Portfolio/Presentation

Somewhere in this mass confusion of life and kittens, I've found a little bit of time to slave over this digital portfolio. It's been sort of hard for me because I have a tendency to look back at my old work and really dislike it. However, I've decide to push myself and the following are some of the piece I've chosen so far. It's not everything yet, there is some stuff I need to re shoot or re print out (cats like to sit on degree work and crumple it, who knew.) :

Mailshot: No news is good news part 2
The first part of this brief was to do make three posters on a subject chosen from the Guardian Newspaper. I chose the train fair article as it was quite appropriate to me. However, I really disliked the final results for them but I persevered with the mail shots that where of the same subject and tried my best to keep it simple but affective. (By the way, I burned the guardian posters....)

Visualisation and Ilustration Elective Final
For my illustration elective back in February we had to pitch a movie (existing or fabricated) in anyway we saw fit. I have a guilt pleasure for classic litrature and Nicholas Nickelby is one of my favourite novels. I chose to illustrate one of my favourite scenes but I wish I had been able to do more scene. Maybe when I concour Time.

How To...
Possibly the best thing I've done to date is the "How To" breif? I'm not sure if everyone else will agree but I liked how I was able to approach this brief in several differnt ways. In the end I went for satire in book form and the people who have seen this really got a kick out of it. I now wish I had done more pages to make the book a little thicker.

Adam's Font: A typeface for Adam Townend
Adams Font. This was a difficlut brief for me to wrap my head around until it clicked with me and I simply got on with it. It's certainly more affective than the original letters that I had in mind for Adam which where : Spooky looking and very unlike Adam. After that little insight I spent the following weekend re inventing the work I had already done and shifting it a new direction.

Convince/Persuade us
Group work from the begining of the year. I wanted to include this to show how far I (and the rest of the class) have come int erms of what it is to be a designer. We all thought these where really well done (or atleast I did) and our letter was voted as the best so we must have been doing somthing good. I'm now not as over whelmed with group work, as we're all in same boat. (more or less)

To Be Included:

• Colab Work (DS Books)
• Book Of 100: The Marvel Superhero Handbook
• What is A line
• Red: Series Of Ten (Red Characters)
• Pure Poster
  

Mini Manifesto

This is my 5 point mini manifesto as discussed in a PPD session.

What I want to be as a designer;

What I used to be as a designer:

Terrible if I’m being brutally honest. I had no sense of direction and everything tended to look one big unfocused mess. I would close off my ears and refuse to listen to good critique because I believed people did not “get where I was coming from.” I thought I had graphic design down but if that were the case then I would not be on the course.
However, when looking back at my work a week or even a month later, all the flaws would start to shine through. I see the mistakes in my work but most of the time, it’s too late to fix.

What I am now:

There is this little box I have called “Leigh’s safe place” where the harsh world of graphic design can’t et me. I need to move out of this comfort zone but so far I seem to be taking never-ending baby steps. When looking at my work, I still feel very insecure about showing it. Sticking it up on a website or a blog is no problem but standing there in the room with it with others makes me see it as the audience. Sometime this can be a great way of critiquing yourself. However, I see it as not yet worthy and it frustrates me when people don’t see it the way I do.

Three things I want to become:

• Better at having more pride in my own work. Not to an egotistical extent but to be able to look at something I have achieved and made and to be able to say I did a good job about it. Not to dwell so much if one person out of fifteen don’t like it because I can’t please every one.

• To realise that I’m not always going to be designing for myself. Of course you can have a little bit of your own personality in your work, but so much that it dominates the piece.

• Taking in good criticism and using it for my own advantage. If it’s being given to me then I should use and not brood on the fact that not everybody “liked it.”

Illustrators

I need to start practasing my anatomey and general illustraion skills some more. But ere's some work I really apprecaite. (Though will never achieve)

http://danielauhlig.blogspot.com/ : Daniela Uhlig

http://tjandamal.com/ (she doesn't give her name on anything, but i know she's a graphic designer from Texas. ='D ) http://bigbigtruck.deviantart.com/ :

Cocept Proposal: The Newbies!

What is the problem?
The the first years come into all this sudden money that they have not bee used to before. Silly spending ensues on non essential goods and their food budget is cut considerably. Up until the next Loan installment, not everyone has enough money to eat.

What are you going to do about it? (identify, inform, promote)
I intend to Promote a ration box for the 1st years that they can use in case of emergency's.

How are you going to do it?
By researching various existing ration boxes from all kinds of backgrounds. Also looking into what cheap pre-packeaged food exists in the current market. (nothing that needs to be frozen or refridgerated.)

A Brief History of the Grid

From a natural point of view:

Vitruvian Man; "The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De Architectura. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture. Other artists had attempted to depict the concept, with less success. The drawing is traditionally named in honour of the architect."

The Modulor is a scale of proportions devised by the French, Swiss born architect Le Corbusier (1887–1965).

From This:

(Leopoldo Metlicovitz, “Fleurs de Mousse,” 1914.
Advertising poster for French perfume.)

To This:

But this is al very well and said, but design with the grid system has come along way:

A more modern theme which would work better for craigs interview piece. Apart from the Warcraft spread, I think the other 2 work exceptionally well but i think the two black and white pieces work better.

Layout Brief: Craig Fawell

In the few weeks leading up to Easter break, we've been having type and grid workshops. These have been very insightful and I've now realised that I have only just begun to scratch the surface when it comes to these kinds of layouts.

Now all of this knowledge I have gained on the anatomy of typefaces and the correct way to measure grids and columns has to be presented in an article based on a fellow designer. I was paired up with Craig who I have rarely spoken to since Septmeber. I took this as a good thing because I'm not very good at mixing with people. It was insightful because I had judged him wrong in the begining. I believd him to be one of these "football" types but as it turns out he doens't have that much interest in the sport.

He comes from a small village just out side of Leeds and enjoys going to the gym on his days off. A really nice guywho presented himself to be very calm, pleasent and insighful. He enjoys contempory Graphic Design and belives that such design should have meaning. He's not just about making somthing pretty of preseting facts and Figure. An opinion man at heart, he wants to get out there and shout it to the world! (In the form of Graphic Design ofcourse)

The interview I did with Craig went faily well and I am now to design threes dps' (double page spreads). One of these has to be an introduction piece of around 500 words. Next will be the mian body of 1, 500 worlds and the last will also have 1, 500. It's allot of words for a person i've spoken to about 3 times but luckily I'm good at making things stretch. (Besides...we can copy pasta.)

The tag line needs some work but I was thinking: "Facts and Figures are for calculators. Show me the opinion and I'll show you Graphic Design." .... It needs work.

Too True...

I couldn't have put it better myself Jamie.... No really I couldn't. 

But all humour a side, there's a few artist I want to feature and have a small rabble about their work. The first Is this guy: Michael Choi

A superb Marvel artist who, in my opinion, draws the prettiest looking X-men ever. I mean, this guy needs an award, he made Logan look man pretty. So far, thats a hard thing to do with a tiny hairy canadian man. He's working on the new and "messiah war" for Marvel and Oback is ging to go kick ass on his lines, her colours are almost painting like. 

Allot of the time it's not the writer that can make the story work, art has a big hand in the deal. I'm currently feeling that way about a certain canceled story line. Maybe if the art was more tolerable...But then I realised; no. The story was terrible. 

Mark Brooks is also another favourite of mine. There's just something animated about his works, if the budget was high enough then his art would make epic animation. I'm so looking forward to the new arc of Young Avengers, this time though it's dark reign. There is somthing almost Wither like about the guy in front, something I pointed out on the new line up. Maybe because Brooks did the New X-men artwork...maybe I just want Wither back. 

(More later when I'm not coughing my guts  up from a chest infection.)