Headrow House

I recently visited Headrow House. I was first informed of this venue earlier this year and was interested in it's modern and successful design. After a recent visit from Alphabet, the design team behind Headrow House, I became more interested in the concepts behind Headrow House and so visited again, looking more deeply into interesting and eye catching design features.The unique concepts used work well so I feel could influence some of my work in the future when using a similar style.



The photographs I have taken don't justify this venue due to the dark lighting you are forced upon as you enter. This feature only heightens the experience at Headrow House which teaches me to look at my final surroundings, as well as other features, when designing as it could influence the perception of the work I have created. This will add to the overall, unique experience I hope to create within each brief.

Felipe Pantone

Felipe Pantone’s work is noted as being "at the cutting edge of street art. Straddling conventional graffiti, typography and abstraction, his work fuses bold elements of graphic design with highly evolved geometric shapes to create an ultra-modern aesthetic which complements and reacts with the stark modernity of our cityscapes."

Because of his past as a graffiti artist, typography often has a role within his work. Despite being expressive, his type is legible and unique. I want to take influence from pantone as I would like to use similar type within my work in the future. Being able to create similar typography will help me progress as a designer as would be able to create more hand drawn graphic work. This could add to my unique qualities as a designer, helping me in the future for job and client prospects.

Something else I like about Pantones work is how he portrays his work across various media such as digital images, paintings, video and sculpture. This is something I enjoyed within the secret 7 brief and hope to do in the future. I also like his use of unusual shapes and bright colours. I have often held back when using bright and contrasting colours as don't feel like I'm using them successfully however Pantone does this well so feel I could learn from his work and how he talks about it to influence my own practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWp2uGH0z3U

Alphabet

Ex students of LCA's Graphic design degree: Sam Lane, Abbas Mushtaq and Sebastian Needler set up Alphabet, a design studio based in Leeds, a few years ago. They recently gave a talk at uni which gave me an insight into working as a professional graphic designer. The designers from alphabet talked about their work before staring their own design company as well as the struggles of starting the business. What I found most interesting was the varied work they would undertake. Clients included local businesses such as Headrow House and Hyde Park Picture House as well as international, larger companies such as OnePlus showing their diversity as a studio. This talk has showed me how I can progress after this course and how, with hard work, there is the possibility of creating a studio of my own one day.

Hellome

Hellome is a design studio from Berlin that has work based 'on a systematic design approach, informed by Research, conception and the intrinsic characteristics of each specific project" as said on their website. Their successful use of type and its layout interests me and I feel I can use these in the future especially within editorial briefs. I noticed that they also use photography within their work. The photos used consistently work well with its colour scheme and type. This use of photography within graphic design is something I want to look at doing both in the next couple of years and possibly when I look to job prospects. Because of this I will continue to follow the work of Hellome as I feel it could inspire my own work and help me develop myself into a designer at a similar studio.

Presentation

Lord Whitney

Yesterday I visited Lord Whitney, a design studio close to my accommodation in Woodhouse, Leeds. I did some research before our visit so was prepared for the designers talk and questions. I noticed Whitney's use of photography on their website along with their long list of high profile clients which consists of the likes of Nicki Minaj and Vogue.

Although set design wasn't something I was particularly interested in, I wanted to know about how Lord Whitney ran their business as often undertake the role of designers or creative directors so felt it was important to attend.

I made pages of notes during the studio of talk as I was interested in how Lord Whitney became the studio they are today. After the talk I feel I have a better understanding of the importance in developing my own portfolio of work outside uni. Whether this be working on my own projects, collaborations or competitions.

I hope to do more of this work in the future as this will help me develop and specialise into a specific field within graphic design which will help towards my job prospects further into my career.