Barcelona

Barcelona

Antoni Gaudi

When I went to Barcelona a few years ago, I was amazed by the Gaudi buildings in the city. They are certainly not the style of buildings you would expect to come across in any city and I became fascinated in particular by the unfinished church.

In first year one week we were asked to bring in an example of what we thought was a piece of great design. I bought in evidence of the ‘Sagrada Familia’ or ‘Church of the Holy Family’.

I am fascinated with this unique style of architecture and how unreal it seems. When I first saw the buildings I thought that they looked like they should be in a fictional book or film, they seemed like fairytale buildings. There was something I found childlike about them and I remember specifically comparing them to what I thought Hansel and Gretel’s confectionary house would look like. It must have been something to do with the amount of colour in Park Guell and the curvature of some of the buildings around here.


When I saw the Sagrada Familia, I was in awe. The amount of detail present on the building was unreal and I remembered thinking ‘no wonder this isn’t finished yet!’. There was not a single millimetre of that building that hadn’t gone through careful and detailed planning and I was absolutely amazed by that.

The building began in 1882 and work has been undergone on the construction non-stop since then yet it is still not expected to be completed for another 80 years. Gaudi participated himself until he died in 1926 but work has still continued.

The amazing thing about that building was that no building could come close to replicating that-it was the definition of unique which is why I personally think it is the greatest piece of design.


For information and photographs of some of his work
http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Antonio_Gaudi.html

British Airways

British Airways

Attractive Prices

I first saw these when I was walking to baggage claim at London Gatwick Airport, but unfortunately photography was not allowed on the premises. This had led me to researching the campaign more in depth on the internet.

The concept is to get across the fact that British Airways are offering cheap flights and have chosen the tagline ‘Attractive Prices’ to get this across. The campaign is very literal and simple yet very effective in the design.

Basically each price to a certain destination is displayed in an ‘attractive’ way to emphasise the main tagline. There are many variations of the way in which the prices are displayed and that is what makes the designs so eye catching. When they were displayed along a long corridor in Gatwick it was amazing- the amount of colour that was splashed along the walls took everyone by surprise when they turned the corner and were bombarded with prices displayed in different manners.

Some were calligraphic, some were done in a childlike manner, some were psychedelic, some were floral, some were done in Japanese style design-there were so many variations.


This was a banner on the BA website, but it is just one of the many designs they have produced.

I found the television advert on the web and the nature of the concept works well both static on walls and billboards as well as working well in motion due to the flowing colours and designs. Even the television advert doesn’t show the vast amount of designs displayed through the airport.

I think the campaign has a celebratory tone of voice and uses colour to its advantage. The concept is simple yet very effective and the location of the posters has clearly been thought out at the airport.

The Television Advert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2cbUwBbESI

Continuity

Skoda Fabia Website

The website continues along the theme of confectionary to back up the success of the television advert which I thought was a nice touch.

It starts with an outline of the car resembling a cookie cutter, which slowly fills up with batter as the page progresses to load.

Once loaded the image of the actual car is displayed so that you can see what the non-cake car actually looks like.

However, the image is scattered with biscuits that you can rollover in order to find a link or information on particular aspects of the car.

I think it is overall a successful campaign and the fact that the unusual cake/car partnership is continued through to the website adds to the success. I know that cakes, biscuits and sweets may at first seem like rather juvenile objects to assist in car advertising, but Skoda have made it work by putting a playful spin on their car. In a way they have played up to the ‘joke’ of perceptions of Skodas in the past and turned the perceptions around.


Website
http://www.newfabia.co.uk/

'Full of Lovely Stuff'

Skoda Fabia

Skoda isn’t exactly renowned for being the most popular make of cars, in fact people have been highly embarrassed if they own a Skoda.

The recent Skoda Fabia advert has attracted a lot of attention for Skoda, and most of all it is attention of the right kind.

The advert reminded me of a project given in the first year, the brief was to design two posters for the British Library in which we had two quotes and had to recreate them in any 3D material we thought appropriate.

I think Skoda have illustrated that you don’t have to follow the norm in order to reach out to people. They advertised their car using confectionary to construct a life-sized car- a medium not usually used in order to advertise cars. This worked in their favour obviously as it is one of the most well-known adverts around at the moment and will probably remain so for a very long time.

The tiniest of details are also included, the part where the ‘engine’ is filled up with Golden Syrup in replace of oil was a lovely touch.

The advert is fitting with the tagline of the car, ‘Full of Lovely Stuff’ and the soundtrack to the advert; ‘Favourite Things’ also works brilliantly, even if it is a little clichéd. The only shame is that the confectionary car had to be thrown on the compost afterwards due to the heating of the lights on set making the car inedible. All in all the combination of the unusual medium, tagline and soundtrack works so well together that car companies are having a lot of thinking to do when it comes to future car advertising.

See the advert and ‘Baking of’ documentary
http://www.newfabia.co.uk/

Lack of Billboards

Not being bombarded with Information?

I recently visited Rhodes in Greece and was amazed to find that on the journey from the airport to the accommodation- there were 5 Billboard advertisements on the entire 2 hour coach journey.

In places such as England and America, we take this for granted as the countries are so commercial that media such as billboard and bus advertising are part of everyday life- we are bombarded with them. In Rhodes, this was not the case.

On an excursion, I asked the Greek tour guide why they had hardly any advertisements around the island (I did get a few strange looks). He responded with an interesting answer. The reason there are not many advertisements are because there simply aren’t the same number of locations to put them all in Rhodes as it is no where near as built up as other countries and it would ruin the landscape. The billboards which are visible are also printed on metal sheets or more recently a specific type of fabric, the reason being because if they were printed on paper-the sun is so strong that it fades the colours within a week so to prevent that happening they must be printed on metal or fabric. This leads on to the secondary reason as to why there are fewer billboards- they are too expensive to make as they are printed on more expensive materials than in England.

It must be because I take part in a design course that I noticed this as the people who I was with and the people on the excursion didn’t notice the lack of advertisements until I pointed it out and just said, ‘I don’t take any notice of them-they are just always there, they are nothing spectacular and if I happen to take notice of a certain one then so be it’. Surely visual advertising on billboards and bus shelters etc are more powerful than that.

Modern Architecture

Modern Architecture

Modern Eye-sores?

Using the relatively new Wembley Stadium as an example, I want to know whether it is actually necessary to spend millions of pounds making buildings look unique and different or just make them simple enough to do the job that they were designed for.

The majority of office blocks and blocks of flats do just that, they aren’t exactly the most attractive thing to look at but the main thing is that they do their job- provide shelter and space to work or live in. More importantly, they are able to do this without costing vasts amount of money to make.

There was a lot of controversy concerning the design and construction of the new Wembley Stadium. Was it necessary? Why did it take so long? Why destroy the historic ‘Twin Towers of Wembley’? And why replace them with…an arch?

You can say that the new Wembley Stadium looks impressive; I am not suggesting that it doesn’t, but surely the main requirement of a stadium is more to do with the interior, not the exterior. When people talk about Wembley-they think of the arch, not the capacity, not the pitch, not the meeting rooms or the dressing rooms or the retractable roof. Those are the main components of the construction, so why not leave it at that? Is it necessary to dress it up with an arch?

After going on the London Eye, you can actually see the Wembley Stadium in the distance and I was looking out for it as were other people in the pod. Trying to spot it amongst all of the cranes around London wasn’t easy because that is exactly what the Wembley Stadium arch looked like- a crane. It wasn’t until we reached a certain point that you could distinguish the arch as an arch.

I am not saying that architecture should be as plain as to merely just do the job for which it was designed for, there are plenty of buildings that can do that and be amazing to look at. I personally just don’t think that Wembley Stadium in particular ticks both of those boxes.

Information on the features of Wembley Stadium
http://www.wembleystadium.com/brilliantfuture/thenewdesign/

Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley

‘Event Horizon’

The artist famous for designing ‘The Angel of the North’ sculpture took over the London skyline from May of this year. I first saw this on a BBC London News slot when the sculptures were first beginning to appear and wanted to find out more about this unusual stunt.

He constructed 31 life-sized casts of himself and placed them on top of various buildings in London. It encourages the eye to look up, possibly at buildings and sites they wouldn’t normally take notice of which I think is inspirational in itself. There are so many constructions in London that the eye is overwhelmed at places to look and there is only so much that you can take in during the brief period that you will be walking/driving/cycling past the buildings. Antony’s sculptures however, help to aid people in looking at various parts of London’s busy skyline instead of absorbing what is only at eye level.

It emphasises an important part of design – how a successful design must have that special something to make you look at it in the short space of time that you will take to pass it and to make you absorb it ahead of all the other elements of design that you will encounter during the day.

However, Antony’s aims of this stunt go beyond encouraging people to ‘look up’. He says, ‘"I just wanted to recognise that now, it's said, that over 50% of the human population on this planet now live within the city...a totally constructed humanly made environment and what that means." (BBC Article)

So by making the human sculptures a part of the man-made environment is making a highly literal point which I feel gets overlooked. So many places celebrate the natural element of the landscape and cities go against all of that, consumed in almost an entirely man made world.

Video Available on BBC London News Website, search ‘Sculptures rise over London’

BBC News Articlehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6614487.stm

Photographs of the sculptures
http://www.antonygormley.com/newsite/viewwork.php?workid=541&page=12

Antony Gormley Website
http://www.antonygormley.com/newsite/home.html