Our first week is an introduction to the module, deliverables and expectations for the next 12 weeks. Over the upcoming weeks we will be creating an immersive prototype (week 1-6) then creating a narrative website or publication(week 6-12). Both of these are going to be around the brief – Apollo.

The Apollo space program is a topic of history I know very little about. I have a bit of an interest in space so I am intrigued to learn more about Apollo and create design around the topic. To get started on this project or any project, it is key to research. This week we are set to do visual research and collate it all into a visual moodboard. I want to also read up more on the history of Apollo and watch some movies or documentaries to help me understand the topic I’m researching

Visual Research

To begin with I looked up general images of the Apollo missions, rockets and crew members. I used the NASA website for more informational research. From this I found out more on what the Apollo Program was.

Some quick facts

• Apollo was the NASA program that resulted in American astronauts’ making a total of 11 spaceflights and walking on the moon.
• The first manned mission to the moon was Apollo 8. It circled around the moon on Christmas Eve in 1968. However, Apollo 8 did not land on the moon.
• The first moon landing took place in 1969. The last moon landing was in 1972.

I continued to research into some movies and documentaries either based or about Apollo. I watched a four part docuseries on Amazon Prime. I found it a good watch as it brought the emotion and other issues surrounding Apollo at the time, and that it wasn’t just perfect each step of the way. From watching this I found myself curious on the topic of the problems that occurred during the run of the Apollo program, maybe even potential conspiracy theories

I looked into movie posters both from realistic retold films and even kids films. I tried making small colour palettes to go along with the posters. Whilst doing this was good to start my consideration of colour I found a lot of the palette’s looking the same. There isn’t much colour variation for space themes outside of greys, blues and red.

I looked briefly at some typefaces, mostly at NASA’s main type and their ‘The NASA Identity System’ This just demonstrates their typeface rules and additional fonts. I found this interesting as it seems to to be quite different from the typeface used for the NASA logo. I understand that it’s probably for easier readability but still found the difference to be worth looking at. I also stumbled upon the original launch posters. I really love the style of these posters, especially the original Apollo Launch one in black and white. I think it really shows the trends from that time period and how it’s still a strong and effective piece of design.

Whilst researching visuals I found myself making a connection between Apollo and fashion and music trends. I looked into this a little further and found after Apollo ended there was a trend in music and fashion that was inspired by Apollo and space in general. Some examples are David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ and his iconic fashion at the time. Also Pierre Cardin’s two-toned jersey dresses were a striking statement and resemblance to the ‘space era’ with the vinyl waders (fishing dungaree’s) I found this part of my research to be more of a interest that I found whilst looking for other information, I don’t think I would use this for anything further than just research