Professional Practice | Jobs

Brief states we need to show a study of job search of the industry we would like to go in. I want to specialise in video or graphic design. Jobs will be focused around them areas.

Junior Creative Producer

This is ideal because it is specifically for juniors, meaning young people like myself.

I meet the required checklist they have produced as I have used all the programmes stated from the course as well as the communication skills with working with a client, work within deadlines. A job like this defines what I would apply for when I have finished the degree.

The job is in Brighton which is a suitable location from where I live.

 Mr Porter

Another video editing job. This one seems more for some with experience so would mean a freshman like myself probably isn't what they are look for.

Design and Digital Assistant 

This job states the making of 'Posters, flyers and e-marketing tools' so is up my street. Although it is a part time job, the experience of having a job like this on your cv can lead onto gaining more knowledge and experience a client would rather see you have than not. So would be worth an apply.

Digital Designer

This job is designing more for interfaces, photoshop and illustrator programs I'm pretty good with proves this could be a potential for my area. Although I haven't had much experience with interfaces, Ive still got experience with designing for customer experiences such as making an e-book and websites from this degree.

Creative Presentations - Graphic Design

This job is probably out of my league due to the signs the want experience but it is graphic design and the job title is suited to what I wanted to do. It seems from this research I have learnt experience is a big factor, so trying to get that is important.

Portfolio research

Stanley Chow

I have mention him before, but looking at Stanley's portfolio inspires me because of the consistency and cleaners of the website. He uses a tiled layout with as less text as possible, to emphasise the illustrations he's done. This was the main inspiration to my portfolio, showing work should be as clean as possible. Less text means more image, which is the most important content when looking at designs. The colours of all his designs creates a wonderful vibrant pattern almost across the site.

When a image is selected it simply enlarges it, without any text. Stanley site literally has no text on it making it just one big image gallery.

He is very active on twitter, which is where I find his new work. He also uses Instagram quite a lot too, so using a lot of social media to promote himself. It works because that is how I found him, his work got retweeted onto my timeline and ever since then Ive followed his work closely.

http://www.stanleychowillustration.com

Stefan Sagmeister

After the OFF trip at Barcelona we were introduced to Stefan Sagmeister, who is a brilliant graphic designer and creative director. So why not check out his website for his portfolio.

The homepage is different yet really cool. An image of an office from a birdseye view with the navigation to the website embedded in the office on the floor. He's taking creative to another level by not using digital elements but instead real life objects as buttons making it fun. Some of the words are covered by boxes which I couldn't even tell what the word beginning with P was. 

The portfolio is tiled with a black and white colour scheme, the simplicity and cleanliness is portrayed again through this, and the colour of the images give it emphasise on top of the white background.

Each project has a consistency about it in the way of colours and composition of images, boasting that professional standard you would expect from such a highly regarded designer.

The text is all the way at the bottom, keeping its boundary from images, this is big thing i am noticing from portfolio sites that text is almost an enemy by being the last priority of the page. 

Teamed with Jessica Walsh, they are together on Facebook. Over 100,000 likes the page is popular with lots of discussions and interactions on posts, the page promotes both of them at the same time which combines both of their fans and followers which is ideal for making an even bigger name for yourself. They update on the page when they are speaking at places or going to be available for meets and greets. Facebook evidently showing a great way for promoting.

http://www.sagmeisterwalsh.com/work/

 Mike Kus

I came across Mike Kus from someone else liking his picture on Instagram, so I thought he should be someone to check their portfolio as some of the stuff on his Instagram looked interesting.

This is his Instagram, a lot of cool interesting photography of different things. It says he is a graphic designer and web designer. Some of his graphics are promoted on Instagram which has tags on it, the tags make it more likely to get more views as people can search the tag. Instagram being a photo and video based application, graphics can be promoted very efficiently on there to gain self promotion.

His portfolio is really nice, clean tiles as used by everyone else is seen again, with lots of colours and cool graphics creating an art in it self. Using a white background seems to be used by everyone, again to give cleanliness and more focus on colour of the graphics.

Text is seen at the bottom, again. It is very text lightweight which is a common pattern I'm seeing from these sites, as I have mentioned before sustains the emphasis on the art.

The hover over on the images, contains text of information, which is a nice way before someone clicks on it people can get a bit more information on what the project is before leaving a page to find out more.

http://mikekus.com/portfolio

James White

James white i met in Barcelona OFF and is a very talented graphic designer who makes a lot of really cool stuff. This is his portfolio on his website. again like others, a tiled collage of colourful designs laid out. Unlike others he has text underneath the designs, an unpopular way of laying it out. And he uses a back header with a grey shade background on the main body. Again an unpopular style but, James whites designs are known to be dark and video game like. So I guess thats where the black comes from at the top to give that video game vibe.

http://cargocollective.com/signalnoise 

Portfolio

The first thing required was a responsive portfolio

I created mine on 'Wix' which is a simple website builder.

http://glenmyersdzn.wix.com/glenmyersdesign

I used a gallery styled site, to give simplicity and easy navigation. My CV is downloaded when the CV button is clicked on the about page. It is responsive too as it designed for mobile platform too.

Proffesional Practice | Brief

We have been given our professional practice brief and we must make the following:

You are to design and build a portfolio of your work for the End of Year show and in order for you to begin looking for employment. The site must be responsive and MUST BE ONLINE by deadline day so you will have to sort out hosting and uploading as part of this brief. You can use HTML, CSS, etc. or you can use a Wordpress template if you prefer.

By the end of this assignment students will be required to demonstrate that they have acquired:
An increased awareness of career paths within the design industry;
A greater ability to identify and make professional contact with employers;
An increased awareness of professional practitioners;
An ability to present themselves and their work professionally;

An appreciation of the importance of transferable skills in relation to future career choice;


Need to submit the following:


1. Responsive portfolio website

2. Career Pathways – A short study of the different career pathways within the design industry with a focused emphasis on your chosen specialty – (this will be in the form of blog posts)

3. Self Promotion - A detailed list of companies that you will promote your Portfolio to and invite to the End of Year Show. Each entry must have a short paragraph justifying why you have chosen them and a link to their website.

4. Portfolio Research - A study of the professional portfolios of a series of practitioners that have inspired you personally – this is evidenced in your blog and must contain analysis of visual language, composition and the use of social media.

Project Review

Project Review

I wanted to create designs that give off the key words of: Passion, Excitement, Motivational and inspirational. I feel my video has achieved these feelings. The video has intended to promote the world cup in the powerful way and I think I have accomplished in creating something well edited and storied in a correct sequence. My Russian doll posters I am very happy with, I have asked friends and peers who know about football what they think and they said they were really good, they could tell they look like the players. My girlfriend said they look like Russian dolls before even knowing that’s what they are suppose to be, so this positive feedback. I spent a lot of time on my video making sure each precise edit is in sync with no glitches or out of place edits. The same with m posters, I had lots of analytical examinations of the faces and figuring out how I could improve the faces to make it more accurate to the real face. To review the project, I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing it has been fun doing something on a topic I am really into but the main thing is designing to my strengths. Video editing and graphics are my strongest skill and I have demonstrated in this project that I can produce something what people can say positive of. It was important that before the project I had a big think of what to do so when the first day the brief was set out I knew exactly what I am doing without any panic. My one to one mentor review was positive with George, he gave high reviews of my video and didn’t say anything negative, and my time management was dealt with smoothly and with ease. I didn’t have any major panics or times where I felt I’ve got to rush, this was reflected with my one to one review with George, not once did he say I’m behind or anything with my time management. My proposal schedule was met finishing my research and planning before May, and giving myself a whole month of construction. My inspiration of Stanley Chow was a big part of my design work for this project, using his style to inspire me with how I designed my posters but exactly copying; the research of him was a key factor for this project. I think my concept of using Russian doles portrays creativity in the way I am using culture to create an identity in the posters itself so it isn’t just a random concept. To conclude the project I am happy with my executions, I have achieved my proposal and I think my designs are something to be proud of. I timed my schedule professionally and got a lot of feedback whilst in development of my designs.

Posters | Argentina

I had succeeded in making two of the posters before I went away. That just leaves me with one more to do with over a week to the deadline, so keeping that time management nicely.

Completion 3/3 

Di Maria. His face is quite unique as he has big ears and pointy hair, making identifiction easier for me to emphasise these features. 

Lionel Messi, a worldwide icon. Identification was very important with him, I feel like this is actually me best one. A long with other people, they say it looks a lot like him, I am very pleased.

Javier Mascherano. My first dilemma was this player has a beard. And It took me ages till I designed a beard I was content with; I played around with shapes, colour and transparency. In the end I dropped the transparency quite low over the cheek lines.

The finished poster, this is my favourite one out of the three, the colours and accuracy in the faces I think looks the best one!

Now I begin concentrating on the professional practice brief.

Posters | England

Completion 1/3

Wayne Rooney.

Daniel Sturridge.

Joe Hart.

Finished Poster

This is the finished thing, I used 'Basic Title Font' for the text on the poster, I didn't want a lot of text on the poster because I wanted focus to be exaggerated on the illustrations. I embedded the team flag into the background colour of the design to give a subtle and clean feel for the poster. I added the logo into the bottom corner to give more identification of the branding that its for the World Cup.