OUGD505 - Studio Brief 01 Licence to Print Money (Evaluation)

OUGD505 Design Practice 2 

Studio brief 01 - Licence to Print Money

When I originally saw this brief it was interesting to me as I could tell it would be a challenge because analogue isn’t my usual practice and this brief also has freedom for me to do whatever I want.  

This project was short but was very stimulating as looking at the history of the banknote informed my idea and really help me in creating my final design. Also going to the exhibition Moneybags really inspired me to create my design style, also looking in publications.

From looking at the research I tried to create something that portrayed nationality but my original design was too simple so decided to go down the route of using many of the tradition traits that the banknote has had for centuries, this really completed my design.  From my initial ideas I started to apply these original elements and used repetition, after doing this I could see my style coming together.

I feel like the design is modest but it almost has a political message, the repetition of the traditional statements on my notes being clear to read is chosen on purpose, in normal banknotes you don’t really notice the statements because they are there legally so are in tiny font size, however in my design I wanted them clear and in the users face to make a point of the reason why banknotes are used.

I decided to use screen-printing as I had a lot of type and this would be the best way to present the design analogically, and this method is close enough to digital printing. Using a hand rendered method to produce this design, works perfectly with my research because historically banknotes were entirely hand written.

Overall I’m pleased with my design and it’s come out how I’d wanted it to, I feel that being so informed from my research helped me a lot with this brief, it help me create a legitimate design.  However with more time my design could probably have been improved by possibly using more that one printing technique.  I feel if I could have had the possibility to use digital printing methods I could have done a more detailed design too.  The hand rendered methods in this projects made the outcome much more satisfying as there was a lot of work that when into them.