MODULE EVALUATION

Overall I have really enjoyed this module, encouraging me to get my creative confidence up and work on bits of my practice that I have not really been able to do in other modules and last year. I think I have really come along in terms of presenting and confidence within that but also having to contact designers and creative people. It has also given me the opportunity to start doing client work which is something that is very new to me however I believe I am heading in the right direction. I found the creative report to be the most useful and eye-opening task for me within this module. Before I had contacted any creative people I was scared that I would be asking silly questions and that they won't be bothered, however, I found out that if they reply then they are obviously bothered and care to reply which shows they want to help in any way they can. All of the people I have been in contact with and am going to stay in contact with are so friendly and just want to help in any way they can. I believe this is because they know how hard it is to come from and how competitive the job world is now days. The best reply I received was from Ellie Nicholson who is the co-founder and a designer at Oslo. She was amazing and so lovely and I am going to try to stay in touch with her! 

Lifes a pitch was a fun collaborative brief which I think we worked well as a team. I do believe that we made decisions well as a group. One aspect that was hard was that we were not always free at the same time, so time management was a bit of a struggle. However, Kitty and I came up with a great concept that had good feedback so I am happy with the outcome of this brief. 

The final presentation allowed me took into my future year and summer to see what I want to do. it also helped me t=with my presentation skills which I think will just get better with time. Overall 502 has been a good module allowing me to develop my communication and presentation skills within a professional environment.

FINAL CREATIVE REPORT

Leah's creative report
^^ LINK

For my creative report I wanted to contact a wide range of designers and creative people in order to cover graphic design as a whole as I believe that would benefit me in the best way for my current practice. I have chosen to email these people as it is easier for them to reply with an answer that I need.

The creative report was an initially daunting task, however, I have loved the process of talking to creative people out there. I contacted many different people who did not all reply which was a problem for me at first, however, I am happy with the replies I received as I received a wide range of advice and knowledge about where they got to the place there is today.

As I am currently unsure about what route I want to take as a creative I wanted to look at different areas of graphic design that I may want to carry further in my future practice. I got replies from Leeds Print Workshop, Louis Jolie who is the Senior Design Manager at Coca-Cola, and Ellie Nicholson the co-founder and designer at Oslo.

The senior design manager at Coca-Cola was an eye opener for me as he moved from mechanical engineering to a design manager. This showed me the diversity of his job roles and how he was unsure of what he wanted to do like I currently am. A positive I received from getting in touch with him is that he is putting me in touch with other designers at Coca-Cola to stay in contact with as he believes they will be better used for me.

I chose these specific people as they all had different roles and journeys to get to where they are today. I chose Leeds Print Workshop as it was about print and the physical side of graphic design. I chose Louis Jolie as he has experience in the design field and Ellie as she started her own company and is her own boss. The most interesting and helpful reply I received was from Ellie Nicholson. The main piece of advice I gathered from her was to think about the bigger picture, intern at different companies to start then you will realise where you want to go and do. In terms of design as well think big; show the client as much as you can to sell your idea. She’s inspiring to me, as she is her own boss, undertaking a business alongside being a great designer.

As I did work experience at Bulletproof a packaging design company in London a couple of years ago, from then I have been able to keep in touch with the business development director who said I am welcome to come back to gain some further experience in this field which I know I enjoy as I have previous experience there.

I want to carry on talking to as many creative people as possible as it will further my knowledge on all aspects of design possible. I am lucky enough to be able to keep in contact with designers at Coca-Cola and Bulletproof to follow up my creative report.


Contacted = 

- Louis Jolie 
- Ellie Nicholson 
- Leeds Print Workshop 

^ these are the 3 who replied to me 

LIFES A PITCH REFLECTION

I think this brief worked well and I enjoyed doing this in a group setting. The lack of a conclusion and the layout of the slides were our two downfalls. However I believe we presented in a prefessional manner. It has also helped me develop my presenation skills in order to be prepared for the final presentation which is alone. This gave me more confidence and I am glad I did it.

27 CLUB

 27 club was an exhibition put on by two of my classmates that I entered and I loved it. I chose to do it for 503 as a 1-day brief which was so fun as it put a time limit on my work and I worked so hard for one day to get the outcome I wanted. I chose Back to Black by Amy Winehouse and researched for the first half of the say to learn the most about it I could. The main aspects were that Back to black meant going back to heroin (black is the street name for it) and I chose to represent the spiralling out of control by circles showing her going back to black. I also got reference from Barnbrook in this piece as it reminded me of the work he did for Bowie. 

PPP FINAL PRESENTATION

                      

MY SCRIPT - TO LOOSLY FOLLOW 

1 I want to talk to you today about where I see myself working towards within the graphic design industry and how I need to improve to get there in order to help me and my future practice.

2  When I first looked at this question I struggled to come up with an answer that I thought was right. I think this is because I am not entirely sure at the moment as to what I want to do and where I want to go. However I then realised there is no real right answer as it is up to me to decide who I am as a creative. To start off I asked myself why I want to be a creative, I believe creativity is essentially letting go of what is expected and to take risks and allow possibilities to arise which I need to do. To further help with this question I looked back at my manifesto, which we created at the start of the year. My manifesto is ‘Keep developing my skills as a designer whilst learning and gathering research. LOOK UP - look around, things you collect and see makes you the designer YOU are. Keep on top of work, don't stress.’

3 something that I have discovered about my practice is that I can do it when I put my mind to it and don’t stress out. I’ve found out that other people believe in my work and me.

4 I have found this out in many ways, one being by a fine art student called Imogen Nokes at Brookes University who I did my foundation with approached me and asked me to design a logo and business card for her. This showed me that she has confidence in my work. I gathered what she wanted the end result to be and through good communication and decision-making I came up with an outcome that we were both pleased with.

5 Another thing that I have discovered about my practice is that there are aspects within graphic design which I never thought of doing that I enjoyed like the app design project. I had never used XD before and it was something that I enjoyed that produced a result I was happy with where I got one of my best marks whilst being at LAU. This came as a shock to me as it was something that I had never considered that I really enjoyed, something which aided this project was the extensive crits I had which I need to take forward and carry through next year.

6 creative confidence is something I have struggled with consistently throughout my design. A lot of the time I don’t think my work is up to scratch or could improve. There have been a couple of TED talks which I found that have helped me with this.

 7 The TED talk how to build your creative confidence taught me that I cant have the fear of judgement where if you don’t say the right creative thing then you are going to be judged. 3 tools to becoming more creative was another ted talk that influenced me. The 1^st tool = continuous practice, constantly thinking of randomness as it is important to be a creative 2 = way to use your sleep as a creative technique – right before you fall asleep thinking about the problem you want solving without solving it then in the morning write down everything you remember from you sleep and analyse to see if it helps 3= right now solutions where you should try to introduce some randomness to your problem you cant solve. I am aiming to do all these things as much as I can.

I hope these talks will help me to be more confident within my work and be useful for my future practice. But for the near future I hope I will gain enough confidence to have a creative online presence such as an instagram account.

8 There has been multiple inspirations for my practice, but from this year there has been one that stood out to me inparticular.

9 the skype call we had earlier this year with Greta has influenced me as I know that she has come from the same position that we are all in now and to see how far she has come is amazing. I learnt from greta that it is v important to stand your groud with your ideas and question everyone, persistently.

10 for this question I wanted to look back at all the creative people that have come in to talk to us about their journey to creativity.

11 G.F. SMITH were the company that stood out the most to me as I love their clean cut precision and the way the paper looks and feels. I want to explore their practice further as it could inform my Level 6 design.  

12 Pitching our idea to the group I found easier that normal presentations as it was in a group setting and the project was good fun.

13 I thought the presentation went well and the feedback we received was mostly positive saying what we presented was interesting and  it was a good pitch in regards to the concept. I enjoyed researching this project and I thought we could improve by considering initially what were trying to achieve and how to achieve it.

14 The creative report was an initially dawnting task however I have loved the process of talking to creatives out there. I contacted many different people who did not all reply which was a problem for me, however I am happy with the replies I received.

15 As I am currently unsure about what route I want to take as a creative I wanted to look at different areas of graphic design that I may want to look into. I got replies from Leeds Print Workshop, Louis Jolie Senior Design Manager at Coca Cola, and Ellie Nicholson the co-founder and designer at Oslo. The senior design manager at coca cola was an eye opener for me as he moved from mechanical engineering showing the diversity of his job and was unsure of what he wasnted to do like me, he also is putting me in touch with other designers at coca cola to stay in contact with.

16 I chose these specific people as they all had different roles and journeys to get to where they are tday. I chose LPW as it was about print and the physical side of graphic design. Louis Jolie as he has experience in the design field and Ellie as she started her own company and is her own boss. The most interesting and helpful reply from Ellie is not on the slide so I can talk to you about it. The main piece of advice I gathered from her was to think bout the bigger picture, intern at different companies to start then you will realise where you want to go and do. In terms of design as well think big, show the client as much as you can to sell your idea. She’s inspiring to me as she is her own boss, undertaking a business alongside being a great designer.

17 I recently had to opportunity to go to London and help set up and work at a fashion launch for a company called ArcMinute in Hoxton. It was an amazing experience which I loved with buyers from Asos and places like that coming along. After the event the manager of the company said they would love for me to intern for them in the near future which was amazing to hear so I am going to keep in contact and find out a time when I could intern for them.

18 On the left you can see a company called Bulletproof who I did work experience with a couple of years ago. I have kept in contact with the business development director there and recently she said she is happy to put me in contact with some of the design team there where I can answer any questions I have. This will be good for me to have these connections as the design work they do is amazing and I believe I can learn a lot. I am also lucky enough this summer to visit LA for two weeks where I can immerse myself in the lifestyle and visit some of their amazing galleries as shown on the right.

19 I want to carry on talking to as many creative as possible to further my knowledge on all aspects of design possible. I am going to set myself goals throughtout the summer to talk to more creatives.

20 One of my goals is to get in contact with Benjamin Craven a designer who I saw on instagram whos prints I love. Also as I am visiting LA I have been researching some designers out there, I have been lucky enough to have been put in contact with Seb shown on the slide who is a graphic designer in LA and he said he would meet with me and have a chat and potentially show me round some exhibitions he loves which is super cool.

21 thanks

CREATIVE REPORT RESPONSES

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DAY BRIEF

This was a daily brief that we completed in a group. We received a piece of paper telling us to create a cover for a trash magazine. We initially decided that we needed a focal point for the magazine and decided to create covers for different years/magazine types to have a differentiation in which we could see. We set ourselves some limitations which included bright eye-catching colours, nothing inappropriate but the content must be juicy and interesting.



I then looked at some research to help the group along which is shown above. I chose these two as I wanted to try to mimic the style as it was refreshing and loved it. I then decided to look into different typefaces to see what would be best for my cover - 



Then I came up with this final design of mine which was chosen by the group the one we should use the general style and look is very cool and perfect. 

One piece of feedback I got from this brief was that it needed to look a bit more realistic by adding aspects like barcodes etc. Apart from that, the cover was loved by the audience which I was very pleased with.