6A2 / 6B2 / 6C2 / 6D2.
Monday, 6 May 2019
OUGD602 - Design Strategy and Skills Evaluation
6A2 / 6B2 / 6C2.
DESIGN STRATEGY AND SKILLS EVALUATION:
Reflecting back on this module as a whole, many new skills and pieces of information have been learnt, all of which will help in my career progression after graduation. Undertaking three days of work experience at Autoglym in their brand marketing and design teams was one of the major learning curves in my development as a designer. Since I have never had any experience before working within a professional environment, this was good to see the day-to-day running of a brand department, showing me how I would potentially be working in a real-life professional environment. For me in particular, finding work after graduation was a big fear of mine, not knowing what to expect and wondering whether or not I would actually enjoy the work, however taking part in this work experience has now put me more at ease about this eventuality. In addition, this experience has helped to start building up a new network of contacts of whom I can turn to if ever needed in the future, with members of the team at Autoglym also offering to hand over my CV and information to any other agencies they may know and so showing the importance of these kinds of experiences and contacts.
This module has also showed me that we all have the power to define our own careers and design who you want to be as a creative, which, as a result, can give rise to a philosophy, ethos or mission to shape the work that you do, meaning that you can create various different opportunities for yourself when others don't immediately appear. Even if you start work on personal projects that interest you, more stable job opportunities may eventually come from this. The message behind this then is to always continue only making work that you enjoy and interests you, with an importance on then getting this work out into the world for others to see since generally if you are enthusiastic about something, then other people will feel the same. In terms of future progression, whatever comes after graduation, I will continue working on personal projects and sharing these with the community of creatives, making myself known and opening up the potential for new opportunities, whilst in turn also allowing me to continue further developing my skills as a creative.
In preparing for life after graduation, the skills learnt from this module I feel will help well equip me for this in terms of legal advice and working with clients. For instance, setting clear expectations, knowing how to create an effective terms agreement, how to decide on what clients to take on, as well as putting a price on your work, a lot of this which I was unsure about how to go about previously.
Reflecting on my overall design strategies, it was considered that one part of this which still needs work is my ability to create timetables and schedules, and then stick to them. This is something that I have never been good at since I prefer to work on things as and when they need doing, rather than setting myself specific times to do certain things. Although I tend to work better this way, I have found that timetabling will be something of importance when it comes to working professionally and so after graduation I will attempt to develop these skills throughout any personal projects I undertake.
Another of my design strategies involved attending and engaging with multiple professional talks and workshops throughout this academic year, such as Glug, Evolution Print, Creative Convos talks and workshops, and a workshop with Protest Press. Whilst these provided me with valuable advice, new skills and experiences, they also provided me with an additional opportunity to make myself known by talking to these professionals and networking with others. One of these which went well was with Eva Cremers, an intern at Man vs. Machine, of whom I took my time to speak to after her talk and hand over a one-off screen-print for her to keep as a thank you for attending Creative Convos. This is something which she then shared on her Instagram stories and took her time to re-thank me later that day through this, providing me with a small bit of creative press.
In terms of contacting and talking to designers outside of these such events, however, is something I still need to improve on. This comes mainly down to confidence, finding it much easier and more comfortable to contact people through email for instance, rather than calling and talking to them directly. However, this module has shown me the importance of making yourself stand out, and one way to do so is to call people directly since they are less likely to ignore you this way than an email, something I need to build up the confidence to do after graduation in preparing to find job opportunities. Despite this, I still implemented a strategy into any emails I sent, in order to help myself stand out. For instance, creating a punchy subject line that gets people instantly engaged, and sending emails early in the morning when people would typically check their emails so that mine is top of the list.
DESIGN STRATEGY AND SKILLS EVALUATION:
Reflecting back on this module as a whole, many new skills and pieces of information have been learnt, all of which will help in my career progression after graduation. Undertaking three days of work experience at Autoglym in their brand marketing and design teams was one of the major learning curves in my development as a designer. Since I have never had any experience before working within a professional environment, this was good to see the day-to-day running of a brand department, showing me how I would potentially be working in a real-life professional environment. For me in particular, finding work after graduation was a big fear of mine, not knowing what to expect and wondering whether or not I would actually enjoy the work, however taking part in this work experience has now put me more at ease about this eventuality. In addition, this experience has helped to start building up a new network of contacts of whom I can turn to if ever needed in the future, with members of the team at Autoglym also offering to hand over my CV and information to any other agencies they may know and so showing the importance of these kinds of experiences and contacts.
This module has also showed me that we all have the power to define our own careers and design who you want to be as a creative, which, as a result, can give rise to a philosophy, ethos or mission to shape the work that you do, meaning that you can create various different opportunities for yourself when others don't immediately appear. Even if you start work on personal projects that interest you, more stable job opportunities may eventually come from this. The message behind this then is to always continue only making work that you enjoy and interests you, with an importance on then getting this work out into the world for others to see since generally if you are enthusiastic about something, then other people will feel the same. In terms of future progression, whatever comes after graduation, I will continue working on personal projects and sharing these with the community of creatives, making myself known and opening up the potential for new opportunities, whilst in turn also allowing me to continue further developing my skills as a creative.
In preparing for life after graduation, the skills learnt from this module I feel will help well equip me for this in terms of legal advice and working with clients. For instance, setting clear expectations, knowing how to create an effective terms agreement, how to decide on what clients to take on, as well as putting a price on your work, a lot of this which I was unsure about how to go about previously.
Reflecting on my overall design strategies, it was considered that one part of this which still needs work is my ability to create timetables and schedules, and then stick to them. This is something that I have never been good at since I prefer to work on things as and when they need doing, rather than setting myself specific times to do certain things. Although I tend to work better this way, I have found that timetabling will be something of importance when it comes to working professionally and so after graduation I will attempt to develop these skills throughout any personal projects I undertake.
Another of my design strategies involved attending and engaging with multiple professional talks and workshops throughout this academic year, such as Glug, Evolution Print, Creative Convos talks and workshops, and a workshop with Protest Press. Whilst these provided me with valuable advice, new skills and experiences, they also provided me with an additional opportunity to make myself known by talking to these professionals and networking with others. One of these which went well was with Eva Cremers, an intern at Man vs. Machine, of whom I took my time to speak to after her talk and hand over a one-off screen-print for her to keep as a thank you for attending Creative Convos. This is something which she then shared on her Instagram stories and took her time to re-thank me later that day through this, providing me with a small bit of creative press.
In terms of contacting and talking to designers outside of these such events, however, is something I still need to improve on. This comes mainly down to confidence, finding it much easier and more comfortable to contact people through email for instance, rather than calling and talking to them directly. However, this module has shown me the importance of making yourself stand out, and one way to do so is to call people directly since they are less likely to ignore you this way than an email, something I need to build up the confidence to do after graduation in preparing to find job opportunities. Despite this, I still implemented a strategy into any emails I sent, in order to help myself stand out. For instance, creating a punchy subject line that gets people instantly engaged, and sending emails early in the morning when people would typically check their emails so that mine is top of the list.
OUGD602 - Manifesto
6A2 / 6B2 / 6C2.
MANIFESTO:
In terms of my career aspirations, my aim after graduation is to be working within design for print, editorial design or creative branding by which I mean branding for events, exhibitions, etc. rather than personal branding, since I enjoy being able to experiment with material and process in project development rather than having a strict set of expectations. However, I realise that typically working to a strict set of expectations is usually more the case, therefore in preparation for this I shall work more on my time management skills and setting myself short briefs which challenge myself in working to such limiting expectations.
As a part of these career aspirations, I intend to be working within a team of creatives, not just freelance, since I have found that I work much more effectively when I have other people to bounce ideas off and boost motivation.
I intend to work towards these goals by starting to apply for jobs and other opportunities now, as well as making my own opportunities through the continuation of personal projects to further develop my skills and portfolio, ensuring this portfolio is made up of projects that work with both my design and general interests that I can talk about confidently and convincingly to potential employers. This will also be done through continuing to work occasional freelance jobs in the build up to securing a more stable job.
I will also continue to attend various networking events and professional talks to continue to build my understanding of the professional world of design, since I can imagine there is still much more to be learnt about this. Whilst this will also allow me to broaden my list of contacts.
Essentially, I intend to continue to...
MANIFESTO:
In terms of my career aspirations, my aim after graduation is to be working within design for print, editorial design or creative branding by which I mean branding for events, exhibitions, etc. rather than personal branding, since I enjoy being able to experiment with material and process in project development rather than having a strict set of expectations. However, I realise that typically working to a strict set of expectations is usually more the case, therefore in preparation for this I shall work more on my time management skills and setting myself short briefs which challenge myself in working to such limiting expectations.
As a part of these career aspirations, I intend to be working within a team of creatives, not just freelance, since I have found that I work much more effectively when I have other people to bounce ideas off and boost motivation.
I intend to work towards these goals by starting to apply for jobs and other opportunities now, as well as making my own opportunities through the continuation of personal projects to further develop my skills and portfolio, ensuring this portfolio is made up of projects that work with both my design and general interests that I can talk about confidently and convincingly to potential employers. This will also be done through continuing to work occasional freelance jobs in the build up to securing a more stable job.
I will also continue to attend various networking events and professional talks to continue to build my understanding of the professional world of design, since I can imagine there is still much more to be learnt about this. Whilst this will also allow me to broaden my list of contacts.
Essentially, I intend to continue to...
Saturday, 4 May 2019
OUGD602 - Creating A Digital Portfolio
6C2 / 6D2.
As an additional part of my personal branding and strategy, it was decided to build a master portfolio of work which can then be tailed for specific agencies by exporting simply those projects which I feel best reflect the type of work specific agencies do or would be looking for. This master portfolio therefore includes a range of different projects, including those which are more Graphic Design based, and those which are more Illustration based, again so I can tailor this portfolio to suit which part of my creative practice I would like to showcase in particular situations.
It was decided to keep the design of this quite simple, utilising the same layout throughout for each project in order to keep it clear and consistent in terms of communication. Each project therefore includes only three images, chosen based on quality and what I want to communicate about each project, paired up with the name of the project and a simple, one line sentence explaining what the project was about. This minimalistic design and layout was decided so that the images stay impactful, whilst also not giving too much away about the projects, creating a sense of mystery which would hopefully leave those viewing this wanting to see and hear more, then also allowing me to talk more in-depth about each project at any potential interviews so that in this situation I do not run out of things to say and am simply not repeating what the potential employers already know if I were to go into more detail about projects within this portfolio. The design of this also implements elements of my personal branding, taking inspiration from the design of my letterheads, creating a simple strip at the bottom of each project in my branding colours featuring my logo, name, two main relevant socials, and the project name and description. This has been done so that my portfolio has some element of consistency to the rest of my personal branding, as well as ensuring that whoever is viewing this portfolio is constantly given a reminder about whose work it is and where to find me.
As an additional part of my personal branding and strategy, it was decided to build a master portfolio of work which can then be tailed for specific agencies by exporting simply those projects which I feel best reflect the type of work specific agencies do or would be looking for. This master portfolio therefore includes a range of different projects, including those which are more Graphic Design based, and those which are more Illustration based, again so I can tailor this portfolio to suit which part of my creative practice I would like to showcase in particular situations.
It was decided to keep the design of this quite simple, utilising the same layout throughout for each project in order to keep it clear and consistent in terms of communication. Each project therefore includes only three images, chosen based on quality and what I want to communicate about each project, paired up with the name of the project and a simple, one line sentence explaining what the project was about. This minimalistic design and layout was decided so that the images stay impactful, whilst also not giving too much away about the projects, creating a sense of mystery which would hopefully leave those viewing this wanting to see and hear more, then also allowing me to talk more in-depth about each project at any potential interviews so that in this situation I do not run out of things to say and am simply not repeating what the potential employers already know if I were to go into more detail about projects within this portfolio. The design of this also implements elements of my personal branding, taking inspiration from the design of my letterheads, creating a simple strip at the bottom of each project in my branding colours featuring my logo, name, two main relevant socials, and the project name and description. This has been done so that my portfolio has some element of consistency to the rest of my personal branding, as well as ensuring that whoever is viewing this portfolio is constantly given a reminder about whose work it is and where to find me.
OUGD602 - External Collaboration
6B2.
As an external collaborative brief, I worked with a photographer currently studying at the University of Cumbria in producing a photography book of some of his work. This proved to be a challenging process since the photographer did not seem to know what they wanted and so did not offer much in the way of feedback throughout the process, whilst also being slow to reply to any questions and queries, as well as slow to hand over any additional information or resources I needed for the production of the book. In terms of the photography itself, due to the photographer not knowing what they wanted, they simply handed me over a folder full of mis-match images with varying and inconsistent sizes that made them difficult to work with in most formats as found through layout and format experimentation in the production of this book. In addition, I was not given any context to images, for instance, the meaning behind them or if any worked together as part of a series. For this reason, I chose images myself which I thought worked together as a series and worked around these images in creating an appropriate and specific theme and narrative for the book.
This experience taught me a lot in terms of collaboration in my future professional career, since most of these collaborations will be external, particularly when working with clients. There will be certain clients who probably don't know what they want to be produced and so it is therefore important to have a strong idea and pitch so that the client can almost be convinced into thinking that your idea is good and what they want.
In future, in an attempt to avoid problems such as these occurring again, I will create a terms agreement, outlining the time-plan for the brief, what will aim to be produced and what will happen if the client is late with feedback or the hand-over of content, since these issues made the photographer and the brief itself very challenging to work with. Since I had also been wanting to work on a photography publication for a while, I feel as though some of these challenges could have been avoided if I had not agreed to the brief so quickly. In addition to the terms agreement, in the future I shall make an initial questionnaire to go through with the clients or collaborator before agreeing to anything, just so that everything is clear before starting on work. This would therefore also mean that any warning signs as to whether or not they would be a challenging client to work with could be flagged up beforehand.
As an external collaborative brief, I worked with a photographer currently studying at the University of Cumbria in producing a photography book of some of his work. This proved to be a challenging process since the photographer did not seem to know what they wanted and so did not offer much in the way of feedback throughout the process, whilst also being slow to reply to any questions and queries, as well as slow to hand over any additional information or resources I needed for the production of the book. In terms of the photography itself, due to the photographer not knowing what they wanted, they simply handed me over a folder full of mis-match images with varying and inconsistent sizes that made them difficult to work with in most formats as found through layout and format experimentation in the production of this book. In addition, I was not given any context to images, for instance, the meaning behind them or if any worked together as part of a series. For this reason, I chose images myself which I thought worked together as a series and worked around these images in creating an appropriate and specific theme and narrative for the book.
This experience taught me a lot in terms of collaboration in my future professional career, since most of these collaborations will be external, particularly when working with clients. There will be certain clients who probably don't know what they want to be produced and so it is therefore important to have a strong idea and pitch so that the client can almost be convinced into thinking that your idea is good and what they want.
In future, in an attempt to avoid problems such as these occurring again, I will create a terms agreement, outlining the time-plan for the brief, what will aim to be produced and what will happen if the client is late with feedback or the hand-over of content, since these issues made the photographer and the brief itself very challenging to work with. Since I had also been wanting to work on a photography publication for a while, I feel as though some of these challenges could have been avoided if I had not agreed to the brief so quickly. In addition to the terms agreement, in the future I shall make an initial questionnaire to go through with the clients or collaborator before agreeing to anything, just so that everything is clear before starting on work. This would therefore also mean that any warning signs as to whether or not they would be a challenging client to work with could be flagged up beforehand.
OUGD602 - Work Experience - Evaluation
6A2 / 6B2.
WORK EXPERIENCE EVALUATION:
Working predominantly with the marketing team at Autoglym, but also liaising with the design team, I learnt a lot of new information and skills, as well as undertaking multiple tasks that allowed me to get stuck in with work and learn first hand about what goes into a brand department. It was interesting to see the way in which they work towards a brief and how everything that they do has a different strategy or tone of voice in order to market to their different consumer demographics, whilst still working overall to a strict set of guidelines to represent the brand in general.
One task I was given during this experience was to create content which eventually went live on all their social media channels. This was fun to see my work and ideas being utilised in the real world, and seeing how different people reacted to this. In addition, I worked collaboratively on a stickers brief with members of the design and marketing team. Again, my work produced from this will hopefully eventually go into production and will be exciting to see being used by people in a real world setting.
As well as allowing me to broaden my network of contacts, skills and experience for the future, this experience has opened my eyes to a potential career path I had not previously thought about. Before it was thought that marketing did not have much to do with Graphic Design, however both are about communication, which meant that the marketing team and the design team at Autoglym worked closely together on design and marketing strategies. However, saying this, I enjoyed much more of the design side of things within this experience and so, in terms of a future career, perhaps marketing is not something I would initially go for.
WORK EXPERIENCE EVALUATION:
Working predominantly with the marketing team at Autoglym, but also liaising with the design team, I learnt a lot of new information and skills, as well as undertaking multiple tasks that allowed me to get stuck in with work and learn first hand about what goes into a brand department. It was interesting to see the way in which they work towards a brief and how everything that they do has a different strategy or tone of voice in order to market to their different consumer demographics, whilst still working overall to a strict set of guidelines to represent the brand in general.
One task I was given during this experience was to create content which eventually went live on all their social media channels. This was fun to see my work and ideas being utilised in the real world, and seeing how different people reacted to this. In addition, I worked collaboratively on a stickers brief with members of the design and marketing team. Again, my work produced from this will hopefully eventually go into production and will be exciting to see being used by people in a real world setting.
As well as allowing me to broaden my network of contacts, skills and experience for the future, this experience has opened my eyes to a potential career path I had not previously thought about. Before it was thought that marketing did not have much to do with Graphic Design, however both are about communication, which meant that the marketing team and the design team at Autoglym worked closely together on design and marketing strategies. However, saying this, I enjoyed much more of the design side of things within this experience and so, in terms of a future career, perhaps marketing is not something I would initially go for.
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