Brief 5 - Food perception - Submission

Brief 4 - Warrington museum - Submission

Brief 3 - Form and writing - Submission

Brief 2 - Reel - Submission

Brief 1 - Creative Networks - Submission

Raw studio visit

After e-mailing Tom at Raw, I went to visit the studio to show him my portfolio. Tom gave me some really insightful advice and gave me a lot of encouraging feedback. He wasn't able to offer me a placement as they had just taken on a new designer and there would have unfortunately been no room for people on placements. He said to keep in contact and show him updates to my portfolio if I ever need any feedback.

Creative Networks 
—
Tom said it was great that me and Luke took on this live project for the university and it was made better by the fact it was in support of creative collaborations and the creative industry in general.


Warrington Museum
—
I explained where the concept originated for the brand mark and he informed me that many portfolios rarely have a solid back story behind a branding project and this was nice to see, which was also nice to hear. I will definitely push myself in terms of conceptual idea generation when approaching future projects to ensure a clarified and well thought out concept. With the icons, he said to remove the red to ensure a monochrome palette throughout which I will definitely take on board

Portfolio (so far)

I decided to put a portfolio together as I had organised a visit with Raw in Salford. I tried to select what I believed were my most effective resolutions from the past couple of years. I also incorporated the project for Warrington Museum that I was completing for the OUGD301 module. I collated some of my favourite design a day projects and included this as a self-initiated brief as I have had encouraging feedback regarding the project.

Self promotion - Branding

The other day, we had a pin up of our business card and selected promotional material. I hadn't sorted anything out beforehand so when this task was announced, I decided to look into what I could do in more depth. I am currently doing a design a day challenge and in my studio placement and during my studio visit to Future, this was pointed out on both occasions as it showcased how engaged I was with design and expressed my creative interests.

I thought I could create a mini-mailer with various prints of my design a day designs - also outlining what number in the series it was. I also included an info sheet of who I am, how the challenge came about and my contact details.

The sticker would feature each of the studios / designers / recipients addresses and fold over the back to ensure the package was secure. I used a grey(ish) thin stock to create contrast against the white label.

I wanted a sticker of my logo to apply onto the mailer but as the vinyl cutter wasn't working, I had to make do without. I remembered from my studio at Wash design that they used a hand embossing tool to apply a clients logo through blind embossing onto a letterhead / stationery so I'm gonna do the same - its subtle but creates a nice, tangible aesthetic.

PPD Workshop

List 5 (or more) things you know now that you didn’t before the break:

• Every studio differs; it is about finding my place within the industry
• Researching and contextual referencing is essential & needs to be from a diverse range of sources
• I'd ideally want to work within a small independent studio 
• Invoice a client - potentially request half of the payment upfront & don't get ripped off
• Detail (in terms of design) is key. 

List 5 (or more) things you would address differently than you did this Summer:

• Be more pro-active and prioritise my time more effectively
• To be more conceptual — I tend to stick with what I am most comfortable or familiar with
• Be more engaged with networking (online and offline)
• Ring design studios and devise a mailer as opposed to e-mailing studios
• Be more confident & communicate more

List 5 (or more) specific things you will address this Semester, that should be useful:

• Try and improve my pitching & presenting skills - to be confident about my ideas and in general
• Blog all the time and be consistent
• Not leave things (tasks) to the last minute - when given, do them straight away so its still fresh
• Go outside - to galleries, events, talks etc
• Take full advantage of everything that is available to me - utilise it!

List 5 (or more) things you feel we could address as a group?

• Approaching a live project - legalities, things we need to look out for
• Costing - what's fair? (To us and client)
• Copyrighting work

Future studio visit

The other week, I went to visit Future — a design studio in my home town of Warrington after emailing them a few weeks back. Future work primarily with branding, publication design and digital which is what appealed me to the studio. I also found out that Rob from the year who just graduated from Leeds Art is working there full time which was great.

Nick had a look through my online portfolio and gave me some really insightful advice. He said the diversity of my work was great and particularly liked the 'design a day' project. He suggested having more designs photographed in context to give the sense they were tangible designs and to expand my portfolio, he suggested looking at type heavy projects, such as producing an annual report, to show I can work with type and layout effectively — he said these are rarely seen in portfolios yet are interesting to see.

We talked about coming in for a placement sometime which was ace to hear — and he said to email him with dates when I'm available over the next year or so which I plan to do so once I know when we are in uni.

B&W Studio Placement

Before leaving for the summer, I arranged a visit to B&W studio where we organised a placement for mid-June, just after finishing.  Lee suggested coming in for a month or two — I was honestly just expecting a week or two but this was great.

I had to go home towards the end of June so we organised going in for a couple of weeks, having a week off and going back in for another couple of weeks. As soon as I got in, Lee gave me a tour around the studio, on the second floor of a renovated mill. The studio itself was brill, plenty of space, relaxed environment, meeting rooms and a lot of storage space (as they occupied a full floor). There's 2 creative directors, Lee & Steve, along with two other designers, Matt and Graham.

Projects

B&W have worked with the British Heart Foundation for a while and have been chosen to create a multitude of advertisements and campaigns for the charity. Initially, they required a cover design for an annual report so I initially began sourcing stock imagery within their database. I was also required to devise concepts and design ideas for the cover itself along with the other designers which Lee pitched to the client.

I worked on some other BHF projects over the 4 weeks including a bus advertisement, a campaign for a new set of furniture & electrical stores and another campaign to increase awareness of defibrillators. Due to the nature of the projects, they each had their own strict deadlines so idea generation needed to be efficient. Most projects had at least a couple of others working on different concepts so Lee could propose several ideas to the clients which I was told was fairly unusual due to time and cost restrictions.

I had to quickly adapt to the way of working but through the process I gained a lot of much needed skills. What I learnt though, is that I need to learn to voice my opinion and not be afraid of what I have to say. I need to develop my presentation and pitching skills within the 3rd year so this will be one of my main aims — particularly as I aim to develop a collaborative practice in a years time.

SUMMER/3RD YEAR

PPD Presentation

CV Design

Still unsure with the design but hopefully this will develop over summer. I included a short summary about me followed by my experience, qualifications and skills. I also added my contact details using the same design aesthetic as by business cards.

Edit: still need to alter the 'profile' copy as it's worded wrong.

Design a day (so far)

As posted in January (here) I started a design a day challenge as of the 1st of Jan 2012 in an attempt to keep proactive whilst providing an opportunity to design outside of university briefs. It has gone fairly well, thought some days I have lacked motivation and posted university project development as opposed to self-initiated designs. Some designs have appeared out of the blue whilst others have took a while to develop but overall, I am pleased with what I have created so far... hopefully I'll keep it up.

http://joedesignaday.tumblr.com/

Portfolio update - Client work

For the product / range / distribution project, I decided to base it on a live project for my brother in law. He owns a building and joinery company and asked me to create a full brand re-design to be applied to a range of promotional material. He also requested a publication and website to showcase his work to potential clients.

I added this work to my online portfolio - http://www.joewarburton.co.uk

Photographing work

The photographs I currently have of my work are poorly shot with bad lighting so I need to re-photograph some of my previous work or at least start photographing my work better from now on. I love the work of Ben Jennings, an Australian designer and his photography enhances his work brilliantly - see below. The lighting is perfect and the emphasis is on the product - even the texture of the stocks are clear.

I emailed him to see how he achieved this and he gave me some really insightful advice. I have asked him a few other questions since regarding achieving quality prints as a student. He provided a link to the following guide by Jessica Walsh who works for Sagmeister.

http://blog.jessicawalsh.com/?p=198

Final business cards

As Moo allowed the option of printing more than one back, I decided to use this opportunity to test out which seemed the most effective. Using a red backing, I took some photographs of the cards which I then posted on Twitter & Instagram.

Business card designs

Now that I had my logo finalised and a studio visit arranged, I needed to quickly print a set of business cards to distribute if need be. I had already been designing some initial ideas and through recommendations of others in the class, I decided to go with Moo - printing 50 of the classic range.

To keep my 'brand' consistent, I used the same logo, font and colour scheme. I kept the design fairly minimal to ensure primary focus was on my contact details.

B&W Studio visit & placement

I visited B&W Studio on the 18th (bit late posting this) despite initially getting lost and being directed to a huge mill directly in front of me. I created a short pdf portfolio featuring some of my work prior to the visit as suggested by John just incase Lee requested to see some of my work and I also took the business cards I got printed with Moo. The studio is in a great building - they are the only current residents of Castleton Mill.

He gave me some really insightful feedback regarding my work - he liked my design a day project and the work devised for the moving image project (OUGD202). He suggested more emphasis should be put on the more creative and self initiated work that showcase individual and distinctive skills as it provides an opportunity to show off what you can do.

I was offered a placement! I'm really chuffed as I love the work they do at B&W. He said to email him with some dates I'm available over summer.

Portfolio PDF

I created this portfolio PDF for my visit to B&W as suggested by John - in hindsight I should have spent more time on this and added more projects as I needed to take into account not being able to access the internet to show my website. I included my favourite projects as of yet, including the recent project done for the product / range / distribution brief.

Contacting B&W

I sent a few emails last Tuesday and got a reply off B&W studios who let me come in for a visit! Perfect timing that my website was down at the time however, but I also sent them a link to my design a day project which they seemed to like, really chuffed.

I ordered some business cards from Moo so I will take these with me and ask them as many questions as possible - it's one of my favourite studios so as much insight into their practice would be great.

When my website was back up I sent them the link once again and I have organised a visit for this Thursday.

Contacting studios

Here are the emails I have sent out so far, with a plan on contacting some more throughout the summer. I had help from Jane with the wording but made sure I included links to my online portfolio and my design a day. Looking back on these, they seem quite lengthy and people might be put off from reading them - I'll need to think about refining these when contacting other studios.

PPD Group tutorial

Design by Day

Design by Day

Design by Day are a Salford-based creative agency who seem to specialise with web design. However, their portfolio also showcases print-based solutions along with motion graphics. I am interested in web design and have used digital design in some of my projects but would love to explore it in more depth. As this studio is based in Salford and Warrington is around a 20 min train journey away, it would be a great studio to do a placement in. They currently offer an intern programme but the deadline is fairly soon.

Contact

0161 832 4471
hello@designbyday.co.uk

Studio 306, Islington Mill
James Street, Salford, M3 5HW

SB Studio

SB Studio

SB Studio are a small brand consultancy with offices in both Liverpool and London. The work immediately attracted me to this studio due to its diversity and range but its location in Liverpool is a close connection to Warrington. They pride themselves on being a small, independent team whereas the clients differ substantially in size. Their work spans across a range of media through publications, web designs, brand identity and so on.

http://sb-studio.co.uk/journal/#!/internship-programme

Contact details

+44 (0) 151 709 5636
north@sb-studio.co.uk