Secret 7" Brief

The Secret 7" brief has been my favourite so far. In this brief I think I have excelled in my skills as as designer and was able to showcase my abilities. I usually do digital work on the other briefs as I'm not as confident when it comes to doing something practically/by hand.

I this brief, not only have I experimented by doing digital design but I have also create mono prints, hand drawings and cut outs. I really do like the work I have produced in this brief because it has made me feel a little more confident and proud of my own work.

Lord Whitney Studios

Lord Whitney Studios is based in Leeds and is founded by two Graphic Designers that graduated at Leeds Metroplitan (now Leeds Beckett) in 2006. Amy Lord and Rebecca Whitney (which is where the business name comes from) met during the last week of 3rd year where they wanted to collaborate in order to figure out what their expertise is in Graphic Design. They did a few projects together during university and being students, they had no money but they still wanted to make something work so they made up set designs using/making props from scraps and tried to make them look feasible. They tried to do as much work as they could get so that they can earn money and do other work for clients so they even did voluntary work at festivals so that they would make themselves known. To this day, Amy and Rebecca still work together alongside 4 more creatives which are 2 producers, another designer and a set builder, making them a team of 6. They specialise in art direction, creative direction, editorials, film, interior and set design. Their style is simple and playful and they like to be resourceful with their props.

Examples of their work:

They created the set design for Nicki Minaj's music video 'The Night Is Still Young' with the theme of being a Japanese street. The music video was actually filmed on Kirkstall Road in Leeds.

They have also done art direction for Chambord and Missoni.

Their studio space based in Leeds:

The visit to the Lord Whitney Studios was very inspiring because it goes to show even though you want to find what you're really good at, it can take you a while, even until 3rd year when you are almost about to graduate. They have taught me to not rush to figure out what area is for me and also how easy it is to stick to something you don't really like and how easy it can be to come out of the situation. It also goes to show that you don't need money to make something, you can use scraps and try to make something work.

Mick Welbourn 'Blue Books' Exhibition

Mick Welbourn is a designer and he also works at the Leeds College of Art print room on Vernon Street. Having done Monoprint the day before for another project, he told us about his exhibition at The University of Leeds which included around 30 blue books. He told us that the university had bought his books after having it on display for a few months in which we decided that we wanted to visit.

Mick told us that the exhibition was called 'Blue Books' and that his books were inspired by swimming and swimming pools since he likes to swim and does it on a daily basis.

All of the books were a consistent A4 size with the pages filled inside with different shapes and shades of blue that were inspired by swimming. The designs were created by using monoprint as the choice of media and I assume that they were scanned in before being made into books. I like how the books are lined up to gradually go from light to dark. I also like the different patterns on the other stand where it has different affects of water.

I like how Mick has made all the books purely by monoprinting, the amount of work and different ideas must've taken him a while to produce. I like how he has been able to show the different shades of blue just from one layer of ink. Each book has different shapes/patterns inside so he has been very creative in how he has produced an idea for each one since there are around 30 blue books. In the cabinet, there are the original stencils that Mick used for the Blue Books.

The exhibition shows how limitless monoprinting can be and how you can achieve something by repeating the process over and over and getting something different from each output. No two design would look the same in monoprinting as they are unique as Mick has shown in his books.

Monoprint workshop

Monoprinting:
Having never done mono print before, I found it quite easy to do and it was a quick process. The only difficult part is having to cut out shapes as you need it as a template of what you want the outcome to be. If I learn how to use the laser cutter, the process will be so much easier and better as it would be very quick to do as you wouldn't even need to sit the shapes.

I also experimented with using different colours in the print by adding a different colour to the screen after the first colour had slightly faded.

I found it very useful for the Secret 7" project as I created the dove stencil to create these prints and printed straight onto the design. I had only inked up the screen once and got different gradients of the design.

Photography studio induction

 

In the photography workshop, we learnt how to take professional images of item so that we can apply this skill when we need high quality images. We used white backgrounds and background as experimented with them to see how to make them look their best. We also learnt how to take pictures of silverware without it coming off a wrong colour, we did this by using a grey card and taking a picture of it first so it would sort out the colour balance.

Carry Akroyd Solo Print Exhibition

On Tuesday, I went to visit Carry Akroyd's Print Exhibition at Leeds Craft & Design Centre. Photography was not permitted at the exhibition but her work is made by using screen print and lino print as a source of media. Below are the images taken from Leeds Craft & Design Centre's website.

Carry's work is inspired where she lives which is along the valley of the River Nene and her work shows the relationship between humans, landscape and wildlife. She uses bright and bold colours as well as using different shapes and patterns which are influenced by her interests in history, geography, botany and birds.

The exhibition was very inspiring as her design work as a collective look very bright, detailed and intricate. From what have done from lino printing so far, I admire her dedication and patience into doing it since when I tried to do it, it was very time consuming and difficult.

Self Reflection of OUGD403 & OUGD405

The briefs that I have struggled with since starting university is 'Logotype' and 'Typeface Design' form OUGD403. I found these briefs challenging because I am not that interested in type but I can tell what looks good or what looks bad; so can everyone else. I think that typography in general is not in my area of expertise as I personally feel like I can't say that something is bad if I cannot make it better. For the 'Typeface Design' brief, I got given the word 'Brash' and I found it difficult to make something look brash as it is an outdated word and the feedback I got from a crit was telling me to look up the word again so even other people didn't even know what the word meant. 'Logotype', I also struggled with as I picked 'Claire's' as the logo to rebrand. I chose to go down the handwritten, calligraphic type instead of using an existing typeface but I still got some mixed thoughts about the final design.

Another brief I struggled with is 'Wayfinding' for OUGD405. For this brief, I had no idea where to start, I didn't know how much I needed to do and I felt as though I couldn't wrap my head around the brief as I just simply struggled with the whole way finding research and also because I would've never expected this to be a brief. I did try to make something of my way finding design but I just don't think I did great at it and I hard a difficult time with the brief.