OUGD502: Online Presence

Over the past few months I have been utilising LinkedIn and Behance more, as the need to connect and interact with other designers becomes more necessary. I've also updated my portfolio on Behance and set up a temporary site powered by Cargo Collective for my photography.  Eventually I hope to have a working website with a custom URL, however for now I feel this isn't necessary for my work as I don't have many finalised projects I am happy with and need to buy my domain.  I have looked into Squarespace for this and feel this is the best site to go with as it allows you to publish the website with no charge and use a custom URL.

I am yet to add more information to my Linked In profile, however this is something that will come with time, especially if I get any work experience which will be invaluable to add into my background and summary as a designer.  I can already see the benefits of using Linked In as a professional, and have found many interesting articles on the site through the people I'm connected with.

My behance portfolio includes my latest collaborative project with Dan and Mo for Airbnb set by D&AD. My areas of focus on here involve editorial design, illustration, lettering, drawing and photography. I recently replaced my image with the grey version of my logo to maintain simplicity and establish a brand image on this platform, which can be used across others as well.

My behance has a link to my cargo page which lists a few photographic projects from the last couple of years.  It is only temporary and I plan to set up a website powered by sqaurespace in the next few months, where I will be able to list more work and use a custom domain.

I'm still updating my tumblr blog with everyday photographs I take on my phone. This is primarily to keep a log of what inspires me in terms of design and colours, and provides a way I can refer back to the photos as and when I need.

Below is how the site used to look, but I wasn't happy with the large header and info box at the top of the page. The recently re-jigged layout is underneath, which I rearranged so the photos are the prominent feature and the first thing the user can see on the site.  The info is pushed to the right side and remains fixed when scrolling, which the previous design didn't.

Reviewed blog design:

OUGD502: Additional Brand development

My logo still represents the multiple disciplines I practice through the loose loops of the suggested ampersand, and the primary logo consists of just this icon in dark grey and white (two versions, inverted). This icon alone is more suitable for use on social network sites and other image based areas, or as a stamp or watermark.  My second logo is an extended version with a bit of information to accompany it, "design & art", which informs my area of practice which is quite broad.  I don't want to specify a particular subject or area within art and design as I don't want to focus on one just yet and this covers a wide range of practice.  The ampersand in this text is taken from the & motion in my logo, with the 'eh' letterforms removed, which reinforces my identity and hints that this is what it symbolises in my logo. Although photography falls in the design & art category, I have made another version of the extended logo with 'photography' instead, which would work on my photography website or for jobs in this area.

I chose a deep purple/red as the main and only colour in my palette, with two shades of grey and white to contribute to a consistent brand identity.  The dark grey is suitable for text and this allows me to use it in place of black. The lighter grey is more appropriate for background colours.

I've chosen Georgia as the serif font for my brand which will mainly be used for headings within my work or printed body copy.  Sans serif typefaces are more suited to my style, so I have chosen two weights of Avenir Next as the main typeface I will use for promotional material.  This is also appropriate for the web as it's clean cut nature allows maximum readability.  The medium weight will work for subheadings or where the text needs to be heavier in consideration for print.

I have only included the lower case in each typeface as I plan to rarely use uppercase letterforms; I see my brand as informal and prefer the characteristics of lowercase.  Obviously where necessary (i.e. letters) I will use full punctuation, however I feel that using only one uniform set of letterforms is more suited to my brand.

I did consider other colour choices however I thought that a deeper shade fits my personality more and opted for a warmer hue. I may develop my branding at some point in the future to incorporate more colours for brand versatility.

I considered using visual icons on my business cards to inform my contact details, but after deliberating over this I decided the most appropriate method would be to hand draw the initials for telephone, email, and website, maintaining my hand rendered influence and showing my interest in lettering and typography as a visual aid.

My final design for the business cards included two versions of the back cover with my extended logo on, both grey backgrounds to vary from a plain white.  The reverse side uses the burgundy colour selectively, for the logo, icons and separation line. I tried to include as little information as possible, limiting it to three ways of contacting, three areas of specialism within design, and my name. The latter uses Avenir Next Medium, whereas the rest of the text is Avenir Next Ultra Light.

OUGD502: Studio Dunbar

This Rotterdam based studio has positions open for jobs and internships, however I'm not in any position to apply for these right now.  Their website design as well as their work is something I like about this studio as it displays their clean, simple identity with its uniform design, white space and neutral colour scheme.

OUGD502: Lo Siento Studio

Lo Siento is a studio in Barcelona who's work I'm very fond of.  Their projects are conceptual and have high quality, well executed designs, and I think I could learn a lot if I were to visit the studio or get a placement there.  This studio really appeals to me and although I would like to contact them sooner, I am going to wait until my personal branding and online portfolio is more complete as it is something I would like to use to show examples of my work.

An element of this website that is clever and draws further attention to the typographic logo is it's transparency showing images underneath as the page is scrolled.

I love that a lot of their work is primarily hands on production which obviously shows that the staff work off screen which is something I am very interested in doing more of.  Producing work away from the laptop increases creativity and personally I feel that I would work better making my design rather than creating it digitally from the beginning; this is the case for hand lettering which I've brought into my practice recently. Some examples I particularly like:

Notebook series design

Poster for photography exhibition 

Wax lettering for wine brand

Pasta packaging

It is looking likely that I will aim to contact them towards the middle of April, which I feel leaves a good amount of time between then and late summer which is when I would be available to fly out to the studio.  Even if I only visit I would be appreciative, although a few week placement here in Barcelona would be ideal to further my experience and studies in a range of design.

I have also thought about sending something physical to the studio with an intriguing concept or feature rather than an email that may get missed or scrolled past amongst others. I plan to send a selection of my work along with the promotional pack I'm creating for this module.

OUGD502: Type and lettering

After completing a couple of lettering briefs for the responsive module I've become more aware of short logotypes in this style.  My interest in this is primarily the harmony between letterforms and how their distinctive features compose a balanced overall image. I also have an interest in monograms especially as logos, and I would like to explore this area of lettering/type design more. 

OUGD502: Logo - Further changes

There has been something annoying me about my logo for a while now, and after not editing it for a while I decided to experiment with more variations of the design to see if altering it slightly would improve the whole symbol. Above shows added strokes to make the mark bolder which I like, however feedback from peers has made me doubt my own choice.  They agree with each other that the lighter stroke weight is more suitable for my personal brand, as well as being easier to reproduce in terms of screen printing, for example, where smaller areas of negative space may become unclear and merge together so the design will be less crisp.  This is an unwanted effect, and after exploring several more variations I've decided I agree that the original line weight is more appropriate.

I also played around with the composition of the logo, by moving the tail of the ampersand up so it touches the same baseline across the whole glyph (below left, top row).  It instantly makes the design tighter and have more qualities of a stamp rather than a loose, open mark.  I also tried moving the baseline (and bottom half of ampersand) down slightly to see whether the spacing was a problem, but this only led me to revert back to the tighter composition.  Experiments with colour led me to discard these choices and stick to black for the primary logo.

Update: late March

I have redrawn my logo and kept the raw hand drawn qualities rather than the altered vectorised version above. I feel this represents my practice far more than the previous version, and I am more comfortable with this design. Below are my sketches leading up to the final choice for the logo - I've kept the same concept just stuck with an original drawing. I scanned the initial drawing after choosing the best version and used image trace to maintain the uneven edges and mark of the pen. I was then able to make the logo fit with my chosen colour scheme of greys and a deep burgundy.