Thursday, 19 May 2011
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Monday, 16 May 2011
Evaluating the year
Over the past year I have been concentrating on how I brand myself as a designer. I feel that as I make the transition from University life to the real world it is most important that I use work I am most proud of, that can showcase my credentials as a designer.
The portfolio I have produced for this unit is based on a simple layout showcasing six of my best pieces of work from my time in Visual Communication. From the beginning of the course my mentality towards my studies was to create a well rounded selection of work including print to digital work. As a designer I wanted to have an extensive choice of pieces to present to employers, which could assist me in any opportunity of design.
As I have matured as a designer my work has progressively moved towards a more digital specialism. Through online tutorials and short courses I have been able to teach myself how to use programmes that are industry standard. I hope to take this knowledge and apply it to everyday life when I start to apply to work with agencies.
For this unit I also had to create a CV and business card. From creating a logo I was able to base my designs around this, forming a uniformed set of marketing tools. I wanted to keep the CV quite simple and straight to the point so potential employers could read it easily. I went for a two column layout, making use of the space on the page, creating a well designed piece of work. I think where the creativity comes in is how I present this document to employers. This will change depending on the people I apply to. The business card follows the same suit, I went for a two colour style with a simple logo on the front and my contact details on the back. I changed my email address to something a little more professional to my previous address.
Post university life will see a vast transition in the way I work, it is important that I start marketing towards the employers I want to work for in the most creative way possible. Over the next few months my goal is to do three two week placements in design agencies to get a feel for the working environment. From this I hope to pick up some tips as to how best to present myself to creative employers. My five year plan is to be in a well established creative agency thinking ahead to developing my own business in creative design.
The portfolio I have produced for this unit is based on a simple layout showcasing six of my best pieces of work from my time in Visual Communication. From the beginning of the course my mentality towards my studies was to create a well rounded selection of work including print to digital work. As a designer I wanted to have an extensive choice of pieces to present to employers, which could assist me in any opportunity of design.
As I have matured as a designer my work has progressively moved towards a more digital specialism. Through online tutorials and short courses I have been able to teach myself how to use programmes that are industry standard. I hope to take this knowledge and apply it to everyday life when I start to apply to work with agencies.
For this unit I also had to create a CV and business card. From creating a logo I was able to base my designs around this, forming a uniformed set of marketing tools. I wanted to keep the CV quite simple and straight to the point so potential employers could read it easily. I went for a two column layout, making use of the space on the page, creating a well designed piece of work. I think where the creativity comes in is how I present this document to employers. This will change depending on the people I apply to. The business card follows the same suit, I went for a two colour style with a simple logo on the front and my contact details on the back. I changed my email address to something a little more professional to my previous address.
Post university life will see a vast transition in the way I work, it is important that I start marketing towards the employers I want to work for in the most creative way possible. Over the next few months my goal is to do three two week placements in design agencies to get a feel for the working environment. From this I hope to pick up some tips as to how best to present myself to creative employers. My five year plan is to be in a well established creative agency thinking ahead to developing my own business in creative design.
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Connection lost
This is my housemates final piece, a bit different to my usual design work, but I play with a couple of members from my band to mark my next most recent performance/acting roll.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
The making of google streetview ad
This is the production video for a street view advert in Germany. I like the way in which they have broken it down into week by week production. It has helped me think about how I need to go about planning my final piece.
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Facebook profile branding from Rhett and Link
Rhett and Link are viral specialists and I found this video on branding a facebook profile picture so the person looks dateable, I think I can learn something from this and apply it to my own project.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
The idea
This piece of inspiration has influenced me to think about how I could bring an animation to life. As I am story boarding different ideas I am going to incorporate different design techniques to help reach the next stage.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Influencers
This is a documentary film about finding creativity, while it is helping to find some motivation in my EMP I particularly take interest in how it is filmed, as a possible direction to take on how to show the building of persona/brand identity.
D and AD hand in
These are my final pieces for show at D and AD. The brief was to Re-design the Taschen magazine for the new breed of multimedia tablet devices. For the show I had to produce at most 4 show boards to explain my idea and an animation which shows how the application would work on a tablet device such as an Ipad.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
TLK 3 - Freelancing
The third TLK lecture invited two freelance designers: Joel Lardner (an illustrator) and Chris Wharton (a web designer). Jane Richardson who is a senior member of recruitment agency Aquent was also there.
The main subject of the talk was looking at how students were to get a foot in the door with companies, how to approach them and employability. As a freelancer the most important thing is to create the best professional profile you can. Whatever research you can do into a company they can do into the employee too. There were some helpful suggestions of links to look at such as behance and sortfolio two types of online portfolio. When looking for jobs twitters tweet deck could be a useful resource.
It has influenced me in my extended major project, because it has made me think about how graduates look to the employer. There are plenty of social networking sites to build profiles and brands, including Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. When a prospected employer can type a candidates name into google, the first thing that comes up will be these social networking sites... so it is important to keep professional and personal profiles separate.
The main subject of the talk was looking at how students were to get a foot in the door with companies, how to approach them and employability. As a freelancer the most important thing is to create the best professional profile you can. Whatever research you can do into a company they can do into the employee too. There were some helpful suggestions of links to look at such as behance and sortfolio two types of online portfolio. When looking for jobs twitters tweet deck could be a useful resource.
It has influenced me in my extended major project, because it has made me think about how graduates look to the employer. There are plenty of social networking sites to build profiles and brands, including Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. When a prospected employer can type a candidates name into google, the first thing that comes up will be these social networking sites... so it is important to keep professional and personal profiles separate.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
The Other Guys credits
This is another great example of well done infographics. I am still really interested in this area in visual communication and see it as one of my paths after I finish uni!
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Keaton Henson narritave film
I found this video as part of the research for my EMP. Keaton Henson creates a narrative piece for the packaging of an album. I think the visuals are strong and the narritave process relates to part of my EMP creation. I would like to find more videos like this which could influence my final piece.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Sky - Better Effect
I saw this the other day on TV and really like the use of animation over film, for the next two months I shall be concentrating on my designs for my extended major project. The brief I have set myself is to create a piece of film/animation based around the subject of online persona. I have already began to look at brand identity in the attempt to come up with a formula of how internet users perceive themselves online. I would like to create a narrative which raises awareness about how this data concretes itself online.
Monday, 21 February 2011
Hitting blanks
It has been particularly hard over the past past weeks to find motivation to do the Taschen brief for DNAD. Especially when you find out they have already completed the brief for you. I have tried to collate the positives from the experience so far, on the preview page people have reviewed what they think of the application. They have left some pointers on where to improve the application, which has helped with my research into the usability.
click here to see the Taschen app
click here to see the Taschen app
Friday, 4 February 2011
TLK 2 - The creative process
The second in the series of TLK lectures invited back David Burton of Redweb, Bella Lewis Smith of Salad, Ross Cleaver of Revolting and Paul Leon who is a Freelance designer.
Like the first lecture there was a layed back atmosphere to the discussion, which brought out some key points in the creative process, one of the main topics being the perception of freelance work, should artworkers be paid for work while they are at University to boost their portfolios or should payment be the experience gained from working with a client? There was a good spread of views from students on different courses, mainly illustrators doing work on magazine artwork.
I had the opportunity to speak with Ross Cleaver, who had spoken of working in Australia for a year. This was a worthwhile opportunity to find out some information as it was one of my options in the pipeline after I leave Uni. The main objectives I learn't were through inspiration. In order to be inspired I need to keep life fresh, do something different each day and be curious about everything, that way I can spark ideas more easily.
Like the first lecture there was a layed back atmosphere to the discussion, which brought out some key points in the creative process, one of the main topics being the perception of freelance work, should artworkers be paid for work while they are at University to boost their portfolios or should payment be the experience gained from working with a client? There was a good spread of views from students on different courses, mainly illustrators doing work on magazine artwork.
I had the opportunity to speak with Ross Cleaver, who had spoken of working in Australia for a year. This was a worthwhile opportunity to find out some information as it was one of my options in the pipeline after I leave Uni. The main objectives I learn't were through inspiration. In order to be inspired I need to keep life fresh, do something different each day and be curious about everything, that way I can spark ideas more easily.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Ikea marketing
Ikea made this marketing campaign through Facebook. I liked the viewer interaction it incorporates. The viral works by people tagging pieces of furniture they win it, sounds to good to be true, but a really good way of producing buzz.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Narrative process
Over the past few days I have had the chance to think about how I would like to show the process of my EMP. One idea I have been fond of is the idea of creating a time lapse film.
Today is the day where I start experimenting with the method. I have chosen to take a picture every 10 seconds to show the progress of the shot material. This should give me some extra motivation to produce work, and an extra dimension when showing the process I took to creating the final piece. I have experimented with timelapse before, when showing the process for Tim Patricks full portrait.
I now need to progress my research through looking at different narratives in order to produce some visuals. The simplicity of "bottle" gives the viewer an easy yet abstract narrative to follow. I would like to produce a piece with this simplicity that could use another level of technical ability.
Today is the day where I start experimenting with the method. I have chosen to take a picture every 10 seconds to show the progress of the shot material. This should give me some extra motivation to produce work, and an extra dimension when showing the process I took to creating the final piece. I have experimented with timelapse before, when showing the process for Tim Patricks full portrait.
I now need to progress my research through looking at different narratives in order to produce some visuals. The simplicity of "bottle" gives the viewer an easy yet abstract narrative to follow. I would like to produce a piece with this simplicity that could use another level of technical ability.
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