Hi, My name is Elizabeth Taylor and I am currently in the third year of my degree - Graphic Design at Leeds College of Art. I work in a very practical way, I specialise in lettering and love typography to a worrying degree. I am fascinated by the translation from the hand made to the digital and feel that it can achieve the most human and approachable of aesthetics. However, for me, the real attraction of Graphic design, and the creative industries generally, is the people. I enjoy collaboration and the impetus gained by working with others. I have experienced a wide variety of briefs through my work with the Leeds College of Art Students Union, for whom I was communications officer in my third year. This position has allowed me to interact directly with printers, manage budgets and deadlines for several live briefs throughout the year. I have included many pieces of my work for the SU to demonstrate the invaluable industry experience this role has afforded me. I have kept this portfolio to the point in an effort to show you the most relevant work for this role. A wider variety of projects can be found on my Behance linked in my application email as well as my website.
LEEDS COLLEGE OF ART ELECTION CAMPAIGN I was asked to produce a campaign to promote and encourage students to get involved in their SU, to nominate themselves or others for the student roles. I was given the theme of the solar system to come up with a visual identity for the campaign and how it would be applied across multiple platforms.
This was a collaborative brief with my friend and peer Billie Meredith also in her third year at LCA. We came up with a logo which broke down into symbols for each role. Each planet and orbital path relates to a role, working together they create a beautiful machine. The project also involved the development of a custom version of the font Futura, as seen above, to work with the logo and identity.
We developed a set of icons for each role introduced in the flyer stage of the campaign, each with the colour of their corresponding planet. On the right you can see the application of these icon/logo combinations on the presidential flyer and the elections guide book.
General Campaign flyers and Presidential Flyers.
Presidential Flyer close up and Elections Guide Interior.
We produced a number of other printed pieces, including stickers and nominations forms that went into packs that were stamped and placed around the college for people to find. (Shown bottom right).
General flyers and stickers (above) Elections guide and stamp (below).
Throughout the campaign the clean visuals were used on digital platforms as promotions. The role specific icons, in particular proved useful in this respect.
LCASU Instagram feed (above) Info Packs (below).
The identity was used across many social media platforms as, well as the website (shown above) and its consistency and clarity allowed effective application throughout. Brand guidelines were produced so that the SU staff could work with the designs within the established identity of the campaign. We also produced ‘hot spot vinyls’ which sat under any information to do with the elections on poster boards throughout college, drawing the eye in a way a simple poster could not. This campaign has been more successful than any other year, with a record number contested and all roles filled. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, that level of engagement from our students is proof that these designs were effective. Talk to Emma Cook on my reference list about this project.
LEEDS COLLEGE OF ART FRESHERS CAMPAIGN As my first project in my communications role, I was asked to produce an identity and campaign to promote the events of freshers week. A major part of this was the mailer freshers pack to be sent to the new students.
Working closely with the SU staff I created the ‘You Are Here’ Campaign. The main aim of this campaign was to pull attention away from the classic drinking pressure of freshers and focus more on the aspect of a fresh start. A hand drawn logo was requested for this project, a rare chance to use my lettering in a ‘commercial’ application.
I was given a budget and the outcomes that needed to be produced. I noticed that a considerable portion of the budget went on envelopes each year, so I designed a guide that was its own envelope. I dealt directly with the printers during this complex project.
This saving meant that we could afford much better stock and finish on all items. It took a lot of trial and error but I managed to fit all content into an ergonomic, self contained concertina, which also had a calculated capacity pocket for all other SU print that needed to be sent.
The tear away opening of the guide.
There was a considerable amount of print that had to fit into the guide, including the events flyer which I was asked to design.
The events flyer consisted of an irregular vertical concertina which made use of precision’s new folding technology.
When folded it makes the Freshers logo, and when unfolded reveals the events list for the entire week with icons for the type of event.
There were a number of other applications that the logo was put to, including stickers, badges, tote bags and signage. The tote bags were a great measure of our reach with this campaign, I still see them everywhere now!
I also did a number of live chalkboards for different events. This allowed me to immerse myself in the event. The Freshers fair had the highest numbers ever! And that’s from statistics not my own reckoning.
PARALLEL, FEMINIST MAGAZINE BRANDING Although this was not a live brief, it is one of my favourites. We were asked to choose a cause we believed in, in the form of a kickstarter project and rebrand it. I chose the Feminist Magazine Parallel. It was a difficult project, visually balancing the concepts of strength in femininity without outright aggression. (Because feminism can get a bit of a bad wrap sometimes).
I love the restraint involved in branding and the stripping back of a concept until you have only what is completely necessary. This was a fascinating project not only for this reason but because I decided to use a custom logo type to truly capture the identity Parallel needed and I really believe in the cause of this magazine.
I created a frame work for the cover to allow for changing images with each issue. I wanted a publication identity somewhere between magazine and zine, to show its address of political and social issues and disregard of the usual glossy magazine contents.
The colours were chosen in order not to alienate any gender audience and to stick to the central concept of strength in femininity that the magazine needed to convey. The logo allowed for many application variations such as the page number graphic, shown above, for the interior of the magazine. It also worked really well on digital platforms as shown to the right on social media platforms and website functionality.
This piece of work landed me an internship with the budding magazine.
FEMINIST ARCHIVES FEMINIST FUTURES FAFF is an organisation that looks to record feminism of the present day and remember feminism of the past in an effort to inspire the feminists of the future. We were asked to create a logo to represent their core values of positive activism through archiving. This was a collaborative brief with a friend on the Visual Communication Course at LCA. We worked together to develop three concepts, They then chose the one shown to the right. We created a simple set of brand guidelines to help them in application of the identity we designed. The ethical motivation for this brief made it a joy to work on, one of my favourite clients to date and they return to us regularly for further design work.
The logo they chose was based around the dual themes of punk culture and archiving. That seemed really tricky to communicate at the start, because they are such contrasting themes. However, we found a way to suggest stacks of books and the free form shapes of punk collage.
We also created a mini log, to be used wherever the main logo could not, especially for smaller applications. We designed a colour scheme of a soft green and charcoal to allow for grey scale applications where good colour printing is not an option for them. They are not a creative organisation, so wouldn’t have reliable access to good printing. The example application above demonstrates how the mix of colour and grey-scale printing could be utilised for best economy.
Although the brand guide was fairly short (in brand guide terms) we were fairly exhaustive in the information we included. Digital and print applications were covered, linked to the CMYK and RGB files that we provided with the guide. We also talked through the photography guide, to ensure an even approach throughout their image application even when we are not designing for them. For the full brand guide document follow the link. We also applied these decisions to a set of postcards that they wanted to act as organisation wide business cards, communicating the mission statement of FAFF.
PENGUIN BOOK COVER COMPETITION For 2016 the adult non fiction book Penguin chose for their competition was How To Be A Woman by Caitlyn Moran. As a huge fan of everything she writes and does as well as being a strident feminist I had to design for this great book.
Te new cover was to celebrate the new run of the book in the Penguin classics collection. I took inspiration from the original Classics designs with soft earthy colours and striking typography. I also wanted the focus of the design to be the bold personality of Caitlyn Moran which every word of this book communicates.
The block colours and sharp shapes allowed the book to really stand out in a shelf context, a must in a book shop.
Thank you for taking the time to look through this!