Selling Work

I have been wanting to start selling some work online for a long time, and now summer is approaching its the perfect time to start designing and printing. As research, I thought this would be the perfect excuse to buy a few things of some of my favourite designers to see how they do things. I've found out that special extras, taking care with the packaging, and adding a business card or something that links back to your sites so if they like your work they can come back is a good idea for more business.

I want to re-work some designs I've already done to sell and then think about new things. I want to create designs I like and am interested in rather than just what will sell, as I'm doing this to improve my own professional practice rather than to make money, I don't expect to make a lot.

I need to find out postage costs, where is a cheap place to get the packaging, etc and look at more sites to see what my competition is selling. I could link this in with the enterprise stuff we learnt at the beginning of the year and do SWOT analysis and things like that.

I could also try and sell at small gift shops when I have some items ready to approach them with.

Things I could sell: (based on things I've already designed)
- alice in wonderland notecards
- gift pack containing a few different things such as A5 print, postcard, bookmark, stickers etc
- geometric patterned book
- dinosaur tea towels
- cupcake birthday cards

New things/themes to design:
- dalahorse
- stationery theme
- initials
- animlas
- perfume
- dragonflies and butterflies
- alphabet
- different shaped wine glasses etc
- cameras, vintage, new etc
- fruit and veg
- clocks
- playing cards
- camping theme

Materials I could cover:
- tea towels
- prints
- postcards
- notecards
- note books
- bookmarks
- gift tags
- keyrings and badges
- screenprints
- make your own sets
- stickers

Plan of action. (Starting as soon as the last module is handed in!)

1. What are postage costs, restrictions etc?
2. Where will I get the packaging from and how much?
3. Research other shops
4. Etsy Terms and conditions
5. Design!
6. Get designs printed
7. Decide prices
8. Set up shop
9. Promote
10. Evaluate progress

What I'll be doing over summer...

As well as working on all the targets I have set for myself, here are some of the events I'll be going to over summer. I went to quite a few of them last year and found them very useful, so am excited to return. I'll blog what I see after the events!


new blood

new designers

leeds college of art degree show

leeds uni degree show

http://www.reveal2012.leeds.ac.uk/

leets met degree show

man met degree show

design museum

http://www.londondesignfestival.com/

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/whatson/bauhaus-exhibition-london-article-11053.html

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/whatson/british-design-exhibition-london-article-11326.html

PPD Task: Spread The Word (Pt 2) [Final Social Media Outcomes]

Screenshots of my social media presence 


[see development]


Here are the screenshots of my final social media presences. I will keep updating these regularly to keep my followers interested in what I am doing, so the pages might end up looking a bit different to these screen shots.

1. TUMBLR

http://claudiagriffin.tumblr.com

2. TWITTER


https://twitter.com/#!/CGriffin_GD

3. BEHANCE


http://www.behance.net/claudiagriffin

4. LINKEDIN


http://www.linkedin.com/pub/claudia-griffin/51/459/73b

Personal Project Ideas

Here are some of my ideas for personal projects that I'd like to start over the summer, to work on the things I have mentioned in my evaluation.


1. Sell at craft fairs and online

http://www.reetsweet.com/submissions/

http://www.etsy.com/sell?ref=so_sell

2. Collaboration with another graphic designer?

3. Branding design for another artist

4. Enter competition

http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/graphic-design/

5. Look for freelance work

6. Tutorial a day

7. Drawing a day - start a new blog?

http://giftedcompetition.tigerprint.uk.com/the-brief-2012/

Branding Specifications

These colours and fonts, and my logo, will be used in all of my design work to do with branding, to ensure everything is consistent and works as a set.


COLOURS/

FONTS/

LOGO/

CV Contact Progress

Friday 18th May

Posted CVs with personalised letter to:

Holden&Sons
Tigerprint
Beautiful Meme
The Branding Iron
Shape

... No response so far :(

Monday 28th May 

Posted CVs with personalised letter to:

Lemon Zest

Glorious Creative

Grain

Turn key

Impression

Brainstorm

Wednesday 6th June

- Email everyone to remind them of letter because no one has replied!!
- Email the rest of the list!

[see list]

OUGD203 . PRODUCT.RANGE.DISTRIBUTION. Evaluation

PRODUCT.RANGE.DISTRIBUTION.

For this evaluation, I have looked back at the list I made at the start about what I wanted to achieve, to consider if I have done the things I wanted to.

http://c-griffin1013-dp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/product-range-distribution-what-i-want.html

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Through this brief I have developed the skills mentioned in the title of the brief, especially considering the range of products. After a workshop early on in this brief, I learnt that covering a range of products was important for many matters, such as making more money in the real world. Covering a range of outcomes is something that I said I wanted to do at the beginning, and I have applied this, by creating a set of packaging for about ten products. 

As I had to write the brief myself, this is a skill I have developed, as normally, the brief has already been written for me. I had to make sure my brief was defined so I didn’t get stuck at a dead end because I had too many options, so I gave myself restrictions, such as limited colour palette. I think I have applied this skill well, as it is the first long brief that I haven’t felt I have got stuck with. 

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I have developed my packaging skills, as its something I’ve barely touched on while I’ve been on this course. This has informed my design development process as I have focused on an area which I haven’t spend much time on before, which is something that I said I wanted to do initially. As a result, my presentation skills have improved, as this is so important with packaging, to get things perfect. I’ve also had to be more organised, as I had to consider in advance what I needed printing, to book print slots, and make sure there was enough time in case something went wrong. So by doing what I wanted to, I have ended up improving over skills as well.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalize on these?

I think with every evaluation that goes by I feel more confident with myself as a designer, and so find more strengths in my work as I am actually working hard on the things that I say I will do differently next time. I think feeling confident in my work is the greatest strength, as it was something I was really lacking. I am happy with my work and have enjoyed creating it. I can capitalise on this by promoting my work to help my PPD.

I have planned everything so that I have covered every aspect that I needed to, to really create the ‘Perfect Picnic’ as stated in the title of the YCN competition brief that my brief was adapted from. This has meant that I have covered a wide range of materials, and that the perfect picnic could actually be a realistic product. 

I have set myself restrictions which I have stuck to, such as a limited colour palette and following the Marks and Spencer Plan A policy, and this has made  an open brief in to a brief I could control. In the past, I have got stuck with open briefs, but I now know that having a defined direction is a good thing.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

A weakness is not taking risks with my work, which is something I am very aware of. I stick to what I know a lot of the time, and while my outcome for this brief isn’t similar to what I have done before, I don’t want to get stuck with a ‘style’ yet, so I need to continue to take risks and experiment more, to learn new things. Finding inspiration on blogs, asking others for their advice and trying tutorials will help me to create work that stands out from the rest of my work.

I have spent a lot of time on making sure my concept was how I wanted it to be, and this has meant that the design side was a bit rushed. I might have wanted to create more products, or just spend more time experimenting before deciding everything was ready to print. I think in future I need to decided what I am doing earlier on, so as not to waste any time. I can do this by continuously asking for feedback on my ideas, and not just waiting for crits.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

-1- I will make sure I consider book binding. My leaflet ended up turning out just fine, and I am happy with it, but I didn’t consider how it would be bound when designing, which could have meant that the leaflet wouldn’t fit together. This is something I have struggled with throughout the modules this year so definitely need to revisit book binding as I will probably be creating more publications next year.

-2- I need to experiment with creating type only pieces. I am happy with my final piece, but the focus isn’t as much on the type as I wanted it to be. As an image person, I wanted to experiment with type to help improve my skills, but I ended up turning the focus back to illustration. I need to be brave in the future and try a different direction, even if its not what I end up going with, as this will improve my overall design skills.

-3- I would arrange more print slots to print mock ups and print a few extras when making nets. Printing is always a stressful experience, and I was worried the colours wouldn’t work how I wanted to when I came to print, so having done a test run beforehand would have ensured I was happy with my prints. 

-4- Continue to work on my photography skills so I can have the confidence to photograph my final pieces in context rather than just by themselves, as I think this will look better on my design boards.

-5- Print things more than 2 days before the hand in, so I have time to reprint if something goes wrong, and so I don’t have to rush creating my boards and doing my photo shoots.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas

(5= excellent 4=very good 3=good 2=average 1=poor)
Attendance = 4
Punctuality = 4
Motivation = 4
Commitment = 4
Quantity of work produced = 3
Quality of work produced = 3
Contribution to the group = 4

OUGD203. YCN. Evaluation

YCN...

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

With this being a collaborative brief, my teamwork skills have improved. I was nervous about how I would find working with one person for such a long time before starting this brief, but I ended up realising that there are many benefits to collaborative work. The main one for me was that having someone to continually look at what you have designed is like constantly having a crit, so I kept getting feedback, which definitely helped improve my designs and made any mistakes were spotted. Next year I would like to do collaborative work again as I think it can really benefit my progress.

I have improved my presentation skills, as the final boards were such an important part of this brief, that we had to focus on them, and make sure they were perfect and there were no mistakes. Also with Chloe being a type person, while I am more of an image person, I learnt from her, and this can be seen in the boards, which are far more professional and look so much better than the boards I created for the print module. This will really help as in future I will have to create presentation boards for each brief.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

This brief has been focusing on promotion, which is a different approach to design production than what I am used to. It will help in future, as when I create a product, I can also consider how I will promote this product, rather than it existing out of context. 

Most of the designs I have done have been digital, but we also did some laser cutting, which is something new to me. I was really pleased with the results from this and think my work can improve from making the most of this in the future.

This is the first time I ever used photos that weren’t mine and I thought I would have preferred to use my own, however, I understand this is more realistic, as designers work with photographers and other designs in a real design job.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalize on these?

After having my tutorial during this brief, I now understand what I need to do to improve my grades and therefore my design work. This is to link what I put on my design context blog to the work I am creating, this helping me to try new things and create better designs. I have tried to do this throughout my designs in this brief, and I have definitely noticed the improvement, so I will continue to do this in future. For example, with the websites I have created designs for, I would have previously designed one that I thought was okay and just gone with it. However, here, I have created many spin offs, before asking others and working with Chloe to decide which one works best, in the end, creating a far better design than I would have done initially.

I think the work I have created appeals to the target audience, which is something we have considered as it was an important part of the brief. We did a lot of research in to Peacocks and its target audience to ensure our designs were relevant. Through this brief I have kept re-reading the brief and considering what needs to be done, so that I don’t go off track. I will continue to do this, so that I create work that answers the brief as it should.

I think that overall my designs look better, this is partly because of the constant feedback helping me to improve my work. Also mocking my designs up in context helps everything to become more realistic so this is something I will make sure I keep up to keep improving.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

A weakness is that I didn’t produce as much work as I normally would do. This is because I wanted to work at the same pace as Chloe so that I wasn’t taking over and so that our work loads could be similar, however, I have learnt that in group work this never really happens. I don't think our work loads ended up being the same, I think I worked very hard on this brief and made a lot of decisions and did a lot of design work, which I hope is clear through my contribution boards, but at the same time, I couldn't have done this without Chloe's feedback and the research that she did. I think I have ended up creating better quality work by creating less, but in future I need to find the right balance of quality and quantity of work, to improve my overall outcomes.

I am happy with what I did produce, and think I have learnt a lot, but I think next time I really need to push myself to do more, and do things differently, to create a more exciting outcome.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

-1- Cover a wider range of materials to create a greater quantity of work and make the project more believable. 

-2- I would have liked to create an actual working website to show the website design is suitable, creating design for screen which is different from my usual printed outcomes.

-3- I will think bigger, think beyond the obvious to create an outcome that really stands out - as this is what is needed for a competition entry.

-4- I would like to take my own photos, and improve my photography skills, to enhance my outcomes.

-5- I would have liked to have print more things rather than just mocking them up in context, as I think things look better when they are printed, if they are designed to be, as stock choices can really effect the final outcome.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas

(5= excellent 4=very good 3=good 2=average 1=poor)
Attendance = 4
Punctuality = 4
Motivation = 3
Commitment = 4
Quantity of work produced = 2
Quality of work produced = 3
Contribution to the group = 4

Product / Range / Distribution... [Final Submission Boards]

My Final Boards

YCN... Module Submission Boards

My own 5 presentation boards to say what I did and my input in to the ideas for the YCN brief.

Final Creative CV Design

My final printed 4 page CV with examples of work (printed in the library as the stock there is thicker with a slight gloss) with bellyband (printed in digital print on to tracing paper) and stickers (printed on to 150gsm sticker paper in digital print). Each CV was sent with a personalised letter about why I had chosen the company and what I asking for. Sent first class. 

View Progress Report to see who I sent it to.

CV Blog Posts:

Creative CV Research

Content for Creative CV

What Is A Creative CV?

Who Will I Send My CV to?

Final Creative CV

CV Contact Progress

PPD ~ Group Workshop ~ Web

Notes from the web sessions workshop with Lorraine:

What could the pages for the website be and what would the content on these pages be?

1. Home //

- News feed, few images of work, name and what you do

2. About //

- Info about education, basic skills summary, services I offer, a downloadable CV

- Be careful not to repeat yourself!

3. Portfolio //

- Clients you have worked with, images of work, information about collaborations

- Could be in categories e.g. digital / print or type / image, but at the moment we probably don't have enough work to put it into categories as we don't want bare pages

4. Contact //

- Phone, email, studio address, links to social media for news (twitter, tumblr, Facebook)

5. Shop //

- Buy prints, stationery etc. - State if available for commissions

Then we had 15 minutes to design a scamp for our website, then we got some anonymous feedback from others which was really useful as there were some bits I was unsure about if I needed them or not.

Feedback

1.

- Simple and effective

- Centre align the images and take out the news feed

- Maybe use less images

2.

- Too many images!

- Would be useful to have your name as well as the logo

- Centre align page images

3.

- Maybe lower the amount of images

- 1 or 2 key pieces of work

- Other than that, nice layout can see it looking nice

4.

- Simple and clear

- Straight to the point

- Maybe have just one image on display

5.

- Consider margins

- Maybe liven up images and news feed with buttons

Logo Design

For my website and my social media its important I have a logo, as the banner that is on my business cards and blog is too wide to use as a general logo. I want my logo to match in with this though, so I've taken elements from this banner and played around with them, such as the shapes, colours and the typeface. It needs to be quite simple so that it will work at different sizes and so that it will work in black and white. Here are my experiments:

I like the colours that are created from the overlapping shapes, and think I will go with something like this.

For the tumblr profile picture, the shape needs to be a square, so I have changed this in to a square to fit in with this. I still need to correct a few things and make sure everything is equal and laid out right before I print them.

However, after a bit of thought, while I did like this new logo, the overlapping colours caused the colours to not actually be the same as those in my colour scheme for this. These are the colour specifications I need to stick to to stop my designs from becoming overcomplicated, to make printing cheaper as I will just be using a limited number of colours, and to make sure all of my pieces match.

I tried experimenting with different shapes for the logo as I knew I wanted something different from everyone else, as most people seem to be using circles with their initials cut into them. I've made these shapes based on the pattern behind them. So I eventually decided on a hexagon and then needed to play about with the positioning of the shapes, such as whether or not there should be a gap. The logo I have decided on in the end is one of my very first ideas, but neatened up so the shapes are the right size. This was a long process but now I'm happy with the final logo!

I've changed the logo on my tumblr to the final one and think it looks much more professional...

Final Logo and Stickers

I've printed my final logo on to sticker paper to use to seal my CV's and for other branding work.

Experimenting further

- Could create a pattern with logo

- Business cards could include the logo rather than the banner

- Needs to work in greyscale for if it can't be printed on a colour printer

PPD ~ Tech Sessions

These are my notes from the tech sessions with Lorraine that we had after the workshops with Simon.

Lecture 1

Why make a website?

Purpose - promotion, point of contact, sales, persuade, inform

Audience - industry professionals (networking), other creatives (collaboration), interested individuals/companies, educational purposes

Essential content - style of work, capabilities (portfolio), contact information, about, whatever the audience wants/expects to see

Content on homepage - simple navigation on each page, personal branding, work, news, basic about (name!)

Consider:

Functionality - does it work?

Usability - does it work well?

Aesthetics - is it well designed?

How do you use a website? You look for anything that is interesting and resembles what you are looking for. People only wait a few seconds for the website to load before giving up, so need to make sure images are small file sizes so load quicker.

Look at book - Steve Krug - Don't make me think

Web Design

1. Make a storyboard

2. Write the body text

3. Gather images

4. Then start designing in dreamweaver

Photoshop

- Use the slice tool (behind the crop tool), to slice the image and save the images separately. Save for web and devices (the crops are highlighted in blue) at 72dpi, with the quality about 60 or 70, and rename the images after you save them as they will just be saved as image slice.

- You can do this for your rollover links to make sure they are the same size, but you will need to hide the other layers, and save again

As an example, I've sliced up an image for a website design that I made for the YCN brief. I wish I had known about this tool sooner as it could have saved me so much time on previous things! But I'm sure I'll make good use of it now.

Lecture 2

First we looked through an example of a brief which is an example of what not to accept to do. The brief was asking for a lot of work, that would have to be done by about three people, expecting one person to do all this for free. We are designers, not web developers.

Photoshop

We looked again at the slice tool that we looked at last week and some more functions with this.

This shows you how long a selected image will take to load. [1 sec for this example]

You can select just the slices you want rather than them all. Go save - slices - selected slices. Can select more than one.

Can save as a HTML file as well but uses table code rather than divs, so it is recommend not to do this, as div's are more modern and work better.

The files are then saved to their own images file.

Dreamweaver

This is an example of a comment. The coloured code is for the computers benefit, the greyed out bits are the comments, which the computer ignores, so you can write notes to remind you what each bit is for. They are made with this code

<!-- comment -->

 

 This is the button on dreamweaver to apply the comment. To remove the comment use the button underneath.

You can choose to ignore a bit of html, to show you what a certain part of the page would look like without a bit of coding. This can be useful if you are unsure about a bit of code but you don't want to delete it and lose it.

This is the collapse full tag button. It folds up a piece of code that you know you don't want to change, a bit like locking a layer on illustrator that you know you don't want to accidentally mess with. 

 

This is what the tag looks like when it has been collapsed. If you hover over it you can see what the code is. To expand it back to normal code, either double click it or click on the expand all button.

Remember HTML is for content, CSS is for design style.

---

These are useful tips, and I am also reading the Web Standardistas book.

I am learning how to create my own website following the Dreamweaver workshops, so I have been reading this book that has been recommended to us. I have also started doing a lot of research in to website design and found that this is something that I am interested in that I didn't really think about before. Hopefully in Summer I will build my own website and buy my domain to get it all live!

Things I have learnt from the book so far:

- History of the world wide web and what XHTML is