Optimise your Exposure

Hopefully you've already seen this as it's had tonnes of coverage. Well done Happiness Brussels and Anthony Burrrill - this is the perfect example of optimising an event/news story to promote yourself and your business.

People will Always need Plates

Have a look at the products available on the People will always need plates website. The Baltic plate (featured here) shows good use of the contours of the plate. Allowing the building to break out from the inner circle and the perspective both also add another dimension to this design.

Self Promotion & Location Promotion

The Tate online shop is a great source of inspiration for your latest project on optimisation and self promotion.

Pictured here is Peter Blake's Limited Edition Tin Plate. You'll also find Natsko Seki's London print, and whole host of comissioned Tate souvenirs.

Light Graffiti

One of Iain's recent posts shows some interesting light graffiti experiments. This area has quite a history - take a moment to look at the amazing photo taken by LIFE photographer Gjon Mili in 1949 of Picasso.

Kyle Saxton graduated in 2009 from the BA (Hons) Visual Arts programme at the University of Salford, his work (pictured here) is a really stunning. Watch him at work in this short film on Vimeo. Kyle also has a website, flickr account, deviant art account and facebook account.


This video about Michael Bosanko is worth watching too:

How to 'sell' your design work in your portfolio

Rob Millington graduated from BA (Hons) Graphic Design at the University of Salford in the summer of 2006. Rob designed the promotional material for the show the cohort had in London to showcase their work.

From the images above the viewer immediately understands that these promotional items weren't just designed - but they went to print too. The viewer has a sense of scale (person holding poster, shoes in top image) and an understanding of the print finish (gloss finish on the invite). The top image shows the scale of the items in relation to each other - the layout is well considered so that they aren't competing with each other and there is a sense of balance. There is a separate close-up celebrating the detail in the typography too. This is an excellent example of how to 'sell' a design project.

Portfolios & Self Promotion

A fantastic article on self-promotion and portfolios on the All Graphic Design website.

Business Names & Letterhead Design

As a freelance Graphic Designer it's important to provide a professional service to your clients. This means that you should know your area of business inside out and stay up-to-date with changes that effect your line of work.

Providing clients with business advice is sometimes necessary to prevent problems later on in the design process. For example start-ups aren't always aware of the legal obligations with with regard to stationary and occasionally even the company name. Developing long-term relationships with clients is important to your business, so giving clients great advice in the beginning is a fantastic way to cement the relationship early on.

Have a read through these:

Letterhead Legal Requirements post on StartUps.co.uk
A report on the Business Names Act 1985 on Link4Business
Business Names Act 1985 on the Government website
A guide about Incorporation and Names on the Companies House website
Naming your Business Guide on the BusinessLink website