Wednesday, 24 June 2009

Agency Contact

Recently I've been e-mailing Tanya from BrandFour.
BrandFour are a company based in Lincoln but have an office based in Manchester for meeting clients etc.
I started off e-mailing Tanya asking a few questions based upon typography and work they've created for clients. I was lucky enough to arrange a portfolio viewing with Tanya aswell.

Tuesday, 23 June 2009

LJA Studios

Recently I e-mailed LJA Studios (a small graphic design firm in Wilmslow) asking them a few questions. 
These question's were to do with Blogs, work the company have created, portfolios and placements.
The director of the company got back to me within an hour so the response was very quick.
The answer's I got was interesting due to how LJA are not such a big company like Music or Chase etc.
A positive I got out of this, is that he asked me to send some work to him as a pdf so he could have a look at it, also he said that he will keep my details on record incase any work came up.


Thursday, 18 June 2009

Portfolio Viewing

Recently I went and shown Tanya from Brand Four my portfolio.

This meant travelling down to Lincoln which was good because it got me out of Manchester.
On the way there was a few hiccups, public transport never runs smoothly.

Eventually when I got there I was sent upstairs where Tanya introduced herself.
We started generally talking how I was etc, saying how there moving in to there new office in September etc, which was really warming.

After this we started talking about work, how she's currently working with Coca-Cola and then shown me bits and pieces of other work she's been creating for other clients.

After a thorough talk about this we then moved on to my portfolio. I shown Tanya my work, explained a bit about each piece etc. Certain pieces which Tanya liked was the typographic based work, i.e Brass Band Poster and Manchester Literature Festival. Tanya also liked the idea of the paper exhibition and how that would be advertised. This is when we spoke how it's hard to show an idea as if it's real. For example in the portfolio the Paper Exhibition idea is to have the billboard's cut up and then rebuilt in different way's e.g origami and paper aeroplane.

When Tanya saw the Brass Band poster and the Manchester Literature Festival poster, I got a real positive feed back. The idea of how the Brass Band poster being interactive as well as being a poster is something she really liked. With the Manchester Literature poster Tanya really liked how I have used white space . During talking about this piece of work we got onto the topic of typography, saying how it's good not to use the basic Helvetica and how it's good to get used to certain fonts learn how they work and know how big the family is. One thing what is really good is when designer's don't know what typeface you have used on a piece of work and it makes them think for a bit.

After I shown Tanya my portfolio she gave me some positive feed back. She said that I have really high standard of work and she mentioned how I was better than 20 other designers who have applied for work with the company.

When I got home the next day I e-mailed Tanya again saying thank you for taking time out to see me and enquiring about placements. Unfortunately due to lack of space they don't do placement's at the moment, but Tanya asked me was it Ok to keep my details on file and also to keep in touch as she would like to see my end of year portfolio.

Practitioner Comparison

Fudge Vs. Truth

Fudge is a Graphic Design company based in Bolton. When Gavin came in to talk to us instead of showing pieces of work what was finished and talking about the company, he instead took us through the branding process of the England Squash identity. Straight away this was something which was more interesting because this showed us how he as an individual worked and how designers work. 

Truth is a Graphic Design company based in Manchester made up by a partnership between Darren and Jane. These two previously worked at a different design company so they already knew each other really well. When these two came in to hold a talk with us, they decided to show us work they have been creating, the experiences they both have gone through in the industry and to give us some helpful tips. Yes, this was a good talk but I prefer it when we see how the designer has actually worked, the different stages he has gone through to get to the final stage and the selection of idea's what have been thrown away along the way.

Gavin started off by showing us a selection of the rough sketches he had created for this brief. This included photocopy's of little sketches in like a diary to sketches on A3 paper. This was good to show because in the industry you never turn off you are always switched on, so you never know when you will get an idea for a brief, and you might see something in the street what gives you an idea. Gavin told us how there is six stages to designing; project scope, research, naming, design concept, design development and design application. Gavin and a few other's spent two days researching England Squash, this is important because you need to find out the history of the company, how the company likes to function - as a business and a sport - and the previous identity of the company. Gavin advised us that you need to have a full understanding of the client, what they like what they don't like etc, also we should always consider other branding in that area. It took Gavin three attempts to actually sell the idea, this was down to how the client didn't like the red rose incorporated within his design. Gavin's response to this was "The rose isn't for you, it's for the customers." After this the client accepted Gavin's idea, this is the one that he went on to finalize.

Going back to Truth and how they presented to us, Darren and Jane spoke about different things, this is down to how Darren does most of the design work and Jane does all the organizing, meeting the clients etc. When Darren started talking he spoke about a lot of typefaces he had created for different briefs. This was something I was really interested in because I really enjoy working more type based. He then showed us work he has created for such clients as Amir Khan (Reebok,) Versus Cancer '08 and Coca - Cola. This work was really interesting especially the Versus Cancer '08 campaign. Something Darren did suggest to us was that we should rationalize our work - explain why we have done such a design and to create something with a purpose. Another thing which was said, was that we shouldn't have a set style, we should learn all the fields in the design industry because this will have a bigger impact on the work we create.

Over all both talks were very interesting, both was very presented different which is good because it would be very repetitive if everything was the same. Out of the two I preferred how Gavin presented his work. This is down to how I like to see how the designer work's, the different stages they have gone through to get to the final piece and the good idea's what had to be put a side no matter if they had there heart set on them. Another reason I liked this, is because when a designer comes in and show's either the work they have created or the company have created, and this is a good standard of work, then a lot of the time the students will all swarm around the designer asking questions - why do this when you never do it any other time? Are they trying to make a lasting impression on the designer? Or they just generally ass licking?! 

A found that with Gavin's talk I learnt a lot of things. I learnt how we are expected to work in industry - which isn't that different from we are currently working now - I quick we are expected to work to and most of all how hard it can be to sell an idea to the client. With Darren he didn't talk about anything to do with the clients, what it's like to sell idea's to them etc, he just spoke about how he's created different type faces for different briefings. To some people this would be good but I'd prefer to find out more about what it's like working for different clients. Over all both presentations was very good, both had positives to take from and to keep in mind.