Sunday 31 October 2010



The Grid: Trainers Network

Who said training can't be fun? One of the first briefs I looked at was for a Joanne who runs a company which started off at The Grid, Red Elephant. As a well established sales training company she is looking to expand into the world of training by creating a new network for people and companies whom are in the training sector. My challenge was to create an identity for this new network. Using the bits and pieces of information I gathered and from talking to her I set out trying to create a simple identity that was not too far from her existing identity for Red Elephant, but after looking at the visuals from her current company I felt that they could have been better.


I started sketching a few ideas and moved quickly into illustrator to work with some type. Personally I liked the idea of keeping it simple, for something that was designed for people to use easily with clear visuals would be very important.


As inspiration I sought out typographyserved.com for inspiration on letterforms construction I particularly liked these I found, simple typography that was justified by slight adjustments in shape from it's basic font.


I came up with a logo design that was simple and versatile and proposed a number of different ways of presenting the logo using a mix and match profile. One of the hardest things i tried to get across was this idea of keep it simple, but it was almost insisted that i use all versions of the logo in the same space, I seriously think this would over complicate it. Overall i am pleased what I came up with, it still has a long way to go, I further proposed the logo onto a letterhead and website design.



Testing the initial ideas [Above], [Below] the final idea of what the logo could look like.

Thursday 28 October 2010

Work Experience at The Grid* for Glue Marketing

Having done a few piece of work now for Glue Marketing I thought it would be appropriate to ask for some formal work experience. I gave Ollie an email and he said there should be no problem and would recommend it but it would obviously be decided by Jon, after speaking to him he assured me he would be delighted but because of the projects thay are working on at the minute it would be best to keep them secret for the minute.


But Jon said he would be delighted for me to come down and visit their branch at The Grid in Bradford to do some work there. So I jumped at the chance and it really paid off, starting the morning early at 6:00 to be there extra early for work, boy was I tired later on.
The Grid is a centre for small businesses around the local area whom are in need of a small space of which they can setup their businesses with offices and facilities readily available at small cost. The businesses greatly vary and so their provides and excellent environment for discussion and socialising. I was introduced to a variety of people all of whom were really nice and enthusiastic about me being there which was lovely and everyone seemed right on my level.
Because I was coming on specially today as well Jon had put up a post on the Grid forum [Above] to say that I was coming in and would be offering my design services. As soon as I came in I was offered some work to do more of which i will talk about soon but for the minute I had my own desk and served homemade ginger biscuits with tea thats to Ollie. I have to mention as well how damn smart I actually looked for work, yeah I even showed Ollie up.

Sunday 3 October 2010

Website now Live


Not that there's anything on it yet but I thought I would post this up anyway, my website is now live carlholderness.co.uk. Only took me about 5 hours and finally realising that files must be uploaded as .jpg instead of .jpeg. Its a work in progress with more to come.