Chris Jackson Portfolio Surgery

The portfolio surgery with Chris was very helpful getting an insight into how emploees view your work. The portfolio I presented was a portfolio of 9 projects which wsa fairly large some shots needed stripingout a condensing into a miuch more manageable portfolio. The copy at the bottom needed tightening up and to be perfect to present to perpective employers. The feedback from Chris was strong he stated that my work had developed much stronger since he last saw my work. THe portfolio surgery was very helpful for future reference I will emnsure these comments are quickly resolved and completed ready to present for jobs.

Website update

I have currently been editing my website and have took my work off line for a moment while I update my portfolio. I have made the design fresh and clean or spring and then I as I retake my photographs of my work I can update my portfolio.

www.rhiannewithers.com

Bivouac Last day

The last day at Bivouac enabled me to show me appreciation to kate of her work for the company and thank her for the experinece she had given me and the skill I had learnt throughout the months. 

I completed some work for the Afghanistan exhibition that was taking place in may. I then worked on some amends for a brochure for York St, Johns. Overall the experience was useful to me and I am very grateful to the team and the their commitment to work and design. Kate gave me some funds to help me with my studies in which will come in very useful as I come towards the end of my studies. Thankyou Bivouac hop eto see you soon and see you at the end of year show.

The Consult Evaluation a dream job

Overall I really enjoyed my experience at the consult working with the  team with a depth of experience. They are very passionate about what they do and take time to consider every details. They work very closely with their clients and work to show the clients focus to their best ability. In places where i have previously worked I have seen clients take over design and make designers produce work that is of a poor standard yet the consult ensure that ever piece of design is working to the best ability and gives clear message. I would love to work at the consult but I am sure the competition is very high yet I will stay in touch with the team and keep following there progress and work.

The next week at the consult w/c 5th April

Returning on the Wednesday after Bank holiday Monday and working at Bivouac in York on The Tuesday due to Kate arranging work for me to complete I was happy to be back at the consult working with team. I was given the task to create some brand guidelines for teh new brand the consult had just designed called hanimaps which later changed thier name to handi hikes due to intelletual property. The design was a simple but effective design with an avant guarde typeface in a shape as a pointer arrow found on maps. This was  acontemporary feel logo but relevant to the handiness that it wanted to come across to the audience. 

I developed the guidelines have a fun tone that the brand currently had. I had a range of ideas as shown in the scans but I developed the idea of the where to go what to do and what to see within the brand guidelines. The booklet was a Constantia square fold and as it folded out into each page is stated follow the trail. Within the copy of the brand guide lines it had fun references such as for the leading on the logo it said leading the way. The idea was fun testing my language skills and layout skills. It is a task that i enjoyed and is something i am going to do with in my pas architects brief. 

I was then given sthe task by the marketing manager for the company Ray Mason the task to let people know how good the consult where. The consult specialism in prospectus design for higher education and have recently won a range of gold awards or their outstanding work. 

I The company are inline to win the gold heist award this year and i was assigned to create an idea for a mailshot to send to clients in order to put the consult on their tender list. The message had to say around the lines that we are winner. With a small print run and a tight budget the idea has to be a simple but effective idea.  

The ideas I came up with are a range as shown in the scans but i eventually went with the idea of invest in gold which goes with the language used as in invest in gold. Printed on black stock with a gold foil block.

The Consult Placement Wednesday Thursday

Leading from the earlier post I then worked on a NHS brief the brief was for the NIRC which is an NHS research center. I created designs to go around the office portraying thier brand. The brief was good for me as I had to still to brandguidelines. The brand used Frutiger typeface within copy and within the logo andthier were certain measurments wthin the log that I  had to be aware of. The logos colour was red yet I did question why it was red ads it is to do with health aand this colour gives of the wrong meaning. However the red is used within the office not within hospitals. 

I created a reception sign, a perpex board describing what the company do and a set of 8 boards to run across a wall that worked together as a set. I also created a vinyl print that when a across which was typography based. These designs then had to work across the office based in London.

This was then finalised and set up as a presentation and sent of to the client. With a shortened week ending on Thursady due to bank holiday weekend I arranged to come into the consult the following week. This involved me chaging around dates with Bivouac in York.

The Consult Placement Week1- Monday - Tuesday

After eventually finding the place right up the hill I arrived at the consult. I have always been a fan of the work they create and have followed their work. The work that they do is very considered and they consider their client with great detail and create work for them to their best abilities using the right methods and skills.

I wanted to learn as much as possible from the team. I stared the week steady completing amends and for spl programme. I then worked on one of their new clients websites, Klinger. The website was a redesign from their last website this website was an engineering company for nuts and bolts from airplanes and the consult brought the website up to a sophisticated website. 

After completeing this I then worked on Adrian Rays new  booklet to promote his work. The booklet was a difficult task as his images where an imporatnat focus to him selling his skills and you had to be careful on what the images ment and the meaning of the images changed when they sat next to other images. The brochure works very well with a simple idea. we changed the colour of teh stock for the front cover so that there  was a distinct definition between book 1 and 2. Adrian work is featured within the Leeds college of art prospectus and he works for a range of local agencies such as one eighty.

I then worked on a project called built environment on a short task to create a certificate for the company. The company are working on creating a work book to train people in networking. The design created is modern and contemporary but interesting and powerful. The consult where taking time to consider using the right stocks for stationary that will give of an overall interesting outlook to the brief.

I was then given a task for the company to create the weekly planner the company where not hugely busy at the time and so I  was given  the task of designing a weekly planner for the company. It was a small task but i wanted to put effort in creating a functional board for the team that the y would see I then got a quote from fast point for some vinyl print to go on the white board please find below.

Notes: Hi could you give me a quote for the following, Black Vinyl that is self adhesive as it will be placed on to a white board internally. The Vinyl will be placed on to a white board space of 855mm deep and 1555mm wide with cut lettering. Please find attached a copy of the file. Thank you for your help, Regards Rhianne

Reply:

Thanks for the enquiry Rhianne.  The vinyl lettering for your whiteboard, supplied on backing paper spaced as your artwork, overall size 855 x 1555, would be £80 including delivery, plus VAT. 

If you would like to proceed please let me have your full company details.  We would require payment in advance, cheque or credit card.

Please call if you have any queries.
Regards,

Please read next blog post for continuation

Bivouac 9th Week

My day today was slightly quieter with the exhibition of the military museum taking place within the next month work has undergone to create the boards and the exhibition panels. I was resizing images which display the soldiers in Afghanistan some of the images where really interesting and reflected really well the situation over there. I then worried on crating some vectors for the camouflage to go onto the panels although it was slightly not what I planned to do all day i understand this comes with part of the work experience and not every job will be as exciting. I had a good conversation about my design context and understood that what i was trying to say was confusing people and especially designers and so i need to understand the context myself properly this is what I will strongly work onto my design context and which Kate says that she will respond to my questions.

Bivouac 8th Week

Today I started the day working on the cyclorama postcard after workingon the breif lats monday the postcard was sent to the client. The client liked the outcome of the postcard yet the postcard design was designed by the clent. From my learning last week on the implications of a very client lead brief prove very difficult to do as teh design work was all wrong in terms of ledigibility and colours that sirt against each other. Kate who deals with the client knows the client very well i understood my concerns yet the client was very strtong willed on whta they want and very percpific and so we aggreed that the  design should just be completed to what the client wants. THe design outcome was the maroon cyclists background The back, after speaking with teh client about ledginbility and postoffice rules decided that they wanted teh faded background on teh back as they were going to place a sticker over the top as an address lable. I Then worked on the banner to send to the printers. the cleint agin had alreadyy designed this. After completing this I then worked on teh military museum imaes resizing tehm for print. The new brief is an exhibition at the military museum in York which gives peopel an insight in to our current war.The images where very strong and show the culture and the importance of what we should know about our war that is currently happening. 

Kate and I also discussed a new brief called one which is going to move to a high class street in york next to Paulsmith and noanoa. THe brand needs to bring its brand up to line with the other high wuality brands down this street. Although looking at the brand we noticed slight inconsistencies within teh brand and massive opportunities missed within teh webite. THe client wants to work to a tight budget in a tight timescale of two months. We wehere considreding where to reposition the brand and reorgansing strap ines and what the brand says to her market. WE looked at competitors such as Toast in harrogate which are a similar brand but have alot more sophistiaction and a quality feel to them. The brands current focus is that the clothes are ethically sourced clothing and fashion. yet this focus now wants to be secondary to the focus of the high quality fashion boutique brand that she wants to portray.Kate was devising a quote and prices for a website rebrand and new photography, yet there are limitation within the budget and time scale.

I have ordered a copy of the catalogue to refer to within my interest for brochure design looking at layout and how the photography is used

Bivouac 7th Week

With my extension of working at the consult and bank holiday monday I am working at bivouac just one day this week. Today I worked on a postcard for a company called cyclorama. I learnt today the difficulties of clients and how difficult it is to design and use skills that you are taught when a client have a very specific idea. The client had a very drawn out idea and knew exactly what she wanted therefore I had to make the design come alive. The design is not usually something that I would do and not something that my self and Kate agreed with although we had to come to terms that this was what the client wanted. THe postcard served no purpose and as myself and Kate discussed it is hard to design something when you know that it is going to thrown away. Mail-shots are very common for this unless they sure a very strong purpose. This has what has come from Kate's intreats to create work for exhibitions and museums as the design borads or panels are used and there existing and used by loads of people and most important appreciated. Where as thousands of flyers or poorly designed mail-shots are so oftenly found lying in the bin. This is soal destroying as a designer and is something that I would not like to get into. Although some amy say that it pays the bills I would like to not design pizza flyers or work that is ignored or not appreciated. This made me consider the importamce of my finla year and my statement of intent.




My self and Kate had ideas for other postcard designs that somebody would like to receive or keep. Showing one interesting bike and collecting the different bikes would have been more interesting than looking at the logo. This would almost make them collectable yet to to do a multiple print run would have cost more in which this was not within the budget.