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.