Two photoshoots, one day, no messin'

Yesterday me and Merlin art-directed a photoshoot with Adrian Ray for the prospectus design. We wanted photos of people interacting with their work, that would sit along side a quote by the student about their work. This is an attempt to portray what actually happens at the college—we felt as though the wishy washy quotes that they had last year (for example: "The college is lovely and everybody is friendly and I like it and its nice") didn't really give people a sense of what went on.

Here I am, all being in charge and stuff. Well, I didn't really have to do much as I think Adrian understood pretty well what it was we wanted.



After that I bought a pizza for Kyle so that I could get Bing to take photos of it representing world hunger and Western greed. Here's some of them:






I combined them with a stock image of a table cloth, and as if by magic, it now looks like the plate is on the table cloth.




The end of the knife and fork on the top one are possibly a bit rubbish, but they get covered up with text, so don't even worry about it.

And the final postcards:




You'll notice I got rid of the thought bubble from the logo, it was a bit rubbish and predictable—best just keep it simple.

Pro

I have just realised that I haven't posted pics of my new business cards yet. I made 'em a couple of weeks ago. Originally I wanted the CMYK people that are on the splash page of my website, but it didn't work so I simplified it down some. I swear I wasn't thinking of the Extinked thing I helped UHC with. Promise.

UHC are ext-inked

Here's the Extinked identity I did at UHC with Jai and Sara, on the UHC website splashpage
Search for Extinked on Facebook for more info.

January highlights

I haven't updated my blog for a month now, so I decided it was high time to do so.

Without further ado here is a run-down, in no particular order, of my January highlights.

1.

Work placement at Thompson. Sweeeet. Well, kind off - I was supposed to do a week, but was ill for Monday and Tuesday so it turned into three days. It was smart to see the people I hadn't seen since summer, as well as the two new guys that had started. Equally as good was seeing the final version of the Metal books - You Are Here.

PHOTO


2.

Going to Amsterdam (for the culture, not the drugs and hookers...) with my lovely girlfriend Cat. This gave me an excuse to get some footage on the 8mm cine camera my sister got me for Christmas (watch this space for a video). Here is a photo of me on a big boat in Amsterdam - and not a space cake in sight.




3.

Speaking to Si Scott. He came into college with Danny Sangra and talked us through some of their work. Both really cool, down to earth guys. The highlight of this highlight was showing Si some of my work and getting the response 'It was you that did that? I've seen that before. It's nice' to the first piece of work that I showed him - one of the outcomes to my last module (below). Psyched!


4.

Being featured on the Hot Grads section of Character Creative's website. Cheers chaps!

5.

On Tuesday I started an internship at the Ultimate Holding Company in Manchester, doing 2 days a week. It should be really good, they are involved in the more 'ethical' side of graphic design as well as doing a lot of interesting art projects. Here is my favorite piece of design work by them - poster and flyer artwork for Climate Camp (hopefully I'll be attending the next one of these).




Highly Commended

Oh yeah, these also came back from the printers - they may look plain (and they are) - but this was the first time I actually designed a 2 colour print job, so go me.





Cheers big ears,

X.

Christmas Update

I have been back on the Isle of Man for a week and a half, or so now. Relaxing and writing my dissertation.

I was in the Isle of Man Examiner last week for the Uni Leaflet that I did with Tracy Kruup. Its just a short piece but they included a good photo of my beard (taken by Bing)

One of my favorite and most unexpected Christmas presents came from my sister, Freyja. It is a Bell and Howell Electric Eye 8mm silent video camera. Smart.

Also, I came across this video on the Another Limited Rebellion blog...

New Design?

I got a couple of issues of New Design magazine yesterday to have a look at my LCAD Open Days ad:

They are different magazines, so I have no idea why the spreads are exactly the same.....I swear its not just me being an idiot.

Belated update

Again, I have been really lazy updating my blog...

First of all. I have stripped most of the stuff off my blog so that it can be viewed from my lovely new website. So next time you check out my blog (Mum and Dad) go to kylebibby.co.uk.

I got some IOM College Uni leaflets back from the printers not too long ago. I designed them with a plain white background because I wanted to use some really nice stock. The printer reckoned it would be too much to order in the specific Paperback stock that I wanted, but after showing them some samples they said that they had some similar house stock.



Anyway, upon getting some of them posted to me I realised that their house stock wasn't really that similar.... It's not too bad, it's just that the whole reason I left the background white was to show off some really nice paper, which hasn't really happened.

I managed to find a printers co-op in Leeds - Footprint - that stock Paperback stock, so I got some and reprinted the leaflet on nicer stock for the ol' portfolio.

Look out for my photo in one of the Manx papers next week (I'm a bit gutted they don't want me in my Halloween outfit, below a bit). The College is putting out an article about the Uni Leaflet

I Pinched Bing's new Lens Baby lens last night and took some photos of the leaflet (the stack is the original print, the single leaflet is my own print, though I'm not sure if you can really tell the difference in the photo.)





The week before that I got back some stickers, and I apologise how unprofessional this might sound but they were absolutely shit. I could have done it better with my £40 inkjet printer that is running out of ink, and them cropped them with my teeth. In fact I would say thats exactly how they look like they were done.

You lose some a bit, you lose some a lot.


Also, one last thing before I go again for a while. Halloween photos (taken by Bing with his Lens Baby):

LS6 BMX official pumpkin

Joe, dressed as Alan Partridge dressed as a zombie

Mole

Kyle's light artillery

Me and my new barnet

Verity

Me again

Tom, getting a new barnet

The Lads

The lessons we learned this halloween are:

beer+hair+lino=sticky mess

beer+par cour+mullet+pizza shop=bloody redneck mess in a pizza shop+crying

Stuff and that

I entered the Don't Panic! poster competition, but didn't get my poster finished in time, so I had to enter Poster V1.

Here is Poster V2



Heres some close ups:





I have also finished a job I did for the One World Centre in the Isle of Man. It has literally taken ages, I havebeen working on it a little bit at a time.

It is to be used around schools on the Isle of Man to promote Fairtrade.

Here it is, it's 2 posters in 1, I'm pretty pleased with it:




I have never used Berlin Sans before, but there you go....

The British People's Party were holding a protest outside HMV against black rap music. The BPP are basically a more extreme version of the BNP. Check out their website - they're idiots.

Anyway, the militant anti-fascist organisation Antifa, amongst others, were planning to protest against the protest. It was due to kick off at 11. We got there around 11.20 - there was 2 groups of anti-fascist protesters (separated by the police), but no BPP. By about 1pm the centre of town was crowded with hundreds of police and hundreds of protesters, but still no BPP.

Eventually around 15 of the BPP arrived and set up a protest, but were obviously outnumbered by the opposition.



That was about it, fairly uneventful, except a few scuffles with the (possibly slightly heavy handed) police. My favorite part was when my dissertation tutor and Marxist enthusiast, Richard, got involved a confrontation between protesters and police, which resulted in a load of people being pushed through a fence. He seemed to be enjoying himself anyway. Here he is in the blue jacket.




Out.

Summer Presentation

I had to do a 10 minute presentation to the rest of my class about what I did over the summer and what I intend to do in the future.

I started by talking about my work placement at Thompson Brand Partners. It was really god, everybody was really helpful and got me working straight away. I learnt lots, but the experience also made me realise how being a designer is a realistic ambition, and that professional designers aren't too different from student designers, and professional design studios aren't that different from the College design studio.

The first piece of work that I did was designing a leaflet for the National Media Museum. This taught me about layout, and I leanred lots about Indesign that I didn't know.



I also designed some print ads for the Leeds College of Music. This was quite a quick job and I had to use set photos, set colours and a set font, but was still enjoyable. They were printed in The Metro, Evening Post, etc.







I also worked on a set of young persons guide books, where I developed the front cover using magenta ink and magenta acetate to make a visual effect. However I completely forgot to talk about this in my presentation. I have no idea how.

Next I talked about my work at the Isle of Man College which was a bit of a strange job - half design/half general other stuff. Whilest it was a bit strange and not very professional I still produced lots of work and had really tight deadlines.

Also while I was in the Isle of Man I did a couple of freelance jobs, one for The One World Centre encouraging school children to buy Fair Trade, and one was a logo design for a friends website - student ratings.co.uk. As well as this I designed a poster and book mark advertising the LCAD Open Days. This was an old unused design I did that they wanted me to adapt, so this was a pretty easy job.

Next I talked about my dissertation. I want to write about ethical design, and the difficulties faced by a designer when designing for a good cause. I have been reading lots an speaking to people about design responsibility as well as world trade. For a case study I want to look at PETA who have done a lot of campaigns/poster work that is ridiculously untactful, in my opinion doing more damage than good.

My goals for the future are mainly to keep trying to get small freelance jobs, work hard and keep in touch with agencies and try and get a job straight out of college. One day though, I really want to do my own thing - set up my own studio, or go free lance.

I feel the presentation went quite well, it was all improvised so I was a bit nervous. I surprised myself by finding lots to say. I felt however though that it focused mainly on what I had done instead of what I had learned and what I found out i needed to learn.

I enjoyed listening to everybody else's presentations. Everybody seemed really busy and produced lots of good work.

Summer Presentation

I had to do a 10 minute presentation to the rest of my class about what I did over the summer and what I intend to do in the future.

I started by talking about my work placement at Thompson Brand Partners. It was really god, everybody was really helpful and got me working straight away. I learnt lots, but the experience also made me realise how being a designer is a realistic ambition, and that professional designers aren't too different from student designers, and professional design studios aren't that different from the College design studio.

The first piece of work that I did was designing a leaflet for the National Media Museum. This taught me about layout, and I leanred lots about Indesign that I didn't know.



I also designed some print ads for the Leeds College of Music. This was quite a quick job and I had to use set photos, set colours and a set font, but was still enjoyable. They were printed in The Metro, Evening Post, etc.







I also worked on a set of young persons guide books, where I developed the front cover using magenta ink and magenta acetate to make a visual effect. However I completely forgot to talk about this in my presentation. I have no idea how.

Next I talked about my work at the Isle of Man College which was a bit of a strange job - half design/half general other stuff. Whilest it was a bit strange and not very professional I still produced lots of work and had really tight deadlines.

Also while I was in the Isle of Man I did a couple of freelance jobs, one for The One World Centre encouraging school children to buy Fair Trade, and one was a logo design for a friends website - student ratings.co.uk. As well as this I designed a poster and book mark advertising the LCAD Open Days. This was an old unused design I did that they wanted me to adapt, so this was a pretty easy job.

Next I talked about my dissertation. I want to write about ethical design, and the difficulties faced by a designer when designing for a good cause. I have been reading lots an speaking to people about design responsibility as well as world trade. For a case study I want to look at PETA who have done a lot of campaigns/poster work that is ridiculously untactful, in my opinion doing more damage than good.

My goals for the future are mainly to keep trying to get small freelance jobs, work hard and keep in touch with agencies and try and get a job straight out of college. One day though, I really want to do my own thing - set up my own studio, or go free lance.

I feel the presentation went quite well, it was all improvised so I was a bit nervous. I surprised myself by finding lots to say. I felt however though that it focused mainly on what I had done instead of what I had learned and what I found out i needed to learn.

I enjoyed listening to everybody else's presentations. Everybody seemed really busy and produced lots of good work.