Wednesday 16 March 2016

OUGD502 - Brief 02 - Design Strategy Presentation Notes

Design Strategy Presentation notes:

1) Hello, I’m Cameron and I am a creative creature based in Leeds

2) So who was I last year? Well, I was a bit all over the place in terms of who I thought I was. I began first year on quite an unstable foot, but I quickly turned that around thanks to my incredibly positive and optimistic core attitude. I viewed myself as an artist that does design.

3)  As a learner: I came to this course knowing very little about the ‘conventions’ of graphic design. I felt a bit like an art student trapped in a graphic design loop. I knew barely anything about type, grids and all the terminology. I did feel a bit out my depth. I was good at researching, but not so good at analysing and being critical about design.  

4) As a creative: I branded myself as a creative thinker last year, because I didn’t want to pigeon hole myself into the box of being a graphic designer. This was and still is very important to me and central to my creative practice

5) So who do I think I am now? I still believe in I am a creative thinker. I have very broad and eclectic creative interests and concerns. I think that nowadays, its almost impossible to brand yourself as a graphic designer, because the term graphic design has become almost indefinable, or at least that is how I view it. Visual communication is so interchangeable, so fluid and free nowadays, that I think by calling yourself one thing, you are limiting your potential

6) As a learner, I feel I have developed through engaging with the course a great deal. I have really benefited from critique sessions and my critical analysis skills have definitely improved

7) My creative concerns and horizons have broadened since staring level 05. I am beginning to realise that my design practice has the ability to change views and opinions and promote positive social and cultural change. I also realise that I can do pretty much whatever I want creatively. I believe design should be a purely expression of the designer, reflecting their personality. I am constantly experimenting with mixed media and techniques. I have a more profound interest in typography and letterforms, form following function, composition, colour and image making

8) I know view myself as being a creative creature rather than a creative thinker. This is conceptual for a number of reasons. One because it ties in nicely with my surname, two because I feel that at the end of the day, I am a creature who lives and breathes creativity, and I don’t care how pretentious that sounds, because I can be pretentious, and I like it.

9) So this is my logo – it is consistent throughout my evaluated self identity collateral. The logo represents a half moon which is a reference to my surname. It comes in a number of various simplistic textured patterns

10)             My business cards carry the theme of halves, because sometimes I feel like I have a split mentality when it comes to design. The theme of the moon going through phases is central to my redesigned identity. I am constantly going through phases in my creative life. Sometimes I really love modernist, minimalistic clean form following function design and other times I just want to tear everything up and create something completely mad and illegible. The grey half on the back is a perfect space to make notes or doodles.

11)             Here is my collateral, including 50% OFF vouchers, a creative CV, zine portfolio and stickers I also decided to mock up a small website which would showcase my most recent work

12)             How others see me – people said that I am very confident in my self, great at listening and giving advice, bold and experimental within my work and approaches to briefs.

13)             Positive overall – I have had my up’s and downs but this is completely natural and I wouldn’t expect anything less – I really have enjoyed the briefs we have been doing this year

14)             I am currently concerned with using design to promote poignant social and cultural messages. I really loved working on the Monotype brief for responsive as it allowed me to voice my opinion on a subject that is very close to me. It also pushed me out of my comfort zone as I had to design by using type only.

15)             Illustrator and Indesign printing – I would love to gain further skills in all of the adobe programmes especially illustrator and after effects

16)             I think my conceptual thinking skills have developed the most since level 04, they were already there, but they have definitely evolved and become more mature

17)             Improved confidence in analysing and being critical about my own design and others. Giving more useful feedback to others and really listening to feedback given about my work, using it to push my practice further

18)             Strengthened friendships and really positive social life

19)             People I contacted for the creative report – the majority didn’t get back to me, because I was lazy and not persistent enough. I have definitely learnt from this.

20)             Supermundane got back to me, and I definitely took a lot away from our conversation. He gave me some great advice concerning graduating from the course, staying confident, staying relevant and inspired

21)             Dreams, to work in Berlin or Amsterdam – to make work that excites me and makes me happy – to be as experimental as possible in my work

22)             Taking care of business was a great exercise because it allowed me to realise that I don’t really see myself setting up a studio straight away after graduating. I am not saying that I wouldn’t consider doing it at some point in my career but I know that I wouldn’t have the confidence to leave uni and start a business

23)             Honestly I don’t know exactly where I see myself going. I think I would integrate well in design agency or studio like HORT, Node or Only. I know I have interests and passions for editorial, poster and identity/branding design, so these are areas I think I would flourish in in industry

24)             Plans for summer, enter lots of competitons, continue researching and getting in contact with creatives, do some work experience with a photographer that I am related to, have an amazing time interraling and volunteering at festivals

25)             Talk to as many people as I can in level 6. Get my name out there and continue entering as many competitions as possible. Look for as many creative opportunities outside of college as I can


26)             Thanks!

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