MANIFESTO
DARIA ISTOC
ABOUT INTRODUCTION STATEMENT OF INTENT CRITICAL EVALUATION REFLECTIONS
ABOUT ME It remains one of the most astounding questions how everything that surrounds us leave marks on the structuring of perception and the personal understanding. Since I was a child I use to question everything, transform every word, moment, and situation into a vivid visual image in my head. As time passed, I learnt the tricks of the trade, observing how moments are connected to light, feelings, shapes and colours; how art establishes and fools the human mind. I try to find senses and motivations to the phenomens that happen around me.In my current work, I try to find areas of the ocular, less traditionally explored in the visual language, and reevaluate these cathegories in different manners.
MODULE OVERVIEW
This module is intended to enable graphic designers, publishers, illustrators and animators gain experience and understanding of working practices within our creative industries. We have work related learning projects, work opportunities, competition, such as pitching ideas for The Cass Summer Show concept. We develop professional confidence and navigate individual-entrepreneurialism and collaborative approaches to working. We have explored in-depth professional ways of working and developed individual and team-working skills to real-world problems and opportunities. We developed, tested and extended knowledge and understanding of professional practice and employability. We will explore ethics, social enterprise and entrepreneurial strategies in order to produce creative solutions. We will gather transferable skills, desirable and advantageous for employment.
STATEMENT OF INTENT At the first glimpse, this year’s module, Work Ready, got me excited for the Summer Show brief. I was honored and happy to be part of a project of this scale. I believe this would give me a better understanding of working in a creative industry, as well as learning about what it means to design the visual identity of an event. I am looking forward to developing both my professional and team practices. During this module, I want to improve my skills as an Illustrator and Graphic Designer, through various workshops, classes, lectures, research and independent study. I want to experiment working in a team of creators in order to meet our deadlines and learn how to pitch a project to a client. The themes I have in mind for the Summer Show are diversity, creativity and culture. I believe these are three-character traits that define London Metropolitan University as a brand, body of students and staff, community and values. I wish to discover more about the history of our university and find innovative ways in which I can represent this through visual communication. I will research the past Summer Show identities and learn from other students’ approaches. I believe communication, time management and motivation will be key skills throughout this module, as I am aware that will be challenges, we will be facing along the way. Working in a team is never easy, as you cannot control the amount of work and dedication the other members of the team invest in the project. Also, it is important to listen and accept everyone’s point of views and focus on everyone’s strength points. I want to use a variety of mediums when working on the Summer Show project, such as collage and digital media. I wish to learn how to use type better and how to incorporate it in my work. I am passionate about branding, digital marketing, event planning and organization. Therefore, I do not believe I will confront many difficulties regarding these fields. Overall, I am excited for the amount of work we are about to experience and to learn new ways of seeing and approaching things.
CRITICAL EVALUATION During the first term, when our focus was The Cass Summer show. We were asked to create the visual identity of our university’s show. I approached this brief by thinking what London Met means to me and to other people: community, cultural diversity, inclusion and creativity. Therefore, these were the main focus themes of my team. I have started to research about the history of the university, went around to see the spots where the posters usually are around the campus and to the archives. I have tried to discover new spots, patterns and structures. After that, I have looked at other exhibition identities, which have inspired me throughout the whole process. I have decieded that the main technique I would like to use for this project is collage. I have created different shapes with plastic paper and then edited them in Photoshop. The main difficulty we have approached during this project was the lack of communication within my team and how we ended up having different outcomes. I had to take the role of the leader and encourage them to be involved. I have come up with the concept about the Summer Show being a response to the previous London Met campaign “we did something we love”. Overall, it has been an amazing project that I am very glad I took part in. I learnt a lot about what it means to create the visual identity of an event. If I had to do it again, I would probably try to find different ways in which the exhibition could be interactive.
THE CASS SUMMER SHOW The summer show has been the most complex project we had this year, but also the most engaging and challenging one. I have learnt how to work in a team, how to motivate other people, how to accept everyone’s opinions and focus on their strenghts. Also, I have learnt a lot about the univeristy and I am glad we got the opportunity to get closer to one another and be involved in the student community. The initial research was about looking at different exhibitions, practitioners, visual identites and collage layouts. We have created a series of collages, illustrations and patterns. We also have desgined our own typography. I am quite happy with how this project turned out to be. If I was do to it again, I would focus more on things that could make the show interactive to the public, as well as creating social media content to promote it.
Second project: CV+Portfolio
The second project we had to make was about creating our CV’s and portfolio in a professional way, in order to send it to companies in the future. We had to select our work and information and put them together in thoughtful design. We had different sessions about portfolio layouts and an InDesign workshop in which we have created our first attempt for the portfolio. I was glad be had this project, as it is very important to be able to showcase your work in a professional manner, in order to get hired. I already had a version of my CV before, so it was quite easy to make. I just had to think about the design and layouts. I am quite happy with the results. I chose to keep it simple looking, as I believe it is easier to read and understand. I believe the design should be different based on the field and you are applying for. As for the portfolio, I always found if difficult to select my work and decide which to include in my portfolio and which not, as my skills vary and have different relevance for different jobs. I have tried to include a variation of work, focused around my university projects. If I was to redo the project, I would create more versions for the CV: one simple one that I believe works best for companies that aren’t necessarily in the creative industry, and one CV that is more colorful with illustrative elements.
Third project: Manifesto
In the third project this year we have been asked to create a minimum 16-pages publication called “Manifesto”, in which we had to present ourselves, the module, our practice as Illustrators and Graphic Designers, as well as which skills we wish to develop during Level 6. I was intrigued by it, as initially I didn’t know exactly the requirements and how the project was yet to happen. I have created this document in Illustrator, using two types of typography. I chose to keep the design minimalistic, as I want the main focus to be on the content, not the layout of the publication. I have structured it on index, about me, about the module section, each project we had this year, critical evaluation and reflections. After that I have discussed my practice as a designer and my aims for the future. In the end, I have spoken about the Lunch Time talks. I liked about the experience that I had a place where to put all my information together, practice my book design skills, improved my compositions and writing, but it wasn’t my favorite project, as I believe it didn’t require much creativity to create it. I believe the manifesto along with my portfolio are a good way to describe myself and represent my journey throughout Work Ready this year. It is a selection of thought processes, steps which led to the final outcomes, work improvements and critical thinking. If I was to redo this project, I believe I could have tried to experiment more with the layout design, even though I prefer it this simple. Maybe use different types and design a different cover.
Practice as a Designer My practice as a Graphic Designer, Illustrator and Animator has been an interesting and exciting journey. I love seeing my ideas and concept brought to light. I feel like my areas of interest are vast. Besides visual communication I love travel writing, marketing, branding and business. I always document my travels in a visual way. Before coming to university, my creative practice was around illustration, photography and fine art. I would never see myself as a Graphic Designer, but I was always interested in learning digital skills. Throughout the years, I have learnt about this area a lot and started practicing it, which expanded my horizons. I have improved my knowledge on Adobe softwares and discovered tools I never knew existed. I am proud of my development and cannot wait to learn more.
believe learning is a very important part of life and that we learn something every day. I am always curious and interested in a lot of subjects, as well as my self-development. I have learnt throughout my practice how to approach a brief, create a workflow and be self-disciplined. My practice has been around both traditional and digital mediums. I have used different types of printing, such as riso and screen printing. I have created zines, booklets, paintings. I have redesigned the visual identity of a well-known music streaming platform and created a show’s concept and learnt how to animate. I have learnt how to create my own letters
The most successful project I have done during my second year of studies is around temporary identity. I have been interested to see how our moods and feelings impact our long-term identity. I have researched the topic and conducted my own survey, trying to select a range of nationalities and ages, to see their points of views. I have created a series of painted illustrations reflecting the main 3 moods of people, and how they see them in patterns and colors. After that, I have experimented with different materials, such as wax and inks, creating a series of collages. In the end, I have created a booklet that contains quotes from people I have interviewed later during the project. I have asked them questions such as “Are we the same person with everyone we meet?” and “Do we have just one identity”.
Critical reflection: Typography workshop During this module, my favorite workshops were the ones led by Naima Ben Aye. I have learnt a lot about typography from her, especially from her practice. I have learnt how to create my own alphabeth and how to edit letters. Also, she has taught us how to approach hand drawn typography, which letters are the most difficult ones in terms of shape and how important small details are regarding the size and lenght. If I was to redo the workshop, I would try to think about the kind of alphabeth I would like to create and the purpose of it. Here are some of the outcomes from this workshop.
Alphabeth outcome
Developments for third year During Level 6, I wish to deepen my understanding of visual communication through design, illustration and animation practices. I want to look at different people from the industry, that are well known for their work: learn about their journeys, processes, methods and ways of thinking. I wish to see things from different perspectives, create a workflow that I can implement in my daily routine. I would like to be more productive in a shorter period of time. I also would like to create various final outcomes, that will be strong assets in my portfolio. I wish to understand myself and my work better, as well as what I would like to do in the future. I want to become more professional and improve my skills both in traditional and digital mediums. Besides that, I wish to emerge as a travel writer by creating quality content for my website. I want to establish my travel community, which I can inspire, share my knowledge and stories with. I want to learn more about branding, marketing, communication and blogging, as well as the identity of a personal travel brand. I want to look at ways in which I can become successful, improve my photography and postproduction skills. In addition, I believe web design skills will be valuable in this industry, so I would like to learn them, as I am not very familiar with them. Overall, my aim for Level 6 is to enjoy my final year of studying, absorb as much information I can, draw a lot, be creative, read books, stay well organized and practice through the projects and work placements I will be given. I want to have great results I can be proud of, after spending 4 years at The Cass.
Top tips I have learnt a lot of things throughout this year, about time management, about how it is never the right time for anything, that sometimes you just have to do what you want to do and ignore the outside factors. Some of the people who have inspired me this year are:
Naima Ben Aye She is a London based independed type and graphic designer. She is French ans been living here for 12 years. My favorite part about her was her design for Intel Clear Arabic. I appreciate people who can be so precise and observe small details about typography.
Samuel Mensah He is a London based multi-disciplined designer and art director. I love the variety of projects and the way he approaches them. Some examples here: