Together trust

This is an agency that I visited this time last year with my portfolio. This year they were looking for volunteers to do placements so I filled out an application form and sent it off. I heard back straight away and Helen Bee who is the design and print co-coordinator of the company asked me to come in for an interview and to bring my portfolio along with me. I felt that it would be good to get her opinion on what she would think of my portfolio now to what it was like a year ago.
Again I felt more nervous on this visit than I did when I went to Absolute Media. Especially as its an interview and apart this one I have only ever had one other interview in my life so I was very anxious.
The interview started with the question 'What would I get out of volunteering at together trust' I said the experience, as I have never been on a design placement before. I thought it would be good to get a feel of what it would be like working in a office. Then I talked through my portfolio and she discussed with me what worked she had to offer based on the work that I had in my portfolio.
The feedback I was given was a mixture of good and bad. This time I felt the visit didn't go as well as I thought it could of. Helen said I had some good work, she was really impressed with the Body Shop work I did with Stacey but she felt I could have made more of the project in my portfolio (spreading it over 3-4 pages), which I intend to do before I finish the course. Also as a packaging brief I should have taken a picture of each product at different angles because that is what any designer would what to see. Helen also liked some of my poster designs and layouts. She said to me that I should sell my work better. To be honest I agree with her I felt so nervous and I let it get the better of me. I think I did explain my work, but I could of explained it better and clearer. Even though I felt the visit didn't go to well I still appreciated all the advice she gave me. She interviews quite a few people so she knows what she is talking about. I will take this advice on board and this will help me with future visits.
Overall the process of getting in contact with agencies has been quite difficult. I contacted so many agencies some didn't get back to me some asked me to send a pdf. They just didn't seem to have the time for me to go and visit them.
My plan for before May 13th was to get at least six visits, and I didn't reach the target which I'm disappointed with. I still intend to keep trying after I leave I'm going to be persistent with agencies. Getting in contacting with absolute media was really good but when I was sort of arranging times to meet with them a few of my emails got missed by them so I rang up and they were happy and i arranged the visit over the phone. So i feel its good to be persistent, not to just leave it at an email, because in the past that is what I would have done and if they hadn't got back to to me I would have just left it. Again this is all about my confidence if I would have been asked in the first year of the course to ring up several agencies I would have struggled or I would have put it off. So I think my confidence has grown to some extent.

Absolute Media

On the 21st April 2011 I went down to Absolute Media which in Bolton. I had a chat with Chris Hodgeon I talked him through my portfolio. He thought that I had some good work in my portfolio, he particularly liked the Body Shop work me and Stacey had done. As my portfolio is more typography based he passed me on to Wayne who is very into his typography. I briefly talked him through my portfolio and he gave me some really good advice on my work. He told me to think of different ways to execute my work e.g taking pictures (photography) make mock ups of for the Body Shop packaging. He liked some of the posters I did for The Language Show project I'm currently doing he said that he really liked the English poster I did for culture. He said even though the type is placed in different directions you can still understand what it is saying. He told me to look at designer Wim Crouwel for inspiration. He also told me that when I get a typography briefs in the future, it doesn't just have to be about type, images and pictures can be a major part in them. At the end of the visit I told Wayne what I was planning to do after I finish I mentioned doing a Master's degree because I felt that I still wanted to learn more about about graphic design and told me that you would learn more doing a placement for a few months than doing a master for a year.The reason being when doing a placement you get the feel of what it will be like working in the industry and will be working closely with other designers.
Before this visit I was very nervous about going seen as I hadn't visited a design agency in a while. If I'm honest I did sort of put off contacting agencies for a while, because I felt my work wasn't as complete as I wanted it to be. I also feared that designers would say that it isn't strong enough, especially as I'm coming to the end of my degree. The work in my portfolio will be the work that gets me a job.
I think this visit was quite successful I think I got good and bad feedback. More good than bad which I was pleased with. I appreciate the bad feedback because it will help me improve my work and make me stand out from the crowd. I feel this visit has given me more confidence in my work. What I also liked about this visit was that both Chris and Wayne were both honest about what they thought of my work which again I appreciated.

?????

Trying to find a third portfolio visit this year was a nightmare. I contacted many agencies in Berlin and in Manchester and only managed to get two visits. Not only is it frustrating when agencies don't respond to your emails, it knocks my confidence as well. I felt like I had tried so hard trying to get in contacting them, I did a back up emails for some of the agencies who didn't get back to me the first time round, but I still didn't hear anything from them. I was so adamant that I would have done all my portfolio visits done by the end of November and it was looking that way the week before I went to Berlin, I felt like I had achieved one of my aims before even going on the visits. I keep thinking back to the visit I missed in Berlin because I couldn't get there. I thought to myself maybe its the way I am portraying myself through an email. Then I thought if this is the case then why did I get responses from Germany but not Manchester. I think the reason why I heard back from agencies in Berlin and not in Manchester is because in Berlin their agencies don't get visited much by students, so to them its something new and exciting when people want to come to see their work. Manchester based agencies seem to not have much time to see people they don't consider a priority.
For next year I want to visit agencies in London I want push myself more and not just focus on agencies in manchester because when I have graduated I hope to move down there as I think that it is one of the best cities for design.

The Apprentice

The apprentice has been a big influence to me. It recently finished for this year but it was on BBC1 every wednesday at 9.00pm. The programme is set up into two teams each team has a different project manager each week. They are set different task each week in the show and the team who collects the least amount of money loses and one person from that group gets fired.

The programme is very relevant to the line of work im going to be doing when I have graduated. The task involves advertising, packaging, selling and buying etc. From watching the programme for so long you see how people work together, how they communicate with each other, there organising skills how they work under pressure, giving presentations and coming up with the final product. This is what I experience most days on this course. I see how the groups of people on the show make mistakes and I question it e.g where did it go wrong, how they could have done it better.

Working outside of the 'box'

This has been a problem for me since the start of the course. Sometimes I feel reluctant to really push myself. This isn't because I don't want to, I fear that that the outcome won't be impressive. I think from the start of the course, to where I'm at now my style of working has changed.
Graphic designers that influence me such as Carson, Brody and Rand all have there own style of working and are quite rebellious when it comes to their work. So it makes me question why I don't follow their risk taking. The piece of work that I am proud of this year is the envelope security pattern I created. This is a brief that I was passionate about and I never got bored with,I have shown this in the outcome. I tried to make this brief more about my personality, instead of just following the brief. I really need to take more risks because as a designer it will make me stand out from the crowd.

Deadlines

I don't think I have ever handed a piece of work in past the deadline I always seem to stick to them. It just working to the deadline which can sometimes be tricky. Sometimes i feel like i have got longer than I actually have to complete a piece of work. So this is why I seem to be in a panic the last week up to the deadline. This has got a lot to do with time management if i organised myself better i wouldn't be in such a panic. What I tend to do a lot is spend so much time on the research and the idea aspect of projects then sort of lose myself at the last hurdle when it comes to producing the final piece.

Objectives for creating a stress free bulid up to a future deadline

Plan

Prepare

Produce.

Surroundings

Over the last couple of months I have been inspired more by my surroundings, than I have by designers and their work. I think its always good to acknowledge designers and incorporate their style into my work, but I think my work should be more about what I am about. Before starting this course I didn't do that much research into designers I did my work based more on what I thought looked right or made sense to me . The key thing to me is communication. I don't agree when people say 'that design doesn't communicate'. I believe everything communicates something even if its not communicated well. When I talk about my surroundings I mean things that interest me e.g signage, labels, editorials, posters at the bustop billboards, road signs, cd covers, leaflets etc. They are all created for a purpose whether its visually or for reading purposes.

As a designer there is always going to be a group of people that are not going to understand what Iam about but that is what makes designers and design interesting.

Time management

My time management this year hasn't been its best. I think this maybe due to the fact that as soon as I started the 3rd year the work had been piling up within the first and second week. Plus during the last month or so the work load has been immense. I think its all about getting the control and balance right. I know I have been putting the hours into my work. I just feel that I may have spent more time on one thing and less time on other things. For next year I want to set up a timetable to enable me to spend an adequate amount of time on each stage of my final major project e.g do research for a week or two then start on ideas...

Creative Review

Creative review is a visual communication magazine, It first launched in London 1980. The aim of the magazine is to inspire advertisers, photographers, graphic designers and illustrators around the the world.
I would like to say I buy the magzine just for reading purposes, but that isn't true. I keep buying this magazine for inspiration and also to look at the layout on each page, layouts fascinate me. I look for how type or an image sits on a page and the use of space. When looking through creative review magazines there is a mixture of layouts which makes the magazine stand out. Some layouts just use text and some image some pages are created in newspaper style (this is usually interview pages) I have incorporated this style in my recent projects.

Working in a pair...

This I found that it is a lot harder to work in a pair than it is working on my own. I find it a good experience working in a pair but I prefer to work on my own. I worked in a pair for the body shop brief that I have just completed. The biggest problem was being able to meet up to show each other what we had done and how we could improve on ideas. There was days that Stacey wasn't free and I was. However we did keep in contact through phone when we couldn't meet up, but you can't show visuals down a phone. When we first paired up I felt we were really organised each week we would come together with different ideas, but as the project was coming to an end we started to struggle. I can't speak for stacey but I felt that we had a really good idea, but it was quite difficult to execute it.

Riitta Ikonen

Riitta Ikonen is an artist based in London she came to stockport college to talk about what she does..

She mixes costume and nature together, she came across as a very experimental person.

I think the work she showed was quite interesting and unique. It was good to see a designer talk about there work outside of my subject area, I think it always good to hear about what other designers approaches to design are. I found her line of work wasn't to my taste, that doesn't mean to say that she isn't a good designer.

Jonathan Barnbrook

Earlier this month Jonathan Barnbrook one of the most famous graphic designers came to Stockport college to give a talk. I really enjoyed his presentation, It wasn't boring he made it his own presentation. He discussed his work and his style and included projects that he was working on currently. This talk was perfect for me because he was very typography based.

Background

Barnbrook from ages 16-18 studied at a local school in Luton and he that was the best teaching he had. Then he went on to do a diploma for a year and after this he went on to do a degree.
After this he wanted to get a job but it was quite difficult so he then started doing freelancing. He has now been working for 20 years.

He talked at lot about his contact with David bowie which I thought was quite interesting. Barnbrook created many album covers for Bowie. He showed us one called 'Breathen'.
His interests are music and art Barnbrook said ' I think its beautiful how music and art come together. This was one of the reasons he became a designer.
He also did some work for adbusters the magazine. Adbusters has been around from 1989, the layouts that he showed us were cleverly done. He talked about the typefaces that he had done and was currently doing such as, prozac, mosley, drone and mason.

I found the talk very useful. He gave good really good advice on life after graduating e.g Its better to start off on your own, especially due to the current economic climate. He also said when it comes to showing our work to that we should have a portfolio that has really good work in it because if you take a portfolio that is 'ok' we will just be unhappy, so he was urging us to take risks.
I think the way he portrayed himself in the presentation was good he seems like he is quite a laid back person with a funny personality which is good because, some design talks that I have been to previously haven't been so entertaining.

123Buero

I have recently been on a visit to Berlin, and while I was out there I went to a design agency called 123Buero along with Ashley, Jules, Mike and Laura. We were greeted by Timo Grassener.. he gave us a quick tour of his studio, and gave us all (ginger tea) not a fan of I must say.
He told us a bit about his background.. he graduated 2002, he went freelance because when he graduated there weren't many jobs about. He felt that the good creative jobs, had rubbish pay, Then there was good paid jobs, but they lacked creativity.
He showed us and talked about his work, which involved prints and editorials, his main interest was typography. He showed us typefaces that he had created in a package called font lab. They were called Maison and Pretzel.
After looking at his work we all showed him our portfolios, I found his feedback quite critical and honest. The feedback he gave me was that I should explain my ideas better and that I should have a lot more work on my area of interest which is typography. He also said that its a good idea to work outside the 'box' because you gain experience of different things. He said that we were more advanced than he was at our ages but we should have a lot more work than we were showing him.
The first thing he did notice about our portfolios were that they were very similar, so they don't really show our individual personalities, I agree with him on this point. The visit ended with a presentation Timo did a few weeks back in Paris for a workshop, which included logo design, editorials, stationary etc.. before leaving he gave us all a business card for his agency so we would be able to contact him at any time for advice on future projects.

I found the visit was very useful, I liked his honesty because that is what you need to hear you don't need someone to telling you its a good piece of work when its blatantly not. This sort of advice tends to push you to do better. The work he showed me was done to a high standard and this is what I will be competing with which scared me a bit. It definitely made me think about the work I have in my portfolio and how I could change it for future portfolio visits. What I also took from the visit was to be more individual when it comes to presenting and discussing my work, especially in the way I explain my ideas, because I obviously know my own work but the agencies won't have seen me before and won't have a clue about any of my work. So this is what I need to improve on in the future.

Clinton Cahill from MMU talks about postgraduate study

Postponed until the New Year

HelloMe and Smack communication

Hello me

Last week I went on a residential to Berlin. Hellome was the first agency that I was due to visit. Myself and the rest of the group met up outside what we thought was Hellome design agency. We then found out that It was actually the apartment of Till Wideck (The designer of the agency). We were told this by flat mate, who very kindly rang Wideck and explain what had happened. What had actually happened was the address on the Hellome website was his apartment address not the agency address. To prevent this sort of thing from happening again, I think more research into the agencies should be done beforehand, so I go to the correct place,especially if your going to a country that your not familiar with. I would have liked to go on and find the actual agency from there but due to bad weather we went back to where we were staying in Berlin.

Smack communication

This was a design agency also in Berlin, I set this one up myself, I did some research and I was inspired by there work, especially an advertisement they did for t-mobile. I emailed the agency, and heard back from them within days. The visit was arranged for friday the 19th November (the day we were leaving to go back to manchester). I was really looking forward to the visit, but due to fact it was coming to the end of my stay in Berlin, I didn't have enough money to travel to the agency.
This has taught me to spend my money better and to be more organised and prepared ( plan ahead). For example If I didn't have much money left I should of allowed myself more to be able to walk there and back to my hostel.

Brand orienteering.. Journey planner

Owen stevens is a Branding consultant and his company is called Brand orienteering. He came into Stockport College and put on a half day branding workshop for me and the rest of the group. He did a little a presentation, mini games and a few exercises.

How will brand orienteering be useful to me?

Helps with research..
It will make me think more about branding...
Its an interesting way to discuss a brief....
Makes me ask questions about my own work.....

Three main types of Brands

Rainbow brands: Always chasing the pot of gold. Confused and confusing the harder they run faster they run themselves into the ground.

Pack brands: Follow my leader. One eye firmly fixed on the competition pack brands play it safe, never stray too far from the well-trodden path.

Sticky Brands: Pro-active not reactive sticky brands create opportunites at every turn. Not afraid to take the path less travelled they set the pace and run their own race.

Owen talked about celebrity brands, brand characteristics, brand personality, basicly all the things that make a brand what it is. We played a little game owen gave us a pack of cards and the cards were brand names of cars me and my partner had to pick out cars that we considered to be affordable and popular. When he revealed the list, I found that the cars that I thought would be top of the list weren't and the ones that I couldn't see the majority of the public buying were at the top.

I found the workshop very benificial, it certaintly made me think more about my work, I based the workshop around a brief I was working on around the time of the workshop which was a the body shop brief (packaging). It made me think that there is more to the Body Shop than its products. After the workshop I looked more into the history of Body Shop to get a better understanding about the company. This helped me push forward with my work.

Come design with me...

Come design with me took place on the 7th October at Stockport College. Past graduates came along to chat to us about life after graduation they gave us some useful advice, dos and don't etc.. The event was organised by 5 members of my class Lucy, Ashley, Laura, Jay and mike. They did really well in organising it all, they split the evening into two parts for the first hour or so was chatting to the graduates and the second part of the evening was looking at there work, eating and drinking!. One half of our group chatted to about 5 graduates and the same with the other group.
I found the event really useful, It was good to get advice from people who have been through the process I am going through now. They talked a lot about the industry and what effect it has had on them. Points brought up were that they couldn't get jobs straight away, they advised us to get as much experience as possible when finishing the degree and during it such as placements, entering, working on briefs. There is also one thing that got brought up that I which I had heard before and didn't know whether it was true or not. One of the ex graduates said that most graphic design jobs want you to have experience in web design.
This made me think if this is the case then why isn't web design a part of our degree.

Hesign

Hesign is a graphic design agency based in Berlin. I set this visit up many weeks before I arrived in Berlin, I felt really lucky to get a visit with the designer Jianping. Since I wasn't familiar with Berlin I invited Juliette Brooks and Edwina Sharp to come on the visit with me.

Hesign was established in Berlin, Germany in 2002. In 2005 the branch company in Shanghai was established, and the other branch in Hang Zhou was set up in 2008. In addition to graphic design , branding, art and design and book publishing they also organise art and cultural events activites.

Jianping talked about his way of working and showed some of his projects he had done and some he was working on. His personality really shined through when he was talking to us he told us how he overcame problems that he had in the past when producing work, for example he said that he was asked to produce a book, but he ran out of paper, but instead of panicking he solved the problem by producing the book with few full pages and the rest half pages he did this by cutting the some full pages in half. Which shows to me that he doesn't take himself to seriously and has a funny sense of humour.

After we talked we all showed him our work, he didn't give us that much feedback but he seemed to like what we showed him, he invited us back to his agency anytime we go back to Berlin which was nice of him he gave us a souvenir to take a way with us which was a catalogue of his work.

I had a positive view on this visit, I thought his work was incredible, and to own three branches is incredible. I feel as a designer you need to be able to be yourself and not what other expect you to be.

These adverts always seem to stick in my head. I have seen adverts like these many times. I think they are created really well. They are emotive, they draw you in and they make you want to pick up the phone. They do exactly what they are meant to do. This is what makes them good adverts.

I think the message behind this ad has been portrayed well. I like how this ad doesn't need an image to explain it. The words tell the advert. What else appeals to me about this advert is how the type represents a parent and a child e.g the type for the parent is clean cut and then there is the child like writing.