Foiling and Embossing Workshop

Embossing stages 

1. Submerge paper stock in water for up to one minute depending on paper weight 
2. Place between blotting paper to remove excess water
3. Use a rolling pin over the blotting paper to make sure most of the water is removed
4. Etching press
5. Tissue paper base layer 
6. Place materials on base layer in desired composition
7. Stock paper goes down over the top of the materials 
8. More tissue paper on top 
9. Use two hands when using the press
10. Holt the wheel

Don't put thick wood. No metals should be used as it may tear the blanket. Always check before using hard materials. Laser cut shapes work really well with embossing. Tissue paper between all elements as to not transfer char marks.

The difference between embossing and debossing is that embossing is raised and debossing is imprinted.

Foiling 

1. Print a design onto a piece of paper either by using a laser printer with the design printed in black or using texiflock which is an adhesive glue. Texiflock can be printed onto paper stock by using a textile screen to screen print.
2. Choose a foil colour design
3. Place the matte side of the foil on top of either the laser print or texiflock design and place between tissue paper and grey board. 
4. Put into press and use both hands to press down. Wait 10 seconds for design or until it makes a noise
5. Use both hands again to pull the press up and swivel the press away from the design so the final design can be picked up.

Having never done either embossing or foiling, this will massively help and influence my practise as it allows me to broaden my horizons in my designs and further my knowledge. 

Glug Leeds

Glug is a creative networking space where designers/design studios and design students meet and give a talk about the industry and their practice. Glug started in 2007 in London and has gradually gone international with events in 13 cities where they meet local designers/design studios and inspiring designers of that city.

Intern Magazine - Alec Dudson
Intern is an independant print publication magazine that is published bi-anually. The magazine is for creative designers and is sold all around the world.

She Does Digital - Annie Moss 

She Does Digital was founded by Annie Moss-Quate, she has a team of female designers that set out to inspire and educate more women to be part of the digital design industry as it pronominally male orientated. 

Creative Life/Architects of Paradise - Matt Essam
Matt Essam is the founder of Creative Life which encourages creative people to develop in the industry they love and have a career by doing it. He is also the co-founder of Architects of Paradise which is a record label that mainly focuses on electronic music.

                                                            


Only Studio - Matthew & Daniel Tweedle
Only was founded by two brothers - Matthew and Daniel Tweedle. They specialise in digital design, branding and user experience.

Chris Kenworthy

Chris is a freelance photographer and copywriter. He has his own book published called 'The Human Freelancer'.

Responding to a brief - Yahoo! - Make Yahoo! The World's Most Popular Homepage

In a group of 4, we had to discuss how we were going to respond to the brief with having 2 ideas. The brief is to increase Yahoo!'s popularity and make it more appealing so that more people from the ages of 13-18 will access Yahoo!'s new homepage.

Make the homepage appear more authentic as possible so that younger people would want to use it as a platform aside from other popular websites such as Google and Facebook. The new Yahoo! homepage should work across all different device platforms. Make it appealing so that it engages the younger age group.

Idea 1
A homepage featuring trending searches informed by news, twitter hashtags and Facebook mentions.

Saved search results - no bookmarking needed. Pages visited/spent certain amounts of time on
auto-save. Frequently visited sites appear on the page and change with habits/changes as your interests adapts.

Social network dock allows you to send tweets/Facebook updates without going to the website.

Idea 2
Simplistic homepage. Stripped back to bare minimum flashing cursor bar. Optional accordion menu reveals more options to the user - still keeping the homepage minimalistic.

What's the Big Idea?

Don't think about the budget of the idea, just get the idea sorted first.

Don't shut down your idea before you've even fully thought about it. You can produce anything you want.

Plant a seed.

Think product/service, range (output ideas), distribution (think about where the product will be sold/seen).

Be open minded.

Creating an emotional engagement will attract more people.

Think about the brand and an adjective e.g. Nike Exhorts, IBM Solves.

Pose the brief/problem as a question.

Find the USP.

Visiting Lecture - Only Studio

Only Studio is based in Leeds and they specialise in brand design and digital design.

Common misconceptions about digital design:

• You need to be able to code
• It's not proper design
• It's boring 

It is important because:

• Primary way of consuming a brand
• Experimental and interactive
• It's here to stay

Design for screen is exciting because it has endless opportunity, is fast-paced and constantly evolving. 

Process of designing onscreen:

Phase 1: Research

Who is going to use the product, the competitors, the users.

Phase 2: Wireframing

You usually work with other people when doing this and it would be done for you.

Phase 3: Design

The designing of the product.

Phase 4: Front End

You work with developers which will help you create prototypes of the design.

Ask 5 or 6 people to test out the prototype before you finalise the design. 

Case Studies:

Goldsmith University

Re-design of their website. 

University of Suffolk

The institution gained it's University Title in summer 2016 as it was formerly known as University Campus Suffolk. Therefore there was a re-design of the university logo and the wayfinding system. The logo had the colours of the Suffolk flag incorporated onto it. 

Lost Village 

Lost Village is a new festival and it's aim is to sell tickets as a newly launched brand. Only created a visual identity for Lost Village where they made a video for the festival featuring the characters and theme whole theme of Lost Village festival.

Bring Me The Horizon 

Ahead of their album release, Sony asked Only to create a digital experience for their fans to interact with the band.

Helberts
Only were approached by Paul, the designer to create a harmonious identity for his fashion brand. He wanted his label and the website to show craftsmanship.

BIMA
Only designed a digital brand for British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) that showcases their professionalism, confidence, excellence and confidence.

Do you have any limitations to the size of the design?
There are no size limitations to the design but rather considerations.

When you said that you don't design all the pages, when do you know when to stop?
We create a template for each content page and then they create multiple pages using the template. E.g. we create one template for a university design course and they use the template to add the contents for the rest of the courses.

We try to optimise the design for all devices so that they work well on all platforms. We consider accessibility for people with learning difficulties, colour vision deficiency etc.

Especially consider the line length and spacing of the design.

Keep checking the design on different devices to see if it works well.

Make sure to communicate things clearly.

Visiting Professional - Harrison Park

Harrison Park is an Alumni graduate from Leeds College of Art where he studied Graphic Design. In his presentation, he talks about how he has worked in other studios and have not liked it and have left because it's not something that was making him happy. He said that although his friend liked the working at the same studio he left, everyone is different and everyone have their own interests in different design work.  

In his presentation, to be successful he said to:

• Build Relationships
• Accept that sometimes, relationships won't workout
• Its not going to be handed to you on a plate
• Work hard and be passionate
• Sell yourself
• Be flexible
• If someone says jump, you jump
• Don't be a dick
• Don't be afraid to ask
• Rejection happens
• Stay true to yourself
• Communicate
• There's more to life than London (Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield etc...)
• Think outside the box
• Don't be afraid to say no to jobs
• Know your morals - money or a good career?
• Be personal when contacting other practitioners
• Be humble

When asked about how to approach designers, Harrison said that commenting on their recent work or a particular work you like is better as it shows your interest in their work which would boost their ego. It'd feel more personal to send mail by post rather than email as designers get more emails so they may miss your email.