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QUOTES

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TALKS

STEDELIJK CRAIG OLDHAM

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ASSESSMENTS BA4 Assessment BA5 Assessment BA6 Assessment

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DESIGNERS BEETROOT NORTH

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STRUCTURAL PACKAGING BRANDING INVERCOTE! MAGAZINE

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BA4 ASSESSMENT BA4 has been very exceptional this year. It was very much focused on developing collaborations and team work skills as well as editing and putting an order to my development work process and how I approach projects and problem solving as well as experimenting with my digital skills and basic industry rules for product design. Reflecting on it I enjoyed collaborating with fellow designers and stepping outside my personal preferences to match the criteria by using my digital skills as a basis. Although my approach was enthusiastic and aspirational I should of focused a lot more in my critical judgment step by step before leading to a result, even if something seems up to standard there are many angles in the thought process that have not been evaluated correctly which was shown in my Packaging solutions. In addition to this, I need to spend more time processing and editing project briefs so that the result produced is responding to the requested outcomes. In contrary, my development process is getting more clear and starting to have a good order to it, easily understood and with primary focus annotation. Advertising was inspirational this unit, focusing on a minimal bold approach and learning how to send a general message across to a wider audience in a creative and dynamic way. During BA4 my contextual and presentation skills developed dramatically as well as gained confidence to speak in front of an audience, put an order and sequence to information I need to explain such as phrasing them, elaborating and time management.

ba5

Assessment

BA5 Consisted of basic topics in Graphic Design such as Brand Identities, Packaging and Publishing (Editorial).

Primary focus was making my design process more clear focusing on quality and not quantity, good annotation and building on my critical judgment. This unit added a lot more depth to those topics as well as being able to respond with a design solution to a competition. Packaging was the highlight of the unit for me. A very extensive research on Sustainable Packaging was made as an initial research as well as setting a basic broad knowledge on what’s out there regarding Recyclable and Sustainable Packaging and how much creativity needs to be compromised to fit the realistic industry needs of the product in the market. Design wise, the boundaries of packaging can be pushed a lot to come up with an unconventional solution, coming up with intriguing paper structures and various paper stock. I aimed to learn how to push the boundaries of product design by experimenting and assessing the sustainable needs of the product. Brand Identity was a disappointment in this term especially since Branding is personally one of my favorite aspects of design. Due to limited attendance due to extenuating circumstances my critical judgment was compromised because of not being able to get feedback of tutors. Despite that, I still experimented a lot with contemporary branding as well as pushing myself to create a typeface from scratch, creating 3d outcomes for the branding, and pushing my logo even further to experiment with making it more interactive. Editorial made me broaden my knowledge of type and layout as well as gave me an interest in combining paper stocks for editorial purposes.

Contextual Studies has been very educational since I gathered many resources and main research from mostly books and journals. My research was very extensive and ended up going very overboard with references ratio in my essay.

Even though this impacted on my term, I know have a deeper knowledge of essay writing , clear guidelines and structure as well as developed research skills.

BA6 ASSESSMENT

ba6

BA6 varied on content since it included more editorial processes such as book covers and booklet as well as an industry brief.Regarding the book cover assignment I could of used better time management so I had a finalized design to experiment on more.Sizing wise I would preffer a more unsual sizing as well as layout.I do enjoy the minimal feel of the design though but I believe they could be alot more lateral than literal.I like the fact that I experimented with cutouts and dimention rather than keeping a flat book cover.

Regarding the BranOpus brief I believe that better group communication and planning could of led to a more visually appealing and believable outcome.Unfortutely due to lack of teamwork and team decisions I really do not enjoy the finished outcome.I believe that with more time and better team work skills the brand could of been alot more succesfull.More bottle and box experiment as well as a more appealing and interesting design character for the brand could of made the outcome alot better.In contrast, during Ba6 I believe that I developed my research skills ,enhanced my library use and formed a good basis for my dissertation next year.Regarding my Reflective Journal I could have focused more on design and layout throughout the year.

Unfortunately I was focusing and creating content separate and because of time restrictions I missed a fair amount of my content out.In addition, I did experiment with layout typefaces and paper to create and unsual piece of print.

BA5 ASSESSMENT

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06 bEEtroOt Due to career research, visual research on award winning agencies and journals I came across a very successful agency in Greece called Beetroot located in both Athens and Thessaloniki. It’s a medium sized agency consisted by 10 fairly young designers.

Their work is very illustrative, enthusiastic, creative, fresh, modern, neat, dynamic, well presented and every project is exciting and differ from each other.

They a very strong view and aesthetic to them with a fun vibe to them. They usually work on all main major design projects around Greece as well as around Europe. Their work is very intriguing on first sight, very easily understood and they are bringing something new to the design scheme especially in Greece. Most projects they have developed are award winning. What came to a surprise and fascination was the work load they have done over the past 5 years compared to any other agency I have researched. I believe that a big part of their success was the fact that they take on project that are not only strictly design based. They produce a broad range outcomes which covers print, typography, sound, animation, video and installations even interior design, using their aesthetic throughout a big range of design topics. Their website is very neat, minimal, fun , interactive with a basic but successful dynamic layout and easily ordinated. A minor let down was that a lot of the links on the website were broken which makes it difficult to locate them and see more of their award winning work.

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BEETROOT-

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NORTH

north In contrary, I have been also fascinated and inspired by a more experienced agency formed by designer Sean Perkins and they are called North. I have been very interested in the work solutions they produce as well as their design approach and well designed educational Brandbook. They are a very experienced agency and the experience shows within their work.

Compared to Beetroot illustrative approach ,North’s approach is more serious, minimal their solutions are more technically responsive rather than fun and creative, they focus more on serious and wider scale problem solving and the projects they have taken on have not required quirky responses. Moreover, they have worked for very significant companies and redesigning projects such as The Barbican and RAC. All their work is paid to detail and each solution takes a lot more time ,work and thought put into compared to other agencies. Reading their brandbooks has really helped me develop an understanding of how an experienced design thinks for problem solving and made me focus on a more clear problem solving process and inspired me about how successful a rebranding can be.

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craig Oldham By far one of the most inspirational TALKS this year has to be Craig Oldham. His lecture was very unconventional, interactive and captivating. His personality kept the audience interested from the start of the lecture till the end. The TALK was very surprising, dynamic and inspirational. Apart from Craig Oldham being an exceptional designer judging from his work he also has a strong personality and is very talented when it comes to public relationships and designer-client relationship which is also stated on his website. He has developed an attitude and personality which makes him likeable to the client as well as knowing how to draw potential clients in and clearly express opinions. The part which fascinated me the most was his personal opinions on other designers as well as behavior. From my current experience I have noticed designers developing a “snobby” attitude. I totally agree with Craig Oldham that creativity is not something that should make people feel any more better than anyone else as well as that mistakes matter and without mistakes the potential designer will never get to the stage of strict self-assessment which leads to growing as a designer.

Being professional does not mean being snobby, it means developing a working structure and behavior that responds well to the environment and clients.

At last , he was very inspirational and stressed out the fact that at the end of the day creativity is “fun” it is a way of expressing yourself and even though graphic design is taking creativity and developing it into a proffession it still has to be fun.

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CRAIG OLDHAM DESIGNERS ARE WANKERS

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STEDELIJK Mevis & Van Deursen-designed Stedelijk logo

A very interesting lecture was a movie regarding Stedelijk new brand identity. After research I found that the identity has been in severe controversy with various designers around the world expressing their view on the identity and sometimes being over the top. One side expresses enthusiasm and agrees with the minimalistic and unusual approach, while the other condemns the identity with descriptions such as boring, amateur, aesthetically challenged even ugly. After researching and understanding the idea behind the identity I have developed opinions of my own. The idea is very hard to understand and assess if you haven’t read the full explanation behind it. The decision for a minimal approach was good and suitable for a museum but it was expected. Like mentioned on the video identities need to be uncommon, recognizable and interesting .Yet I don’t see any of those characteristics in the Identity.

It seems too familiar to ideas already made, contemporary and bland with nothing easily recognizable apart from the “S”. Overall I think it’s an okay, good Identity, but is an “okay Identity” good enough?

Does it make a difference? Is it not recognizable enough and I think they could of pushed the design to something more rare and intriguing, rather than something that looks “expected”. In addition to this, the website itself does not look intriguing or up to standard or appropriate for a contemporary museum.

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Due to the importance and personal interest in BA5’s packaging brief I became interested in paper structures and structural packaging books. A series of structural packaging books , Structural Packaging: Design Your Own Boxes and 3-D Forms, Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form and Cut and Fold Techniques for Promotional Materials by Paul Jackson.Books are very well written and educational and almost have a guide feel to them.They enhance creativity and teach you everything about structural packaging and various common as well as less common folding techniques to form a basis in order to produce unconvetional and structural pieces of Packaging.Techniques like that could form the basis of recycleable packaging explicitly made out of paper and paperboard.A struct-ure featured in the book which was cylinder shaped and it’s flexible spring attributes inspired me to come up withmy sustainable packaging solution for honey.

structu ral packaging

-Structural Packaging

BY PAUL JACKSON

Regarding the Competition brief project for BA5 , I had chosen to take on the Packaging of Tomorrow live brief. Due to this, I focused on an ongoing extending research about recyclability in Packaging and Sustainable Packaging. While researching subjects associated with Invercote and Iggesund I found out a publishing line they produce and signed up to it.

I have been very fascinated by the magazine on paperboard Autumn 200.I found it very useful since it explains the basics about sustainability ,giving industry related examples, packaging who has been successful and packaging that has failed.

Signing up to their magazine lines has proven to be very educational and personally significant since it allows me keeping updated with what happens with Packaging and what new designs and papers are out there. The magazine I received was mainly about safe packaging, packaging with tradition, creativity as well as articles that are generally design related news.Articles in the Magazine are very extensive, long and full of interesting information.

Moreover I was very fascinated about the cover and design of the magazine .It’s minimal , all white cover as well as shape is very different and unconventional with a bold no capitals title called “inspire” on the front and foiling details.

Brand Thinking

by Debbie Millman was a very inspirational as well as educational read on brand thinking and insights in designer’s thought processes.

I particularly chose this book to be used as a part of Branding Chapter in my research report.I was very engaging and stoodout from other books I have read on Branding.Additionally it presents interviews with the world’s most succesfull designer’s and provides an insight on innovation and how it can be achieved.Moreover,it was very easy to read pleasant and captivating since it’s structure is based on conversations.

Equally, It was a great initial book to start my Dissertation research for and it’s content was a goodintroduction for my Branding Strategies research as well as contributein my abstract/introduction.

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branding

-Brand thinking and other noble pursuits by Debbie Millman

invErCOTE -INVERCOTE! MAGAZINE

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“DESIGN IS SO SIMPLE THAT’S WHY TT IS SO COMPLICATED” -Paul Rand

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M MMMM M MUSEUMS TATE GALLERY

MANCHESTER

EXHIBITION

In London I visited the famous Tate gallery for general art and inspiration.Firstly I got really inspired by the gallery’s logo and typeface.I have been researching the typeface which assisted me with my BrandOpus logo for inergy and additional research in dotted type.Tate gallery is also a great example for rebranded Identities which will proove to be of use as an example in my Dissertation.Moreover apart from it’s branding Tate offers a great variety of Contemporary exhibitions.Unfortunately when I visited there wasn’t an exhibition that I particularly fascinating although I very much enjoyed The EY Exhibition: Sonia Delaunay because of the unusual colour palletes and combinations, Collection displays because it was very abstract and structural and György Kepes for it’s interesting and historical photographs, photomontages and photograms.

After the Craig Oldham Talk I was very inspired to visit Manchester and research the design around the city.

Visiting Manchester I was highly focused on gathering Brand Identitiesfor my research as well as Typographic research.Design in Manchester is very structural and angled while Typography is either very bold and minimal or retro and serif scripts.This mixture of futuristic and retro created a vey intriguing contrast which gives the city a distinct character.Various places I visited include Manchester City Center, Manchester Craft and Design Centre, Artzu Gallery , Whitworth Art Gallery - University of Manchester where I attended Cornelia Parker, New Acquisitions, Portraits and Thomas Schütte.

Additionally I visited the Norther Quarter area where design is very edgy and alternative with beautiful hand made illustrations on walls.

Visiting Greece I attended an award winning Exhibition called The Greek Monsters by Beetroot agency.

It has a very distictive character and innovative since it turned 2D monster illustrations into 3D art.

The 2d visual monsters were layed out all across the exhibition walls resembling ancient Greek monument art.It was very funky, fun and like nothing I had seen before.

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FuturE plans Throughout my second year I have been developing a career focus as well as growing very interested in specific topics of design such as Sustainable packaging, motion graphics and re branding Identities. In addition I have been researching on various agencies and locations outside Norwich for practice and internships after my 3rd year as well as building up on a portfolio and collaborating with web designers to set up an intriguing, exciting website that can showcase my work on a Professional level. Moreover, I have been researching and focused on the possibility on continuing with an MA so that my design and contextual skills can grow a lot more but also having the opportunity to teach academically in the future after several years of industry practice if I want to and open a lot more windows for my career as a designer and not only agency based.

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WHAT WHEN

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FOCUS BRANDING IDE NTITIES SUSTAINABIL ITY MOTION PRI NT

Ego Means “I� in Greek.

During the past year I have been developing and building on my portfolio.My appplication for a portfolio on CARGOcollective has been accepted as well as setting up my behance page.I have also been focusing on developing a perso website domain by collaborating with a webdesigner to build a personal page as well as gain experience in Web Design.Strength wise, I think I am mostly focused and successfull in vector work, structures,infographics,minimalism but have also been developing an eye for patterns and a contemporary feel.I am personally very interested in branding and identies but have unfortunately have not been successfull in the identity project.I am focused to keep developing on brand identities and branding techniques. I believe I can keep developing and creating a strong profile of who I am as a designer and a distinct point of view.

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