OUGD502 Studio Brief 1 | Street Dreams Contact

I really wanted to base my report on Street Dreams as the photographers that created the publication are some of my favourites and also the magazine itself is brilliant. 

I emailed the Street Dreams email first to see if I got any response, which I didn't"


To magazine@streetdreamsmag.co

Hi, my name is Dan Hart-Davies and I’m a second year graphic design student at Leeds College of Art in the UK. We’ve been assigned the task of conducting an interview with an individual or collective within the design industry that inspires us and our work. Being a huge fan of Street Dreams my first choice was obviously you guys, as this would give me great insight as an aspiring photographer and/or editorial designer as well as making my task of writing an essay much more interesting. 
If you would be happy answering a few questions I will send a follow-up email with them included. 

Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you soon,

Dan

Then I thought of emailing the two creators of the magazine - Steve Irby (@stevesweatpants)  and Eric Veloso :

Hi Eric,
My name is Dan Hart-Davies and I’m a second year graphic design student at Leeds College of Art in the UK. We’ve been assigned the task of conducting an interview with an individual or collective within the design industry that inspires us and our work. Being a huge fan of Street Dreams my first choice was obviously you guys, as this would give me great insight as an aspiring photographer and/or editorial designer as well as making my task of writing an essay much more interesting. 
If you would be happy answering a few questions I will send a follow-up email with them included. 

Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you soon,

Dan

Steve Irby

Hi Steve,
My name is Dan Hart-Davies and I’m a second year graphic design student at Leeds College of Art in the UK. We’ve been assigned the task of conducting an interview with an individual or collective within the design industry that inspires us and our work. Being a huge fan of Street Dreams my first choice was obviously you guys, as this would give me great insight as an aspiring photographer and/or editorial designer as well as making my task of writing an essay much more interesting. 
If you would be happy answering a few questions I will send a follow-up email with them included. I have also emailed Eric Veloso in the hope that I would be lucky enough to get two answers from a different perspective. 

Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you soon,

Dan

When I didn't hear anything abck from then I took to Instagram where I direct messaged the both of them. I did this because Street Dreams is an Instagram-based magazine, and they are both very active on the platform. 

I didn't hear anything back from them so I thought it was over and if Ihadn't heard from them by now they weren't going to get back to me, but 10 days later Eric Veloso did. 

Unfortunately, as of the day before submission he still hasn't gotten back to me or replied to my email containing the questions but if he does I will be sure to carry on the contact even though the module has finished as it would be a great contact to have. 

OUGD502 Studio Brief 1 | Creative Report Production

When it came to producing the final booklet for my creative report I did have a little bit of trouble. Because I printed on my own stock for the front and back cover, this meant I had to improvise and add a couple of extra pages in order for the book to work and the pages to go in the correct order.

Once it was printed, due to the weight of the paper when I folded it down the middle, the edges fanned out, causing the book to fall out of line. This meant that when I trimmed down the edges to get the pages straight and even, some of the page numbers were trimmed off.

OUGD502 Studio Brief 1 | Creative Report - Evaluation

This brief has been a lot of fun for me and has also taught me a lot about the industry and the world of graphic design outside of university. One of the first things I realised was that I had a very limited knowledge of studios and designers, and that I need to fix this anyway, but even more so for this brief. Once I found a few studios and creative I really liked, it was then time to contact them to see if they would take the time to answer a few of my questions. At first I just sent the list of questions in my opening email along with telling them who I am and why I’m writing to them. To no surprise those couple of people didn’t get back to me so I realised I should send an initial email to let them know who I am and what I do, and then ask them if they would be willing to help, rather than assuming they would in the first place. After I sent my first email keeping this in mind, I got a reply straight away from a studio in Toronto which I really liked. I then went on to send the interview questions in a following email and also talk about a possible placement. I think I have achieved what this brief was trying to get us to do; make a strong contact in the industry.

As for the creative report I think it came out pretty well. I wanted to use this opportunity to try some new things and take inspiration from Blok’s work and implement it into my own, which I think I did successfully.

If I were to do this brief again I would definitely start earlier and just try and get in touch with as many studios as possible, rather than stopping once I got a reply or two. I feel this would have just backed up my submission while also helping me get used to talking to potential employers and other people in the industry. I do plan on keeping in touch with a couple of studios and even if people reply after the submission, I will go ahead and ask them my intended interview questions.

OUGD502 Studio Brief 2 | Presentation Slides

Here is my self-branding. As I said previously I have designed it to be very minimal and clean to reflect my design style.

Photography is my main passion outside of university so I thought it would be relevant to include in my presentation. It has influenced a lot of my work and allowed me to discover other creatives around the world.

Editorial design is something I really enjoy, probably more than anything else in graphic design. My love for photography often works well with my enjoyment for designing books and publications. 

Editorial design is not something I saw myself enjoying before starting this course. It has really grown on me the more and more I do it as the only work I'm ever kind of proud of are the few publications I have done.

Here is what my website could possibly look like. I chose to showcase my photography and past work in such a large format to show potential clients and customers what I do and what my work is like. It has links to my past work, how to contact me and an 'about me page' where I talk a little bit about myself and the work I produce.

This is what my business cards and collateral look like. Again, I have kept it very minimal and clean in line with my branding. I don't see the need for anything to be on there that isn't needed; it has my logo, my number, my website and where to find me on social media. 

In the future I really want to try as many cities as possible really to find where I really like and feel like I could work and live, but in particular Toronto and New York. At the moment, Toronto has a really strong creative scene that fascinates me and I think working there would be really interesting. I am currently in talks with a studio in Toronto about a placement over the summer.

Placement Abroad:
As I said I am currently talking to Blok Studios about a possible placement over the summer. I really want to get some experience over the summer in order to learn more about the real world and the industry outside of university. I also want to travel and just see what's out there, so I thought combining the two would be very helpful and exciting.


Make the briefs more suited to me:
In the past I haven't really liked a lot of the briefs other than Studio Brief 3 in the last module as it was editorial and photography, so in the future I plan on looking deeper into the briefs to find a way to make them enjoyable for what I like.


Improve time management:
This is something I have always struggled with. I find it hard to do work when there isn't a deadline looming as I just get too distracted. This plays well with my previous aim of enjoying the brief more because if I am enjoying the work I am doing and producing, I will be more inclined to do it.


Experiment more:
I feel like sometimes I play projects too safe and do what I know I can do and what will look good. So I plan on playing around with colour and image a lot more in my work, which I did actaully do for my creative report.

OUGD502 Studio Brief 2 | Things that inspire me and my work

Photography
Editorial
Fashion
Blok Design
Music
Street Dreams Magazine

OUGD502 Studio Brief 2 | Visual Identity Updated

For my updated personal bradning I have kept the same logo as I designed last year as there is nothing wrong with it and I got great feedback from it. As for everything else, it has changed slightly.

I am keeping a monochrome colour scheme of white and a dark grey in order to keep my brand very clean and minimal. This reflects my work and my work ethic, I don't see the need to add unnecessary complications or anything that just looks messy. This can also be seen in my type choice of Din. Din works well as it looks very modern and minimal but also kind of has a traditional feel to it.

OUGD502 Studio Brief 2 | Visual Identity

Here is last year's presentation where we had to present our personal branding:

OUGD502 Studio Brief 2 | Design Strategy - Brief

Produce and present a 7-10 minute Powerpoint/PDF presentation that communicates a reflective summary of your experiences on the course to date. You should aim to reflect on who you are as a learner and a designer as well as how the things you have experienced over the past two years have affected your current aims and ambitions. You should also identify creative concerns, personal aims and professional ambitions that you intend to explore further over the Summer and during Level 6 of the programme.

The presentation should additionally incorporate your personal and revised self-branding. Then continuing from your logo and identity as created in Level 4 you must have assessed, evaluated, adapted and further developed your own brand as a designer and, in addition to its prominence within your presentation, you should also look to apply this in ways that you feel are most appropriate. These could include, but are in no way limited to:

YOUR VISUAL IDENTITY.

Your own professional visual identity for 'Brand You' that, if appropriate to your practice, could be distributed via an appropriate range of stationary and promotional material. For this element, you should aim to create a simple but effective visual identity that communicates the essence of your creative 'image' and details about your emerging design practice. You will need to consider the practicalities of your identity which may include a logo or bespoke typeface. How readable, legible and usable is your identity?

YOUR PROMO PACK.

A promotional package that communicates your skills, abilities creative concerns and professional competencies to appropriate sectors of the creative and cultural industries. This pack could include a business card, introductory information, samples of work a creative CV, contact details and other relevant material and information


YOUR WEBSITE.

You may propose/produce the structure and content of your own personal website. Keep it simple and make sure that your visual identity forms the basis of your online brand.



Ensure that the redevelopment of your branding plus any design outputs featuring the deployment of your identity is documented on your PPP blog.

OUGD502 Study Task 1 | Taking Care of Business Feedback & Evaluation

Feedback from Danny:

"The ‘bullshit filter’ and straight talking creativity offering with 4 members.

A potentially interesting business, but needed to ‘show’ more of the creative

offering to engage the viewers. You must spell check, mistakes in your own work illustrate a potential weakness in clients work?

Tone of voice in presentation, pace and establishing a platform or ‘mood’

or brand equity (value) meaning ‘why’ clients would choose Distil above all others

and that is the finding or establishing a USP.

Good thinking about location and The Google Campus consideration is good, but

more time in the process of identifying the ‘uniqueness’ Distil may offer and why?

Your presentation needed more positivity and to consider more collaborative

opportunity as a business. Preparation, tone of voice, pace and volume is one that you need to consider and this will come with practice and time.

Take time to rehearse and run through as this will highlight all the points I have made.

Well done and you can build on this if you feel like it?"

Evaluation

This task was challenging but also a lot of fun. I'm not normally a huge fan of working in a group as it can often be hard to agree on certain aspects of the project, sometimes major aspects that can prevent the work progressing. This was not the case with this brief as we were able to choose our groups and work with people we felt like we could communicate well with. As we are all friends it made it easier for us to voice our honest opinions and maybe fight for our individual ideas more rather than backing down if someone doesn't like it. 

My group worked very well together and we managed to organise everything using social media and the file sharing tool Google Drive;t his allowed us to communicate well to make sure everyone was on the same page when it came to work and deadlines. Each of us had allocated tasks that needed to be completed in order for the presentation to be ready for the deadline. 

This brief taught me to think about the business side of the industry a lot more than I ever have in the past. It also got me thinking about what I might do once I graduate; whether to work freelance, start my own studio either by myself or with other(s), or join an existing studio.

As for the presentation, I really do not like speaking in front of others and I feel this may have let my group down as the rest of them are all very comfortable when presenting. Even after all the past presentation that I have done on the course it still doesn't make it any easier, and as this is something I may have to do a lot of in my career depending on what route I go down, I'm going to have to try get over it.

OUGD502 Studio Brief 2 | Task

Today we got in a group of five and each of us wrote down words that we felt described one another individually. We did this in order to find out more about ourselves and how other perceive us so we could possibly build a USP around the information gathered.

The words/phrases that were used to descibe me:

Easy to talk to
Fashionable
Approachable
Easy going
Talented
Modest
Quiet
Unorganised
Mysterious
Lazy
Well-gathered
Funny
A laugh
Easy going
Relaxed
Trendy
Good artwork

There were a few other things written but nothing that would be of any help in this task. The ones that I could take away from this include; Fashionable, relaxed, approachable.

OUGD504 Study Task 1 | Taking Care of Business - Final Presentation

OUGD502 Study Task 1 | Taking Care of Business - Distil

Who are we?

Distil is a company founded by Chris, Dan, Alex and Aaron. The meaning of the company goes back to its' definition of 'extracting the essential meaning or most important aspects of.' This is a common ethos we all share, as we are all influenced by modernist, minimalistic design. Trying to create functional design is top priority for us and this reflects in our name.



What we stand for

Distil studio believes in freedom to experiment and explore all avenues of design. Our attitude towards our work is creating quality design while enjoying our selves as well as making a stress free and a pleasant experience for our clients. No project or idea is too big or too small for distil.



What separates us?

Our ability to be flexible but focused on the client’s needs allows us to have a strong relationship with one another, making sure that the work produced matches the client’s vision.


Location

We are based in London at a Google campus. This gives us a great location for the design industry at a comfortable price. Being based in London gives us a bigger local pool of clients.



T&C’S

You are able to come in at any time, but you must work for a minimum of three hours a day, everyday (with exception to weekends). You are also expected to complete all work set, as our studio is built on a level of trust that everyone will pull their weight.

OUGD502 Study Task 1 | Taking Care of Business - Distil's Location

We will be working at Google Campus in London as this is the perfect place to find other creatives to collaberate with as well as it being in a great location in London allowing us to have a large client pool. 

OUGD502 Study Task 1 | Taking Care of Business - Distil Branding

OUGD502 Study Task 1 | Taking Care of Business - Financials

Adobe Creative Suite - £53.20/mo

Adobe Creative Suite - £638.40 p/a

Dalton Maag Fonts - £60

Studio Space - Bookmarked

Stationary - £85.40

Printing - £1985

Tea/Coffee (for meetings etc.) - £100

Google Campus Rent - £320 p/a pp (utilities included)

TOTAL - £4148.80

Yearly Salary - £19,000 p/a

OUGD502 Study Task 1 | Taking Care of Business - Staff Roles

Our roles are as follows:

Alex - Chairman/HR

Dan - Creative Director/PR

Chris - Art Director/Treasurer

Aaron - Studio Manager/Copywriter

Studio Rules

You are able to come in at any time, but you must work for a minimum of 5 hours a day, everyday (with exception to weekends). You are also expected to complete all work set, as our studio is built on a level of trust that everyone will pull their weight.

Pay Brackets

Aaron - £26,000 annually (before tax)

Alex - £32,000 annually (before tax)

Dan - £28,000 annually (before tax)

Chris - £28,000 annually (before tax)

TA

Start up companies 
big companies
small companies
Digital Design
Print Design