used and could even be expanded. 6. This one is very balanced and flows well. It’s something different to the geometric shapes I have found, and I believe this could work well with portraying the clients ambience. 7. This one also flows very well, however the colour choice would not work. This idea could be interpreted into the design with a different colour choice. 8. This one is clever- again, using shapes to suggest the letter K. Simple, effective and it works well. 9. Removing edges from the K also removes any strictness in the design, providing an almost calm atmosphere. 2. 3.

8 EXTRA RESEARCH

4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

9 LOGO DESIGN

After my research on creative styled K’s, I produced some thumbnail sketches providing me with some ideas for the clients logo. I tried to produce sketches that would incorporate some of the styles I discovered in my research, but I also wanted to produce a logo that included two K’s, one normal and one backwards, essentially back to back. This would represent both K’s in Kyak’s name. After sketching, I had realised that these would look best with filled with a flat colour- it’s modern, it suggests the clients name yet retains that simplistic shape the client wants.

After sketches, I chose 9 of my favourite designs to proceed with to make digital versions. This made each design easier to observe, and made it easier to choose a favourite- both for me and the client.

10 SKETCHES & IDEAS

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

11 LOGO DESIGN

After creating the designs, I wanted to expand some of the existing logos. I used number 2’s shape and developed two additional logo’s, which will be included when I update the client on his branding development.

12 EXPANDED LOGOS & CLIENTS CHOSEN LOGO

After meeting with the client, he revealed that he would like to take forward number 1 as the new logo for his music production. Despite this being my least favourite, the client informed me that he liked the simplicity, and that is what he is going for. He said many of the other logos were too “chunky”, and he liked how evenly spaced this one was.

This logo was designed with alignment in mind- it was designed to please the eye, introduce simplicity back into his brand and to easily represent the K’s in Kyak, which has been successful. Even though this represents the K’s, it still has its own, symmetrical and unique shape, which will look effective on many things, especially merchandise.

13 MERCHANDISE

Creating merchandise for the client was not as much of a task T-SHIRT IDEAS/SKETCHES as I had initially predicted. Whilst developing logos for the client, it occurred to me that many of these designs could be useful for further use, especially for merchandise.

Starting off I drew out some initial sketches and ideas, which would help me create my t-shirt mock-ups in future. The ideas were very simple. Again, this is what the client wanted- simple, clean designs.

The mock-ups created on page 15 are an effective way to emphasise the clients brand, and could easily be developed into our forms of apparel like jumpers, hoodies and hats.

DESIGNS FOR T-SHIRTS

14 T-SHIRT MOCKUPS

1. 2.

3. 4/5.

15 MERCHANDISE

Obtaining these products proved to be an easy job. Overall, the t-shirts cost £70 to get printed, getting both designs printed from different printers- the main ‘monster’ design had to be screen printed, whilst all other designs are vinyl.

T-shirts had to be bought separate to the printing, so I found external manufacturers that sold plain t-shirts- both Primark and Fruit Of The Loom. The results of these designs placed on the t-shirts are pleasing, and the task of producing the merchandise was executed well, despite me being unable to get mock-up #4 made due to the colours of the design not working on black. I had a practice shot of the merchandise on a person, which lead me to believe that this could be taken further in the form of a photo-shoot to obtain high quality images for the merchandise section within the website.

16 PRINTED PRODUCT

17 MUSIC VIDEOS & VISUAL AID

The client had asked me for some visual aid- something VACANT- ESCAPE / FEARLESS which can be displayed on Youtube to accompany his music, simultaneously complimenting it. Along with the clients brand identity, he asked for 3 videos for 3 of his songs that emphasise simplicity and the clients ambient style. Within the research for this area, I found some videos which almost follow the same style that the client is after.

I looked through the initial research of this project and decided to look at Vacant’s music videos on Youtube. The first video, which is the song ‘Escape’. This video simply contains a still image, capturing a natural scene with forestry in the foreground, which emphasises the artists ambience, and a city scape in the background, which emphasises an underground atmosphere. The image has been edited- this includes a lot of added noise, which is extremely effective.

The second video I found again only contains a still image, yet there is simple typography on the bottom right. This doesn’t appear long, but adding in simple effects really does work well. This could be incorporated into Kyak’s videos. This could be his logo moving to a beat or even edited with a glitch effect/VHS effect- both are equally as stylish and modern.

18 RESEARCH

NYSZU- FLYING / MACKY GEE- TOUR (UKF) These artists aren’t what the client suggested to me to use as research, however they are extremely relevant to creating the appropriate visual aid.

The first video is a song called ‘Flying’ from an artist called Nyszu. This video is different to most- it contains a looped small clip of a natural scene depicted in the moonlight. The clip is roughly 2 seconds long but it is continuously looped until the video ends. It has clouds moving and trees blowing in the wind. This creates a very atmospheric feeling whilst listening to the song, and is a very stylish, effective visual aid. The street lamp also adds an almost underground aspect to the visual aid.

Moving visual aids clearly work very well, and it adds a vast amount of interest to the music. However, it does feel rather frustrating that the clip is very short. Maybe actually recording something could work a lot better.

This second video is very simple- it’s a drum and bass song called ‘Tour’ by artist Macky Gee. This was featured on the UKF Youtube page, meaning any animation is related to the electronic record label. However, it works very well. It has an animated background which includes bright specks and clouds of coloured smoke. The logo in the middle works well- it’s simple composition doesn’t draw attention from the main aspect, which is the music. It looks very clean and high quality, something I wish to portray within the clients videos.

19 MUSIC VIDEOS & VISUAL AID

To start off the process of creating visual aid for the client, I drew up some sketches. I ideas were already in my head after the research, but sketching helped provide the direction. I also decided that I needed to learn a few additional techniques in Adobe After Effects that would help me achieve the final outcome I wanted. These effects were ‘glitching’ and a ‘VHS effect’. I used videos from Youtube to teach myself how to create these effects.

Video 1 was one of the simpler ideas- I used a camera to film cars underneath a bridge on a busy road, but did not want the card to be defined so I would achieve a really colourful, blocky and almost surreal effect with the car lights. I did this by going in and out of focus. I placed it onto Adobe Premier to make the basic video format and length, and then placed it onto After effects to apply the suitable effects. The logo was placed on top glitching in and out of the video- this was something the client wanted, a very subtle effect to show his branding, throughout all of his videos.

Once the first video was created, I could simply use the same file across the other 2 videos for the logo effect. This made the editing process much easier and faster. Each video adopted the same ideas, but were executed slightly differently, all creating atmosphere that was suitable to the song. 20 PROCESS

TUTORIAL VIDEOS

MUSIC VIDEOS IN A.E

21 WEBSITE

I already had websites in mind to use as research for this project. The first website I used for inspiration is one for music artist called Tash Sultana. Her website approaches a simplistic approach- her background consists of an image of her performing, which expresses her passion, something which she always relates to in her social media posts. The image also contains a lot of noise, which adds some grit, texture and interest to it in general.

Her home page consists of a simple navigation system, displayed along the top of her page, which is centralised. It also contains a video of her performing, but also talking about her experiences, both in life and as an artist, which is a good form of introduction to the website.

Her about page is also very simple, but effective. Containing professional photography, the text works along side the images, which provides a good balance of imagery and text.

The events page is what I am taking inspiration from the most. A simple layout- each event has destination and date and are all placed in a row, with a simple stroke to separate each event.

22 RESEARCH

This is the second website I used as inspiration. This is a clothing website called Hobo Jack. I used this due to my client needing a merchandise section on his website. Again, this website adopts a simple approach to web design, and this is something my client wants. This website is a full clothing website, yet my client is only having one merchandise section, this means there is only some ideas from this I will take.

The way the clothing is positioned on this website is very organised and smart. The t-shirts are displayed with mock-ups, and are placed in rows, with columns of 4. The name of the product is underneath, with the price of the product placed under the name. This makes the website really easy to read, to follow and makes the page really user friendly.

On the product page, the name of the product is in bold, and is noticeable, placed to the left of the product. The price is clearly displayed underneath and the product is blown up in the middle of the page. The cart following is also easy to follow- everything contained in a grid, with the quantity option and price clearly displayed. The subtotal is also important in this part, and this is something which is placed to the users convenience. 23 WEBSITE

24 SITE MAP & PROCESS

Simple and Modern.

One research was complete, I made the site map for the clients website. Each page will have a direct link back to the home page, whilst each page contains a navigation system.

Next were my sketches. I decided upon a simple layout. The splash page will contain the clients logo in the middle, and once clicked will direct the user to the homepage. Each page will use the same image of the client as the background, making the website darker allowing me to use a white font, which will stand out. I decided on a more interesting navigation system- it will be linked to an icon displayed on the top left corner of each page. After clicking, a rectangular piece will move out, which will have all of the page names to navigate. On the top right will be the clients logo, which will direct you back to the homepage, which adopts similar aspects from my research. The music page will include icons of websites that the client displays his music, and upon clicking will direct you to the right page.

The merchandise area also adopts a similar approach to my research- a similar row and column system to display the current merchandise.

25 WEBSITE

After meeting with the client to showcase my ideas for the website, he liked the ideas I presented and wanted me to proceed with making it. These are the wire-frame mock- ups I created on Adobe XD. These allowed me to see the website blown up on a computer, allowing me to make any changes that were necessary.

These clearly display what I wanted out of the design, and bring the sketches to life. This can now enable me to create the website design with ease.

26 WIREFRAMES

27 WEBSITE

The client, alongside the website, wanted photography to use- both in general for artwork and for his website. I met up with the client on a few separate occasions to take photos in different locations.

The client is heavily influenced by nature, and wanted it to be a theme within his own work. We visited places that he goes regularly, and places that inspire him to capture photogenic shots and videos. He also wanted some gig photography of him performing to use for future projects.

I decided to use one photo for the website due to the composition, as it would work very well as the background. The client was very happy with the photos.

28 PHOTOGRAPHY

29 WEBSITE

SPLASH PAGE CONTACT PAGE TOURS & EVENTS (EMPTY)

NAVIGATION SYSTEM

HOME PAGE TOURS & EVENTS

30 DESKTOP DESIGN

MUSIC PAGE

MERCHANDISE PAGE MERCHANDISE PAGE (MOUSE HOVER EXAMPLE) 31 WEBSITE

The final outcome of the website design was a success. I believe it has maintained the right amount of simplicity and modernism, achieving a really smart looking design.

The photo used in the background provides a great amount of interest and texture, also providing a great contrast with the white text. The use of icons is very small, but it works very well. The PRODUCT PAGE navigation system is easy to follow and easy to use, making the website very user friendly, which is very important in web design.

The contact system is very easy, and the use of white boxes works well against the background. The homepage draws you in with the use of imagery and white text, which is an aspect of my research I pursued and executed. Another aspect I used from research is the events page, using simple rows to show individual PRODUCT PAGE events. The merchandise page also flows (DROP DOWN extremely well, and I have made use of a MENU EXAMPLE) banner image to draw the viewer in. SHOPPING CART

32 DESKTOP DESIGN

33 WEBSITE

34 MOBILE DESIGN

35 WEBSITE

36 MOBILE DESIGN

After producing the main website design on Adobe XD, designing the mobile site was then considerably easier due to the fact that I already had the information and images on the file, meaning a lot of it was either resizing or creating images to fit a mobile screen dimension.

To start with the mobile design, I created a new sized background on Photoshop to fit the screen. I also had to change the top toolbar area on the website, meaning I removed the logo to make an even space for the navigation system and the name of the page.

A lot of the text also worked easy, as I made the text size a readable size (usually between 12-16 depending on what the text was for). The area that I found most difficult was the shopping cart- it was difficult to use the same item system in a smaller size, but after a lot of trial and error it seemed successful.

Overall, the mobile design fits very well with the original design, and the modern touch of the iPhone almost emphasises the modernity of the whole website and project.

37 EP ARTWORK

VCR OCD MONO

38 EP ARTWORK

After finishing the mobile design, the client then asked me if I was available to create a new piece of album artwork for his new EP release.

To start this piece, I met up with the client for a photography shoot. I found a location near me that had the right atmosphere for his new music. The abandoned shed created a great deal of texture and made the atmosphere eerie.

After retrieving the photographs, I chose the most suitable one- the composition is effective and it has a great deal of focus on the natural surroundings, and as I have previously stated the client is inspired by nature so it fit well.

I placed the image on Photoshop and adjusted the colour balance, used an unsharp mask and altered the levels adjustment. The client wanted an old/retro style to it. I then found a suitable VCR font online and used this, along with vintage VCR textures and scratch textures. I placed these on top and altered the layers to lighten, meaning the textures from the images would show through but the background content wouldn’t.

39