Another new identity!

So, finally I am confident that this is my final identity...of the year.

Taking advice from what Mark Howe mentioned about my handcrafted quality being something I should carry through to my identity, I wanted to have a completely hand-drawn one.
Initially I was concerned that it looked quite different in terms of the fact it doesn't look like a 'logo' but the more I look at it, I think it does and I think it sums up my practice a lot better than a vectorised one.

I openly admit that I'm not the greatest when it comes to choosing colour and I don't want a bad colour choice to effect a first impression so I decided to go with black/white/grey and I am Really pleased with it.

In terms of the information that I'm going to put on my business card - I was initially going to put my website address on it and my mobile phone number but then I realised, if I got a lot printed and then I changed my phone number...that would make all the cards invalid so I think I'm just going to put the web address on it.

Mark Howe Portfolio surgery

When I was signing up for this, I was pretty nervous because all I could think about was that I didn't have enough work...or enough Good work in my portfolio.

I chose to speak to Mark because I has previously been to his talk that he'd done back in November and in addition to the fact that his design practice was kind of close to mine, he was also really enthusiastic and knowledgable.

When it came to the actual portfolio surgery, I wasn't too disappointed in my portfolio but I was aware that it needed some work and hoped that Mark could give me some direction.

One of the key things I noted from his talk in November was to never say 'What's wrong with it?' say, 'Where can I improve?' and although I thought i'd drilled this into my head - as soon as I sat down and he asked what I wanted to get out of the talk, I said 'Advice on...where I'm going wrong.' Duh? Thankfully, I corrected myself straight away!

Issues raised/discussed:

- My billionaire, lyrics as type piece - he suggested that I could actually Make it into a real thing - take it off the paper so to speak. He liked it as it was, but it is just done on photoshop so to actually make it out of a gold material would give it a much more tangible, aesthetic quality.

- On the whole, presentation needs some work. It wasn't awful but I could do relatively simple things to make it a lot better. Mark suggested I look at other peoples portfolios - go on the websites of the designers that I am inspired by and look at how they present their work - what works and what doesn't? He showed me some of the techniques he used and gave me some 'cheats/tricks'.
The presentation needs to compliment the work but not overpower it...or in my instance underpower it (by just putting a flat image on basic printer paper.

- Give the pieces a context relevant to the content i.e. the 150 pens piece that I showed him, he said looked like it would go on the wall of a design studio so put it in that context (or make it look like its in that context) but in contrast with that, the cockpit poster that I did should be on a more relevant context like the wall of a venue or flyposts.

- Photograph products (such as my cassette bag) Really really well. He really liked the bag, but I can't really take that to all interviews etc. so it needs to be photographed so well that it looks as good as the real thing, including texture etc.

- The identity that I had applied to the portfolio - doesn't reflect my design practice - comparing it with the portfolio I took along with me, I totally agree as it was all hand-drawn pieces and the identity was vectorised SO this needs addressing.
He mentioned how he felt that my line quality was a strong, consistant part of my work so my identity should reflect that - to the extent that I could just handwrite all of my business cards (time consuming but cheap...maybe)

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At the end of it...I was extremely happy that I chose to sign up for one and it showed me how useful they can be. It gave me confidence in my work and highlighted areas that I could improve.

Website

I understand how successful Indexhibit is...and I can see why, because it does look good but I just couldn't work it out on my own!

So I went for the next best thing that I could think of - blogger. You can edit it so much to make it not look like a blog I thought I would have a go, so below is my first attempt.




The main things I want to change are:

- The 'favicon' - so that its not the blogger sign, as that makes it obvious that its blogger
- The layout of the images - I think it needs some work but at the moment its not too awful.

New Identity

After the initial business cards that I'd designed...I altered it slightly by adding the paint drip - looking back, I'm not sure why I thought that was a good idea because I don't use spray paint?

So before we came back after Christmas and before the portfolio review week - I needed a 're-think' of the identity. I wanted to focus mainly on the type design and I'm really happy with how the final shaded/3d ones looks.

Below is the business card of which I printed a few out to take along to the portfolio review - and as I'm still using the A3 clear plastic folder we were given as an initial portfolio, I re-arranged it to fit in the side panel of the folder.

OUGD301 End of Module Evaluation

Reflecting back on my original rationale; I don’t feel I have made the most out of this module or pushed myself to produce the standard of work that I am capable of. I feel I have touched upon the areas that I wanted to focus on, but I haven’t exploited them to a very high level. Out of all the modules I have done throughout the course so far, I have definitely struggled most with this one for various reasons.

My intention was focus on illustration and type as image. I have produced work that covers both of these areas but looking back at the work, I haven’t produced the sort of type as image that I wanted to work with; I wanted to work more with the sort of hand crafted/rendered type that I began working with towards the end of my second year but I didn’t manage to appropriately fit this into a brief; obviously, this is completely my own fault. I think the cause of this has been my poor time management as I picked up a couple of briefs along the way and I got caught up in these ones and due to lack of time, I chose to drop the Lyrics and Type brief which would have been the substantial brief where I really focused on hand crafted typography.

Another area that I wanted to address was my software skills in photoshop and illustrator. In particular I wanted to really get to grips with the basics of them both; I obviously had quite a good understanding of both pieces of software due to workshops etc. over the past couple of years, however they were both quite time consuming and I could never estimate the length of time I would spend on them very well, meaning it would effect my time management. Therefore, a positive is that I feel more comfortable using these pieces of software at a more efficient rate.

I think most of my briefs reflect my design intentions relatively well i.e. in terms of what I want to focus more on, but there were some that I really dwelled on, so much so that in the end I wasn’t happy with the what I produced and I think some of the work may reflect that. For example, the Criminal Damage brief; at the start, I intended for this to be a lot more illustration orientated but I chose to develop the metal band inspired type aspect. In the end, I wasn’t happy with every design that I pursued and I definitely feel that this brief could have been turned around a lot quicker.

As mentioned previously, I have really struggled with this module and I feel it was partly to do with the fact that I was trying to do all 6 briefs at the same time. Looking back, I should have set stricter deadlines for myself and maybe just have done two at a time and properly complete these before starting another. I actually think if I did this, I would have produced more work and work of a higher quality. My overall feel for this module was that I panicked quite a lot and focused more on quantity rather than quality - so I ended up not having time to do a lot of things such as quality printing.

Overall, for my Final Major Project, I really hope that I can learn from the mistakes I have made throughout this module. I need to make stricter decisions on the briefs that I want to undertake, why I want to do them and what I want to get out of them so that I can’t completely change my mind when I start panicking and end up producing work that I am unhappy with and don’t want to put in my portfolio.

Briefs and Proposal

Open publication - Free publishing - More proposal

New Business card

When I was sketching new ideas, I really thought this is one that I would go for...but as soon as I started putting it together digitally I thought...no. It just didn't work out like I expected it to so I changed direction quite quick.

I hadn't sketched this idea...but it kind of came from the poster that I did for the cockpit competition and it kind of pursued the hands on feel that I wanted.

The idea was to try and make my logo look like a stencil and kind of...imperfect which in a way relates to my design practice. Although I like perfected digital illustrations...I then like to give it some texture and make it look a bit 'rougher' so I thought this suited it quite well.

Although I liked the handwritten text on my previous design, I didn't think it would work aswell with this image because it could look too 'cutesy' and I just need the card to carry the important information that needs to be readable. I still went with a sans serif typeface.

I actually think it does work well in colour, which I didn't expect it to, but for the time being I am going to stick with black and white.

Business card re-do

So...after leaving it a while and seeing on the studio wall for however long, I decided...I didn't like my previous business card. I realised, if I had...as little as 50 printed, thats 50 individual cards that I'm going to have to put the stamp on...about 10% of which wouldn't be in the right place so I'd probably lose money...and it could just end up being a bit of a mess!

I therefore decided it was (already) time for a change. I still wanted to stick my circular 'logo' because at the moment I still like it.

Business card 2

I was adament that I still wanted to use my stamp because I liked the idea of it...but I needed to make the card represent me better, so I developed the 'hand crafted' feel too it.
As I am an image based graphic designer, I thought it could work if I included some small drawings of the tools I use...

The layouts shown retain the space for me to put my stamp on the front.

To continue the hand rendered feel, I handwrote my information...scanned it...and placed this on the card which I thought was added a more personal touch.

I do think it looks better than before...but I'm still not 100% sure.

I tried a folded business card so that I could either have a piece of work in the middle or more information or something. The stock i used for the experiment was too thick and I don't think the coloured in drawings work well with the black stamp.

This idea is something I may develop, but in this instance I don't really like it.

Business card 1

As I bought a stamp to add a 'handcrafted' feeling to my business cards, when designing them...I just really needed to decide where the information was going to go and what typeface it would be.

I decided to go with the serif font...as its less formal and I think it suits my practice better.

So once printed...this was when the problems occured.

Firstly, I had decided the information would go on the back and just the stamp on the front...but it just looked a little too empty and...

The ink didn't go onto the stamp properly and it was Really hard to get it centered because the stamp is circular but the block that its on is square...and not completely centered so I couldn't see if it was properly centered or not. This then made it look...bad.

So because I though it looked too bland with just the stamp, I just put it on the back with the informaion and although it looks a little better...I still wasn't completely happy with.

Back to the drawing board.