Like a river visit

The last visit I had to like a river we continued the work on self promo. myself and Casey went in with sketchbooks with our ideas in.

My work was surrounded on my initials E.g being an example. I had mocked up a number of ideas how i could use this in a mailer. One being sending an E and G fridge magnet so they could hang an " example" of my work on the fridge.

Rob showed me how this idea could be made simpler. An example of this way by letter with a copy along the lines of

For my first job I needed a novel way for people to remember my name. How can I get you to remember my name? E.G Something short and sweet.

This lead us to go on and discuss ways of incorporating this into my portfolio. Rob advised us to layout our portfolio as brief and solution. He suggested placing E.g in this copy.

Rob still wanted me to look at the greek idea for my mailer. Suggesting something along the lines of...  one quarter of me is greek Thankfully not the bit of me that designs ... or one quarter of me is greek hopefully my feet for dancing not my head for designing.

We are continuing the process of writing for our portfolio and mailers

Dave sedgwich

After the lab I had contact with Dave about my work. I sent him my project development half way through my new idea for feedback. His responce are on the emails below.

He also sent me some work to help me. Below are the posters he sent me to look at for research.

Andy Bradbury

I created a logo/identity and shop sign for my friend when she opened her coffee/ cake shop in Cheadle Hulme. She approached a designer to do a website for her called Andy Bradbury.

I had to send him the art work for the logo and I got a really good response off him. He has asked me if I would be interested in doing logo/advertising work for him when he gets work in.

Bellow is  contact emails.

Like a river visit 12/04/10

Today me and Casey went into Rob at like a river. We started off by talking about our lifeline work that we sent in to the roses competition. We found out about what we were up against and what the judges were looking for. We also found out why the winning piece won.

After this we started talking about self promo. and book wrappers. Something that will make us stand out from the rest.

options Rob gave us including making our boxes. This could be done by silkscreen.

Rob told us different things that they had been sent in the post ad how these made an impact.

A man who's last name was Sargent had his portfolio layout like an army file.

a women who's last name was brown did a card in a brownie theme and a lady who's last name was Shepard sent in a sheep dog.

Little geasture like this make you stand out from the rest.

We have been discussing ways me and Casey could do this. My initials Spell EG which is an example. Rob suggested me using this through out my book for my brief and solution.

Also looking at ways to play with my last name. People getting it wrong.. and other links such as sending a broken plate with my c.v.

WE are going in next week to carry on with this progress.

Jones Knowles Ritchie

While in London we went to visit Jkr. The studio was bigger than any other design studio I had visited before and all the staff were friendly. We sat down in the meeting room and saw an interesting powerpoint of the work they did and how they got to the final result. I found it interesting to visit a packaging company to see how they solely worked on one area of design.

I took alot away from this aswell as packaging is somthing I have rarely touched on in my work.

They showed the importants of selling the brand rather than the product and make it different from the rest.

Most well known packing JKR had done. This is from drench, j20, birdseye to Molton Brown.

We got to look around the studio and talk to the designers.

You can find there work at www.jkr.co.uk 

Like a river

Like a River Contact

Through sending out a questionnaire I got a portfolio visit at like a river which Casey came with me. This lead to a great contact. Rob introduced us to the roses awards and briefs for the two of us to work on to build up our portfolio. WE would do into the studio and have crits with Rob just like we would at college. This lead to emails and Rob would help us with our work and questions. This is still going on now and its nice to have that contact to get advise and guidance from a designer.

Like a river visit 5

We went back to like a river (23/11/09) but at 5 o'clock so Rob had more time to spend with us. The focus for today was working on the money idea. Me and casey both got our own macs and work space to work on and we were working on the backgrounds for our money idea. Rob showed us some new techniques and pattern making, mainly on illustrator. We decided to keep the background as patterns and then change the hue in photoshop to resemble the money value. He also suggested we take pictures of crumbled paper to transfer the money on to, this would help with our presentation skills. Rob then introduced us to the website veer. Its a typeography website that allows you to type in your information, ( in our case money values) and they shows your information in a variety of different fonts. We found out more about like a river, how many people work there and how they use a regular freelance designer. We are emailing Rob the progress of the backgrounds later on in the week.

Like a River visit 4

We went back to like a river today (16/11/09) and got feedback on 3 pieces of work in particular. We have narrowed down ten to 3 just until are exhibition has finish.

Life line

We took feedback from last week and created images from suicide points showing an emergency telephone that would represent lifeline.

We spoke about how the text " here when you need us the most" is not 100% necessary and looking at playing on the phone number. We got the statistic 242 people committed suicide last year in Northern Ireland so Rob suggest showing that some how in the phone number. 

For example 0800 242 241. The statistic has dropped due to phone call.

We need to work more on the emergency phone we are going to use in the visual and work on the text that is going to be used.

Money

They money idea is coming along strong. We showed Rob our progress form last week and discussed ways of improvement. For the jewelry we spoke about different ways of changing the crown. Also changing the background using a flat colour to bring out the queens face and changes we are going to make to it.

Museum

For the museum work we came up with an idea to use british museums as a brand and using innuendoes to link the brand to certain genres of museums. This was applied to a bag to show as a crit. Altho we came out of like a river feeling positive about that piece of work our tutors recommended that we used another one of the briefs.

We contacted Rob and he suggested we listened to our tutors.

After speaking to casey we are going to concentrate on the elastic band or undertaking brief apose to the museum until the exhibition and go back to the museum work after christmas.

Like a River visit 3

 Today ( 9/11/09) we went back to like a river to show are progress from last weeks discussions.

The main outcome from today was focus  on writing. Rob showed us how to write a proposal and the benefits. The main benefit being it helps encourage ideas and brings the art direction together.

We had failed to start 3 of the briefs. Hurl, electronic waste and the save our pubs brief. Which is one of our main focuses for next week.

We decided the elastic band idea was not working as it was not portraying the write incentive. We decided to work on ambient media. Trying out signs and franking stamps that the postmen will always see while he is at work.

Life line. We decided to keep working on our initial ideas focusing on the stefanwork, although trying a new route. This would involve a life line phone box in segmiester  suicide hot spots.

the idea that excited all of us the most was the money idea. Just making subtle changes to the note by making the queens smile grow and her jewelry. Rob showed us the work he did on  travel care and the techniques we could use to create the same effect. 

We spoke through each brief and how we could apply different medias/mediums to make our portfolios more versatile.

We are going back in next monday to show are progress.

Like a River visit 2

Like A River (2/11/09)

After our first portfolio visit Rob at like a river suggested we worked on roses briefs to help build our portfolio and go in to visit him to get guidance on the work. The 2 briefs we went in with was for an elastic band brief persuading postmen not to drop there rubber bands and a brief called lifeline which is to urge potential suicide victims and there families to ring. 

Rubber Band Brief. After a few ideas we came up with making a book which would show 100 uses for an elastic band. The idea being that this would urge the postmen to keep them and fulfill the tasks surrounding the elastic band. We talked through this brief idea and Rob pointed out that we needed a stronger incentive for the postmen rather than completing the stages in the book. The three of us agreed the book was the route to go down but it did need work.

The life line brief came out very positive. Me and Casey went in with a number of scamps and ideas but out research on stephan seigmeister began the main idea rolling. We are going to create a campaign with cry's for help shown through self harm. This is broken down into two ideas so far

Route one.. having the self harm words describing the reasons for the suicide.

The main reasons for suicide rate in northern ireland is divorce,loss of a loved one and debt

This would be shown as imagery with a slogan along the lines of its not always this obvious

The second route.... Showing symptoms as self harm. This encourages family members and friends to learn the signs of suicide and call helpline. Signs such as talking about death, change in personality,lack of sleep and mainly                                             depression.

This would be shown like route 1 but with a strap line act now: save a life

Finally after talking to Rob we decided to work on all the briefs. We sat down and spoke about ideas for each brief and what research we should start doing. Each brief got more exciting the more we spoke about it. Rob showed us work they are doing at the moment for other companies that helped push these ideas further and spent along time going over branding with us. We are going back in next Monday ( 9th of November) to show are development and further our ideas.

Questionnaire contact report

Questionnaire

I conducted my questionnaire and sent it to Manchester and London design agency's. I got  great response from this questionnaire and the 7 responses are below.

I got good contact from these questionnaires and portfolio visits.

Questionnaire response from Ed Williams - WIlliams and crosby

Re: Everyone Starts Somewhere‏

From:	Edward Williams (ed@wandc.com)
Sent:	30 November 2009 10:39:14
To:	emma georgiou (emmageorgiou88@hotmail.co.uk)

Best regards

Ed Williams

Hi

My names Emma Georgiou and I am currently at Stockport College completing my final year for my graphic design degree.I came across an interesting article on the DandAD website called Everyone starts somewhere. This is a collection of old work produced by big names in the Graphic Design industry including degree work.

This Article made me question how much does old work help later on in your career and does everybody keep and refer to this.

1- Would you recommend Students keeping a record of all previous work they have produced?

Yes if it's worthy of showcasing - unfortunately not all work a designer is asked to do is what we would like to show as 'good' examples. Also as a designer we should always look to improve on our previous, in which case, show the best!

2-Have you ever personally refereed back to previous work when finding it hard to come up with ideas?

Not really, we do sometimes refer back in order to see what we did or to illustrate a point. We find it better to look at other designers solutions as this may take you in a fresh direction and inspire. There is nothing wrong with using reference books etc to kick start an idea - commonly known as research, but never replicate.

3-Would you find idea generation more effective referring back to your old work or books and other sources?

See above

4- And finally, How important is it to record all your work and ideas into a journal or blog?

Not all, but you'll often find in the commercial world, your best ideas aren't always the ones that go live, clients may have a different view of what they want, they may get diluted or simply aren't right for that client, so keeping reference can sometimes be useful.

Thank you for taking your time to read my questions and I would be very grateful for some feedback.

You can find the collection of work Everyone starts somewhere at: http://www.dandad.org/everyone_starts_exhibition/

Many thanks

Emma Georgiou

questionnaire response from Dave Sedgwick

Hello Emma

Thanks for your kind words on the talk!
I think you've touched on an interesting topic here and certainly different! I'll try and answer your questions as best as I can!

1. Would you recommend Students keeping a record of all previous work they have produced?

Yep, I certainly do, although I didn’t! I don’t think I have any of my old university work now in all honesty! In actual fact I’m pretty gutted that I I don’t have it.

2. Have you ever personally refereed back to previous work when finding it hard to come up with ideas?

Again, certainly. I often find myself referencing old ideas, logos, scribbles etc and if they didn’t go ahead with one particular client I don’t think there’s anything wrong with revisiting them, so to speak. That said however, sometimes looking back on old ideas can cloud judgement and in many ways restirct the creative flow in relation to new ideas. 

3. Would you find idea generation more effective referring back to your old work or books and other sources?

I think that coming up with a new idea is very subjective. We all do it differently. Some do it by looking at older work, whether done by themselves or other agencies/designers. Some lock themselves away, preferring the peace and quiet of an empty blank piece of paper. Some like to get away from the whole concept of worrying about ideas and prefer to do something different altogether, hopeing for a spark of creative genius! It really depends on the person and of course the brief. If I am doing a logo for a recruitment agency for example, and I;ve done something like this before, I would possibly look back over my old ideas. But more often than not I do look at them and think they were pretty shit! So I start a fresh!


And finally, How important is it to record all your work and ideas into a journal or blog?

It’s probably more important whilst at University than in the real world as this helps with marking and explaining to your tutors how you came up with your ideas. Although, I do still keep my sketch books and back up files, so in a way I am keeping a form of journal. Speaking as someone who doesn’t have a blog as such I think they are great when they’re relevant. 


Hope some of this helps! Sorry it’s Friday and it’s been a long week! 
Dave

Email sent to Rob at like a river surrounding the roses briefs

Questionnaire response from cog design

Reply from Someone in London re: portfolio visit

Questionnaire response from Chris Myers at Love creative

reply from studio mohu re: portfolio visit

questionnaire reply to studio mohu

Questionnaire response from Studio Mohu