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: