Thursday 22 May 2014

Golden : Placement offer

This morning of todays hand in I got a surprise email from Dan Bird, the creative director of Golden in Leeds. I was really happy to have received an email out of the blue from them as it is usually the other way around where I am emailing people for internships. I emailed back and asked them if I could drop by soon and discuss more details.



Golden is a multi-disciplinary design agency based in the UK. 

Our ambition is to create great work for great brands. We collaborate with companies including Nike, PlayStation and Google in the delivery of compelling, innovative brand communications. Together, we are Golden.


























Tuesday 20 May 2014

Peter & Paul Opportunity

As a class we were told that there was an opportunity to work with Peter & Paul on the college prospectus as a paid intern. It would be great to have a big budget publication piece in my portfolio therefore I decided to go for it.

The instructions of how to apply for the job are below

Send two pieces of work to Andrew Craske and answer the questions below:

1) Why would you like to work with Peter & Paul on the College prospectus?
2) How would you improve the prospectus this year?
3) What are the challenges of producing the College prospectus?
4) Tell us something else about yourself!

Interviews will take place between 10am-12.30pm on Tuesday 27th May.


This is the email I sent



Hi Andrew

I am emailing to apply for the Peter & Paul opportunity regarding the college prospectus.


1. Firstly I have enjoyed the new college rebrand this year as it is refreshing to see an establishment like Leeds College Of Art step forward with a contemporary identity. What I was most impressed with was that they took elements from the heritage of the mosaic logo and gave it a fresh new look. Furthermore my main interests lay between branding and print, two strong examples of what Peter & Paul do so I feel that I could fit in with them quite well. I also have a love for editorial design and often make my own publications. Finally I am coming to the end of my degree at Leeds college of art, therefore it would be great to have a project to a large scale in my portfolio as there is a budget to play with beyond anything I have ever done in the past.


2. I would improve the prospectus by thinking beyond just a printed publication. Every year thousands of students collect stacks of prospectus's only to throw them all away. Maybe there could be an ethical route to go down when it comes to designing it. The main challenge is to make something stand out from the crowd, that hits a certain target audience. Leeds college of art is an art school, maybe it needs to be something playful and tactile.


3. The challenges of producing a college prospectus is fitting in with the current brand guidelines of the college. Another thing I would have to be aware (due to recent experience of working on a year book) is that Leeds college of art is full of individuals, with individual opinions. You can't please everyone but you have to fit the right balance.


4. Finally something about me! I am Eve, a third year graphic design student about to graduate in June. As a designer I have a passion for print, branding and curation. In April I co-curated my first exhibition at the Corn Exchange which was well received and was posted to the Creative Review blog. The exhibition proved that I can work independently and organise a project that is to a large scale. Outside of design I love music and you can often find me down at Brudenell Social Club attending many of the local gigs.


You can find my work attached or alternatively you can view my website at www.evewarren.com



I supplied some images from my portfolio.




























Personal Branding : Business Cards Customisation

Due to being disappointed with my Moo card order I decided not to waste my money on 50 useless business cards therefore I customised them by making a copper plate. The result I am super happy with as I achieved a really nice emboss with my name now in big on the front of the card.



























Thursday 15 May 2014

Nada got on the Dieline!

Today myself and Tom's packaging project, Nada, from earlier in the year was featured on the Dieline. It was a great accolade to be featured on this site as it's a site I've visited for many years and it is also the world's leading packaging design blog, so to have our work featured on the site can only mean good things. Nada is proving to be one of the best things I've been involved in this year.

 

































Self Promotional material : Moo business cards

Ordering business cards from Moo

About Luxe

Compared to most ordinary Business Cards, Luxe are the gold standard of paper quality – at 600gsm, everyone who receives one will experience a quality and weight like no other card.

Quadplex compresses four layers of Mohawk Superfine paper together, including your choice of color in the center, creating an eye catching streak running through the fabric of every card.








I liked the luxe business cards from Moo as they offered the Quadplex of colour through the middle of the card that everyone likes to try and achieve. I am not confident in my own cutting abilities therefore I went with Moo.


The design below is very simple, I wanted to keep it purely typographic with my name, what I do, web address and phone number.




The cards came in the post! In a fancy box!



However when I opened the fancy box, I was disappointed at how boring they were. I had not achieved the minimal design I was going for. I should have printed the cards out to check the point size before I sent them off as I feel it is too small. This card says nothing about me, my work and what I like to do.

The only thing I was happy about was the quality of the stock and the print.


Back to the drawing board!




























Friday 9 May 2014

Opportunity at Mark studio

Mark studio

There was an opportunity going at Mark studio in Manchester for a junior designer job. Therefore I emailed them with my CV and website link.

Mark emailed me pretty much straight back to arrange a date for an interview.




























About

Mark is an independent branding and graphic design studio, based in Manchester.

Since 2005, we’ve been producing outstanding work for clients of all kinds and sizes, winning a fair few awards along the way. We’d love to talk to you about what we could do for your business or brand. But in the mean time, we’re happy to let our work speak largely for itself.
































Thursday 1 May 2014

Thompson Brand Partners : Portfolio surgery




















A little bit of research behind the company



______


Great brands are built from the heart

If there’s anything we’ve learned in our 25 years in branding, it’s that building businesses and brands is a very personal thing. People invest a great deal of themselves in them, so they’ve got every reason to love and protect them. So when it comes to branding, we know that, to do it well, we need to love our clients’ businesses the way they do.

So that’s what we’ve built our company on. It means that we’re on the same journey as our clients and that we’re an essential part of their great adventure. It’s the kind of responsibility that drives us to be the very best. And it means that we’re as excited as our clients when we reveal the true, powerful joy of what their businesses and brands have to offer.

That’s why we take what we do so seriously.


_____



We like to do

We have great conversations and we spend serious time planning. But what we like best is doing. And, what we do comes down to 5 key things:

1. We help brands understand their place and purpose in the world.

2. We reveal the the space they can occupy.

3. We bring their vision to life.

4. We design and deliver the tools to articulate this simply and consistently.

5. We help brands change their game.

And our most consistently reliable resources for doing this are great people and powerful technology.


_______



Brands that do good, do better


Working hard at something worth doing is a real privilege. We’ve noticed that the most successful and sustainable brands seem to be the ones that have real focus and a purpose that matters to them. We like to work with businesses like this because they seem to thrive on the power of the positive impact they create.

We model ourselves on the company we keep.






PORTFOLIO SURGERY 


The trip to Thompson Brand Partners was successful as we went as a group of 6 and had a portfolio surgery in the main board room. It was quite nerv racking as we had to present in front of each other. However the challenge to present did us all some good as in the future we may all have to present in front of a large group of people - not only for an interview but for a pitch for a client.


My presentation went well, they liked the way I presented my portfolio as I kept it out of the plastic sleeves and presented them as boards.

I had no text on them as I wanted to do the talking - and I didnt want anything distracting from my work.

The projects they enjoyed was Nada and Dialogue.

Nada - They were impressed with my packaging, photography and typography skills.

Dialogue - They said that they were aware of the event - good news as I felt that I promoted the exhibition quite well.

 







Wednesday 16 April 2014

Fieldwork : Studio Visit

The studio

The studio visit to Fieldwork was a great success. They are based on Lever Street, which appears to be the creative haven of central Manchester as Music, Modern Designers an Mark are all on that street. The studio itself was light and airy, full of books, design sheets and a wonderful wall moral. I was invited to sit and talk to Loz for an hour, who I can my portfolio through with.

He was kind enough to call over people in the studio to look at my work, especially pieces he really liked. He came across as a sound genuine guy who basically confirmed that I was going to be ok. He  offered me a two month paid internship starting the 30th of June. However he made it clear that he was unable to hirer me afterwards due to them being a small studio. Despite this he said he would help me find a job and introduce me to a few people and get me involved in a few side projects of theirs.






Gifts!

Loz was also kind enough to give me a copy of Volumes 1 : A guide to Making Things that they collaborated with Hey Studio with. I was over the moon to receive one of these after seeing them everywhere all over design blogs.








Fieldwork visit : Portfolio

This is a PDF of my Portfolio that I took to Fieldwork the week after Easter. I presented it in separate sheets and laid them out on the table in front of me instead of putting them in plastic sleeves.

Running order

Nada : Nada is my strongest project due to the shear amount of work that went into it. For example it ranges from branding, custom typefaces, applied pattern and packaging.

Feedback : Loz was really positive about Nada. He was impressed at my photography and branding skills. He even called one of the junior designers over to look at my work.


Pronto : Pronto is second in the running order. It is quite a corporate project in comparison to my other work due to the subject matter, typography, iconography, web and applied branding. I put this second as everywhere I have gone to visit / do a placement I have always been shown / set to work on icons. Also everyone I have talked to feel the same. I wanted to include iconography as a strength of mine there I highlighted it big on one of my boards. Fieldwork also do a lot of web design, so I included a couple of web mock up show that I am aware of web design and responsive devices.

Feedback: Pronto was also give positive feedback as like I said above, iconography is a good skill set to have. He told me that they do a lot of it at Fieldwork as clients love it. The web element of my project that I slipped in at the end also confirmed that I have basic web skills. He expressed that he was worried that I was entirely print based and maybe a bit on the 'trendy' / 'cool' side. To help my portfolio grow, this is one thing I have to take into consideration. I am glad that I tailored my portfolio to what the studio does / likes to see.



Feast : I put Feast in the middle of the portfolio as I feel it is my weakest portfolio piece due to it being second year work. It has a great concept therefore when I talked through it I made it my aim to identify my ideas behind the project. There is also a lot of print processes involved, again another skill set I wanted to show off.

Feedback : I don't seem to recall much feedback regarding Feast apart from them expressing that they also love print processes and sometimes they get clients who want fancy stationary. Those projects always help break the digital side of their work up.



Spring : Spring is another packaging project. Again a little more concept lead however it is very similar to Nada so I had to push it past Feast. I think the branding and applied pattern and colours are the strongest part of this project as well as the art directed shoot I organised. I think packaging proves that you can make stuff with your hands so again I thought it was important to include it.

Feedback: Again I don't recall much feedback apart from some praise over my pattern work and colour choices that applied to the project.



Dialogue: Finally I wanted to end on Dialogue, a personal self-initiated project of mine that shows off my passion for exhibition and space curation, as well as my love for screen printing. The photos of the opening night make the project look legit, which proves that I can be trusted to organise something.

Feedback: I was praised to end on Dialogue as it showed I can organise and curate an event. He also said he had heard about it and seen it before online. This was great news as it was an aim of Nathan and myself to get noticed.


Presentation feedback:

I thought I would be brave and not put my portfolio in any sleeves as I wanted to spread out and present my work in the form of design sheets. It also went down well the fact that I didn't include any text on the boards as it was nice to see me speak confidently about their work.

Fieldwork


I had been meaning to send an email / self promo to Fieldwork all year since I saw their Volume 1 : A guide to making things project which they collaborated with Hey Studio with.

During Christmas time I attempted to contact them however I never received a message. However I didn't give up there, during Easter I updated my portfolio and sent them a PDF of my work with a message titled. 

THE MANCHESTER ADVENTURE.

it read...

Dear Loz and Andy

I am Eve, a Leeds based graphic design student soon to graduate in June.

Manchester seems to be a really exciting place at the moment due to the likes of the recent BCNMCR event and Design Manchester that I attended late last year. Great stuff like this has confirmed to me that staying up north is the best next option.

I really admire the work you create at Fieldwork therefore I am contacting you to ask about possible placements and internships. You can find samples of my work in the PDF attached.


I got a reply!

I was later that week pleased to get a reply offering me a possible placement during the summer. They also invited me to their to studio to show my portfolio. I was so pleased as they do some great work, plus they are a brand new studio so they are fresh and excited to do good work.























About Fieldwork

We love making things, collaborating, identifying interesting problems and figuring out what we can build to help solve them. Above all, we like to keep it simple and do it well.

If you were to visit our studio right now, you’d probably find us tinkering away with something, making things with pixels, wires or paper. This is what we love doing, and we pour that energy and excitement into every project we undertake.

Fieldwork was founded in 2012 by Loz Ives and Andy Gott, a pair of experienced makers, drawn together by a mutual desire to produce things that help organisations further their work.



Our Approach

We build things with you, collaboratively, to support and enhance the work that you do. Combining your knowledge of your organisation and its work, with our experience and design process, we produce things that have real impact.

The best way to explore possibilities and generate new ideas, is to get started. Less talking, more doing. We start sketching and prototyping at the very beginning.



Things we’re good at

We’re a focused team of makers and do-ers who specialise in crafting engaging experiences across digital, web and brand.

With a strong network of talented collaborators from a range of disciplines, we can adapt according to specific requirements for a wide variety of projects.

Whether it’s a big, intricate digital platform for a large organisation, or a simple project for a small start-up, we have the experience and network to do it well.





Project of interest




_________________________


Volume 1 : A Guide to Making Things

Collaboration with Hey Studio
You can see the web version here : http://volumes.madebyfieldwork.com/making/




1. Keep it simple, do it well

There’s nothing more satisfying than making something well, and in a world filling up with stuff, attention to detail matters more than ever. By keeping it simple we can make room to breathe, step back, and focus on the quality of the things we produce.









2. Be better, not bigger

There’s an incredible breadth and depth of value in the things that people do, immeasurable in terms of money, attention, likes or followers. This is why we love what we do. Focus on being better, and work with people who value their craft.








3. Always be tinkering

Be interested in the way things work, intrigued by the world around us, and unafraid to play with new technologies. Tinkering seeds new ideas and inspires exciting projects. Make something. Anything. Or take something apart to find out what’s inside.






4. Be adventurous

We’re lucky. We spend our time making stuff, which gives us the same thrill we had as children, cutting things out, sticking things together, and making circuit boards with switches and lightbulbs. Part of that feeling comes from learning new things and experimenting. Let’s keep pushing.







5. Be open, share ideas and resources

Build communities of makers for greater impact. Share ideas, contribute resources, publish our learnings, have conversations and inspire others. There’s a lot of making to be done. Support our fellow makers.






6. Make friends and collaborate

Two brains are better than one. Three brains are better still. We make better things by working with talented people who reinterpret our ideas in ways we could never have imagined. Make some new friends, or look up some old ones, and dream up a collaborative project.




















Iterate

Nothing is perfect, so let’s accept that and make version one. And then version two. Each iteration is an experiment — prod, poke, and learn. Start at the beginning, not at the end.






Make stuff to change the world (even just a little bit)

Imagine if every child finished school inspired to go out into the world and make something to improve our situation. It doesn’t have to be big, just moving a tiny part of the world a tiny part of the way is enough, if we’re all inspired to do it. This starts with us. Let’s get to work. Let’s excite and inspire.






Fieldwork Branding

We love our client work, but our in-house projects are also an important part of what we do. We developed our own identity with an eye on both sides of Fieldwork.


























Tilt


TILT design enabling spaces, creating inspiring atmospheres that transform the way people interact with each other. They de-mystify architecture and design to make refreshing spaces that complement the purpose and personality of the people that use them.


























Camp Nothing

In September 2013 Camp Nothing brought together 50 people from 15 cities across the UK to kickstart new Good for Nothing chapters, spreading the social-innovation bug far and wide.























Carbon Co-op

Carbon Co-op are a groundbreaking group of residents and housing experts who are pioneering a new model for making homes in Greater Manchester more energy efficient.