Career

For me family is an important factor and thus I feel my future setup should be closer to home. As I live in Shropshire my prospects as a designer are limited, and as I don't want to end up in some endless design job, I feel that getting a career in Manchester/Liverpool is my best option. Being in Leeds has also taught me that city life is so much more insightful with art exhibits being available at my fingertips, and therefore would like to remain living in a city, before inevitably moving to surrounding suburbs when making my own family. As cities come I do personally prefer Manchester, but would definitely consider working in Liverpool. Chester is also only a 45 minute drive away from my home, but I just don't feel as if I would be able to reach my potential living in such a small although delightful city.

Thinking about what kind of design I would like to explore within my future career is difficult, as I see myself setting new challenges and working in multiple studios. Some companies in which I would definitely like to work for are as following:

Carbon Creative (Manchester)

Carbon Creative innovates in ethical and sustainable business practices working to promote the clients and values it cares about.The company has received media and press interest for its continuing environmental campaigns, most notable was the launch of a tree planting campaign in 2006 dedicating trees to be planted in Salford and Greater Manchester for clients and for every order placed. Working with organisations such as Macmillan, Keep Britain tidy and Colgate they have a strong reputation and do not comply themselves to harmful design, something I feel passionate about within the disposable society in which we live.

Creative Spark (Manchester)

Every designer likes to think of themselves as being successful and in some ways the key to success is working for big corporate companies in which are internationally recognisable. Although this may be good for some, but harmful to the 'little man' I feel as if Creative spark is very selective surrounding which large profit organisations they work for. By working with the vegetarian society, the Lowry, Peter Kay, and Manchester United's premier cup a variant of well established brands have been associated with the design company. Whilst looking through their portfolio there is not design in which I feel is ethically wrong, a factor in which some key organisations tend to ignore. As the last thing I want to be doing as a designer is encouraging consumers to invest in brands such as Nike. 

Liquid Agency (Liverpool)

Working through multiple platforms including traditional print, this design studio doesn't focus purely on C.A.D work, something in which I would definitely like to explore within my career.  Working with Levi's, Warburtons and Thorntons, the design practice  focuses strongly on branding and packaging. Two design areas in which I specifically enjoy, and have strived in during past A level projects.

Halloween face painting venture

As a graphics student I feel that a vast majority of my work is correlated through the medium of computers which doesn't allow me room to display my craft skills. Thus for this reason I have decided to do a few craft projects each season and document them. To begin this enever, I have produced some craft surrounding Halloween.

As me and a friend visited one of Leeds iconic burlesque shows last week, I felt it a great opportunity to create some Halloween inspired make up. Using primarily glitter, make up and lots of hair spray I began this process.  During the burlesque show multiple people came up to us and discussed the makeup, something that I found was a great way to instigate a conversation.  In one discussion I found myself talking to a fellow graphic designer whom I then shared contact details with and now follow on Instagram. I found this experience highly insightful as I haven't previously 'networked'.

Grid system

To create consistancy within my design work I developed a six columm grid for imagery alongside a three columm grid overlay. I decided upon this grid system as I felt that it wouldnt be restricting, allowing for creative space yet structural balance.

Palatino was my chosen typeface, as I wanted to use a serif in order for the general body copy to be easily readable. I also personally liked how the typeface flows much smoother than others due to the curvature present within its structure. 12pt was chosen as the generic text size to allow for a legible approach, that allows each sentence to flow. I also felt it important to present my name, module code and page number upon the grid. I did this to allow for a proffesional structured approach.

5 things

The reasons why I chose this course were:

1. Due to Leeds College Of Art being nationally acknowledged for its relationship with art, and pushing students to exhilarate in their subject area.
2. Past alumni includes: Damien Hirst, Hepworth and Moore. Suggesting the overall quality of the University.
3. I felt that the course would not only nourish my creative realms but also push me to explore spectrums of art I am not yet confident with. 
4. I specifically liked the idea of having weekly lectures surrounding art topic areas, as I have yet to be in an academic environment that supplied this. 
5. The resources available including: Macs, Letterpress, Screen printing etc.

Things I want to learn during this course:

1. To gather confidence surrounding art topics and presenting art work.
2. To gather an contextual response to art.
3. To explore artist methods I am yet to try, for example Letterpress.
4. To gather a large understanding of typography, for example how to create your own typeface.
5.  To push my creative realms, and to develop my unique artist style,

My current strengths:

1. I am very confident using computer softwares such as Illustrator and Photoshop.
2. I feel that my knowledge on typographers is very strong, especially when discussing Armin Hoffman and Joseph Muller Brockmann. 
3. I enjoy evaluating others work, and feel that I can easily find contextuality behind a piece of artwork.
4. I do not always 'jump' straight on a computer when designing, as I like to create my own design primarily by hand and then scan it in, depending upon the context. 
5. I like to work with others within a project as I feel that ideas 'bounce' from one another.

What I would like to improve:

1. My drawings skills.
2. The concepts behind my designs.
3. The platforms I design upon, for example to use screen printing.
4. The way I think about art. I want to submerge myself in design, rather than just choosing to do it as a career.
5. My knowledge of art movements.

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Time management

To help me stay focused during the following weeks I created a timetable which displays specific task for each day. Each day I also developed a specific list of components I had to complete that day.

Overall, I found the individual lists much more helpful than the timetable, this being due to specific details being added to the lists each day.

Design Studios

AH—HA is a communication & graphic design studio established in 2011 by Carolina Cantante and Catarina Carreiras, which is based in Lisbon. There responce is very personal as they work closely with their clients to create a large variety of independent projects. The style they display is very unique to them,  as they use basic shapes for designs and use limited colours.

 

Hey studios is a graphic design studio based in Barcelona. They specialise in brand identity, editorial design and illustration. There design style primarily focuses upon  geometry, color and direct typography.

 Sagmister and Walsh is a New York design company set up my Jessica Walsh. They focus upon environmental design, film, web design, and advertisement. Their work primarly consists of vivid colours in a pop art syle. 

Hey days is a norwegian design agency, based in Oslo. The company primarily consists of six people but freelancers are commonly sed for larger projects. They provide design solutions for both big and small companies this includes branding/identity and web design.

 Lust is a design studio in the Netherlands in which was established in 1996.  Their main focus is print work, book design and interactive media. The house style for this studio is abstract and post modernism design. 

Studio Dumbar is a Dutch design company established in 1977, and is the 3rd most awared design outtlet after apple. They focus on the branding of an company and their web design. Occording to their website they do not feel that their work portrays a partical style “our style is that we dont have a style”.

Build studios was orignally located within London but has recently moved to Yorkshire. Their brand is internationally renound, and they have collaberated with companys such as  made.com, nike and microsoft.  Their style is very type orientated, they tend to work with a simple san serif, and limited colours which are usually complimentary.

Elmwood Studios is a brand design company that has studios in based London, New york, Leeds, Singapore and Hong Kong. They create comercial packaging and branding, and dont stick to a house style as they try to personalise each clients experience. 

Bleed Studios focuses upon identity design, 2d and 3d design , and interactice web designs. They have worked with large companies such as Ikea and Diseal. Their style consists of spimplistic design, selective colours and geometric shapes/patterns.

Face Designs is based in Mexico, they focus upon super modernist design and  branding products. They do lots of work for the music industry, especially mexican nightclubs. When branding, they have questions that they give clients called ‘your homework’ so that they achieve the design in which they desire. 

Dessein Studios was created in Perth, 1987. They focus on branding, packaging and web design. There style is modern, colourful and powerful. Their slogan is “solve it, brand it, print it, stream it, make it”.

Anatomy of type

During my initial lecture surrounding the topic area of typography I discovered many components involving the specific basics of type, this included learning specific terminology such as:
kerning (referring to the process of adding and subtracting space between letters) and also diaontic (an ancillary mark or sign added to a letter form).

We also looked in depth at the anatomy of type. Specific details we looked at included, the cap height, x height and baseline. I felt that this really gave me a greater understanding about how typefaces are put together, I definitely think this information will be influence me as I progress through the following typography module, and begin to create my own type.