Portfolio Visit

Recently I went on a portfolio visit with a free lancer called Angela Woosey.

I came across Angela through word of mouth and the fact she lives relatively close to me.

Unfortunately Angela doesn't have her own website where she puts her work on.

The feedback I got from Angela was really impressive. She really liked the posters I have created for the British Literature Festival, how I use space and I'm not scared to be minimalistic on my designs.

One thing Angela recommended was, that I should try and further my projects so they well stand out even more, also it allows people to show that I don't just do the brief and think it's finished.

Portfolio Visit

Recently I went on a portfolio visit to Reform Creative in Manchester.

Initially I was suppose to see Paul but unfortunately he had to rush out in the morning due to a business meeting, which meant I had the portfolio visit with Jamie instead. I had no complaints with this because I still got someone to look at my portfolio.

When Jamie was looking through my work he seemed to be really impressed with my final major project (MOSI promotion) the flyer for the Brass Band Museum in Birmingham and some other pieces I've done.

Jamie spoke about how he liked how the idea of each piece of work was there and mentioned how it tied in with a company like Reform.

The feedback was really good from Jamie, his feedback of detail was really impressive and very helpful.

Overall the visit was really good even if it didn't go according to plan.

Portfolio Visits

I have lined up two portfolio visits with Reform and Like A River for the upcoming week or two.

Stay posted for feedback on they visit.

Portfolio Viewing

The other day I went and shown Dave Sedgwick my portfolio at 999 design.

The whole talk we had together was great, from the hello to the handshake at the end.

The positives I took out with have the portfolio viewing was;

1) How friendly Dave is.

Since e-mailing Dave on the very first time (regarding blogs) he has always been generous enough to take time out and reply back to any questions I ask him.

2) How we shouldn't be scared of showing off our work.

3) How impressed he was with the way I think - work I produced.

When showing my work Dave mentioned how he wishes he came up with ideas like I have for my work, two of these would be the poster for a museum, and then the other would be the brass band mailer.

4) How helpful he was with suggesting things to do which will benefit me.

At the end Dave suggested things that would held me stand out from the crowd, he suggested how I should take certain briefs further, don't just use the same istock photo that everyone else is, it becomes too repetitive .

Over all the hour or so spent with Dave was great. We mentioned that we should keep in touch still, and hopefully towards the end of my final year we could meet up and show him my final portfolio and see how it's come along.

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.

Portfolio Viewings

Recently I've been in-touch with agencies with the possibility of showing them my work. 

I've been lucky enough to get two agencies to view my portfolio:

BrandFour - Roughly a week (re-arranging date) 

Truth - Friday 29th 

So watch this space for feed back.