London- Museum of Branding, Packaging and Advertising

We found and visited the Museum of brands, packaging and advertising museum in London near portobello road. It was a very interesting museum I enjoyed looking at all of the vintage packaging and seeing how iconic brands have changed over the years. I took some pictures below, my favourite era of packaging was the 90's however I did like the detail and colour within some of the older packaging. The history of consumer culture was fascinating, from the naive charm of the Victorian ear to the sophistication of today. 

London- Studio Moross

Kate Moross has always been one of my biggest inspirations since being in sixth form, so while in London I decided to visit Studio Moross. It was a Saturday so the studio wasn't open but I really enjoyed looking in the window and actually being there. 

You could tell instantly that it was Kate Moross' studio, Studio Moross doesn't just focus on Graphic Design things like branding, print, web and type but they also do a lot of art direction for music videos. As Kate Moross is one of my biggest inspirations I am going to write her a letter requesting to visit, to gain a greater in sight to my favourite graphic design studio. 

Brief 2- Taking care of Business- First Meeting

Taking Care of Business

Working in groups of four you will construct a business plan or business proposal for a creative design studio and present it to your peers and tutors in an formatively assessed, oral presentation.

Your plan/proposal and presentation should be based on the analysis and content that you have been introduced to throughout the module.

In our group:

-Me (Aimee Parker)
-Helen Street
-Vanessa Cain
-Molly Goggin 
-Katie Rothery 

We have had our first group meeting today and we have decided to make a screen printing studio as our business. We are unsure whether we have too many aspects to our business here are are main ideas:

-a screen printing membership
this would be a yearly membership where you could come and screen print at any time 

-cafe
the business could include a cafe where creatives could chill and network

-evening classes
classes for people that want to learn how to screen print and for people who want to experiment more

-online shop
an online shop that would include t-shirts, tote bags and various other merchandise that you could have your design screen printed on, you would send in your design and select what you would like it to be printed on and we would screen print and post it too you, this service will also include some screen printed posters for sale

-exhibitions
in the evening we would hold exhibitions for creatives to have their work on display

-an hourly service
we could maybe have an hourly service (or two hour and a day service) a bit like developing your film where people could pop in and get there negatives screen printed, a drop in service where you could do it yourself or for a bit extra we could do it. 

-social networking
to promote the business we would use every aspect of social networking

Name for business:
we are yet to decide upon a name for our business some ideas we have so far are: 

-the print room
-squieegee
-screen space
-exposure
-the print space
-the print box
-design time

We have also considered having mono printing and etching in the business but it all depends on what sort of space we can get. 

What skills and services do you have to offer?

Screen printing, design, evening workshops, online shop

Who is your target market?

Anyone that is interested in learning to screen print, people with disposable income. This business would have a wide target market from young creatives who want to experiment more with screen printing to people trying screen printing for the first time. 

Who is your competition and how will you compete?

Other design and printing studios, Leeds college of art (for their evening classes) and various other studios listed below 

http://dotsprint.co.uk/

http://stcollective.bigcartel.com/

http://www.northernprint.org.uk/home.html

What are your costs, charges and financial considerations?

When thinking about the costing of the business there was a lot more to consider than expected. Here are the things we need to consider when costing:

Bills:
-electric
-gas
-water
-the space 

Materials:
-screens 
-ink
-squeegees 
-cleaning products 
-paper
-stationary (including scissors, pens, pencils ect.)
-tea and coffee 
-packaging for items
-plastic pots for ink

Permanent things:
-macs
-printers
-jet wash 
-exposer/ light box
-drying racks
-screen print tables
-till
-uniforms
-desks

Todays meeting has been good, our next steps will be deciding on a name for the business, finding a space to set the business up in and working out the costings. 

OUGD504- Design Production- End of Module Evaluation

This module I have learnt things for both print and web. I previously knew nothing about web so this module has been interesting, I have also learnt a lot about commercial printing, which has been beneficial. 

The first brief made me think outside of the box in terms of folding techniques. I experimented a lot with different folding techniques for this brief and how design could be printed onto it.  When I started to look at my design process initially I realised just how much there is too it. I tried designing my leaflet in a style that I had never folded before. The final fold I went for was actually a napkin fold, but I think it works well as it works as a desktop leaflet now. It took a long time to get the printing right on this leaflet as it kept printing the wrong way ect. I added the watercolour onto the paper because printing a pattern and lining the text up was proving very difficult. I am happy with the final product I think it represents my design process well, I am happy with the colours, if there was one thing I could change on the leaflet it would be for the ink not to crack when folded but sometimes that cant be helped.

With the second brief we got to choose a kick-starter project and design a logo for the project. I initially wanted to design a logo for a food company, I chose a lemonade company in Chicago. A guy that had just left uni and wants to sell cheap, fresh, homemade lemonade on a cart at Chicago beach. I made the brand considerations, and realised he would need a fun and fresh logo. I experimented with various ideas mostly hand drawn. In the end I decided to go for a hand drawn logo. I decided to go for yellow, grey and white colour scheme, the grey keeping it more modern. The logo worked well in context. I really enjoyed doing the hand rendered type for this brief, I made a lot of mistakes but I have definitely learnt from them. If I had more time I think I would of actually contacted the guy and asked him what he thought.

Brief three was the website brief. I am disappointed that I only learnt a tiny bit of coding as that was one thing I was looking forward to in second year, however from what I did learn from the first session proved just how difficult it can be. I have really enjoyed learning about the limitations of web, what you can and can’t do, the colour and font limitations. I have realised just how difficult designing for web can be and I defiantly appreciate it more now. I enjoyed designing scamps and looking more into grid systems, and the different formats of websites.

Brief four was an extension of Brief 3, designing something to advertise the website. Researching into augmented and interactive design has been useful. I defiantly think I will think about more interactive design in the future when designing. The workshops have been really useful; learning simple things like how to set up a document so it is ready to print perfectly has been really helpful. I will approach projects differently in the future now, thinking before I design it digitally to how I am going to print it and getting all the document settings right so I don’t panic at the last minute when printing. For this brief I decided to design four things, a thaumotrope, zine, poster and postcard. I am most happy with the way the zine turned out, I think that the zine and the thaumotrope are the ones  I made the most mistakes on but also the ones I learnt the most from. I designed these with commercial print in mind, the one that would be the cheapest to print would be the thomotrope the most expensive would definitely be the zine. I thought a lot about the factors and considerations for commercial print.

Overall this module has been an eye opener to more of the digital and printed world. I have enjoyed the brief three and four most, If I had more time on this module I would of liked to have gone back and re visited my website and maybe of made some gifs of how I would like it to flow and looked into a more responsive mobile interface and how I would of liked that to have looked.