Seasons Characters

Typogateaux 09, unfortunately I didn't win but I sure ate a lot of cake. My entry was the 'Typo-tree', if you could guess the typeface you could take the cake.

Enterprise & Innovation: Statements

Proposed Proposition Statements:

10 Statements that identify your ‘positioning’ as a Graphic Designer

1. As a person I pursue the idea to sell, and seek to produce for a consumer society and the idea of buying into a brand.

2. I have a keen interest in craft & attention to detail, through my application of typography and layout design, and have a personal appreciation of tactile graphic design.

3. Having grown up within a consumer society I have both a personal and professional interest in retail graphics and designing for retail.

4. Identity design comes in partnership with design for retail to which I feel I have a strong sense for building brands that meet consumer needs.

5. As a person I am inclined to operate locally but with a higher demand in capitals especially for fashion, operating nationally with a large retail sector in london, or internationally, would be something to consider.

6. Through personal selling by use of business cards and visitation, a potential use of internet by means of a continually updated blog and current website and also selling through public relations using reference of my blog again aswell as getting involved in local projects such as selling products and offering my services given my area of retail graphics as an interest.

7. I would like to work as part of a design team to gain useful knowledge and contacts to later become freelance and seek to set up own professional practice in selling printed media and brand myself an identity.

8. Design groups such as that of Gratterpalm are inspiring who's ideas are solely about creating graphics for the retail sector and boosting sales, working with a variety of international and unlike that of gratterpalm produce promotion for local retailers. The design Group attik also seeks to offer graphics for a consumer society who's practice in design is much more ethically and socially driven.

9. I feel I keep up-to date with trends using magazines such a Viewpoint to seek the new, the principle of 'turnover' in retail. This can be a huge benefit when it comes to determining footfall and patterns of customer behavior.

10. As a part of my on going development I intend to produce not only a portfolio, but engage with design in general by getting myself involved and as recently i have begun taking initiative to sell product in local spots and visiting galleries.

Something on the Side.

Ian Prentice and Tim Wan I think have truly captured christmas in the studio with a pack of festive postcards they have printed, designed by several of us in the studio and organised and screen printed by Tim and Ian. They look lovely and will be available for purchase this sunday and the Brudenell craft fair. Look, Mines there.

Module Evaluation

OUGD201: Design Production for Print

Module Evaluation

1. Your ability to select, develop and evaluate a range of appropriate source material gathered through a breadth of appropriate research methods.
Initially breaking the subject matter of the "What is Good?" project I managed really well and through my initial pieces of investigation research I actually changed the subject of eavesdropping to overhearing based on the facts I obtained in researching. The material that I selected especially for the research could have been better in terms of its quantity, although the subject matter of the "What is Good?" project seemed limited in its content, after working on the project I think there were so many other directions in which I could have gone with the project, I only really exhausted obvious points of research and was less spontaneous early on.Throughout the development stages I used a lot of designers and and references to pull the concept together, looking at illustrators to brand identity design to influence and gain knowledge of what it is I wanted to achieve. I also completed one survey throughout the project, here I think I could have done more and unfortunately with the time constraints I have not had time to bring my resolutions to the client because of their availability, but I intend to show them what I have achieved at a later date, for the useful experience.
2. The level of investigation and experimentation into appropriate production media, processes and technologies.
The outcome for the "What is Good?" project was a branding, this branding could be seen on articles which you would normally find in a coffee house , I ended up producing a new menu design, business card, window vinyls and a mock-up coffee cup holder. influenced a lot by that idea of professional practice, the final outcome made use of various print processes which was part of the aim of the module and I practiced a lot of screen printing and finishes as well as digital printing to printed media and I also used a laser cutter to create crafted details and looking at how to emboss.
For the development in the production of the 16 Page Publication on print, a lot of the sources were secondary with the exception of workshops in Indesign and Photoshop, other than this I was looking at referencing useful books which I think I could have gone further with looking at printing in professional practice as not all facilities to print are available to me at the college, such as offset-lithography and flexography processes.
3. The breadth and quality of practical skills, ideas and development.
Looking at expanding my use of mediums and such I think I definitely tested, using screen printing and digital printing to create some interesting pieces which made use of various print processes. I think I could have gone further however with my design development and concept development, because I felt the subject of overhearing physically limited I limited myself in a way as to what I could do to package it. Having last year often used sketch books and such to document my ideas I went for sheets, it helped dramatically when presenting my ideas and I found the bigger the better. I would like to consider using bigger sheets as this often inspired me more than a daunting blank sketchpad of ideas.
4. The documentation, organisation and presentation of the work for this module.
I do not think that the work that submitted in digital form truly represented to what extent I researched and how much I really got involved with especially the "What is Good?" project. Maybe because I didn't document everything digitally where I used the blog to update my findings and such verbally as oppose to placing in images of the physical work that i was collecting. In terms however of my organisational skills, they have vastly improved. Using not only the google calendar but arranging my time using my personal diary and trying to use my time effectively, more so than I ever have done the previous year. In a similar sense I have also been taking pictures and properly documenting my work and what I have been doing not only n the course but I have also been doing creative things and even visit exhibitions more than before as well as organising times to print work and use facilities properly, and I think because of this I have been much more critically aware of the creative practice in general.
5. The success of your final products in relation to the briefs.
Mainly through sheer determination and the talks on professional practice I have stepped up to creating work that is better and quality and more importantly I see it through from the start to the finished product. For the branding created for the "What is Good?" project, it was very conceptual as to whether or not the product would work, but the concept allowed me to explore print based media not just as how it comes out of a machine but creating effects after digitally printing the product and knowing the knowledge I have now of the subject, I feel I could have done more, maybe created something which is more tactile and a physical product as oppose to a branding. But this project allowed me to see the bigger picture of design, by simply asking a local cafe business to help support what I was trying to do the idea of professional practice and working for someone seemed to make my final ideas more feasible.
The 16 page booklet however I felt didn't meet the expectations of what I had in mind of it achieving, the book although takes into account lots of the printing processes and such used I felt that I didn't really learn anything that was new, using only secondary sources for research I felt the information I was obtaining and documenting seemed to be simply copying existing knowledge. For the book I wanted it to use things that I had learnt in the workshops and be less of a copied, churned out book that is a miniature version of The Production Manual.

5 Things I will do differently next time and comments

1. Look for more primary sources of research and consider contacting/visiting professional practices in relation for research.
2. When developing ideas be more experimental, consider using a larger pieces of paper or illustrating concepts out bigger or straight away, and use more mock-ups.
3. Take time out to reflect and re-evaluate before committing to a concept, there could be another more successful direction to go in.
4. When presenting concept try to deliver in an orgainsed manner such as starting from the beginning or the end instead of making references to points or different times.
5. Look less at what other people are working on around me as a distraction from what I am working on and be confident on the concepts I am trying to achieve.

Me & My Work

For the second session on PPD I had to start looking at constructing a CV and for the tutors I also had to bring with me 5 images that show what I like as a designer so they could get to grips and get to know us a bit. I really enjoyed the session, I described my work and I told how I was interested, especially through the current brief about retail graphics and advertising, looking especially at visual merchandising because have worked within retail for a long time and design of visuals and branding is especially important to driving sales. Jane gave me some useful contacts, I had already started to look at retail graphic agencies in Leeds, such as Gratterpalm who have worked with where I work in the past, and encouraged me to look beyond in terms of location. There is no reason why I can't travel, I have a driving licence and some financial backing, I should look more at retail capitals such as London where most international retailers have their head-quarters and their flag-ship stores.

As for my work I chose several pieces which shows diversity and print, illustration, research and print. These examples can be found on my previous blog account, the above images are part of the resolutions for the current brief I am working on, looking at the branding of a coffee house these are examples of the window visuals.

[above]: Examples of various prints I produced during my elective on manual print production. I loved working on this module, I like illustrating as a whole, but the module allowed me to produce some work that was very physical and tactile.

[above]: For a brief "No News is Good News", looking initially at a newspaper article I developed a mail-shot in response to the issue of public transport. The mail shot was intended to be delivered to transport authorities and provoke awareness of costs and such of transport, and playing on the idea "How would you like to see transport?" the pack comprised of cut-outs of a train fare protest scene.

[above]: This part of a brief at first was mainly to do with collection of research. Looking at the mundane subject of dust, I mapped out a room taking 100 swatches of dust throughout and displaying the results. The map was able to show various pieces of information such as the high and low concentrations and where there was least dust and where there was the most. I thought it was interesting how I had turned something that would make someones stomach turn into something that was aesthetically pleasing.

[below]: A brief that was set early in the year looking at "What is Yellow?" My interpretation was a series of illustrations involving a canary as a means to illustrate the features of yellow such as strong, safe, bright etc.

Group Tutorial Preparation

What is professional/industrial experience?

From my understanding of professional experience it is about obtaining information about existing practices that inform and aid your knowledge and understanding of a practice that you intend on entering. (In one sentence)

Why is professional/industrial experience important as part of PPD?

1. Experience is an accurate way of making an understanding of something you may not know about properly.
2. Experience can build up a foundation of knowledge on how to operate within a business, time-keeping, how much to charge, how to keep professional contact with clients, etc.
3. Most employers seek people with experience, as they can faster adapt to the needs of the business.
4. Industrial experience builds up a contact list and references which may become useful.

5. It develops your understanding of creative industries and what kind of people are required, which can be something to aim for as an successful sought-after employee.

How do you gain professional/industrial experience and what form does it take?

1. The work experience program, most industries offer work experience or sorts but can be unreliable and hard to obtain.

2. Creating networks and contact-lists through phone/emails.

3. A portfolio, creative industries require physical examples of the work you produce, this can be used as a reference point for any whom may be interested in what you practice.

4. Competitions can give you a fresh challenge. Maybe not the most realistic example of industrial/professional experience but often with a deadline and brief they operate in the same way with a designer and client.

5. Self promotion. Being an active designer, creating blogs and looking for jobs anywhere possible, whether it just be a leaflet for the local junior sports team.

What should you aim to gain from professional/industrial experience?

1. Information is what you would be looking for.

2. The information you may gather about the practice maybe useful as an informant for creating your own similar practice from looking at how they operate with their clients from first contact to finish. Information such as, who are their clients, how much they charge, time-span from first meeting to finished product, who do they employ, why their roles are important & what each employee contribute to a successful practice.

3. This information you may choose to take on, adapt or ignore but it should help define what you want from your practice.

4. The experience should increase your contact list and future references.

Hopefully some of the information I have outlined here will help me in the tutorial next week, currently I feel I have had a lack of any professionally driven work, things I hope could change this year.