OUGD502 | STUDIO BRIEF 1 | RESEARCH

To begin my project, I need to research into some designers that really appeal to me and have a similar style to what I want to progress onto.

Tyler Spangler:

http://tylerspangler.com/
Tyler Spangler is a Californian artist that creates various posters and iconic imagery. His work is extremely eye catching and has its own signature style.

His work is very colourful and resembles a postmodern aesthetic. He seems to use a lot of vector artwork which is similar to my own style. It would be interesting to interview him, but as I want to send something hand made, it would be expensive and time consuming to contact someone in America. 

Kate Moross: 

http://www.katemoross.com/

Kate Moross is a UK based designer. Her work is well known within the industry and she has a varied portfolio. Again, she looks to use a lot of vector artwork which is something I am confident in. 

Her work is something I'd admired for quite a few years, so I think sending her something would be worth it, because you never know if they'll reply or not! She focuses heavily on typography and bright, bold colours, and this is something I'd like to enhance within my own practice.

Spin Studio

http://spin.co.uk/work/all-work
Spin studio is a studio that I've only heard about recently, as they featured in the Computer Arts top 30 UK design studios, though looking through their online portfolio I recognise a lot of their work. They have a very sleek style, but are also quite experimental and like to push boundaries.

Duo

http://designedbyduo.co.uk/projects/
Duo are a Leeds based design company that specialise in branding. There's only two members of the company, so they are quite small scale. Branding isn't something I've done a lot of, and I'd like to possibly look into more. It would be a good opportunity for me to contact Duo, as I  can possibly meet them face-to-face as they are extremely local.

Glorious Creative

http://www.gloriouscreative.co.uk/work/

Glorious Creative are a design studio based in Manchester. They create a lot of brand identities and focus a lot on re-brands. Looking at their portfolio, they undertake large projects with lots of various collateral. They recently collaborated with The Tate to create the signage and information for the exhibition. I like this studio as they're very professional and create sleek looking work for big clients, and I'd be interested in talking to them and finding out about their design process.

OUGD502 | STUDIO BRIEF 1 | INTRODUCTION

This brief is quite exciting, as it entails contact with real working professionals. We should approach designers and ask them for an interview, and create a report based off what they have said. The report can be produced in whatever way we like - which gives us a lot of freedom to experiment!

I'd like to research into some small studios, but also try my luck with some bigger designers. I'd like to send them something hand made and more unique to give myself a presence, rather than just sending them an email that they may not read. 

I'm looking forward to starting this project and seeing what the end result is!

OUGD502 | STUDIO BRIEF 1 | BRING ME THE HORIZON

Over the summer, many people including myself spotted this poster around cities and densely populated areas:

Not many people knew what it was for, and it got people talking. Eventually it was revealed to be the album artwork for the new Bring Me The Horizon album. The symbol they used is so iconic, and very different to their other album artwork:

I think this way of promoting something is quite risky, but this worked very well. The whole campaign was very cryptic and got people talking about what it could be about. Overall I think this campaign was a success, and I really like their new approach!

OUGD502 | STUDY TASK 1

The summer period was quite relaxing for me. I spent a lot of time with my friends and enhancing my Wii U skills. One of the biggest changes to my life this summer was that I now have a job! I work for Polly Vadasz in first year graphic design, who owns an online shop. We collaborated earlier in the year on a cactus phone case, and when we found out she was coming to LCA, we decided to team up permanently.

Since Polly lives in Surrey and I live in Lancashire, I worked remotely for a few months on some new designs and processing orders from the shop. We are now currently working on re-launching the shop, as it's been closed since the start of September to prepare us both for moving back to Leeds. We have our own studio located in Leeds, and are in the process of getting everything ready for when we open.

A more relaxing part of my summer was spending 4 days in Amesterdam with my boyfriend. Experiencing a new city and country is always exciting, and consciously looking for examples of type for my summer project was a really cool way of immersing myself in the graphic culture.

I also teamed up with Lo from this course and we are in the process of creating the third issue of our zine. We've tried to create a more professional aesthetic and approach to it this time, and we're hoping to get it stocked in Village Bookshop.

Overall this summer has been very relaxing and relatively stress-free. Although everything I've wrote here has examples of design, I've tried to take a break from it to get me ready for level 5.