Wednesday 30 May 2012

Book Feature!

Had a request from the awesome creative book publisher Victionary that wants to feature my 'Hue' project from the last module! Excited!

Tuesday 29 May 2012

I've Finished?!

So, the final deadline is here.... seems very strange!

In a couple of weeks, after the end of year show I'm going to be out there in the big bad world taking on lots of new challenges. It's difficult to concisely describe everything that has happened over the last three years but what I do know is that I have undergone massive changes as a designer and a person.

I've specialised, focussed and gained a greater understanding of the industry which I have chosen to be part of. I've learnt to work with different people, utilise different skills and become much more professional regarding many different aspects of my work. I can now more confidently say that I love print based design for identity, promotion and publication and my considerate manner of working and careful attention to detail drives my practice towards high end printed deliverables.

In terms of work.... and being a graphic designer....! – I'm very much still up for setting up a studio in partnership with Rosalind. Because of the chaos that was the FMP, it's been really difficult to do much more in terms of progress after the initial research we did over Easter. But I know Roz is also eager to get going with things. I think it's going to be really exciting to see what we can do together as I'm fairly confident in my own ability now as know the standard of work that Roz produces is really high. We have also had a number of enquiries between us regarding little jobs which is encouraging since we haven't even started promoting ourselves yet – and anyway that's part of the fun of setting up! Can't wait to get my teeth into some branding and promotion for the studio. I think it's looking increasingly likely that we'll be starting out at Duke Studios in Leeds if possible using their co-working space. It's only around £60 per month for unlimited access to some big work benches where me and Roz can meet without the pressure of running our own studio space straight off. There is also a creative community there and multiple facilities to benefit from whilst James and Laura who we met there seem as though they'd give us some great help and advice if we were located there.

Most of all I'm interested in Roz and I establishing our own reputation as a quality design studio. I'm really not fussed about trying to impress other designers and studios although I have worked hard on putting together a good portfolio for the end of year show. I'd much rather get some recognition through what Roz and I design through our Passport studio and make progress that way and I'll be excited to be doing the kind of work that I want to do straight away. I'm not naive enough to think it's going to be plain sailing but at the same time I'm going to be positive and just take a few risks and see what happens...

GO!...

Monday 28 May 2012

New Business Cards

Finally got around to getting my business cards professionally done! I was pleased with the design that I did before on the grey board so I've kept the design the same but this time had them sent to Hoban Press, a small letterpress company ran by Evan Calkins in the States. I'm really pleased with how they have turned out... just the simple lettering and logo letter-pressed on one side of a cool grey stock... I think they're simple but high quality... hopefully reflecting my own personal practice?!


Thursday 17 May 2012

Interviews

As part of my Design Context publication I have undertaken interviews with several designers/studios from around the world. Contacting and speaking to these designers just shows that you can go out and get in contact with these people easier than you thought. Their responses were really interesting and varied and actually gave me a lot to think about. I ended up getting responses from;  Arttu Savolaara at Bond Agency in Helsinki, Finland; Yah-Leng Lu at Foreign Policy in Singapore; Rik Bracho at Face in Monterrey, Mexico; Ross Milne at Working Format in Vancouver, Canada; the internation design publication IdN magazine in Hong Kong; David Heasty at Triboro in New York and Patrick Duffy at No Days Off down in London.











Monday 14 May 2012

Curriculum Vitae

Ok so here's my current CV.... to be tagged on the end of any internship or employment applications. I've kept it minimal and attempted to show some typographic skill with its presentation, nothing too crazy....

Wednesday 9 May 2012

Homework / Email




Homework / Update

Had some random but good news the other day.....

So way back around January, I was one of several students to submit a pdf to be sent via email to Homework in Copenhagen, Denmark. We hadn't heard anything back and had pretty much forgotten about it. Then, John emailed out to say he had finally had contact with the creative director there and that he was interested in my work, as well as Ailsa's and Elliot's!

From what I've been told, it sounds like there may be an opportunity to go out there this summer, as a group, to do an internship which would be awesome.... and John has told us to get on with putting together an email to get in direct contact with Jack, the director, to see what we could work out....

Fingers crossed this comes together as it would be a great experience to see how design is approached in a different country whilst getting to spend some time in a design capital such as Copenhagen.