Studio Brief 2 - Confirmed Ideas and Development

Because we'd decided to have an Arts and Crafts theme, we began researching this. The key features were the patterns, the use of light, metal frames and nature - these were all translated in contemporary features for the university. After that we began deciding on all the different aspects we had discussed and how these would be visually represented in the presentation. These elements included:

• Plants.
• Stained glass.
• A colour organised wayfinding system, including a tree with coloured strip lighting and patterned tiles for the room numbers.
• Patterned furniture and lights with metal frames - similar to original Arts and Crafts design.

We decided we would discuss most of the items using images from the internet. However, we realised we needed to mock up the tree idea, as this was somewhat ambiguous and the mosaiced tiles - which I was in charge of developing.

One of our main ideas was to add frames of glass over the windows, creating a stained glass light experience - with the tiled theme of the Arts and Crafts movement. I created these from a leaf shape that was replicated and altered, each colour taken from an Arts and Crafts colour pallet.

I then also began to creating experimental room numbers to give an idea of how these would be organised in the building. We realised that the currents numbers were mismatched and disorganised and a new system could be far more successful. One of our main ideas was to have the numbers in relation to the course, so for example 1 = Graphic design. So the first room you come accross in graphic design would be 1.1. However this was considered too ambiguous, as the 1 could still represent floor 1 - so this was altered to be a G instead. 

After some discussion it was mentioned that having multiple colours could be too confusing and the course colour (graphic design = red) should be the main focus of the tile. So we experimented with making it the background colour and the leaf colour, and just the background colour. However I thought neither of these worked - they didn't stand out enough. In the end the white background felt bolder and more in keeping with the white university aesthetic - especially if these were to eventually be produced as ceramic tiles.