UCAS Experience - Applying for BA Hons Graphic Design

I have decided to continue with my degree next year and top it up in order to achieve a BA Hons in Graphic Design.
I recently applied 5 universities in which I would like to attend for this particular course. After doing my research I settled on; Manchester Metropolitan, Sheffield Hallam, Leeds College of Art, Nottingham Trent and York College. I intend on entering at either year 2 or 3 of the course, as the extra year would help me to settle into a new city.

After attending all of my interviews I received all conditional offers, however, when I applied I had mistakenly entered point of entry 1, instead of 2 or 3.
Due to this mistake in my UCAS, I was unable to accept any of my offers as I would have been starting at year 1, instead of year 2 or 3 and I wouldn't be funded.

I then went on to apply through UCAS Extra, with the correct point of entry of year 2 at Salford University. I have been asked to attend an interview on 17th April, so fingers crossed!

I intend to complete my degree in a new city, in order to help me gain a little more experience and also give me the opportunity to visit a different place and hopefully a whole range of design agencies and organise summer placements which could in turn lead to potential career opportunities.

Moleskine Scans

I've recently been increasingly more interested in typography and hand rendered type. I'm planning on developing my previous Baz Lurhmann 'Wear Sunscreen' posters and using hand rendered type with them so I have been doing a little bit of rough practise in my moleskin whenever I've got a spare moment! Here are a couple I've been doing:

Inspiration - Hub

Today I went for a wander around Newcastle's Quayside on a mission to try and locate my placement which I will be starting in 3 weeks time at The Point. On my travels I came across this bike shop/cafe and their branding really caught my eye. I really liked the typography on the side of the building and the slight hand rendered style to the lettering as the lines weren't perfectly straight and it gave a really nice touch. The black and white really stood out, especially against the bland and boring buildings surrounding it. The overall design is really quite simple but works extremely well and gave quite a friendly personality. Unfortunately though, it was shut so I couldn't go in and have a nosey at their interior graphics! 

Wear Sunscreen

This was a self initiated project I am currently working on based on the popular 1999 single by Baz Lurhmann, 'Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)'. The song is based on an article written by Mary Schmich and features a range of positive, feel good quotes, which anyone can interpret in their own personal way. I love some of the quotes throughout this song and wanted something to put up on my walls featuring these quotes. Typography is something I don't have a lot of experience with and really wanted to explore further, especially throughout this project. It is noticeable that my typography skills are not excellent but I really enjoyed experimenting with a range of different fonts. I would also like to develop these further and create some of my own hand drawn type, which will be a lot trickier but a skill I would really like to develop. 

This is still working progress and I would like to take all of these designs further but so far I am happy with the outcomes. 

I wanted to keep my designs fairly simple, with all of the attention on the quote itself. I did this by using bold, flat colours, with a slight radial gradient to draw the attention inwards. I added some paper textures as this is a technique I personally love using as it always adds that little more to the final design and makes it less boring and flat. I tried to be very selective with my font choices in order to almost reflect the word with the chosen fonts, whilst also making them flow well together. The off-white/beige colour used in the border and fonts again just blend with the central colours better than a plain bold white would and works quite effectively. The more pastel colours give a softer feel and seem to work well together as a poster series. 

In order to take this project further I plan on designing some hand rendered type and digitalising it to make it look a lot more interesting and professional. I have recently become really interested in hand rendered typography and am keen to create my own designs. I think this style would really improve these current designs. 

Personal Branding

I always find it hard to please myself when it comes to my personal branding. Anything I design I always find myself not quite liking and always feel theres something I could change or develop. I've gone through a few different designs in the past and have settled, for the moment anyway, on one particular design, finally! 

Something about this logo wasn't quite right. I really liked the colour, and shape, however it didnt seem quite eye-catching and individual enough. I did like the personal touch of my hand writing, however the design just wasn't 'me' enough, which obviously it should be!

This was a lot more of a sleek design, and has a much more of a corporate feel to it that the previous one. I kept the colour which I liked, and the flow of the letters, however, again, I didn't feel it reflected my personality enough, and almost had quite a boring feel to it, which is not a way I want to represent myself or my designs!  

My current logo is the one above. I went back to the circle shape as I feel this is very versatile and can be put into anything, be it different colours, or textures, etc. I personalised it by creating it solely using the pen tool on illustrator to create a flowing feel with my initials, something which ended up taking way more time than I anticipated! Unlike the others this was produced using illustrator so it is a vector, which is much more suitable for a logo. I went with a different pastel colour just to change it up a bit, but again it could fit with almost anything, but as purple is my own favourite colour it again adds that little bit more personality.

Design agencies I'd love to work with!

SMACK 

“Our secret formula. Work hard, play hard; be bold, stay hungry; and always exceed expectation.”

Smack is a very recently established design agency, only set up on 2012. It stands out to me as an agency I would to love to work with as its founders have a fresh, straight-talking approach to design. Considering the fact the agency its self is only one year old, their client list is extremely impressive, including the likes of Aston Martin and Ebay. I also find the founders themselves inspiring as they created the agency from their own living rooms, before quickly expanding and now working with a strong team of 7. 

PIXELDOT CREATIVE

“The Pixeldot team is formed of great people who know their stuff, not jacks of all trades, but specialists. Individually we’re great, together we’re awesome.”

Pixeldot Creative specialise mainly in branding, an area of graphic design I have a personal interest in, making them an agency I would love to work with. Their work has a very professional and definitive style to it, which is a style which appeals to myself personally. Again, they have a huge list of extremely well known clients and are an extremely successful agency, therefore there would be endless learning opportunites. Not only does the agency and their ethos appeal to me, but their website in general is a huge selling point, with fluid navigation and a stylish layout.

WE MAKE AWESOME SH.IT

“We’re a collective. We’re about the awesome.”

We Make Awesome Sh.it immediately stands out as an agency with its eccentric name. What mainly attracted me to this particular agency was their clients. The majority of their work is for music and televison, both particular interests of my own, especially music. Working within an agency which specialised in my particular interests would be a huge learning curve, as well as extremely enjoyable. Not only that, but again, as an angency, they have a positive ethos and their passion is obvious, which is a large selling point to myself as the general atmosphere and mindset of an agency is just as important as the work they produce. 

Digital Applications - D&AD It's Nice That

This brief, set by It’s Nice That via D&AD. The brief required a new and exciting ways to stay engaged with their original audience. This could be produced through a poster campaign, a publication, an event, an app or something completely new and innovative. They wanted to spread their commitment to showcasing great work in an information overloaded university world. I wanted to create a poster campaign, which I could use to enter for the brief, as well as use to personally improve my own digital skills.

I created three somewhat similar posters for this brief, each depicting different sceneries. I chose this particular design, as I wanted to take the ‘world’ aspect of their brief and develop it. I like how stylized these designs turned out and feel they appeal to the very wide target audience, which included students, teachers/lecturers, as well as those who don’t know what ‘It’s Nice That’ is. I feel the vector art is quite a broad style and the bright colours throughout help to make the posters stand out. What I would like to further develop is the message its self as this was simply a quote running across the top of each poster. I feel these could be adapted to really promote the message of the company more, however, the fact the posters aren’t too obvious also draw in the attention, and interest, making the audience enquire further.  Throughout this project I improved my skills within Adobe Illustrator, which I had previously lacked beforehand. In particular, I worked mainly with vectors and the appearance palette and felt considerably more comfortable with the programme after the project.