OUGD 503 - Studio brief 2 _ A design presence

For this brief It was a case of thinking what really represented me as a designer. I didn't particularly go down a conventional route for development as im designing for myself and I feel I would just have to think what best represents me.
At first I was considering going with an idea of fold out business cards. I thought this could work because I feel conventional business cards could often be lost amongst other peoples and because thay are pretty much all the same size you really need yours to stand out. My thought process was that the business card would be printed on a3 on a thin stock so it could be folded up to a conventional side. Then when the client took your card home they could put it on the wall as you would do with a poster. The poster would have relevant information on but it would also be a piece of art, ensuring that your card wouldn't be lost amongst everyone else's. I looked into what could go onto the card and I started playing around with putting my face on the poster but make 3 different versions in 3 different styles.

I liked this idea because I feel it would be memorable to a client but I felt that it would lack cohesion throughout my whole range of branding. I wanted to create something that could be applied to everything that was something more than just a logo. I thought about what really first got me into graphic design which was illustration. I aways used to sketch when I was younger so I thought about coming up with a range or illustrations that could be applied across a whole range. For this stage I looked back to one of the first illustrators that I first took inspiration from which is Andy Rementer. I really like his style of illustration and the way he uses humour within his work. Something that I feel would be a major benefit in personal branding because something that makes you laugh instantly become more memorable.

His work is simple and there is something quite aesthetically pleasing about it. I feel his illustration style isn't to dis-similar to mine so I thought about creating my own illustrated characters

For the brief we were asked to create a pack that contained your personal branding. this was based around, business cards, a creative cv, samples of your work and any other relevant information. For the second part of the brief we also had to create a web site/mock up to display work and any contact information.

Aside from creating a unique visual identity I had to create a logo. These examples below are a broduct of many pages of drawing out my initials JG. I did originally go with my name but  felt it didnt look right on a page and as for a logo it didn't particularly work. I went for a very hand drawn sketched logo because I feel it reflects my practice better than a computer generated piece of type.

 

 These were the initial sketched for the illustrations I did, I planned to put these into illustrator to add some colour.

 This was some sketches for a typeface I wanted to try and create. I gave up on this because I thought I should have some digital element to my work because I dont predominantly work in just hand drawn I do have quite a mixture in my work.

These were all the elements too my promo pack.

I was happy with how my mocked up website turned out. I liked the simplicity of it yet it still maintained some functionality.
I was overall happy with my promo pack, I felt it reflected my practice well as I had a mix of digital and hand drawn approaches. I feel this year I really have been equally exploring each area within my work.

OUGD 502 - Studio brief 3 - Lifes a pitch

For this brief we were asked to choose a group consisting of up to 5 members to come up with a business. In my group we had Dan Tristan Rinesh and me. We had a couple meetings to plan what sort of business we would be creating. At first we played around with the idea of creating a tattoo parlour but after further thought we decided to go with a company that specialised in signs, more specifically typographical signs. This idea stemmed from the I am Amsterdam sign in Amsterdam. We felt as a group there was quite a niche market for this kind of design.  

                                        

Whist researching into this area we found there wasn't a specific company or design studio that was commissioned to create this sign. so we thought we could branch out and create a collective that specialised in this sort of design. 

The specifications of the brief are as follows 

• What skills and services do you have to offer?
• Who is your target market?
• Who is your competition and how will you compete?
• What are your costs, charges and financial considerations?
• How will you structure your studio?
• Who will be responsible for what?
• How will you promote your services? To who? Using what media?

So we had established our service and our target market was at first corporate companies but after some though we decided that we should also accommodate to smaller more bespoke clients would be beneficial for our company. In terms of competition we couldn't really find a company out there that was alike to ours so our competition was fairly non existent. 

In terms of costs we allocated each member in our group a job. when we broke down what costs we needed to take into account we found that this was a much bigger job that originally thought.

Instead of working constantly as a group we had meetings to decide who would look into what on our own. This helped in a sense because we were able to generate a lot of individual ideas then bring them all together when we met up for a meeting.