As a Graphic Designer the concept of branding and designing brand identities has always interested me. Brand identity is what I want to specialise in. I prefer designing for retail and clothing labels although I am struggling to pin point a specific area. So I have been documented on my context blog the good and the bad brands, large and small and also successful and not so successful brands to get a wider insight into this design area.
In order to get where I want to be I used the last module to benefit my design skills. The main Practical skill I feel I have developed in this module is my branding skills… I produced a brand identity for the surf brand Nalua, I found creating logos really difficult to begin with, but this brief has definitely helped me to improve and I will push these skills to further use in the future. To develop this further I will continue working with my client on this brief to help complete and launch the brand.
This brief also has definitely improved my communication skills, I found it difficult communicating by email so insisted on discussing the logo design over the phone, varying opinions got in the way but I stuck to what he wanted and eventually came up with a design he liked. I hadn’t experienced working with a client one to one before and needed to become familiar with this way of working for future reference.
As part of this module I wanted to experiment with a different way of designing other than print, so I altered the headline brief slightly and experimented with cut out crafting… I liked the results of this technique and I have gained another skilled way to creating type as image. I feel this will make my portfolio stronger as I need a range of design skills to show companies.
During the last module I wanted to have a go at type as image and also improve on my illustration skills, the anorak brief helped me to do this as I tried to incorporate text in amongst the image so it wasn’t immediately obvious what it said. Because it took various attempts to make this text work, I have also improved on my drawing skills for my design visuals and this has caused my idea generation to speed up. During my work experience I felt I couldn’t work fast enough to get the most out of my time there, this is why I need to speed up my design process for future jobs.
During the last module I wanted to have a go at type as image and also improve on my illustration skills, the anorak brief helped me to do this as I tried to incorporate text in amongst the image so it wasn’t immediately obvious what it said. Because it took various attempts to make this text work, I have also improved on my drawing skills for my design visuals and this has caused my idea generation to speed up. During my work experience I felt I couldn’t work fast enough to get the most out of my time there, this is why I need to speed up my design process for future jobs.
I have contacted various companies for feedback on my portfolio and many of them gave me great advice and ways I can improve my design practice. I now contact a few of them regularly when I am in need of advice and they are always wanting to help, the same goes for the people I met on my work placement, they regularly keep in touch with things I that may help or interest me.
My dissertation influences my design practice, I have researched large brands/branding companies to see how they started out, who designed the logo, how they have changed and what has influenced them with brands such as coca cola, and kodak. I have interviewed designers to gain a better understanding of corporate image and brand identity. Understanding logo design and how successful brands started out has given me a great insight into how I can have input in designing new brands and a brand identity for myself.
This is what I plan to achieve to get where I want to be in the design industry, these are mainly skills which I am hoping I can achieve in the this module, and brush up on in my own time. In order to pursue my career I need to gain more experience working in the industry and shall continue to find work placements I will concentrate on the previous companies and other brand identity concerned companies.
I have researched and looked at various companies that specialise in branding and corporate identity. These are a few of the companies I could see myself working for which I am in contact with and will hopefully get another work placement. They are based all over, London, Leeds, Lincoln, Grimsby, and America.
I’d love to be able to work for Rotor although they are an American company and I have probably set my aims high… they have produced some great branding work, I particularly love the work they produced for sassy knit wear. I think I am most interested in this area of working because there is no limitation on the media you can work with, I don’t like to just stick to print or paper and like to experiment with different materials.
Overall things I need to improve on are… speeding up my design generation skills, continue to develop my communication skills and to complete my work to a professional standard. I think working on the ICM briefs will definitely help me with all these skill areas and also other work placements. I feel a lot more confident with my software skills as they have improved during the last modules and work shops, although I still need to practice working with web design. Hopefully I can get all this done within the few months we have left.
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