Creative Networks / Evaluation

For this collaborative live brief, I worked with Jack Solomon and Rhys Jones, creating an identity and promotional material for this years cycle of Creative Networks events. Collaboratively, we produced posters, flyers, vinyl signage and moving image for 3 events, Mike Mignola, Frances Morris and Simon Thorpe. 

I felt as though we all played to our strengths throughout the course of the project, splitting the responsibilities in terms of our skills, for example myself and Rhys worked on print, and Jack worked on the digital aspects, but we were not limited to this, and worked collaboratively throughout. Time management skills were very good, especially for the first event which we planned out, printed and produced the promotional materials for the event all in good time. The other events have been very close to the deadline, yet we have still managed to produce high quality responses and materials that will be used for the events.

It was very rewarding working on a live project for events within the college. Creative Networks has increased skills working collaboratively in a team, and working to a consistent concept. 

Metal Magazine / Evaluation

Demon Magazine was my personal favourite project this year, as I felt I fully immersed myself into the brief, and had a lot of passion for it from the moment the idea was born. This brief was a self directed editorial project with collaboration internally and externally within the college. It involved the production and management of a contemporary metal magazine. Collaboration included several people writing content for the magazine.

This brief increased my confidence with managing a project by myself. I always feel the most comfortable when I am in control of a project, but at times it’s important to acknowledge you can’t do everything. The main problems from the brief was putting a lot of responsibility on myself - designing, managing emails, collecting content, writing content and organising interviews to name a few. With more help, I feel the project could have been more perfect. Even just having someone else to check the file would have been beneficial, which would have avoided small mistakes within the final product. However, I feel that managing so much of the responsibility was a great way to push myself and get things done independently. 

Communication was another area that was improved upon, as a large section of the brief entailed talking to bands and collecting content. I feel like I now have more skill in handling these things for the future. 

For this brief I chose to invest in professional production services, and requested Pressision to print and bind the magazines. If I had printed this myself, the colour and professional quality would simply not have been the same. I am extremely happy with how the magazine has been produced, and it looks like a real product. I learned how to properly prepare a file for print, including setting up a spot colour.  This will prepare me for future projects where the files must be sent to an external company for printing. 

The most successful areas of this project was concept and identity, and both of those aspects working in harmony. There is a definite gap in the market for a contemporary, stripped back metal magazine differing to the existing publications available in the genre, and has become a passionate project for me which I feel I can expand upon and develop in the future. Overall I am exceptionally proud of the project as a whole and felt it was one of my strongest from the last 3 years. 

Body Modification / Evaluation

This brief was my research brief. For this project I collated information on body modification techniques and heavily modded individuals. Extreme examples were contacted via email and Instagram, for example Jenya Bolotov, Zombie Boy and Erik Sprague (The Lizardman). This information was then translated into an editorial piece of design acting as an informative encyclopedia of body modification and heavily modified individuals. 

The brief mainly allowed me to expand on my communication skills. Getting in contact with well known individuals and communicating with them on the topic of body modification was rewarding and allowed my confidence to grow. I even ended up approaching a stranger on the train. These skills can be applied to graphic design as a whole, as I believe within the industry it is always beneficial to have the skill and confidence to talk to other creatives, you never know what may come of it. 

I found collating all the information quite difficult, as I chose to try and write the whole content for the book with the help from various sources. This could have been documented with more organisation before starting the design side. 

This brief was spread out across the whole of Extended Practice due to waiting for responses and basically dragging it out. I think if I could do this brief again I would concentrate on exploring it for a shorter period of time rather than just slowly developing it over the months. The benefits of this however was that I was very involved in the design, and feel it was produced to a high standard. 

Using different stock created a dynamic resolution which I felt pushed my production skills. I’m not incredibly hands on, and find binding and printing difficult to always get right. Although not perfect, the resolution looks fairly professional for the budget. If it was professionally printed the publication could have looked even more high quality. 

Overall I feel the brief is a success. It is informative and also designed in a way that will engage an audience and stand out on a shelf. 

Ceramics / Final Belugas

The final belugas are made from jesmonite, with white pigment. This material is very hard, durable and has an attractive smooth matte finish. For this set, they were neck ties and blusher, but in the future they could wear lots of other fun accessories, such as party hats. 

Developments in the future would be an easier mold to take the belugas out, and more time to really refine their shape/smoothness. Overall they do the job for this brief and show what was intended. 

MON REGRET / Evaluation

This project was a community based art/design project devised from a collection of submissions from users. The users submitted something they regret onto an online platform, which was then produced into a publication with relevant photography. 

This brief was a highly compelling and responsive project which was unpredictable and primarily lead by the participants. I had no control over what users could post to the online platform, meaning this was entirely up to those who posted what ended up in the publication. The uncertain nature of the project however was what made it so interesting. The project received a high amount of submissions, more than expected, and some were incredibly heartfelt and personal, that I felt grateful that someone had shared that with me. 

For this brief I explored my skills within photography. Although I don’t consider myself highly experienced or competent with camera settings, the main concern was the mood, the concept and the atmosphere the photo created, rather than any intricate technicalities, although I learned more through experimentation. The photos I created were uncomfortable, gritty and translated a handful of the user’s submissions into something visual. I felt this was the most successful aspect of the project, and allowed me to expand on my time management skills and planning ahead. To create these photos I needed some help from my friends, and supplies which I had to organise in a short space of time due to print slot deadlines and changing approaches throughout this brief. This brief allowed me to make hard decisions when I knew that the direction was not going to be as effective. 

Potential improvements could have been more time to work on photographs, but this was unavoidable due to this idea being developed later on within the brief, and getting the publication professionally printed. The publication was intended to be tabloid size, but within the digital print facility, A4 pages are the largest you can print on. Newsprint also cannot be printed on down there, so a thinner stock would have worked more appropriately with how I envisioned the final outcome. However in saying that, I am incredibly pleased how this turned out and feel it is a project that is very different to any I have done before. 

Church of Satan / Book Cover Redesign & Leaflet

Satanic Bible Redesign

Leaflet (External) 

Leaflet (internal)

One of my responsibilities within this brief was the print based materials. I redesigned the Church's bible utilising the strong identity we have created, showing consistency throughout all of the deliverables.

The current Bible design perpetuates the 'evil' stereotypes associated with the Church. The redesigned cover is clean, utilises white space and looks fresh and inviting. The leaflet also adopts this aesthetic, using the colour palette chosen. It explains the campaign in a friendly and conversational manner, in order to appeal to the broader audience who may be put off by Satanisms current aesthetic. The leaflet informs the audience about the self worship campaign, and shows it as an appealing and beneficial thing to do.

Church of Satan / Feedback Research

With our finished resolution, I used twitter polls to ask a young demographic (the predominant audience who follow me) some questions.

I attached a photo of the finished identity and asked the following questions:

Then I attached the current church branding and asked the following questions:

Although the first question could be a little misconstrued (people may just think I'm asking them if they're interested in Satanism), this feedback is incredibly successful. From the poll shown, it tells us that with the rebranded identity we have produced, more people would be inclined to explore Satanism, rather than their current branding. The poll shows that with our identity, it is more friendly and approachable which is what we set out to do.

Although the identity may not appeal to a lot of people due to the name still, I feel this is still a success for the brief, and due to testing this, we now know this has completed our aims for the project.