The Hungry Sandwich Club Brief

Today I attended a talk given by the young graphic design business 'The Hungry Sandwich Club' Based in Leeds, they are a fresh face to modern, colourful designs, vector creation and animation. 

The talk was about who the business was, how it began and where it is now. The talk was very inspiration to me personally, the designers who started the business, graduated from the same university and course that I am now currently studying.

The designers spoke about their journey so far, their work and their business, the reason I found this such a great talk that I am glad i attended was because it showed me that if I put myself and my work out there enough and make the effort that is needed in the world of graphic design then I will make something of myself and my work.

The young designers were very impressive with their talk, by relating to myself and everyone else listening in the room. The talk definitely left me with a confidence boost about my own future intentions of being a noticed and respected designer who has the ability to make an impact and a difference. 

After the talk, the designers gave everyone the opportunity to work on a brief that they had prepared. 

The brief was to design a direction map for a cycling event which would be part of the 'Leeds Food Festival'. The map could be created in any way we wished, what ever we thought would be most effective.

I worked withing a group to come up with a finalized idea for the map and then create it. As a group we began to converse ideas about how we should design the map, color choice, images, text, placement, weight. Until we had agreed on a final idea, which was a very illustrated/vector based piece, using a range of bold sketched images for landmarks and pastel themed colors for the overall theme of the map. We had the intention of creating something fun and interesting to look at and probably different the the average based map design that are usually used. 

Keeping in mind that the brief was to work within a group and explore and converse ideas that would stand out from any other. 

After spending a few hours on the design, we had finally completed our own vision of a cycling map:

As a group we all agreed that this was something very different and new, we had applied illustration, vectors and colours to the very extent of their use for this certain project.

I personally found the brief very fun and interesting, I really enjoyed the talk by the graphic design company, the hungry sandwich club and the brief they had prepared for the group.

http://hungrysandwich.club/

The Hepworth Art Gallery

I previously took a trip to the Hepworth Art Gallery in wakefield, as part of a course day trip.

It gave me the chance to experience something new and to take inspiration from a vast amount of different forms of art and design. To also take inspiration from the creators.

I didn't really see anything I personally liked in the gallery, however it was very interesting to find out the definition of more complicated pieces, how and why the artist came to the finished design.

Out of all of the pieces I looked at I would say that this one is my favorite:

It was very interesting, the piece seemed to communicate the idea of light and air.

OUGD402 - Studio Brief 02 - Self Branding

As a graphic designer, I need to think about my own self branding and how I present myself to the world as a creative who potentially wants to change how people see things.

I have been given the task to create a consistent design that effectively communicates me and my own style. I can do this through the creation of a logo, images, type, business cards, social media, personal website.

So looking back at what I have already achieved in the past until now, in the sense of how my work has changed and how I personally have changed as a designer. Using this to create my own logo, a complete new design that expresses myself.

I have always had a modernistic approach to my work in the past but at the same time, I have always had the idea to mix this in with some element that comes across quite illustrative. I have mostly always worked like this because it's how I express myself best when I am able to. 

Below is a final design for my self logo:

I came to this final design by taking ideas from my past and applying them to what I like now. Illustrative designs by expressing my mood through drawings that also lightly reflect the work of my favorite artist 'Si Scott'. A modernistic approach by using triangles, it is my favorite shape and is a commonly used shape a lot of media and fashion now. In my own way though I see using the triangle as a way to express perfection, and simplicity whilst looking effective. It is also a good way to communicate many different designs as it serves as the perfect template.

As my logo is quite detailed, I used a small selection of color and shade.

I stuck to white, black and a mid-grey, I did however want to express some color in my work to enhance the expression of personality. I decided on navy blue because it is my favorite color. This color makes reminds me of a lot of personal events from my past, Small images in my mind that i associate with this color. So i thought it would be perfect to use in my work for self expression.

When deciding on a type face that I would be able to use in all future self promotion, I wanted something that was modernistic and bold yet subtle. My favorite typeface 'Armata' has these qualities. It can be compared to the modernistic and boldness of 'Helvetica' but at the same time 'Armata' is a little softer around the edges and doesn't look as harsh and sharp as 'Helvetica' does. 

However, i didn't just want to completely use somebody else's creation, in designs that I will be using to for self expression. So I altered the form of letters by removing sections that I personally didn't feel were necessary, below are a couple of examples.

The before on the left and after on the right. I like how the alterations make the type seem that much more simplistic and easier to understand to the passing eye. 

Using the idea that the human mind doesn't actually read text but instead sees a word or a letter as an image and instantly knows what it is. I think my alterations cater to this process.

I could then start creating a business card. Something small and effective that I can easily leave behind or pass out to gain more exposure. So using the ideas that I have already have, creating my business card was easy.

Business cards are small, so I wanted to keep this clean and easy to the eye. The front of the card says exactly what I want the ready to know, 'My name and my profession', then if the reader is interested they are more than likely to turn over to the back to find my information and work advertisement.

the overall design of the card is consistent with my previous color choice and decisions.

So far this is the extent of my personal expression and design. I am sure to keep coming back to my designs and adding to them and altering them, when ever I see fit. though for now I am happy with how everything looks. 

I have recently played around with the design of my logo, I felt that the design could be altered to give a cleaner more modernistic look. I do like the illustrative design I already have because this expresses my own style, However as a logo i felt I needed something more simple.

Below is my updated logo image.

Vision of a Graphic Designer

This blog post will explain how becoming a growing graphic designer has changed my mind and vision about the things I see around me on a daily basis.

As a graphic designer, I feel that is is my job to change how people see things through the use of image, type and design, I want to do this by not only expressing my own self, but expressing the visions of others.

I feel though that I should explain that ever since I made the choice to become a constantly growing graphic designer, I have learnt more and more everyday, and I will carry on learning more and more as each day passes, my mind and vision will change, including the way I see things. This is something that excites me, because personally I never want to reach the a point in my life where there is nothing else to learn as a designer. To keep myself satisfied, there will always have to be something new, whether that's by chance encounter or self drive.

Graphic design gives me the vision to appreciate 'good' design work, something that is thought provoking or eye catching. However at the same time it gives me the vision to be able to turn my nose at badly designed pieces of work. Design that has 'screams', no thought or effort. Design that looks like someone has thrown a bunch of shapes and colour together, only to hope for the best and use the design whether or not it is aesthetically pleasing. There comes a point where that when I see products or advertisement designed so badly, it angers and frustrates me until I find myself going on a rant in my mind about the 'crappy decision making', during the creation process of this design.

One day I was walking with a friend in an open market, a place that obviously lacked modern or innovative designed advertisement, label designs, pretty much anything that had the intention to 'catch your eye', really didn't.

So when I saw all of this badly created art and design I instantly began to ask myself 'who designed that..?', 'how the hell did they think that was okay to use?'. Making negative comments in my mind about the designer who created it, what I would say and ask him if we ever met.

Instead, I start going on a rant to my friend about the design of what we were looking at, and probably going into far too much detail as to 'why' this work was so bad. My friend couldn't understand why I was getting so annoyed, but I knew exactly what I was talking about. This is because a graphic designer learns to understand what looks good and what doesn't.

The point I want to make is that as a graphic designer, I love being able to look at a piece of design, break it down and really appreciate the effort and thought that went into it, but at the same time, it has given mt the ability to over react negatively when it comes to my own view of 'bad' graphic design.