Self Promotion - Logo Development

I started out trying to keep the strings the same length for each ball (left), using the angles of the string to and the frame of the Newton's cradle to create a shape of the letter 'M', which didn't work. Using a bit of artistic licence allowed this to work better (right).

 

Using the same proportions and grid I tried to then create a 'B' too.

But this way looks more like it in my opinion, I also added curved bottoms to compliment the circles.

Reducing the weight of the lines that made the cradles put more emphasis on the shapes.

I reduced the size of glare on the steel balls to make them more subtle, and added text below to add some context to the letters. I used Steelfish, a tall and strong font reflective of the structure and reliability - attributes that apply to myself and fit in with the maths/physics-related concept of the logo.

Given the two cradles were the same size, the alignment of the text never looked right underneath it because of the different number of letters in my names. I tried the logo without the 'B' because it was weaker, hoping to remover this problem with the text - it didn't work.

This was my solution, which looks much better.

However, I thought that the symbol overshadowed the text to much, so thinned the lines making the cradle even more to balance this. I also removed the curved bases to further reflect structure and reliability.

I found that putting the text inside the symbol aided these reflections even further, as well as allowing the whole logo to be square, an advantage for social media purposes.

Contacting Richard Claxton - Maraid Design (York)

I noticed on eStudio that Maraid, a design studio from York were coming in on Friday. I looked into them and found out that Richard Claxton, one of the guys from Maraid went to Leeds College of Art. Knowing this, I sent him a message and invite on LinkedIn so I could hopefully talk to him in advance of the visit, making it easier for me to talk to him on Friday.

Live Brief - Freya Williams Self-Promotion

Being fairly unfamiliar with Freya's work, I didn't really go into this project with any ideas for her logo and was hoping she'd be able to give me some direction with this. She knew vaguely what she wanted but wasn't too sure, which made the development process slow.

The logo developed until Freya was happy with it

We discussed how the postcards would look and I convinced her to print something on the back of them rather than just leave them plain.

The initial plan for the folder didn't change too much.

We were struggling with the business card after a fair bit of development, so decided to come up with a few ideas to get a better of idea of what she wanted.

More information can be found on this stage of the brief can be found here on my extended practice blog

Self-Promotion Re-Think

As much as my self-promotion at the moment revolves around putting the emphasis on my work rather than myself, having filled out the application for the Jaguar graduate scheme I now realise that it does need to reflect something about myself as a person, which it doesn't do currently.

My interest in perpetual motion at school influenced by decision to take Maths, Physics and Graphics at A Level, and although I ended up doing Graphics, I still have the logical thought process of a mathematician or physicist - something I feel is somewhat rare amongst graphic designers based on my experience so far. Along with other obscure things such as Nietzschean philosophy, tropical fish and snooker, these interests are the sort of things that make me unique as a person. I feel my logo should reflect this.

Given that there will be work in my portfolio that shows my interest in tropical fish, snooker, and my dissertation is based around Nietzschean philosophy, I think my self-promotion should reflect my interest in maths and physics and the logical thought behind it, particularly the area of perpetual motion that influenced my A Level decisions. For that reason I want my logo to be based around a Newton's cradle.

Live Brief - Freya Williams Self-Promotion

I met with Freya today to discuss what she wanted - a logo that wasn't 'hyper-commercial', business cards, postcards with her designs on, and a folder to contain them all along with a CV and a cover letter which she will be writing. This worries me slightly as the description was quite vague, particularly a logo that's not "hyper-commercial", as it might be a struggle producing something that both of us are happy with, although since this is a live brief it's more important that Freya's happy than I am.

Live Brief - Freya Williams Self-Promotion

Freya Williams has asked me if I'll help her with her self-promotion as one of my extended practice briefs. This is a good brief for me to take on because:

• It's a fairly small project, roughly the size of projects I'd expect to be doing as a part-time freelancer as discussed here.
• It's a self-promotion project, helping Freya with her own self-promotion may give me some more ideas for my own.

Harri Larkin - Final Changes

After a bit more back and forth with the band they were happy with the designs based on the feedback they got on the previous ones and on their own merits. Unfortunately as my friend is now back in Bristol I won't be able to transfer them any big files easily, which we decided is a problem we'll address if and when they arise. As far as I can tell, this project may now be complete apart from passing over the files.

More information on this stage of the brief can be found here on my extended practice blog.

Design Agencies in York

Having lived in Sheffield, Rotherham and Leeds all my life I've grown very comfortable in Yorkshire and wouldn't want to move outside of Yorkshire for my first job because of this. I've always liked York so it seemed a good place to start looking at studios. 

Ignite Design

Website

Whilst this studio doesn't particularly specialise in UX/UI or packaging design, their work is all impressive, and there are a couple of articles on their blog which I've found particularly useful (here and here), despite the blog not being up to date. They seem like a quite a friendly company who'd respond to any attempts at communication if I had a question for them. 

The Distance

Website

The distance specialise in developing apps, (one of my main areas of interest with graphic design) and have worked on apps for organisations from the NHS to Bentley. Their blog is very up-to-date and is full of content, something which I try to do with my university blog. This is a studio that I intend to contact with a view to a work placement. 

Harri Larkin - Design Changes

I recently posted about transferring the files for Harri Larkin's band logo to the band and the difficulties that arose in doing that. I had assumed that when they said they were happy with the designs that it would've been the end of the logo project - hence why I spent so much time preparing the files for them. However they got back to me a couple of days ago with some feedback and wanted some fairly big changes doing. Whilst this isn't a major inconvenience for me at the moment, it certainly highlights the importance of the signing-off process when dealing with clients, something which I didn't deem this project big enough or serious enough to need, especially given that I'm doing this project for free.

National Football Museum with Joe Shiels

Joe and I went to the National Football Museum in Manchester today (more about this here) to try and gain a more historical understanding of the aesthetics of football for out Programme Covers Brief. Whilst there he asked if I'd like to do another collaborative project on posters for the 2016 European Championships in France. Whilst this is something I really want to do, I want to wait until our current collaboration is a bit further down the line first to make sure we work well together.

Post-Uni Plans

I've been thinking about what I want to do after Uni finishes in terms of Graphic Design, and I've narrowed it down to the three most realistic possibilities:

1. Full-time employment in-house in the design/promotion/marketing/advertising department of a large company, preferably one in an industry that I have an interest in.
2. Part-time freelance work primarily on small projects whilst having a part-time job of some other sort in an industry I'm interested in.
3. Full-time work in a design studio that focuses on UX/UI and packaging design, as these are my main interests within graphic design.

With this in mind I hope to do the following things over the next few weeks:

• Look to start applying for more graduate schemes or student jobs at larger companies.
• Take on projects in extended practice that are smaller projects of the size I'd expect them to be when working part-time freelance (such as Harri Larkin's logo and the Pet Fish Post-Purchase Packaging), and projects that are focus on UX/UI or packaging.
• Consider what part-time jobs would be suitable while working as a part-time freelance designer.
• Find and contact studios that focus on UX/UI and packaging.

Meeting With Joe Shiels (Level 3 Illustration)

I met with Joe, an Illustration student to discuss the start of our project re-designing football program covers which we'd discussed over summer. We decided we should design the front and back covers of the programs to balance out the workload between the two of us - the front will be more illustrative and the back will be more information design.

The clubs we selected to re-design the covers for were initially Liverpool and Sheffield United, the teams Joe and I support respectively, but then we decided we should also design covers for Everton and Sheffield Wednesday - local rivals for the teams we support - to show how the cover designs can work in different colours as well as to make our designs more viable through added consistency.

Roles

Joe - Scamps, Sketches, Illustrations, Photography
Me - Layouts, Typography, Vectorising Images, Design Boards

Business Card Ideas Ideas

Following on from creating my draft CV and Portfolio, I wanted to find a way to extend that aesthetic into a business card. I established that red imagers on a white background and visa versa was far too bold, so I'd instead use embossing on either read or white to create the image, using the other colour to to print text and the logo.

At this point I like the bottom right idea, but there's a long way to go yet, and these or just initial ideas.