Presentation about myself - Study task 2

For studio brief 01 I had to create a presentation about myself and what I have learnt and experienced from my second year. 

Who am I?

Am I a creative? Thinker? Imaginative? Visual Designer?

Honestly? I don't know what I am yet. But what I do know is that I want to change the world in so many areas. Call me oldschool but I believe the advance in technology is killing us. Look around you, children at the age of 10 have Iphone6's and I remember I would be considered lucky if I got a train track. I don't see money as a reason for doing this course. I see this course as a development stage as I am constantly learning about myself and who I am as a designer and as a person. Will I become a graphic designer in the future? Probably not, but I know that money will not play a part in it. I want to do something that is going to make me happy with my life whilst changing the world for the better. 

My Journey 

My years in college wasn't the same as I expect it was for others. I went to Richmond college which didn't have the best education and if anything I learnt how not to use photoshop, illustrator and indesign. Although I did learn how to be more hands on with design as well as experimenting with various materials. 

When I came to Leeds College of Art I learn a lot about myself and who I truly am as a person and this is one of my best experiences that I have had. In the first year I learn a lot about softwares as well as making mistakes. I believe I am still improving daily and really want to make the most of my time in uni. 

My future? I'm not sure for 100%. Do I want to work in a studio? Change to become a games designer? Take on a masters? Or start my own clothing line? I will let the wind blow me in the right direction. 

Here is a selection of my first year work. 

Here is a selection of my second year work. I now have more of a style when it comes to designing. I also like to experiment with various materials as well as trying to be as broad as possible (logos, cd covers, coffee typography etc etc) I believe my work has improved loads since last year and I hope to continue to next year. 

I am very satisfied with the amount of work that I have been given over the year with my clients. I have had numerous offers from various clients to give my details onto someone else that may need help however, I have had to reject a bit of client work as I have had to put my family and my university work ahead. These are clients that I am have created a strong bond with and have used me a number of times before. I am very happy with my final outcomes and I am finding it easier to approach people which is something I was very shy of when I first came to the university. 

Business Cards

I thought I would show my change from last year to this year. I have created simple and minimalistic yet effective business cards that I intend to produce and use to promote my own work. I decided to strip back the colour of my business cards and keep them more clean with more space in-between them incase I/client have to write a comment within the space provided on the business cards. 

Personal website

I wanted to create my own template on how my website might look like in the future. This is something that I struggled with however it has helped me to understand the importance of a website at this stage of our lives in university. We are constantly being linked with existing designers in the world and it would be good to showcase my work to a designer/client through my own personal website.  I decided to go for a minimalistic approach because it describes me as a person. 

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Aims and ambitions

My aims are to start my own clothing label. This has been an ambition of mine since I was 16 and it is something that I have been looking at with a few of my course friends. I have also been talking to other courses such as fashion and met someone who I potentially see working with in a few years as we both have very similar personalities as well as taste in clothes.  However, I am also looking at getting an internship with BloodBrother throughout summer to help me get back into the rhythm of design as well as learning new techniques and methods that I could use in my own purpose.  

My personal life

I want to read more, it is something that I have neglected since I was young. After reading a lot throughout second year I have realised how important it is to stay focus and to not always rely on a computer to help you out. We live in a world where everything is digital and in my opinion this isn't helping anyone. 

Another aim of mine is to travel  to see the different sides that there are in the world. I have practically stayed in the UK all my life and haven't ventured further than Europe. I watch a lot of documentaries and being in a first world country we are hidden from what happens around the world. This is why I want to put my phone away for a week every month so that I can engage with people, family and others and be closer to them. University has taught me to be aware and to stick with those who are there for you and are your real friends. 

I've always had the ambition to start my own clothing label. Therefore I got approached by new artists XY to design some shirts that they would wear during their sets. I kindly agreed to help them as much as possible as I saw it as an opportunity to get my work out there, work that I want to do in the future. Therefore I sat down with the artists and designed them some shirts that they were very happy with. They were very similar to me in the way that I work and dress; everything being monochrome. Therefore it was very easy to speak to each other and to get ideas across. I intend to come back to this project with them after university. 

Taking care of business - Final presentations

Here is our group presentation. We all gave each other set roles throughout the presentations. My role was to explain how we work as a team and how our Studio works when sharing/giving clients to each other. 

Generalised summery of what I said:

Who are we?

We are a group of friends that met in Leeds College of Art. We met two exchange students from Eindhoven who I quickly became very close friends with. We said together on a night out to think of something that would involve both of us. This is when John briefed us about starting our own company/studio. We collectively asked Rens and Youri to work alongside us to create a team that is strong is all areas of design. We allocated each other roles and jobs to do throughout. 

How does our client work differ from others?

Because we are situated in both Leeds and Eindhoven we had a dilema when it came to clients. Therefore we agreed to compete against each other to benefit the client(s). We agreed that we would both set the brief to each other and then give the client an estimated date before pitching our (Eindhoven and Leeds) ideas. This would let the client see a variation of two design pieces to which he can choose from. Therefore the client is satisfied as it is almost as if two design studios are fighting for the client. We have however set a limit to however many clients you take at once (3clients max per team).  This is to not overload one team as we are aware how stressful working in a set time period can be. 

Moguh presentations feedback

Tutor Feedback

An innovative concept spanning both UK and Netherlands (Rens and Youri)

to gain market presence and ‘kudos’ in terms of establishment in a new

business. The discussion that ‘we can handle it in our Eindhoven office’?

Inter business pitching is expensive and doubles cost, but as a start up, it offers more potential to achieve better outcomes through choice.

Costings and construction of your business is thorough and realistic and can

illustrate that a little more than rudimentary research can yield solid information.

The idea of retaining a percentage of your profits to fund ‘internal’ and private work and to fund development is a good thing and has positive tax benefit too.

As mentioned by having something ‘personal’ or ‘specific’ such as your name is 

a good extendable identity and as I mentioned this is what ‘SNASK’ did and as was mentioned the ‘smile ability’ element in trying to get the name pronounced correctly is a good one.

Well presented and shared , good video and explanation…proves rehearsal is a benefit and works. Tone of voice and clarity needs work as well as taking control of ‘pace’.

Well done and you can build on this if you feel like it?

Blog all the feedback and try to rationalise what you thought of this project, helpful. informative or too business  oriented?

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My own personal reflection

I personally was very happy with the feedback that we received. We said a lot more than we even expected. As a group we weren't also very confident individually to speak but after rehearsing it a multiple times the day before and a few hours before the presentation we were all very surprised with our outcome and very satisfied. 

I believe this study task was helpful because it definitely helped me grow in my confidence. I get very nervous if I have to present in front of everyone however once we started the nervs went and I could just speak fluently to the class. 

Personally I hope we do carry on Moguh as it is something that built my confidence up as well as my self esteem. This has been one of my favourite briefs as its almost as if we were in the real world discussing figures, prices and more and I believe we all loved working together. I do hope that more briefs will be set like this as I believe I personally am a team player as was everyone in my team. 

The brief wasn't too business oriented as we got pushed to the limit of understanding how a business runs and how much it takes to create a bond and a team together. This has definetely opened my eyes to start with someone on my course in something that I love.  

She Was Only Studio

She Was Only is a very popular studio as all three of my flatmates have decided to write about this studio. I personally love their work and how they use various printing methods throughout their work. Their aims are to create visual communication that has a real and lasting impact on your audience. She Was Only do fulfil their moto as their work is very visual and uses different methods, techniques and materials to show that across. 

However, I personally am not a fan of the website. It feel as if the website isn't complete to me. Although I like the simplicity of the titles something is missing for me. I am not blown away by the amount of space that they have left in the top left of the website. I don't believe the website is the best although their work shows that you don't need an eccentric website to showcase your portfolio. 

Forestry Studio

Forest is a vibrant, simplistic looking studio. Their work is very minimalistic yet very effective with their use of colour. The studio fits into the wider world of designs as they focus mainly on publishing. Their publications are very easy on the eye with subtle vibrant colours to make it more eye catching.  The website shows how they use various media and how broad they are when coming to publish their work. 

The website is very fluid and has an intuitive way to navigate around the content. The images themselves are very large in comparison to other studios. This shows that the they are very confident with their work and want to showcase it to their clients.  I personally really like their website because its very easy to navigate around their website. I also like that they only have two tabs one about them and one on how to contact them. This is all you really need as a designer therefore I would like to potentially take this forward for my own website. I really like the simplicity and how their work is practically their website. 

Graphic Though Facility Studio

This is a studio that I personally wanted to go back to. This is a studio that I have learnt about in the past but always makes me come back to it. Is it the vibrant colours and the simplicity that brings you back? Or is it that the work within the website using different methods and techniques that brings me back? 

Although the website is very very simple and almost feels unfinished there is something about this layout that I keep coming back to. The colours are colour coded so it is easy to identify each different area of design.  I also like how they show where they specify in using colours to show this. 

All in all i'm very unsure about this website but there is no denying that their work is out there amazing. I like the concept that the work does the talking and the website is as stripped back as possible. 

Alphabetical Studio

This is one of my favourites when it comes to work ethic and the website layout.
I am very interested by the name of this Studio Alphabetical and how the website has been arranged so that you have to scroll past the letters to see each of their work under different letters. They have worked with various clients around the world and are definitely up there with the best. I like the simplicity that they have of changing the font for each of their letters whilst your scroll along.

"Our design philosophy is simple; we work closely with our clients to create design with character and relevance, fulfilling briefs to the letter. We apply this thinking across identity, print, digital, environment and packaging design."

This studio has a similar philosophy as me and I would love to contact this studio personally for my own interest and to ask how they became together. A lot that this studio covers I also believe I do well in and I would like to see if they do internships as this studio is very much similar to how I work.