PPP: Evaluation

Personal Practice:

This year has been a year where everything has come together. I feel that I now understand who I am as a designer more  and I know trust what I do more and don't doubt my capabilities or my way of thinking about design. Although it has been an incredibly demanding and difficult year it can only be seen as a positive thing as it has encouraged that drive that you need to succeed in life.

I feel that the skills I have developed have been my confidence and my communication skills which are two skills that I have been wanting / needing to develop since first year. I now feel comfortable doing presentations as we have done so many different ones this year which has been good as it has now become a still a bit scary every day occurrence. We have also had chanced to pitch for briefs where we have had to pitch in front of potential clients, this was bit more daunting as we were not aware of who we were pitching in front of (whole L6 class of interdisciplinary) (winter light festival committee) we got through it successfully and it was a great feeling delivering an idea to the actual intended client / audience.  In first and second year I struggled to put my ideas across in a clear way so that people would understand what I was talking about when describing a brief, but I now feel that I can do this as it is something we have practiced though portfolio surgeries.

I have learnt this year who I want to be as a designer and who I don't want to be. I now have a clear understanding of my ethos and goals and what I want to achieve which has been great as it has pushed my drive even more.

Things that I still need to improve / if I could re do would do differently would be contacting studios. Although I have now contacted a lot of studios and had response I only started doing so in December when really I should have started in the summer but due to not knowing what to say / not feeling ready to show my work I put it off as long as I could. Now that I have a portfolio that I am proud of I feel I can actually contact studios comfortably as I now have a portfolio which I can talk about which I see as very important.

As I said in my PPP presentation this year for me has been about finding my feet, being a sponge soaking up information/learning and achieving it has been a hugely beneficial year and has prepared me successful for the real world of graphic design




Say My Name:

I am really happy with how Say My Name is getting on. Although it is really early days, we took the decision to get things rolling and organised once we had finished with our degrees as we really want to focus on Say My Name and not rush into anything / get anything wrong. We started Say My Name as four and now we have become three, as Greta took the decision that she no longer wanted to work with us for reasons that I won't go into. This at the time was a great shame as we really like the dynamic of the studio but we had to respect Greta decision and the fact that she wants to go solo. So it became myself, Mike and Lizzi and so far it has worked out great. All the collaborative briefs that we have done together : End of year show, Interdisciplinary (art and design) year book, Face In't-Mud and winter light have all come out really well and I would happily show them off in my portfolio which I see as a sign that a project has been successful if I can talk about it and am happy to show it off.

We have had some great opportunities and advise as Say My Name through going on studio visits and  through emailing studios we admire. The response has been great and everyone has been so supportive in our venture which has spurred us on more to succeed and that this is a risk that we are all passionate about taking. All the advise that was given was from independent studios that we had contacted for reasons like they had were once in our boat and to hear their success stories is really inspirational and forward driving for us.

So far we have a few things put in place like our studio name, a domain name, a studio ethos, drafts for business mock ups like invoices and contracts, but we have a lot to carry on with and sort out in the next coming weeks once we are all handed in. We do however have a number of exceitng things set in place for the future like the pitch we one for Winterlight Festival we have that to look forward to and work on in December, we also have Adopt a band which myself and greta set up where bands in need of design come to us and at this moment there are 4 bands waiting for design work so that has some potential to grow into something big, we have a job offer to do some design for the hotel works at and we also have been given an opportunity to send our collective portfolio off to a large creative marketing agency in London who I got talking to. The founder Mark asked what I do and the conversation about Say My Name came up and he was really excited by what we want to do and inspired by our passion and work ethos. His company The black and white agency work with freelance designers and so we would have an opportunity to try this out if they approve of our portfolio. Although this is not necessarily the area of design we are interested in going into, any opportunity we are thrown we will cling onto it and take it as the more we do the more we will be out in the real world.

With all these coming opportunities I am feeling very positive about Say My Name and it has made finishing uni pretty exciting as the future is very unknown and going to be hard but I think it will be worth it.

PPP: Portfolio

PPP3: Winterllight festival feedback

We have just received some feedback from our pitch for the Winterlight job. We discovered that we had been selected to work with winter light a few weeks back which was really promising and exciting and so to receive written feedback about how the pitch went is really promising. We as a group are really excited to work with Winterlight as we believe what they are doing is really great, the whole community, helping each other out is something that is really special and to be involved with it will be a privilege.

Group 2 Say My Name Studio

The presentation at the college by the students was engaging, friendly and extremely informative about the concept of the designs. We enjoyed the discussion and  remarked that the three students acted as a team, spoke clearly and presented themselves as professional designers.

The logo linked successfully to the brief as it was flexible and could be used in a variety of ways. We felt the idea of using a photogram was novel and very useable for Winterlight. The idea of photosensitive printing inks was exciting as was the concept of involving sponsors with a transparent window sticker. We felt this group used the idea of light and linked it successfully to the brief. The copywriting ideas "there are 3709 light bulbs..." was excellent and again this is an idea we would like to develop in conjunction with the group. We will be happy to work with Say My Name and develop the ideas for the Festival next December.

PPP3 : SELF BRANDING

Self branding:

I am really happy with my self branding. I feel that it is an accurate representation of what I do and how I want to be seen. I am also happy that I managed to find a way to incorporate the branding for Say My Name into my own personal branding as the two things go hand and hand. I know how two sets of business cards one where it is just my own branding and information, which is what I would give to a  potential  employer   and then I have the personal branding with Say My Names information on for potential clients. The business cards that I have handed in are just mocks up and prototypes whilst I look for the right to printers to print my identity.

PPP : Personal branding

This is the development for my personal branding. I do not want to label myself as a graphic designer as I quite like the air of mystery when it does't state what a person does, it compels me to look at a persons website more to see what they do. I much prefer this simplistic layout compared to the layouts I was experimenting with before. This layout also matches the layout we have created for Say My Name so I feel they will work better together.

 

 

Below is the final layout for my business card it achieves the simplistic look I was aiming for and also ties in with Say My Name which is another thing I wanted to be taken into account.

I have developed the Say My Name factor further by making my business card into a folded business card. On the outside I will have my branding and my information and on the inside I will have the studios name and information. This add another layer and purpose to my business card. The inside will be a pastel colour as I think this is good representation of my work as when I have used colour it generally has been of a pastel variety. This colour pallet is also what we are using for say my name so it is relevant. 

The logo for Say My Name is fluid and made of varying typefaces that represent each of us as the mantra of the studio is that it is personable and represents us as humans.

I am happy with this as my business card and think it will work visually as an interesting business card that serves two purposes.

PPP3 : Say My Name branding

Say My Name branding

For the branding of Say My Name we wanted to create a sense of consistency whilst also allowing each of us to present ourselves as individuals. We want Say My Name branding to work with our own personal branding so that we can market Say My Name further a field. We have decided to do this by using the typeface that is featured in our own personal branding as an element of consistency, so my personal business card uses the typeface Brandon Grotesque and so my business card for Say My Name will also use this , another  example of  a typeface that would be used would be Lizzi's who uses Premier in her personal branding and so again there will be a business card for Say My Name in premier as shown bellow.

I think the simplicity of the card works well, it is clear with information and works well as it does not overpower the person who picks it up.

PPP: Personal branding

Branding:

Last year I really like my personal branding but looking back there are certain aspects of it that I would change. I am going to alter these changes and simplify a lot of things like my promotional pack as I think when it comes to promoting oneself it is sometimes best to do less is more and last years matches may be seen by some as a bit gimmicky so to keep all happy I am going for a more simplistic approach.

Below is my branding from last year.

Simplified:

I have decided to use the above as my logo. It is a spliced version of last years branding , it has been striped of the colour as I felt that although I do feel that the colour is an accurate representation of what I use/do I think there are better ways of applying this concept through the use of stock rather then having colour directly on my branding.

Buisness card:

These are a few experimentations with my business card, non of which I am happy with yet. I have experimented with trying to included the studio Say My Name branding in with my won business card but I do not think it is working out too well and will probably just keep this business card as a separate thing, unless I can find a subtler way of including it.

The business cards are all too busy and I do not like the layout, although they have been done very quickly as just speedy experimentations. I will continue to experiment and work on a simpler layout, more like the design below.

PPP3 : Say My Name - Website

Web presence :
www.saymynamestudio.com

At this moment and time we have bought the domain name for our studio set up so that we can sort it ASAP we hand in. We want our website to have a visual consistency. This year we have worked collaboratively together towards the end of the year and a lot of the collaborations have been pitches which are either in the pipeline or that we did not succeed with so the website will be made up of individual portfolio pieces that we feel will represent us as a studio. To create this consistent look we may need to re photograph our work as a group so that we have a visual consistency. Whilst this and other preparation is going on we agreed that we need to keep the momentum high and build up a 'hype' as such. One way of letting people know there is something going on is through the use of website holding pages.

We have developed a concept for our holding page using the classic Hello my name is.. sticker. We feel this is a nice introductory and also works with the studio name of Say My Name as we are introducing our names to the world. We wanted to be in the holding page as we want to be a personable studio where people are aware we are humans, but at the same time we felt that our faces were  irrelevant as they just need to know that we are there and we are human being not what we look like.

Theses are the shots from the shoot that we will use for the holding pages:

I think the images have come out well and deliver the message that we want them too. For the holding page we will use these images in rotation with either a few pieces of our own or something to build the excitement of our studio coming soon.

PPP3 : Say My Name - Invoice

Invoice:

Mike has been looking into and researching a lot of the business side of the studio so that we can have a basic understanding and can prepare to learn more once we have completed our degree. This is the invoice that Mike has set up for the studio. The tone is friendly as we want to be a personable studio, but there is also a definite level of professionalism and buissnes so that people know we are not a joke or to be taken for a ride. The gaps left are where things like logo will be situated.

       As a start to the work on the studio I have decided to draft a few things for the stationary set    
       including a schedule and a contract cover sheet. Colours, type and details will be critted by the
       studio when we are ready to move forward. Using a planned Welcome Skatestore brief as an
       example client, I have created the following:

PPP: Say My Name - studio hunting

Say My Name

I haver undergone some research into possible studios after looking for signs in the streets I have now found more information about those studios plus more. Some of the studios/ offices are really beautiful and would make the perfect environment for a creative studio, especially the second letting (number 2) which is advertised as a 'creative office' on its billboard outside. 

Another of my favourite studios out of the list is letting number 3. I have visited crown house a number of times as there is a mac repair shop business inside, and it beautiful old building brimming with character. It has been left as it was made (probably not originally but it does have that feel) and i really hope it stays that way. Bellow is an image of the inside of the building that I took on a recent visit.

It has been really useful to looking into lettings for a studio as I feel more aware of things like prices and size, but I need to find out a lot more information and do some more routing around before we can decided on finding a studio as ideally we would want to find one that is as cheap as possible but without compromising on size which might be a lot to ask but we will keep looking rather than rushing into anything and regretting it. 

1 :

2 :

3 :

 4 :

 5:

 6:

 7: