27 Club Talk

Notes from their talk:

• Put on an exhibition as they wanted it to exist outside of uni
• Involves work created by others-was very free, just had to keep the artwork in a square 
• Did the branding in the uni so it cost as little as possible, screen printed
• Invites, sent to different studios etc
• Good turn out
• Free badges and catalogues for people to take, making it more engaging and advertising it subtly
• Created a playlist of 27 club artists
• Issues with time management since other briefs were still going on at the same time
• Stick to deadlines
• Take pictures and have good quality evidence to show in the future

The students from the 27 Club then set us a task in which we were to work in groups and pick out a word from a box, we would then come up with a pitch for an exhibition based on this word. The word we got was 'separation'.

We started by making a list of things associated with separations; divorce, break ups, leaving home, being away from what you're used to, missing items/items you lost when you were younger. We decided to base the exhibition off the idea of being separated from items that you have lost.

The separation exhibition would allow the public to bring in items that they have found or lost, which would allow people to possibly find the item that they have lost and be re-connected with it. The exhibition would also have an Instagram page where photographs of lost/found items would be posted. 

We displayed our idea in a humorous way in order to create contrast and distract from the theme of losing something, as it isn't a happy concept. We created 'missing' posters which used emails that Simon regularly sends out about items that have been lost in the studio; memory sticks, cables etc. The posters also contained tearable elements which links to the idea of something being missing. The tearable papers include details of the Instagram page (where to find the lost items)

Level 6 Creative Reports Discussion

This morning, a group of 4 Level 6 students came into the studio to talk about how they approached their creative reports last year. I found this extremely useful as I got an insight on what works and what doesn't in their experience, as well as learning the different ways of approaching my chosen designers.

Wills creative report:

• Chosen to meet his chosen designers in person
• Thoroughly research into the artists before going to meet them, this will help to come up with conversation topics and find out what you want to know about them
• Think about what I actually want to know about them and their work
• Make sure you know a lot about them, this will also impress them
• Talk/ask about certain projects of theirs that particularly interest me

5 Top Tips:

• Email in the morning 8-9am
• Email off your personal account not student gmail
• Memorise certain questions! The 4 or 5 main ones so you're not always looking back at notes and struggling for conversation
• In wills opinion, he suggests not to take photos or voice record, write the notes in your page after the chat
• If you go for drinks, buy them the first round

Niamhs report:

• She already had connections through her brother so it was a lot easier for her to contact them
• She did it just through email conversations
• Benjamin Craven- she contacted him through email, she titled the email 'Jazzy socks' after his recent, catching his eye instantly!
• Keep emailing them, don't just stop after getting your answers, keep the connection!
• Don't say 'I need this' or 'Could you' instead be more chatty, friendly and casual about it

Third student:

• First messaged through Instagram DMs and then moved to email
• Thank the designer 
• Don't be scared to talk to them
• He put in the DM 'I can email you some quick questions' 
• The aesthetic should relate to the actual designer
• Be as professional as you can with the designers, but be enthusiastic!

Emmas report:

• She named it 'insight' as it is an insight to the artist
• She first thought about what she wants to do within her Graphic design practice after Uni, step by step, helped her establish what she wants to know
• She spoke to 3 different people
• She attached the questions to the first email and said that its up to them which questions they want to answer
• Research where they like to go- e.g. do they prefer a cafe/coffee or drinks/pub? stalk their insta to find out
• Compliment them!

It was useful seeing how Will chose to meet up with his chosen designers compared to the other 3 that did it purely by email. I would quite like to meet up with my designers in person as it feels a lot more personal and fun, I feel like you definitely find out more about a person face to face. However, email is the easier option and a lot more formal in the way you ask/word the questions. 

When first contacting my designers, at the end of the email/message I will put something like 'I would really appreciate it if you could answer a few questions for me? I can send them over to you over email or we can go for a drink sometime if you'd prefer that?' It is useful to give them options as it takes them and their schedule into consideration.

Furthermore, I will continue to base my creative report off 3 different designers that I love the work of. Firstly because I think the more I talk to the better as I will find out loads, also because a lot of designers/studios may not reply.

Creative Report Considerations

Today in PPP, Alec talked us through things to consider thoroughly when going about contacting our chosen design practitioners/studios:

• Research is the key to a good interview, it'll also make you aware of how accessible (or not) your subject is.
• Get in contact soon to ensure that I have time to wait for them to respond- draft an email tonight!
• Check out any social feeds to tip you off on their working habits, this will give inspiration for what to ask as well
• If you understand your subject, you'll be able to write great questions for them
• You only get ONE change to make a good first impression, really think carefully and proof read my email!
• Look at the different platforms that they use, try and find the best one to use that will get a reaction from them- theres usually one that they engage with in an unfiltered manner
• Reach out in a manner thats consistent with their tone of voice
• Face to face is ideal...and ASAP. Hunt them down if you need to
• Keep an open mind, be tactical 
• Hunter.com; lets you find email addresses in seconds and connect with the people that matter for your business
• BCC- blind carbon copy feature to be used when emailing if relevant
• Email at 7am- most people are more likely to reply at this time, before everyone else is awake and bothering them. Use boomerang
• Write the email on word or grammarly first- for spelling and grammar mistake checks
• If theres a phone number provided- ring them!!!
• End it with 'can we meet up, i'll buy you a coffee' or 'can we phone call/video chat'. Its better because its quicker, more fun and engaging. Record these interviews but always ask for permission to record the conversation first. Making notes or typing away is VERY off putting, the less interrupting the better
• Make sure you've carefully prepared your questions, be adaptable but keep things on track if needs be
• Always thank people for their time
• Share the finished report with them
• Be creative!!!
• Maybe collaborate with a photography/illustration student for my content if relevant

Creative Report Initial Ideas Critique

Today I had a critique with Dom and a few of my peers in which I spoke about my initial ideas for my creative report. I mentioned the type of things that interest me/relevant to my practice, as well as the design practitioners that I'd like to focus on.

I mentioned that I would love to focus on my two favourite designers/illustrators; Hattie Stewart and Webcomic Name (Alex Norris). I said that I was worried about using them as my main focus for my creative report as they are so big in the creative world so I may not get a response, however Dom mentioned not to worry about this as everyone is experiencing this issue and that I wont know until I try. The other artist that I'd like to focus on is Neil Carribine; an illustrator from Sheffield, I would probably be able to speak to him easier than my other two favourites as he is more local.

All three of the artists that I would like to focus on use the same sort of aesthetic; very wacky, fun, bright, jazzy and sometimes humorous. This is extremely relevant to my practice as this is the aesthetic that I often use in my own work, I hardly ever make work that is minimal- my style is more out there and jazzy, quite crazy at times.

I am also interested in the way these artists went from being independent freelance artists to now being so big in the design world and working for huge brands. This mainly applies to Hattie Stewart as she has previously worked for brands like Mac and Apple. Webcomic name and Neil Carribine also follow the same wacky aesthetic, but in a more humorous way. Additionally, researching a small artist (Neil Carribine) with the two larger ones creates an interesting contrast whilst still maintaining the same concept and aesthetic focus throughout my creative report.

I have begun to research into how I would contact my chosen design practitioners. Hattie Stewart and Webcomic Name (Alex Norris) are both from/working in London. All of the artists provide an email address.

Hattie Stewart: cheeky@hattiestewart.com

Webcomic Name (Alex Norris): webcomicname@gmail.com

Neil Carribine: hello@neilcarribineoriginal.com

I have started to make a list of possible questions that I would like to ask, I will select and develop a small selection from these;

• How did you go from being a small independent designer to working for such massive brands? What was the process? (This question mainly applies to Hattie Stewart)
• How did you go about putting yourself out there? Or was it just something that came with time, did the public just slowly start to discover you?
• Do you prefer to make work just for yourself/for fun or work for brands/commissions?
• Do you feel like your work reflects your personality and general life? (As I feel like my work is quite crazy, out there and sometimes girly...which reflects my personality)
• What advice would you give to your younger self designer?
• Who influences your work/you as a designer? (This doesn't have to be an artist, could even be family members, music artists, a group of people etc)
• Would you collaborate with designers/studios that don't have the same wacky, fun, snazzy aesthetic as your work? If not, why?

Design Manifesto

A manifesto: "a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization".

We were given to task to research into different manifestos through the website: http://www.manifestoproject.it

As I read through the manifestos, I noticed that I liked some manifestos a lot than others as some related to me more on a personal level and some of the points that were made from certain people/designers I highly disagreed/agreed with.

My favourite manifestos:

I loved both these manifestos, the first one is titled 'Humans' by Mike Mills and the second one is 'Ten things I have learned' by Milton Glaser. I particularly like the points that Mike makes about 'sometimes being dumb is the only smart alternative' this relates to me personally as I often find myself being 'dumb' about a lot of things, but sometimes it just needs to happen in order to get somewhere, instead of avoiding it. This relates to his point about embracing your sanity in order to be sane.

Additionally, I especially loved two points that Milton Glaser mentions in his manifesto; 1. You can only work with people that you like, 2. Less is not necessarily more. I agree with the first one as working with people that you dislike/negative people can really affect the work that you produce, happy person= happy work. For the second point, Milton relates it to a Persian rug; you cant say that less is more because every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success.

Reflecting on my reading, I have been set the task to come up with my own manifesto:

I decided to make a few clear points/rules for my manifesto:

1. Stop faffing around

2. Stop getting stressed over literally nothing. Stop, think, what are you ACTUALLY stressing about this time? 

3. All work is good work even if you do end up binning it, its helped you somehow

4. If it doesn't work the first time, try it twice more instead of 6 more times... then fuck it and move on

5. Go and see more, constantly! Even if its just random like Ikea, a farm, a 3 hour journey away to some random city, just GO!

From our manifesto notes, we got into groups of 6 to discuss and develop our ideas and suggestions in order to create one refined manifesto point which applies to all of us. We then presented our chosen idea at the end.

Our group manifesto point:

Blood, Sweat and Tears, Each word represents something to us as graphic designers:

• Blood: is the investment constantly bleeding into design
• Sweat: is the hard work that makes good work great
• Tears: is the passion embedded into our work

Design Practitioner Research

The PPP task requires me to select and contact a contemporary design practitioner/studio/organisation which I would then produce a report based on their background, everyday practice, studio culture and current place in industry. The report that I create has to use material drawn from at least one interview with a representative  from my selected practitioner/studio/organisation that I have sourced as part of my work.

The organisation/studio/practitioner that I choose could include; small studios, large agencies, individual freelancer, design events/festivals, media outlets, start-up business, museum/gallery, blogger/social media, etc.

I have now started to research into the designers that interest me and that I would really enjoy basing my project on. I have researched into both large agencies/popular designers, as well as smaller studios/less famous freelancers.

More famous designers/studios:

• Hattie Stewart- My favourite artist ever! Illustrator, worked for massive brands like Apple, Mac cosmetics, Vogue, Dazed and loads more.

                              

• Laura Callaghan- Another one of my favourite illustrators, her works takes inspiration from women/feminism.

                               

• Hanna Kastl-Lungberg- Swedish graphic designer and visual artist, her work focuses on pattern and shapes. Abstract and geometric.

• Little Drill Creative- Focus on bringing products, people and places to life through conceptual, still life photography. Really cool!

• Burnt Toast Creative- The working alias for Canadian illustrator/animator, Scott Martin. Worked for companies that includes Dropbox and Google. Loved his work for ages.

Additionally, the only problem with using a more popular designer/larger agency is that it may be harder to contact them and arrange an interview, most of these designers aren't local either so the interview wouldn't be face to face obviously. Could be harder to gather content.

Smaller local studios/less popular freelance designers:

• Neil Carribine- Illustration and animation, from Sheffield, I love the quirkiness and humour of his work, really fun. 'I create colourful and quirky work influenced by bizzare everyday characters (you)' - Neil Carribine

• Lydia Mary- Print making and illustration, usually textile based (specialises in the practice of screen printing and hand dyeing)

• Hattie Clark- Illustration and print making, freelancer from Yorkshire! making it really easy to arrange the interview. Bold colour palettes 

Focusing on a smaller/local studio or less famous freelance designer would make it a lot easier to contact them and arrange a face to face interview and gather content. Additionally, I have seen the work of these 3 designers in person at print fairs which is how I discovered them.

Designer Speed Dating

Today we were briefed on PPP where Orlando talked over the general important information that we needed to know, the main focus of the talk was Studio Brief 1. In order to get thinking about collaborating with other designers and studios, we did a little task in which we speed dated our course mates to find out more about them and their practice/design interests.

The people that we speed dated had to be people that we didn't usually talk to-the first person we made eye contact with, was our date, we repeated this with 4 different people. We were given a sheet which included questions that we were to ask our dates; describe yourself in 3 words, where are you from, your biggest creative disaster, where do you see yourself after graduating etc...

I really enjoyed this little task as I found out a lot of information about the peers I spoke to in such a short space of time (5 minutes with each date) I also enjoy meeting new people in general so I found this task really fun.

DesignManchester Trip

Today we had a trip to DesignManchester in which we got to visit the Whitworth art gallery and a projection exhibition at Manchester met uni. I felt that the projection at the uni wasn't the most interesting graphic exhibition I had seen, as it was only a few projections on some pillars, which were also quite hard to see because of the lighting and how far up they were. Each projection only lasted about 30 seconds or so, so I didn't think it was really worth going all the way to see.

This project was featured on itsnicethat, which had a lot more information about the concept of it. I found the article a lot more interesting and the projection videos/designs looked a lot more effective on my laptop screen that they actually did in person on the pillars.

Image from itsnicethat website

Additionally, I found the trip to the Whitworth gallery a lot more fun; it was nice to look around the building freely and find work that actually interested me. I was mainly interested in two of the exhibitions at the gallery: Bodies of colour (Breaking with stereotypes in the wallpaper collection) and the Alice Kettle Thread Bearing Witness exhibition.

For the Kettle Thread Bearing Witness exhibition, Alice Kettle simultaneously worked on a local level to connect personally with individual women and children refugees and asylum seekers, she asked them to work with her to contribute to the stitched artworks. The pieces in the exhibition were inspired by concepts such as strength, resilience, and hospitality of refugees and asylum seekers which she and her family have worked with.

The wallpapers in the Bodies of colour exhibition were designed in Western Europe, with some from America, but the inspiration for the patterns comes from all over the world. The exhibition dealt with difficult issues such as racism. Multiple unique and complex histories are show cased in this exhibition.

Also, I found that some of the patterns in the wallpapers were extremely relevant and similar to the Arabic/asian patterns that inspired my embossed experiments for my during my studio work last week.

More work that I found interesting at the gallery:

End Of Module Evaluation

Overall, I really enjoyed this module as I felt that I learnt a lot about myself through the self branding brief as well as the briefs that were set in groups. I enjoyed working in groups as I was able to share ideas my ideas and collaborate, which will be useful to me in the future. However, I felt that more individual briefs were needed since self branding was the only one where I was able to work in the styles that I wanted, also group work was quite challenging at times.

I found group work challenging at times when certain members from the group were absent. For the Film Festival brief at least 2 people were always absent which meant that people were behind and we were left to catch them up every time, this meant that these people were very confused by what was happening and which designs were being developed. Although the people that were present I really enjoyed working with. As a group we assigned each person or in pairs, a task which they worked on throughout the branding so that everyone had an even amount of work; me and Brylle worked on designing the tickets, we combined both our designs in order to design a final ticket. Furthermore, the first group brief (Haiku) was a lot more enjoyable as it was relevant to us as university students; it felt a lot more personal. We also worked well together as a group.

Furthermore, I really enjoyed the self branding project as I felt that I learnt a lot about myself. Before this brief, I'd never thought so deeply about where I want to be in the future. I just knew I wanted to be some sort of Graphic Designer, this brief actually got me thinking about the type of designers and companies I'd want to work for and whether I'd want to work in a big agency or do more freelance work. I also enjoyed this brief as I was able to experiment fully with the working techniques that I am best at; this lead to my final designs having a nice consistent vibrant aesthetic which represented me as a person. I'd enjoy doing more briefs like this in the future, maybe with more time though, as 2 weeks felt a little rushed; especially with a week of studio practice in between.

In conclusion, this module was useful as it allowed me to actually get into contact with designers that work within the creative industry, it is important for me to start making connections early on. I also felt that this module was very different to a studio practice module; I felt a lot more relaxed and organised.

Presentation Critique

Today I presented my final presentation and 3 applications to my crit group of around 15. I received a good amount of feedback, positive and negative. I agreed with everything that was said.

The main positive feedback was that I had a good amount of research to back up my ideas, which also clearly represented my working aesthetic straight from the start, it was clear to see why I would be inspired by those particular artists. Another positive was that my collages worked extremely well, everyone seemed to enjoy the funky, vibrant aesthetic of them. Ben made a point of using the same collage technique when designing my book cover for the Penguin book cover competitions.

Furthermore, the main area to improve was to actually consider what am I trying to say from my applications, how will they actually communicate to the designers and agencies that I want to contact? Would each designer get sent one of the posters? or maybe they'd get sent the polaroids which would have a message on each one at the bottom?. Another area to improve was to be less descriptive when talking and get straight to the point, as in don't just say why I like something, talk more about what inspires me about it.

Overall, I found this brief really fun but at the same time challenging. It was fun because I was able to experiment fully with whatever I wanted, I was free to do whatever I wanted with no design rules to follow. However, I think it was challenging because the whole idea of self branding was a little bit intimidating as a whole at times, because I don't really think about myself as a person in that much depth and detail. I feel that by tackling this brief I have learnt a lot about myself and where I'd like to be in the future after graduating, more than I knew before.

3 Applications

These are my 3 applications which I will present in my critique tomorrow. 

1. The posters; I have created a set of 4 A3 posters which have been combined and collaged together to create one A1 posters. 2 of the posters were photoshop edited versions of the collages where I enlarged certain areas, occasionally used a grid system and changed the colour balances. The other 2 A3 posters were enlarged photocopies of the collages of areas that I found particularly interesting. The combination of the 2 techniques gave a nice contrast while at the same time still working as a set.

2. Because of my interest in cameras, I have used polaroids to display my collage work. I really enjoy taking photographs in my daily life whether that is at events, parties, holidays or just days out, I like the idea of physical memories. I have selected interesting elements from each collage for the polaroids.

3. Using the photocopier I have made a little booklet/publication of experiments from my collages. When photocopying I used a range of different paper media for different effects; coloured paper, sugar paper and normal cartridge paper. The main colour I used was pink as its my favourite colour. When experimenting on the photocopier, I used the techniques of enlarging, repeating the patterns, double copy, using singular colour, overlaying and black and white.

Collages

For my 3 applications, I have decided to go with my idea of using collage to represent myself, by making these collages visually extremely abstract, energetic, bright, bold, fun and experimental. When collaging I also looked at work of some of my favourite artists; Hattie Stewart, Mat Maitland and Magdiel Lopez, the inspiration for a lot of the shapes was from  shapes and marks that I found interesting within their work.

This task was extremely enjoyable as collaging is one of my favourite ways of working. It allows me to experiment with no restrictions and I felt that I could get the wacky aesthetic that I was aiming for through perfectly using collage. I used a range of different paper media; magazines, newspapers, coloured paper, sugar paper and cartridge paper that was printed onto. Also, in general I prefer to work more handmade than digital.

From these collages, my aim is to create a set of posters or a little zine. I will develop these collages using the photocopier; photocopying onto different paper media (colour, sugar etc), enlarging, repeating the patterns, using singular colour and overlaying.