Friday 12 November 2010

Self Promotion Series - 4/10

Optimise opportunities...



Nobody has pitched an idea to me for the cover!

Tadpoles to Frogs

CLauter
Consider the tadpole halfway through his transformational journey into a frog. Poor little fellow has 2 legs and a big tail. We can see the potential in him to be able to hop around in the future, but he's not there yet. He wouldn't survive on land. He's not fully developed.

Reviewing your design work yesterday, I came up with this analogy to help you understand how I see some of your work. It's so sad when your work is underdeveloped, I can see the potential within what you've done, but alas you don't develop and refine it into the stunning piece it could be.

Why is that? I think there are a number of causes.

Firstly time management, in a three week brief, only working on your designs the day before class means that you have 3 increments in your design before the next assignment. Work on it for 45 minutes a day, and you'll have 18 increments in your design before the next assignment. You know that sleeping on the design gives you perspective on it - the next morning you can clearly see what's working and what's not. 18 sleeps means you're more likely to hand in a frog for submission, not a poor two legged tadpole.

Secondly, I think some of you are struggling to apply yourself. You need to discipline yourself. Create an environment where you can focus - switch off your mobile, don't answer the phone or door, put music on to drown out other noises if required, close Facebook, log-out of any IM services, close your email - focus. If you get a job in a graphic design company, you're going to be expected to sit at your desk from 9-5 (usually longer) and churn out the goods. If you can't apply yourself, you need to do some serious soul searching as to why.

Thirdly you are all still developing your ability to construct and deconstruct messages. The more you immerse yourself in brilliant design, illustration, typography, advertising, packaging, editorial design etc, the more you are going to learn what works and why. You'll learn to interpret messages accurately and fully understand if they work for a specific audience. These analytical skills need to be worked on and refined over time. Your analytical research and your honest reflective writing on your work is critical to helping you realise your potential.

When the hand-in day arrives, I really want to see frogs. Lots of frogs. Please don't let yourselves down.

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Ask questions, Ask more questions, and then Ask some more questions

- Who said your logo had to be your name?
- Who said the business card or letterhead had to be standard sizes?
- Who said the letterhead had to be single sided?


The most important part of any design project is the initial negotiation/conversation with the client. Making assumptions instead of asking questions can lead your design response down a road unnecessarily. There's nothing more wonderful than discovering - after questioning - that you client is giving you some creative freedom to design something extraordinary.

Friday 5 November 2010

Inspiration

I've previously talked about my hoarding instinct - I keep beautiful images and quotes and refer to them for inspiration. Out of curiosity  I had a look today at how my hoard was developing - over 8500 images in just over a year. That equates to finding approximately 23 stunning things a day!

If you hadn't already gathered - I'm extremely picky - liking roughly 1 in 50 things that I see. So I've consumed a vast amount to build a hoard of this size. I find it no chore to digest massive amounts of visual information, it's a pleasure. Rather like the Victorian butterfly collector, I cherish rare beauties and pin them in my book to reflect on later.

I frequently revisit the hoard and delete anything that no longer 'speaks' to me. This is a natural evolution of my taste and eye. This analysis helps to identify trends in my collection: colour spectrums, light and shadow, atmosphere, nature, kawaii, minimalism etc.  

I hope that soon the right platform will exist for me to have my entire hoard in a cloud based archive (rather like delicious) where I can use my own taxonomy to tag the images. In the meantime I'll keep collecting and digitising my paper hoard...

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Rymdreglage: 8-bit trip

Honk if You're Human

BBC Knowledge - Honk If You're Human from Sean Pecknold on Vimeo.

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 10/10

L.S.Lowry

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 9/10

Liam Spencer

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 8/10

Laputa (Castle in the Sky) by Studio Ghibli

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 7/10

Udronotto

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 6/10

Zutto

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 5/10

Shuichi Nakano

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 4/10

Hort

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 3/10

Retro Futurs

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 2/10

Tiny Media Empire

Cityscapes Inspiration Series 1/10

Always with Honor