On Your Marks

Graduation is approaching and the Degree show seems like so long ago! 


On Your Marks had a brilliant opening night with plenty of interest! The place was packed within the first hour and the reaction to the show was great! It was a proud night for all of us D&ADers, seeing peoples reactions too our work was quite surreal, looking at their facial expressions towards the work and hearing peoples comments were on a whole encouraging! Our show was a great success which I will not forget! 


I had two A2 prints which were printed elsewhere and mounted onto foam board and three books in the publication room on a nice stand accompanied by gloves, it was nice to see my work properly on display rather than pinned to a wall above my workspace!!


The night gave us a chance to celebrate our challenging three years! We had nothing to do but mingle, drink and look at what we had all achieved. Catching up with tutors and seeing faces from the year above and also industry was a good feeling. I can't wait to see what next years degree show beholds, I wonder if it will be as much of a success as ours was!


To read a review and see more work from the show please visit the Creative Times website to get their opinion on the show! http://www.creativetimes.co.uk/articles/review-on-your-marks-2011-degree-show

Wim Crouwel a Graphic Odyssey

During a trip to London with Becky Doherty we visited the Design Museum to see the Wim Crouwel exhibition. After walking around the Tate Modern and feeling very uninspired we were so happy to find this excellent collection of work! We were amazed by this museum! 


Wim Crouwel a Graphic Odyssey was packed full of inspiring typography, logos and print designs - something we were craving for after the Tate and V&A visit! Although the Design museum is only very small each piece was individually inspiring - Quality over Quantity!


By far the best exhibition I have been to recently!

http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2011/wim-crouwel

Dan Stiles

Being highly inspired by the Bauhaus, I wrote my dissertation on how the individual style is still around today in many disciplines of design. Dan Stiles is one of the designers I looked at, focusing on his screen print poster designs. I love his minimal style and the restricted colour palate. Another inspiring aspect of his work is his use of pattern! Visit his website to see more examples of his poster designs! http://www.danstiles.com/ 

‘Graphic Design and the Dotted Line’ Russell Hancock

Russell was energetic, hyperactive and funny! It was a brilliant lecture and I could see the amount of passion he has for what he does! I loved how he kept going off on tangents and telling us stories about his life. It reminded me of my work, I always tend to go off the guidelines but sometimes they can be the best bits! Odd directions are what I feel makes work more interesting, looking at the unexpected and thinking about none cliched routs. 

Just like Dr.Me and Helen Buttorworth, he told us not to be afraid of getting ourselves out there and doing some free work for clients, the free work can sometimes lead into jobs, these are also great when wanting to build up the portfolio and giving yourself exposure. He told us to remember people you’ve worked with and keep in touch, networking came up in the Ten Alps talk so I already knew how important this was. Ten Alps was from a media and T.V point of view, so it was good to hear this from a designers perspective! 

Compared to Joanna Niemeyer who really put me off freelance, Russell made it more appealing! I now feel that I can look at this as an option after initially writing it off after hearing about the troubles Joanna went through. She really put me off it and I’m glad that we had Russell because otherwise my state of mind about freelancing wouldn’t have changed. I now see it as a brilliant opportunity and feel more equipped of how to go about it! Russell was so helpful and I wasn’t hesitant to attend the more exclusive talk in the studio!

Type Matters!

I turned up for my regular feed back session with John and ended up being taken to a lecture with the MA students about Typography! Loved the spontaneity! 

Jim Williams, a Graphic Design Lecturer at Staffordshire University who has achieved recognition in a number of national and international award schemes, was taking the talk. This was the first lecture I’d had on type, considering I was looking at typefaces at the time for my final project, it was essential that I learnt the basics! This lecture seemed to come at the most appropriate time for me! 

His book ‘Type Matters’ gives simple tips on how to keep your type in order. Although the rules of typography are so obvious to me now, before Jim pointed them out, I wouldn’t have noticed these minor yet so important mistakes! So inspired by these rules I requested a £5 copy from Staffordshire University, currently waiting for it to arrive in the post but I think this book is a must have for every Designer! This clarity of typography must carry on, and to do so, knowledge needs to be passed on to up and coming designers. I think Jim is doing a brilliant job!

After the lecture I felt refreshed, typography has always been a fear of mine, this term has helped me to build confidence and the lecture was like the icing on the cake! Looking back over some second year work I have noticed some of these mistakes that I have now corrected, I have been passing on some tips to fellow students who weren’t lucky enough to attend the lecture. Simple tips, but essential ones!

Craig Oldham Lecture

12in12 by Craig Oldham
Taking my time to look through this
now that I have finished Uni!

I remembered Craig from the Dragons Dens experience in the second year! It took me back to how daunted we as a group were when presenting, making me realise how much my confidence has grown over this year.  He gave our group some great feed back and I was looking forward to his lecture which he described as ‘A big fucking jumble sale of nonsense’ 

Much like Russell Hopkin’s lecture, it was energetic and fun and about us, and ways to succeed when we finish university, not about him and his work. He gave us some great tips about how to act in industry, these I did learn when I was on my placement, making cups of tea, getting to know the people around you and taking an interest. Very basic people skills, but essential! 

He spoke about two different types of designers - ‘Bunch A’ were the logical designers who depend on grids and content and ‘Bunch B’ were emotional designers who are more expressive with their designs. I believe that I am in Bunch B! I am a very expressive and playful designer and look to my feelings a lot of the time, when showing the video of Stefan Sagmeister this confirmed it to me! I want to design expressively in my job, this is what I enjoy and it’s where my strengths lie! 

At the beginning of this lecture it hit me that I’m actually leaving university! I felt daunted and worried! However, I left the lecture feeling ready for the real world and excited for the future! Craig really did inspire me, and made me see that being a good hardworking person will go a long way. There is a lot more to learn about Graphic Design, but as long as I am willing to learn and am not afraid to admit to my weaknesses I will get there! 

If you're wanting to read into Craig's 12in12 follow this link! I'm finding it very helpful!

http://www.craigoldham.co.uk/projects/12-in-12/

Tacheles

Tacheles was a wacky place! I have never seen anything like it before! Thinking back to my feelings about the grafitti lift we saw on the first day, it was nothing compared to this place! It was so unusual but I loved the expression you could feel from the artists work. 

Over 50 artists have studio space at Tacheles, they were working as we were looking around, you could see what they were producing and could ask them about their work if you wanted to. The walls inside the building were floor to ceiling with street art, every space was filled with a funny little spray painted man or a piece of well designed type. It really was fantastic to think about how they have turned what was a derelict building into such an inspiring place for artists and designers. If this place was near by I would certainly visit for inspiration! 

Outside, Tacheles was like a dumping ground, old bits of cars, metal pieces, bits of mirrors old fridges. A lot of the work you had to step over or climb through to get a view of it, but I felt that this added to the freedom of expression, it wasn’t highly structured like you would find at the MOMA in New York or any other museum, it was the complete opposite! Everything was everywhere and you had to search to find work. It was great, the way it was laid out made you feel like part of the work, I felt involved. Brilliant place!

Bauhaus Archive

We visited the Bauhaus Archive during our trip to Berlin. I was particularly interested because the Bauhaus and its designers have always inspired me, I love their minimalist approach and their use of geometric shapes. It is also a main aspect of my Dissertation this year so I was very intrigued to see what the museum was about and which of the works it would display. I wanted to get some first hand responses for my essay and maybe even an interview with someone who worked there.

The museum showed an overview of the work created during the Bauhaus time (1919-1933) including architecture, graphics, drawings, furniture design etc it was a very small museum consisting of only one room and a shop, It wasn’t what I was expecting. The others found it inspiring, but because I had such high expectations I felt disappointed. The work in there was great, and it was good to see the originals rather than in a book or on a computer screen. I just felt like I wanted to see more! 

The archive was very tricky to find, there were no clear directional signs and it wasn’t even noted on the map. I found it hard to see why it wasn’t celebrated more, The Bauhaus was a massive movement for Design and architecture but I felt like it wasn’t important anymore, as if the Germans were covering it up. I had high expectations for the Bauhaus archive and considering how much it inspires me as a Designer I was disappointed with how unimportant it seemed.

Reichstag

The Reichstag is Germany’s famous parliament building. Its architectural Design by Norman Foster, who also designed “The Gherkin” in London, is fantastic conceptually and visually. The public are able to visit the building and go up into the dome, from the dome you can see down onto the parliament floor. This is so that when parliament are discussing they can look up into the dome and see who they are making decisions for - the general public. 

Inside the dome there are hundreds of mirrors, reflecting onto other people and also to the outside view of Berlin. We visited the Reichstag at night, the outside view was fantastic. I loved taking photographs and just thought it was beautifully designed, I took so many photographs in this building of the structure and of the reflections and patterns which the mirrors created. I also loved the idea of being able to see into the parliament room. I saw the similarity between Graphics and Architecture, I used to think that as long as a building worked it was fine. But this made me see that having a solid idea is just as important as it is to a Graphic Designer.

Arriving in Berlin

During the third year of university, me and a few friends thought it would be appropriate to take some time out of our studies to search for some inspiration and get us ready for our final year! Me, Becky Doherty, Russell Hopkins and James Lane booked the unusual city of Berlin for five nights. A spontaneous decision which I will not regret!

First introduction to Berlin- Graffiti Lift

After arriving, I didn’t believe I was in Germany until seeing this lift. I found it typical of Berlin, covered in graffiti, unattractive scuff marks and posters, yet still in fully working order! It was the only way to get off the train platform with our suitcases and it was the most untrusting lift I have seen.

The whole of Berlin is run down and yet built up at the same time, I felt that this lift symbolized the way Berlin is and how the City works. It is what I liked so much about the place, people are able to express themselves whilst carrying on with their everyday lives. It made me take a step back whereas Germans would use it without a thought.