In love with Lynda

I was told about this site in a recent tutorial, and then again during our flash re-cap class. It is fantastic!

At the moment I have only completed some of the free tutorials but I will be signing up soon for some intensive courses.

I know my software skills need improving and although the Vis Com course has taught me loads about design (Grids, layouts, typography, colour etc) I don't think they've taught enough software skills. Of course, the argument is that students should use their own initiative to discover more and develop their own skills, and whilst I agree with this, I think the course could have done better than 2 x 1 hour lessons on Photoshop and Illustrator in the first year. And lets not mention the infamous Flash lessons!

Anyway, this is exactly what I've been looking for. An invaluable way of learning, and as someone who likes to learn visually, for me, it's perfect. I really feel I can now put all the theory of my course together with the practical skills from Lynda.com to push my skill set as a designer.

A wise investment?

A little bird told me that this book is an absolute beauty. A real essential for anyone in design. The grid is the most important yet least visible part of design. I felt like I could do with a little help in this area so I decided to invest. It's apparently quite hard to find, so when I saw it at the bargain price of *cough £36 cough* I grabbed it.

I'd like to say I found in a small independent shop in London, at the back of a dusty bookshelf, patiently waiting for me. But I didn't. It's not a very romantic way to buy books, but you can't beat Amazon for prices!

Looking forward to delivery.

More Panda For Ya

Stationary pack for Panda On A Bike is coming along nicely.

This is an early draft for some headed paper. We decided to not over cook it too much as it can look a bit desperate, like we are trying too hard.

Simple and clean was the idea and I think we are pretty much there. The type at the bottom needs to come down a couple of point sizes (currently 12pt) and the postcode is actually incorrect! We are thinking of putting a watermark of the logo in the centre of the page too, but it could look too busy.

Typeface is Myriad Pro for both the logo and for the address details.
Colours are:
Green: Pantone 13-0650
Grey: C:49 M:40 Y:44 K:5
Both at 90% Opacity

Panda graphic is 100% black at 85 % opacity

We will get some trial prints done next week before completing a compliments slip.

PPRD - Panda a go go

I recently met with my friend to start designing the logo and stationary pack for Panda On A Bike (POAB). He wants the logo to be literal, so he actually wants it to show a panda on a bike - shame as I wanted it to be typographical only but I got over ruled. That's what creative directors do.

So I went away and came up with some early ideas.

I went back to show him and found that he had already bagged a client for an advertising job. Good news and bad news. Good news; it's a client. Bad news for me because it's a TV advert and therefore no graphic design needed to be completed. Bad news also because we need to send them an invoice for the time that we (the royal we) have spent doing it. Which means no more messing about in Illustrator with the logo, we have to go with what we've got, which is ok as we're both happy with it. I am now trying to get all my Uni work done for the hand in this Friday, and produce a stationary pack (or at least an invoice sheet) as soon as I can. No stress then.

The final logo will look something like this.

PPRD - Brief

I was asked recently to go into business with a friend of mine who works in advertising and wants to start his own advertising agency. He has asked me to be the designer and to work with him on any future projects he gets.

My first task is to design a logo which will then be used on business cards, letter heads etc., and also on a website. He has asked me to come up with some ideas for the website too, templates and designs with a view to building it for real next year.

The agency is called "Panda on a bike" and I have already met with him a couple of times to discuss early ideas of what he's looking for and will post any future meetings and outcomes here.

How a graphic designer works

Is this what the future holds?

Will I be having conversations with people like this soon?

Graphic Designer Vs Client

Or maybe I should go into Web Design?

Designer Vs Client: Make my Website for free

(Contains strong language).

Loving TED

I'm not sure who Ted is and not really bothered either to be honest, but I got pointed in this direction by Sally in my last tutorial and lost most of Sunday afternoon to this web page. I enjoyed the Phillipe Stark talk, very flamboyant, not too much sense being spoken - very French. Sagmeister has a couple on there too and I have a new found fondness for the Austrian now. I liked his work but never really "got" him, but "Stefan Sagmeister What He Has Learned", was a great insight to him and and now I soooo "get" him. Fantastic! Inspiring and interesting. Oh, and its free!

Something here for everyone. So many talks, not enough time, but if you do have time, I recommend this from Rory Sutherland.
Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group and one of the best Ad men this counrty has produced. Follow his blog here

"Thank you" packaging research

Whilst doing research for my wine packaging project for the "Thank You" brief, and keeping half an eye on the upcoming brief of "Old to New", I came across these.

I love inventive, well thought through packaging. Its what got me first interested in design as a career as I used to stare at cereal packets in the morning before heading off to another dull day in the office. Anyway, I digress...

Have a look at these fantastic ideas, really gets the juices flowing!

Here are some inspiring ideas I found for my business cards too. I've gone for a less contemporary look to mine what with the client being around in the early 1900's, but it's eye candy all the same! My favourite is No. 5. Enjoy.

Its good to talk!

After our group tutorial I feel I have some good ideas going forward for my "Thank you!" brief. I proposed my idea of saying thanks for a recent job opportunity and how I wanted to incorporate this into wine packaging. Before the tutorial I felt like I had hit a brick wall. I believed in my idea but couldn't get it on to the next level.

It was suggested to look at the visual language that advertisers use. If the receiver of the gift is in advertising, make it suitable for the audience. I thought about different types of advertising, Billboard, Ambient, Gorilla and had a lot of ideas. Also I want to look at other packaging ideas. The box is good, but I can also use the paper its wrapped in, or the bag it's supplied in.

I'm overflowing with ideas now so I need to look at each one, along with my notes and decide which one to pursue. It really does prove that talking helps, I would never have got there on my own!

Thanks!

Your welcome! This is the first part of my new brief of the 2nd year. An opportunity to say thanks. But to whom? Why? And most importantly how?!

I've asked everyone (well almost everyone) I've run into over the last few days who was the last person they thanked, why and in what tone they thanked them. Saying thank you for someone passing you the salt during dinner is a long way from thanking someone for saving your life...not that this has ever happened to me! The tone and receiver of this thanks will determine the whole project.

The list of who to thank is long. But I don't want it to get to heavy or sickly sweet. I don't want it to be a thanks to Mum for all her support, or my girlfriend for her inspiration. I find all that a little bit twee or full on. Thanks can be a real throw away comment, and this is what I want to look into. The truth is we say thanks all the time, and often mean it but don't really say it with any purpose except on a few occasions. I want to think of who I have thanked recently so I can capture the feeling and thought behind the words, which should help manifest itself as the basis of my project.

Soil Association Brochure

This advert was on the front of the brochure we received at home with our organic fruit & veg box delivery.

I thought it was a really well executed idea. Using the veg to make the face of the pointing figure from the war time "your country needs you" posters. Amusing and striking. I read the other pages too, so it clearly did its job to get the viewer interested.

Vagabond - Self Summer brief

I decided to make a small brief for myself during the summer. Short and sweet I decided that, should one day I be lucky enough to run my own graphic design company, what would I call it. It is a question that had been knocking around in my head for a while, so for a bit of fun I sat down one day and came up with this:


It is hard to think of a name that encompasses all aspects of design and to call it simply James Roberts Design Studio would be a bit crap to say the least. I took the name "Vagabond" from a Bob Dylan track I was listening to on my i-pod whilst running. I came home and looked up the meaning of the word. It derives from the Latin word 'vagari' which means to wander. Also, "leading a carefree life" "having no settled home". I liked the sound of the word and also the meaning. It has derogatory connotations too, mostly western associations with tramps.

So, I decided to call my imaginary company "Vagabond". I wanted to make a fresh logo design, that was simple and using mainly typography. I chose the type face Myriad as I liked the way the V was so similar to an upside down A in shape and it also had a modern feel to it, essential for a modern design company! Just the type on it's own wasn't enough though, so I decided to knock the bar out from the cross section of the two A's which made them look even more like the V and V, A and N all looked a little like arrows pointing in different directions. I then reversed the N so that it appeared backwards to give it a quirkier feel but still kept its legibility.

I then put a grey gradient colour on it as I thought this would be easy to reproduce for letter heads, business cards etc and under the word Vagabond I wrote the words that I would like my company to transmit, "Fresh" "Design" and "Ideas" I chose to put this in orange to give some bright and fresh feel to the graphic, also the associations of orange are summer, sun and the fruit itself, with happy and fun being amongst its connotations.

To bring the design together, i drew a line underneath and another breaking eitherside of the three key words.

I am quite pleased how it turned out. It is exactly what I was looking for, although when I look at it now I see the design linked more closely to a surfing/clothing brand than a design company...maybe I'm in the wrong business! I realised shortly after completing it that there is a band by the same name currently on the play list of Radio 2, so now it looks like the most unoriginal name for a design company. I might as well have called it "Oasis Design"!

Moon

After visiting London again this week for what seems like the 50th time this summer, I kept on seeing the film poster advert for a new film by Duncan James, I watched the trailer and thought the photography and imagery used was stunning. I'm not really into Space and all the Sci-fi genre but the film looks fantastic.

The Moon always looks great with a dark space like background, but on the poster instead of going for an obvious look they decided to use continuously decreasing circles to represent the Moon which really catches the eye. I think using an image of the Moon alone would have maybe made the film look more like a documentary. But this simple black and White image with a graphic Moon, really made me want to see the movie.

more here

This week I have mostly been looking at...

Whilst using the excellent local library (otherwise known as Borders) I was flicking through some books and fond work by Klas Ernflo. What caught my eye at first was his simple graphics with some really great type. I checked out his homepage and found myself looking through all of his work and I don't think there was one thing I didn't like. I think it is his simplicity but also quirkiness. He is based in Barcelona, which I had no idea of until I checked out his site.

http://www.klasherbert.com/

I saw these adverts for Star Wars convention and thought they were ace!

There are more here.

First Commisioned Work!

This summer has seen me produce my first piece of design work that I will be getting paid for. I must add at this point it was done for my girlfriend for her new business and payment consisted of her taking me to dinner, but I'll take all I can get!

The business id for an Image consultancy, where people are unsure of how to dress and act when going to a new job or just in their private lives. Working with someone as a client and a partner can actually be very demanding, as I was kind of finding my own way as I've never produced a branding design before.

It took me about a month of evening work from start to final print and I learned a huge amount about what needs to be done to produce something like this. Its not a case of designing something and that's it, I had to oversee everything from early drafts through to printing.

I don't know who is more pleased, the client is delighted with her "look" and I am too for the experience. I produced a business card, paper and compliments slip. Here is the business card.

Summer stuff

I'm doing evening classes in Graphic Design as well as my Uni course and I've just finished it. It's been a bit of a slog to be honest, the standard isn't too high and as a result I lost interest around Christmas time, but as I'm a stubborn bugger, I wanted to see it through.

My final project was to produce a poster themed around Sanctuary. After doing all my research etc., I decided to do complete it on the War and Remembrance Day. This is my final poster. It doesn't really rank amongst my greatest achievements but I think I executed the poster well and it also helped me gain some new Photoshop skills too :-)

For some reason the colour has inverted during the uploading process...hmm...will leave for now and try and again later.

Typeradio A3 Poster

This was quite a tough challenge, not only to come up with a workable concept without using any images, but also working with people with differing styles, ideas and work ethics!

Our group really struggled to come up with anything that was original, we thought of using illustrative typography in the shape of a radio but were advised that at least 4 of the other 8 groups had looked at that and so we decided to leave it alone.

We had a chat with Kit and she said to try and come at from a different angle. I spoke with her and said that only typographers would listen to this radio station and therefore it was a very niche market. We spoke about what the designers actually said during the interviews, and noticed that most don't actually talk about their work, just about them as people, likes, dislikes, family etc., the things that make them "normal" people.

Our group was still short on ideas and then I suggested the line "Typographers are human too". I thought it would be eye catching to typographers passing by and would make them smile, as people interested in type can feel marginalised a little and labelled as geeks, although that's part of the appeal of working with type too, in a way. I thought it was witty enough to get a wry smile from a typographer at least.

Secondly, Typeradio use the phrase "Now were talking" so we just changed that to fit in with the poster to "now they're talking". The colour scheme was taken from the website to continue its identity, and we placed the script font they use at the top right of the poster.

The hardest part for me was working in a group. Two of my group were more interested in sitting in the sun and another turned up mid afternoon when the poster was done, which basically left Me and one other person to try layout styles, fonts etc. I think I worked well with him and we bounced ideas off each other and both put a lot of thought and effort into the poster. My software skills aren't great so I acted as the art director although it was definitely a collaboration.

I am very proud of what we came up with, especially considering the timescale, the group, and the brief. I genuinely feel it was the best poster out of the 9 on display as we were the only ones to try a different angle and get the message across. During the crit it was mentioned that the poster may offend typographers, which I found ridiculous. I was also asked if I would change anything, to which I responded "I wouldn't change a thing" That was part arrogance, part tongue-in-cheek and part honesty. I came up with the copy, suggested the font, colour and layout, so obviously I am proud of it. It was exactly as I imagined it whilst brainstorming.

Live Briefs

I have decided to take advantage of the live briefs received by Matt Desimer at the Enterprise Unit to help increase my skills, portfolio and also future opportunities.

I have started work on the Save Energy UK brief and design a couple of logos. So far they're just sketches, but I hope to put them into Illustrator to produce a more professional look and send them into Matt so he can show them to the client. I don't really expect my designs to get chosen, but it's a good challenge and in only 12 months I will be looking for work somewhere in this industry and feel a stronger portfolio with more depth is only going to be beneficial.

Its also a good chance to put into practice everything I've learnt so far on the course. We haven't done any branding or logo design but I can use some of the skills I gained in during the Amnesty brief and also my typography skills (or lack of).

From what I understand the turnaround on all the briefs he receives is quite quick, around a couple of weeks is average, which is good as it shouldn't interfere with curriculum work but still gives you enough time to develop some strong concepts.

More Flash & Work Placements

Flash Newsflash...do you see what I've done there?

Well, a week until hand in and my project is coming along at a pretty good speed. Not quite finished yet, some final scenes and a bit of tweaking to go still but I should make the deadline without too much worry. Had a bit of feedback from other students and Jon (Flash teacher) and everyone really likes the stop-motion and mask effect on the opening scene and the shark fin. I've had a few problems using the software but am actually quite pleased with how much I've been able to do. Really need to practice my software skills as I think this project would have been easier, quicker and looked better if I knew what the hell I was doing with CS3! I found some online tutorials at www.entheosweb.com/Flash that have come in really handy. I have also been introduced to www.kuler.com which I think will be invaluable for the remainder of this course and in industry.

I have emailed Imagine Publishing about a work placement but not heard anything from them yet. I was told the person I needed to speak to was on holiday until Tues, so I hoping they will reply by Fri, if not I'll chase them up.

DKLW emailed me to say they are waiting for some people to get back from shooting an Ad in New Zealand and will let me know something in a week or two.

Flash project update

Had a PAL session this morning and went over ideas for our Flash projects. I heard some really good concepts from other students and Luke, George and Viki were encouraging in their feedback and suggested ways around problems for some people. I think their main point was to try and keep it simple and storyboard everything before hand, otherwise it gets complicated.

Taking this on board I have radically "dumbed-down" my ideas. I was happy to do this really as I was starting to go into far too much detail and was getting concerned how I was going to present the project, but now I aim to go for a simple-but-effective approach. It will mostly be appropriate typography with the odd animation to highlight the point.

Am going to start storyboarding it this week and get a narrative for the piece completed by next week.

Flash & DLKW

With Amnesty done and dusted I'm moving on to Flash lessons and securing a work placement. Only had one Flash class so far which was about as exciting as watching paint dry. Our brief is quite open and should be fun to work though. My initial idea was to complete my animation on red wine as we were told to pick a subject close to our hearts! I have changed track slightly since then and think I'm going to go with either sharks in general or a kind of "anti" Australia film. Before I went there all anybody would tell me was how I was going to be attacked by a shark or a croc or bitten by a snake or a spider. Everyone seems obsessed about these creatures by in truth, according to statistics, more deaths are attributed to bee stings than shark attacks. Boring eh?

As for work experience, I think I have secured a place at DLKW (Delany Lund Knox Warren) a huge advertising agency based in London, Convent Garden. I have actually been given the all clear yet but it looks promising. I am as excited as I am scared by the prospect of going to such a large and important agency. The experience will be unforgettable I'm sure. Fingers crossed it all goes well.

Final Crit for Amnesty Project

Last Wednesday we had our final group critique for the Amnesty project due in next week. We weren't really allowed to talk about our work, so it was frustrating when when I received my feedback, as it was for everyone, as I couldn't justify anything or explain why I had chosen to do things a certain way.

We had had a critique just a couple of days before and taking on board the feedback from that session I had decided to try and make my advert more subtle and not have so many layers of visual information. The result, I thought, worked really well. It intrigued the viewer to hopefully find out more when they saw the bus advert and there was more information on the bus shelter advert but using the same images so people would recognise the campaign and make the necessary associations.

However, the feedback this time was that it was too simple and needed "jazzing up" a little. I know my poster was only a rough mock up and didn't look like a poster but I thought the bus side looked stunningly simple - exactly as I wanted it to. Sometimes I think people give feedback for the sake of giving feedback and looking good in front of others. I had hoped to get some ideas on the typography and the hierarchy of the text I had constructed! So, whilst I take the comments on board I don't want to "jazz up" my advert just because it doesn't have much colour. I think most people in the group have used bright pinks and yellows similar to the colours on the Amnesty web site, but I feel as this is a new campaign, I have tried to move away from this - maybe this was a mistake!

Anyway, a week to go until hand-in and I need to just change a few aspects maybe, and then I've finished. One problem I have is that because it is so simple, it almost looks as though I haven't put much effort into the project, which is not accurate at all.