Studio Brief 1 - Reflective Practise: Live Brief - Secret 7"

Secret 7" 

Secret 7 is an annual competition that takes 7 tracks from well-known musicians and then invite creatives from around the world to interpret these tracks in their own unique and individual way, 100 designs for each track are then selected and made into limited edition sleeves and sold for £50 a piece to raise money for a selected charity. These 700 sleeves are exhibited for the public and then sold on record store day. The innovative concept is that the buyers don't know who created the sleeve or which song it is for until they have purchased their limited edition vinyl. 

This year secret 7's chosen charity is Nordoff Robbins. This charity works with people with a range of challenges such as dementia, autism and learning difficulties. Their range of terrify programmes helps to provide support with communication and social interaction. The results are said to have a high impact on not only the individuals but their families and friends. They are heavily involved with the music industry as a charity as they hold their own music therapy centres in local community environments and train therapists to an extremely high standard through their masters degree programme, this makes Nordoff Robbins an excellent choice of charity that will truly benefit from the donations raised through the secret 7 competition. A vast selection of designers from a range of backgrounds have been selected and exhibited in the past years of secret 7, from students (including Students from Leeds College of Art) to children and professionals such as David Shrigley all exhibiting their original artworks for charity. Below highlights a number of successful artworks that have been exhibited in past years. 

I felt this was a great start to emerging into the real world of graphic design. I thought this brief would give me opportunity to showcase my work to a real audience and potentially give me chance for some recognition. I felt as though I will have to step up my work load in order to be in with a chance of winning the competition.  created a range of 30 thumbnails then took part in a range of critiques both formally and informally to find out which designs were most popular with other students, I then developed these into strong final concepts that I presented in my final critique. 

Design 1

Design 2

I feel the pair of my final designs worked well and showed that I had clearly communicated the concept I was trying to portray. I found the evaluative feedback from other students encouraging as the feedback showed the concept had been clearly understood without the need of any additional description as they were able to identify the track and analyst the design easily. I chose to submit Design 1 as the final resolution to this brief as I felt it had a stronger concept behind the design. Although design 2 is equally aesthetically pleasing I felt the concept of design 1 was stronger and is a more unique and interesting interpretation of the track.  I then submitted this design to the secret 7 competition through the website. I feel this design is an interesting and unique interpretation of the track however I am unsure if it will be successful in being selected for the secret 7 competition based on the high volume of entries from designers all over the world however I am satisfied that I have successfully create  an engaging outcome for the brief and am happy with my resolution.