OUPD301 Links

Tutorials & Briefings

Module Briefing
Oct 2nd Group Tutorial
Oct 9th Group Tutorial
Jan Tutorial Preparation
Jan 15th Group Tutorial

Design Strategy

Design Strategies Briefing
Design Strategies Presentation (Sept 2012)
Freelance Start Up Idea
PPD Plan
Considering all career options
Freelance & Live Work
Summer Plans 2013
Studios to contact
I need a job.
Presentation (April 2013)

End of Year Show Proposal Form
End of Year Show Proposal for Tutorial 2
End of Year Show Idea Update


Visits / Placements / Exhibitions
Degree Shows
London: New Blood & New Designers
Holden & Sons Placement
Holden & Sons Placement 2
Places / Exhibitions to Visit
Print Visit & Craft Fair
Our Graphic Design Exhibition
Manchester Print Fair and Gallery
Fedrigoni White Lies
Planned Placement
Holden & Sons Placement 3
Visiting Professionals at LCA

YCN
I won YCN!
YCN Annual
YCN Awards Ceremony
My Work on YCN Website
YCN Annual Photographs

Design Presence

June - Dec 2012:
Branding Inspiration

Updating my CV

Re-brand Idea | Business Cards

Re-brand Progress | Photograph Idea
Re-brand Progress | New CV
Re-brand Progress | Logo & Social Media Update
Re-brand Progress | Blog Banners
Re-brand Progress | Mini Portfolio
Re-brand Progress | Website
Re-brand Progress | Final Business Cards
Re-brand Products | Overnight print samples
Other Printers to Consider
Promotional Material Display
Promotional Material Update
More Print Samples
Paper Samples

Jan - May 2013:
Updated Business Cards
Portfolio Update: CV
Portfolio Page Design
Portfolio for Surgery
Portfolio Feedback (Ben)
Portfolio Feedback (Andy)
Re-brand | Logo
Re-brand | Colour
Re-brand | Updating Social Media
Re-brand | Business Cards
Portfolio Update
Logo Idea
Portfolio Feedback (Dave)
Logo Stamp
Promo Pack
Final Business Cards
Updated Social Media / Online Presence
Business Stationery
Updated Portfolio
Updated CV
Mini Look Book
Printed Branding

Freelance Work

Book Submission
Little Beauties | Freelance Work
Little Beauties | Progress
Little Beauties | Postcard Designs
OUGD301 ~ Brief 5 ~ Freelance Branding

Evaluations

Beginning of summer
Continuous Summer Evaluation
End of summer evaluation
OUGD301 Weekly Evaluation
OUGD301 Module Evaluation
Targets for FMP
OUGD303 Weekly Evaluation
OUGD303 Interim Evaluation
OUGD303 Module Evaluation
OUPD301 Module Evaluation

Printed Branding

Here are examples of my printed branding. I have kept it simple, but I think the use of my stamp is a nice finishing touch. I am still waiting for my final business cards to arrive, and I think I should also purchase some paper in my colour purple, as I might find this useful.

Printed on to bulky newsprint. 

Deliverables include: letterhead paper, personalised envelope, business cards, and promotional look book.

I have hand stitched this booklet, using purple thread to match the purple theme in my branding.

OUGD303 Module Evaluation

OUPD301 Module Evaluation

Mini Look Book

Pretty much every industry person I have spoken to has said about preferring receiving printed material, because of the amount of emails they get every day, so I decided to create a mini look book, which I would send out with a business card and a cover letter (printed on to personal letterheads) to studios who I wanted to contact. 

The simple cover design will have the logo stamped on to it in purple. I'll print the look book on to bulky newsprint, as the colours will come out nicely on this.

The look book features 12 pages of my work, giving an insight in to my skills. It doesn't give away all of my work, as I would want to save some things for my portfolio and my website. I am going to saddle stitch the booklet using a lavender thread similar to the colour my logo will be stamped in on the cover.

The design is just based on my updated portfolio design. Thought I'd keep the design pretty simple. These four images work well but then I realised I needed to add a little bit of text in as well.

The pages work a bit like boards with the logo for the project at the bottom.

I have used the vector web template I made to apply to website design.

It was a struggle to decide which four briefs to choose to display. I originally put the Peacocks one in there so I could mention the YCN commendation, but I don't really like this compared to some of the latest work I have created, so I have gone for two branding briefs and two illustration.

These are: Nicole Florence Bradley (branding, packaging and publication), Cow (branding, packaging and website), UK Greetings (hand drawn illustration, product design) and Internet (vector illustration, product design).

Updated CV

I have updated my CV, as some of the content has changed, and because I want to get it looking perfect and ready to send off. I have done this CV three times, because it will need to be used at three different paper sizes, and I need to be careful when moving the information, so that everything still looks good and the type is readable.

* On the printed CV's, my logo will be in my purple colour, and will be stamped on. But I've just placed the logo to show where it would go. *

1.

A3 for in my portfolio

2.

A4 to send out to people and to use as a pdf version

3.

A5 to include in my look book, meaning the content had to be spread on to two pages

Updated Portfolio

A3 Portfolio for end of year show.

I have updated my portfolio again based on feedback I have recieved in my three portfolio reviews.

Business Stationery

Designs for the business stationery.

Letterhead (logo will be stamped on in purple)

Envelopes, for letterhead to be sent in. Will be white on the outside and purple inside.

Printed business stationery:

Updated Social Media

I have updated my social media with the colour that I have chosen for my branding, as well as uploading new content. I then need to work harder to promote this after uploading new work. 

http://claudiagriffin.tumblr.com

http://www.behance.net/claudiagriffin

https://twitter.com/CGriffin_GD

End of Year Show.. Update

After having my tutorial and talking through my ideas with Amber and Phil, I came up with the idea of showing publications instead of products. This was because I was worried I wouldn't be able to produce the packaging to a high enough standard to have on show, and also because it might get ruined with people messing with it. Another point Amber made was that the tables are quite low, so visitors viewpoints will mean that people will be looking down on the products, not at them. I am more confident in my publication design skills, so thought I could still re-create the products to a high standard, and then take high quality photographs, which I would arrange in a publication. The publication could then sit on a mini shelf.

I will still be creating two banners (200cm x 80cm), and by not having a table in front of these, which would take up quite a lot of space, I will have more space on the banners to cover.

I plan to re-make these products in the two weeks after hand in before the show. Although I am still really happy with these briefs image wise, my presentation skills and print knowledge has definitely improved a lot so I am confident I can create better quality final pieces.

End of Year Show Proposal for Tutorial 2

This was a quick mock up of my updated plans for the end of year show, based on my first tutorial. Now that I knew I was just getting two boards, I decided on two projects that I thought would work next to each other, because of the colour scheme. In the plan I have included a table with the idea of re-creating the products that I produced for these briefs to a higher standard, and having these on display. The photographs are examples of the products I initially produced for each brief.

Final Business Cards

I have purchased my final business cards with Velocity Print. I have gone for 400gsm matt laminate, with spot UV. I get 500 cards with this order. The business cards aren't due to arrive until the 3rd June. Waiting longer for the cards to arrive halved the price, meaning that I had the money to spend on going for a more luxurious card.

I knew I wanted something special, and after being disappointed with the quality of moo cards I had printed before, I decided to go with Velocity Print, having been happy with the quality of business cards I purchased with them for the Geek Table and for Lucy's branding brief. 

I had previously printed my business cards in a variety of colours in digital print, and the purple was my favourite colour. I decided to stick with this lavender shade for my branding, having also used it for my design context publication.

Here are a few examples of experimenting with the layout design for the cards.

This is the design I decided to go for on the back of the card.

This is the document I send off. The first two images show what is actually printed on the business cards, where the black images show what I want to be spot varnished.

Can't wait for them to arrive to give out at the end of year show.

Visiting Professionals

Over the years I have attended pretty much every visiting professional talk there has been, finding them all useful or inspirational in some way. Here are my links to those blog posts showing examples of work and the notes I have taken.


Paul Pensom + Mr Bingo
Mark Howe
Shellsuit Zombie
Rob Ryan
The Beautiful Meme
Ric Bell
Robbie Porter
Catalogue
Generation Press
Joe Gilmore (Post 1)
Joe Gilmore (Post 2)
GF Smith
Craig Oldham
Ian Anderson
Team Impression (Visit)
Team Impression
Si Scott
Nick from The Print Project

Get a Job

I am still a bit unsure about whether I want to apply for jobs now, or whether I will wait until after I finish. I don't want to stress myself out applying for jobs and let it effect my last few weeks of final major project, as I feel like everything is going well at the moment.

I have however been looking for jobs, to prepare myself for the kind of things they ask for. Ideally, I would like to find my job by having a placement that went well and then taking a job on at a studio. I would like to know that I like the studio and would be happy there before I apply for a job but I don't know if this attitude is too picky.

When looking for jobs, I've been a bit restricted as I am moving back home due to lack of money. But as I live near Manchester, there seems to be a lot going on there. 

Examples:

http://www.becomeuk.com/search?office=Manchester

Some of the jobs sound good, but it doesn't say who the client is... ideally I'd like to do a lot of research on a studio before I apply for a job there.

http://www.totaljobs.com/

A lot of the jobs I have looked at, I feel like I fit the requirements perfectly, and then they say, requires 3 years experience. How am I supposed to get this experience if no one is going to give me a job? I feel a bit deflated and stressed every time I look for jobs!

Promo Pack

I ordered these envelope samples from www.worldofenvelopes.com to help me to decide which envelope to choose for my promo pack. Nearly every visiting professional has mentioned the importance of sending post rather than just an email, as it makes it more personal. I don't want to just send my product in an ordinary envelope, as I have done this before in 2nd year, and I didn't get any responses.

So choosing the actual envelope is a really important decision as it will make the studio decide whether to open it or whether the mail just gets thrown away. There are some really nice examples available, I didn't even know there was so much choice when choosing envelopes. I can get pretty much any colour and size I want.

Studios to Contact

I need to find more studios, relevant to my design practice, to contact. This may be for a visit, a portfolio review, or in the hope of a placement. I have re designed my branding, updated my portfolio, and am in the process of designing myself a promo pack to send out, in the hope that it will get more response that if I was to just send an email. I also really need to find time to sort out my website, as I don't want to spend time directing studios to my website, which is still incomplete.

At the moment, here are a few examples of who I want to contact:

http://www.holdenandsons.com

I have been invited back to where I did my placement whenever I want, so want to send them my updated portfolio to show how my work has developed.

http://gtcreate.co.uk

http://futuredc.co.uk

http://www.jak-design.co.uk

More to come...

End of Year Show Proposal Form

Description (including nature, scale and quantity of work + methods of display and fixing)

I would like to display my work on three portrait banner boards, with a different project on each board, as shown in the diagram below. I would like to use these banners as a chance to show one detailed element from each project, such as an illustration. I would then like a shelf on each board, to display a product, such as a piece of packaging or a book. This is because a lot of my work has been packaging or editorial and so I think this can be shown better through people looking at the item on a shelf than me taking a photograph of it.

Each board will contain my logo at the bottom as a way to promote myself, and to link the boards in to my portfolio and business cards.

The projects I will show for definite are the Alice in Wonderland and UK Greetings cards, and for the third board, I would like to include a branding project that I have not yet finished. In the diagram below I have included a previous project just to give an example of how the three boards could work together.

If the three boards are not available, I would be happy with two boards, or the banners just on the wall, although ideally I would like a shelf to show off physical products.

Space and Equipment Required:

Board (portrait) x 3

Table (shared) for portfolio

Shelf for each board

Logo Stamp

I have ordered a logo stamp to use on my business stationery. I also want to print stickers. I have thought about ordering an embossing tool also but thought seen as these were so expensive it was better to wait. I'm really impressed with the stamp, but not too sure which colour ink pads to go for. At the moment I've tested it with a gold.

Summer Plans 2013

Summer sounds like a while away but I have already planned a week in London to do as I have done for the past two years, visiting New Blood and New Designers and also some of the degree shows in London, to check out what other people are doing.

As well, I think I should try to be a bit more proactive this year in organising a studio visit. Although I don't want to work in London, (I'm just too northern to cope), it would still be useful seeing whats going on.

I also want to visit the Fedrigoni Showroom, and the YCN shop, as well as other relevant shops to pick up some new inspirational books and designs.

Fedrigoni London Showroom - Pick up paper samples, browse through their collection of paper...

YCN Shop - See the work of their illustrators, and maybe buy some nice inspiring pieces...

72 Rivington Street,London, EC2A 3AY

possibly: arrange a visit