Creating a map & hand-out for an exhibition

Hello readers!first of all i would like to take a minute to apologize for the lack of updates, these blogs will now be monthly, unless we have something we are excited about and can't wait to show you!

Today i will be talking about creating a graphical handout for an exhibition.

 

I was asked to create a map of Berkshire, showcasing the areas are papers are distributed. These were to be colour coded by paper and have a key giving the stats of circulation/distribution and website hits displayed somewhere. This was the rough brief i was given, with my own notes added.

I started off my research the exact areas we distribute to, i found a list of postcodes. As this was as specific as i was going to get i used the wonders of the internet to find a Google map with the post code information over laid on top. I could now hide and show different areas of each post code region, thanks to Google Maps and Wikipedia. Sadly i could not find a way to show all the regions at once, so after some Photoshop wizardry i stitched all the maps together to have a complete view of Berkshire.

So i have my starting line. Now i need to create my own map using this information. I used illustrator to outline and vectorised all the regions i needed, named the relevant placed and colour coded them. This took several hours but i was pleased with the outcome. That was the hard bit done. I then copied the graphic i had created over into Indesign and put together the last few elements, like the company logo, and paper statistics.

After sending the client a proof i got a few changes to do, such as adding extra place names and adding in the newspaper mastheads. After all this was done, I liaised with the client again and made sure everything was correct. The hand-out was now ready to be used in the exhibition in a weeks time.

Abduzeedo / Cyclist logo

At BMG Design we are always looking for inspiration. 

This week Abduzeedo has caught our attention. 

Not only does it have a boat load of inspiration and interviews to look at and read, it has stacks of tutorials to hone your skills or simply remind you what you can do with Photoshop or Indesign.

The tutorials aren't like some found around the internet, with half arsed instructions and huge steps that no one but pro's could follow. They use high quality artwork that wouldn't look out of place on billboard posters and being pumped out of a high-end design agency, and walk you through the process required to create them slowly and informatively. Some particular ones that caught my eye were 'Iron Man in Illustrator and Photoshop', 'Hipster Text Effect' and 'Easy Wax Seal in Illustrator and Photoshop'

The inspiration page is a tab I have sitting on my browser everyday. When things start to get stale or inspiration starts to dry up, it helps to get a little boost. Adbuzeedo's 'Daily Inspiration' is second to none, and harbors some beautiful images and creative designs.

Check out Abduzeedo here

On a more personal note. Dan, our resident flash guy (though he is pretty handy with Photoshop and Indesign too), was asked to create a logo to promote the ongoing debate about cyclists in our local community. Here is what he came up with. It is informative but also brings a light hearted side to the argument.

Fire Bond

A few weeks ago we set about designing some flyers for a colleagues book. Which, after he saw them were then used as the book cover. Today we got a sample of the printed flyers given to us! 

Have a look at and let us know what you think!

I designed these myself using Indesign. The first step is finding out what the client wants. After having a chat with him I found out he had already designed a book cover himself and wanted a few designs, one based on the cover he already had and one or two more created from scratch. 

 

I gathered all the information I could; epilogues, summaries, covers, amazon reviews etc and set about creating a few designs that reflected the book's dark fantasy and romance theme. After sending the first draft of the designs over we discussed changes such as fonts, QR codes and image colours. I then went back to the design the client had chosen and went through the changes we had discussed.

Throughout the design process I would mock up the double sided flyers to check that everything worked together and fit the scaling correctly and that the design flowed nicely from back to front.

After the flyer design had been finished and sent off, the client came back to us asking if he could use the artwork for the book cover as well. We of course, said yes and worked with him to adjust the existing artwork to fit a book cover.

You can buy Fire Bond on Amazon here. We recommend you do its a great read. 


Got a design question? Tweet us @bmg_designs

Business Cards

We got very excited this week when our business cards came in the post! We Designed them in house and got 2 slightly different versions printed. Both are high gloss and very shiny but one has sparkly metallic lettering on the back! (you can tell we are designers when we get excited about this kind of stuff).

They are fairly minimalistic, and include the logo, contact details (like any business card should) plus the graphic we have used elsewhere, on the back. This creates continuity throughout our business documents, ties in with our social media and therefore gives the company a strong branded image

They have arrived in time for us to give lots out next month at a networking event we are attending. It is Held on the 18th of September at The Centre, Farnham Road, Slough, Berkshire, SL1 4UT and is run by BMG Events (another part of the larger company, Berkshire Media Group). We would love to see you there. A couple of our team will be there with business cards, information and a showbiz projection/light show

Reading Royals video

We also have another video (Made by Dan) uploaded to our YouTube. He was asked to create a short video advertising Reading Football Club coverage in the Reading Chronicle. This is what he came up with. 

As you can see the actual images are not quite as big as the YouTube window, this is because it was originally designed to play on the Medjeski Stadium big screens! and these are slightly different dimensions.

Let us know what you think of our business cards and videos or ask us a question by tweeting us @bmg_designs

BMG Design online

Today we will be looking at the BMG Design website. How it was created, who created it and what went into building it and putting it on the web.

Steve is a web designer for Berkshire Media Group and created our website for us. He gave up 10 minutes of his busy day to speak to me about the process involved in creating a website from scratch. 

 

So, Steve. Where do you start when sitting down to create a website?

I sat down with the designers and outlined what they wanted, This was essentially to create a website to give an introduction and serve as a portfolio for the launch of BMG Design. Working with the graphic designers to follow their existing brand identity and to tie in with print and social media promotion running alongside.

What were your stating points/ideas?
 I started off looking at a tile styled format, which would fill the page with the teams bold graphics as the focal point. I also wanted to work with the original bubble like motif that was in earlier interpretations of the logo. I played with having a subtle, fluid, animated background rendered using HTML5, to illustrate the studios adaptability. However this was later scrapped because we needed to make sure that the website still looked slick and modern in older browsers. So we went with a clean white design.

The logo was updated  to paint splatters. This caused some issues as the shape of the logo had changed which meant the header and style of site needed to be changed. I stuck with the tiled format though and used a scroller at the top of the page to showcase the best of the company.

 So when it came to actually coding the site how did you go about it?

I used HTML to get the content on the page, CSS to add styling and Jquery to add in effects all  in programmers notepad. I am self taught and used a site called Codecademy to learn all these languages, plus a couple more.

This was one of the early designs (with notes from the designers). As you can see it differs greatly from the final site, but there are similarities such as the boxes and social media buttons.

Youtube welcomes BMG Design

Today I sat down and had a quick chat with our Digital designer, Dan about our new YouTube channel. He gave me an overview of what we will use YouTube for in the future and how the new 'ident' launch video came about.

What was the idea behind the video?

“My plan is to make a bunch of teasers leading up our launch in September,

The idea to kick start these teasers was to create something simple, clean and straight to the point.

This animation is a strong starting point for our video design, and a great step forward with my animation skills. expect lots more wonderful things very soon”

How did you make it? 
The whole animation was made in adobe Flash. I started by breaking apart our logo to see what I can achieve with all the separate elements. I then sketched out a quick storyboard of my animation.

Then with some magic and a little bit of patience I created our first teaser.

What do you want to do next on youtube? 
I have many Idea's for the next teaser,

I will probably incorporate sound at some point, you will just have to wait and see!
 

Where do you see it going if you carry on uploading? 
I would love to have a short animation upload every week or so, something quirky and fun.

These images show the process Dan 

went through to create the video. 

From rough sketches and storyboards to

 the final product created in Adobe Flash!

Check out our new video below!

 

Offical launch date for BMG Design is 18th September

Hello Bloggers!

BMG Design is a small graphic design company based in Reading, Berkshire,

 who have just this minute jumped onto the blogger band wagon!

Please check out our website, facebook and twitter

www.bmg-design.co.uk

Facebook /BMGDesignStudio

Twitter @bmg_Designs