R094 Task 2 Guide: Creating the Identity and the Digital Graphic
What Task 2 asks you to do
Task 2 assesses Topic Area 3, applying what Topic Area 2 teaches about the properties of digital graphics. You create the visual identity and the digital graphic in software, from the plan you made in Task 1, and save and export them properly. On OCR's current recording sheet it carries 30 of the unit's 50 marks. Work from your current assignment and its marking grid: the product, its size and its audience come from the brief you were given.
| Part | What you produce |
|---|---|
| Set up from your plan | Documents with the size, resolution and colour mode the product needs |
| Create the identity | The logo and other identity elements, built in suitable software |
| Create the graphic | The product, built with a range of tools and techniques, following your plan |
| Evidence the process | The tools, settings and reasons for each technique, and any change from the plan explained |
| Save and export | The working files kept, and exports in formats and settings that suit the client's use |
Starting from your plan
- Reread your Task 1 plan: the visualisation diagram, the asset table, and the identity you designed.
- Confirm the technical properties the product needs: the size in millimetres or pixels, the resolution, the colour mode, and the formats you will export.
- Gather the assets from your asset table, and replace anything whose licence you could not clear.
- Keep the plan beside you while you build, and note every change you make from it, with the reason.
Creating, step by step
- Set up the document from the plan: size, resolution, colour mode and bleed.
- Build the logo in vector software: shapes, paths, node editing and Boolean operations. Keep an editable version.
- Prepare the images in raster software: crop, adjust and remove backgrounds with masks, non-destructively.
- Assemble the graphic on a grid, following the visualisation diagram and applying the identity consistently.
- Check it: at 100%, at its final size, printed as a proof, and against the brief. Explain any change from the plan.
- Save the layered master, then export a version for each destination, named with a convention.
Evidence of your process
- Screenshots of each technique: the tool, the settings, the result, and why you used it.
- Before and after images of edited photographs.
- Your versions, so the development is visible.
- The reason for every change from the visualisation diagram.
Evidence of several different tools, each chosen for the job, shows more skill than one tool used over and over. Say why each was the right one.
A worked example on a different brief
The Spokes example continues: the client needs an A4 poster advertising free repair Saturdays, for print and for social media. Do not copy it; your product and your client are different.
The visualisation diagram put the address in the top right corner. Built, it competed with the logo for attention, so I moved it into an orange pill under the details, where it completes the call to action and the eye finishes on it.
I removed the background from my photograph of the bike with a layer mask rather than the eraser, so the background can be restored if the crop needs to change. The edge was refined at a 2 pixel radius so the wheels do not look cut out.
Before you hand in
- The graphic follows your Task 1 plan, and every asset in it is in your asset table
- The logo exists as an editable vector master
- Your evidence shows a range of techniques, each with the tool, the settings and the reason
- Every change from the plan is explained
- The layered masters are saved, and each export suits its destination
- Files follow a naming convention with version numbers
Sources and further reading
- OCR Cambridge Nationals in Creative iMedia (J834): the qualification page, with the specification and the assessment materials your teacher works from.
- The J834 specification (PDF): the content of every topic area. Check that your version matches.
- Moderators' report, summer 2024 (PDF) and summer 2023 (PDF): what moderators saw in real R094 and R097 work, including where marks were most often lost.
- Inkscape, GIMP and Photopea: free software for the vector and raster work.
- GOV.UK: how copyright protects your work and Creative Commons licences: for clearing the assets you use.
Key terms you must be able to define
- Technique
- A particular use of a software tool to achieve an effect, such as masking or Boolean shaping.
- Non-destructive editing
- Editing with layers, masks and adjustment layers so original pixels are never overwritten.
- Layered master
- The working file, with its layers and live text, from which every export is made.
- Export
- Saving a copy of the work in a format and with settings suited to one destination.
Flashcards
Reach the top grade on this topic
- Build from your Task 1 plan, and explain every change you make from it
- Build the logo as a vector and edit images non-destructively
- Evidence a range of techniques, each with the tool, the settings and the reason
- Explain every change from the plan, and export properly for each destination
Mistakes that cost marks here
- Building the graphic before the visualisation diagram exists.
- Screenshots of the finished product only, with no evidence of how it was made.
- Leaving changes from the plan unexplained.
- Exporting one JPG for every use.
- Using an image found online with no source or licence recorded.
Professional printers ask for 3 millimetres of bleed because guillotines cut stacks of hundreds of sheets at once, and a stack can shift by a millimetre or two. Bleed means a slightly wrong cut still looks right.
Knowledge check
Check you could explain this
- LScreenshots of the tools and techniques used, with settings
- LBefore and after images, or stages of the work
- LThe reason each technique was used
- LChanges from the plan explained, or file versions and exports shown
I would include screenshots of each technique as I used it, showing the tool and its settings, such as the layer mask used to remove a background or the Boolean operation used to cut the logo shape. I would show the stages of the work with before and after images, and numbered versions, so the development is visible. Each screenshot would be annotated with why I chose that technique for that job. I would also explain every change I made from my visualisation diagram, and show the master file and the exports I produced for each destination.
- LVector graphics are shapes and paths, so they scale without losing quality
- LA logo is used at many sizes, so it must scale
- LPhotographs are made of pixels, captured by a camera
- LRaster software has the tools to edit pixels: masks, adjustments, retouching
A logo is built in vector software because a vector graphic is stored as shapes and paths rather than pixels, so it can be scaled to any size without losing quality, and a logo has to work at every size from a 16 pixel icon to a shop sign. A photograph is different: it is captured by a camera as millions of pixels of continuous tone and detail, which cannot be described as simple shapes, so it is edited in raster software, which has the tools for working on pixels, such as selections, layer masks, adjustment layers and retouching.