Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design

Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design

Director of Nursing awards/Newsletter logo.

The use of a blog

I have found writing a blog a lot easier this year. Last year I was embarrassed to show my thought processes and ideas. I have now realised its actually a great help it lets you explain yourself, also you can keep an online recored or your inspiration etc I find it hard to keep up to date with my blog when I have a lot going on at university but I do eventually get my self up to date when I get a spare minute. I find blogging really refreshing. Whilst blogging I have often realised mistakes I have made etc which has helped me correct them before its too late. Not only do I use my blog for inspiration and PPRD but it helps me remember what I need to do next, plan my life so to speak but I do also keep a diary so my thoughts and to-do's are spread out throughout both. I find it useful looking at other designers blogs to see what is going on in the working world and what inspires them. For my Professional Project, I plan to start a new blog that is purely for that only, Im going to keep a record of my research and development

Friends of Forest Holme

So this is going back a bit to last year. Ben, Gemma and I, together worked on designing a logo for "Friends of Forest Holme" this was a very successful live brief and has led to other work for us including business cards and newsletters and potentially a website at some point.

Evaluation

We where asked to design a logo for "Friends of Forest Holme" which is a charity, this project got underway pretty quickly, but the time is first came about was summer holidays and everyone being if different places at different times made this project a long process, we managed to meet up and get most of the design done at uni and come up with a pretty strong logo, after a few emails back and forth with Debra we changed a few things including adding a tree, adding the "Friends of" into the logo as we where unsure whether we could take it out also Debra wanted the colour changed to this red/pink. Debra was one of the good clients, pretty much straight away she new what she wanted even though she had to run it past a few other people first we had no real problems and are very pleased with the final out come. Working with Debra Dennet on this logo was an honour. It was a really enjoyable and rewarding project and I feel that I have learnt a great deal from the experience.

Forest Holme have just unveiled there new logo and we where on the front page of there newsletter, slightly embarrassing but it shows are hard work payed off.

TOP FONTS OF 2009

http://www.youworkforthem.com/blog/2010/01/02/top-fonts-of-2009-ywft/

Now it would be useful to find the top fonts of 2010 :)

Metro- D&AD

RECAP- we had to Create a transport advertising poster campaign and strapline that cuts through the visual noise of the everyday commute to promote Metro newspapers. We have collectively as a group come up with a concept that hopefully answers the brief. We decided the Metro needed a personality, the idea we came up which is, using info graphics to illustrate the other uses of the Metro i.e. using it as a crowd dispersal device, using it as an umbrella when it rains etc.. we are still in talks about a strapline, which at this point in time is becoming very hard for reasons unknown, the strapline needs to reflect the slight witty humor we are going for with the illustrations but we are very concerned about making it cheesy, as whilst doing our research on the type of person that already picks up the metro, we found that the people that don't, tend not to due to being embarrassed by being seen with this "gossip mag".

This is just one of the 5 poster campaign.

This is what we have come up with so far, it is by far finished, the strap-line needs a lot of work and the typeface/typography needs polishing.

the type faces we have used so far are:

*AmplitudeWide-Regular

*Kabel Md BT

Which are the exact typefaces they use in the metro as there logo and headlines.

Evaluation

We had to Create a transport advertising poster campaign and strapline that cuts through the visual noise of the everyday commute to promote Metro newspapers. We have collectively as a group by brainstorming, come up with a concept that hopefully answers the brief. To start we decided the Metro needed a personality. Using info graphics we decided to illustrate other uses of the Metro newspaper i.e. using it as a crowd dispersal device, using it as an umbrella when it rains etc.. We are still in talks about a strapline, at the moment though we have decided on using "feel free" playing on the fact it is a free newspaper. The strapline needs to reflect the slight witty humor we are attempting with the witty personality and info graphic illustrations but we are very concerned about making it cheesy, as whilst doing our research on the type of person that already picks up the metro, we found that the people that don't, tend not to due to being embarrassed. Obviously there is always going to be a few conflicts of interest, but I think it also helps with the design to take criticism and put it into your work to achieve the best possible outcome. We are pretty happy with the concept and outcome so far, and happy were its leading. I think that this could be a very effective campaign when we finally get everything together and finished.

Folio Talk with Emma from Aquent

Emma was very inspiring and a great help, she came in to speak to us about our portfolios and design CVs. She talked to us about what makes a good and a bad folio and CV. Emma explained that we need to think about the layout and the font for our CV's, these are two very important parts to your CV, when applying for a job, the agency in which your CV was sent to wouldn't even bother reading it let alone hiring you, another thing which goes hand in hand with this is: attention to detail, including spelling, she mentioned getting at least 5 different people to read over your work and check you designs before print. These minor mistakes will be the deciding factor in whether you get the job or not! Your CV also needs to be well spaced out, clear and easy to read and kept to two pages or less, Its also important your CV gets straight to the point, no-one cares whether you got a gold medal in a race etc. This is because the reader tends to no what they need to know about you already and needs to know exactly where to look to find it.

Emma then went on to our portfolios, she had examples of good and bad portfolios and it was very clear who then would hire on the basis of just those, every piece of work we do should have a story behind it and we should not be afraid to tell it, this needs to be shown in our folios: what the client wanted, what I persuaded them to have, who was in the team, and what came out from the brief. You must always open your portfolio with a strong piece of work and have a strong piece of work at the end and one in the middle, to keep them interested throughout. This is so that when talking about your work, you can talk positively and with a constant pace in your voice. Another thing Emma made really clear was to never put a piece of work in your portfolio that you don't really like. If you are negative about it in anyway then the person you are showing it to will pick this up also and wonder why you are showing them the work in the first place. Also always ask for feedback after showing the client or potential employer your folios. Emma also mentioned getting your work photographed in context a well as showing the flats, this ads depth to your portfolio and shows the finished outcome or your design.

All in all this talk was brilliant I stayed alert throughout and will be looking forward to seeing emma again next year.