Imagine That : Issue 1

Here's the magazine all finished with my design on the cover!

It's really exciting to see along with my double page feature inside the mag which shows a few images of my work and the interview questions they asked me. Hopefully it's the first competition win of many!

Imagine that : I won

Very pleased and excited to say that I won the Imagine That live competition brief to design the cover of issue one of their new mag! This is my first win in a live brief situation so I'm really happy, especially since it's such a good prize for winning...

Now I get my design (see design practice) on the cover along with a feature on myself as a designer within  the magazine whereby I can select images to represent my work and I will have questions to answer in interview format to go along with it. I'm really looking forward to seeing the design when it's been printed and no matter how big or small the magazine is, it'll be great to have some more exposure for myself and my work - Good times!

Late Summer Break

Managed to sneak away (with the help of a cheap flight) for a late summer break to the south of France. It was very warm, sunny and relaxing with lots of great food and wine - this may make moving back to the flat in Leeds a bit of a culture shock next week!

Identifying my creative focus

At the end of the second year, it was made clear to us the importance of having a clear direction in terms of our creative focus when we return for our final year in September.

This is something I haven't found easy to think about in the past but, over the course of last year I have found that I definitely prefer working with design for print, yet after that, I still couldn't be much more specific. Thus during the early part of summer I felt it was most important to take time to reflect on the work I have already produced and then I focused on researching into studios and designers I liked and pin-pointing exactly what it was within their portfolio that really interested me. I've started to realise that identity and branding are aspects that particularly engage me and is an area I'd like to move towards. I see identity as addressing both the look and feel of something and using the design work to cover all access points to a brand between client and customer which could regularly lead to my skills being applied across several areas, from printed stationery to shop interior. Furthermore, if I can source suitable briefs along these lines I feel it will help me produce a body of work with a more commercial edge to it which I think is important to develop at this time.

Other areas that I know I enjoy from experience over the past year are editorial (magazines & publications) and printed promotional work (posters & flyers). I also thoroughly enjoyed  creating a typeface for a competition brief last year and I think aspects of this could fit well with the identity and brand work I'm aiming to do with regards to developing logotypes and custom lettering.

Below are a few links to posts on my design context blog and the actual websites of studios that show the direction I want to move towards:

Berg - http://www.bergstudio.co.uk/

Anagrama - http://anagrama.com/

Heydays - http://heydays.info/

Raw - http://www.weareraw.co.uk/

Gabor Palotai - http://www.gaborpalotai.com/

Now I just need to crack on and find the briefs to help me do this!

Gold Medal for Mexico

It's coming up to the 'one year to go' mark in the countdown to the London Olympic Games and so I thought this gave me a good opportunity to post about one of my favourite pieces of graphic design. 

No, not the London 2012 logo, but another Olympic logo created by Lance Wyman for the Mexico '68 Games. 

Based on a coming together of traditional Mexican motifs and on-trend 1960's op art, Wyman created a stunning graphic identity that still looks modern today. A kind of contemporary Aztec print that was so versatile and engaging.

As for the London logo, I haven't really warmed to it. I appreciate its bold colours, but I just don't know what it's supposed to say about London or Britain...

Lets hope for some better results in the set of posters that are to be designed for the Games, although Creative Review posted on its blog about the disappointing lack of designers involved..

Freelance Work

Just got back from a meeting with a guy called Martin from a company called Abraham Moon & Sons which is based in Guiseley, near Leeds. Basically, they are a fabric making company who I've managed to secure some freelance work with as they don't have anyone who deals with graphic design - they normally either do it themselves or send it out to a studio etc. so essentially i'll be working as an in-house designer for them for a few weeks.

It sounds as though they have plenty of jobs lined up for me including a brief to design their new brochure for the furniture arm of the company. It's a little daunting but should be great experience as I'll have the chance to see projects right through to professional print for the first time.

I'll let you know how I get on...

Hello Ronnia

Treated myself to a new font the other day.. (oh the joys of being a graphic designer)

It's a font from the foundry 'typetogether' called Ronnia. Here's what they say about it on their website -

"One of the most remarkable characteristic of this humanistic sans serif is its versatility. Ronnia’s personality performs admirably in headlines, but is diffident enough for continuous text and small text alike, offering a broad range of applications, from newspaper headlines to corporate business reports.
The heavier weights deliver very cohesive shapes, and they have been successfully used for branding and newspaper headlines. Its 28 styles grant the designer a broad range of coherent color and texture variations in text blocks, necessary tools to solve complex information and editorial design problems.
Ronnia has been mainly engineered for newspaper and magazine applications manifested in its properties: economic in use, highly legible, and approaching the reader with some friendliness and charm.
Ronnia was part of the Tipos Latinos exhibition 2008 and the23rd Biennale of Graphic Design 2008 in Brno."

Personally, I think it has great precision and a lovely even weight but without being too digital and cold. It's said to be perfect for editorial use which is good for me as I plan to do plenty of this kind of work in the future. I've only bought the regular so far but I may add the bold and italic to my collection soon.