Agencies. 3

Made by six

Philosophy.

Our clients work directly with our designers, benefitting from our studio culture of developing challenging ideas. Our design process is informed by clear strategic thinking and delivered with a vigorous attention to detail.

We see every project as an opportunity, and our best work is done when clients share our ambition for design. It’s an approach that has led to lasting, fruitful relationships valued as much by boutique businesses as it is by global brands.

Again relationships with clients is something i find extremely necessary, six has always appealed to me as Dropyx was one of the first pieces of graphic design that truly inspired me, one thing i appreciate in graphic design is when a designer can create a massively very effective piece of design as simple as they can, most of their projects reflect this attribute and it has always been something i try and incorporate into my design.

 

Agencies. 2

Tappin Goffin.
















A studio i found whilst browsing 'Collate', a close client relationship is something i am looking to find when working with a studio after university, i feel it helps develop a much better idea generation with projects, this being a small studio is another plus for me, i am not looking to go into anything to major just yet, i would like to explore a few smaller studios to begin with and move upwards from there.

The work featured on their website mostly in the music industry has a wonderfully wide range of approaches and finishes to projects.

---

Inventory Studio.


Our approach

Inventory studio is a place for serious and considered play. we take on projects we believe in, aiming to always produce well researched, intelligent, thoughtful and concept driven work that goes beyond expectations. - We make good things great.

A studio with a huge portfolio of wide variety in every industry related to graphic design showing innovative and creative approaches to projects i really like the way this studio works and whats created.

I am definitely looking for a studio that specilises in print as apposed to screen based work, in terms of the style of graphic design i would rather not have a style and go into a design agency that also doesn't specialise in any certain client groups, this way i will be able to develop a much broader portfolio.

Timelines.

Positives / Negatives

After completing are final task for Fred's session before finishing for Christmas we were asked to write a list in our groups of 5 / 6 discussing the positive and negatives we found when working with timelines using more than 5 frames.

Positives.

- Considering the time as apposed to frames.
- More idea generation
- Improve drawing skills
- Better understanding of the use of pace
- Realising blank frames are important.

Negatives.

- Develop ideas through the timeline not in your head
- Deciding where colour use is appropriate
- Not enough room on the timeline

Agencies.

COOP.

At first glance this agency appeared perfect for me the work, incredible the motivation, inspirational, and the principles for design are the same as mine, unfortunately this design agency is Norwegian based and i do not want to leave England, even for a perfect studio, i may still try to arrange a studio visit if they accept me but as of yet i'm unsure, i suppose it's worth a try though.

Enterprise 3.

I like to think that personally i can change my approaches to design and feel i have a variety of different skills to put into practice in response to a brief and i know over the next year and a half i will develop these further along with more skills, i also try to vary my designs whilst working, in order to achieve a wide range of deliverables as to not be tied to having a 'style'.

Most design agencies look for certain properties within new designers, so when i am to begin searching for agencies i feel the best way to go about it would be to research in depth into the agencies, see what it is their looking for and create a suitable portfolio of my work.

I would like to collect together a good list of different agencies i like, along with reasons for liking them, this will help me approach each agency in a specific manor.

Again depending on the agency i'd be approaching would affect the way i went about speaking to them, i believe there will be some formal agencies and some more relaxed, so i would again research and put together a short interview practice in response to how i feel they would treat the situation, i would also look into detail in regards to what they promote themselves for instance if the were big on logo designs, i would show my projects i felt were strong in terms of brand identity etc.

In terms of creating media to promote myself i would use the basics to start off with such as business cards, other useful ways to promote myself i have not yet explored is online, i feel i should set up a website and a Behance account, Behance Network is an online portfolio platform for creative professionals across multiple industries, including photography, graphic design, illustration, and fashion. Organizations such as the AIGA, Adweek, ADC, and MTV have partnered with the Behance Network to create galleries of creative work. The company has also been vocal on the topic of crowdsourcing.

Another useful online site is LinkedIn this is another website used for linking different creatives together, a way to get myself out there.

Enterprise 2.

Based on the principles that have been introduced so far in the Enterprise module, as well as the previous tasks, investigate, analyse and critically evaluate where your potential clients are located. You will need to consider the following questions:

• Where are my potential clients/employers located?
• What media do my potential clients/employers use?
• What do you need to communicate and how does it match what your clients/employer need? 

Analyse and compare these examples in relation to the Political, Economic, Social and Technological

Starting my career in graphic design in the internet age will massively improve my chances to explore a much wider range of agencies not only in this country but across the world, although for now i would like to stay UK based, with music / fashion / publishing being such a global area for design i would say that my options are fairly limitless and my potential clients are all around me, my main thoughts currently are to move south to London and explore a range of design agencies there the only thing stopping me is the price of London, the prices down there are significantly higher than any where else in the country this could mean me staying up north for a few years. 

With my potential client groups the range of media goes from anything interactive on the internet to fully published books, CD / vinyl cases and everything in between, music still keeps a fairly good reproduction of Covers and poster art even though a high majority or album purchases are done online with websites such as iTunes, fashion is mostly published work / posters and brand and identity.

"Fashion is a high-impact, fast-paced industry that demands an aspirational visual message and requires constant reinvention. Graphic design for fashion must represent the core values of the brand while pushing boundaries and expectations" - Graphic Design for Fashion Jay Hess and Simone Pasztorek.

 

Enterprise 1

Possible Client Groups.

Leisure
Architecture
Education
Music
Food
Health
Construction
Tourism
Charity
Technology
Science
Medical/ Pharmaceutical
Retail
Fashion
Sales and Marketing
Publishing

The main client groups i could see myself working for and find most interesting are, Music, Fashion and publishing.


What skills / interests you have and how they relate to the needs of your client group?

I am still unsure of what client group i see myself working with and also unaware of all possible client groups out there, i would be happy to work with most client groups so long as the client showed a true passion for their project.

I feel the skills i have accumulated since i began studying graphic design are working with image, Adobe Software, Idea generation, i also feel one of my main skills is my approach to problems set, i often try to take a brief apart to its basics and rebuild it using research found to best fit the needs of the problem.

What skills are needed and what skills do you want to develop?


There are two types of skills in graphic design, the personal side and the professional side, with the industry being as fast paced and changing as it is there will be many skills i will need to develop and find as i go along another important thing to keep in mind is that with being a graphic design and dealing with so many different clients this will bring more reason to learn a wide range of skills, these are the main skills i feel will benefit me throughout my career in graphic design. 

Proffesional.


- Communication, i.e. with printers, clients and anybody else in the industry.

- An understanding of business so that hopefully i will be able to set up my own later in life.

Personal.

- Develop further skills with more Adobe software.
- Look further into type and layout.
- Explore colour theory.


What are your professional/creative aims and how do they relate to the needs of the client group?

I would like to start my graphic design career in a small business to have closer group of peers to work with and get a better feel of working as a team, i would also like to move around a few different places and maybe look trying to work in a few different countries; the Netherlands, Spain, Canada and from their come back to England and eventually set up my own studio.

The 4 P's

Product


Price 


Place


Promotion

Group Tutorial Prep.

What is Industrial Experience?

- An Industrial Experience is a hands on experience into a profession or professions you would like to work in, it helps give one a good look at how the business place of your choice runs and operates, it usually starts by communicating with firms and businesses already in the industry and in this day and age it isn't very difficult to contact any body.

- Industrial Experiences come in all different kinds of shapes and sizes, for instance you can do short term placements last two weeks or so and you can also take longer placements lasting a year or so, these are knows as internships and most likely found in Degree programmes.

- An industrial experience can often give you a better relationship with certain companies, although you may not want to continue at some, offers may appear in the form of jobs from other you enjoy.

- Industrial Experiences can often show you a certain area that you wouldn't like to work in, they can also be beneficial in helping you make the right decision about a job.

What can you learn from and Industrial Experience?

- You get the chance to explore a job opportunity openly and discuss with colleges from the business their view on the industry and pros/cons of their job.

- Industrial experience gives you an actual feel for the practice, showing the pace and standard a graphic design firm keeps up.

- If you set yourself a good wide range of places to visit it could help define exactly what area you would like to focus your own career on

- Going into a firm for a week or two on your own can seem daunting but you have the chance to be tutored almost one on one for that time, free to ask any questions and explore any part of the facilities and come back having learnt a lot more.

What Format could Industrial Experience?

- A studio visit can be classed as industry experience, last week we attended a college visit to 'Target Print' in leeds a print company that arranged for us to go down have a look, we spent around 2 hours there and i feel it benefitted me a lot, i came away with much more knowledge of print processes than i would have just by reading and finding facts about it.

-

To Be Cont.

Progress Tutorial 1.

ATTENDANCE – evaluate your attendance and identify any issues that may have affected your ability to be in and on time.

Comments:

- I feel my attendance so far has not been great, though the two days I had off were due to illness I felt I missed out on important sessions and found it difficult to catch up on the information we had been received.

BLOGS. Evaluate you use of the course Blogs. When documenting, recording and evaluating your work, interests and progress.

Comments:

- My blogging has not started off as strong as last year, I have not been blogging studio tasks as soon as we receive them making it harder for myself to keep up.


CURRENT PROGRESS Evaluate the strengths and areas for improvement in your current progress in Level 05 of he programme.

Comments:

- I feel my strengths at the moment are in the Good is…? Brief, my idea generation has been getting better throughout and I’m finding it interesting, which is also helping me find new inspiration and different and new media for my context blog.

- I feel my weaknesses lie in keeping up with the small tasks and managing my time properly, i have been falling behind with a few tasks and with research I should be collecting in order to help my direction.


Identify specific actions that you intend to take in order to improve or consolidate your current progress 

- I feel I need to blog studio sessions and complete studio tasks as soon as I can with the information given fresh in my mind.

- I would like to manage my time better by staying in college after studio time in order to keep myself working.

- Research every opportunity I can in order to keep finding new inspiration and a good body of context and references.

- Evaluating and annotating my own work better in order to aid my design development, finding out where I’ve gone wrong. 

- Read Magazines and issue for graphic design in order to further my vocabulary so I can document and talk about work with better terminology. 

Who am i?

5 reasons i chose to study on this programme.

• The course seemed well structured and organised compared to other universities i had visited.
• I wanted to choose the best course i could of a close distance to manchester where i live.
• The facilities seemed really good and had a lot to offer, especially for our course.
• having only 40-60 students and 3 - 5 on the course made a lot more sense in terms of tutor time as apposed to 3 tutors for 300 students.
• Although at the time it was a hard decision i feel a course with 5 days scheduled was more beneficial than one with only 12 hours a week.

5 things i want to learn during my time on this programme.

• I would like to broaden my knowledge on type, this is and area that has become increasingly interesting to me over the last 12 months.
• Colour is also an area i would like to explore in order to give my design more function.
• I still hope to use the laser cutter before the end of second year
• I would like to introduce some different techniques into my printed work, i.e. embossing, foiling
• To learn to communicate with a range of graphic design studios to establish some connections for the future.

5 Skills that i think are my strengths.

• I believe i have developed my software skills a lot in the last 12 months, in both Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.
• I feel my idea generation has come along way, although the summer has slowed me down slightly i should be able to pick it up.
• In group tasks i feel i work well as a team leader, in terms of getting things done and making decisions.

5 Things i want to improve.

• My hand drawn skills, i don't feel i spend enough time developing my drawing skills, thankfully we have a few tasks to help with that over the next week.
• I need to improve my vocabulary skills, especially with annotating work as i sometime find it difficult to find the right words.
• I would like to improve my printer vocabulary, by the end of the year i would like to be able to have a discussion with a printer with no problems.
• Time management, this is an ongoing improvement, i hope to master my time management by the end of second year.

Identify and explain 5 ways that you will evaluate your progress.

• Using my blog to document and evaluate my progress 
• Getting feedback from my peers in class 
• I hope to try and put my work up on websites such as Behance to receive feedback from others.

5 questions i want to know the answer too.

• What is the average graphic design salary
• 
  

Opposites: final crit.

End of Module Self Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I Feel my primary research has developed a fair bit throughout this project, although I got off to a slow start. In previous brief I have lacked further primary research that I have gone and collected my self, i.e. surveys and questionnaires, I still think I could have found more information and intend to in briefs to come.

2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Personally going out to find my own primary research has developed as I stated also categorising my information in order to find different direction for the brief

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

My main weakness’s in this project were time management, finding and committing to direction and finding and collecting enough primary research, I feel I sat back too much with this brief, as my tutors said most people have in the past and I definitely let myself down, i know now the more I pushed for information in this project the more direction I would have found although I said I have developed finding more research as a skill I know its something that needs developing further.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

My strengths I feel in this project is presentation, I have taken colour, layout and composition into account a lot through the development, although by doing this I think I may have let my project down in terms of direction, audience and purpose, I have focused too much on making my designs aesthetically pleasing rather than a clearly stated purpose.

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

• Go out, collect and categorise as much primary research as I can depending on my time limit.

• Develop further ideas around my initial idea in order to create more opportunities for direction. 

• Develop my time management further in order to make the most of each project.

• Keep up to date with Blogging

• Look further for research i.e. not just the library.

Collection 100: Final Crit

Issues Raised.

• Looks good but whats it for?
• What Exactly are you promoting and how does it work?
• Unclear what is being promoted

Action to be taken.

• More information so it is clear what its purpose it and function.

Mid Crit

Issues Raised

• Give the stickers more information so the audience can understand the purpose of them
• What is their purpose
• Where are they for

Action to be taken

• Design several posters for stickers
• apply more info for the stickers, as to why they are there and where they go