End of Unit
27/1/12
As today is submission day for all the studio projects, it seems appropriate to write a short evaluation for the PDP, blogger, aswell.
The contents of this blog has helped me to reflect on what could be everyday activities in the studio or reading magazines and book. It's lead me to think more deeply about what it is I'm reading and doing and draw conclusions from it. It's also helped me to properly analyse the work that others do that I see and also the books I read and form my own opinion. Overall, I think that this blog has helped me to develop my opinions and analytical skills and it has helped me to set achievable targets and goals for myself.
26/1/12
27/1/12
As today is submission day for all the studio projects, it seems appropriate to write a short evaluation for the PDP, blogger, aswell.
The contents of this blog has helped me to reflect on what could be everyday activities in the studio or reading magazines and book. It's lead me to think more deeply about what it is I'm reading and doing and draw conclusions from it. It's also helped me to properly analyse the work that others do that I see and also the books I read and form my own opinion. Overall, I think that this blog has helped me to develop my opinions and analytical skills and it has helped me to set achievable targets and goals for myself.
26/1/12
Olivia - 60%. layout of presentation wasn't particularly nice. Specifying particular drinks to certain genders singles people out and would make people embarrassed to buy a particular flavour if it was sold as feminine. Typography on the ad campaigns didn't work, 50's Americana themed drink with a modernist typeface. Copy on the ad's was quite nice, flirty and humorous. I really liked the number plate with the drinks name on, probably could have been the logo.
Lisa - 75%. Did her research and gave her opinion of it. There were bits of blue text that looked accidental and unclear as to what they were there for. Ad campaigns were playful but the execution didn't tie them to there target market in my opinion. Product visuals were good and other merchandise supported the brand.
Liam - 55%. Drinks types were wrong, there is no such thing as an isometric sports drink. Advertising campaign wasn't a proper campaign, just three separate adverts. The placement of the logo in town centres is meaningless without support, as a launching brand people won't know what it is and it won't make sense on its own. The placement of the logo as sponsorship on a football shirt looked good and also was a realistic direction for publicity.
Ste - 65%. Showed detailed research and showed the process of printing and making the bottles. The presentation was unfinished so no merchandise was shown. The spelling and grammar was awful on the presentation and seemed to ignore the fact that somebody might read it rather than just listen. Showing his idea generation didn't show variation in ideas, it showed the variation of one or two ideas however these may have been developed sketches but it was not made clear.
Tinashe - 70%. The brand appeared fun and had a couple of ideas including putting juice in a mug so a youngster could copy there parents who were drinking tea or coffee. The presentation wasn't finished and didn't show much merchandise. I don't think the opportunity to create fun and imaginative merchandise was taken.
Stuart - 60%. The logo mark was quite strong and would be easily recognisable on its own without the brand name 'buddha'. The cans and bottles came across as boring, they may have been a representation of purity but the informality of the information didn't put that across. There was no promotional material or ad campaigns so it couldn't be judged as to whether the brand was united or not.
Andy - 62%. Typeface in parts of the presentation was too small to read. Started the presentation by saying he wanted it to be similar to Rubicon and Innocent and then presented his work whilst describing it as creative and imaginative a lot. The target market was too wide for his product, 8 -18 year olds will do significantly different things however 30-40 year olds may not be that different. Really interesting and attention grabbing designs that would appeal to a narrowed down target market.
Sophie - 68%. The logo looked really good however it didn't fit the concept of the drink. The merchandise supported her concept of tropical non alcohol cocktails by branding objects that would normally be used on holiday. The outline of a can that she used to put her designs on was clearly drawn though which isn't an acceptable standard.
20/1/12
My aim for today was to go analyse my stationary and also have the work for my boards laid out and printed. I met this target and I'm now working on a list of things that need to be done before submission for all projects. There is very little work left to do, it's just a matter of meeting the submission deliverables by completing the smaller tasks.
I had the chance to go through the submission deliverables today with Alex and at the same time he had a quick look at my boards. We discussed the next steps for me and they're basically to carry on expanding my ideas to make my supporting material more active. I'v already begun doing this by using the rings on a tree trunk on the bottom of the mug, but on my next project I will definitely be looking to expand further and create more idea based work and then work the branding into the idea rather than the other way around.
We also had Mark Brown in again today and he brought in some artwork files and then the final printed piece to show us how he produces some of his work. The job he brought in was for Trafford Council and it was interesting to see the presentation that he submitted to them in comparison to the ones Piers showed us a couple of months ago. Mark's showed a lot of ideas whereas Piers' showed a couple of ideas and then methods of implementing them, however the circumstances for both projects would probably explain the differences between the presentations. The artwork he showed us wasn't particularly complex but the colour choices were quite complementary on both. The main point of interest for me was seeing how he prepared the die-cut using a pantone line on the artwork with notes around the border, it definitely seems as though there is no right or wrong way of preparing artwork for techniques similar to that. One of the other things I got out of Mark's visit was a source for jobs/work - the job he showed us was sourced from "arts jobs" [19], if you subscribe to the site they will send you regular updates of jobs and work in your are and field so I've since subscribed to see if anything good would come out of it.
19/1/12
As both projects begin to near their conclusion, my aim for today is to start bringing the soft drink project to a close. I want to continue and complete the merchandise section and also mock up the large packaging idea that I did a while ago. If I complete these then I can start working on my boards and PDF to be sent to Purpose.
Unfortunately, a glitch in illustrator meant that I lost a bit of my merchandising work today, however it didn't hinder me too much as I wasn't particularly impressed with the work I had produced in the first place so it just wasted about half an hour of my time. The rest of my day has been spent fixing other glitches on illustrator - whereby when I extrude and bevel artwork it reorganises the layer stack and hides artwork. I have managed to complete a couple of pieces of work - coaster set and large scale packaging mock up. This lead me to begin working on my boards and by the end of the ay they were done with only a couple of tweaks needing to be made before submission.
The next steps for this project are: go through my sketchbook to make sure everything is in order/annotated/complete, a written evaluation and PDF of final artwork and rationale for Purpose need to be made.
18/1/12
My project aim for today is to go back to my Action Plan and review whether I have met the goals and targets that I set out for myself in these documents.
Today I met my learning goal and then exceeded it by starting the bibliography for my creative commentary. This means that I'm very nearly finished with contextual studies unit leaving me with just the two studio briefs left to do.
13/1/12
Today is presentation day for those doing the Wythenshawe advertising project so this meant a half day for me in college so that they had full use of the room. So that people doing the roses weren't ignored, Alex came around and had a quick look at our work. He suggested to me that my ad campaign should be altered slightly so that it made the most of the headline. He then suggested to make sure that the signage I do for the museum is reasonably extensive as this could make or break the realism of the project.
After my short meeting with Alex I set about altering my ad campaign and then placed into bus shelters and magazines. That was all I had time to do in class today, the rest of the day which was meant to be college time was spent at the Manchester Museum getting pictures that would be appropriate for placing signage onto.
12/1/12
My aim for today is to have my bottles visualised with the wrappers on them and to have my ad campaigns completed. I would also like to begin work on T-shirts so that all the submission deliverables are complete within the next couple of days.
Today I've been able to meet and exceed my aims. I was able to: visualise my bottle's with wrapper on the front and the back, complete my ad campaign and also create a portrait variation of it to help me visualise it in bus shelters and magazines, develop my t-shirt and then mock it up on a photograph. This means I have now completed all of the required deliverables for the project two weeks earlier than submission.
To enable me to go beyond what is required for the project I have begun writing a plan for other promotional pieces/packaging which will strengthen my brand.
All in all I'm really pleased with my progress today.
11/1/12
The first hour of my day is being taken up by printing out the work I've done over the weekend.
After being a little lost I began to reflect on my group evaluations which I wrote a couple of months ago. This was to look at how I'd previously coped with tasks and determine whether I had improved or changed.
I then began looking at how my final projects should look on final boards using the previous D&AD nominees as examples (http://www.dandad.org/awards/student/2011/categories/8/branding). This lead to us talking in a group about how pieces that are extra within each project should not only be supportive but also active in communicating the brands message. As I'm upto this stage for both projects I found it really interesting and will be keeping it in mind when creating extra pieces.
6/1/12
The first half of today was spent looking at each others work and giving suggestions on improvement. I found this quite helpful because I knew my logo wasn't quite finished, the points raised helped me to find different ways of organising the typography which was my main issue and also scaling and positioning the leaf.
In the afternoon, I acted on the points raised and this allowed me to complete my logo. I then moved onto creating my ad campaigns in illustrator. I had already decided skecthed out ideas and decided which one to use of the Xmas break, making the transition between tasks really easy.
5/1/12
My aim for today is to have a soft drink campaign chosen and then to begin working on it and developing the idea.
At the beginning of the day I selected two campaigns that I felt were strong, both for different reasons. The first because it communicated the benefits of the product and the second because it communicated the personality and attracts interest to the product. After mocking up 1 execution for each campaign there wasn't really a contest between which one was more successful which made picking between them very simple.
Today I've been able to develop a couple of key things, my photoshopping ability and also using the perspective tool in Illustrator CS5. Im very pleased with both of these steps forward as it now give me greater confidence in both programs.
16/12/11
My aim for today is to make it clear in my sketchbook that I have a plan for over the winter break. After this is done I'll return to my ads for the tree museum and I'll be aiming to develop them as the day goes on.
The rest of the day was taken up by my tutorial. My feedback for my projects was quite good which means I'm settling into self directed study well. The points that need addressing are in the tutorial section in my blog but I dont see any of them as big things. Over the Christmas holidays I'll be making sure that the things that need to be addressed are done so that I can continue with my projects.
Today, my aim was to continue my idea generation and turn the mind maps that I did last week into sketched visuals for each of my SMP's. My learning goal was to improve my idea generation and also developing a visual from a concept.
I completed today's learning goal and have a couple of strong ideas within the 50+ that I've drawn. Over the Xmas break I'll be analysing these and then developing them into at least one campaign which is drawn as a comp. At this stage in the brief I feel that I'm in a strong position to work from over Xmas and continue into the new year.
I also got an email today from Richard at Bella Design, passed on by Alex. It was inviting me to come in for an interview with some printed to pieces of work to discuss a placement at 3pm on Tuesday 20th December. So I've printed out some pieces of work to take and I'm really looking forward to it.
Soft Drink Reflection: For me, the soft drink brief has been an insight in to how
to create a brand from the bottom up. Each piece of ephemera must communicate a
brand’s values and it has been a challenge to make sure all ephemera
communicate the same thing to the consumer.
I’ve learnt a couple of different things during this
project. The way an idea must communicate but not be obvious is something that
I’ve grasped during this project – if the consumer doesn’t have to do a bit of
the work then an idea can’t stick. This has been the base for both of my
projects (soft drink and roses awards) and has encouraged me to learn different
working practices. I now refer to the brief and the brands core values more
often. This enables me to be clear about what I’m designing and whether it’s
successful or not based on those criteria. From looking at David Airey’s
website, I learnt a new idea generation technique. This lead me to use a
brand’s core values more effectively and make them visually clear. I now try to
generate stimulating words that can help me to communicate in ways I wouldn’t
have necessarily of thought of. Using moodboards to identify my target market
has also helped me to refine my ideas based on who my target market are. I’ve
also learnt about packaging and product design which has allowed me to
experiment with, and learn, a new piece of software - Cinema 4D. This gave me
some experience and an understanding of a piece of software which is not
commonly used in graphic design, but is used to obtain three dimensional and
realistic results when they’re required.
I’ve found this unit to challenge me but also develop me
greatly. As a result of some of the deliverables being my own choice, I now set
out the deliverables beforehand so that I can get through them at my own pace
rather than being indecisive. I’d say that I’m also more patient as a designer
and more willing to spend time on something so that it can be as good as I
originally imagined it to be. This is mainly because I created two pieces that
each took a fair amount of time and effort but both look even better than I
thought they would and means that the time and effort paid off. In my opinion
though my graphic understanding is what has improved most. This hasn’t been
done solely by this project, but understanding that ‘an idea should be strong
but not hit you over the head’ is something that has influenced me and I now
reflect on it when designing.
Action plan: Have a campaign decided before the new college
term starts on 04/01/12, Improve Photoshop skills so that I’m able to
produce end visual in situe.
Comment from Paulo: Hi Rick, thanks for the update. Your project has shown a wide variety of research and experimentation which is great to see especially the Cinema4D play.
Stay focused on who your target market is to complete the remainder of the project.
Regards
Paolo.
Comment from Paulo: Hi Rick, thanks for the update. Your project has shown a wide variety of research and experimentation which is great to see especially the Cinema4D play.
Stay focused on who your target market is to complete the remainder of the project.
Regards
Paolo.
9/12/11
My aim for today was to finalise the logo for the hugger brief and also look at next steps for the project. With the Christmas break quickly approaching I felt that it was quite important that I set out a list of possible deliverables so that I always have something to be getting on with. My learning goal is to be better at planning.
I addition to the things above we were set the morning task of helping Andrew and Jo that are doing the Wythenshawe brief to come up with new SMP's. I enjoyed being able to do this because I was able to give an outsiders perspective on things they had found out about the campus and the area in general. As well as coming up with new SMP's, I also helped with idea generation for a couple of the SMP's which definitely seemed to help Andrew and by the end I think he could see the benefit of what we were doing. In return I got some feedback from them about the work I had been doing. I'm not sure that they fully understood what I was trying to achieve, which may be my fault for not communicating it properly, but they're ideas and thoughts have been written down and referred back to during the ideas process as they may come in useful.
During the day I was able to finish the targets I set myself. This allows me to be able to continue this brief autonomously. I'm unlikely to get a tutorial until the new year so to have a plan for deliverables will enable me to always have something to move onto until the submission date.
8/12/11
Aims for today's session: Create a set of SMP's for my advertising campaign, brainstorm ideas for each SMP. My learning goal is to test a different idea generation technique.
At the end of the day I had completed these goals. I found idea generation a challenge but I do feel that this new technique helped. I tried the method that David Airey uses during his branding process (shown in image), however adapted slightly to be appropriate for advertising.I associated related words stemming from each SMP and then where necessary pushed these towards visual ideas. These brainstorms will then be used as a platform to build campaign ideas from and ease that process. I found the overall process challenging, to help me I will break it up into chunks next time so it can be done in bursts rather than long sessions which can be straining. In the end it was rewarding so it is definitely a technique I will continue to use.
The open evening for Stockport College was tonight and me
and Lisa braved the weather to go and have a look. We spent the first half an
hour stuck in a lecture which was actually for the extended diploma rather than
the BA, but after about 20 minutes trying to find someone to talk to we
eventually found the course leader Lucy Brown. We were then able to find out
about the way the final year of the course is run and and also about Lucy
herself and her experience.
The course mixes live briefs and competition briefs and
to be honest sounds very much like a BA version of the course I’m currently on
at TMC. It keeps the advertising element as well which is something that
interests me. One of the courses main selling points is that it has screen
printing facilities but to be honest it doesn’t grab me that much, it’s good
that it’s there but I’d only use it for posters etc. The tutors seems quite
friendly and also committed to her students, if they need help then she’s more
than happy to help. She’s taught at a couple of different universities
including MMU and LJMU, she’s also previously had her own studio but decided to
take a job Stockport College.
I’m interested in going to Stockport College but it’s
very much a back up choice. I feel I could probably learn more and also have
better opportunities at a bigger and more established university.
7/12/11
I've made a couple of amendments to my personal statement and it's now ready for UCAS. I finished it a couple of weeks ago and today I got feedback from Alex which has made it a bit tighter and improved weaker parts. I now feel as though I have a really good personal statement which shows how this course has also helped me develop my writing ability by writing up a plan before I start. Whilst everybody else has been getting their feedback, it has allowed me to write up the work I did over the weekend which was mostly mocking up my logos and adapting them so that they communicated the core values of my tree museum.
Today was the open day at MMU and was my chance to get an
insight into how the course is run and also get an answer as to whether they
will be taking students on advanced entry into the second or third year.
I’m interested in going to MMU from the perspective that
it is a well established and successful art school. It has many industry
contacts and has world class designers as guest speakers and lecturers.
However, from what I’ve learned today I’m somewhat put off by them. The course is just graphic design
and at the moment I’m developing a taste for advertising so It’s something I’d
like to carry on.
During the presentation I learn of how the course is run
and also how entry is assessed. From that I would be slightly hesitant about
entering a third year there as I feel that re-doing my second year could help
broaden my perspective as a designer and help me improve. It would then stand
me in good stead for the third year which is basically just a run up to the end
of year show and preparation for industry.
At the end of the presentation I asked whether advanced
entry was possible and the lecturer said yes. It’s been a battle getting
answers from MMU with admissions saying one thing and the lecturer’s saying
another so to actually hear that you’ll be considered is definitely welcomed.
2/12/11
Today I set myself a an aim and what I would learn in the process. My aim was: To mock up my logo's and alternates. I was also asked to add more sketches to my idea generation. My learning goals were: Learn techniques and self analysis.
At the end of the day I had only completed part of my aims - added to my idea generation and developed two of my logo's. Both of the logo's I developed today had were linked well to what I wanted to communicate, however neither work well visually. It's definitely my aim to develop my other two logo's so that one of them is at a presentable level.
1/12/11
Today I've put the finishing touches to both of my wrappers and I'm really pleased with both of them - particularly the sonic themed one which took a lot of time to make and looks very realistic. I also worked on an idea for large scale packaging which involves making the stacks look like Tetris blocks. In my opinion its quite an interesting idea that communicates the light heartedness of the brand and its gaming theme.
In the afternoon I spent time looking at existing advertisements by energy drink companies - they were mostly by Gatorade, a brand I didn't consider when I did my initial research as it isn't strictly in my sector. However when it comes to advertising this sort of product, the ideas can be roughly similar but it is the target market and therefore the execution that differ. I then moved onto doing a personal branding exercise which Paolo set up. In my opinion I didn't find this particularly useful as I already have a logo which communicates what I want it too and I felt my time would have been better spent continuing my advertising research.
29/11/11
Today was Design Your Future at Manchester Central. It's a fair held by UCAS featuring creative courses from up and down the country and gives students a chance to interact with a large number of institutions without having to travel to all of them. I've been to this event before and it helped me to decide which course to apply for once I'd finished my A-Levels and today it had basically the same purpose. I wanted to speak to colleges and universities that I was interested in personally and ask about advanced entry. Unfortunately the people I spoke to weren't particularly helpful, either not knowing the answer or contradicting what I'd previously been told by course leaders. It's led to me losing faith somewhat in this type of event because the people your speaking to don't necessarily know or have a definitive answer, so it makes it a little bit of a waste of time. I think the best thing for me to do now is to just apply wherever I apply and seeing what comes of it. There doesn't seem to be a right or wrong way of doing this but I have the BA course at Stockport fall back on.
25/11/11
Today we have a couple of guest speakers in: Piers Komlosy of Purpose and Joy who graduated from this course last year. These are some questions I'd like to ask and the answers/notes:
Joy
- How did you find moving on to a top up year and how open were universities to letting you do it?
- What did you learn at Purpose and how valuable is that to have on your CV/Portfolio?
Notes - The facilities at Stockport are good although she's not had much chance to use them. The campus is quite large however the Art and Design faculty is on the other side of the campus away from the busy areas.
- Where is the best place that you've worked and why?
- What are you looking for in a Portfolio when your doing a crit/interview?
- In your first job, how did you find coping with deadlines - were you given special treatment?
Piers then gave a presentation about some of the work he and Purpose have done and after gave another presentation about how a piece of work for Virgin Atlantic went from concept to finished product. These are my notes:
I was then given the chance to speak to Piers about my soft drink work and get some feedback. It was quite interesting that we barely spoke about the graphic work I had to show but it was more about the brand positioning and what need the product is responding to. He certainly gave me some food for thought and made me see that the pixelated style is just that, a means of communicating and not the idea.
Overall I think today has been great for putting design into a context and coincidentally followed on from what Alex was saying recently for the Rose's brief that that an idea must communicate a brands core values. It's been a great opportunity for looking at a top design agency's work and being able to pick Piers' brain over a couple of things.
24/11/11
I've been working pretty hard today on my bottle wrappers, I've not really moved from the computer all day. I've completed the Mario themed wrapper and towards the end of the day started work on the Sonic one. The wrappers have been challenging because of the content that is required and that the drink is fictional. This means that I have to source content and create a fictional set of nutritional values etc. I've found it a bit tricky finding the balance between the amount of content needed to make it look real and the amount of content I can think of or find. Towards the end of the day I think I have roughly the right amount of content to make it look real. The first wrapper was always going to be the most difficult but it will be much easier when it comes to my the next one.
23/11/11
As we have Piers Komlosy from Purpose coming in to speak to us on Friday, today was spent carrying on with the Roses brief and also having a chat to any students who were looking at coming on to the course because it was Open Day. Despite students coming in and out I managed to complete the initial part of my research, covering things like: tree facts, other tree museums, target market moodboard etc. I'm now feeling a little more relaxed about the roses brief because the initial research would normally take longer than it has but because I've done a lot of work over the weekend and cleared most of it then. I'm now able to do some logo idea generation before Friday so that I have something to show in the morning.
I quite enjoyed being able to talk to prospective students and give them an insight into what the course is like and the software we use. A lot of them we're quite pleased that they were actually engaged by students rather than just given a lecture by a tutor. The student's word is a lot more powerful than the tutor's, if what the tutor says is then backed up by the students then it makes the course seem all the more alluring.
18/11/11
I'm beginning to gather momentum with both projects now. I've spent today giving a presentation on Industry Projects which is required for Unit 7, I've been emailing the course leader for Graphic Design at Stockport College, received an email back from Design By Music where I enquired about a placement and have been creating a concept and market research for the tree hugger brief.
My presentation went well, I missed out a couple of points which was a bit of a shame and would have probably altered one of my pieces of feedback which is that I didn't speak emotively enough. I also got more detailed feedback on the layout of my presentation which I quite enjoy getting because it allows me to show up the mistakes and then learn from it. I'm not a fan of producing multiple paged documents that carry certain themes so before the next one I intend to write a list of things to check. This should definitely help get rid of the majority of the errors and inconsistencies in that type of work.
My feedback - Speak with more enthusiasm about work that I have produced. Make contacts list into a more personal contacts list rather than a directory. Theme document properly, i.e. bolding, underlining, capital letters.
My feedback for others:
Lisa - Good research into universities and companies, detailed. Not enough companies researched into, no back ups if turned down from those.
Stuart - Fonts don't match/compliment and portrait instead of landscape. Knew about work of companies and universities but it wasn't shown. Good that he spoke about other things he would like to achieve such as MA and sign language.
Stephen - Portrait instead of landscape. Well designed presentation but an overall lack of information, information on the page wasn't explained properly or expanded upon.
Andy - Introduction was good and the work itself looked good. No information on universities and not much on companies either. Nerves calmed after the first couple of slides.
Liam - Knew about the courses he was interested in and shown. Had contacted students attending courses he was interested in. Used poor work from SMART rather than the work what was actually presented.
Olivia - Confidence and public speaking has definitely improved. Actually been out and got her self promotional work printed. The points on the right move up and down and there was a lot of spelling and grammar inconsistencies.
Tinashe - Information about Stockport college seemed unfinished. Own work should have been in presentation not separate. Well laid out.
From emailing the course leader at Stockport College it seems that getting onto the third year of their BA shouldn't be a problem. She had a look through the work I have on Tumblr and said that there shouldn't be a problem with being accepted to the course if I apply - considering you're not allowed to tell a student on the day of the interview whether they'll be made an offer or not I find this to be a little suspicious but it's working to my advantage.
Craig from Design by Music emailed me back this morning after I enquired about a placement there saying that I can send him a PDF of my portfolio which is good news. I've sent out 5 emails so far and this is the first to email me back so its given me a bit of a boost.
The tree hugger brief is now a lot clearer than it was. When we originally got the brief it was quite open to interpretation but I've now created a concept for the museum and what it will offer. This information then allows me to develop ideas around it that are suitable and specific to the museum I have in mind. So I now feel much more comfortable with that project.
17/11/11
Today I've been able to complete my bottle design on Cinema 4D. In my spare time since last week I've been getting used to the software and completing tutorials to help me get used to the tools and methods of creating my bottle. It's turned out that 3rd time was lucky and is definitely my best attempt, there are a couple of additional features that can be added but they will be done later in the project.
I've also been doing wraps for the bottle itself - beginning with some sketches to then do a quick mock up of how it would look. Due to the nature of the design I wanted to make sure that it would look as good as it does in my head and not like a cheap rip off. I'm now aiming to have one or two of the wrappers nearly complete by next friday as Piers Komlosy (Senior Designer at Purpose where the winner will get a placement) will be coming in and it's definitely something he'll be interested in.
11/11/11
Today was spent taking a step back from our current briefs, understandings what our briefs had to offer and using artistic approaches to express our findings. So in today's lesson I've been mindmapping what the tree museum has to offer and then using different approaches to find themes etc. So I've taken some rubbings of leaves which show up the veins in them really well and made swatches from photographs of the environment around college, I then did the same thing for seasonal pictures. Over the next week I'm going to try and make a collage out of leaves and also take a picture of a tree as they are now (without leaves) and draw in the negative space to see what shapes come out of it. I think this exercise is really good for opening peoples minds because it makes you ask the question "What if I do this?" and experiment more. The work I'm doing can then be taken directly into my response for the brief or use the same approach for this or another brief.
10/11/11
This morning we did a typography exercise with Paulo. It was meant to last until lunch but I got a bit carried away and finished my lowercase just after. The reason being was because I wanted to take extra care in doing it so that I would be able to use the sketches to make the typeface in illustrator and then fontlab. This is then something that could be used if I chose to participate in the D&AD awards for the typography brief.
In the afternoon I started to look at designs for the bottle and start to consider other routes for promotional material. I want the bottle to be pixelated and have no curves and have drawn a bottle out on illustrator which is what I'm after, but I'm now thinking about using a program like Cinema 4D to create a realistic bottle that can be used to mock up my design. Need to do more research on it!
9/11/11
Today I looked more in depth at things that needed to go into my action plan. Initially I just considered the points I'd made on my SWOT, but today allowed me to consider things I'd like to learn such as setting up documents for certain printing techniques etc. This brought about a good idea that can be added to my creative commentary which is to create a folder full of printed ephemera which I can then look at in more detail. Then I can work out how certain effects have been created or how they've been set up for print.
4/11/11
I'm now decided on a brief to do for the awards part of unit 7. I've decided to do the Tree hugger brief for the Roses student awards. The Wythenshawe campus project really didn't seem to be my cup of tea and the tree hugger brief seems to be one of the most interesting Roses briefs. Although a museum of trees does sound incredibly boring it has a lot of scope for creativity and variety in its deliverables. After choosing this brief I took a look at some recent rebranding of similar institutions: The Imperial War Museum, Chester Zoo, The New Museum, V&A etc. All the work that I've been looking at is very inspiring as its normally creating a completely new visual language for the museum/gallery which I find very interesting.
We also had a guest speaker in today called Mark Brown who is a freelance Graphic Designer and Illustrator. These are my notes:
It's always interesting when a guest speaker comes in as it allows us to get hands on with the work and hear about the creative process and learn a little about the client. Mark's design work was really interesting as he did a lot of things to do with the music industry which I find interesting. The work for Fat Northerner records was really good, specifically for SuperCity which had a really interesting CD inlay and the layout, colour scheme and typeface all complimented each other really well.
3/11/11
Today has been a very productive day and the soft drinks brief really feels like its picking up momentum. I spent the whole day mocking up my logo ideas onto illustrator and developing as I went. After a couple of hours I'm pretty set on one of the logo's although there is a little more room for development. I also spent time looking at old games and other gaming related things such as Pixels, Thorildsplan train station and French artist Space Invader. This wasn't directly relevant to the logo development (it did help) but it will stand me in good stead when it comes to producing packaging, advertising and promo stuff.
2/11/11
Today we were expecting a group of Level 3 graphic design students from Northendon campus to come in so that they could look at the course and we would speak to them about our work and experiences. However they didn't turn up so I've been able to finish a third draft of my personal statement and also produce an action plan which is now on my personal blog. I wrote the actions on my SWOT almost a month ago so it was good to see that a month on I'm progressing well, possibly even doing more than I wrote initially. In reflection I'm happy with the progress that I'm making as it seems I'm doing above and beyond what I initially set out to do.
30/10/11
Before the creative commentary and semester diary that I keep on Blogger, I used to keep an activity log. The activity log was very much a mix of what my semester diary and creative commentary are now. It contains my thoughts and reflections on my own work, gallery exhibitions etc. I kept this log from 12/11/10 - 18/10/11 and updated it whenever I could, roughly twice a week.
28/10/11
Today we started taking a look at the briefs for the Roses and also a live brief to launch Wythenshawe campus. I was also able to make a proper start on my industry contacts presentation.
After looking at the Roses briefs there are two that have taken my interest, possibly even three, but I need to wait until next week to make up my mind on which brief to tackle. One of the members of the principalship will be coming in to talk to us about the Wythenshawe campus advertising project.
My industry contacts presentation has now progressed from a plan and I've pretty much set out the majority of the pages and know what has to go in each. It's now just a matter of filling them in.
27/10/11
Today we did a short rebranding exercise of an existing company and then began work on our own logo designs, this was split by a presentation by the BA Creative media and visual communications tutor. The rebranding exercise was tough this morning, it took a good 30 minutes to clear out what the existing logo looks like and then you can properly generate ideas. I was happy with my two ourcomes however I would have liked to explore a bit more, looking at integrating symbols into my design to see what it would have looked like.
The BA top up that TMC offers doesn't really look like something I'd be interested in. We don't have the facilities at TMC, we have new iMac's but we don't have enough printing facilities to keep me interested.
I found my own logo design difficult. The name of my soft drink, 8 Bit, doesn't really have much scope for interpretation. There's quite an obvious visual language that accompanies it and its difficult to reach beyond that. Over the weekend it will be something I'll keep in mind and hope that when I'm more relaxed and not as focused on the job my creativity will flow more.
26/10/11
We've now started the UCAS process again, the endless form filling and university research has begun once more. I didn't enjoy doing UCAS the first time around but unfortunately if I want to continue in HE then I don't have much choice. Today I've simply registered and over the weekend I'll start filling my details in when I have all my qualifications to hand.
I also got feedback on my personal statement today with the basic line of I'm not selling myself well enough and not bragging about my achievements and what I have to offer. So I'll now be working on a second draft of my personal statement where I'll be trying to concentrate on my achievements.
I also sent out my new look portfolio for the first time today. I emailed Dinosaur Creative to see if they have any placement opportunities. I'm going to go for the places that have specific email addresses at the moment because I'm still working on an additional creative piece to send alongside my portfolio which I'll be sending to the companies that I have to enquire with.
21/10/11
Today in college, as only two of us turned up, I had the chance to research potential companies that I'd like to to placements with. I was also able to have a critique session with my tutor about my portfolio.
After my research into companies I've now been able to narrow down the previously long list of companies I'm interested in. My research allowed my to look more in depth at the companies - finding contacts, looking at the companies structure and areas of specialism. I also learnt that storming in with an email with your portfolio attached and asking for a placement isn't always the best thing to do, finding out details for the person who will be looking at your portfolio and sending an initial taster of work is a good method.
Because of the lack of people that came into college today, I got to have a chat to Alex about my portfolio and ways of improving it. I had a look at his brothers folio and also a guy who was in the year above me, this allowed me to see the value of the text I use and how this plays a supporting role. It was good to be able to have a proper critique about it because it was more detailed than a simple feedback sheet or just a short chat about ways of improving it.
12/10/11
Today we were looking at how to price a job. Simply, there is no right or wrong way of pricing a job but there are different ways of doing it. A couple of different methods are that you can charge a fixed price for each service E.g. £150 for a poster, £80 for a flyer. You can charge using an hourly rate similar to most part time jobs, and you can charge different prices depending on whether you handle the printing or not.
24/11/11
I've been working pretty hard today on my bottle wrappers, I've not really moved from the computer all day. I've completed the Mario themed wrapper and towards the end of the day started work on the Sonic one. The wrappers have been challenging because of the content that is required and that the drink is fictional. This means that I have to source content and create a fictional set of nutritional values etc. I've found it a bit tricky finding the balance between the amount of content needed to make it look real and the amount of content I can think of or find. Towards the end of the day I think I have roughly the right amount of content to make it look real. The first wrapper was always going to be the most difficult but it will be much easier when it comes to my the next one.
23/11/11
As we have Piers Komlosy from Purpose coming in to speak to us on Friday, today was spent carrying on with the Roses brief and also having a chat to any students who were looking at coming on to the course because it was Open Day. Despite students coming in and out I managed to complete the initial part of my research, covering things like: tree facts, other tree museums, target market moodboard etc. I'm now feeling a little more relaxed about the roses brief because the initial research would normally take longer than it has but because I've done a lot of work over the weekend and cleared most of it then. I'm now able to do some logo idea generation before Friday so that I have something to show in the morning.
I quite enjoyed being able to talk to prospective students and give them an insight into what the course is like and the software we use. A lot of them we're quite pleased that they were actually engaged by students rather than just given a lecture by a tutor. The student's word is a lot more powerful than the tutor's, if what the tutor says is then backed up by the students then it makes the course seem all the more alluring.
18/11/11
I'm beginning to gather momentum with both projects now. I've spent today giving a presentation on Industry Projects which is required for Unit 7, I've been emailing the course leader for Graphic Design at Stockport College, received an email back from Design By Music where I enquired about a placement and have been creating a concept and market research for the tree hugger brief.
My presentation went well, I missed out a couple of points which was a bit of a shame and would have probably altered one of my pieces of feedback which is that I didn't speak emotively enough. I also got more detailed feedback on the layout of my presentation which I quite enjoy getting because it allows me to show up the mistakes and then learn from it. I'm not a fan of producing multiple paged documents that carry certain themes so before the next one I intend to write a list of things to check. This should definitely help get rid of the majority of the errors and inconsistencies in that type of work.
My feedback - Speak with more enthusiasm about work that I have produced. Make contacts list into a more personal contacts list rather than a directory. Theme document properly, i.e. bolding, underlining, capital letters.
My feedback for others:
Lisa - Good research into universities and companies, detailed. Not enough companies researched into, no back ups if turned down from those.
Stuart - Fonts don't match/compliment and portrait instead of landscape. Knew about work of companies and universities but it wasn't shown. Good that he spoke about other things he would like to achieve such as MA and sign language.
Stephen - Portrait instead of landscape. Well designed presentation but an overall lack of information, information on the page wasn't explained properly or expanded upon.
Andy - Introduction was good and the work itself looked good. No information on universities and not much on companies either. Nerves calmed after the first couple of slides.
Liam - Knew about the courses he was interested in and shown. Had contacted students attending courses he was interested in. Used poor work from SMART rather than the work what was actually presented.
Olivia - Confidence and public speaking has definitely improved. Actually been out and got her self promotional work printed. The points on the right move up and down and there was a lot of spelling and grammar inconsistencies.
Tinashe - Information about Stockport college seemed unfinished. Own work should have been in presentation not separate. Well laid out.
From emailing the course leader at Stockport College it seems that getting onto the third year of their BA shouldn't be a problem. She had a look through the work I have on Tumblr and said that there shouldn't be a problem with being accepted to the course if I apply - considering you're not allowed to tell a student on the day of the interview whether they'll be made an offer or not I find this to be a little suspicious but it's working to my advantage.
Craig from Design by Music emailed me back this morning after I enquired about a placement there saying that I can send him a PDF of my portfolio which is good news. I've sent out 5 emails so far and this is the first to email me back so its given me a bit of a boost.
The tree hugger brief is now a lot clearer than it was. When we originally got the brief it was quite open to interpretation but I've now created a concept for the museum and what it will offer. This information then allows me to develop ideas around it that are suitable and specific to the museum I have in mind. So I now feel much more comfortable with that project.
17/11/11
Today I've been able to complete my bottle design on Cinema 4D. In my spare time since last week I've been getting used to the software and completing tutorials to help me get used to the tools and methods of creating my bottle. It's turned out that 3rd time was lucky and is definitely my best attempt, there are a couple of additional features that can be added but they will be done later in the project.
I've also been doing wraps for the bottle itself - beginning with some sketches to then do a quick mock up of how it would look. Due to the nature of the design I wanted to make sure that it would look as good as it does in my head and not like a cheap rip off. I'm now aiming to have one or two of the wrappers nearly complete by next friday as Piers Komlosy (Senior Designer at Purpose where the winner will get a placement) will be coming in and it's definitely something he'll be interested in.
11/11/11
Today was spent taking a step back from our current briefs, understandings what our briefs had to offer and using artistic approaches to express our findings. So in today's lesson I've been mindmapping what the tree museum has to offer and then using different approaches to find themes etc. So I've taken some rubbings of leaves which show up the veins in them really well and made swatches from photographs of the environment around college, I then did the same thing for seasonal pictures. Over the next week I'm going to try and make a collage out of leaves and also take a picture of a tree as they are now (without leaves) and draw in the negative space to see what shapes come out of it. I think this exercise is really good for opening peoples minds because it makes you ask the question "What if I do this?" and experiment more. The work I'm doing can then be taken directly into my response for the brief or use the same approach for this or another brief.
10/11/11
This morning we did a typography exercise with Paulo. It was meant to last until lunch but I got a bit carried away and finished my lowercase just after. The reason being was because I wanted to take extra care in doing it so that I would be able to use the sketches to make the typeface in illustrator and then fontlab. This is then something that could be used if I chose to participate in the D&AD awards for the typography brief.
In the afternoon I started to look at designs for the bottle and start to consider other routes for promotional material. I want the bottle to be pixelated and have no curves and have drawn a bottle out on illustrator which is what I'm after, but I'm now thinking about using a program like Cinema 4D to create a realistic bottle that can be used to mock up my design. Need to do more research on it!
9/11/11
Today I looked more in depth at things that needed to go into my action plan. Initially I just considered the points I'd made on my SWOT, but today allowed me to consider things I'd like to learn such as setting up documents for certain printing techniques etc. This brought about a good idea that can be added to my creative commentary which is to create a folder full of printed ephemera which I can then look at in more detail. Then I can work out how certain effects have been created or how they've been set up for print.
4/11/11
I'm now decided on a brief to do for the awards part of unit 7. I've decided to do the Tree hugger brief for the Roses student awards. The Wythenshawe campus project really didn't seem to be my cup of tea and the tree hugger brief seems to be one of the most interesting Roses briefs. Although a museum of trees does sound incredibly boring it has a lot of scope for creativity and variety in its deliverables. After choosing this brief I took a look at some recent rebranding of similar institutions: The Imperial War Museum, Chester Zoo, The New Museum, V&A etc. All the work that I've been looking at is very inspiring as its normally creating a completely new visual language for the museum/gallery which I find very interesting.
We also had a guest speaker in today called Mark Brown who is a freelance Graphic Designer and Illustrator. These are my notes:
It's always interesting when a guest speaker comes in as it allows us to get hands on with the work and hear about the creative process and learn a little about the client. Mark's design work was really interesting as he did a lot of things to do with the music industry which I find interesting. The work for Fat Northerner records was really good, specifically for SuperCity which had a really interesting CD inlay and the layout, colour scheme and typeface all complimented each other really well.
3/11/11
Today has been a very productive day and the soft drinks brief really feels like its picking up momentum. I spent the whole day mocking up my logo ideas onto illustrator and developing as I went. After a couple of hours I'm pretty set on one of the logo's although there is a little more room for development. I also spent time looking at old games and other gaming related things such as Pixels, Thorildsplan train station and French artist Space Invader. This wasn't directly relevant to the logo development (it did help) but it will stand me in good stead when it comes to producing packaging, advertising and promo stuff.
2/11/11
Today we were expecting a group of Level 3 graphic design students from Northendon campus to come in so that they could look at the course and we would speak to them about our work and experiences. However they didn't turn up so I've been able to finish a third draft of my personal statement and also produce an action plan which is now on my personal blog. I wrote the actions on my SWOT almost a month ago so it was good to see that a month on I'm progressing well, possibly even doing more than I wrote initially. In reflection I'm happy with the progress that I'm making as it seems I'm doing above and beyond what I initially set out to do.
30/10/11
Before the creative commentary and semester diary that I keep on Blogger, I used to keep an activity log. The activity log was very much a mix of what my semester diary and creative commentary are now. It contains my thoughts and reflections on my own work, gallery exhibitions etc. I kept this log from 12/11/10 - 18/10/11 and updated it whenever I could, roughly twice a week.
28/10/11
Today we started taking a look at the briefs for the Roses and also a live brief to launch Wythenshawe campus. I was also able to make a proper start on my industry contacts presentation.
After looking at the Roses briefs there are two that have taken my interest, possibly even three, but I need to wait until next week to make up my mind on which brief to tackle. One of the members of the principalship will be coming in to talk to us about the Wythenshawe campus advertising project.
My industry contacts presentation has now progressed from a plan and I've pretty much set out the majority of the pages and know what has to go in each. It's now just a matter of filling them in.
27/10/11
Today we did a short rebranding exercise of an existing company and then began work on our own logo designs, this was split by a presentation by the BA Creative media and visual communications tutor. The rebranding exercise was tough this morning, it took a good 30 minutes to clear out what the existing logo looks like and then you can properly generate ideas. I was happy with my two ourcomes however I would have liked to explore a bit more, looking at integrating symbols into my design to see what it would have looked like.
The BA top up that TMC offers doesn't really look like something I'd be interested in. We don't have the facilities at TMC, we have new iMac's but we don't have enough printing facilities to keep me interested.
I found my own logo design difficult. The name of my soft drink, 8 Bit, doesn't really have much scope for interpretation. There's quite an obvious visual language that accompanies it and its difficult to reach beyond that. Over the weekend it will be something I'll keep in mind and hope that when I'm more relaxed and not as focused on the job my creativity will flow more.
26/10/11
We've now started the UCAS process again, the endless form filling and university research has begun once more. I didn't enjoy doing UCAS the first time around but unfortunately if I want to continue in HE then I don't have much choice. Today I've simply registered and over the weekend I'll start filling my details in when I have all my qualifications to hand.
I also got feedback on my personal statement today with the basic line of I'm not selling myself well enough and not bragging about my achievements and what I have to offer. So I'll now be working on a second draft of my personal statement where I'll be trying to concentrate on my achievements.
I also sent out my new look portfolio for the first time today. I emailed Dinosaur Creative to see if they have any placement opportunities. I'm going to go for the places that have specific email addresses at the moment because I'm still working on an additional creative piece to send alongside my portfolio which I'll be sending to the companies that I have to enquire with.
21/10/11
Today in college, as only two of us turned up, I had the chance to research potential companies that I'd like to to placements with. I was also able to have a critique session with my tutor about my portfolio.
After my research into companies I've now been able to narrow down the previously long list of companies I'm interested in. My research allowed my to look more in depth at the companies - finding contacts, looking at the companies structure and areas of specialism. I also learnt that storming in with an email with your portfolio attached and asking for a placement isn't always the best thing to do, finding out details for the person who will be looking at your portfolio and sending an initial taster of work is a good method.
Because of the lack of people that came into college today, I got to have a chat to Alex about my portfolio and ways of improving it. I had a look at his brothers folio and also a guy who was in the year above me, this allowed me to see the value of the text I use and how this plays a supporting role. It was good to be able to have a proper critique about it because it was more detailed than a simple feedback sheet or just a short chat about ways of improving it.
12/10/11
Today we were looking at how to price a job. Simply, there is no right or wrong way of pricing a job but there are different ways of doing it. A couple of different methods are that you can charge a fixed price for each service E.g. £150 for a poster, £80 for a flyer. You can charge using an hourly rate similar to most part time jobs, and you can charge different prices depending on whether you handle the printing or not.
During our class we discussed different ways of pricing and researched the topic to see if there are any other methods being used. The best explanation of how to price a job came from designer David Airey's website (shown above), it presents the various factors that influence the price in a very simple form.
After looking at how to price a job, we looked at how we would audit the process if we were working on an hourly rate. To do this we split up the process and then assigned each part a number of hours that we thought it would need to be completed. Then we could total the number of hours and multiply by the hourly rate to give a price. I then decided to do this in excel so that if I'm ever asked to do freelance work, I can change the number of hours in the process and give the client an estimate.
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