Rick Corless Anna Heron Dan Johnston Rebecca McDowell Jenn Trethewey Rhoda Whitaker Megan Young
VOLUME
How do we present ourselves to the big wide world? That is just one of the questions that is all over the studio right now. How do we ‘wow’ someone? How do we show ourselves differently? How do we stand out from the crowd? Should we worry about content, or just concentrate on the presentation?
The truth is; we don’t know. But either way, we all have to make a decision about how each of us are going to sound. This issue explores the idea of volume. Should we be loud, and do something outrageous to grab an audience’s attention? Or, Should we whisper, stand back from a crowd and give our work centre stage?
Editor’s Letter
01
02
03
Contributor’s Responses
Designer’s Responses
Project 3.4
04
05
06
Base 3
Work Placements
Offset
07
08
09
Johnny Hardstaff
Dr.Me
Volume
Contents
Contributors
REBECCA MCDOWELL Contributor’s Responses
JENN TRETHEWEY
MEGAN YOUNG
RHODA WHITAKER Contributor’s Responses
ANNA HERON
Contributor’s Responses
Designers
One of the hardest things as a
freelance artist / designer is to articulate what it is you do. More and more, we wear many hats, apply numerous tools, work across media rather than specialising, heading towards an unknown end rather than an industry standard. I envy those who can articulate their position easily, but its not the only important aspect of getting yourself out there. Being confident, open, friendly, collaborative and supportive also helps.
Sam Meech
You might not be able to shout about what you do, but if you get involved in collaborative endeavours, then likely as not, others will do it for you. Be an advocate for others. This isn't a competition. You're all here at the same time to create something special. But whether you are modest, confused, ambiguous, or just not ready, at some point, you just have to get up and sing. In karaoke, no one really minds if you dont know the words.
Designer’s Responses
Johnny Hardstaff Thank you for the e-mail.
We wanted to find some different opinions on the subject of volume within our own self-promotion. We deiced to contact not only our favourite designers for their views, but some other people within design at the top of their game - were they loud promoters, quiet hardworkers... or both? We asked the simple question; Self-promotion, “Is it about who shouts the loudest?”
However, I'm afraid that I can't hear what you are saying. Your conventional e-mail got buried amidst a mass of similar requests. You don't need a megaphone to get my attention. What you need is an original way of thinking. It's not how loud you shout, it's 'what' you shout and 'how' you choose to shout it. If you want to be heard above the rest, what you cannot do is ape contemporary ways of working or mimic modish fashions. You have to separate yourself from the contemporary, and from the advice of dinosaurs. You have to reinvent how we work, and define how you now hope to play. Ingenuity will effortlessly get even the most silent of us heard. A whisper can deafen.
United Visual Artists UVA’s large-scale installation
Volume first appeared in the garden of London’s V&A museum in 2006 and has since traveled as far as Hong Kong, Taiwan, St. Petersburg and Melbourne. It consists of a field of 48 luminous, sound-emitting columns that respond to movement. Visitors weave a path through the sculpture, creating their own unique journey in light and music.
Vaughan Oliver I have been whispering for
most of my professional life but still managed to get noticed. It’s all about the quality of your message.
Ben Kither
Designer’s Responses
Project 3.4
NICK YATES
NICK HANDLEY
Project 3.4
JOE MASON
KATIE HILTON Project 3.4
Jenn Trethewey Women’s Health 16/01/12
I
was really pleased when I got the opportunity to spend a week at the offices of Women’s Health in London. I knew editorial design was something I was interested in, so I couldn’t wait to see how a national magazine within a big company like Hearst was run.
Something that really surprised me at Women’s Health was how small the team producing the magazine was! They had a huge amount of work to put in to get everything done on time which was added to even more as it was the magazine’s first issue. The four employees who were working in the office, had three interns with them, and would work from half nine until around eight/nine in the evening. It really made me realise how hard everyone in magazine offices has to work to stick to their deadlines - not only the launch date, but daily meetings and tissue sessions within Hearst.
I feel like I learnt a lot from just a week with Lewis - when you think of a magazine stand, glossy women’s magazines gave me some great ideas for my dissertation and gained confidence in my skills on illustrator and indesign. It was great seeing the finished magazine a few weeks later and being able to point out the bits I had worked on.
I really enjoyed my time at Women’s Health, the team there were all lovely and very welcoming, and it was great having Lisa around who already knew her way about!
Lisa Barlow Women’s Health 14/12/11
M
y experience at Women’s Health was invaluable to my progress as a professional designer. Doing a long work placement was certainly an advantage and allowed me to experience both good and bad aspects of editorial design. As an individual I was immersed within the day-to-day running and development of the magazine and eventually began to feel like an integrated member of staff. My knowledge of editorial design and the ways in which magazines are formulated expanded massively and I felt that I had begun to understand the global aspects of what working for a major parent company, such as Hearst, is like. Under the pressure of having to perform as a professional within a fast paced environment my abilities as a designer increased considerably and I discovered illustrating skills I never even knew I had.
Women’s Health is a new magazine and as a consequence the team was very small, this allowed me to experience things a normal editorial work placement designer would not usually be afforded the privilege of. It also gave me a lot more responsibility, which I thrived upon. During my time there I assisted on a photo shoot, went to PR events, designed pages and did a host of illustrations whilst contributing to ideas for further photo shoots and visuals for features. I had great fun getting my teeth into every job that came my way. I think after three years within a university environment I felt ready to work in the real world. Some days it was easy to forget that I was still at University and that soon this experience would come to an end. I feel that it changed my personal outlook about how I valued myself and what I was capable of, I gained more confidence and feel that in some respects my eyes were opened to the potentials of my career development and future.
I would recommend work placements to every student designer. It affords you experience that no amount of studying can replicate. It gives you the opportunity to gain contacts within the industry and a gives one a flavor for what life as a designer can be. As an emerging designer from an institution there is an infinite amount of possibilities as to what path you can take and doing placements has helped me to understand my strengths and learn what kind of careers are available to me. As a consequence I am extremely grateful to Women’s Health for affording me such a valuable placement and making me feel like a part of the WH family. Work Experience
MakeWaves
Bekki Guyatt Big Fish 20/02/12
A
fter Vicky Sorden came to speak about her work, Big Fish caught my eye. I stayed in touch with Vicky and she helped me with my dissertation and then helped me get a placement at Big Fish. I was really excited to spend a week in Chelsea, with a team of 35 people, from photographers and designers, to web designers and film team, I was able to gain experiences in different areas, and quiz lots of people about their experiences. I was only there for a week so couldn’t get that stuck into one thing, but it was all valuable experience.
It encouraged me to mix with various people in the studio, and ask them about how they found moving from university into employment. I loved my time here, and have been told I’m welcome to go back, which is brilliant. Everyone was really welcoming, and I felt like I was part of a team rather than a skivvy, which isn’t unheard of with placements. The work they produce is also really vibrant, and a lot of it quite rustic or arts and crafts based, which suits my own working style.
I’d love to work somewhere like this, and learnt that a lot of the junior designers were hired after placement, so I’m keen to go back as soon as possible, hopefully for longer.
Work Experience
Dublin 09/03/12
O
ffset is a design conference currently in its third year, held in Dublin at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, minutes walk from the city centre. It could not have come at a better time, midway through our final year and starting to tire, these three days were the injection of creativity that we needed to fuel ourselves through to the end of the year. Their mission statement being “Feed Your Inspiration” and that was exactly what we did. It was almost overwhelming the amount of advice we were receiving, seven hours of it a day! Eike König from Hort, Berlin, opened the conference with an energetic and enthusiastic fast-running promotional video made up of stills of their printed work. Considering we are all thinking about how to present ourselves to the design industry, this was a really fantastic and attention grabbing way of conveying the energy and personality of your work, which can’t always be presented in your portfolio. Several of the designers were happy to show examples of projects they had worked on that never made it to print, or that faced several set backs when pitching to clients. In particular, Hort and Michael Beirut were really light hearted in sharing these with us, and showed us how they managed to overcome the difficulties regarding the projects. Michael Beirut explained that if a good idea isn’t working then it’s probably a bad one. From the weekend we learnt the real importance of presentation skills and public speaking. First impressions matter! These designers have incredible careers and work to show us, but a minority were let down by poor presentation skills which detracted from their talks. Although it sounds obvious, it was surprising to see professionals talking over one another, mumbling and turning their backs to the audience, saying ‘like’ every other word and trawling endlessly through a chronological biography of work and not adding a theme or point to their talk. This is the first conference we have ever been to and we weren’t sure what to expect, luckily it completely surpassed all of our expectations in every way. The speakers were all incredible, their work eclectic in style and their passion contagious. We found ourselves torn after every lecture, having been inspired by the latest speaker to grace the stage to follow their particular career path. Now we guess its up to us to forge our own. Rhoda Whitaker and Megan Young
Offset write-up
01
02
03
“If you have a favourite font, you are probably using it inappropriately.”
“Let them fail and learn, they will gain strength and self-confidence.”
“Find something outside of your discipline that fuels your fascination and creativity.”
Jessica Hische
HORT
Erik Kessel
04 “Make great work, not just a good idea change the world and be creative!!” Andrew Essex
05
06
07
“There is a difference between taking opportunities when they arise, and learning to recognise good opportunities.”
“If you design 200 logos (for a client pitch) you are a lazy designer. You should do the decision work, not the client.”
“If you come up with a good idea, it’s incredibly arrogant to think no one else will come up with the same Idea.”
Steve Simpson
Stefan Sagmeister
Olly Moss Offset Write up
“Let them fail”
Probably a bad one.
W
e discovered some new creatives that really excited and captured our imaginations, some of our favourites which we feel you should take a look at are illustrator Steve Simpson, advertiser Erik Vessels, typographer Jesscia Heische, animator Johnny Kelly and design agency Hort (who are currently offering a design internship at their studio in Berlin www.hort.org.uk) From the weekend we learnt the real importance of presentation skills and public speaking. First impressions matter! These designers have incredible careers and work
to show us, but a minority were let down by poor presentation skills which detracted from their talks. Although it sounds obvious, it was surprising to see professionals talking over one another, mumbling and turning their backs to the audience, saying ‘like’ every other word and trawling endlessly through a chronological biography of work and not adding a certain theme or point to their talk.
This is the first conference we have ever been to and we weren’t sure what to expect, luckily it completely surpassed all of our expectations in every way. The speakers were all incredible, their work eclectic in style and their passion contagious. We found ourselves torn after every lecture, having been inspired by the latest speaker to grace the stage to
follow their particular career path. Now we guess its up to us to forge our own. From the weekend we learnt the real importance of presentation skills and we found ourselves torn after every lecture. Offset write up
Base
3
Creative Links - Exhibition
Creative Links - Exhibition
BASE3 Exhibition
22/02/12
T
his was our first exhibition outside of University, which showcased project work from all 3rd year students from September 2011 onwards. This was our opportunity to really show off our work to its full potential and to start thinking about possible networking opportunities with designers in the industry, as now we are so close to the finish. We had a selected group of students from our year who took the role of exposing the exhibition, the group consisted of our very own Jenn Trethewey, Charlotte Wakefield, Chloe Reed, Natalie Ball, Clare Merrick, Zoey Brown and Chantelle King.
They did a great job of designing the poster, setting up the exhibition and organising the entire event, with a few spare hands to help. The exhibition was held at Creative Lynx, Princess Street where our work was spread across the walls of the entrance and first floor foyer. The exhibition was a great success and a surprising turnout, welcoming friends, family, tutors, last years Graphic Design graduates and designers from the industry. There was a great relaxed atmosphere in the air,
with chilled out music and we even self-funded our own bar, which helped raise money for our degree show in June, while the rest of our year finally got a chance to stand back and look at our achievements after a very hard working 5 months. The year has flown by already and the work produced shows this, everyone has been so busy with projects and workshops and the exhibition was a celebration of this and something to be proud of. Creative Links - Exhibition
Self Promotion
KATIE HILTON ‘My Head’s on Fire’ video
EMMA DAHLQUIST ‘Take A Chance On Me’ video
Johnny Hardstaff - Workshop
‘Play’
ZAC CROMPTON
op
orksh staff - W
ard Johnny H
‘We Get The Job Done’ video
JADE STONES & EMMA LACEY
SAM HALL ‘Sam Hall School Reports’ video
JONATHAN BUSCHENFELD ‘Future of Design’ theme song & animation He is a graphic designer And he will create anything He is a conceptual thinker He does conceptual thinking Buschenfeld, Buschenfeld, Buschenfeld, Buschenfeld! He is a graphic designer And he will create anything Like this really really good theme song Designing the future WITH ROBOTS I am the future of design (Kerning) I am the future of design (Typography) I am the future of design (Photoshop) Johnny Hardstaff - Workshop
DAN JOHNSTON Presentation held at gun point
Johnny Hardstaff - Workshop
Inte
rvie
w
What inspires you as a designer?
Friends /// Putting ourselves in new situations /// Not giving in /// Coffee /// Sex /// No sex /// Music /// People that are still angry /// Dr. Me - Interview
Do you think it's enough to let your work do all the talking? To an extent yes but it's always good to give people that further understanding of what you do, I always think that of the amount of times I've thought a piece of art looked really nice until the story behind it really blew my mind so I think we try and apply that kind of thinking when discussing how much to inform people about our work.
How do you think Dr Me promotes themselves? We try to promote ourselves by doing things outside of our remit like creating and curating exhibitions, self publishing, submitting work to online design blogs, getting up in peoples faces, being good to work with i.e. replying to emails, answering phones, going that extra mile on each and every brief that we do.
How would you describe your experience at Dr Me? Hard, the hardest thing we've ever done but in equal amounts definitely the best and most worthwhile thing ever, if you decide to start your own studio, know that you're going to be a poor person for quite some time but if you're committed to doing it, it'll pay off for you.
How would you describe your design work? We always try to do work that is high impact on both a visual and conceptual level, it's probably pretty straight forward to say that we want to create work that we will be proud of in the long run.
What grabs your attention as a designer? Great looking stuff done in ways we wouldn't have thought.
As a designer, do you ever limit yourself when it comes your work? At Dr.Me we try not to limit ourselves, we're fast learners so will always try and learn something unless we know for a fact that we have a friend who is an expert in the area and who we can collaborate with. We always try and push our practice to an uncomfortable place, that's when the work get really interesting and you find that new dimension.
What were your personal experiences when starting off in the design industry? That hard work and persistence need to be best of friends when starting out. You need to make sure that everyone that you know, knows what it is you do and knows that you're great at it! It helps to have an understanding of sending stuff to print otherwise you waste a shit tonne of money.
“We always try and push our practice to an uncomfortable place, that’s when the work get really interesting and you find that new dimension.”
Dr. Me - Interview
What advice would you give on self-branding? If you're going under your own name that's fine but if you're choosing a name to go under then make it personal to you, this way it'll have a story, people love stories, do not choose a name that you think sounds hip, as with all things fashion related it'll sound very dated very quickly.
What self promotions have you designed and what was the most successful? Two answers to this: a/. Great work is the best self promotion you can have, don't be afraid to stick your website address somewhere on the work you're doing, the client normally won't mind and it just makes so much sense. b/. Business cards, yup sounds simple but just have five in your wallet at ALL times, even if you're not that guy you'll be surprised at how many you'll give to people by just always having them on you.
What would your advice be for going freelance?
“Be a bad ass, make some noise, we want you guys to be getting up in our grills about stuff.�
Get signed up to these guys: www.columnartsagency.co.uk they deal with all things tax related and have great advice, Will who runs it has a fab beard too! Get a studio, they aren't expensive if you chip in with a few buddies and you'll give yourself a destination that isn't the dining room table each day. The Anthony Burrill quote of 'Work Hard & Be Nice To People' is a good one to remember! Go out and meet people, if I ever hear you refer to it as networking however I'll make trouble.
What things do you look for in a designers blog/website? Something that looks great and is straight forward to use, nothing more annoying than some smart arse flash page with things flying all over the place!
What do you look for in a graphic design graduates CV? Shit that we can't do. Also, work our who you want to work for CV's that are just generic are filed in the bin very quickly, if we ever decide to let anyone into the studio on a permanent basis we want them to be as passionate (if not more) about what we're trying to achieve at Dr. Me rather than some pleb who wants to clock in and create sub standard work.
Lastly, do you have any other advice for new graduates starting in the design industry? So, you're leaving education for the last time right? Our advice is this: Never stop learning, stay sharp, as soon as you stop learning you'll become a blunt tool.
Dr. Me - Interview
VOLUME
Images by Anna Heron
Volume Photoshoot
Volume Photoshoot