Contact: DHM

Today I was looking through a D and A D annual hoping to find some inspiration for my Bacardi project. I was searching for pieces that had particularly good copy writing as this has become a major part of my project. While flicking through I came across the company Dye Holloway and Murray, a London based design studio. The companies copy writing really appealed to me so I email the company asking for some advise.

One of the copy writers, Fran, replied promptly and she said she'd be happy to help me with any issues I may have. Fran was really helpful and I have been emailing her regularly, she has been a great help with my Bacardi project and I feel it has progressed quickly since I have been speaking to Fran about it.

Overall this was an extremely successful contact to have made as it resulted in a portfolio visit in London. I really appreciated all of Frans advise and have posted a copy of one of her emails below.

Contact: LOVE

Recently I have been having trouble creating neon text on Indesign and in Photoshop. It is essential to my Bacardi brief and I really feel I could create a much better effect than I am currently getting. While browsing the website of design agency LOVE I spotted some neon style typography on their show-reel. I decided to email one of the designers there to ask for some advice on how to create this so I emailed Stephen Owen and enquired about any tips he may have!

He replied to me quickly which was much appreciated and explained to me that although he had not worked on the neon on the LOVE site he had tried to create neon before and gave me some tips on how to do this. This contact email can be seen below.

Book design: Layout

As part of my Final Major Project I have decided to create a book. I have always been interested in the development of language and often ask myself why objects hold certain names... why is a tree called a tree? As I think this is an interesting subject I want to focus my major project on Etymology, which is the explanation of how words have developed and the documentation of the origins of words. As I plan to create a book I have been researching book and editorial design, looking at book covers and unusual layouts that may give me inspiration for my final product. Below are some designs that I have come across while researching, Not all of these are necessarily right for what I want my book to look like but feel they are good designs.

Bacardi YCN Brief

Over the past few months I have been working on a competition brief for YCN. The brief itself was to create a campaign for Bacardi that flirted with there fans. The target audience being males aged 18-24. I teamed up with my friend Michele on this and we came up with a typographic solution. We wanted to use a cheeky humor as we felt this would appeal to a young male audience. We have received positive feedback and feel we have a strong idea. Below are some of our earlier ideas/designs.

early designs

As our idea has developed over time we decided to use a neon effect for our typography as this created a nightclub, party sort of feel and had a certain buzz about it. We researched some neon work to get a feel for what we needed our design to look like but have had difficulty trying to recreate this. Below are some of the designs we came up with in InDesign, I like these and think the idea is there but they need more work as the neon is not as good as I want it to be.

Neon Designs

Research

After doing some more research into neon signs we had another go at creating a poster, this time using a different style of art direction. We tried to create a New York lights style here but I feel that this was unsuccessful for what we were trying to create.

Since this we have gone back to our original idea and tried to refine this. Below are three examples similar to our final outcome. We have used linked the colour of the text and the scenario to the flavour of the rum and positioned the bottles suggestively.

The Chip Shop Awards

Recently I came across The Chip Shop Awards, this is an award for designs with 'no limits'. I had never heard of this before and really enjoyed looking through all the different work. The designs are humorous and some a little shocking! I have posted my favourites below.

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