I can't draw.

I really can't.

Wednesday, 17 March 2010

Pads4Grads

We got given an industry brief from the company, Pads4Grads, who have started building houses for students in Norwich. They were looking for a corporate branding that would be trendy and attract it's target market. We were required to create a website, banner and leaflet.

Here are my finals:

WEBSITE

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

LEAFLET

Photobucket

LETTER HEAD

Photobucket

BUSINESS CARD

Photobucket
front

Photobucket
back

BANNER

Photobucket

BEERMAT

Photobucket
front

Photobucket
back

Saturday, 6 March 2010

4designers 2010: The Chase

Lise Brian from The Chase was next to give a talk. She was lucky to have worked at that one agency since she completed her degree, after testing all sorts of routes; she had originally started out as an illustrator.

She started by talking about the philosophy of the agency. I wrote it down because I thought it was charming and made me laugh.

Photobucket

Here are some of the tips she gave about showing a portfolio to a perspective agency you want to work for:

If you don't like a piece of work, re-do it.

Have a good mix of work.

Keep your folder spotless.

Mock ups are lovely.

Don't put foam boards in your folder.

How much time have you got?

When you're given 'advice' don't take it all to heart.

Practice talking through your folder.

Start and finish with your strongest pieces of work.

4designers 2010: Thoughtful

This was my first year at 4designers, being a first year and all that jizz, and it was fantastic! I don't really know what I expected, maybe a few lectures that I would struggle to stay awake for. But it really was an eye opener.

First up was Thoughtful. Stuart Price and Chris Jeffreys making up two thirds of the team. I really liked their presentation, it was fun and kept me interested the whole way through with their videos and amusing anecdotes.

They made one point about orange peel being the perfect piece of packaging.
Photobucket

It contains the product;
It protects the product;
You can identify what the product is;
and is bio-degradable.

(there may have been more reasons, but I cannot remember on the top of my head) Point is, I thought this was a genius piece of thinking and it makes so much sense.

I noted down a few quotes from them which I liked:

"Distilling what remains into something as close to perfect."

"Self belief, we should all have some."

"It's better to be interested then interesting."

"Cannot not communicate."

"You must earn the right to do great work."

"They don't give up. Never, never, never give up."

"If you're good, the truth will out. It will happen."

They had loads of tips too:
Persistence, constantly keep in touch with clients.
Make connections, never ask what it has to do with design, ask what it could have to do with design.
The chair is your enemy; get up, get out there.
Be open minded.
Be prepared to learn, you never stop learning.

The five P’s:
Preparation
Prevents
Piss
Poor
Performance.

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Photography shoot

We were put in groups of three (I was with Jack and Lauren) and all got given a word. Ours was "Misplaced." We had to create our own interpretation of the word on one photo.
We had loads of ideas, but nothing genius. In the end we went with puzzle pieces. A day later and lots of body paint, we came up with this:

Photobucket

That's me :)

This is a copy of an email I sent to mi padre about 4designers

I was thinking that I would write a load on what happened at the conference, but I had emailed my papa about it, so I thought I would just post that instead. Forgive the colloquial format, he is my dad!

He had emailed me and asked if I had gained anything from my trip to 4designers in London, or if it had been one party. I was slightly annoyed! So I sent him this email:



The london trip was so good!! The conferences were so inspiring. Over the two days, six design companies came in to talk to us. It was at the odeon in leister square where they do premiers, and the cinema was full up with design students. One of the companies was called SomeoneLondon, and they are responsible for the o2 branding and advertisements- the blue bubbles, the major banks advertising, HSBC and some others. To name a few! It was pretty cool to meet him. And a man called Mike Dempsy, who is a legend in the design world. He was quite old, been around for a long time. he has done work for the british opera. Then later that day, we were taking the tube, and they have all those advertisements on the escalators and we saw some of his work up. We were all like, wow hahahaha.

The companies all gave lots of advice and I wrote down soo many notes. It was very useful. After the conference on the first day, we went to the V&A museum, and went to the exhibition inside which you had to pay for- worth every penny! It was aaaaaamazing! It was digital art. It was so cooool! I filmed lots of videos I will show you. One of the best things I have ever seen! It was Me and a few of the boys from beechcroft (where I live) who went there, the others either went back to the hostel and slept or went shopping. We went to the National history museum afterwards, but that hadn't changed much.



When the conference was finished on the second day, we had lots of time to spare cause our train back was at half nine, so our course leader Andy, joked around about going to some design companies and asking if we could look around their studios. The joke turned real, cause then he phoned them up and an advertising agency called "Mother" (they are responsible for some big named brands work!) agreed to let us look around. They had one big studio and everyone was working on their macs working hard. It was really nice, the way everything was laid out. They had whiteboads on the walls, with their briefs and clients up. I saw some Stella artois and the o2 arena. So that was exciting. (I decided a while ago, that it was advertising that I want to get into.) After that we went to some galleries, but it was mainly fine art. And then the tate modern. But they haven't changed it since I went there in 6th form.



I saw Med and Tom. And tom was saying how his ma works in PR and Marketing, which is a branch off advertising, and he said he would ask if I could do some work experience with her in the summer or something. My friend back at halls doing film, also has an uncle who owns a design company and they have biiiig clients like prada, and that he did some experience there and would ask if I could do some. woooooo!!

Advertising Brief

Brief: Sell Unwin seeds to cool young urbanites.

I initially didn't want to go with this option (we got to choose from three briefs), because I thought it would be really hard. Foolish Danni, that's what advertising is!!
It was group work, I was with three guys, Dave, Simon and Lewis. I think we worked really well together, as we struck up an idea almost instantly. I won't take credit, as it was Dave's bit of genius, who came up with a revolutionary theme. Check out Guerilla Gardening. We wanted this same sort of idea, as we thought it would reach out to "cool urbanites" with the sense of making a stand and vandalism (I would never endorse vandalism. . . . .)

To solve the brief we had to create three posters. Which we decided to create in the style of the icoic russian propaganda posters. At first I offered to do the research and let the boys come up with the deisgns (lazy I know) but I had a crack at it, and in the end they used one of mine as a final.

I can't seem to find my copy of their designs but here are mine:

Photobucket

This was the one they used. The garden tools representing wepons. ( I would never endorse the use of weaponry. . . . . I really wouldn't!)

Photobucket

This was to show the transformation from a grey city to a green haven.

Some Uni work

For this brief, we were asked to create a tea product (hot or cold) aimed at children in the home or at school and package it. We had to explore un-conventional openings and steer away from the obvious.


My idea was to have fruity tea bags half the size of normals ones, so they're half the strengh. In a box you get six different flavours which are designed to get mixed together. For instance, you take a banana and apple flavour and create a bapple flavour. I think children would enjoy the making this at home as it would be like a game.

Photobucket

Here were my surface graphics which, I drew on illustrator, combining two fruits. I then hand painted them with guash paints.

Photobucket

My 3D version, showing a slidey lable. I called my product "thirsTea" ahahahhahah.

Photobucket

Closed.
I didn't really know how to make it 3D, as you can probably guess from the terrible perspective!

Photobucket

Front and sides.

Logo

It was never that serious, but for my friends band, The Cosmic Riders of Tomorrow.

crot

cmot

Just for fun (and for Mum)

Mi Madre lives on the other side of the world from me and my sisters, and she always complains that she has no photos of us (it may be true. . .) so for christmas I took some of my sisters and edited them to DETH. She loved them.
Loveyou Mamma x

Photobucket

Casual trip to the jungle. . .

Photobucket

Just chilling in the arctic. . . Pun intended.

Photobucket

The worst done one, but still. Hanging in the savana.

T-shirt design

Photobucket

I went into Eris Apple to ask if I could have a t-shirt printed, and the owner Gemma said if she liked my design she would print them in batch and sell them in the shop. However, this was just before I was moving to Norwich for uni, so I never got round to doing it. Shame!!

Photography exhibition poster

Photobucket

Photography exhibition in Nottingham, for my friend Duncan.