Visiting Professional- Robbie Porter

The best thing I took away from Robbie's talk today was 'do good work and put it where people can see it.' I think this is so relevant, because it's okay if you do good work, but whats the point if no one can see it? By putting your work out there it grabs peoples attention and makes you more recognisable as a person. 

I really enjoyed Robbie's talk, I loved his illustrations and listening to his highs and lows while being an illustrator, he studied visual communication at the college not really knowing what he wanted to do but then found he wanted become an illustrator. 

We got given a one day brief from Robbie, it was an recent article from the Gaudian about Tesco banning sweets from the checkout of their stores and replacing them with healthier options such as oatcakes.  

As soon as I read the article about sweets I immediately thought of Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, and how much the kids wanted to visit the factory, and how crazy the sweets made them. When I think of Willy Wonka I think of the psychedelic tunnel they go through in the boat, this made me think of one of my favorite things being 60's psychedelic posters. 

I love the type on these even though it is extremely hard to read, the bold colours make the posters really vivid. 

Here are a few of my sketched ideas, I wanted to show a kid going crazy off a sugar rush/ needing sugar. 

This was my final sketch, this would be a poster the eyes would be red and white to represent the swirly lolly pops you get, 'Tesco' would be in a lose type and would represent the teeth, this would be in blue for Tesco's logo, if I had more time I would of spent some time on photoshop colouring it in and making it psychedelic. 

Visiting professional- Ben from Ditto Press

 Today we got a talk from a visiting professional, Ben Freeman from Ditto Press. It was a very interesting talk and it was good to know how he has got himself in that position, it was not how I imagined. 

Ben Freeman combines work as a printer with publishing, documentary photography, writing and editing. He has a background in self-initiated design work and frequently takes part in exhibitions and events. In 2009, Ben co-founded Ditto Press, a London based print-publishing company.

We were given a brief to research, we were told this would link closely with our summer brief. We had to think about things we were interested in and why, how we could research into it further and what methods could be used. 

I had a five minute chat with Ben about my main idea for research in the summer, as I am going traveling for six weeks and i love type, I thought of making a type journal with type in different countries. I would focus on type and then in the future I will look back on the photos from the counties I have visited and hopefully this will give me inspiration for my own type. I was thinking of making screen printed books and storing them all in there, but as Ben said this is alot of effort for something to keep to myself. So I have decided I will just take photos on my phone and create a separate album to look back on. 

OUGD402 Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I have developed my screen printing, presentation, and thought process skills within this module. Through doing things like the rap and our seven minute presentations about ourselves I think it has defiantly improved my confidence. Looking back on my blogs throughout the year I can see how I have developed not just as a designer but as a person also. 

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
Doing brief 2 and screen printing it has been very useful, I was initially going to digital print however I felt that this was a quick way out and wasn't a challenge, screen printing took a lot longer than I thought and so much went wrong, but these have been good lessons and I wont be making these mistakes again.   

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
A strength has been planning my time, I planned my time effectively so I could get my work screen printed, I think when screen printing you need to leave a lot of time for things to go wrong. 

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
My weakness I think has been blogging exhibitions and galleries, I have visited a few galleries throughout the year and I wish now I would of blogged about them when I went, this would of been nice to look back on at the end of year. Next year I intend on pushing myself further out of my comfort zone, I still want to experiment with foiling and letterpress sometime in the near future. 

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Blog on time
2. Actually talk to professionals- they are just humans
3. When visiting galleries or doing something outside of graphics, actually blog about it
4. Look at more blogs- take time out to read articles on whats going on in the design world
5. Be more critical 

Studio Brief 2- Final Outcome

Unfortunately I couldn't get any photos of the screen printing process as I've recently had my phone stolen and I don't own a camera, so I've just took photos of my final outcome.

I changed the pink to a purple as I think it represents me better and complements the citrus paper better also. 

I had a few printing difficulties today, my screen had a few problems, the technicians helped me a lot to fill in the missing parts of the screen, the body copy wasn't coming out right and the logo, but on some of the copies I've made I like this worn effect.  

Here are the business cards, I much prefer the purple to the pink, the grey didn't come out as light as I would of liked it however I think as it is darker it stands out more and matches the grey on the cv/poster thing. 

I am pretty happy with my final outcome, I have learnt a lot from doing screen printing independently rather than doing the workshops. I've realised how time consuming it is and how much can go wrong. In terms of what I have produced, I would of been happier if I could of got the business cards double sided, but the way I have done it now makes the card more sturdy. I definitely am going to develop my logo in the future as I am not 100% happy with it, if I was to do business cards again I will definitely get them sent off to be printed as it will give an overall more professional feel. 

Screen Printing Business Cards

Today I screen printed some of my business cards and some envelopes, I have had a variety of difficulties doing this, the main thing was aligning the prints was near impossible to get it perfect, there is probably a simple way I just don't know what it is. 

Here is the front and the back of the business card, now they are printed and I have cut a couple of them down I have realised I don't even like the colours that much and I don't feel like they represent me. 

As the alignment went completely wrong i started to cut them out separately and stick them together, while doing this I then remembered the pressision printers card we got given the other week, I remembered the man saying it was made of three sheets of card glued together, this was a perfect idea on how to make my cards better, I now think I shall screen print the cards again using a purple and a much lighter grey and I will prefer these colours and they will be less harsh. I will print them on separate pieces of card and stick them together with a black piece of card in the middle. 

This is a photo to show the colours working together, initially i thought the colours would work a lot better than this, I now am going to go for a purple as it is opposite yellow on the colour wheel and it will contrast well. (the yellow of the paper isn't that bright in person) 

Some of the lines haven't printed out on some of my prints, but I think on the next set of cards I will take the lines off anyway. I have definitely learnt a lot in the print room today, even though a lot of things have gone wrong I have learnt from them and hopefully tomorrow will go better. 

Development

For this brief I have had a variety of ideas, the idea I think i'm going to go with is a CV style thing, this will include things like what I want to learn what I have learnt over the year, my education and a bit about myself what I like and enjoy. This will be an A3 piece of paper, I am thinking I might screen print it as that is a new skill that I have learnt this year.  

I like this font however I don't think it's very me, it seems to harsh and structured. I think it will give a professional look, I played around with it with different colour combinations ect, I just don't think it reflects me.  

Here I have tried more of a natural font, with a hand drawn feel, i think this reflects me better, it looks more easy going and friendly as a font. I liked this font I just didn't like the extra bit off the 'p' so i removed that on illustrator. 

To keep the logo together, I decided to put a circle round it and have it as dots. I like it however i'm not sure about the circle of dots not sure if it looks a bit lost.

After playing with the line weights for a bit I have managed to get the dot look i was going for however now I am unsure about the font as I like the dots better, i'm not sure they complement each other well. 

I tried out a variety of fonts to try and compliment my logo, but i found it quite tricky. Here I tried futura. 

I found this font online that I really like, I like how it looks neat and structured and the ends of the letters are rounded. The font is called co co goose. 

I liked the font so much that I experimented with it in my logo and muched preferred it, I think it works better as well so all the font is the same. 

Adding a few vectors so its not too text heavy

I know I want to add some info graphics in but I am not sure how to do this, I experimented with using the logos of the programmes, but I don't think it was very clear what I was trying to show.

I am trying to show how much of each programme I think I know after developing throughout the year. After researching into info graphics I have decided to show it like this, I think this makes more sense to what I am trying to communicate. 

I started to design the vectors to add to it, I designed six to show my likes and what I enjoy outside of graphics.

Here are the designs for my business cards that I am going to screen print, I am quite worried about screen printing two sided and alignment issues but I think I need to try it out.

Here is the final piece, I think its looks okay, it was hard to get the balance right of text and image and i didn't want it to look too overcrowded. I have learnt so much in a year its hard to fit it on one A3 sheet, however I only wanted to give a brief overview, I will now go and screen print this I and going to keep it black and print on a light coloured stock. 

Here are the colours I have chosen

I saw I really nice citrus stock that wasn't too over powering, I have chosen to use that for my CV styled thing with a deep grey screen printed over the top. To complement the yellow citrus colour I have chosen to go for a fuchsia pink to keep it quite bright, I will print on white card with fuchsia for the business cards and envelopes. 

Presentation

http://issuu.com/aimeeparker/docs/aimee_parker_87767c4e082c1a

Research

As a promotional pack I might do an envelope maybe screen print it, I really like the designs of these, I think the map one would be fitting as I am going traveling. 

I really like this 'brox' and their branding himself, its clean and crisp in all black, the added pattern makes it unique. 

I really like this idea of having a thaumatrope business card, when you spin it the design comes together, I think they are quite cleaver, i have made a thaumatrope before, they are simple yet effective, I think this would be a good idea as it makes the card more interactive and people will actually remember you. 

I really like the use of colour in this self branding, and how they have only used black, the design is very bold and I love the logo.