OUGD602 - Placement: Leo Burnett

For a week at the beginning of August, I did a placement at Leo Burnett in London - an advertising agency who have 103 offices worldwide.

Initially I was a bit nervous as this was my first proper placement in a working environment. I also know that they worked with big clients such as McDonalds, so that was also a bit daunting. I was a bit worried that maybe I wouldn't be as experienced as they would like, or my design wouldn't be something that they like.

That said, I did find the experience enjoyable and found that I learnt a lot. They were all welcoming and I got a lot of time with a couple of different people who talked me through the way the agency was run, and showed me the different departments and the work that they do. Something that really surprised me was the amount of departments there were and all the very individual jobs they had.

For example, there was a office for people who worked on Photoshop to edit the imagery and manipulate it for advertisements. Then there was an office for the people to take these documents and set them for print. It previously didn't occur to me that these jobs would be split down because in my working practice, I have to do it all. This gave me a real insight into what is available in the industry as it shows that you don't have to be incredible at everything, but you could specialise in one particular area.

I was also given the chance to do a bit of work for McDonald's. Obviously it wasn't a huge bit of design work, but being able to work on such a big client in a small way was exciting anyway. It also allowed me to experience the way the design team worked in terms of checking the designs and how they go about making everything look perfect, even down to the smallest details of kerning headings.

Overall I found it to be an enjoyable experience, and I have been offered the chance to return for a placement, something which I would be more than happy to do.

OUGD502 - Module Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

The main skill I have developed in this module is my ability to be able to go through the motions of setting up a business in a collaboration. I found that as I have a good understanding of business studies, this really helped the group and helped myself understand what was needed to set up a business and how important these skills were. This gave me the experience of a realistic setting up of a business, with a lot of time spent on figures and making sure everything was realistic. It was also an eye opener into how as a new business we would have to promote ourselves to get exposure. Running through these ideas was useful to me as a designer as well as if I were working in a collaboration.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

The main method that I have learnt in this module is to do with the paperwork side of the business, learning about how to protect myself as a designer and what I can do and should do when starting freelance work, in terms of payment, copyright, terms and conditions. I found that this was really helpful as it gave me an insight into how I could work if I were freelance or working for a studio.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I think the main strength in this module is down to my self branding. I think my ability to create an identity for myself and spread it across a number of different media, scales and formats, has been the strongest of this module. I did find it initially hard to try represent myself with the branding, however when I got it, I went with it and I think it turned out really great. The skills I have developed throughout this year and through this self branding project are ones that I will take forward with me.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I think my definite weakness of this year is in my networking. While I have set up a Behance account and taken part in a lot of live/competition briefs this year, I don't feel I am at the point where I would have liked to have been. I would have liked to have more communication with studios and designers, but due to my own shyness and lack of confidence in this, I feel I have wasted an opportunity. Over the summer I would like to visit studios over the country, hopefully and get a placement, or plans for a placement in the next year.
I also think that my oral presentation wasn't as good as it could have been. I think that this was down to lack of preparation and thinking about my own presentation skills. I did a visual, minimal presentation on the idea that I would talk a lot and not have to flick through the slides much, however I found that without some of the images on, I forgot to talk about some important things of the year, which was a bit annoying.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Network more - exposure is just as important as creating the work. I think that networking next year will be fundamental to me getting a placement and job next year as I will be more confident in myself as a designer and in talking to other designers/studios.
2. Make a presentation which suits my presentation style. Making a presentation that suits my style will mean that I will be able to have a much more fluid and confident presentation.
3. Spend more time on my self promotion pack. Giving myself a few more days to do the self branding and promotion is something that I would have liked this year, but there wasn't enough time for me, so hopefully next year I will be able to organise my time a bit better to get a bit more time.
4. Create, code and make my website live. I think getting myself a website up and running live on the internet would give myself a bit more exposure and potentially get myself some clients in the future.
5. Spend more time researching studios and work that I like. I think that researching a bit more would have helped me generate more ideas throughout the whole of this year, and helped me get an idea into what kind of area I would like to go into as a designer.

OUGD502 - UNIT Studio Visit Reply

Today Si got back to Charlie and I about our request to visit the studio.

Unfortunately due to other students who clearly weren't serious about visiting the studio, UNIT no longer accepts visits.

We feel that this is a real shame because we were both serious about visiting and speaking to him about design, the industry and how we could get ourselves out there and into the places that we want to go. The fact that students didn't turn up/were late to visit is pretty ridiculous to us, as we both feel visiting a studio is something that should be kept to and is an opportunity. The fact that this has stopped our chances of visiting is disappointing.

However, I decided that this shouldn't stop us speaking to him, so discussed with Charlie the idea of sending a few questions in an email that he could answer, and hopefully build up a bit of a relationship and get some good experience down from him.

We both came up with a few questions and sent them to him and now we're just waiting to see if he replies.

Email sent:

Hopefully he will get back to us, even if it's just to answer one of the questions. We also think that sending this will show that we were serious about seeing/speaking to him will make him realise this, so hopefully he will reply.

OUGD502 - A Design Strategy: Behance Update

This is where my Behance profile is today after two months.

 From here, I still have a few projects to upload from this year, so hopefully things will improve. However I am quite happy with how it's going so far. I didn't expect so much so it has been quite a nice surprise to have the amount of project views I have had.

OUGD502 - UNIT Studio Visit

As Robot Food are currently too busy to have us visit, we decided that we would look around for a couple of other places in Leeds that we would like to visit.

We decided that UNIT was one that both of us would like to visit, so emailed them with the request.

We are waiting to hear back from them, but hopefully we can get a visit with them.

OUGD502 - A Design Presence: Presentation

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 2: A Design Presence (3)

Today I photographed all the work that I have done for this brief. I am happy with the way everything has printed and turned out so feel confident that I can get a good set of final images.

Final Images

Promotional Pack

Stationary

Full Set

I am really happy with the way these final photographs turned out. Photographing them against the black made it easy for me to edit them well while keeping all the colour as vibrant as they are. One issue I do have is that the blue on the business cards has turned out a lot darker than on the envelopes. This isn't so obvious on the printed material, but photographed it becomes very clear.

To fully show off my branding, I created some design boards which show every aspect to my personal branding.

Final Design boards:

Overall I have found this project to be enjoyable. While I didn't have much time to get through everything, I don't think that this was an issue at all. I feel I worked at a very productive rate and got a lot of work done in the short space of time I gave myself to do it. With this, I have made work that I am happy with and that is quite strong in terms of visual identity. Choosing a logo, colours, typefaces and a pattern initially really helped me when it came to quick production of the work.

I think that while I have done a lot of the typical stuff for branding and self promotion, I have approached it in a way which represents me as a designer and clearly shows this throughout my designs. I am much happier with this self branding than with how it was last year and feel that it does represent how much I have moved on and developed in a year.