True North

I went to visit Ady a designer at True North today, he invited me in to chat after I had emailed him last week. I took my book dummy with me and a few more spreads that have been adapted since I created this. The advice Ady gave me was really helpful. His opinion reinforced what I was thinking myself which I feel is a good thing as it made me feel as though I am on the right track with my project.

Ady felt that once I had sorted out the order of my book, as I explained I would be changing this by adding section dividers, it would be almost there. He showed me some examples of work True North had done and explained how adding imagery to my book may break it up slightly as currently it is purely typographic and becomes slightly repetitive. Overall the visit went really well I plan to work on the following pointers over the next few weeks:

• Reintroduce page dividers
• Find place for page word and lock in place to help keep the structure of the book
• Visualise each quote by using typography and page elements
• Introduce imagery to break up pages

Studio Special

Studio Special was one of the agencies I visited during my trip to London. Myself, Michele and Kat took our portfolios to the studio to see the designer David Lovelock. He began by telling us a bit about himself, how he came to London and the creation of Studio Special. He then went on to talk to us about some of the projects he'd worked on.

We each showed David our work. While showing him my editorial work he advised me to talk more about the design decisions I made rather than the brief as this is what a designer would be more interested in. As it stood I was discussing what the brief was about and what the article consisted of but he told me to talk about why I chose to design the identity in the way that I did and why I chose to carry out the identity through the magazine with blocks of colour etc. David liked the way I had done this but wanted me to expand more on why. He then showed me an editorial piece that he had produced.

David liked my NYC Bowling Championship identity work and said that I should apply more ambient ideas to it by maybe using a birds eye view of New York and highlighting buildings in white to look like pins. Again he advised me to speak about why I had chosen the colours for the logo (one black and one pink) as the designer wants to know the reasoning behind the decision.

He also gave me some advise about my Kitchen of Meaning work telling me to maybe add a strapline to the poster so that the viewer 'get's it' quicker. He also suggested maybe placing it in a magazine or newspaper to show it in situ rather than in a bus stop ad shell as it has more relevance.

Overall this visit was very helpful and I received some really useful feedback and advise not only on how to improve my work but on how to present it to a design. David was really helpful and even took the time to advise us on where to eat!

Red Brick Road

Before visiting the Red Brick Road I had looked into some of there Tesco campaigns with Michele as we had been researching copywriting for a brief that we collaborated on. We really like the simplicity and how they got the message across without over complicating things. I couple of these ads can be seen below.

I visited Red Brick Road while in London with my classmates Michele and Kat. The visit itself was quite a quick one as the designer that we were originally meant to be seeing was unable to speak to us. We saw a copywriter, Dan, and he spoke to us a bit about getting into the design industry and placements and showed us a portfolio that belonged to a guy who had previously had a placement there. He said to us that unusual and more daring ideas were often what got people placements as these were the things that stood out and grabbed a designers attention.

We then went through a few of our designs and Dan gave us some advise on how we could improve these. Throughout the visit he mentioned strategy and how this could benifit our ideas. This came up in our other visits too so I plan to research more into advertising strategies. One project that this could be applied to was a Bacardi brief that myself and Michele had been working on. As it stood the project was unfinished so it was really helpful to get some advise on how to improve it. One thing that Dan suggested was shortening the scenarios as they were quite long and another was to add a strapline. He also suggested maybe using different media for advertising rather than just print, i.e. the internet using web banners and maybe printing on stickers and placing these on the back of nightclub toilet doors to appeal more to our target audience.

Since returning from this visit we took Dans advice and added a strapline to our posters, hopefully we will get he change to apply more of his suggestions to our work.

Dye Holloway Murray

Dhm was another agency that I visited when in London. I had been emailing Fran, a designer at Dhm, regarding one of my projects and she had suggested taking in my portfolio while I was in London. I visited the studio with my classmates Michele and Kat, we got some great feedback and Fran seemed really keen to see our work. One of her colleagues also joined us.

The feedback I got about my work was really helpful, Fran liked my Kitchen of Meaning exhibition posters but felt they were quite long and could possibly be shortened. By doing this it could also help the viewer get the idea quicker.

I also showed Fran and her colleague my Cumberland Pencil Museum exhibition poster, she liked the idea and thought it was simple yet effective. One piece of advise given here was that maybe I could of used a variety of pencils to represent the mountains rather than just one photograph repeated.

She also gave some great advice to me and Michele on the Bacardi brief we are currently working on. She liked our idea and told us that it reminded her of some 18-30's ads she had seen a few years back. Fran suggested that to make our posters better we could make the language that we used more casual and up to date, using more slang words etc and she also suggested adding a strapline to link the text to the rum itself. Another thing that came up was that our work lacked advertising strategy, this was mentioned on several occasions. Fran explained to us what this was and how it may be useful to us if we looked into it further.

We left Dhm feeling positive about our work as they were extremely helpful and really enthusiastic when looking at our designs. This was a great end to our visits in London.

New York: Barbour Design

Another agency that Me and Kat visited while in New York was Barbour Design. The studio itself was bigger than I had expected and there was a set of 4 designers working there including Ava, the designer I arranged the visit with.

Ava was extremely interested in what we had to show her and gave us lots of feedback on our portfolios. She liked my NYC Bowling Championships work and the layout of my portfolio. One thing that she pointed out that I should change was on my Manchester Literature Festival poster where one off the quotation marks I have used is out of line. I had noticed this myself previously and plan to change this. Since returning from New York I have refined this and solved the problem. Ava suggested taking my 3M work out of my portfolio or lightening the red as it was difficult to see how the fold worked due to the colour been quite dark. Personally I don't feel this is one of my best pieces and am thinking about removing it from my portfolio once I have a few more pieces to put in its place.

After looking at our portfolios Ava spoke to us about interviews and also CVs as they are very important when leaving uni and applying for a job. She said that it is essential that the design of a CV makes a good first impression and that spelling is very important. Ava also said she would be happy to look over any of our designs if we needed any advice. I really enjoyed my time in New York and at the design agencies we visited.

www.barbourdesign.com

New York: Coffee Cup Design

While in New York myself and my friend Kat visited Coffee Cup Design Agency. This was our first portfolio visit in NYC and we were really looking forward to it! When we arrived at the studio we were greeted by Kenneth Funk, the designer at Coffee Cup Design. The studio itself was small with just Ken working there but the space was full of great design elements with posters on the walls and books full of fonts.

We firstly talked about Kens career and how the industry worked before designers had computers. It was really interesting to hear about how methods have changed, he described to us how printing has changed and how he used to have to cut out individual lettering rather than just mac-ing up a design and exporting it as a PDF.

After chatting we showed our portfolios and spoke about our time at university. Ken seemed impressed with our work and was very positive. He liked my editorial work, particularly the way I had used the orange strip of the identity to highlight other elements within the design. He was also impressed by the typography I had created for this. Once we had finished showing our portfolios he recommended some places to visit including the Type Designers Club, another design studio, Number 17 and the oldest pub in New York! I feel that overall the visit went well, it was a great experience to visit an american designer.

Since been back in the UK I have looked into the Type Designers Club as sadly we didn't have time while in NY. There are some great designs in the annuals! I have posted some fromTypography 29 below.

www.coffeecupdesign.com

Type Designers Club

Like a River

On Tuesday I went for a portfolio visit at the Branding agency Like a River. I don’t know Manchester very well so I went the day before to try and find the agency. I’m glad I did this, as I couldn’t find it so got a taxi there on the Tuesday.

The visit itself was really useful. Rob spoke to me about what he thought about my portfolio and explained to me which bits he found to be the stronger pieces and those that could be maybe replaced next year.

The first thing that Rob commented on was the layout of my portfolio. He said that is was excellent and very professional, which I was extremely happy about, as I had spent a lot of time on refining it. The pieces that Rob thought were strongest were my Cumberland Pencil Museum Poster, and the NYC Bowling Championship identity and application project. He liked these more as they had an idea behind them and weren’t purely aesthetic. He also like the look of my editorial magazine but thought that it just looked good, there was no real thinking / an idea behind it. I know that he is the designer and knows best but I slightly disagree with this as I feel there was an idea behind my magazine.

Overall my visit went well and Rob said to me that I could go in and show him my work again, either on my own or with a few of my other classmates, if I ever need a designer’s advice. He also said I could email him any of my work and if I needed any work to do in my spare time then he could email me some briefs too. I really appreciated all of Robs advice and found it really helpful to be able to speak to a designer.