Presentation

Strategy File

I designed my strategy file in line with personal branding, to ensure consistency throughout my submission and outgoings as a professional designer. 

Evaluation

A keen self learner, a team worker, good time management and organised.  I would say I am definitely all of these things, I have taught myself a lot when it comes to design, by watching tutorials and reading books. I have successfully collaborated multiple times and work well/ get on well with others easily. I can manage my time as the whole way through uni I have been juggling several different briefs along with other life commitments. I am very organised, this is evident in my blog and diary keeping, as well as my ability to plan and prepare for other things such in life as holidays, trips and general house keeping/cooking. 

602 has encouraged me to engage with the industry a lot more, by contacting studios and designers, asking tutors more questions, and engaging with designers on social media such as Instagram. Through research into designers that inspire me, I have been able to create a plan for what to do next and how to achieve my goals; I have also made contacts that I can continue to keep in touch with and hopefully gain other design opportunities. This module has also given me more confidence with talking to people in industry, going to a work experience interview was nerve wracking, but being offered the opportunity gave me self confidence and assured me that I am talented. Working with Existential Pleasures gave me further confidence, first meeting the team went really well as they were friendly and welcoming, and by the end I felt like one of them and am sure I will keep in touch with them in both a professional and friendly capacity. 

I have taken on multiple briefs throughout the year that would have been out of my comfort zone last year, such as creating work for an exhibition, designing posters, producing a publication, and working with animation and 3d on my work experience. I have also done a lot more work in the style that I discovered early on this year I want to go into - web design. I am keen to further these skills by learning how to code and reading up on web design, as well as ux design and branding. I have taken a keen interest into looking at available jobs and what they offer, as well as what you need to be successful - I am going to continue strengthening the skills required. As I want to continue education and create more work before applying for junior designer jobs, the personal branding will likely change, I am happy with how it is to this day, but know that my interests and angle will change with further education and organisation. 

Personal Branding - 6c2

As I have previously mentioned, when I graduate I want to further my education by learning to how to code. At the moment my primary practise is still graphic design, however this may change when I start my course. For this reason I have kept my personal branding minimal and not spent time making business cards as they aren't necessary at this point. I have updated my Instagram to suit this new branding, however haven't touched my website as I plan to be able to create my own within the next few months, rather than using a website builder such as wix or squarespace.

Print Social T-shirt brief - 6a2

We want to keep the brief fairly loose but would love for you to capture our playful, fun and tongue & cheek tone whilst also delivering our message of bringing people together irrespective of their race, gender or sexual orientation. We want to empower guys, gals and non-binary folk that irrespective of what they look like their identity is valid and they should be proud of who they are. 

submission

final designs

evaluation

For this quick brief, I decided to produce three outcomes with three different interpretations of the brief. The outcomes are different in terms of their style of design, the message they send out, and the t-shirt design in terms of placement and colour. I wanted to challenge myself by producing work in a different style than I am used to, having three submissions also higher the chance of being successful within the competition. The brief began with some research into t-shirt designs they have previously sold for campaign CoppaFeel - all of these designs were very illustrative by nature and included a lot of bodies, with this theme being diversity bodies are also relevant - but as they had been used a lot in that campaign I made a mental note and conscious effort to steer away in a different direction for my designs. From this point, I did some other visual research, whilst also looking at quotes around the theme of diversity, this inspired the initial sketches, which I then chose the three strongest and developed them. The biggest constraint of this brief was the fact you had to include their Pantone yellow within your design, for one of the designs 'primary heart' the colour itself has great meaning - in that the three primary colours can be used to make any colour, which is very relevant to the race aspect of diversity. However with the other two designs I simply concentrated on the message and design complimenting the shade. I have never done any clothing related design before but really enjoyed it, designs for t-shirts must be strong and eye-catching as they are such a blank canvas and I believe all three designs stand out and stand alone well. The competition aspect of the brief itself was a great driving force it wanting to complete strong work, in a short space of time and from the get go it was important to make quick decisions and experiment as much as possible before settling on the final ideas - in the time I had.  

Existential Pleasures Work Experience - 6d2, 6a2, 6b2

I then emailed Joe, to get in touch about shadowing them prior to the event and to arrange my involvement the night of the event. 

He replied quite fast, which I was happy about as I was eager at this point to organise the experience as soon as possible.

The next day, I called Joe and had a conversation about what work of theirs I was most interested in and discussed when I was free to help. We decided on me starting on 11/04/19 and shadowing them up until 19/04 - the night of their event. 

I had a really good time working with existential pleasures, which is comprised of Fionn & Joe who are in charge of the visuals, and then James who responsible for the business side of things, booking acts, promotion and money. Then there is Patrick who is involved with business and also the existential pleasures resident DJ. They were all very welcoming, helpful and friendly and the night was a great success, my main duties on the night were to check people's tickets on the door, and sell them if they didn't already have one, and to assist with Fionn and Joe behind the visual counter if they needed any help, with the general running of the event. The experience before the event was mainly watching how they work, and giving the odd idea and inspiration in relation with the theme and running any errands. Below are some photographs from the night. 

 

The week after the event, I got an email from Fionn, one of the designers to summarise what they are about as a company, how they work and a thanks for my help. This was very kind of them and I have kept in touch and hope to work on future projects with them. I am very keen to learn about the use of cinema 4d and moving image in general. 

Existential Pleasures is an immersive club experience created from a keen interest in both art and design and a love of music. Existential pleasures was formed in 2017 by one industrial designer and one graphic designer. They started out purely creating audio reactive visuals for Dj’s which looked to create a strong backdrop when performed live. After performing these visuals for Dj’s such as Antal and Shanti Celeste they now move forward creating their own club nights using themes to enhancing the clubbing experience. A night in the summer of 2018 called “DYSTOPIA”  was based on the themes involved in ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Enter the Void’ and transformed a back alley in Liverpool through use of props such as multiple old television sets and multiple projections.  Tailoring to unusual themes makes the night inclusive and special, a multifaceted journey through music and visual stimulation. 

The process for the events it to first deep dive into a theme. Once chosen research is created in and around this topic to try and put our own spin on it. Mainly we used Cinema 4d to create most visuals, Using objects and colour which we know can be projected during an event. These visuals are then put into a program called VDMX in which we can really transform to fit into the music the dj's will be playing.

We got an email from Becca a month before our event ‘Artificial Environments’ in which was going to be held in Leeds. We thought it would be a great help to get some of her own ideas on the theme as she had a very strong portfolio. After the briefing on the theme and style of the event over a Skype call we arranged for her to get started on collecting some research. The following week she came back with some excellent research that fitted the theme perfectly and was a great head start for us to get working from. We had arranged that she would shadow one of the designers, Joe, for a week and a half before the event to understand the basics of the software used in order to create the audio reactive visuals.  Joe told me that Becca had a good compositional eye with great ideas for what would work well and she that was great to have around. 

Cheers Becca!

Fionn