Alan Kitching

As i was looking through my research with my tutor he suggested I look at Alan Kitching as he explores some raw methods using type and colour. From looking at examples of his work he spans over a vast area of letter press to screen printing to graphic design and illustration. Its fantastic to see this style of design still heavily favored by an artist as the computer has unfortunately taken over old methods of creating print. I love the overlay of colours and general style that kitchen holds throughout his pieces.

I also found a huge article in eye magazine on Alan Kitching and an exhibition he is holding at St Bride Library which has unfortunately just finished. However i found out about a book exhibition which i plan to attend.

Photography Suite

As we are in the process of designing out portfolios two project that I needed to photograph properly was the cube I made for the Door(way) brief and the newspaper front covers for the Water brief. To do this i spent an afternoon with Graham the photography technician. Up until this point I had had little to no experience with photography or a photography studio. However Graham was able to assist me to take some nice photo's of the two projects.

Below are the front covers for my 3 newspapers:

Below are the images of the cube I made:

Peter and Paul

What caught my eye with Peter and Paul was their work for Osmosis where they dedicated the whole campaign around the letter O. As my name is Olivia i rarely find the letter O preferred in typographical idea's. I love the different outcomes this threw up and their use of colour and interesting situations!

From having a look through the website I have found other projects that are not only interesting but are over a range of mediums, including some great interactive pieces.

Taxi Studio

An agency that was mentioned in the presentation from Thoughtful was Taxi Studio, having lived in Bristol and studied design there for a few years i was already aware of the mainly branding agency which also does web design, packaging and corporate I.D's. I love the interactive elements of their website which allow a playful element to show their work and particularly like the page and statement below.

Chris Jeffreys (Thoughtful)

Following Thoughtful's presentation I stayed behind to speak to both Stuart and Chris about how they felt the presentation went and what they thought needed improving. After that I contacted Chris to set up a portfolio visit.

Thoughtful Presentation

Today we were given a great opportunity to have a sneak preview of a presentation that Chris and Stuart from Thoughtful were planning for the 4 Designers Conference in London. The presentation was brilliant it started with a brief overview of both Chris and Stuarts interests, which included designers, musicians, film makers and some intelligent ideas. The image below was on Chris's list. The idea that a hamster running on a wheel can generate the shredder to shred the paper that makes up the bedding in the cage. genius!

Chris and Stuart then went onto talk about key practices they thought were key to being successful in the design industry, one notion that stuck out was The 5 P's (how to make sure that presentations go as planned.)

Preparation

Prevents

Piss

Poor

Performance

They then went onto talk about a few design projects that they (as a relatively new company) have completed, pitched for and worked on. One that really caught my eye was their work for the Liverpool Biennial.

Thoughtful commissioned Mat Maitland an English Illustrator to create the striking collages following the title theme of 'Made Up' The campaign was hugely successful and fed into a series of other work for the agency.

Throughout the presentation Thoughtful quoted lots of practitioners that they had managed to interview. A few quotes that stuck out were.

"Earn the right to do good work" - Greg Quinton

"It is not the strongest or most intelligent species that survive, it is those that are most responsive to change" - Tony Davidson

Overall the presentation was extremely informative, helpful and enjoyable.

Book Cover initial designs

From looking at a range of different research i have started to come up with my own design ideas for the covers. Using contemporary colours and interesting shapes, My initial feedback from this is that i have to make the designs more relevant to the story, therefore keeping the same style but with more meaning. I decided to look further into the story lines for each book and looked at ways to edit my designs. Below i have started looking at 'Kipps' and the idea of climbing the social ladder! I am trying to make the designs more self explicit like James Joyce's work