Design Practice

I was asked by a friend of mine called Flo to produce a banner design for her fitness blog online. She had already made a lot of the decisions, so it was a really simple and quick turn over!

First of all she drew a quick sketch to show me what she wanted in the layout, and what she had in mind..

We chose to work with the first layout (A), as it made better use of the space of the blog.

She told me that she wanted to use a 'skinny' and 'hand-written' style typeface, so I sent her a few different ones to see what she preferred, using the information that she gave me..


Flo also had a little look online at different typefaces, and we played around with a few that she liked to see how these worked as well..


We ended up choosing the following typeface for her name, as Flo really loved the style of  it and it suited what she was going for.


We thought that the typeface for the slogan should be slightly different and smaller..


I didn't like the ampersand from this typeface, so had a look at other typefaces and found the following two ampersands..


I also found a typeface that I preferred for the slogan..




After speaking to Flo, she decided that she preferred the quirky style ampersand, alongside the capitalised font called Moon Flower. She also said that she wanted the name to be bolder than the slogan..


Once we came to a decision with the typefaces, I moved the slogan around a bit to see how Flo preferred the layout..





I also thought that it would be interesting to see how colours could influence the design, even though Flo was reluctant to use colours in the typography..



After playing around with the first colours, Flo saw the potential of using colours in the design. She also decided that she liked the design when everything was left aligned.


We decided on the darker green for the colour, as it reflected her trainers.

Flo originally sent me the following photos to work from, as she wanted to use an illustration that reflected her in the banner - she asked for something that showed off gym gear or her trainers, or an illustration of her face..





However, considering the fact that I'm not exactly the greatest illustrator, I wasn't really sure what to do! We had a long discussion about what to do with her illustrations, and then thought that maybe we could use silhouettes of fitness women instead. I also created illustrations of trainers that were similar to the ones that she wears when she works out..



We both quite liked the way that the trainers were more prominent as there wasn't much detail within the silhouette of the woman. However, we thought that it looked a bit strange..

When I messed with the layout and the colours, it looked a bit better, but something was still wrong with it. Flo thought that the woman looked a bit static and didn't look right in the running position.

We thought that we could try working with a sideways plank position instead, but then we couldn't fit the trainers in properly, so I looked at some other gym positions online and thought about table top positions instead and how they would work better with the design..



I sent these to Flo, and she showed her brother who said "they look really sexual", but then she used the screen shot on her blog to see how it looked in context, and we both agreed that it suited the blog really well!



She also said that she's definitely going to use me next time she needs some help with her blog or any designs creating!