Time Planning

6B2

I have started to do week by week planning in order to keep myself on track 

Inspo : Antto Kalevi

6A2

Antti Kalevi

My aim is to create work which displays things at their bare essence–while keeping the poetry. 
- Antti Kalevi

I found out about Kalevi through itsnicethat. His work is very simple yet each piece is unique. I think that his use of colour and pattern is relevant to my practice because it shows that you can look at things that you like in their most simple forms and create pieces of work from them. I think this is an aspect that I could look into for my research project for 603 because it is personal to me and can be about anything that I am interested in. 

Work Placement Workshop

 6A2 6B2 6D2

Jobs as graphic design:

- Graphic designer (freelance) - can freelance in agencies 
- Junior designer (studio)  - campaigner 
- In-house designer - campaigner 
- Junior designer in ad agency  - campaigner 
- Creative director - commander, mediator 
- Marketing 
- Consultancy - debtor - similar to freelance but more selling strategy than design strategy, can give a brand a nail on reading of trends within age group 
- Art direction - commander, protagonist 
- Teacher or lecturer 
- Social media manager 
- Studio founder - commander, protagonist 
- App design 
- Ux/ui design 
- Illustrator - advocate 
- Typographer  
- Product designer 
- Blogger/ social media - advocate, mediator 
- Set design  - advocate 
- Content strategist - protagonist - youth culture based
- Advertising creative - debtor - ideas machine
- Packaging design 
- Pre press technician 
- Front end web designer - no coding needed
- Motion design 
- Exhibition design - protagonist - OK-RM
- Interior design 
- Print maker  - advocate - dizzy ink, moo, newspaper club 
- Account director - first point of contact for client, work for a single client within a company 
- Brand strategist - debtor - researched based, focused, building case around a re-brand 
- Media planner or buyer - advertising based, once campaign is complete layout out case for where designs will be broadcast or based, strategy based 
- Image retoucher 
- Art worker  - campaigner - retoucher, make sure work is ready for print 
- Magazine editor  - advocate 
- Event production 
- Video artist 
- Artist - mediator

Personality test :



Contacting Studios 

- Use email, phone or mail (letter or a package?) and be resilient! Talk up the soft skills you have and how you can benefit them and fit in within their team or studio - do your research on them. 
- Make the emails short and to the point whilst being compelling
- have a clear ask, to the point
- Make sure your emails are easy to respond to 
- Be confident! 

Cover Letter

6B2 

The cover letter is the initial letter that you send to someone who you are contacting for the first time. It needs to showcase both your skills and your personality. It would be helpful to research your audience / place that you are writing to. 


Dont

• Write a really long letter that mumbles on. - get to the point and be clear about what you want and what you have to offer.
• Include anything general - be specific.
• Be informal - need to be respectful.

Do:

• Write with confidence, as well as having confidence in yourself.
• Speak about your skills, however only include the ones that are relevant to their practise and could benefit them.
• Be minimal in what you write and get to the point.

I kind of think that also I should be able to do this on the phone / have a similar sort of pitch as a lot of companies now like to do phone interviews or think that a lot of people can write an email or letter but communcation skills are so valid in the area of work I want to go into.

Elevator pitch

Explain your company

(ONE SENTENCE)
The first task is to effectively and quickly explain your business. You want to be clear, avoid vocabulary that is unique to your particular area of expertise, and make it quick!

Try something like: “I’m a web designer specializing in sites that my clients can manage and update on their own without any knowledge of HTML.”

Make and impression

(ONE SENTENCE – OR LESS)
Next, you’ll want to say something that they will remember after you both get off the figurative elevator. Try to say something that will set you apart from your competition. For example something like: “There are a lot of designers out there who want to have control of your site and charge you every time you make a change, but I’m not like that.”

Call them to action

(ONE SENTENCE)
Now you should put your new-found friend on the spot. Invite them to do something. The likelihood that they will ever act on your conversation is ery low unless you specifically invite them to do so.

A good direction could be something like: “So next time you think about redesigning your web site, give me a call and we’ll create a beautiful site you can update on your own.”

Give them a business card

Lastly, have a business card ready. Make sure your contact information is up-to-date and hand them the card sometime during your call to action.

My example

I'm a creative looking to learn, specialising in research-based work and am adaptable to every situation.

I think differently to most designers having excellent interpersonal and communication skills working alongside a range of people.

If you are free for a coffee I would love to know more about your profession.\

If yes - you go, girl! - be prepared for a lot of questions

If no - Say No problem, if an opportunity comes up, give me a call (and hand them a business card)

After Effects

I knew i was going to have to use this for two upcoming briefs so I thought it would be good to say I had a working knowledge of the subject so I started with youtube videos!

Client Work : Cubano Collaboration

6B2

Cubano was an internal collaboration with a graphic designer on my course and a third photographer. It was my first collaborative brief of the year which I was using for my 603 module. It was a good brief for my practice as I know that I prefer to work in a collaborative sense.

Working collaboratively in this sense with another creative that doesn't do my course was good as it prepared me for stuff I want to do in future.

It also made me think about my future and how I don't want to work freelance to create booklets like this. It was a fun project to do in uni but the photography client set many limitations. Looking back on it I think it would have been beneficial to all the parties involved to have a mini contract like a document that set the rules out as to who was doing what.

Kitty and I (the other graphic designer) set rules for ourself each having separate rules but working alongside each other to make sure we were both on the same vibe and ha the same ideas for the outcome however we did not set any rules regarding how involved the client would be which I think hindered the design process a bit.

Overall I enjoyed the collaboration as it showed me that working alongside another graphic designer was beneficial as she had some strengths that were not my strengths and my strengths were aspects of her weaknesses.