This talk I found, surprisingly, interesting. I say surprisingly because I know I want to be a designer when I leave uni and this talk was all about jobs within the creative industry that isn't design. Some of the roles jumped out as they were involved in the process of the design but not necessarily in the designing capacity. Roles like project management and art direction. These jobs allow the person to have direct influence on what comes in and goes out of the studio, how the briefs are treated and making sure that all the boxes are ticked. Additionally, there is the client side. The people who work in this area are responsible for getting clients in and selling ideas, for someone that loves the sound of his own voice it sounds pretty good.
As helpful and insightful as this talk was I still feel that being an actual designer is still the way to go for me. I don't think I can give that one up just yet.
3 June 2011
Olwen Mosely - Costing
Costing is essential to the success of a project, and your bank balance. This talk showed the importance of accurate and fair costing for projects.
Key points:
- Friends and family are a no-go. Someone will only end up getting hurt and disappointed, it isn't worth it.
- Costing is based on the amount of time you will spend on a project, how much over heads are and how much you need to live. Doing a job is pointless if you don't benefit from it. Never work for free!
- Never undercut other designer's prices intentionally. This will only bring the cost for other designers down and, essentially, run the industry into the ground.
- There is an element of risk to each new project, more so with new clients. Ask up front what the budget is. If it isn't enough walk away. Consider swapping services as a form of payment. Can they help you in any way?
- Bare in mind that outsourcing is always a possibility and you must budget for that within the price.
This talk contained many other points that are invaluable for any freelancer. One of the big points to this talk was, never be afraid to talk about money. you are providing a service that the client needs at the end of the day.
Key points:
- Friends and family are a no-go. Someone will only end up getting hurt and disappointed, it isn't worth it.
- Costing is based on the amount of time you will spend on a project, how much over heads are and how much you need to live. Doing a job is pointless if you don't benefit from it. Never work for free!
- Never undercut other designer's prices intentionally. This will only bring the cost for other designers down and, essentially, run the industry into the ground.
- There is an element of risk to each new project, more so with new clients. Ask up front what the budget is. If it isn't enough walk away. Consider swapping services as a form of payment. Can they help you in any way?
- Bare in mind that outsourcing is always a possibility and you must budget for that within the price.
This talk contained many other points that are invaluable for any freelancer. One of the big points to this talk was, never be afraid to talk about money. you are providing a service that the client needs at the end of the day.
Andrew Fice
This was a particularly pleasant talk as Andrew Fice, a graduate of the course, showed us that you can make it as a designer as long as you are willing to put the hours in. He had a strong portfolio and recommended the importance of sketches.
Points from the talk:
- Beginning a career...Work experience is king when starting out. Get as much as possible to stand you in the best stead. Experience is important and offering your services for a couple of weeks can lead to more.Also don't just send out portfolios and hope for a reply. Chase up on it. Phone and make sure they got your work. Try to talk to the director, even if that does mean posing as a paper supply company.
- Interviews...Employers want to know that your work and ideas are good but also want to make sure you fit in with everyone and the way in which they work. Show sketches in your portfolio as they show development of ideas and a knowledge of how to get your ideas on paper (even if you cant draw).
- On the job...Be prepared to work over the odds! Expect long days and sleepless nights. If work needs to be done, it needs to be done. Be a team player and don't leave anyone else with the brunt, be willing to help.
Points from the talk:
- Beginning a career...Work experience is king when starting out. Get as much as possible to stand you in the best stead. Experience is important and offering your services for a couple of weeks can lead to more.Also don't just send out portfolios and hope for a reply. Chase up on it. Phone and make sure they got your work. Try to talk to the director, even if that does mean posing as a paper supply company.
- Interviews...Employers want to know that your work and ideas are good but also want to make sure you fit in with everyone and the way in which they work. Show sketches in your portfolio as they show development of ideas and a knowledge of how to get your ideas on paper (even if you cant draw).
- On the job...Be prepared to work over the odds! Expect long days and sleepless nights. If work needs to be done, it needs to be done. Be a team player and don't leave anyone else with the brunt, be willing to help.
Daivd Worthington
This was not the first time that we have been given a talk by David, in fact we were given the same talk twice. Even so they helped quite substantially. Mostly because of the reassurance he provided. The main message, "don't worry, it will all work out". It is phenomenally pleasing to hear that as jobs are so limited now.
David has an impressive resumé and has led an extremely exciting life through his design career, racking up a lot of air miles. It is nice to know that you aren't always just put down as a designer and can really make a difference and people will notice. Another key point of the talk was that things will almost always go wrong, so for these circumstances make sure you have insurance and a back up plan.
David has an impressive resumé and has led an extremely exciting life through his design career, racking up a lot of air miles. It is nice to know that you aren't always just put down as a designer and can really make a difference and people will notice. Another key point of the talk was that things will almost always go wrong, so for these circumstances make sure you have insurance and a back up plan.
XML excercise
XML is a code highly reminiscent of CSS as both are used to style text and images that are placed within tags. Using this method for commercial design could be incredibly time saving, as all things that are tagged will automatically have a style attached to it. This would probably be most beneficial for direct mail campaigns and large scale layouts, catalogues for example.
Process
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| Original document |
 | ||
| This shows how you can individually map tags to styles. Alternatively, if the tags and styles share exactly the same name then you can choose map by name instead. |
 | ||||||||
| This shows the paragraph styles pallette. From here you can make changes to the style of the tagged (style name) text. |
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| These are the final, adjusted documents, excuse the design. |
dissertation feedback
This was a difficult period. The dreaded dissertation results. Needless to say my knees were a quivering and my palms were most definitely sweaty! So, this is what I got.
Tutor Comment:
Good attempt to apply phenomenology to the study of skateboarding. Partial and somewhat limited use of Merleau-Ponty - this would have further opened-up the topic.
A good problematisation of the fusion of boarding and phenomenology; argues for experiential themes and identifies sociological elements.
Over-reliant on Brymer
A few more illustrations would be welcome.
Not bad so far. What did I get?
A 2.1! Yes! I'm happy
Tutor Comment:
Good attempt to apply phenomenology to the study of skateboarding. Partial and somewhat limited use of Merleau-Ponty - this would have further opened-up the topic.
A good problematisation of the fusion of boarding and phenomenology; argues for experiential themes and identifies sociological elements.
Over-reliant on Brymer
A few more illustrations would be welcome.
Not bad so far. What did I get?
A 2.1! Yes! I'm happy
brief 5 - the big idea
Whimsical! A not so spontaneous outburst there. This brief saw us being given a selection of words, of which we had to choose a solitary one and then develop an outcome with that word as its basis. Confused yet? So, out of my list of words the only one I had any excitement about was whimsical. Therefore, I ran with that.
Researching the word whimsical is surprisingly difficult, you don't tend to get many enjoyable result. You get several web sites that offer the definition and then countless businesses that have named themselves whimsical (insert business type here). As a tip, if you are in the same situation and you do Google 'whimsical' expecting mountains of bizarre and enthralling creations think again. The main saviour of this researching slump was Twitter. I found bucket fulls of weird and wacky web sites, blogs, videos and creations. One of which being yarn bombing, check it out, it's crazy.
After my research came the research presentation, where I exhibited what I had found. One necessary part to the presentation was to identify a loose target audience. It was this that, pretty much, gave me my concept. An audience I felt would be enjoyable was serious people who lack any form of whimsy. From this came the concept of taking these mundane individuals and making them come across as full of whimsy.
The outcome was to be based on the situation you find yourself in when you have a pen and a picture of a celebrity (or anyone for that matter) and you doodle over their face, blacking out teeth, adding devil horns and the such. From this sprouted the idea of fridge magnets, in the same vain as magnetic poetry and letters. I felt this concept was strong as it presented whimsy in a couple of ways. Firstly, taking boring objects (fridge, photos of boring people) and making them whimsical. Secondly, you encourage whimsy within yourself as you are using your imagination to create something bizarre and oddly beautiful. At this point I was under the illusion that the magnets alone didn't have enough context. To rectify this I created postcards, that would be put with the magnets, to explain what the magnets were for. Additionally, I made a box to house all of the elements. This box is intentionally meant to seem mundane because the content inside should speak for itself and explode to life. Consider a Pandora's box of whimsy.
I am very pleased with how it came out in the end. I feel that the quality is there, the idea is strong and, as childish as it is, they are very fun to play with.
Researching the word whimsical is surprisingly difficult, you don't tend to get many enjoyable result. You get several web sites that offer the definition and then countless businesses that have named themselves whimsical (insert business type here). As a tip, if you are in the same situation and you do Google 'whimsical' expecting mountains of bizarre and enthralling creations think again. The main saviour of this researching slump was Twitter. I found bucket fulls of weird and wacky web sites, blogs, videos and creations. One of which being yarn bombing, check it out, it's crazy.
After my research came the research presentation, where I exhibited what I had found. One necessary part to the presentation was to identify a loose target audience. It was this that, pretty much, gave me my concept. An audience I felt would be enjoyable was serious people who lack any form of whimsy. From this came the concept of taking these mundane individuals and making them come across as full of whimsy.
The outcome was to be based on the situation you find yourself in when you have a pen and a picture of a celebrity (or anyone for that matter) and you doodle over their face, blacking out teeth, adding devil horns and the such. From this sprouted the idea of fridge magnets, in the same vain as magnetic poetry and letters. I felt this concept was strong as it presented whimsy in a couple of ways. Firstly, taking boring objects (fridge, photos of boring people) and making them whimsical. Secondly, you encourage whimsy within yourself as you are using your imagination to create something bizarre and oddly beautiful. At this point I was under the illusion that the magnets alone didn't have enough context. To rectify this I created postcards, that would be put with the magnets, to explain what the magnets were for. Additionally, I made a box to house all of the elements. This box is intentionally meant to seem mundane because the content inside should speak for itself and explode to life. Consider a Pandora's box of whimsy.
I am very pleased with how it came out in the end. I feel that the quality is there, the idea is strong and, as childish as it is, they are very fun to play with.
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