Corporate Identity

Design a logo and a range of stationary to create an identity for a company

I find the most interesting piece of stationary to design is the business card. I like the small amount of space to design something that is both aesthetically pleasing and informative.

Below are the business cards I designed for Foodee! (Restaurant) and Paper People (Paper & Stationary Service).

For the Paper People logo I started off by drawing the designs on paper, I then scanned in the design and drew the logo in Illustrator. I wanted to give the impression this company is straight forward, reliable and provides a good service. With the Foodee! logo, this was drawn with a brush pen which set me back £10.60! It gave the effect I was looking for, quite an arty, classy restaurant to dine in.

Christmas

(December 2007)
I've never really been a fan of Christmas, spending all this insane amount of money buying presents! I think people have been thrown off the actual meaning of christmas through corporate consumerism because during this period, all you see is people going crazy and spending hundreds of pounds in shops!

Anyway, the point of this post is to show a photograph that I took during this period on a very cold visit to London.
I specifically wanted to take photos in the evening so I could develop my skills in Night Photography, which is my favourite type because I find the emphasis of the lighting intruiging. Just by changing the shutter speed you can create different effects.

I entered this photo in a fun competition on a forum I regularly visit; UKFN. The theme for the competition was Christmas, so I entered with this photo and won. I find it difficult to describe why this photo fits the description of christmas, maybe because it's obvious in a way? but the bright blue lights with the less obvious red reflected from another building fit the colours you would expect. Also the image of a family walking together makes me think its more christmas because it's a time when the family gets together.

I admit the image isnt perfect, but i'll improve for next time. A tripod larger than 12cm will definately help me :)

First 'shot' at Photography

(November 2007)
Since I have an evergrowing interest in Photography, I decided to take the next step up from my Fujifilm F31FD and purchase a D-SLR. I went for the Nikon D40 with the 18-55mm lens. I had the very basic knowledge of ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed etc. but to master this it was definately going to take a long time.

Here's one photo I took during a regular visit to London. This was prior to the D40 days, so the F31FD is in action here...

F 2.8 / 6.5sec
I think it came out really well considering I didn't have a triopd. 6.5secs!! I like how there's a shadow of people in the image with the bus moving in the background.

Quality ain't all that though :\ which is a shame, but it's the beginning.

Great Success!

(November 2007)
We were given a brief which immediately caught my eye, Poster Campaign. The aim of this project was to create three A3 posters in association with English Heritage, The Guardian and the British Film Institute.

(Left: Original photo of Wellington Arch that I took for the War poster)

I believe that all three images work very well as a group because they have similarities between them and theres a clear theme, but they keep their individuality through colours and bold graphics. We had to keep in mind that we were working with The Guardian, so there was already and etiquette so to speak for the design. I kept the posters sharp and tidy for maximum impact on the viewer.

(Please click to enlarge image)

I'm off to a good start. I thoroughly developed my ideas to ensure that I would be able to get the best results, which paid off when I got a great mark.

Research Project?

(November 2007)
'Creative Reference File' was the title of the next brief. I decided to base the research on the Punk era, I have a great interest in the typography created around the 70's; especially the work on the Sex Pistols album artwork by Jamie Reid.

(Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK)

It's in your face, inconvenient, ripped; the use of safety pins, general 'roughness' and not giving a shit (basically), and with the combination of the ransom note type style Jamie Reid has used is just brilliant. It very much describes what punk was about; anti-establishment.

I think if I had worked harder and not been so thrown off by the lack of enthusiasm this project brought I would have been able to achieve a better grade.

The First Hurdle

(October 2007)
The first brief given to us was titled, '48 Squares.' In which we were given the No Smoking logo and 48 words. The task was to manipulate the logo to graphically describe each word clearly, it seemed like an easy task but some words weren't easy to depict.

The deisgns themselves aren't flawless in the sense of being perfectly rendered, but the main point of this brief was to keep on churning out the ideas and not limit ourselves. The 8 i've posted are among the favourites and most creative designs.

First Entry

Welcome to my blog!

Here is where I shall be regularly updating and posting work that i've done either personally, or design work that i've completed through my course.

A little bit about me:

I'm studying a foundation degree in Graphic Design at the University of Hertfordshire. I'm already half way through my first year and it has gone very fast as it's been packed full of projects which have definately been fun. I have been learning new skills; the most beneficial so far has been learning how to use Adobe Illustrator. This has made the work load easier simply because it is a lot quicker to place and manipulate type and graphics to how I want them.

So it's 'so far so good.'