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Guess who's back?

Guess who’s back?

Back again. So, I haven’t checked this poor blog in a long while. Mainly because CTS for me ended a couple of years ago. So why am I back, [tell a friend, wooooh]? This blog, being my academic blog, is sort of considered an extension of my academic outcome, I think. At the same time, nobody cares about it. Nobody reads it. Not even me. Which is perfect. Because I am currently busy with the…

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Sanjana

Hi guys! You can read about my entire DPS year on my personal blog:  https://sanjerie.tumblr.com/ 

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dieckertschmidt - Cameron Walker

So I’ve moved to Berlin and started working at diecketschmidt, an advertising agency. We just finished a huge project for amazon for the Kindle PaperWhite and my designs are currently all around Germany which is really exciting! I’m currently in London on holiday but will take some photographs of the work in the real life situations when I’m back in Berlin. After being with a lot of other people fro DPS in Berlin, I’ve developed a big interest in photography and invested in a film camera to capture Berlin using the most appropriate technology. Berlin is an amazing city and I am determined to come back and live here for a couple of months after I finish my final year of university.

Cameron Walker

WAL14411034

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OVERDUE BLOG POST #4

I has now been one month since I’ve started working part-time for RCKT and I could not be happier with my decision. I have been given three or for projects this month but they have all been for big clients and I have been charged with leading the design aspect of it. This means I have also been in charge of directing and guiding the interns as well as some of the consultants (whilst obviously always working and consulting with my supervisor). This amount of responsibility is something that really worried my before I arrived to Berlin and I actually disliked working in groups because of it. I always thought that ‘if you want something done right, do it yourself’ but I have actually realised that it all depends on how you can direct your team and communicate your ideas clearly and effectively which make this possible. I now feel confident to lead a team with my own ideas without worrying about producing it myself. This will also be extremely handy if I decide to start my own design studio. I have also been working three to four days per week (on average) which has allowed me to enjoy the city and work on personal projects. Since the work I do at the consultancy is more about the idea that execution (considering many of our outcome get produced externally or by the client), I been thrilled to work on some personal typographic and illustrative project during my free time. I have also had more time to visit many design museum and galleries which Berlin has to offer. I recently revisited the Bauhaus Museum (where I had not been since April 2015) and I was very intrigued by the way I approached the exhibited work. I felt much more open and less critical of certain aesthetic styles. Although the bauhaus museum mainly showcase work which are simple and have geometric aesthetics with a limited colour palettes (usually limited to primary colours), I remember being very selective about what I liked and disliked last time I visited it and this was not the case this time. I had a much more open view of the work and when something seemed further from what I appreciated, I spent a longer time trying to understand why I disliked it and why I was probably wrong to. This made me realise something which I have known for a long time now; I am too critical of design work without understanding why and this is something I would really like to focus on during my final year in order to not limit my work and my growth as a designer. Finally I have also started taking lots of analogue photographs since January and now that I work part-time, I have even more time to do so. This new hobby has allowed me to capture everything I love most about this city; the typography, the architecture, and the culture and traditions. I find taking analogue photography as opposed to digital is extremely therapeutic and rewarding. The fact that you only have roughly 36 photos per film means that you spend much being attentive and precise than you would with a digital camera. I have already gone for three hour walks with the intention of photographing the cities architecture and come back having taken only six photographs. This is definitely a hobby which I would like to continue in London and I will finally start using the darkroom facilities that LCC has to offer.  

Here are a few photographs I have taken during my DPS year:

Armel Bellec

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OVERDUE BLOG POST #3

I am now reaching the end of my second internship at RCKT and I can honestly say that I do not feel like an intern here anymore. I feel I have become a crutial asset to the company and am being treated as such. In the last two month I have been leading a series of projects such merchandise and social media campaigns for a range of clients such MERCK, Henkel, Foodspring, Deezer, Coup, and Deutsche Bahn. I am very thrilled that I decided to stay at RCKT because I have spoken to a number of other DPS students and even though I may not be doing work which is a fun (poster campaign, identity branding, or illustration), I feel so grateful of the way I am treated and valued at this company. I have also been doing quite a lot of animation work which is something that always scared me when I was in London. It did take me a long time to get comfortable with After Effects but I feel like I can now successfully create smooth and semi-complex animations. The fact that I am the only one at RCKT who works with this medium is also very rewarding. It has even allowed RCKT to stop hiring external freelancers for these projects. This is definitely a skill which will come in handy during my last year of BA and I hope to combine with other disciplines such as music and typography (something to consider for a SIPP perhaps). I have also decided that I want to stay in Berlin for the remainder of my DPS year I as I now sure that I will be back after my studies to start my own design studio with another dps student. Having been here for almost 6 month, I have already created a large network of creative and small professionals from start-ups to freelancers and I think continuing to broaden this network will be extremely handy for when I return. I feel like I may be offered to work part-time for this consultancy which would mean a better pay as well as more time off to explore and visit the city (which I haven't been able to do as much as I would have liked). I am still not 100% sure that if I will take this offer but I am quite tempted. Furthermore, I know that I will start getting even more interesting projects and responsibilities if I stay.

Armel Bellec

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OVERDUE BLOG POST #2

I have just renewed my internship at RCKT and will be starting beginning of January. I have thought long and hard about whether staying in the same company is in my best interest and I do believe it is. In the last few weeks of my first internship, I have been given my own big project which I will work on from start to finish, creating a very complex merchandise guide for Henkel which will used by all of Henkel’s branches around the world that aren’t in Germany. This guide will be used to create consistent merchandise between all branches regardless of where they are or what language they are in. Essentially, this is a set of blueprints for Henkel employee who wishes to produce Henkel merchandise but who might not have any design language. Although this is not the most interesting or creative project I could have been given, it is completely different to anything I have worked on and I feel I have gained valuable knowledge which I can later apply if starting my own design studio (which is something I have recently thought of doing when I finish my DPS year). Therefore I am very pleased that I will be back in January and I do not doubt that my responsibilities will get bigger as I grow with this company.

Armel Bellec

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OVERDUE BLOG POST #1

It has now been just over two month since I started my internship at RCKT, a creative consultancy based in Berlin. Although I love the team I work with and I don’t feel undervalued as an intern, I still feel like the projects I work on are a bit lacking with creative freedom. For my first few weeks, I was mainly working on producing mockups for concepts and merchandise to support the different client pitches which the consultancy hopes to win. Although some of the concepts and ideas are very interesting, the fact that these are only for pitches means that we do not have guarantee that we will ever be producing the mockups and bring our ideas to life. Even when we do win these pitches, I feel like these projects are usually taken up senior and junior designers which usually means I only work on the first stages of all big projects without seeing the outcome from start to finish.

 Of course, this is also because I have recently started here and it will take some time for me to get comfortable with the pace and workflow. I believe it is at that point that I will start be given more responsibilities and probably get my own personal projects which I will be able to overlook from start to finish. This will mean working with concept and idea generation all the way to production and I’m sure I will gain some valuable professional experience from this.

 I have been working on a wide range of projects in different medium and disciplines and I feel I am really learning to get out of my comfort zone. Some mediums which were quite new to me where animation (where I had to create a series of animated gifs for the company instagram page with the goal of recruiting new employees), creating my own mockups for concepts (which has greatly increased my photoshop skills), and creating style guides for big corporates (which is a tedious and uncreative as it sounds, but an extremely valuable and practical skill to have when working in the industry). I am starting to realise that I would rather learn many new skills and disciplines rather than only focusing on the ones I am most passionate about such as typography.

Armel Bellec

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Having stayed in one studio for the majority of this year, I feel I’ve had a very different experience to what I had originally set out to do on DPS. My first proposal outlined a range of studios, such as Browns, Bedow and Why Not Associates, all of which have a strong focus on editorial design. However, having now spent eight months at TM, I find that I’ve been granted a massive amount of responsibility; something I may not have experienced if I was to have done a number of short stints at studios. From about my first month at TM, I was very much involved in everything happening in the studio. This didn’t just include design, but the management of print and production, correspondence with clients and the final decision on a number of major projects. Not only has this enabled me to fully immerse myself in the logistics of a design studio, but it has also given me the drive to potentially go out and start my own studio after a few more years of experience.

Having now finished at TM, I plan to dedicate the rest of this year to researching for final year and with a bit of luck, starting and finishing my dissertation. With trips to both New York and Portugal planned, I will be looking to explore the varying editorial cultures of both locations, as well as doing various design related things such as heading to the Comme de Garçon exhibition and potentially meeting with Matt Willey, the art director of The New York Times Magazine. My main aim for these editorially fuelled trips is to prime myself with an in depth body of research in preparation for my thesis titled –

Will the Printed Publication Ever Succumb To Digital Media, If So, What Can Be Done to Prevent This?

Sam Underwood

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In my last month at TM I got the opportunity to work on the design and curation of the Fedrigoni event, Label Lab. The main goal of the event was to highlight the varying materials and textures available from Fedrigoni’s labelling division, Arconvert. In order to do this, we chose to utilise a number of well known label shapes and unique materials to celebrate the visual and textural properties of label design. With our ten chosen shapes, we looked to draw away from the associated brands by creating an air of ambiguity through the stripping back of each label, thus putting sole emphasis on form and material.

The event itself served as a real means of intensifying my appreciation for materials within design. Especially when it came to the talks from Pablo Martín [Atlas Design], Andy Giddings [Here], Richard Baird [BP&O] and Xavier Bas [Xavier Bas Disseny], that focused on the likes of material thinking, packaging design and label design.

In doing this project, I was given a real insight into the communicative qualities of materials and how these can influence the user’s perception of a design. Haptic communication is now going to be a technique I will look to explore within my editorial design experiments throughout final year. This will start with one of my self initiated project proposals, that studies the extent at which the physicality of the book can communicate its photographic contents.

Sam Underwood

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Link to my blog with most things that I’ve done on DPS is here https://paperstitches.wordpress.com/

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The M.A.D. Project - Lizzie Reid, September 2016 - Present I began working (unpaid) for this project as their Designer and Visual Communicator. This was a project in complete sync with my interests in raising awareness and pushing for change in issues related to oppression and inequality across the world. We had a great balance of communication and creative freedom, and working as an individual creator whilst collaborating as a group was particularly benefitted through the clear direction, feedback and inspiration for me to produce representative work. The first event we worked on took place in December 2016 for which I designed all marketing and promotional material including a short film, posters and social media graphics (using all of their original branding). Applying my creative initiative and following a meeting with Laura Vent (DPS tutor), I decided to proceed and re-brand the project completely in March 2017. With an awareness of the teams discomfort with their original branding (but without directly consulting), I decided to go ahead with research and critical analysis to formulate a whole new look for M.A.D. I presented them with a well informed proposal with clear explanations and detailed analysis of my choices and they loved it instantly. I now apply my new branding look to their social media graphics, films, photography etc.

This was another great example of just how far solid conceptual comprehension can push you and the importance of recognizing feelings of discomfort with how things look, taking initiative and having the confidence to act on instinct. ____________________________________________________________________ Several months in I also realised problems with their delegation of responsibilities, organization and preparation, all areas I had learnt the importance of through Prgrm2ed Perception. Being a small team of four, we have great consistent communication and I am a well respected member of the team as the only visual creative. In the most recent months of our nine month working relationship, I decided I had to stop giving advice and suggestions from the sidelines for them to implement, and instead implement my advice into action myself for the benefit of the team. This continues to make the M.A.D. Project a more efficient and stress-free organization and has boosted my self-worth dramatically.  This was when I learnt to be nice but authoritative (within means). I am naturally a friendly person and being perceived this way is important to me. But possibly because of this, I’ve felt ignored a lot of my life, from scenarios involving giving driving directions to giving advice at my waitressing job (The Breakfast Club) which I’ve been at for over two years now. I tend to pass power over and give opportunity for authority to other people. Over the months of improvement to my self-belief and worth, this has become increasingly frustrating, so I decided to tackle it.

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Children’s book Illustration - Lizzie Reid, May - December 2016

In May 2016, Author Antonio Dentinho de Oliveira, offered me the chance to illustrate his children’s book ‘Leonidas and his friends’. I relished the opportunity for my first commission as an Illustrator, yet soon found working on a project I had little direct engagement with was extremely challenging.

Illustration is stereotypically assumed to be an individual exercise, but in this instance, I struggled with a lack of input from the Author, a weak brief and little to no understanding of his personal connection to the narrative. This led to more of a self-inflicted hit to my confidence that BOSI because of my specialism stereotypically being in this area, however with my lack of experience and understanding of the process of professional book illustration, my self-prescribed pressure was inevitable.

Realising the transition of my excitement to more feelings of obligation, I decided to end the commission in December 2016. This experience whilst uncompleted, taught me that involvement with any project doesn’t mean I’m working for the project, in fact it means I’ve been chosen to work with it, thus requiring a balance of creative freedom and guidance. Antonio and I have kept in contact and are both now working for the Make A Difference Project which he recommended me for, despite my failed attempt at working for him! He has also recently recommended me to an artist space project in Italy which we are in current discussion about.

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Aster Rose  -Tegan Barnes

This is Aster Rose! Another branding job this year. The business is mainly crochet items and the feel we wanted to get across was fun and homely without being dated - so hopefully that’s come across. 

Above are the designs for the business cards and the logo is present on the front. I wanted to create a completely unique style of typeface so that the company was 100 percent original seeing as some of the items sold are one offs and pieces that haven’t been created before. I also had to make it unique because of how large the crochet business is on Etsy - it needed to be seen and properly branded. Check it out! @asterroseathome 

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Blood Honey - Tegan Barnes

So to end the year I’m repeating something I loved - band branding. I loved incorporating my love of music with design so what better way to end the year? 

The band chose the name ‘Blood Honey’ but personally I didn’t feel it suited the sound they were creating so it was my job to create designs that softened the name and made it more inviting and reflective of the band. We went through two flash sheets of designs and some more explorations and have now settled on the logo - in two variations to work better when we come to merch and web design. 

There is still a long way to go on this project but I feel like its the perfect end. I’ve been at magazine internships where I didn’t feel comfortable, had moments when I had no placements, worked with two company owners on their brand and was horribly mistreated and experienced a placement I loved that in turn has given me the opportunity to become a junior designer at an agency. It’s been an eventful year, and yes, I didn’t work on major global brands but I got in enough variation to know that I love illustration and branding and that I’m good at those things. I feel a lot more happier now going into the final year in this position. 

Will keep updated about Blood Honey!

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‘ONCE UPON A TIME’ Fashion Photography Exhibition - Chris Xu

Last summer, my friend and I got a chance to design the art direction for a fashion photography exhibition. The exhibition aims to show the two talented UAL MA fashion photographers’ works at Menier Gallery. 

Since I was not in the UK during summer, we have to work separately and exchange ideas online. To deliver the message of the exhibition accurately and help people to understand their works, we talked to the photographers. They are expecting something abstract to reflect the imaginative world during our childhood - which also connects to the colourful expression in their photos. Since it was the first time for both of us to do the visual identity for an exhibition, we were once lost in the ocean of brainstorming. Indeed, there are lots of things to consider before launching, as the identity will be applied to different visual elements, like the intro wall, invite and photo album. Among all the prototypes, I found one weird yet interesting. As a motion graphic lover, I can witness its vibrant identity and the potential to deliver the concept vividly. We did more sketches and improved the appearance of this logo - and here it is, jumping and celebrating its birth.

The exhibition was launched in November 2016. Sadly I couldn’t attend as I was working in Japan at the moment. I was glad to hear that the exhibition went on well.

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Tegan Barnes - Blistex work 

So I’m still at Kindred agency working as a junior designer after being kept on after my placement and I love it! So far I have been working on the promo for the new £1 coin, WRAP recycling week, designing the Instagram and templates for Snufflebabe and more recently Blistex. Blistex are a lib balm brand and my job was to create some fun social media content to encourage the public to use Blistex as a holiday essential. 

So here are some of my storyboards and a first rough draft before I begin shooting on Monday. This placement has taught me so much about design and how it works and how much I love animations and editing! I also now how to fully set up the content studio alone - setting up cameras, lighting and the sets which is a lot of fun. 

I will keep you updated with how the videos turn out after shooting next week! Also a top tip from my creative lead - she said when going to grad shows they don’t look for quirky or out there - they look for employable. She suggested if you want a full time job look into ways of showing how your work can be applied to industry - or if you want to freelance, be free! 

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METZ + RACINE - internship

My experience with Metz + Racine has been very inspiring. Barbara Metz and Eve Racine have been doing still life photography and art directionfor very long time. Starting the second month of internship at the beginning of June, so far I have been doing studio maintenance in their studio in Hackney, assisting them in photoshoots and exploring large format cameras as Linhof´s camera equipment (unknown for me when I started) while observing how they photograph their outcomes to perfection. I have been able to meet the set designers they collaborate with and and other photography assistants. When pitching and collaborating with ideas for big fashion brands I have been able to discover how briefs from high level brands are approached and the treatments to which they undergo.