OUGD502 Life's a Pitch

As my responsibility with our business was to research into target audience and our company's aims, I felt it was important at this stage to come up with some sort of design manifesto.

I constructed a list of attributes that I felt were vital to our company in terms of our target audience and how we would ensure to be our clients first choice:

1. We strive to ensure that every relationship with our clients is nurtured to encourage it's longevity.
2. We take advantage of the range of disciplines we have as a group.
3. We constantly want to be thinking outside of the box and to make sure all of our ideas are new and current.
4. We are constantly hands on with our projects and never want a client to feel like they're left in the dark.
5. We try to remain easily accessible to our clients and provide flexibility in timetabling and scheduling.
6. We want to carry on learning and experimenting.
7. We wish to take ordinary things and allow our clients and audience to see them in an extraordinary light.
8. We will never settle for anything we don't consider to be excellence.

On top of this, I decided to mock up a mission statement to formalise the statements we had made above. The mission statements talks about us as a company and how and why we want to achieve all the elements of our manifesto. We have chosen a few key elements that we wish to capitalise on while working for Seam, and have explained their relevance and importance.

OUGD502 A Design Presence - Promo

In order to maintain both variation and consistency in my promotional materials, I made some more varied linear designs to be used as borders, background visuals, emblems on stationary etc.

I tried to vary these subtly to make them an obvious part of the same pack. I started with the letterhead, for which I wanted to forgo the SB logo as I felt a linear design with a low opacity would create a more varied overall appearance. I used a few of the designs I had initially created and combined them into one larger one to take up the whole page in some different styles:

I ended up choosing the one I thought to be the most simple. With the address and details centred I felt it compensated for the lack of symmetry in the rest of the design.

OUGD502 - Life's A Pitch - Seam Meeting

We felt it was important for our group to meet and discuss each of our roles before we went on Easter break as then we would not be seeing each other for a few weeks. We wanted to ensure that we had all the appropriate research and presentation materials for the week back.

We made some slight changes to the initial roles and gave everyone something to be getting on with over the Easter Break:

• Amy - Promotional material and living in London
• Mel - Branding
• Beth - Business
• Danielle - Costs and Financing
• Sarah - Target audience, Manifesto and future aims

In the meeting it was also concluded that Danielle would take up position of director, while the remaining four members would become shareholders, each with a 25% share of the company.

OUGD502 Studio Brief 3 - Life's A Pitch

Brief

Working in groups of four you will construct a business plan or business proposal for a creative design studio and present it to your peers and tutors in an formatively assessed, oral presentation. Your plan/proposal and presentation should be based on the analysis and content that you have been introduced to throughout the module.

Background / Considerations

Four heads are better than one as long as they communicate. You will now have the luxury of four pairs of hands. How will you use them effectively? You will need to consider the following: What skills and services do you have to offer? Who is your target market? Who is your competition and how will you compete? What are your costs, charges and financial considerations? How will you structure your studio? Who will be responsible for what? How will you promote your services? To who? Using what media?

The group that I will be working with for this brief is:

• Beth Dalzell
• Danielle Muntyan
• Amy Hill
• Melissa Hardcastle

After brainstorming some initial ideas for a concept and business proposal, it was decided that we would make our business a design studio that focuses more specifically on fashion branding. Before going further we were each assigned a research topic chosen between us that would give us a better insight into the plausibility and reality of creating such a business.

I chose to look into our target market, and the sort of clients we would expect to be working with.

After looking at some examples and websites of some popular branding agencies that specialise in the fashion design field, I concluded that a strong working relationship directly with the client produces the most effective results. In light of this, it became apparent that, at least as a starting business, it may be more effective to work with smaller fashion brands, before climbing towards working with bigger and more international brands.

Working with less high profile designers and brands ensures that we would be able to get far more face time with the clients than if it were a bigger business. Most clients will be very specific about how their brand is received, especially in the fashion retail market, where the name means as much as whether or not the clothes look good. By working closely with them and developing a strong bond and relationship, we can develop an understanding of what our clients want, enabling us to utilise that skill more and more as we progress up the fashion retail ladder.

OUGD502 Ether Development

A friend asked earlier in the year if I could help him construct the typeface to be used in the title sequence and end credits of the film he made for his dissertation, called 'Into The Ether'.
This was difficult having not seen the film yet as it hasn't had it's official release, but I was informed that it was quite dark and violent.

I have shown some of the initial mock ups and examples I created, but cannot go into more detail due to the film having not be released yet:

OUGD502 A Design Presence - Visual Identity

I had previously been developing a typeface that I felt reflected my opinion and view on design. It has a mechanical structure and involves a lot of shapes slotting in to place to create the letters.

I chose to develop this more for a visual identity as I think it exhibits a versatility that I would like to promote. I used Helvetica bold as a base, as I found the weight and the width of the letterforms allowed me to do more with them:

I had added more detail into these forms than the first version as I felt, given that only initials would be used in this typeface I had the allowance to make them more detailed without being overwhelming.

I decided to make this aesthetic the theme of my visual identity and so mocked up some patterns in this style to be used throughout my Promo Pack:

Given the very systematic nature of the design, I felt it best to keep the colour scheme a monochrome constant, as again, I didn't want much to distract from the impact of the visuals. I felt that colour combined with the design may overwhelm the viewer.

After referring to my previous research I decided I wanted to use either black stock with white visuals or vice versa, perhaps using a combination of the two.

BUSINESS CARD

I tried out some subtle variations in layout of the business card but found that the most simple ones were the ones that lent themselves best to the format when including the design:

OUGD502 Studio Brief 2 - A Design Presence

Brief

Create an appropriate print based and online presence that can be used as a focal point for your design practice, professional communications and visual identity.Think about how you can stand out from the rest, make yourself recognizable and communicate your professionalism as well as your creativity. You will also need to include relevant contact details. Your design Presence should consist of: PART 1: YOUR VISUAL IDENTITY. Your own professional visual l identity for 'Brand You' and apply it to an appropriate range of stationary and promotional material. You should aim to create a simple but effective visual identity that communicates the essence of your creative 'image' and details about your emerging design practice. You will need to consider the practicalities of your identity which may include a logo or bespoke typeface. How readable, legible and usable is your identity? PART 2: YOUR PROMO PACK. A promotional package the communicates your skills, abilities creative concerns and professional competencies to appropriate sectors of the creative and cultural industries. This pack should include a business card, introductory information, samples of work a creative CV, contact details and other relevant material and information PART 3: YOUR WEBSITE. You have been introduced to the fundamentals of web design and web design software through a series of workshops in previous modules. Based on these workshops propose/produce the structure and content of your own personal website. Keep it simple and make sure that your visual identity forms the basis of your online brand. IMPORTANT: You will be responsible for any online content uploaded and/or distributed as part of this module. Can you please ensure that all material is original, belongs to you and complies with the guidelines for online activity outlined as part of your general Mac suite induction. If you are unsure about any content that you intend to upload please discuss this with your tutor

Background / Considerations

You will need to consider: Scale: Your identity will need to work across a range of scales and formats from the the size of a projection screen to that of a letterhead.   Content: Too much and it becomes confusing, too little and it will not communicate. Too complex and it will not be practical. Too simple and it will be unrecognizable. Color: It will need to work in mono (one colour or b/w). It will be cheaper, more practical and easier to (re)produce. Think how the color of the stock can help. Production: The quality of the stock can say as much as your design. It can also make your design unreadable and illegible. Consider how it will be produced, by who and using what processes.

I have already started designing my own visual identity, and so plan on developing that further, but beforehand, I wanted to gain a better understanding of what this and my promo pack should entail:

The research I did gave me plenty of ideas for processes and formats that I would love to try in the future, but I have to be realistic with time constraints, as given the work load of the other modules, I knew I would struggle with this one if I tried something too elaborate.