evaluation & application

1

EVALU ATION

and APPL I CaTION

GRAEME TAIT

4

Graeme Tait

BA (Hons) Graphic Design

Evaluation & Application

L6. April 2016

5

CONTENTS

What Is Graphic Design

Where they’ve come from

Where are they going

Changing face of Graphic Design

4-5

12-13

22-23

38-39

6

what is graphic desIgn?

7

Graphic design, also

known as communication

design, is the art and

practice of planning

and projecting ideas and

experiences with visual

and textual content.

Graphic design, also

known as communication

design, is the art and

practice of planning

and projecting ideas and

experiences with visual

and textual content.

“Graphic design, also known as communication design, is the art and practice of planning and projecting ideas and experiences with visual and textual content.Juliette Cezzar, AIGA

“

8

WHaT is It TO THiS DEsIgneR

9

Graeme, the designer in question is of the opinion that Graphic design is more

than what it has been described on the previous page. Graeme thinks that Graphic design is about thinking differently, thinking outside the box. The Designer believes that their job is to take something ordinary and make it extraordinary. As a designer you want to take a brand or business and elevate it above its competitors. You want to work with people who are as passionate about what they do as much as the designer. Finding clients like this will help them create a working relationships that they value and work that a designer is proud of.

The designer in question is passionate about graphics and is something they have worked hard towards for a number of years. However, as a designer you need this passion for the subject in order to stay relevant.

Remaining stuck in your ways is one of the worst things that could happen to any designer. In order to stay relevant and inspired you need to open your eyes to other designers and take influence from everywhere. This designer discovered a love for hand drawn pieces of typography early on in his degree programme. By keeping an eye on designers like Tobias Hall and Mateusz Witczaks it has allowed Graeme to keep on top of typographic trends enabling him to keep his work relevant.

“If you don’t love what you do, and do it with

a passion, you probably won’t do it very well.”

Woody Pirtle.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

EVALUATION & APPLICATION

10

MaTeuSz WITczak

11

MaTeuSz WITczak

Mateusz is a self-taught graphic designer who specialises in hand lettering

and custom typography design. He is currently working out of Warsaw in Poland. He has worked with brands such as Philips, Nike and Ogilvy & Mather to name just a few.

Similar to that of Tobias Hall, Graeme was instantly drawn to these because of the originality involved in the creation of the pieces. Although a different style to that of Tobias, Mateusz likes to accentuate the characters a lot more using more scripted fonts allowing for a more playful & energetic style of drawing.

INSPIRATION


12

TobIashaLL

13

INSPIRATION


Tobias Hall is a freelance illustrator, letterer, designer and mural artist working out

of London. He initially started out life as a conceptual illustrator, Tobias then started working with typography and lettering soon after graduating in 2010 and he hasn’t looked back since. His versatility has meant he’s been lucky enough to work on an eclectic mix of projects for a growing list of international clients.

What Graeme likes about Tobias is the artistry that goes in to the individual pieces of work. Each one looking so unique and so brilliantly crafted over hours and hours, a true labour of love.

14

WheRe’ve they cOMe

from

15

WheRe’ve they cOMe

from

16

SanTanDER2006 - 2013

17

Graeme worked at Santander from the age of 18 to 25 as he wasn’t sure what career

path to go down. Graeme did apply to university twice before to study business & management and then sports science before realising that he wanted to revisit a design based subject in graphic design. Graeme’s time at Santander taught him a lot about what he wanted from his working life. Working as an administrator for 7 years on little pay with no signs of career development gave Graeme the Incentive to do something that he felt that he was good at, something he enjoyed in school and something that he cared about. Going to university as a mature student gave the designer a drive and focus that he possibly wouldn’t have had at a younger age, he wasn’t going for the university experience anymore he was going to get a good degree and build a career in something he was passionate about.

EXPERIENCE


18

FLoyD creaTe

2012 - 2013

DESIGN & DIGITAL

19

Before starting a degree or a new career path it’s good to gain some experience, Floyd

Create was a one man team run by a designer with now 20+ years of experience in the business working on a range of projects, websites and brands. Before starting the degree programme the designer wanted to give himself a head start by gaining some useful experience working under an experienced practitioner. It’s always difficult, once graduated, to find a job. Gaining a years work experience and deferring the degree

course allowed the designer to learn some valuable skills and techniques to help them on the way to becoming a successful graphic designer. Useful skills such as how to present your work, how to set up artwork for print, presenting to clients as well as just getting to grips with the adobe programmes and short cuts essential to a designers toolbox.

EXPERIENCE


invites you to meet

KERRY DARLINGTON at her first solo exhibition

Gallery marketing material

20

ouTSmart

JUNE 2015 - NOVEMBER 2015

CREATIVE MARKETING AGENCY

Brand Identity for Skincare business

21

The designer did an internship for 3 months full time and then 2 months part-time. They worked

closely with the creative director on small creative tasks, learning about life inside a design agency and the day to day dealing with clients as well as how to present and work closely with them.

Internships are a great way of gaining experience in a busy agency and offer a great insight in to how life might be going in to an agency as a junior designer. An internship is also known as a work placement, they can be paid or unpaid and usually comes down to the employer. The employer will generally cover expenses for the intern and can range from anywhere between a week to 6 months. An internship is not something just to put on your CV, something this designer learnt the hard way. Nabeel Hussain, a former University of the

Arts London student did a 4 week internship in a London ad agency and offered this advice:

“Be clear what you are looking for in an internship, not just something to put on your CV. I went to a consultation with a careers adviser and started to consider art direction. I knew nothing about what an art director did at the time and knew nothing about the advertising industry. I applied to many agencies and one replied, and I got my answers there.”

EXPERIENCE


Online marketing competition material

22

sTuDiO

W204SEPTEMBER 2013 - JUNE 2016

UNIVERSITY STUDIO

23Self Branding

Studio W204 has many features that can be found in professional creative studios. The studio has been set up

to encourage collaboration and to help create a design community to help with the sharing of ideas to support the creative process. The tutor in W204 prides themselves on the environment they’ve created and has been praised for how well he has prepared students for life inside an agency. The work undertaken in the studio ranges from personally sought after briefs to live clients that involve live presentations.

EXPERIENCE


25

WheRe are ThEy

going?

26

WORK WORK WORk

27

A young designer, approaching graduation, thrown out in to the big bad, dog eat

dog world, you essentially have two choices:

1, Work for yourself, where your time is your money.

2, Work for someone else, go to work and leave, always get paid (or so you hope) giving you more security.

The majority of the UK’s workforce haven chosen option 2, with an estimated 15% being self employed. However, this has been a growing number in recent years. This decision will be effected by many defining factors, with each factor bearing a different magnitude to the individual student.

THE CHOICE


28

Managing

WoRk

29

As a freelancer one of the benefits is that the designer can pick and choose work that

suits them. This may not be the case all the time or when starting out but if they do get to a point where they can say no to a project that they don’t want or like then, why not? It may not be to the liking of some people but it will at least keep the designer happy in their work and also it will allow their portfolio to fill up with the type of work that they want to get hired for. Yaron Schoen has this advice when it comes to attracting clients for the sort of work you want to do “Try to create case studies of ideas you’d like to see in the world. Have an idea for an app? Design it. It shows your abilities and it signals what type of work interests you, both of which may bring your type of work to your doorstep.”

FREELANCE


30

WoRkIng envIronMenT

31

Because of the rise we have seen in new businesses, creative office spaces have

become ever more popular for start up agencies and freelancers, a view echoed in an article by Leeds Living. They investigated the best office/desk spaces in Leeds for the creative industries and what each space was championing, the benefits of this space and it’s location. The 4 spaces they looked in to were:

The benefits of working in a shared office space are the ease in which you can collaborate and network with other people. However, a new business has to evaluate a lot of options before starting, and finding work is one hurdle. Having other people to work with and talk to will give you an immediate advantage enabling you to actively find extra business or collaboration. Working from home can become a lonely mundane thing bringing in some feelings of cabin fever, these creative spaces allow the designer to keep those feelings at bay and enables them to stay creative.

FREELANCE


Create, Inspire, Collaborate and

provide opportunities

1930s building, heart

of Leeds, Art Deco

Printing & Copying, Reception, Internet

& telephony

Collaboration, innovation as well as Events, Socials,

Friday Beers

32

BOGofPRiCIng WoRk

33

BOGofPRiCIng WoRk

One issue always faced by new freelance designers is knowing what to charge.

Pricing work can be a difficult thing to do; some rely on their instincts or what they believe is a fair price while others make assumptions based upon what others are charging. Either way it is important not to under value yourself.

The chances that a designer wouldn’t ever lose a project due to pricing are probably pretty low – unless the designer is so good that clients will pay anything to work with them, of course. A designer needs to strive hard for conversations about the value they add to a business, and not about just the money they pay for creative work.

FREELANCE


When is the last time you saw a

Lamborghini sale?

“ When is the last

time you saw a

Lamborghini sale?

When is the last

time you saw a

Lamborghini sale?

“

Chris Campbell

34

Is THiS an agencY?

35

Agency work has many positives, as well as its negatives. Before taking

the next approach in to full time employment a designer needs to weigh up all the options available to them. At an agency the designer might feel like a number, it can be hard to receive the credit where it’s due. They may be overworked and in order to meet tight deadlines working long days and late nights. However, creative agencies are well known for the ‘work hard, play hard’ mentality with many agencies priding themselves on a good social environment.

Working with others within an agency allows designers to bounce off ideas, this can help to combat the ‘Creative Block’ which designers fear. These agencies have earned their reputations through great ideas

and concepts consistently throughout their existence. These tricks and skills that more senior designers have learnt and developed can only help to take Graeme to the next level in his design career.

Job security and a regular income together with paid holidays is a big positive to working in an agency. However, with this taken in to account, Andy Warhol once said that “Security breeds stagnation”, will working for themselves make the designer push himself more creatively?

All this being said some Agencies produce some beautiful work that Graeme would love to be involved in, Agencies like Bert in Manchester and Pentagram London to name just some.

AGENCY


36

heY BERT

(Hey eRniE)

37

Bert are a Manchester based agency that caught Graeme’s eye a while ago with some

lovely pieces of work for OSO. OSO by P S Lambis is a collection of products sourced from the Republic of Cyprus. Bert created the brand, packaging, advertising and store for P S Lambis. The work was featured in Monocle, Cool Hunter and was selected as a finalist at the Brand Impact Awards.

Bert, based in Manchester, champion the philosophy of CoCreation and claim to be one of the first agencies to harness this as a method for creating brands. CoCreation is a management initiative that brings together different interested parties to produce a valued outcome.

BERT AGENCY


38

PEnT agRam

39

Graeme often uses social media to keep an eye on what some of the better-known agencies are getting up to creatively. One of his favourite agencies is that of Pentagram who are now known nationally and globally with offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Austin & Berlin. Probably one of the largest creative agencies in the world Pentagram have worked on amazing pieces of creative work from Leafs by Snoop, developing a brand identity and packaging for the rappers line of medical and recreational marijuana-related products to the Alexander McQueen stores in London.

PENTAGRAM AGENCY


40

CHanginG Face oF DEsIgn

41

The rise of digital communications and social media has introduced a cost

free marketing platform for businesses and has reduced the need to have a graphic designer in some ways. An individual can now launch a business with just a Facebook page; they wont need a Graphic Designer for that. This rise in social media has seen the birth of apps like Adobe Post and Typorama. These apps allow you to create complex typographical layouts on top of your images in seconds. A small business owner on their smart phone can now, do what would normally take Designers hours, in a few pushes of a button.

However, with this rise in social media it has made creative industries have to think more imaginatively about social media campaigns, anyone can set up a Twitter, Instagram or Linkedin account but you need a creative strategy to make it work.

Changes like this to the industry make it all the more important for a designer to be cross-disciplined. For a designer being multi-skilled can only be of great benefit making a designer more employable as they are adaptable, flexible and they are attempting to stay relevant in the career ahead of them.

FUTURE OF DESIGN


42

THank yOU FoR ReaDing

GRAEME TAITBY

evaluation & application

Documents