In order to achieve a greater understanding of the potential careers within the field of graphic design a trip to London was organised, where I would attend both a conference of four entirely different designers that had different paths to where they are now as well as different careers entirely. The four designers in question were Jack Renwick, Alisdair Scott, Laura Jordan Bambach and Harry Pearce.

Jack Renwick

During her time period of talking, Jack Renwick spoke of not only her latest works and careers, but mostly in great length about how her journey from a small child through into becoming an extremely successful and well known graphic designer came to be. As well as explaining how even growing up during a time and place where graphic design was not yet known as a subject area, how alternatives can be found to make your way to ideal career choice. Jack originates from Glasgow and has worked on a huge variety of projects over the past 20 years for clients including Amnesty International, British Heart Foundation, eBay, BBC, Nokia, Royal Mail and Stella McCartney and received recognition from most of the world’s most prestigious awards. Discovering that graphic design was something that could be taken as a career later in life than most discover, then eventually being let into Art school where she recieved qualifications neccesary to begin working for others. However shortly after deciding to take the leap to freelance and starting her own design company aptly named “Jack Renwick Studios”. She now works with 9 designers in London.

The most interesting topic of her work that was showcased to me was the work she had completed on London’s “Fish island”. Being tasked with selling high end buyers not-so high end located property, Jack was forced to think long and hard about how the design marketing would be done. Below are some examples of her work on “Fish Island”.

 

Alisdair Scott

Although Alisdair Scott appeared as more of an innovator than a typical graphic designer. His plethora of jobs has allowed him much variance in his knowledge. Working with topics such as CGI for films and many more. Although there was minimal graphics within his talk I still found inspiration within what he said, giving me confidence to be able to go my own way if necessary, I found him a realatable, witty speaker who translated his career path clearly and thoughtfully. He seemed to be able to predict what innovations would soon come into style, as well as being able to see the failure of things that were far ahead of their time such as google glass.

Laura Jordan Bambach

Laura Jordan Bambach is an Australian Digital Designer who during the time of the four designers conference worked in MrPresident as well as being a founder of She-Says. A large portion of Bambach’s talk was about her work with equality for all, it seemed just about all her work that was presented could be linked back to this theme of equality for all, which was lovely to see. I found her designs and concepts to be innovative and new, taking on daring challenges and engaging in very modern and current topics. Winning multiple awards Bambach actively engages in her co-founded group “She-Says”. A group designed to encourage women to pursue careers in digital marketing and design.

Harry Pearce

I found Harry Pearce the most intriguing of all the four designers, not only his journey but the wonder of his work amazed me the most. I also felt I gained the most inspiration & Ideas from him. Now working for Pentagram, Harry had gone through many different topics that varied greatly, one that I found particularly interesting was his “accidental Photography” series. I found these particularly interesting due to the fact of the simple beauty that he somehow managed to find in everyday life, for instance empty chairs where three men once sat and spoke, the way that stone and dirt fell onto a work glove and that way it told the story of what happened. As well as this I also found the fact that he often becomes inspired and used the ideas he discovered from dreams into his work. I had considered keeping record of my dreams before due to the extremely seemingly random events that occur could also become useful for Graphic Design, however seeing it come into action when used by another only confirmed it for me. I found his work and journey riveting and inspiring and will certainly be looking at him for further inspiration in the future of my own journey.

 

Overall I found the four designers conference very useful personally, the designers were innovative and all unique to each other, offering different views but all of them useful to consider. Alongside offering some extremely high quality and modern work that will become very useful to me when next contemplating a Graphic Communication brief.

Studio Visits

Onwards

As well as the four designers conference, I also visited a successful, small scale design studio within London called Onwards. Showed around by an Ex-Student of Cardiff Metropolitan, his journey seemed much more personal and relatable than the four designers at the conference. The studio holds a small scale team of roughly 5-7 members. The work that interested and inspired me the most out of what was shown was Onwards rework of the SilliconMilkRoundabout job fair event. The event gained huge amounts of popularity over the years, changing venues from a small London Pub to a large warehouse sized building, however the event did not have the digital presence that matched the sheer size of the event. Onwards collectively decided that they would remedy this issue, delving into the roots of the event and pulling out a fresh new company style. The stylish yet silly looking finish to the rework campaign looks highly stylish, the work seemed very personalised, the team effectively identified the factors that made the event special and capitalised on them massively.

I enjoyed my trip to London and found much inspiration for my own projects as well as making me contemplate my own future within graphic design, after seeing the stories of those who have succeeded so well in the field I am more determined and more excited and what is to come next in my own life.

 

 

My final outcome for the one week Hybography project is posted below. deciding to create an outcome for the Robert Louis Stevenson book, Jekyll and Hyde. utilising the two different typefaces to represent the two main characters in the book, as the poster scrolls on it can be seen that the Egyptian style font that i used to represent Hyde slowly overcomes the script style font that i used to represent Jekyll. As well as making the focus of the poster the word “consumed”, merging the two fonts together in another way, rather than slicing up the letters and then placing them back together. i have attempted to give more emphasis to the word by having the Egyptian style, Hyde font surround the Script font and begin to “consume” the other typeface. I then inverted the colours, i found this  to be advantageous to my poster as the novel generally has dark themes so the additional black space fits much better than black text on a white background. to create this poster i used Adobe Illustrator. after a one hour introduction session i then began to practice the techniques and processes that i needed for this poster, using tools like the knife and pen tools to slice and move the different parts of the letter forms around the page to create the hybography. Although i am much more familiar with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator worked much more effectively for this particular project due to the fact that everything created in Illustrator is a vector image, meaning that it will not lose quality once enlarged. overall i enjoyed this project and am happy with my final outcome, if i were to do this again i would change my poster by possibly changing the “consumed” part, while it does a very good job of translating the message it technically makes the poster more than 6 words. 

After listening to a number of presentations about various graphic designers working at different periods in history, perhaps the most interesting part of it all was learning about Margaret Calvert, who was responsible for the designing of modern British road signs. ive simply never really given much thought to how the designs for modern road signs came about. learning that the vast majoirty of the signs were created by one individual seems somewhat interesting to me, im glad im now aware of this fact.

Past:

As a relatively shy individual I have always had a keen interest in the arts. As I got older I found that my passion was within the subject of graphic design. Within graphic design there are 3 main components, these are illustration, typography and photography. I found my particular interest was in typography. I thought that if a picture could speak one thousand words, then what possible awake if both text and pictures were combined into one art piece? This lead me to take a media course at college and then proceed to enter onto a Graphic Communication degree and Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Present:

This week I was particularly engaged in the freedom granted within my University course. The broadness of topics meant that I will be able to experiment with not only many typography techniques but also be able to participate in cross curriculum activities that will allow me to collaborate with many different students who have taken the other courses on offer at Cardiff School of Art and Design. The employability of not only the course but the University in general intrigues me, removing much doubt of what prospects await me once I complete my three year degree.

Future:

Due to the knowledge I have gained this week I have contemplated what I would like to do once I finish my University course. I found that I would like to continue living in Cardiff once my degree has ended. Hoping to begin my journey into the graphic design industry. Possibly entering into freelance to build up my portfolio and then proceeding to apply for high level graphic design jobs after I have become familiar with having clients. Most importantly I am excited for the plethora of opportunities that await me in the world of employment as well as the remaining three years of my university degree.