Monday 25 January 2016

Disposable Society OPEN CALL Promotions



By chance I walked past as a worker was taking what he said was eight years of posters off one of the boards in Hyde Park. I salvaged as much as I could carry as I felt the aesthetic of the ripped, weathered aesthetic and also the idea of more and more layers of paper being put up over one another fits with the Disposable Society them. I intend to use some of them for my actual piece for the exhibition but as I collected so much me and Ellie produced posters from them. We printed the informations in a bold typeface, black on white, and cut strips out so the information stood out against the existing type and colour. 


I photographed one of the posters with the most varied colour and made this into a gif that changes Hue to use on social media. This will just make the design a little more eycatching amidst the sea of imagery on Facebook, Twitter and the like. 


We decided to push the submission date back to the 20th as we realised that many of our friends who were meant to be submitting would not have the time to produce their pieces in the small amount of time between the dissertation deadline and the 7th of Feb. I made this amendment to the gif and again tweeted this. 




Me and Rees also built an A-board to display the Poster and have taken this to a few different events to try and drum up interest. 
Aswell as all this I spent two and a half hours emailing numerous studios, colleges and university art departments, SU's and individual artists. I sent them all a similar message but customised each one a little to make the emails more personable.
We have also all been tweeting the link, sharing the open call for submissions post regularly on Facebook and the link to the downloadable brief is displayed in the instagram bio. We plan to do more to actually advertise the event closer to the launch night.
Me and Rees wrote a very simple open brief to try and explain succinctly what the exhibition is and to provide the information necessary for participants.


Alongside all this we have all been constantly updating the twitter instagram and facebook pages.





Goat Collective @ HPBC No.3 (promotions)

After the fairly poor attempt at promotion for the previous event at Hyde Park Book Club I decided to ensure the promotional material for this event was better thought out and more consistently designed. I produced the header for the event using an all red duotone image to match the colour of HPBC from the outside making sure that the main part of the image fit within the area that isn't cropped by Facebook on wall posts (as the previous design was). I included a grainy image of Januarys exhibiton and bold typeface consistent with HPBC's signage displaying the necessary event details. 




We had a really good turn out at the previous event but I personally felt it was still important to advertise the February exhibition with printed posters also. I have been wanting to do some screen printing for some time now and felt this was the perfect opportunity. I felt a bold simple design using bright red ink would be really effective and again match the bright red of the shopfront. I wanted the poster to be type based so decided to use a conceptual tweak. Book Club, Books, Pages; the thought process was very simple and linear but I didn't want to overcomplicate this and my experiments were already looking effective. I used a halftone to add depth to the poster and experimented with a number of stocks.




I also turned the poster design into an eyecatching gif to display on Twitter. 






Friday 22 January 2016

Goat at HPBC no.2

The second exhibition was quite badly planned due to dissertation deadlines being just a couple of days before the event. Despite this we had a really good turn out and filled the entire place. In future we plan to advertise more and earlier and also spend more time curating the work. 






Although the prints I submitted were made quickly I was fairly pleased with them and received good feedback. The prints featured two 35mm film photographs I took last year. The alternate photograph is used as a border on either print.





Wednesday 6 January 2016

PPP Studio Task

1.Complete a short statement about yourself.

21 Year Old Creative, Leaning Towards Editorial & Production,  Aspiring Art Director & Innovator
2.Complete a short statement about your technical skills.
I can work quickly and easily with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign & Lightroom. I am a strong facilitator and director. I feel I am good at directing people and I have a clear vision for projects.

(I was intending to learn to code this year but as I am leaning more towards art production and direction and I already have a good network of people I can work with including web & ux programmers I decided there were better uses for my time)


3. Complete a short statement about your work experience.

I have a few repeat freelance clients that I work closely with including a neon design company.
I have worked with numerous start up businesses providing corporate identities and websites. 
I founded a creative collective with friends in the previous year that is gaining momentum. We have a few projects with musicians and events in the works. We have acquired a residency in a local cafe to which we provide new work each month. We are getting featured in the next Independent Leeds Magazine which we think will open even more doors. 
I have not yet worked in another company and although I am enjoying working for myself I feel this will be a valuable experience for me. I have a relative who works in The Corner advertising agency in London as an Art Director and have we have plans for me to do a placement in the coming year.


4.Complete a short statement about your ability to work in a team and independently (with examples).

I have worked in numerous formats, with partners independently and as a larger group. I feel I work best in a group, I like having lots of people to bounce ideas off and feel like I am more productive in this format. The numerous projects I have worked on with Goat Collective display my ability to work in and direct a team. I feel I am good at ensuring everyone's ideas are heard and considered. I am currently working with a team separate to Goat collective to promote a musician and I like to think I play a critical role not only as the graphic designer but helping to establish and achieve the overall project vision. I work well with a partner when it is someone of my choosing however there have been instances where I have struggled to work with people as I feel we aren't on the same wavelength. I can work well on my own when I need to but sometimes have issue with self motivation. This is something I need to work on as well as my self organisation skills. 


5.Complete a short statement about your communication skills (with examples).

Achieving the intended tone of voice is something that I feel I am good at. Both when pitching ideas, providing feedback to others and communicating with clients through email and in person. I have the ability to make sure my point is heard and through experience I have become much better at dealing with difficult clients whilst maintaining professionalism. For example I had an issue with a client completely dictating a project and not respecting my professional opinion earlier in the year. I made a firm but fair stance against this and explained that they had hired me for a reason and I was unwilling to artwork for them without any input on the final outcome. The client conceded to my viewpoint and although I made some compromises throughout the project I was still happy with the outcome and I feel this wouldn't have been the case had I continued to do whatever they said meekly.


6.Complete a short statement about your understanding of graphic design (with examples).

Graphic design is a vessel. It is there to communicate and very often shouldn't be noticed. It isn't there to be pondered by the consumer, rather to catch attention, portray a tone of voice and personality visually and effectively provide the consumer with information. I am currently designing a brochure for an educational summer programme known as ICCYL. Whilst designing this I want it to be aesthetically pleasing however my primary aim is communicating the information and the corporate identity of ICCYL.