OUGD402: Battle of the Burger @ Canal Mills

The 26th Feb marked a special day for us burger lovers, it meant we got to indulge in a range of burgers, all the while getting drunk and socialising in the process.

Nothing to see here, just Tom admiring the meat

Aside from the usual exhibition visits and such it was nice to be in an environment where everyone was there for the same reason and that reason not being to admire artwork, although I guess in someway burger making is an art in itself.

#1 - Longhorns

Unfortunately, I (stupidly) only got a picture of one burger I had but this was without a doubt the best. Beef and hog patty with brisket, jack cheese, bacon and some form of sauce, essentially just a big pile of sloppy grease, but a bloody good one at that.

#2 - Get Baked's Cleveland Steamer

Although I didn't photograph the final product, this one consisted of colslaw, onion ring, pulled pork, beef patty, cheese and smoked chorizo. A good contestant but unfortunately not even close to my personal winner, I think I'll stick to the chicken biftas.

Was also nice to have a range of DJ's on throughout the nice playing a bit of jazzy, chilled out music.

It's a shame that this only happens once a year because it's definitely something that should be done more frequently, even if it isn't just burgers, another food event of some sort a few times a year would be greatly appreciated.

All in all, an enjoyable night, I mean night filled with music, burgers and booze, it doesn't really get much better than that as Matt clearly illustrates below..

OUGD402: Lord Whitney Studio Visit

Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit the Lord Whitney studio based in Leeds. They're a team of creatives lead by Amy Lord & Rebekah Whitney, who focus mainly on set design and all things hands on.

They began with a talk into them and how they came about creating the studio within the first place. It was interesting to see how long, creating something such as this, takes to form because although on the face of it, it looks easy to set up, it's not always as simple as it looks. Money, space and time can become very limiting but not necessarily in a bad way, it can force you to become more creative with building and making things rather than just buying stuff you need, using scrap materials, second hand paint etc. which is ultimately how they ended up with the unique and creative studio they have today.

Cosy Sitting Area Featuring Kieran's Cheeky Grin

Both Amy and Rebekah were unbelievably enthusiastic about, not just their work, but everything really. They spoke a lot about just getting out there both you physically but also your work, going to events, exhibitions etc. which means it gives you a chance to potentially get new clients simply through talking to people.

Snazzy bar/kitchen area

I honestly think that the talk they gave was very inspirational, it put things into perspective and gave me a sense how things work within the real world of design. Showing how not everything is as straight forward as it seems and not everything will be handed to you on a plate, you actually have to go out and make things happen yourself.

One thing I'm definitely going to aim to do within the future, is go to more events, exhibitions, lectures etc. just so that I can talk with more creatives like Amy and Rebekah who will hopefully inspire me even more. But also to gain useful knowledge and to get myself and my work out there.

Selection of displayed work around the studio

Humble Motivation
within the Studio

OUGD402: NEST 08 Magazine Launch

The installation in place for the NEST 08 magazine launch was amazingly curated and installed, the theme of light was prominent throughout everything within there even down to the 'NEST' title embossed on the magazine.

They had a range of pieces of work, all in some way related to light along with a few short videos projected onto the walls.

Going to this event made me think more about visiting more exhibitions / art-based events to take inspiration from and hopefully at some point set up an exhibition of my own showcasing ranges of work or at the very least take part within one.

OUGD402: Self Branding (Research & Inspiration)

To begin this brief I started to look into current examples of self branding that I thought stood out to me as creative and visually engaging. This was mainly achieved through not only their unique style of self branding but the colour scheme used, something that’s different to the conventional monochrome colour scheme.

Using different materials and a range of colours is something that would normally interests me to look more into someone simply because of their branding.

A lot of branding that I’ve come across all blends into one another simply due to the lack of colour and varied style.

Although it’s aesthetically pleasing and well produced pieces of branding, I don’t think it allows for the person to stand out against the crowd.

With my branding I want to harness aspects of some brands such as the tongue and cheek side of it in the hope to bring out some of my character within it. This will hopefully interest people more into enquiring about me, the same as it would for me with other branding.

Different formats of branding is something I looked at. Given that first impressions mean a lot, especially when business cards are generally only glanced at for a matter of seconds, I wanted an impactful first impression.

Something that inspired me for one of my ideas was the hello my name is stickers that are often seen within films to introduce employees to customers. I thought that this would be a much more casual and approachable way to introduce myself to people.

I thought by adapting this idea and maybe using the word yo instead would be better suited to me given it’s a greeting word I use on a regular basis as opposed to the usual hello, hi etc.

I stumbled across another piece of branding that inspired an idea. The idea being to incorporate a visual part of me within my branding, maybe an accessory that is a part of my overall look or maybe a style of clothing I wear, whether that be vintage, minimal etc.

Having a logo that does use a visual from you allows for the branding to be instantly recognisable as you and makes it distinguishable from other identities.

This gave my the idea to possibly include my glasses into my branding, creating an ambiguous branding as my glasses as the visual, intriguing people into looking further into my brand.

Another thought following on from this was to potentially mix these two ideas together, which would serve the purpose of both greeting the person but also creating an ambiguous visual to the front of a business card.

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.