OUGD402: Future Self Presentation

We had to create a presentation based upon five questions about ideally where we would see ourselves in 10 years time. Those questions being:

1. What's your title?

2. Where do you work?

3. What sort of set up are you in?

4. Where do you live?

5. What's your proudest professional and personal achievements so far?

In an ideal world I would like to be working for a somewhat well known design studio such as Bleed, Heydays or Neue, as not only am I very much interested in their work but also because they're set in Norway which is an ideal location to work. What title I have is not all that important to me, simply because I believe I would be content working at any level for a studio I like.

As previously stated, ideally I'd love to work in Norway, more specifically Oslo. Main reason being that the country as a whole feels well designed. Not only is the architecture visually pleasing, the interior design of the buildings and also the landscape itself are amazing. Set up wise, I would like to be in a nice open space as one thing I hate more than anything is being cramped into a small area whether that be a room or just working space in general. The set up would be a mixture of both being able to work and play to create a balance in the hope of reducing stress over briefs etc.

Proudest professional and personal achievement to date would more than likely be getting into Leeds College of Art, simply because of the long and competitive process that I had to go through to get onto the course. Hopefully in the future I will achieve many other things whether that be awards or just small little personal achievements.

OUGD402: Study Task 2 - Why am I here & what do I want to learn?

5 reasons why I chose to study on this course

• The fact that LCA is purely art based and nothing else creates a sense of home when within the college. Being surrounded by past and present pieces of work from everyone from different areas of design displayed around the college, makes for a creative environment.

• I'd heard a lot about the college and it's reputation as a good university and so that further pushed me to study on the course.

• According to online statistics as well, people who graduate from LCA have an 85% success rate of going straight into the industry and getting a job which is a major reason why I chose here.

• Leeds is city full of life and character and is a lot different than the environment I'm used to and also I wanted to be in a place full of opportunities for lots of things.

• Another reason is the facilities at LCA, especially in comparison to some other universities I had visited prior to this one, they had a lot more facilities available, not only that but they were of a higher quality.

5 things that I want to learn during my time on the course

• One main thing I have wanted to learn is a lot about the framework of graphic design itself, as it's all well and good making something look nice but without meaning it doesn't hold nearly as much value as a piece of art.

• Another thing is printing techniques, these weren't widely available during my college years yet prints are always something I've admired visually and so I'd like to be able to create my own.

• I would love to learn a lot about the graphic design industry and how it works, especially with having tutors that have been within it, it would be good to learn a lot from experienced workers.

• Aside from print, more hands on techniques when creating pieces of work would be good to learn as it differs a lot from a typical digital piece of work.

• Lastly I would like to learn a lot about how graphic design came to be and where it's potentially heading by learning about the beginnings of graphics and how it all started.

5 Strengths

• One thing I would consider strength is using some of the Adobe Suite, including Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver & Indesign.

• I would consider myself good at giving fair feedback when it comes group critiques and feedback sessions.

• I believe that I have good enough social skills as far as meeting new people goes, which I think will come in useful when needing to have a good set of contacts when within the industry.

• One of my strengths I would say is responding well to feedback, more often than not I will always try out suggestions given to me from feedback sessions or try to implement them into my current work.

• I believe that I am good as far as getting work done as soon as possibly rather than leaving it all to the last minute, this I would say is down to being somewhat organised with my working schedule.

5 things to improve

•  My drawing ability as I would love to be able to create more detailed drawings.

•  I want to improve my range of ideas by visiting more new places and also going to things such as exhibitions.

•  I would like to ideally build up confidence when it comes to presenting work as, although within small groups I'm confident with talking, when presenting in front of large numbers of people, I'm not very confident.

•  Presentational skills as a whole such as being efficient with slideshow presentations etc. making them look appealing and concise.

• I'd like to improve my design process as a whole, going from initial sketches to final resolution with more detailed and experimental work in between.

5 things that inspire me

•  Architecture
•  Hand made print designs
•  UI/UX Design
•  Design magazines
•  Behance

Identify 5 examples of design that demonstrate your fields of creative interest

Flat Vector Illustrations

Logo Design

UI/UX Design

3D Illustrations

Editorial Design

OUGD402: Planning Ahead

Our lecture that we had from Penny Lee was all about how being organised can help you keep on top of the ever lasting workload that is a combination of blogging, studio briefs and study tasks. 

Making something as simple as a timetable for the upcoming week can massively help to ensure that you stay on track with work that needs to be done, but also to figure out what time you have to yourself to do leisurely activities. Not only that but it can help avoid getting stressed out when deadlines are coming up.

So during our time spent in the studio after the lecture, we were asked to create a timetable, in which we first input all of our scheduled lectures and talks and then after that to input what we would normally do during our spare time.

Timetable for upcoming week

In blue I coloured the times in which that time is flexible so that, if needs be, I can alter the timetable accordingly if plans change. I feel that doing this often will help to keep me on track with the work load but also to make sure It's all balanced out with socialising and enjoying free time to myself.

OUGD402: Events in November

During our last talk with Penny Lee, we had to have a look into events that are going on during November, ones that we could potentially attend. Whether that be to give us inspiration for our current on going studio work, or to attend simply because it interests us.

After looking on websites such as Leeds List, Leeds Inspired and also Eye Magazine, I found a few events that looked interesting, ones that I would considering going to.

Gaming & Grill Festival

(7th November)

"Video games, burgers and booze? It’s no dream, it’s the Leeds Gaming and Grill Festival that’s coming to The Warehouse on Saturday 7th November 2015."

Carry Akroyd - Print Exhibition 

(7th Nov - 27 Feb)

"Carry showcases a beautiful selection of screenprints which explore fields and fens, the natural habitats of birds and other wildlife and rich landscapes. Her style is bold and her colour palette vibrant and exciting."

Craft Centre & Design Gallery

Leeds Print Fair

(7th November)

A selection of different artists with their own stalls, selling a range of prints such as the ones shown below.

With the events that each person had found, we created a few big sheets of paper full of sticky post it notes:

OUGD402: Current & Potential Influences

"BE A SPONGE"

We had a talk from Penny Lee about how we should be more open and receiving when it comes to everyday inspirations regardless of what form it's in. Not everyone, me included, necessarily has a habit of reading blogs, books, magazines etc. on a regular basis or even going to see performances and visiting galleries every now and then.

She put emphasis on how getting into a routine of checking blogs daily, reading books and visiting art related events can give you inspiration, even when you least expect it to. This is in turn will help a lot when it comes to coming up with ideas for briefs, tasks etc.

Some of Penny's suggested ones that she quite often reads/watches include Ted Talks, Do Lectures, The Chicken Shed Chronicles, Dazed & Confused and Medium. 

After being in groups and writing down between us our current inspirations, we then regrouped as a class and discussed, with reasoning, why we read and watch, what we do on a regular basis.

From this talk we had to find 10 sources of inspirations from other groups and find out a little more about them as they could potentially become some of our own influences.

1. My Modern Met

- Website containing blogs about art, design, photography, architecture and everyday ongoings.

- Has it's own online shop selling prints & photographs.

2. Design Milk

- Design Milk is a design blog featuring interior design ideas, architecture, modern furniture, home decor, art, style, and technology founded by Jaime Derringer.

- They also have another website named Dog Milk, the idea behind the website is the same as their main site except it's based entirely around dogs, blogging about designer dog sweaters and dog beds.

 

3. Colossal Blog

- Colossal is a Webby-Nominated blog that explores art and other aspects of visual culture. It is also one of the top 50 blogs on the internet.

- They have an online shop selling a mixture of art pieces and various goods such as Ferrofluid Displays, playing cards and cups.

4. Goodtype

- Goodtype is a website dedicated to sharing pieces of lettering and typography. There is now a community of over 250,000 people worldwide, that follow the website and their blogs.

 

5. One Minute Briefs

- One minute briefs is a Twitter page & blog that is dedicated to hosting design briefs everyday. The idea behind it is that they post a brief and people come up with ideas within a relatively short period of time to see how different people interpret these briefs.

6. Sight Unseen

- Sight Unseen is an online magazine that explores the world of design and visual arts.

- They also curate exhibitions and pop-up shops, produces events, and provides editorial and marketing services

 

7. Friends of Type

- Friends of Type features original typographic design and lettering pieces, with new posts everyday. 

- They claim that their "Posts are meant to log ideas, express ourselves, and inspire each other and our readers".

 

8. People of Print

- Established in May 2013, they have a team of art directors, project managers, graphic designers, illustrators, developers and printmakers that post regularly about all things print related.

 

9. Booooooom

- Booooooom was set up in 2008 by Vancouver-based artist Jess Hamada. It is now one of Canada's highest traffic art blogs and also one of the biggest on the internet. They post pieces of contemporary artwork from many different artists including up and coming young artists. 

 

10. Medium

- Medium describe themselves as 'a different kind of place to read and write on the internet'. This is down to the fact that they think more about the quality of the ideas that matter, not how many page views they get. Their website has high quality blog posts about various topics, some art related others just general everyday topics, either way for the most part they're interesting to read.

OUGD402: The John Peel Lecture

"Art is everything that you don't have to do"

"There are certain things you do have to do to stay alive. You have to eat, for example. But you don’t have to invent Baked Alaska or sausage rolls or Heston Blumenthal."

"You have to wear clothes. But you don’t have to come up with Dior dresses or Doc Marten boots or Chanel little black frock."

Brian Eno described art in such a way that I would never have thought of putting it. He talks about art as stylisation of things such as the way we dress, the way we style our haircuts etc, they aren't random they're stylised. His overall main point is that we can survive without a lot of things that we do or use in everyday life, and that these things come under his broad definition of art.

He makes a point also about how art is very much different to other subjects such as science and maths, as to a certain extent, no matter who you ask, these subjects do only a range of things. Whereas art can be described in many different ways by different people, for example my answer to what art does could and probably would be entirely different to the next person's.

"When you go into a gallery, you might see a most shocking picture. But actually you can leave the gallery. When you listen to a terrifying radio play you can switch the radio off. So one of the things about art is it offers a safe place for you to have quite extreme and rather dangerous feelings"

This quote, I think, supports the idea of art being so much different to regular academic subjects in the sense that it's possibilities are endless as far as combinations of what mediums you use to portray you ideas, no matter how bizarre or ridiculous they are, onto paper.

"We need to be thinking about art and culture not as a little add on, a bit of luxury, but as the central thing that we do."

OUGD402: Study Task 1 - Getting to Know People

For this brief, we were been split into 12 separate groups and were each given a design studio to research and to answer a list of questions then present it all to the other 11 groups.

1. Ah Ha Studios

Communication & graphic design studio established in 2011 based in Lisbon, Portugal. Created by Carolina Cantante & Catarina Carreiras. Between them they work with various mediums such as brand strategy, interior design, identity work, advertising, new media, traditional and fine print, retail and product design, photography and illustration. Their studio started as an experiment as at the time they were friends in university but eventually developed into a studio who now collaborate with other designers.

"Studio AH—HA has a holistic approach towards design and branding, working together with clients through every stage of the process, filtering their inspirations, ideas and motivations into fresh, engaging and compelling brand messages."

2. Hey Studio

Small studio founded by Veronica Furte in 2007 in Barcelona, Spain. They specialise in brand identity, editorial design and also illustration. "We love geometry, color and direct typography." They have their own online shop which opened back in 2014 which they use as a place to share their passion for typography, illustration and bold graphics.

3. Sagmeister & Walsh

Studio of 4 designers based in New York. Made up of Stefan Sagmeister, Jessica Walsh, Zipeng Zhu and Molly Brunk. They create identities, commercials, websites, apps, films, books and objects for both clients and themselves.

4. HeyDays

5. Lust

Dutch design studio founded in 1996 by Jeroen Barendse, Thomas Castro, and Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen, based in The Hague, Netherlands. Their name originated from the magazine they created named 'Lust'. They work with many different mediums including traditional printwork and book design, abstract cartography and data-visualisations, new media and interactive installations, and architectural graphics. 

6. Studio Dumbar

Studio Dumbar was founded in 1977 in the Netherlands and is the 3rd most awarded design outfit after Apple and Pentagram. They work with a variety of clients both large and small, from business and government to cultural and non-profit. 1/3 of their work goes unpaid due to doing work for non profit organisations. They produce designs primarily based on passion for the cause rather than profits.

7. Build

Originally based in London but moved to Yorkshire in 2015 and was founded by Micheal C. Place and Nicky Place back in 2001. They've worked with plenty of big name companies such as Nike and Microsoft. Their work is very type orientated and simple with a limited colour palette. Their studio consists of only 4 designers and they are soon to open a physical shop.

8. Elmwood

Founded on the 1st of January 1997 and are the worlds most effective brand design company after having won more ‘International Design Effectiveness Awards’ than any other business ever. They're currently number one in current and historic effectiveness league tables. They have created their own design tools, own tea and beer brand. They are very serious about sustainability and specialise in commercial branding and product packaging. They have studios in London, New York, Singapore, Leeds, Hong Kong and Melbourne.

9. Bleed

Bleed are a multidisciplinary design company based in Vienna, Austria and also Oslo, Norway. They work a lot on identity and have worked for companies such as Ikea and Diesel.

10. Face

Face are a supermodernist design studio specialised in developing honest branding projects across the world. The studio was founded by Rik Bracho and Ricardo Tejada and amongst them are 8 other designers that work within the studio also. They focus on identity, branding and also web design.

11. Dessein

Founded by Geoff Bickford and Tracy Kenworthy in Perth, Australia back in 1987. Their work is very clean, modern and colourful. They focus on branding, signage, websites and also packaging. Within their studio they have a range of employees working for them including Koreans, Italians, Indians and Australians.

12. Wolff Olins

Founded by Micheal Wolff and Wally Olins. "We were founded in 1965 to help organisations shake off their corporate camouflage and take their place in the world." They're based in several locations including London, San Francisco, New York, and Dubai and they now employ 150 designers, strategists and account managers.