OUPD301 Summary Statement
My aim this year was to gain as much experience in the industry as possible. I wanted to establish a range of contacts within the industry to hopefully help my profession in the future. I have managed to do this through a variety of different avenues. Whether it be the placement at the beginning of the year with popcorn studio, which helped shape my design practice, or entering competition briefs. . Attending the organised portfolio surgeries, which led to me creating contacts and securing a months placement at the end of June with Beautiful Meme. As well as securing the placement i've also managed to get a placement with ISC who are a completely different company and will give me a different look on the design market.
I have really pushed myself this year to try and get as much out being uni, and using this to open doors. Helping me contact companies that ordinarily i wouldn't, and getting responses which were amazing, especially from companies such as Moving Brands.
As mentioned, over the year i have entered a variety of different competions, such as Leeds Inspire Create and Sh!Awards and i was shortlisted in both of them. This led to me getting my work exhibited, and i was able to speak to a variety of different creative directors from a range of different companies such as; Thompsons Brand Partners, Brass and Numiko. All of this has been really helpful because i now have those contacts, and its something that will hopefully help in the future.
Throughout this year i have been keeping in contact with the guys at Popcorn, through emails and visits. This led to them offering me a short term position at their company, which unfortunately i had to turn down due to logistics and finance, however i am hoping to visit them and maybe line-up working for them from a free-lance position.
I am aiming to stay up North, and i will keep pursuing contacts and opportunities as much as possible. I will also be trying to attend as many networking events as possible.
This year has really helped shape the designer i want to be and the companies i want to work for. I am looking forward to the placement i have lined up over summer as these will keep me focused and help kick start my professional career. I am nervous, excited but more than anything ready.
Heres my work, and at the exhbition:
I have added some of the images from my photoshoot the other day, just to help round off my portfolio for the interviews next week.
Although i didnt get the placement at All good, Paul did offer me some helping hand with regards to possibly trying it with another company. So fingers crossed it may work.
Following my reply to Popcorn, with regards to possibly working freelancer for them I got a very good reply and hopefully we shall see waht will come from it.
I got the shock of my life today, because the company i did my placement with over summer and have kept in contact with since offered me possible job.
After doing my creative CV, i wanted to try and get a bit more of design style across in my business cards. So of course this entailed wood and laser cutting.
IM really happy with the busniess cards, and it didnt take long to do. I tried a varying amount of effects; kiss cut, engrave and cut through and realised that kiss but worked better, as it was clearer.
After looking at my CV and everything I have, i realised that it looks quite boring and it isn't exactly representing me as a designer.
So i have decided to make my CV a lot more creative, and incorporate things that i have used in the past, methods etc so make it represent my practice a lot more. Its all well and good me talking about tactility within a brand and making it special, yet not making mine? So i decided that i wanted to make a poster for my CV. That will come in two formats. 1, printed on newsprint for when i need to post it/take it with my to places and 2, a wooden engraved poster that focuses on the tactility of the CV and this would be used when i want to visit places and i can leave it with someone.
Initially i started out with a little key that i was going to use to map out my creativity, using the same dot sequence that i have on my website. I tried different colour variations and using lines to highlight different elements, but at the moment it just looks strange standing on its own. So i realised i needed to design the rest before i added this.
