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Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Degree show June 18th - June 24th
DNA
24th & 25th June 2010!!! DNA EXHIBITION AT THE TRIANGLE come down to see.
About::::
Universities from across the North have teamed up with the region’s design and communications agencies to form the first annual DNA (Designers Northern Alliance) event, taking place in Manchester this June.
The event is being organised by a number of contributors from the University of Salford, University of Chester, Manchester Metropolitan University, UCLAN, Liverpool John Moores University & North Wales, along with a substantial number of agencies from across the region. It will be taking place at The Triangle (the old Corn Exchange) on the 24th and 25th June.
The idea behind the event is to showcase the newly graduated creative talent from the region’s universities. The event has been designed to bring together representatives from the industry and academia to develop links into work and to share best practice – whilst highlighting the work carried out in the advertising, animation, illustration and digital media and graphic design courses from the universities.
Jo Greenhalgh, communication pathway leader in graphic design at the University of Salford, explains:
“Over the two days, the event will include an exhibition of the best of the graduate talent from universities in the North of England; we will be hosting a series of keynote lectures from industry and academia, a roundtable discussion, a question and answer forum and portfolio surgeries for students.
“We have been really heartened by the levels of interest in the event, and feel it will be a really worthwhile event that will be mutually beneficial for both the students who attend and the agencies who will be the first to meet the best graduates from our region’s institutions.”
The two day event will have a series of talks and portfolio surgeries with over 30 professionals from 15 agencies (to date), giving advice and feedback to students on their work. There will be a round table discussion and a question and answer forum with industry experts as well as a space for selected students to offer a private view of the best work to the industry.
Speeches will be given by high profile members of the North’s design and communications industry including Warren Drumm of GyroHSR, Chris Arnold of Creative Orchestra and Si Scott, the prolific graphic designer.
Support for the event has been impressive, with confirmed input coming from The Drum, Tayburn, Hyper Island, LOVE Creative, Vivid, Raw, Severe, KMP, Cheetham Bell JWT, Uniform, GyroHSR, Code Computer Love, Elmwood and Kernal.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Sorted - guide to manchester
This was my most enjoyed project, out of the whole year.
It was a self-written one and I think I have produced a great outcome. It was a long project but I think my finished product is better than I even expected. It is a 50-page guide to Manchester, aimed at 18-30 year olds. Informing about the typical and not so typical Manchester. It is to compete with the current tourist guides and I think it is more personal and inviting than any of them. It is colourful and experimental with design, it is to entice the viewer as well as teach them. As well as the guide I have put together promotional products also: I have created 6 postcards, 4 posters, 4 badges and numerous designs for I-phone applications.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
french stitching my guide book
24th May 2010
Today I learned to French stitch!
So I am in the final leg of finishing my guide book! Thank god, and after a lot of deliberation I decided that French stitching it would be the way to go as it will look very professional and like a proper magazine.
I had to figure out how to layout out the pages to make it open up like a perfect bound and then I chose my stock and double sided printed on the A4 colour printing in the mac suite, I had a bit of drama with printing but after two hours it was ok.
Then I went to the book binding workshop room to speak to Hilary about how to do it and she set me off on the ins and outs. I was a bit overwhelmed at first but once you get started its fine. After I had stitched it, I pressed it and glued over the spine so it stays strong and doesn’t wobble about.
All I need to do now is put the cover on and guillotine it, but I am not inducted on the scary machine so I have to wait till Friday when Hilary is in and then glue my cover on.
The cover is double sided printing on to Cartridge paper 200gm, so it is thicker than the pages but still has a nice textured feel.
So when I have done all that I will take photographs of it in real life situations and with a plain background. And make it presentable for my portfolio and degreeshow
Thursday, 20 May 2010
My work is now on Rainy City Stories website
Remember my project for March/April. It was a self-written project to produce five designs for five stories on the website Rainy City Stories. I used collage, photography, mapping and information graphics.
The aim of the brief was to show the designs with the stories. Well I have finally emailed Rainy city Stories and they have put my designs with the stories, which is bloody fantastic! I am so pleased and it has happened so fast. They look great and my website url is with them so its promoting me.
http://www.rainycitystories.com/2009/05/26/the-busiest-bus-route-in-europe
http://www.rainycitystories.com/2009/08/13/not-yet
http://www.rainycitystories.com/2009/02/23/the-victoria-baths
http://www.rainycitystories.com/2008/10/20/rusholme-ruffians
http://www.rainycitystories.com/2008/11/03/narcissus-the-double-daffodil
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Cow Project - t-shirt designs
These are my designs for a brief from yonkers ago, for Cow Vintage. It was to create four t-shirt designs for their new shop in Manchester. And I have finally got around to screen-printing my designs, now I am not the best at screen-printing but they have come out preeeetty well.
The idea behind the designs is to combine, British behaviour and saying with vintage items. Very simple idea and very simple designs. 1. Vintage mirror frame and the word Glamour ( to hint at the page 3 lifestyle of today) 2. Vintage chandelier with the words Nice one Bruv (slang and G-talk) 3. Gramophone and the song lyrics “Play that funky…..white boy” and 4. Grand old chair with the most use term “Have a brew” “tea&2”.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
My business cards
So here are my business cards, I designed them last week and sent the designs off to Moo.com to be printed and they have been delivered today! and ooof they look gorgeous.
the main focus is the front of the card and it is a photograph I took on my travels around manchester for one of my projects and I instantly fell in love with it and new I had to incorporate it somehow.
I had two sets printed with different colours on each design, I chose blue and yellow/green because they are unisex colours in my eyes and plus they are just striking and make the design.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Saturday, 8 May 2010
awesome chair
This chair is amazing! I want one right now! It was created for an advertising campaign by Jules & Jeremy. More than 30 highly respected people from the Dutch press and advertisement world have been photographed in this chair for the campaign. The advertisements have been printed in marketing and ad magazines.
You can buy it I think but for god nos how much. I just love it, I can just picture myself in it for days, not having to move. Brilliant.
the neon museum
I really want to visit the Neon Museum aka the boneyard, it is a collection the old Las Vegas signs, from the most famous hotels in the world. It exhibits over 150 historic and non historic signs and is inspiration for artists, students, designers and historians.
It is a non profit organization in 1996. “The Neon Museum's mission is to collect, preserve, study and exhibit neon signs and associated artifacts to inspire educational and cultural enrichment for diverse members of our international community”
The pieces range from the 1930s to the present day. I think this would be gorgeous to see in person and great to photograph.
Inventive business card
So Ive been looking into making a business card and the great researcher I am came across this naughty and hilarious design for a Divorce Lawyer. Apparently lawyers can’t really advertise so this ambient piece of design is brilliant. It’s a business card that opens up to reveal a condom and a Kama sutra card. And it was left at the front desks of hotels and motels in America, to promote the lawyers, this is because most affairs happen at such places. Its very tongue and cheek and put a smile on my face.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Bryan Edmondson: SEA
4th May 2010
Bryan Edmondson came to our university to give a talk about his design company Sea. He probably was one of the quickest lecturers we have had to date. He briefly talked about his early career and his university life, he graduated in 1992 and has worked at numerous design company’s: Roundel and Imagination, before he co-founded Sea with John Simpson in 1997.
His work touches on many disciplines from corporate identity and art direction to print, packaging and information design. He has combined a diverse and impressive client list and produced a wide range of acclaimed work for clients such as Matthew Williamson, GF Smith, EMI and the contemporary furniture brand, Beyon.
“He used those weird things called pens!”
His work has been widely published and has received recognition in numerous national and international design awards. During his career he has lectured at many UK Universities and at events such as D&AD, Typographic Circle and the Annual London event, Four Designers.
They base their work on simple ideas, you could tell he knew what he liked and he has reasons for everything.
He also spoke about there re-design of Grafik Magazine, they were asked to design ten of the covers and a 150year anniversary book, I was really impressed by this and the work was just gorgeous, they worked with a screen print company for this and made 15,000 individually screen printed editions of Grafik to celebrate there anniversary.
He has obviously had a lucrative career and is proud to be at Sea, keeping his company to a 10 people maximum even with bigger and bigger clients each year, which is brave and probably a lot more work.
Russell Hancock
Visiting lecturer - Russell Hancock 27th April 2010
Russell Hancock came to our uni to give a brilliant talk about his journey from college to present and he came to give us a similar lecture like his old class mate Craig Oldham gave us. He wanted to help us transition from a student to a designer, easier than he did. He was very charismatic and funny, he kept us all interested with the fast pace and fascinating stories.
Like I have said, he was in the same class with Craig Oldham, at the university college Falmouth and graduated in 2006. And he has worked himself up in the short space of 4 years.
He described his mistakes and his success when he first left uni and he got ‘shafted’ quite a lot, but also put himself out there. He made connections in his town and graphic designed for basically his whole town. He did what ever he could big or small and made connections in the industry while doing this.
He has had internships in studios as well as jobs but is a freelance designer now. And I have learned that ‘self-employed’ means you work for yourself and ‘Freelance’ means work for studios and companies.
He was going through some of his design work and he started to talk about a old derelict art deco cinema. And you could see he got excited, this was a cinema in his town that was owned by a awful guy. And Russell brought it on himself to design the boards that cover up the doors of the building, just to make it intriguing and to bring back some of its magic.
He pitched this to the awful guy and he turned it down, but months later some else bought the building and he pitched it to them and they loved it, and now they have asked him to design all their promotions packaging and design for the inside as they are making it a cinema again. This is an amazing achievement and he should be very proud, from a small illustration design to a huge campaign is brilliant.
This shows that you don’t just have to work for big companies to get up the ladder. But he doesn’t knock London and its wide variety of design. He has worked fro ASHA http://www.ashawebsite.co.uk/, an amazing design company, and has produced some winning ideas with them, like the ‘gadgetshop’ campaign which was to produce posters, packaging and business cards that all represented a gadget. He showed us some of the fantastic work he did at ASHA.
He also told us how in the past he was over working, working very long days and weekends, which isn’t a life.He warned us of the danger of over working and how he had become ill form it. He was very strong on his opinion that life shouldn’t all be about work and it was such a relief to hear, as some designers are too focused in my eyes and live eat breathe design.
“life and a work balance is so important”
After working at Asha he became self employed and told us some GREAT tips on how to go about self employment, hourly rates and terms and conditions.
No one else has Ever told us or spoke to us about these kinds of things, not even hinted so this was awesome.
Hourly rates- £25
Freelancing Day Rate - £100-£200
Web/flash designs - £300 or more per hour.
As well as these valuable tips he also was very voiced about keeping in contact with everyone and anyone, if you have done past work with a client, keep in touch, they might use you some day. And to Listen to clients, they don’t see the way we do and sometimes cannot see the potential in ideas. Even showing your mum would help; if she cant get it then you need to re work it.
When working for a client, get the money up front and a signature, assess your designs carefully before presenting, if you act like a pro, you will be treated like a pro, remember people and you will be remembered. Become organized get out and socialise and remember some clients are just plain bad.
During his career he has worked under Marksteen Adamson at ASHA, for clients such as JCB, Gadgetshop, Tearfund and The Duke of Edinburgh Award. Also for Jamaha and Digital Vision with Freeman Christie and The Royal Mint and London Olympics 2012 at Fixel.
He is now based in his studio in Clifton, Bristol, and works as a freelancer for clients such as The National Autistic Society, Stratford Armouries, Blue Mouse Disability, Research Media, M.U.S.E., Lumiere Kinesis Cinemas, Mentos Mints, TL&G and Made London.
After his marvellous lecture he came to our studio to speak to anyone who wanted. So in small groups he had a chat with us. He has given us basically gold dust to any student. He has produced a: proposal, cover letter, terms of business, fee proposal and invoice. These are invaluable pieces of paper work that we need when we leave and I had never even thought about it, because no one ever said anything about it. He talked us through the paperwork, what to do and not to do and things that should be written into your contracts.
He has reassured me as a designer and has helped me immensely with the paperwork that is essential, he was a brilliant speaker and was very approachable, I think I will keep in touch with him as he is just so straight forward and a brilliant designer.
Emily Forgot
20th April 2010 visiting lecturer
Emily Alston aka Emily Forgot came to give a informal lecture for the 3 years of D&AD. She was a very charismatic woman and spoke to us instead of at us, unlike other designers in the past.
She is a illustrator mainly and a part time graphic designer, but wants to be more focused on graphic design as there is more freedom in designing unlike illustration where the client tells you the colours and style of the piece.
She graduated in 2004 from Liverpool School of Art and Design and had been designing ever since, she has now moved down to London because she thinks being in London makes being in the industry easier, not the creatively but it has opened doors for her.
She is influenced by A.M. Cassandra who was a illustrator, typographer, designer and set designer of the 1920’s.
And by the surreal artists Salvador Dali and Alan Aldridge.
She has done work for the likes of Selfridges and Adidas, and by the looks of her website she is well known in the community. She has designed a cover for the Creative Review and from this got work from Yamaha.
Her work is very 2D and illustrative, using A LOT of gradients which I don’t favour but hey it works.
“I like busy things like Where’s Wally”.
Although I think she is freelance now she has in the past worked for creative agency’s, she worked for Village green for 6 months. But from what she said she felt restricted.
“Be self indulgent”
she got very giddy and excitable about her work in the lecture and made everyone laugh, she like to get things in her designs that she likes, like legs and tea pots.
She has also screenprinted for the If You Could website which focuses on Working with established designers and illustrators as well as emerging talent they produce work for publishing, exhibitions and events. If You Could has been featured in international design and style press including Creative Review, Grafik, Design Week, Computer Arts, Wonderland Magazine.
Along side commercial endeavors Emily produces personal work in the form of limited edition prints and ceramics. Her work has been exhibited both in London and abroad most notably in 2007 at the “Fragiles” show as part of the prestigious Miami Art Basel.
She has clearly done well for herself with her career. In the space of six years she has definitely made a name for herself and still seemed grounded and young and fresh, she didn’t take herself seriously and doesn’t with her work either, her work is fun and visual it doesn’t have to have specific reason or meaning, she just makes it.
Scratch n sniff
Hi all, I no Ive not been blogging for a while but Im not a great mutlitasker when having to write my uni journal and my Manchester guide book….too many words.
But today I feel I must blog as I was walking down oxford road and was handed a free bottle of water, but it wasn’t just any kind of water……. It was Calvin Klein Water….. yeah I no I was impressed too. But no they are not opening up a new market it’s a promotional item for their new male fragrance: Eternity Aqua. It’s a small bottle and is designed like a typical bottle of water but with a great extra. It has a ‘Scratch & Sniff’ patch on it, which smells of the fragrance. And it is a pretty nice smell too! I felt I must share this, as is a great use of marketing. I wouldn’t of thought Calvin Klein would do such an ambient advertisement.
Thursday, 15 April 2010
cheeky cheeky
Just been scanning through design agencies I like for my journal and noticed the homepage of TBWA London, explaining about themselves and there company. But what really caught my eye is the very mischievous picture they have put up of the Saatchi & Saatchi building and in front of the scaffolding is a plug for TBWA. How very naughty of them :) I dont know how long this has been there but it put a smile on my face, so I thought I would share.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Rainy City Stories project
Brief: Editorial
My idea to create images for the website RAINY CITY STORIES
(http://www.rainycitystories.com)
This website is for Manchester based writers who submit short stories of Manchester memoires and their own narratives.
“What’s Rainy City Stories?
This site gathers up a wide experience of living in, remembering and imagining the great city of Manchester. It uses a map of the city to organize stories linked to particular places. If you click on a place marked by the little cloud icon, you will be able to read a piece of writing associated with that spot. Anyone can submit writing to the site.”
Pick FIVE stories off this webpage and illustrate them appropriately.
Photography – Not Yet
By Paul Capewell
This short story is situated in the Deaf Institute on Oxford Road, and it is a simple narrative about two people waiting and longing for something to happen but it seems as if time stood still. For this I took a trip to Trof (which is the Deaf Institute) and took some photographs with a fish eye camera and a digital. I have played around in Photoshop with them and based my designs on a phrase used in the story “silent comrade”. And with this I thought of the military and how correlated the armed forces are with each other, how in-sync they have to be to fight at their best. I liked this idea and though to present this in the design. I drew my own comrade and played around with layout, my final design is my favourite and it looks worn and as if the ‘comrades’ were projected on to the building.
Collage – Narcissus. The Double Daffodil
By Anne Beswick
This short story is about nostalgia and the lower class in the 1960’s, and it is situated in Moss side, Manchester. For this story I felt that collage design would be suitable as the story is about childhood memories and dark times, with these thoughts I think the design would have little or no feeling if it were to be illustrated in Photoshop or Illustrator. So with this I started to design typical ideas with daffodils and crumbling windowsills, but this was so uninspired and gave no sensation or emotion. So I thought about the time period and what was going on in the surroundings of the narrative and decided on creating a scene using dark colours to instigate the hard times and using a bright yellow in the little girls dress to illustrate the idea of the daffodil being the young girl. And how the tale revolves around her positive attitude and young, optimistic outlook on life in her working class lifestyle.
The Busiest Bus Route in Europe
By Emily Josephine McPhillips
This story is located on Oxford road near the BBC building. It is a classic love story but with a twist, between two people on a 142 Magic Bus travelling to University. They connect subtly on the busy bus journey, not knowing anything about each other but there is a strong bond being formed, they could relate to each other without even forming a sentence. From this narrative I formed a design instantly in my head, I knew I should create this vision with collage as it presents a delicate touch and sentiment into the design. I wanted to capture the unknown/mysteriousness of the two characters but also centring them to be the focus. In a sea of anonymous people, they are to stand out and relate to one another.
The Victoria Baths
By Aiden Clarkson
This narrative is located at the Victoria baths, Hathersage Road. It is a combination of two stories, one is the history of the Baths and the other is a narrative of a mans content memory of a man hitting another man with a mountain bike. I was having trouble deciding which route to take with this story, as there are two different directions to go in. I chose the history of the Victoria baths as I think the Baths are so interesting and beautiful when you compare them to the average community swimming pools of present. I felt like I wanted to tell the history of the baths as well as create a visually pleasing design so I produced a timeline of the history and combined this with a side and floor plan of the baths itself. This design is information graphics and I think the colours work and blend well with the website as well as the actual design. Again I have not ventured into this design style much before and I like the simplicity of the design I think it suits the story in an unobvious way but tells the narrative clearly and not to overpower the actual story.
Rusholme Ruffians
By Matthew David Scott
This story is full of emotion, it is set in Rusholme and is centered on student living and gang culture. It is an insight into a thieves/muggers way of life and how they chose their victims. This story is a lesson to all students and to young people being pressured into a lifestyle they don’t want to be in. it is about two teenage boys in a crew stand waiting in an unlit door way on the busy street of Rusholme waiting for their unsuspected prey. They have been tracking a certain student for a while and had decided that tonight is the night to jump; they follow him home and violently let themselves in after him. The older one of the two is the obvious leader and calls all the shots, he is the instigator and what he says goes, the young of the boys clearly has to follow strict orders. The younger boy feels sympathetic to the victim and is confused about is sexual orientation, he doesn’t want to be in the crew but feels he has no way out now.
This is such a strong story line I found it difficult to create a fitting image, I wanted to show how the muggers follow and track their victims and for this I decided to create a mapping design. I have used images of rusholme at night and edited them into three sets of footprints; each footprint is allocated to each character in the story. The design is to create a narrative in itself, ‘stalking the prey’ it is a very different way of designing than I normally do and I think it is refreshing.
With these designs I have developed some postcards, to be used for the tourists side of Manchester. As this whole brief is centred on Manchester writers, Manchester stories and designed by a Manchester designer I thought this would be fitting.
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