Learning how to set up artwork for print

Contact with professional printers, manufacturers etc. is something I've never had to do over my time at uni. For Hilda Quick's branding, I decided to hand letterpress business cards. This meant having letterpress blocks manufactured from another company.

Alex recommended a place called Photocast as these are the people who produced his plates.





One thing that didn't even cross my mind before was the process of artworking before sending off to print. This was a little challenging but it made sense to me in the end. Something I'll carry through to next time if I decide to get my own business cards done.



Finished Plates

For the price, I was impressed with the quality of these.

Personal branding thoughts

Branding is always something I've struggled with; it's not my strongest area. But nonetheless, I need some of my own to represent me as a designer.

Looking into different areas of my practice helped form an understanding of how I would want myself to be portrayed.

I'm not typically an eccentric person so immediately I want to stray away from any bright, obnoxious branding that would typically would for someone else quite out there in personality traits. More subtle, pastel colours would be more in fitting with me if anything.

I much prefer my practice when in collaboration with others, simply because I think that two minds are always better than one. You can always learn a lot from collaboration be that knowledge or skills or both. I feel that one day working in a studio or at the very least alongside someone else will definitely fit me best.

Internship dates @ The Elephant Room

After long discussion regarding dates for an internship, finally dates for me and Jon to go down together were set in stone for the 9th-12th. 

Craft Agency: Portfolio Lab Session

Craft Agency down at the Tetley for the first time hosted a session they call Portfolio Lab which is essentially an hour lot critique session for your portfolio but from industry professionals. This short but sweet encounter was super helpful in terms of helping me get a better understanding of what is and what's not essential within a portfolio since up to this point I'd never really sought much advice on this.

Within the session, me and a couple of others would have a sit down with two professionals individually and walk through both digital portfolio and a website. Speaking to Fionn I gained a good amount of feedback that'll help improve my portfolio.

Condense my descriptions - Studios don't have all that much time to read through a big description for multiple projects, so keeping it short and sweet (I.e using the elevator pitch method) is going to help me get straight to the point.

Only include work I'm passionate about - There are a few projects both on my website and in my digital portfolio that although might be decent projects, I'm not that passionate about. This could come across as trying to bulk out my portfolio with work I'm not too keen on and so it's best to just keep it limited to a few solid projects.

Although some people have a clear ongoing theme or style within their portfolio, not having that isn't always a bad thing. One thing pointed out to me was that my work was more conceptual and idea led than a typical portfolio and so this is something that will shine through when viewed, rather than worrying about all my work having to be similar in some way.

Few other pointers:

- Don't be afraid of white space - don't add more images for the sake of things
- Move contact details to the back of the portfolio so once they finish reading they have the means of contacting me right in front of them.

All in all, a very useful hour-long insight into what it is industry professionals will often look for which will help to elevate and hopefully give me a slight advantage when it comes to applying for internships/ jobs etc.

Response from Live brief @ The Elephant Room

After our response to the Wickes live brief, the creative director of the agency contacted us with feedback in response to our work. This was super helpful in getting a professional understanding of what went well/ not so well or what we could do to improve the piece to then have as a portfolio project.

Potential Internship @ The Elephant Room

After responding to the live brief set by Elephant Room they offered me, Luke and Jon, to go down for a couple of days in the studio. This was exciting as it's the first bit of first-hand experience I'll have as a professional.

Live brief for Wickes

During the creative convos week, the Elephant Room finished their talk with a live brief for us which was for Wickes. 

Reimagine the customer experience for selecting colour and create a journey to replace the current approach that’s in their stores.

This was a perfect opportunity to not only make further contact with Will and Shannie but to have experience of working on a live brief, as there is potential for this to extend further in the future.

After visiting the Wickes store in Leeds to find out more about how people currently shop there, we developed a few ideas that we thought could work. Putting these into decks helped define our idea in a concise and easy to understand way.