I Got The Job!

If you follow me on twitter you will already know that today I received a phone call informing me I got the job!

The job itself will be working with The Air Ambulance Service as their designer, this might sound a bit random but it really is the perfect creative job. The main role will be helping to design across a whole range of items; web, brochures, campaigns, mailers and newsletters to name a few.

TAAS are looking for a whole new creative direction with lots of new ideas and fun - which is fantastic! I really couldn't be happier and looking forward to starting soon.

I don't have a photo to illustrate this so here is Marilyn Monroe jumping for joy. Because obviously I would look this good if I were to do the same... :)

                                                                           

 

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"Write On" Writing Set

This is a slightly unusual post for me (especially as I'm getting to grips with writing on an iPad) about a product I recently came across at Oxfam.

If you follow me on twitter you will know I am always collecting old, interesting books to scan and use in projects. While hunting for some of these old books I found this cool product and I thought it was deserving of a blog post.

The product itself is a writing set made out of recycled wrapping paper and includes 10 sheets and envelopes in a neatly bound package. I always tend to think of charity products as quite bland and far from exciting design wise, but this definitely caught my eye. It's not unlike something you might come across in fashionable stationary shops such as Paperchase (if fashionable stationary is even a thing?)

The product is not only beautiful it is also environmentally friendly, charity supporting and functional. Attributes that I think all designers should be aware of in their own work.

With the dominance of emails today, handwritten letters can convey a personal touch not achieved through digital communication and a pack like this definitely encourages me to write a bit more and type a bit less. 

Final Exhibition Set Up

Thursday the 7th of June marks the final part of my degree where I will be presenting work I have produced this year in an exhibition. The pressure to do a good job is high, especially when surrounded by some great pieces from other designers. Due to the jubilee weekend time has been tight to get the exhibition set up and ready in time for the 4pm deadline.

For my part of the show I will be presenting some work from a self initiated charity brief. The concept is to raise awareness about The Haven, a breast cancer charity, by situating a campaign in womens' changing rooms and playing on the word "change" in terms of clothes and changing your lifestyle choices. I will also include a brochure I designed as part of the same brief along with my business cards and other promotional items.

Due to the nature of my brief, I want to make my space look like a changing room to put the campaign in situ. With added props of a mirror, seat and coat hooks I hope to achieve this look and ensure a professional exhibition.

These are some images of the exhibition coming together, spending time at the printers and mess.

Haven Brochure

I have been really bad at updating my blog lately because of the run up to final third year deadlines. Later on today I will be handing in my double credit module for which I did two briefs; British brief, which I will blog about later, and The Haven brief which I have mentioned before here.

This is one of the artefacts I produced for this project; an information brochure. The Haven is a small breast cancer charity that offers a complementary service of treatments. The real issues they were having were not being able to contact the relevant target audience, which was not helped by poorly designed information packs. As part of this brief I redesigned an element of their information pack and created some illustrations.

Haven Illustrations Developed

A few weeks ago I mentioned the development of some illustration work needed for my charity project, found here. I felt like the illustrations needed some editing to give the project more "personality" as the images seemed flat and lifeless.

After purchasing my new toy; a bamboo graphics pad last week, I have been working on the project to give the illustrations more life. The pad was fairly easy to get used to in terms of vector based drawing, and after some practise the sketches were slowly improving.

It is essential that the illustrations added to the project as opposed to being purely aesthetic, allowing the reader to understand the content. Each object represents an area of the brochure; from diet and exercise to support, all with an accompanying illustration. To give the project a tactile nature I scanned in various items of clothes to insert into the initial sketches; I used anything with an interesting texture, found, stolen or borrowed. These are a few of the designs in progress.