B'innit'!

For my negotiated project I chose to work on an industry brief, my task was to come up with a design/style for a competition aimed at 18-24 year olds to design a new savoury Greggs bag which would hi-light the effects of throwing litter. Litter is an on going problem and research shows that this particular age group are the main offenders, so by creating a competition which targets this age group it would encourage them to get involved and therefore make them more aware of the issue and consequently reduce the amount of litter thrown.
I wanted to produce a design which would catch the attention of and appeal to my target market, I came up with the name 'B'innit' which plays on the term bin it but focuses on the word 'innit' although this is not an actual word it's very widely used at the moment to add emphasis to a sentence. I thought it would be a clever way of appealing to 18-24 year olds as it's current and amusing and I continued this dialect through to the strapline. I created an identity and brand which worked across the relevant media, I kept the design simple, I wanted it to look like a Greggs bag on the posters as well as the actual savoury bag, the idea being that it looks familiar and would therefore be something my target market can relate to. The name and strapline are the main focus on the design which use brown, green and black, meant to reflect 'recycling' colours and I applied the same design to the microsite keeping the look consistent. I enjoyed this project, it was challenging at times but I was happy with my concept and I felt it turned out well, it was also a good opportunity to work on a brief which required a design that could be applied to print, web and packaging.

D&AD Awards

I chose to review this invitation design for the 'designing naturally creative workshop' I think this has a really nice concept which looks natural as well as unusual. The design was laser printed onto fallen leaves, so no paint was used with the idea being the flyer will be thrown back onto the ground where it originally came from.

Just Us design collective

This was a book Jacket design by Tom Edwards for the Penguin book 'Reusing old graves' I chose to review this piece as I think its eye-catching and amusing, I like the colour palette he has used and the simple illustration style. The typography is really interesting the way it curves around the illustration and I like how he has kept the front cover relatively simple with the majority of the detail being on the back.

Northern Design Competition review

This is the work of Kerry Venus, winner of the Graphic design category in 2009, with her entry 'the Handmade Manifesto' I really like the idea behind this piece of work, I think it’s a common problem nowadays that designers are often too quick to jump onto a computer to start generating ideas without exploring the possibility of producing a more hand made piece. She has focused quite literally on this concept and displayed a variety of different shots of her hands and arms, I think it has been executed well and is a nice, quirky idea.

YCN Review

I have chosen to look at the work of Jessica Walsh, she is a NYC based designer and she produces some amazing and very inspirational work. I have seen her work before, she has produced a variety of projects from stationary to 3d design, each with a very unique style. I think this piece is fascinating, since I have a small 3d portfolio of my own, I like the idea of mixing 3d with graphic design, some very interesting results can be produced, and her work emphasises this point entirely.

Stationary

I found some lovely stationary designs, two of which are very similar with highly contrasting typefaces, consisting of heavy and hairline strokes and serifs, both brought together with a very decorative ampersand. The other design has a retro, traditional feel to it, I think using a dark blue instead of black works really well and I love the detail inside the envelope, its a really nice touch.

Illustrators

I love love love illustration! This work is that of Julie Verhoeven, I love her unfinished style, her use of mixed media and the fairytale look that it has, consequently, the charcters she draws always look like they have a story to tell. Her work always looks so effortless and although often a bit cheeky I still find it captivating and beautiful.

This is the work of David Foldvari, I love the simplicity of his drawings mixed with the message he is putting across, some of it very political with other stuff being a lot more light hearted and amusing. I find his work incredibly inspiring, he predominantly draws in black and white with odd splashes of colour for emphasis with the end result being really bold and full of character.

NARC

We were asked to design a cd and insert for Narc magazine, it was a slightly different brief to what I'm used to as it didn't require a concept, despite this my idea was based on graffiti found in toilets. I experimented writing on toilet walls using make up but my idea progressed and I my final design was a photograph I took of a steamy mirror with the elements drawn on.

Photography Auction Ad

This was another short brief, we had just over an hour to come up with a small ad for a brochure to promote a photography auction which the Newcastle college students were holding, they were each going to auction off a piece of their work to fund their final show. We were given a selection of images to choose from, I picked this one as I really liked the colours and the composition. I cropped into the image to focus more on the characters and created a final piece which I felt is quite simple and plays on the innocent style of the photograph.

Simply Bespoke

This was a really quick exercise to create a logo and some stationary for an Interior Design company, I wanted to produce something really simple and classic. I came up with two designs, the first is very simple using the same typeface throughout and playing with weights and sizes. The second comprises of two different typefaces, both in lowercase with one being in a hand drawn style which I altered slightly to emphasise the 'bespoke' idea.

Sheffield Jazz

This was a logo I designed whilst on placement, the brief was to redesign the website but the logo ended up being the most successful, I found this typeface and played about with some of the letters to create music notes. I really enjoyed this project and I was pleased with the end result which turned out completely different to my original idea!

Peter Chadwick

When Peter Chadwick visited the college for a couple of days, I think we were all slightly apprehensive after the last visit from Jonothan Barnbrook, which turned out to be quite a disappointment. This day got off to a good start, he began by telling us how he started. He was raised in Middlesbrough, he studied at Cleveland college before going onto Chelsea art school in London, he was first inspired to become a Graphic designer after seeing a talk by Peter Saville at 4 designers. He spent the next 12 years working in an agency as well as working freelance for two, he worked in the music industry for 17 years and set up his own company 'Zip' which he then resigned from in 2007 as he “wasn't doing any design work anymore” He went on to set up 'Popular' and worked for himself, choosing to collaborate with illustrators, photographers etc depending on the requirements of the project. Whilst working in the music industry he has worked with many big names such as Primal Scream, Groove Armada, Jamie Cullum, So Solid Crew, the latter he claims is not his proudest work but was a difficult brief with a budget of only £40 000.

Another very successful job was being Art Director for Hed Kandi for 10 years and in 2006-2007 he designed the graphics for a Hed Kandi aeroplane, for this he only received £500 per plane however it was the kind of job that would look great in your folio and would be quickly snapped up by someone else if turned down.

I thoroughly enjoyed looking at his work, he demonstrated a variety of styles and telling us that despite working on Hed Kandi for so long he much prefers a more cut and paste, hand made style. I think one of my favourite pieces of his work was for Low Fidelity All Stars, the brief was to make Yorkshire look magical and so they shot various locations in the summer, the result was some really lovely photography, the colours and the scenes are fantastic, I initially thought one of the shots was some where in Miami!

Throughout the presentation of his work he gave us some really good advice telling us not get despondent when looking for work and going for unsuccessful interviews. The important thing is to not to lose the love we have for the subject however difficult it may be to actually get a job. Remember why we are doing it, as it will pay off eventually.

The task

We were put into groups of approximately eight, a combination of ND students and first Year Graphics as the point of the task was about being able to communicate and work as a team with people we had never met. It’s something we must get used to and master as when we enter the industry the most important thing is to be able to communicate with colleagues and clients, there is no point in having a good idea if you can’t sell it to others.

So to emphasise this belief, our brief involved no creative work, we were asked to come up with a brand for a new music channel, the characteristics of the brand and how we would launch it. We had to be able to communicate our idea effectively and confidently in a way that would allow people to understand and believe in it. As our group was quite a large we initially came across a few minor hiccups when thinking of a name for our channel, however we quickly overcome them and started working cohesively as a team. Once we had overcome the initial awkwardness of not knowing one another the ideas started to run more freely and everyone relaxed a bit more. The end result was successful, Peter really liked our concept and gave us some good feedback.

I really enjoyed the day, I love listening to people talk about their experiences and giving advice on how to get ‘there’ I always come away feeling very inspired and Peter Chadwick didn’t fail. Everyone has a different story and his was particularly interesting. As I didn’t have any previous knowledge on him, it was fascinating to see his portfolio, especially when I have seen his work quite a lot over the years.

Inspiration...

Vgrafik, Mind design, Andrews & Dunham, Nebojsa Cvetkovic

Vision

This was a live brief and my most recent work, we were asked by the performance academy at college to come up with a poster and flyer to promote a club night they were hosting at WorldHeaquarters. My final design consisits of a stripey blue background against the name in a chunky typeface showing only the stroke and its 3d shadow making it slightly tricky to read, which I think makes you more curious as to what it says. I used light colours and chunky typefaces to keep the style playful and appealing.

Lastminute.com

This was another live D&AD brief which asked us to produce some ambient media to promote lastminute.com and encourage people to visit their website. We produced a sting animation, a web banner and another piece of ambient media. After visiting the website and realising the huge amount of activities, experiences, holidays etc I decided to focus on this aspect, the idea behind my concept was wanting to show as many activities as possible. The elements overlap each other and often have stiff, jerky movements, I played on the idea of them being flat 2d objects and created an intentionally amateur looking style ident and banner which I felt really lent itself to the concept, the end result is playful, fun and a bit different.

Quaker Oats packaging

This was a live D&AD brief where we were asked to redesign the Quaker Oats packaging, appealing mainly to women between the ages of 25-35 looking for a healthy and tasty snack on the go. The brief covered many aspects of packaging design including working to specific dimensions, displaying the necessary information, name generation etc. I wanted to create something which would stand out and appeal to my target market, I decided on this design which takes influence from the 60's psychadellic style, I wanted to produce something contemporary and fresh looking which focuses on the fruit and health benefits and I decided on the name 'Oaty Pots' as it's fun and simple.