If, hopefully, I am going to make it to the next year of University, I would defenetely get more involved in everything that happens around me.
This year I feel like I missed a lot of opportunities and I want to make sure it will not happen again.
For starters, I am planning on joining a society, since I did not get the chance to do so on my first year. I am also interested in doing some volunteering work and get out of my comfort zone by attending more social events.
I intend to put even more effort in my work and, maybe, learn some new skills.
I will make sure my next year I will do my best not to waste time.
If in my first semester I was still trying to adapt, everything being new to me, in the second semester I could be more focused on the work I had to produce.
The first term had me struggle, in terms of briefs, with the artist’s book (we had to create a book that reflects, in one way or another, our experience in Coventry) . I could not figure out what I want to create and it took me a long amount of time to come up with a proper idea. I can say that I did not enjoy making it but, somehow, I got the highest grade on this module, compered to the other two. I did, however, enjoy creating a typeface and the briefs from Design Context, especially the one where we had to create a map, were really fun to work on.
The second term came strong, with more complex briefs. (I talked about them previously)
As I mentioned before, I had to make a ‘coming soon’ webpage for my individual exhibition. Even though I was really excited to do so, I learned very little in class about coding which was kind of dissapointing. I got over it, however, and did my own research on the matter.
I am still not sure about how I feel about writing on a blog.
Looking back, this past year I have recieved valuable feedback and I -defenetely- have expanded my knowledge on Graphic Design.
As I mentioned previously, while I was on a field trip in Berlin, I got the chance to visit two digital agencies with different approaches, but similar views, both great in their own way.
While those from AKQA had a really open and friendly attitude (even giving us a tour of their office) , those from R/GA kept it professional.
Both companies walked us through their achievements and failures, explaining what worked and what did not and why.
When asked what they are looking for in an individual when hiring, they both reply that personality counts more than the actual skills. (which does not warm my heart since I lack both personality and skill)
At R/GA they talked about how is good to have restrictions when designing something since you can get more creative, statement I highly agree with as I mentioned in a previous post.
Although I liked the atmosphere at AKQA, I enjoyed more the projects made by R/GA since they were more complex and well-definied.
Overall, I am glad I managed to go to both presentations (since there were limitations in terms of space) and I am hoping that, one day, I will be a competent employee in a highly-acclaimed company.
Since I am on Easter Break, I finally got around to writing about my field trip in Germany.
When I first heard about it, I decided not to go because I felt like I spent too much money the last couple of months. But when the trip was postponed, it was almost like I was given another chance and I did not let it slide again.
From 11th to 15th of February, I and some of my coursemates went to Berlin to visit two companies, AKQA and R/GA that would give us some insight on what our life as Graphic Designers could be like. (I will discuss this on the next post)
But our trip did not resume to just that. It was also a cultural experience and a great opportunity to get to know our peers better.
No matter if we were having a guided tour of Berlin with the most charismatic guide I have ever met, or we were exploring the city on our own, we were always looking for inspiration.
If the visits at the Jewish Museum and Holocaust Memorial had, as expected, an emotional impact on me, Reichstag offered us a stunning view of the city at night and I felt like I could have stayed there forever.
In the end, this field trip helped me expand my cultural horizons and had me open up more to my peers. I am defenetly glad I did not miss it.
I keep finding impressive artworks on social media and that always reminds me that I have not properly painted anything since I came here. Which is a shame since I used to be pretty decent at it, especially with tempera.
And, because of that, I am now motivated to give it a shot and start painting and drawing again after my final submission for this year.
I need first to buy some good-quality paper. And tempera.
Below are some of my past creations I am pretty proud of:
I have talked previously about my group work and I could not omit talking about my individual work that I had for this second term.
Same as the group work, the individual work is linked to OUT Projects and consists in creating moodboards, posters, catalogues, tote bags designs and web pages for a hyphotetical personal exhibition based on a folktale of choice.
We were given requirements in order to create each design, which limited our freedom. And this is not, by all means, a bad thing. I feel that when I have too much freedom in terms of realising a design, I have no idea where to start, but when I have restrictions, I can come up with ideas way more quickly.
Since the folktale I have chosen has a dark storyline, I wanted my designs to have a certain mysterious atmosphere to them and the moodboard helped me get a sense of how I might approach it.
I found creating the web page the most challenging task for me since my coding skills are -still- not that great. Therefore, I am not quite satisfied with the result and it could -obviously- be improved. However, that does not mean I dislike coding. On the contrary, I enjoy it and for sure I will get better at it in the future.
By working on this project I got the chance to understand better what should be considered while making a campaign and how each element must be linked to one another in order to create something consistent.
My exhibition’s tagline is ‘Be the change!’ and I think it can also apply to me.
Since I am already at the end of my first year at University, I thought that maybe it was time to share why I chose this course in the first place.
Before entering an arts high school, all I knew is that I wanted to pursue a career that involves visual arts. At that time, I was not aware of how vague my wish was. Fortunately, my workshop teacher succeeded in showing me a path that I could follow, by expanding my horizons and introducing me to Graphic Design. At first, I thought ’Hmm, Graphic Design. Sounds pretentious and cool. I might do that.’ Later on I started doing my research on the matter and I realized that is not just ‘a cool thing to do’ but it is also a really challenging, higly-creative and engaging field. Because we did not explore the means of Graphic Design at school despite talking about it, it was my duty to do that in my own spare time.
It was some kind of ‘awakening’ and I can say that I do not regret my decision.
Recently, my team and I have finished our projects after weeks of planning and sharing ideas.
To start with the beginning, I feel like I have to explain the journey and the whole idea behind it.
I have mentioned before that this term, I got the chance to work on a team and I talked about how communication is key in everything we do. This time, I will focus on what we actually had to do and on the outcome. Even if this project involves both teamwork and individual work, in this post I will talk only about my teamwork.
Split into groups of four, our “mission” was to create a campaign for OUT projects that specializes in promoting folktales through interactive exhibitions. Therefore, we needed to build our campaign around four exhibitions, each based on a folktale from a different country.
Our first task was to create a logo, choose a tagline, and come up with a manifesto. We also needed to consider the brand’s colour palette and its typefaces. Unfortunately, it took us more than necessary to choose the latter but we came around eventually.
Have all this settled, we needed to include them in a brand style guide where we explain our idea, talk about our target audience, present our logos and so on. Of course, we needed to consider its design according to our main theme: Sci-Fi. After some consideration, I came up with the layout and applied it to the guide. I also carefully considered the text that went in there.
Our next task was to build a webpage (in a short amount of
time) were we needed to include our individual exhibitions. Even if, at the
beginning, we had no idea what we were doing since our coding skills were
limited, we had a lot of fun (at least I know I did) trying to figure out how it works. We ended
up with something decent-looking but it definitely needed improvement.
The last task was a mock up for an app. The app we designed was destined to be one for those who did not get the chance to visit the exhibition. Below is the concept and the explanation:
In the end, what I enjoyed the most was the fact that I got the chance to work together with people with completely different ideas and somehow managing to make it work.
I am in a point in life where I cannot listen to pep talks because they make me feel even more depressed. But this time I gave it a shot and I went -after quite some time- to a conference.
On 13th of March, the famous British Graphic Designer, Malcolm Garrett, was giving a speech at Coventry University.
I have to admit that I was not familiar with his work and attending the conference gave me some context.
He walked us through his evolution as a Graphic Designer and he talked about his best accomplishments.
He started his career by designing album covers for bands such as Buzzcocks and Duran Duran (band I did not know about and I am glad I found out about it) at a fairly young age. He proceeded, afterwords, to founding Assorted iMaGes, a design company in 1977.
He is now Creative Director at Images&Co and one of the masterminds behind the ingenious digital street maps that can be found all around London and not only.
He had a friendly attitude and spoke with passsion no matter the subject.
At the end of his presentation -as expected- he gave us advice on how to achieve the best in life.
Even though the motivational speech did not have any impact on me since, as I implied above, I am not in my best state, I did find the conference interesting and I really appreciated his work.
Living life as a Graphic Design student 