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.

HAW-LIN

Haw-lin is a studio based in Berlin that focuses on photographic based graphic design. Their website notes that they offer creative direction, photography and graphic design to clients. Because of my interest in photography and being a fan of this style and its involvement with graphic design I want to look at it further into this studio and the work they do.

Their long list of clients prove their worth yet their work is unique and stands apart from other. Haw-lin have their own tumblr where they reblog images of interest, often with themed aesthetics and a clear correlation with their work. I looked further into their tumblr feed in search of research into what could inspire me to create work as prominent and unique as them. I found a number of images that could be used as were of interest to me. Because of this I have bookmarked their web page and tumblr site for future reference.

Haw-lin's style is similar to that I experimented with last week in the photography studio, using bright colour and minimalist shots. This is something I enjoyed and will be working on in the future.

Doomed Regular

Yesterday I attended the launch of Doomed Regular, a clothing brand from sheffield. Not only did they display and sell their clothes but also exhibited the work of a number of local creatives such as graphic designers, tattooists, illustrators and photographers. The event also played host to live music from up and coming hip hop artists The North Haze.

At this event I was able to meet the clothing brands owner as well as a number of artists who I already know at this event. From this opportunity I was able to talk about having my own space within future exhibitions to display my work. This would be good as publicity for myself as a designer. This event has shown me the importance of attending this sort of thing where I can meet other creatives and discuss my work. Because of this I hope to get involved or visit similar events to this which could better develop myself as a designer.

I also picked up a number of zines from the exhibition. One was the look book for the event which had an interesting glitch based layout. This was created by Isla Miller a designer i used to work with at college. Another zine I picked up of hers was the look book which was created in the same style.

The third book I picked up was the silver edition of Fifty shades of Spray. This is a collection of zines documenting graffiti of certain colours around the uk. The interesting layouts and use of typefaces and layout works well. This is a style of editorial that I would like to look at creating in the future and in a context similar to this.

Aaron Draplin Takes On a Logo Design Challenge

in Penny Lee's last session she showed us a video where Aaron Draplin, the designer who create Field Notes, shows the viewer how to make a logo. Here he explains his design process. I took a number of things from this video as Draplin has a similar style of working to me, using sketches and notes first extensively for ideas before transferring to illustrator to finalise his designs.

This video has shown me how my working methods can be successful within professional design. I feel it is important that I am comfortable with the way I work and I am able to consistently complete briefs to a high level because of this. I will continue to work thins way and try develop my own methods to hopefully help me develop on the course.

Draplin also talks about his use of inspiration from various places. He shows a number of books that have inspired him. One of which, Trade Marks & Symbols looked interesting and inspiring. This made me want to buy it but after finding the expense of the book online, found a digital copy on their website.





















http://trademarksandsymbols.com/

Canal Mills Vintage clothes event

Yesterday I visited an event at Canal Mills. Despite being far from the centre of town it was busy due to the amount of things going on. There was live art, DJ's and a vintage clothes sale as well as a bar and food. This event boasted a large range of activities which attracted designers, artists and other creative types. At this event I ended up meeting a number of these people and talked about the possibility of collaboration or creating similar events or exhibitions.

TED Talk: Matthew Carter

Matthew Carter's TED Talk speaks about his life in typefaces and how he created the fonts Verdana and Georgia along with a number of others. Although first researching this for my own typeface design, I found Carter's working process to be most interesting.

After creating a typeface to combat the problem where a large amount of data is needed to use a serif font rather than a san serif. He created typefaces that had characters using less curved lines. When he gave his outcome to the client, they informed him that this problem had already been solved by the computer engineers which meant a larger number of fonts could be stored in a computer at once. 

Despite this, Carter persevered and started recognising his typeface Charter Roman for its aesthetic qualities rather than its technical ones. The final outcome after the change of Carter's brief had no ink to the first problem solving outcome. He notes that 'the technology did suggest something to me but it did not force my hand.'

Carter's talk has taught me that my own interest and perseverance can spur or develop projects to make them more successful in the long run. I feel like creating these problems and questioning myself could help with creating ideas and developing projects.