I have been emailing him for advice on briefs if, at any time, I have been struggling and find myself at a dead end. His 'off the wall' humour and 'say is at he sees it' attitude has helped me in my journey to finding the great idea.
As this is the main topic for my Journal, I have also started to ask him about his Creative Process.
I will keep you updated with our email conversations here.
Katherine Speak to dannyjack
show details Sep 28 (7 days ago)
Hello Danny
(I am going to put this email in as a contact report on my blog to someone in the design industry so it might be a bit more formal then I would usually have done it ha)
By the way can you remind me of what the programme is called that your working on at the moment with the BBC?
Okay so firstly I'll let you know what I am doing at the moment.
The brief that I told you about at the wedding, thats called 'Tolerance', I think I've got an idea that me and my design partner are working on. We thought of the strapline 'It's not always as simple as counting to ten' because that is what people have to do when they are tolerating something, but in most cases it doesnt work. So we thought we would use numbers in our design to get our idea across...I'll attach our poster for 'queue jumping' and if you could tell me if 1) you get it and
2) if you have any suggestions?
Secondly, I am writing a Journal towards my degree. I have chosen to write about 'The creative process' that every designer has to go through to reach the great idea that gets a 'wow' from the audience. As someone in the creative industry, have you got a 'creative process' that helps you achieve the goal you have set out to do, either in your animation or comedy?
For eg a graphic designer may need to brainstorm as soon as they get a brief, then discuss it for a while, then perhaps ask themselves a few selective questions to try and conjure up a few ideas....
Anyway I hope all that makes sense?!
Looking forward to hearing your answers
Hope all is well
Katherine
danny jack to me
show details Sep 29 (6 days ago)
Hi Katherine,
Nice to hear from you hope you and your bro are good. Since it's a formal email, ive put a suit on, hope that helps :)
The programme I'm working on is called "Iain and Hacker" on CBBC, I'm one of the lead writers.
First off I like the look of your poster, I'm still a little confused as to what it is your poster is for and the specifics of your design brief probably because of all the chaos of the wedding. Are you designing a poster for que jumping in relation to tolerance or just a poster about tolerance in general? If so what specifically are you trying to say, aim for something original yet simple and try to have a solution, if your point is its not always easy to tolerate people then you could be advertising for talk to frank or the samaritains, the idea being you want to offer support to those who are angered easily and let them vent their frustration in a constructive manner. If you come at this from an opposing angle to everyone else you stand out. (If you can back it up).
In terms of suggestions make your message as short as is physically possible, ppl retain so little so short and simple is always best, a slight modification could be; "It's not as simple as counting to 10". Having said that you should try to create an image that communicates everything without words (words are fine but have an image that doesnt need them to strengthen your point and make your poster iconic), your text is very small and people passing by may only see your image. Imagine you're a passer by and see this poster on a wall having no prior knowledge of its message, would you fully grasp what you are trying to say?
Think about choice of colours, reds are quite angry colours so thats good if you want to convey frustration. But simplicity is always key, think about the posters that have stayed in your mind, a big one going round london is dead simple, i've attached it for good measure, the reason i think it works is its simple and powerful, they've also taken the widely recognised idea of ppl asking questionaires with yes or no specific answers i.e "do you shop here often?" and applied it to a philosophical debate, its thought provoking, original and powerful, the fact they'v left boxes to tick invites you to participate mentally in the poster, would a question be better than a statement? Something to think about... get them talking, debate and controversey! Ooohhh....
I like how you have used the symbol of male and female toilets, taking recognisable symbols and twisting them is a great tool because people already have those images burned into their minds, its a short cut to communicating your point.
Hope this is useful and feel free to email back explaining your brief a bit more to me,
All the best,
P.S: If you want to gain extra marks by editting what im saying or you want me to write you a lovely report or whatever that's fine!
Danny Jackson
Katherine Speak to danny
show details 7:32 PM (50 minutes ago)
Hey Danny
Sorry for the late reply, after I received your email I went into college the next day and showed it to my graphics partner Mike, and it was very helpful indeed. Helped us come up with some new ideas. I designed 'To love or to hate. Tolerate' and 'Treat others...' and Mike designed 'Tolerance' with 'race' reddened out though we didnt use that one in our final presentation.
Thanks for your time to look and give me advice on our 'tolerance' brief, in the end I think we did very well.
I was just wondering though if I could ask you a few questions about something else? I am writing a journal towards my degree and its all about 'the creative process'. This is the process designers/ animators/ illustrators etc go through to come up with a really good idea.
If you had time to ponder on it I was wondering whether you could describe your creative process?
For example, your work at the moment... do your team leaders or creative director state what the aim is and you then have to think about the idea, and how you will get to it. What is it you do, and what is the routine you have that takes you to the great idea?
Who decided what is picked?
Is every idea taken into consideration?
If that doesn't make sense or you want to explain more about it then just let me know.
Thanks for your time so far :)
Katherine
Hi Kat,
Here you go!
The Creative Process
What are your first steps…when you first given a brief?
Generally there's a big brainstorm where we all throw ideas out, the writers tend to come to these meetings with ideas prepared already
What motivates you as a designer? Do you have particular historical, social, contemporary interests?
Generally motivated by social injustice and talking animals, it's a weird mix, I also find its really important to do somethnig original yet accessable to an audience.
Does the interest in these designers/canons/themes sometimes get in the way of searching for something more ‘off the wall’ or do you strive in searching out less known, perhaps more individual talent?
I think its important to have a balance but never write anything you don't believe in, its about making your ideas accessable, I also think you can and should take most briefs in your own direction, this is art after all, we're not typing up memos.
What emotions do you go through within the creative process towards the great idea?
I get giddy then anxious that I'm not good enough to write it, then cross with myself then write it out of fear of a looming deadline, usual stuff really.
Do you consider every idea from your team? Even if it is really silly, do you still see the potential or just knock it on the head straight away?
I try and consider every idea, if we have a situation where everyone disagrees we consider who has the most experience in that area and they get the final say. we also talk about how important it is to seperate the idea from the ego.
When a stop-gap occurs, how do you solve it?
Group meeting where we offer each other advice/ throw biscuits things at each other
What is your plan, is there structure to achieving the great idea?
Deadlines, regular meetings, structure over who gets the final say on certain areas of the work; writers get final say on writing and the animators on the art.
Are you not satisfied until you get a ‘wow’ from the viewer/audience?
Yes that's right, comedians need a lot of attention
Do you edit/change your creative process depending on the deadline?
I try to, although sometimes we're overly ambitious, I currently have 4 days to write a short film from scratch in my spare time... it's not gonig to work
As a creative director/team leader, do you decide what ideas to develop or is this a group decision?
It's a group decision, we all have to be happy with an idea
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