by aaron sims

contents

not the main building, the wright building

there’s no I in team

a natter about design with chris banks

magpies. why not?

london shoreditch exhibition

where my lies as a future designer

design companies i’d love to work for

this is no shopping list

whatever 3rd year throws at me, i’ll take it on

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not the main building, the wright building

A moment i have been looking forward too since knowing it was going to happen. I was so far pretty unsure of what the tutors themselves had been upto throughout their design careers and to how they have got to the stage they are now with their design practice.

Finding the room which the tutor talks where going to take place was the first job. Not as simple as it may seem being connected to another building usually associated with such practices as nursing and midwifery. Signage was poor with no “F” rooms listed.

My first thoughts on Marit were that she seems quiet and timid. Maybe her work will be the opposite so that it speaks for itself ? I got the impression that printed publications were Marit’s specialty. Rather than the way that Jonathan worked on time consuming projects which were very cooperate, Marit seemed to enjoy working side by side with the client with a lot more leniency on the creative response to the brief.

marit muenzbergMatthias was the “traveler” of the group. Having visited a range of countries and explored other cultures I felt that he might have the upper hand when creating design internationally. Along with the typographic skill, range of design agencies he has worked for and great knowledge of photography, to say the least I’m glad he is one of my tutors.

matthias hillner

Jonathan Miller being the oldest tutor he seemed to have the wiser edge over everyone else with a very different portfolio of work. He showed us projects which were far more intense and in-depth than others. It seemed as if he prefered to have large extensive breifs which he could spend a vast amount of time on to produce the best possible outcome. He showed us many huge commercial jobs which would have taken a long time meaning a large sum of money could be made.

jonathan millerIdeas Martin. Metaphor Martin. Something along those lines should be his name. Along with great ideas he also seems to have the knack of tying these together, producing great outcomes. It was nice to see work he’d done fresh out of university when trying to “make it” as a freelance graphic designer. Along with a range of the right contacts and a tiny bit of luck with the clients he seems to have produced visually nice work along with the ideas to back them.

martin schooley

a written report

5a written report a written report

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there’s no I in team

live pitch reflection

Being a group from a range of different disciplines we started off well. The problem with multi discipline groups is that everyone has different views on how the same idea could be carried out. As a group we decided to create a website named “Collage” which would be a selective news social networking based site. The user would select the news they want to see and the website would cut out the “crap”. They would be able to share the articles they have read with their friends through the social networking side of the website.

As a group we decided to meet and work together for the whole day then disperse at the end of the day with equal amounts of assigned work to do. The benefits of this where that the combined hours of the work done would mean that a lot could be covered in one night. The disadvantages where that not everyone would pull their weight. Meaning that the next day some people would either not turn up, or turn up with little or no work. Rather than creating a group time plan at the start we just decided at the end of each day who was going to do what. These short-term goals were not the best option for us as it meant that stuff wouldn’t get done and put us behind in our non-existent schedule which we would later find out about.

This meant that the bulk of our work had to be created last minute including a sleepless night the day before the pitch. This meant that the quality of the visuals produced for the final pitch were botched meaning that someone with good presenting and speaking skills would be needed to fully get our idea across to the panel of judges.

I feel the presentation itself was rather tacky due to rushing and that the majority of it was produced by a product design student with little/ no knowledge of layout and composition. If I would have known this I could have had an input in the designing of the presentation and he could have done the main bulk of the speaking being very confident in that area, where I am the latter. Two awards where given out, one being for presentation and the other, the idea. To my surprise we actually won the competition in terms of the idea. I knew we had a very profitable and realistic idea but I did not think that due to the poorly executed visuals we had a chance of winning. All in all it was a hard but interesting week that I was able to use skills gained from previous A level business and the marketing side of my degree to really show my potential as a multi-disciplined designer.

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there’s no I in team

live pitch reflection

COLLAGE

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a natter about design with chris banks

The great thing about being a designer is the great amount of networking that can be done simply. Whether physical or online designers can network through meeting at the same events such as exhibitions or design talks or on websites such as Behance in which users can showcase their best work. Chris Banks has been working in the industry for two years now since graduating from Hertfordshire University two years ago. Since receiving his First Class Honors he has worked with such clients as Karen Millen and for the design studio, 300 Million. His talk had a sort of theme being how design can relate to dating or love lives.

You have two sorts of designers, freelancers and design team members. Freelancers a lot of the time would be single people not in a relationship where people in long-term relationships seemed to work best as part of a team of designers. I feel like I come under this, as I like the opinions of many rather than going by my knowledge or lack of in this stage of the game. Although not currently working due to 300 million closing down his interesting portfolio and CV considering his short time in industry should land him back in work in no time!

design talk

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singlein a relationshipit’s complicated

design talk design talk

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magpies. why not?

review of design companies

Here is my unbiased comparison of the work of two very different design companies. Even though my love for one of them is stronger… ha. I feel these two companies are very different and fit in to different groups. Magpie studio is very ideas based and produce work that not only looks good but also has a strong idea to back it up. Why Not Associates are more about what the final outcome looks like and producing beautiful looking design.

Magpie Studio’s are great at visual identities, which not only look great but also have a quirky idea behind them. They created an identity for “The Vegetable Bar”. Taking two simple objects relating to both the words they have created a range of silhouettes, which work well on all aspects of the identity and are completely interchangeable.

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Why Not Associates have created an identity for a postproduction agency called ENVY. Although the work is beautifully crafted and visually appealing there doesn’t seem to be any real idea behind it. The thoughts and ideas seem to have gone into how the identity can be applied to all aspects of the company and the items they use.

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It’s great being so close to the UK’s Capital of design if it wasn’t for the extortionate train fares. £17 these days! Anyway aimed to get up there for around midday with Max to visit the Kemistry Gallery in Shoreditch and anything else which took our fancy on the way. Upon reaching Old Street station there were many great pieces of street art amongst the built up urban cityscape. Every side road seemed to have an interesting bookshop, design studio or privately owned café. Up the street itself there were 3 to 4 studios in which we stared in awe through the windows at the contemporary up and coming designers and their work. This really put in perspective where I could be working in a few years time if everything goes to plan. Finally we reached the gallery.

The space itself was a small rectangular room approximately 5m x 10m. The work was evenly spaced from left to right around the room. With all the posters being the same size (A1), this really added to the rigid grid like format in which the posters where displayed. They were hung in a way, which I had never seen before. Behind them was a metal sheet in which the posters stuck to through the use of magnets. The work itself was a range of abstract posters for events, film and music carried out in a very colourful stylistic way. None of which contained film stills or photographs of the stars. Being polish posters from the 60’s and 70’s it was hard to make out what they were specifically about but they looked beautifully designed for purpose and as pieces of art.

visually documented report

london shoreditch exhibition

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where my lies as a future designer

future hopes and ambitions

Ever since joining my secondary school and doing what they called “Graphics” I’d thought it was something I could see myself doing in the future. At first I didn’t really know what graphic design was and was falsely made to believe that product and graphic design where the same thing. Collage was my first small realization of what graphic design actually was when studying for my Foundation Art and Design Diploma. I had a great graphic design teacher who helped me to understand what it was and where to look for good design.

He inspired me and introduced me to all angles of the industry and where a degree in the subject could branch out. My immediate aims are to wow the rest of my year by pulling something interesting out the bag for each brief set in my third year. I see myself working as part of a team of designers rather than a individual. Chris Banks (previous herts graphic design student) really helped me to realise this through a talk of his comparing his graphic design career to dating and love lives.

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design companies i’d love to work for

design companies

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magpie studio

spinthe chasesea design

non-formatstudiomakgillfarrow design

blast

pentagram design

hat-trick design

design companies design companies

Here’s a list of the design companies i’d consider working for the the future. The bigger the type and slice of pie the more i’d work for them. But who am i kidding? I’d work for any of these companies given the chance.

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this is no shopping list

personal design manifesto

1. make mistakes (you’ll learn from them)

2. sleep! not getting enough rest will really have an effect on your work.

3. immerse yourself in excellent, award winning and beautiful 4. design work.

4. take inspiration from other design but don’t plagiarize.

5. attack the brief from every angle! there’s more than one way to crack it.

6. don’t sit at your computer all day. get some fresh air or read the newspaper.

ideas can come from anywhere.

7. print work off and step back from the screen. things look a lot different on

screen than printed.

8. always carry around a way of taking notes. you never know when a good idea

will come to you.

9. typefaces matter. make sure a lot of thought goes in to the one you use as they

make a huge difference on what your work says.

10. time management. write lists and keep track of how much work your doing.

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whatever 3rd year throws at me, i’ll take it on

aims and ambitions

I am so excited about third year and what it has to offer! Wish I could start as soon as my second year ends rather than spend my summer working my part time job at a local pub. Although when I do start 3rd year it will remind me too put all my efforts into working hard and producing great graphic design or ill end up back serving pints to alcoholics.

I feel that this year has really inspired me in the way of creating printed materials such as books. The thing about books over other printed material such as posters is the never ending possibilities and minor details such as binding or the materials used. I find printed publications beautiful but I also understand

the effect on the environment that this may have. Also it could seem as if I am too late in the game to have started graphic design and wanting to produce printed things as the way things are going everything will soon be viewed on screens.

With my dissertation I feel that I could develop the thought of what is going to be printed in the future and what will be fully screen based and the effect that all these methods have on the environment. Although paper may waste trees, what about the carbon footprint being produced with computers, tablets, smart phones and the like?

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whatever 3rd year throws at me, i’ll take it on

aims and ambitions aims and ambitions