SELF BRANDING//WOODEN LOGO//OUGD602

developing logo

I decided to develop my logo idea and create a wooden stencil for branding photographs.  I designed my logo to be transferred across different stocks so it doesn't have a set colour apart from the black outlines.  I thought creating the logo on the laser cutter and painting it black would allow the branding to look consistent and could be applied to the branding photos.

I thought this could be quite interesting in terms of what I photographed it with, it would allow me to layer the logo onto different things, including on top of some of my printed publication which could work quite well for images on my website.  I've also thought about how I could incorporate the logo into interesting branding photographs, could possibly work as a new idea for a series of self branding photos with the cut out logo in it.

PPP//PORTFOLIO SURGERY//FEEDBACK//OUGD602

portfolio surgery / receiving feedback
Today I had a portfolio surgery with Andy Lodge just to receive some feedback and some tips and information about how to present my work for the portfolio.  As I hadn't put a lot of my portfolio together yet I went showing the presentation boards that I had been working on for submission.  In terms of layout I received some encouraging feedback, the layout was clear and consistent but varied in terms of different projects.  Obviously for the actual portfolio there would be less text on the boards as it wouldn't be a process of explaining the complete journey in such detail, but a passage about the concept and the final products would be relevant.  

We spoke about the best was to try and display publication design and Andy suggested some websites that would be useful that displayed similar things, suggesting it was best to photograph face down, birds eye view.  

In terms of varying the photography and the presentation of the boards, do not show any photos that keep showing the same thing, they need to be varied with what area of the design you are showing.

This was really helpful for me to be able to concentrate on properly after submission.  The key with the portfolio is taking professional and high quality photographs of the work, this is something I have definitely learnt the importance of in third year and the difference between the final photographs in third year in comparison to first and second is huge.  Andy also mentioned to bring some actual printed designs to an interview as they might be interested in seeing the project in a bit more detail as opposed to looking at photographs on the boards, but this is something I would need to judge at the time.

Finally when sending a digital portfolio out to people do not put all the best bits in there, if they are interested and call you for a face to face interview you need to go being able to show either your best work or bits that you haven't already shown in the PDF portfolio.


Plan of action, next steps
Understanding exactly how to lay out your portfolio and taking the right kind of photos of your work can make all the difference and its really just about bringing it all together and presenting it in a way thats appropriate and complimentary of your work.  I will look to address this properly once submission is over, however I have started looking at particular briefs that I want to feature in my portfolio and that could potentially need rephotographing.

PPP//CRIT FEEDBACK//BRIEF 04: MUSEUM OF CHILDHOOD//OUGD602

crit feedback / museum of childhood

A few of us took part in a crit just to help progress with certain areas of our briefs, I mainly wanted some second opinions on recent designs and some suggestions, whether, the layout needed to be rearranged etc.

 

I printed out some mock ups to look at scale and the layout generally and see what needed to be improved, it was really helpful to receive some feedback from peers which I took into account to help improve my design. I looked at the arrangement of type and considered feedback I'd been given which was really helpful and also suggested some ideas to improve the design that I could consider if I had enough time.

 I was told to consider whether any more information would be necessary on the ticket and that perforation would add to the design and make it more realistic.  Another suggestion was to foil the title exhibition in gold, I thought this could look quite nice and fit with the content of the publication as there is a lot of gold frames used for visuals.

GRAPHIC DESIGN FESTIVAL//PICK ME UP LONDON//OUGD602-not fin-

pick me up: London, graphic design festival

'Now in its fifth year, the UK’s original contemporary graphic arts festival Pick Me Up showcases graphic art in all its forms. Aimed at being the antithesis of a traditional art fair, Pick Me Up is a fun and informal festival featuring quirky studio spaces in which to shop for affordable artwork from the great and good of graphic arts, and a daily, lively line-up of events which encourage both budding and bonafide artists of all ages to get involved. Pick Me Up 2014 promises to be bigger and better than ever with more late nights and an even wider range of illustration and design represented, from fashion and architecture to comic books and album covers.'

Over the weekend I attended the pick me up graphic design festival in somerset house which was a really good event to be exposed to the new contemporary design from designers who have either graduated or set up a studio in the last seven years.  It was a great opportunity to talk to a few people about what they did after graduating and how they set up their own studio, it also allowed me to broaden my knowledge on some of the more recent and upcoming designers.

Whilst at the design festival I came across a designer I really liked, its not usually the type of design I am interested in but I really like the style and illustrations.  The colour is something that caught my eye which isn't usually something I am drawn to straight away within design.  The designer takes influence from East African as her mum is an artist from Tanzania.

Lynnie Zulu

Born on the Scottish border, Lynnie Zulu studied Illustration and Animation at Kingston University, graduating in 2010. With an artist mother from Tanzania, Lynnie's work carries an African influence that is revealed in the energetic mark making and by the exotic characters she creates. Her illustrations can be found in, amongst others, fashion print, LP artwork and live art performances, and has featured in i-D, Vogue and Juxtapozmagazines. She has exhibited in various group shows alongside artists including Rob Ryan, Paul Willoughby and Monica Canilao, and in 2013 had her first solo show Jungle Fever which was set to afro-beat and calypso music.

Whilst looking around I came across a studio called Handsome Frank which are a UK based illustration agency that commission new and upcoming illustrators and designers.  I had a chance to speak to one of the people who helped set up the agency.  We discussed the competitiveness and the emerging talent in design and what the potential options would be for me after graduating.  She explained how Handsome Frank came about and we talked about certain bits of work that I particularly liked from HF.  There were also some work featured that I recognised from online on various design blogs and websites.

illustrations commissioned by Handsome Frank

I also came across some publication design from Ditto Press which I recognised from the studio visit.  In terms of publication design I was inspired by the range and format size.  AS I am interested in this direction within graphic design I thought I should explore more with format sizes as at the moment most of the publication design I have created are all A5 or custom sized but smaller than A5, this is something I will look to work on in the last term and try to create a broader range of format sized for my publication.

There was a lot of design there that really inspired some of the direction I wanted to take coming up to the final few weeks of uni.  There were a lot of prints and posters which I really liked the look of which inspired me to try out screen printing with more than one colour.  There were a range of studios there selling prints and work along with publications and other printed matter.

DITTO PRESS//NEW STUDIO OPENING//OUGD602

ditto press : studio opening
I attended the new opening of Ditto Press' studio on friday evening which was really enjoyable and gave more of an insight into the kind of industry events that go on.  As I had been to there old studio it was good to see the new place where they would be working and the type of set up that would be the professional environment.  In comparison to the old studio it was a lot bigger and there would definitely be more freedom to set up the studio in a more personal way showing Dittos style.  

The opening was busy and so was a good opportunity to talk to a few people about studios and how they had come to be at ditto's night.

There was a range of dittos work on display and for sale which was a good opportunity to look at some of the publication design, as thats the kind of design I am particularly interested in.  There was a range of interesting books and editorial work to look at, from different formats, to printing and finishing.  I had looked through a variety of publications when I went for a studio visit earlier in the month, however there were quite a few I hadn't come across before which gave me some new ideas for ways to approach some of my final briefs.

Since first seeing Dittos work when Ben came in to talk to us I had been interested in the kind of design they do.  They design and print a lot of zines which is something I've tried to direct in that general direction from the beginning of third year.  They also work with photography quite a lot, which again is  something I use a lot in my own work.

These set of tapes were something I was quite interested in and really liked the whole black and white illustration style and how they worked as a set.  One of the earlier briefs I had done was to design record sleeves for the band Meantime, which I really enjoyed doing and found the design outcome of them to be quite successful.  Seeing these tapes allowed me to think of other ways that I could do similar projects and would quite like to try and design my own series of cassettes.

In terms of publication design and printing there were a lot of different books that inspired me, but not just visually as the content of a lot of Dittos publications interested me.  They had put together some really simple concept based publications that focused on photography.  Whilst looking through some of the more photo based designs I was thinking about how I could layout and best display the photographs for my own contemporary culture zines brief.

I found this publication quite interesting as it focused mostly on interesting photographs and scans.  In the general layout they had a lot of over layered images which I think worked really well, this is something I've been interested in and wanted to try when designing my own publication, however have always struggled with composition, it could be a consideration for the contemporary culture zines.

Again, hand written text and featuring hand writing in publications is something I've tried to incorporate this year as I think it looks especially nice with photography.  For my ditto press brief I wanted to have the majority of the content in hand writing, which is something I have started working on.

I thought the general design of this publication was really nice, and nicely executed.  I also quite liked the simple concept of what the actual content was which was just a selection of firework photographs laid out, clean, with a lot of white space and some soft focused images of fireworks.

I thought this was a good opportunity to engage with some of dittos work and to attend a studio opening and see what it was like.  As dittos work and publication design has been something I have become increasingly interested in it was nice to see a range of their work and different styles and formats of publications.  It allowed me to think of some new ideas and ways to approach publications that I am currently working on or will start to work on soon.

ORDERING PAPER//GF SMITH//OUGD602

ordering paper/looking at samples

Today Sophia and I looked at some sample papers from GF Smith to see what kind of stock we could get for some of our briefs.  As we have both got some publications left to print we wanted some variety in terms of what paper we were going to print on.  So far a few of the publications I have printed on have been a thin white matte stock from the print room, this is because most of my publications have been photography based and this stock prints the images a lot clearer.  We looked at whites and creams as this was obviously the stock we wanted to be using to print the content of our publication.

This was the sample book that we looked at to see what would be best.  Although I like textured stocks and in some cases prefer this when coming to print, from past experience I've learnt that it doesn't print too well with photographs.

We looked at a variety of similar stocks but wanted to choose something a little different to what was available to us in the print room.  Something thin enough to be able to bind properly without the pages becoming too thick and uneven.

We narrowed it down to a couple of specific choices mostly whites and slight off whites:

• cranes crest fluorescent white 90gsm - nice texture and colour, probably too thin for printing photographs on - you can see type on reverse side, also available in 105/120/300/365 gsm
• quite a lot of choices we were interested in in the Mohawk - including crystal white smooth, mohawk superfine white smooth, I personally also liked Mohawk Superfine white eggshell.  That was a slight off white, which I liked but I felt I had to have something more suited to print on that shade of paper.
• naturalis recycled smooth 250 gsm - I thought this would be quite nice for self branding, with the type of thing I had in mind, mixed with a parchment/brown stock.

We decided to pick two choices, as you have to buy in bulk, and then to split the sheets and price evenly, this was we would be getting two different types of stock, allowing a bit more variety amongst the printed material I already have.

The two we choose were:

Mohawk Superfine White Smooth 118 gsm

Naturalis Recycled smooth 135 gsm

We felt this differed enough from each other and from the paper in the print room.  The mohawk had a very smooth finish, although the recycled was still smooth it had a slightly different feel.  I think these stocks will allow a bit of variety amongst my portfolio and print nicely.

This is the order confirmation and receipt, the paper should be with us within the next day or two:

REPRINTING//IMPROVING FINAL PRINT//BRIEF 09:INTERRAIL//OUGD602

brief 09, reprinting:

After having some difficulties with printing and the colour showing through vibrantly enough on the stock with secret 7" and being told James' paper actually enhances the ink allowing the colours to show a lot brighter and of much better quality in terms of CMYK.  As I had printed out my InterRail posters before christmas, without knowing this, I thought the colours looked pretty dull and I was disappointed with the printed formats, as it looked so much more appealing on screen.  However, after realising this with the paper and and printing I reprinted the final posters, and I was a lot happier with the results.

I feel a lot happier with the final printed posters now, before I was a little apprehensive about using it in my portfolio as I thought it looked pretty poor in terms of quality.  Also I think the designs rely heavily on the quality of the photographs as this is obviously the main visual and so you can see the benefit the new prints have had on the overall posters.