ProCon 3 List
Online
Placements
- Over summer I worked 5 days a week for 8 weeks, working with the guys at Brond gave me a great head-start for year 3 and greatly broadened my skillset. I worked alongside the team on various live projects.
Freelance
- I produced a range of banners and promotional materials for the guys to use during freshers week promotions.
- Brad a film student wanted a logo for his youtube channel, I was happy to provide him with a few outcomes and help him decide on a final logo.
- Over the course of the past year I have produced several diagrams and learning materials
- I am currently working on a large journal for print.
Life Drawing
- I attended a few sessions of life drawing in order up my overall drawing skills, working alongside students from various arts courses. This defiantly improved my drawing skills and made me look at scale and proportion in a new light.
Good Ship Salford
- For the Good Ship Salford event I worked quickly and secured free paper for our promotional materials within hours of being assigned the task, I was both efficient and meticulous in my approach.
- I worked out the size of the invite and how we would fit it into the bottles working alongside others.
- I was involved with several discussions regarding the event and brought up several points about managing the budget and timeline.
- I received valuable feedback from industry on how to improve my work, I was happy with how nice people were in pointing out ways I could improve.
Liverpool Trip
- We visited Tate Liverpool and FACT cinema
Tate Modern
- Over easter I visited London and had a look around Tate Modern
Screen One
- Whilst on placement I got sent down to Screen One, a massive screen print company based in Bristol.
Self Branding
- I have designed my business cards with an illustration of my face
- Recreated my logo incorporating a pen into a customised typeface
- I have sorted out my portfolio creating a strong theme and revising my old work
Evaluation
So I have just completed my final project in year 3 and am about to go out into the real world. Im ready to attack adult life as a fresh design graduate.
Since christmas I have been working on my Negotiated Major Project, what should be the best body of work I have every produced.
I initially attempted to create a vegan safe haven private bar called The Distinguished Vegan. My initial idea was to rebrand veganism as something that is now what I believe to be a feasible diet and not an alternative way of living. Unfortunately I started this project and failed to revisit it later in the term. I found myself becoming disheartened in justifying it to people and explaining my work so I put it to rest for a while looking to revisit it later on.
Although I did not finish the work I did end up with a really nice logo and brand identity that was beginning to take shape and I would be proud to have in my portfolio. I have never attempted to produce something that looks distinguished high end and felt it would be good. I will be continuing with this project after I graduate because I felt it had promise and could look great.
After this I took on the Taxi Studio brief, the task was to create a range of products that reflect my personality. This brief gave me an opportunity to produce some clever self promotional work as well compete for a paid placement.
I really enjoyed getting stuck into the brief as it allowed me jump in and start designing, I produced a large body of work taking my ideas and building on them. I have created a brand that can be extended out to a range of products and marketing materials.
I have really enjoyed working in a rugged, no nonsense style. I am happy with the work I have produced and pride myself on my ability to produce my own graphical elements and imagery from scratch. I have put a lot of effort into improving my art working skills and vector based illustration and now feel like its something I want to pursue in the future.
I spent a lot of time mulling over my products always keeping my target audience in mind, I needed to sell myself but not sell my soul and claim to be something I’m not. I hate the notion that I should say I can do something I cant or pretend to have qualities I don’t just in order to impress someone, so it was crucial that my work was genuine and reflected my personality both good and bad aspects (nothing too bad).
Over the course of the NMP I have also produced a number of vector illustrated animal heads, this was a self initiated project and was something I enjoyed, it was nice to focus on the artwork itself and not get massively bogged down in the context of the project, without constraint I could free myself up and produce artwork to the best of my ability. Its probably some of the work I most enjoyed and found myself getting lost in exploring different techniques, developing my own process and mastering aspects of Adobe Illustrator. I realise that this work is in one particular style but it has given me the confidence to try out techniques and methods that can be applied across my NMP and has given a certain edge to everything else I produce.
This is a project I will definitely be taking forward in the future and is something I am happy to work on in my spare time, in a commercial sense I am looking to get my work screen printed for the show.
I feel like if I was to start this project again I would have done things differently but this is only down to the fact I have learnt from my mistakes and spent a lot of time gaining skills I previously did not have. Overall I am happy with the work I have produced and feel it stands me in good stead for my future portfolio.
I have enjoyed my work over the past 4 years at Salford and am a totally different designer and man as a result of my time spent here. My work now reflects my personality and I have discovered my own style, I am a lot more aware of my tastes in the design world and am capable of noticing and forming opinions on things that previously would have gone over my head. I am more capable then ever in pointing out the negative aspects of my work, but likewise I am more capable of improving my work. I have often been criticised for my critical approach to my own work but I feel it will compel me to be constantly improving, but I need to learn how to big up my own work so I can present it effectively.
I have quickly produced a scrumpy cider label, its clean and crisp hopefully reflecting the contents of the bottle. Again my cider breaks away slightly from the rest of my packaging but it reflects something different. Its more relaxed.
During the creation phase of my packaging I generated various initial concepts experimenting with colour and style, until I arrived at something I was happy with.
Using celebrity endorsements I can build on the humorous aspect of my brand. I have also kept heavily on brand for this, ensuring that my work is impactful and imposing.
The work is bold and brash, using language that is sure to grab attention. Despite the negative connotations I feel the irony is what make it. I can justify this by drawing attention to famous negative campaigns such as the ‘Its A Skoda Honest’ campaign. Skoda has previously had a reputation for producing cars that the fall to pieces but they play to this in their adverts suggesting that it was so unbelievable that such nice cars were being produced by Skoda.
I know my design work is far removed from the ad campaigns of Skoda but its the same anti-advertising concept.
Some more development of a cider label, still not happy with it at the moment. It needs to be clearer what the costumer is looking at, although it does look aggressive it needs work. Im really happy with the placement of the ‘Ollie’.
Playing around with the composition of some elements but am finding difficult fitting in all the type without disrupting the natural shape of the apple and ruining the imagery. Im happy with the placement with the ‘Ollie’s’.
One of my favourite cider labels at the moment is Symonds, I love the way they have incorporated the hidden apples into the the tree branches. I would love to produce something of similar quality.
I love the brutal nature of the packaging used for Black Rat. It is frankly off-putting for most despite the fact it tastes a lot better than most ciders. Using the clever use of humour and a great narrative they have managed to build a small folk legend around a fairly normal product. They only use black on white for graphic styling giving off the impression of cheapness and paint stripper strength.
They myth is that dead rats give the cider its district flavour but of course this is all a clever marketing ploy that turns the drink into a talking point and somewhat of a legend, brining about the question ‘are you a rat rider tonight?’.
The packaging fits in well to some of my products, in particular the Bulls Balls which depend on being slightly vile in order to grab attention.
Although it is far from pretty its important to note the message it labelling is sending to the perspective buyer. You know you don’t drink this for the flavour.
Its interesting how if the colour of the can was changed a totally different message could and potentially market with a different perception could be attracted.
Lazy Jack is a cloudy american style cider with a sweet flavor good for a slow summers day. I feel that this is reflected in the labelling. They hint back to American with the use of script typeography alongside big and bold typefaces.
I like the way they have used a weathered texture, making it look like a slightly worn american road sign. This relates to the packaging I have produced and provides inspiration for my cider label.
So Iv transformed a lemonade stand and branded it up into a promotional stand for my products, single Bulls Balls would be given out in a neat branded package and a hamper could be won.
Two complete recipe cards, using slightly different layouts.
The top image is a photograph of my cards scattered over my desk.
This card gives the recipient something more than just some details and a nice logo, its almost as if i’m watching you without me being in the room! How sinister.
Hopefully I have created something that has a little more pick up power than other cards.
This is the new reverse side of the recipe card, it fits in far better to the rest of the brand. Again I have used an image of the animal to hopefully instil humor into the project.