A talk by Dines from Studio Blup (Creative Convos)

Monday marked the first day of the Creative Convos week curated by Alec and branded by both James and Sammy. This is a week where a range of different professionals come in to give their insight and knowledge on the transition from study to professional work life and their experience of that so far. Mixed in with this is a couple of different day briefs/ tasks to get us more involved with the speaker and those within the studio.

First up: Dines from Studio Blup

Rolling through into the studio with his bouncing enthusiasm and positive attitude was Dines, a guy whose passion for all things design shined through from his first slide. He started with how Studio Blup first came about for him which was during his later years at university, designing bits here and there for a club he used to go to. For him, this was the start of something big, although it only seemed small at the time he had visions for something more expansive than just him in his own bedroom designing. He mentioned that creating his so-called studio at the time, even though it was comprised of just himself, meant that he had a professional facade that made him stand out from other competing designers at the time. Having a regular email such as ....@gmail.com just didn't seem to cut it for most so by having a professional email such as hello@studioblup.com, straight away it created a much more sophisticated visual identity for him, which he claimed is a key to getting work, internships, opportunities etc.

Another thing that I took from his talk was to be multidisciplinary isn't necessarily a bad thing, contradictory to other designers who sometimes argue this point. Having a range of different skills whether analog or digital and being able to apply and adapt these to your ideas and concepts makes for a much more versatile designer, another thing he claimed helped him take on and get more client work in the future. Regardless of whether he had the knowledge of particular programmes, he set it out for himself to learn these during the process of the project as a means of becoming much better equipped for other potential projects in the future.

The second part of the afternoon was made up of a short pitching session, which later went on to become 'Dines Den'. Each of us would pitch a past project or upcoming idea/concept for a project that he would then give feedback on both the work and our presentation skills. Although somewhat daunting, it was interesting and helpful to get this feedback as it's now a means for me to expand and continue working on a project that would have just been left behind in the second year.

All in all a chilled and insightful afternoon.