Graphics in Stamps !

Something that has really been inspirational to me and my practice of late has been stamps and stamp designs. I think its really interesting how they seem to represent real achievement and areas of significants to a time period, place and cultural ideas. These scans are from my own collection I have began to build. The graphic language of stamps is something that really interests me, though it is something overlooked and deemed as fairly 'nerdy' it is amazing to see how much meaning and graphical language reflecting in something so small.

End of year Show branding

My personal focus in graphic design is much more leaning towards looking at the cultural sector. Designs for museums exhibitions and galleries is really something that interests me, this said I found I needed to create designs for the End Of Year Show branding, this would be an opportunity to have my work displayed large printed and representing a real exhibition.  This also meant working collaboratively, another part of design I really enjoy. These images represent the final outcomes we created. Unfortunately we were not selected for the next stages as they felt our designs were too close to what they had used before. Overall tho the tight deadline and collaborative process has been really useful and given me experience in working to live briefs.

Evolution Print

Trip to Evolution print.

As part of a trip I was able to go and have a look at the facilities at Evolution print. To see the level of quality in their printing, Why they are an award winning litho printers and ask any questions I have on the process. I mainly asked about Die Cutting. As its a possibility I could be working on the Graphic Design Year book I had an idea to print the cover and die cut a shape out to make it more innovative and something different. They explained they can do this and it is fairly straightforward. Through its important to make sure the original paper strength is not compromised.
I also managed to get a load of printed matter they had create this just showed the level of quality that is needed when printing at a place like Evolution. Overall the trip was very beneficial to see how different printers vary.

Astrid Stavro of Atlas

As part of the Typo circle talks I was able to see the amazing Astrid Stavro of Atlas talk about her work. She showed an amazing level of typographic appreciation and use throughout all the work for both Astrid Stavro Studio and her new design studio Atlas. The way she spoke about visual communication was very inspiring explained how her love for writing is fundamental in the kind of design she loved to create. Above all it was really great to see her process and some of the work she has created over the years completely inspired me and made me want to raise my game in-terms of outcomes and typographic quality.

Creative Convos Branding & Promotion

As a part of PPP there was a call for submissions to brand and promote the upcoming week of talks. Myself, James Green and help from Ed Harland we created some initial designs and were chosen as the successful group to take this forward.

 We sent over these initial concepts, using a simple structure that is unified with a singular recognisable typeface (Avant Garde).

Through feedback we developed some more refined designs and began to create a distinct brand that could be used throughout. We aimed to highlight the real diversity of the speakers being from different backgrounds, and working in really different places.

These further refinements were made and the whole branding began to look much more cohesive, additionally some moving gif's were created ideal for social media use.

Something really useful in this project was working to a tight deadline and ensuring a high level of quality. This meant a large number of amendments needed to be made to ensure every image was cohesive and reflected the quality of the week as best as possible.

Day 1 - Dines The video above is our own round up of the first day, showing how useful it was, how interesting the talk from Dines was and a showing some of the best work displayed from that day. As we were all asked to pitch individually to Dines and he would give us feedback on how to improve the project, this was all featured on the video for the Intern Instagram.

Day 2 - Rose Nordin - As this session we created a zine piece as a class, it was important to displayed this as best possible. The video about shows a gif of the zine.

Day 3 - Robot Food, As this talk was more straight forward the video needed to reflect this, so more simple imagery was used, explaining the talk and making it as interesting as possible.

Day 4 - The Elephant room - As this was more of a general discussion this needed to be reflected in the video content. Leaving most of the content for the comment under the video for that.

Day 5 - Abraham Asefaw - This was mainly about how we create ideas so the whole video was based around the post it notes and the idea of a quick process of idea generation.

The final video was more of a round up of the whole week including our poster we created. Overall the video content came out really well.

 As highlighted in the brief it would be a great opportunity to create some posters for the creatives to take away. These three posters I designed and printed out A1 for creative professionals to take home and possibly post is they wanted. I gave these to Dines, Chris Shuttleworth & Abraham Asefaw. All talkers I really admire and may contact in the future for possible internships or just a convocations.















Overall this project has been so useful in gaining experience, working on a live brief with a tight deadline, getting my own work out there. Working on things that I usually wouldn't and working for a real client. I feel it has been very well received and everyone liked what we have done for the branding and promotion and hopefully I will be able to contact some of these professionals in the future.

Improvement of website

Something that has been really important so far in PPP has been my own personal website/portfolio. I have had a discussion with my tutor on how to prove this and made some changes in light of this.

I have updated new projects to showcase the best work I have created. Photographed my work to a high level so it is displayed in the best light possible.  I changed the format from square images to rectangular as I felt before it looked to much like an Instagram account.

A change in typeface allows the work to have a hint of class that was missing before. Keeping the writing fairly short and snappy allows for quick and not over complicated communication.

I have changed the about page to a more interesting and dynamic image of myself.

Made the contact page really clear and simple, using a live link to my email to ensure anyone can reach me if need be.

Further more including a news sections connected to my twitter to try and show how I am constantly interacting with and commenting on design.

Overall I feel much more confident with this website and can now begin the process of contacting studios for possible meetings and internships.

Eye magazine 95

A small resolution I have set myself is to buy and read Eye Magazine whenever there is a new issue. This magazine is second to none in my opinion on commenting on the graphic design industry and staying up to date. The writing of Rick Poynor is my favourite in terms of how he speaks about its influences on the whole of visual culture. It is also great to interact with print, as this is a possible industry to work in it is really important to think about what works well and what doesn't.

Behance.net

Another of the social media channels I have began to take full advantage of is Behance.net, I have been on it for a while but I have now began to really promote myself and get my best work up there. It has only been a day so far but I have been able to go from 0 appreciations 0 followers and only around 15 views to 58 appreciations, 15 followers and 266 views in a matter of hours! So this overall is really positive. I will continue this whenever possible and really make sure my online presence is as high as possible. Always linking my social accounts to my website to really try and get more viewers and possible opportunities.

Creating Twitter!

As I try to promote my work and gain a voice in the creative community I felt it was important to start using as many avenues to gain this voice as possible. One of them is Twitter, as I have my own website promoting my work, this would be a great place to keep people up to date in what i'm doing, what i'm working on and things i'm interested in. I have ensured everything is extremely professional without losing personality. Following and retweeting things that catch my attention and begin convocations that usually wouldn't be possible.

Linking my twitter to my personal website is really important and keeping up a good impression of myself and my work attitude is vital.

I plan to keep this a regularly updated as possible and really try and make more of a name for myself in the large world graphic design is.

Dissertation in Typography

One of the main projects undertaken so far in this year has been my dissertation. I have tried to explore cultural effects on typography and what these could be. The experience of writing a larger essay has given me so much confidence in my own writing ability and as this is a really important part of graphic communication this is really invaluable.

Within the project I have learnt so much about type, its impacts, how it can be a signifying medium of an era or suggestive of a ethos or visual culture. Writing about graphic design work is really important in realising why things work and I have tried to really improve this in this project.

The practical outcomes of this project have pushed my knowledge of typography even further and I now feel really confident in my own knowledge and ability to understand why type is designed in a certain way. This will be really useful in the future when trying to design custom typefaces.

Overall this project has been so eye opening in terms of writing about work and if possible I would live to write more for editorial pieces and even a blog about design in the future.