Symbol colour scheme

 Symbol colour scheme 

I had the idea to have different assigned colours for each rule in order to differentiate the rules and provide more of a playful sense of voice; I really like the somewhat industrial feel of super bright neon colours with a muted grey, as it is kind of reminiscent of Kraftwerk's Autobahn album art and aligns with the tone of voice I wanted to reference in regards to techno. The visuals of the publication needed to have a censored language through abstract symbols, whilst still sharing the loud and experimental nature of the Berlin techno sound/ community. 

The colours I applied for each symbol didn't really have much for a conceptual link, but I was more focused on creating consistency in terms of a visual series. Each colour is easily distinguishable from each other, so this reduces the risk of audience confusion. 

Developments

To replicate the lights of the Berlin club scene, I added a subtle glowing effect to the symbols, which created a nice contrast alongside the neon colour scheme. I wanted to experiment and play with a square format, as this links to the CD disk packaging I'm planning on having the publication in. I wanted to keep the focus on the symbol itself, so the designs visual hierarchy is somewhat minimal with a lot of negative space emphasising the symbol. Despite this, I wanted to frame the symbols with their corresponding coordinates and rules; initially, this created a very ambiguous tone, as it isn't clear to the audience of their relevance. Obviously, this issue will be resolved through the user twisting the publication to read the information provided. As well as this, I really like how the small 52 13 symbol works, as previously mentioned it kind of functions as a motif. In terms of the typefaces used in these designs, I stuck to using Futura due to it's connections to Berlin and its use in Kraftwerk's Autobahn. I think now I'm at a stage where I need to translate these designs into the CD disc format; at the moment I'm conflicted on whether I should include imagery or keep it super minimal and vague. I think this minimal approach actually works better than cramming in loads of images, as the whole point of the project is to push the audience to go out themselves and learn more about the culture. As well as this, having no photos would make more sense in regards to the no phone rule? I might ask for some peer feedback on this as I want the project to function not only visually but conceptually as well. 

In the context of having the publication packaged in a CD case, I thought I would create some CD cover designs. I want to keep the CD cover quite vague in order to maintain the core themes of censorship, but obviously the cover needs to have some sort of conceptual link to the techno tourist guide in order to intrigue the audience. I feel like it would be very fitting to have the 52 13 symbol featured on the front, as it conceptually has the connection to Berlin's coordinates without being explicit. I also like the idea of featuring the symbol series colour palette, as it provides a consistent design and visually references the contents of the publication. I do really like these first initial outcomes, but I want to play around with other ways in which I could package the publication. For example, one of the ideas I had was to package the CD case in a map with the locations of each symbol on it, so the audience could fold it out? Or I could always print the map side on the inner sleeve.