Saturday 19 February 2011

DLKW Lowe placement - email confirmation.

Hey Ellie,

Hope you are well. I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. Work is crazy at the moment!

Working with the dates you gave me I can give you two weeks work experience at DLKW Lowe
from Monday 11th April – Thursday 21st April (as Friday is Easter)

In total this is nine days. As suggested you should bring a friend from your coarse so you can do the weeks together.

The first week you be in the creative department. You will be set a creative advertising brief. This may be Print TV, POS or media neutral. You will work with my department who will arrange your briefing co-ordinate creative reviews with the creative director for you.

You will be expected to present your idea in this meeting with the CD and talk through all your ideas. He will then give you some direction and you can go away and development your route and review with him again towards the end of the week.
You will sit in the creative department with your friend and have a company PC each to work from.

From Monday the 18th you will be in our Design Studio The Composing Room
(they are on the 2nd floor but still part of our company)

You will both have Mac’s here with in-design, illustrator and Photoshop for you to use.
You will be set an assignment by our head of type and our head of digital design. Again you can use these people to ask advice and learn about the kind of briefs you receive as a designer and all the things that effect your output. Like brand guidelines and timings as well as influences from Art directors.

Also while up here I’m hoping you can spend some time working with Steve Brown who is learning HTML 5 and also Glenn our
hi-end retouching and CGI artist.

I’m hoping that will give you a good enough understanding so I can confidently place you in some other companies throughout the summer if I can work it out.

Let me know your thoughts and if that all sounds ok for you.

If yes, please send me through your full name and address along with your selected friends details so I can get everything into place.

If you are worried or concerned about any of the above, just email me back or call me and we’ll chat.

Nx

Natalie Winford, Creative Services Director
60 Sloane Avenue, London SW3 3XB
www.dlkwlowe.com
Direct: (020) 7894 5243 Agency: (020) 7584 5033

Wednesday 16 February 2011

OUGD202 self-evaluation


This module has by far been the most challenging to get my head around than any previous one. I think it is probably the fact that I have got so used to producing static designs that this has been a real learning curve. It took a long time to realize that on top of what I am used to… I have a whole new programme to learn and an entire new range of processes to go through before my product is complete. This lead to time management issues as I really didn’t consider the amount of time it actually takes to animate, render and upload.
At first, I was incredibly excited about this module and the amount we were going to learn in the process… this soon turned to frustration. I had so many ideas, but when it came to the software, it seemed there was a barrage in my head. It just didn’t seem to want to do what I asked (which is another way of saying that I was clearly wasn’t asking it in the right way). I took hours watching tutorials over Christmas but the information never seemed to go in.  However, when I got back into the design swing upon returning in January, things started to click, especially with Mike’s help and the really well thought out inductions we were given. I started to enjoy it more.
Looking back, the decision of doing dogs as my Top ten subject was a rash one. I didn’t want to produce anything I had done before (both twitter and hi-tops came up in my  train of thought). I now regret doing dogs just because of the difficulty in trying to get dogs to behave like dogs with the basic training that we have been given. Although looking at my idents, I am rather proud of what I have achieved.
Again, this module, like all others before it, brought time management issues with me. I kept going off on different tangents of ideas… probably went through about 5 different final ideas before I settled on using vectorised dogs. I tried out hand-drawn… which in hindsight was silly as I am not so good at drawing, I just liked what I drew in my head I think.
Along with teaching me a lot about AfterEffects, my illustrator skills greatly improved during this module as my entire animation was based on it. Working out the layers and how they would move was probably one of my favourite parts of the design process… and the most frustrating when one minor glitch lead to hours of unpicking both illustrator files and keyframes.
The part of my final pieces that I am most proud of are my idents, probably because they took a lot more thought (I don’t know why I prioritised them over the title sequence) and they seemed to take a lot more time to produce than the final product.
I, once again, did not leave myself enough time to really do myself proud and I am frustrated that, once again, things happened in my life outside college that took my thoughts away from the project as I feel I could actually have produced a really brilliant piece of work. However, what I have produced still astounded me. If you had told me 3 months ago that I would have been able to do this now, I would not have believed it. It has definitely been a learning curve.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Enterprise and Innovation - Task 2 - Where are they? - How will they find me?

Where are they? Design for the music industry.

Local - http://www.asylumseventy7.co.uk/



Mark Leary is a freelance designer based in Leeds, incorporating different styles of design and covering a wide range of skills and areas surrounding design for the music industry.

ABOUT


ASYLUMseventy7 is artist, illustrator, designer, photographer, guitarist, music freak, kung fu master and 6'5 midget-gem fuelled, bizarre concoction of cheerful pessimism, Mark Leary.
With a sublimely distinctive style, Mark explores every project with enthusiasm and maturity. He hates shallow work! Influenced by the weird and wonderful - be it music, art, fashion or people - he enjoys taking projects left-field and loves nothing more than working with people who have the same passion for exploring the new and experimenting with the norm, to create something that shows the best of his abilities and their desires.
A skilled artist with a BA(hons) in Illustration, Mark had been working with clothing, print and merchandise companies for a number of years when, in 2005, his work was showcased at theNew Designers exhibition in London - an event which catapulted him into the spotlight and led to the formation of ASYLUMseventy7 in 2006 as a base for all his creative work.  




This is a blog, a new website is coming, which I have had the privilege of seeing (brilliant design). 
They are a design company for a record label called Lab... for which they design all aspects of promotional material for the bands on the label (music videos, t-shirt designs, promotional material). 
They are based in Manchester but the work spreads across the country. 





This is another blog which I have been advised to look into. The design is brilliant and the client list is impressive. 

ABOUT 


‘Godmachine Lives in South Wales, Uk with his wife, two cats and his beard. Inspired in his youth by
skatebording and comics and being self taught, Godmachine has managed to carve a space for himself
and make a huge impact on the merch world...and soon everywhere else..’


Featured in Creative Arts Magazine as one of the Uk’s most inspiring emerging artists.

“this dude rules, unnerving design work which is truly a sight to behold.” Rockett Clothing

“when I grow up I want to be Godmachine” Chet Zar

"Godmachine continues to be a powerful force in the merch design scene. Intense illustrations
like no other!" Jeff Finley, GoMedia.us

“the most inspiring artist I know, he is the one with the ideas that people copy” Jon Richards

“a pleasure to work with and always delivers 110% on work” Disturbia

"Godmachine consistantly inspires and innovates. Instead of following trends, he plows past the
mundane and creates new ones. I always look at his work to see where others will be a year
from now." Josh Belanger.



ABOUT

I’m Filipe Oliveira (Survival), born in 1982 and based in Portugal. I’m a self-taught designer/illustrator and I’ve been working freelance since 2000.

My work consists mostly in designing merchandise for bands and clothing brands but i’m always looking for new clients in different areas so feel free to get in touch with me and tell me about your project.
This is a freelance designer from Portugal whom I really admire. 


Internationalhttp://www.gomedia.us/
I know this design company is not specifically one for just the music industry but it is a strong area that they work with frequently. 


ABOUT 

We are intensely passionate about art and design’s ability to enrich the lives of our clients and their customers.
In 2001, the founders of Go Media Inc. made the commitment to break from the constraints of traditional design services and give the marketplace a next-generation creative agency. The belief was that the digital age was providing us tools to develop captivating pieces of art for any medium. Art that could be turned into marketing solutions for any organization, large or small. We believed that new technology could be used to enhance graphic design and reduce costs and time to market. This vision has only become clearer over the years as we continue to push the envelope and exceed our client’s expectations.
Go Media has built a creative team with a passion for originality and a keen ability to apply their imagination to meet the needs of our clients. Though sometimes painful, we enjoy riding the bleeding edge of technology and exploring how new tools can benefit that “next” project. Reaching the modern consumer, with its short attention span, requires a creative agency who not only recognizes innovation, but knows how to leverage those trends and make them stand out amongst the ordinary.
We are constantly looking forward, on our client’s behalf, to deliver scalable solutions that can quickly adapt to the changing landscape of your market. With the firm belief that your success is absolutely critical to our own, we are planning for the results you need right at the onset of each project engagement. We want all of our clients, regardless of size, to consider us as long-term partners with their best interest at heart. We welcome new clients with open arms and enjoy learning about what drives them and where they want to GO.

Design for the music industry seems to be a widespread business.






Enterprise and Innovation - Task 1 - Who am I? - Who are they?

List of possible client groups - 


The music industry -
Merchandise
Album covers
Promotion

Snowsports companies - 
Ski + snowboard design
Promotion (billboards, posting around resorts, brochures etc...)

Food companies - 
Packaging
Promotion
Branding

Retail -
Advertising
Clothing design
Fashion
Shop floor brand identity

Chosen client group - The music industry




I feel that the music industry does not just require designers, it requires designers who are passionate about the work they are producing, experts in their chosen field.
If they are designing for a certain band, they need to know everything about that band, and the look/ideas that they are going for. They need to get them involved with the design process.
A band is a brand... they need to sell themselves, not just musically.
Music is a piece of art that people collect, the album covers, the single covers, the collectors editions, the merchandise... the promotional material. And this requires designers. Brilliant ones.
The skills required vary depending on what area/areas you want to cover in this business.
A strong knowledge of software is needed as a lot of design is based on this. After effects is also a useful skill to possess when it comes to animating and moving promotion.
I possess a strong knowledge of the music industry, having been a passionate member and admirer from a young age, living amongst musicians and worked alongside different designers and photographers used for different aspects of design in this industry. I have been behind the scenes at the building of a few albums... been there when important decisions were made (such as cover art and different promotional methods).
With this knowledge I feel that I could add my software and design skills to make myself very useful in a highly sought-after profession.
To further my knowledge, I am going to start looking deeper into the world of an actual designer in this industry, ask them questions and really get the feel of what a day to day in this profession is like.
I am also focusing on doing live briefs to further my experience in this area... I have been asked to design a few t-shirts and artwork for certain bands, to really think about the audience. For example, a band who have only got t-shirts designed for men have asked me to re-think their direction on maybe producing a female version, thinking about type and colour to appeal to that audience. This and furthering my software skills I think will help me establish a thorough understanding of the industry.