~ Hort - one day brief - Study task ~

Hort is a design agency based in Berlin; their style is incredibly appealing to me. In particular whilst looking at their online portfolio I noticed they create a lot of animations and gifs to entice people with kinetic design. For this study task we were to create a piece of design in order to say hello and demonstrate our skills to them; their use of animation became a great inspiration for my outcome. 

I find Horts work really inspiring; their unusual uses and layouts of typography make for an effective style. I find them to be a really appealing design studio as although their designs are mostly type based its not all digital.

A lot of their work is a combination of digital prints and hand executed layouts. This inspired my design for this study task. The aim of the study task was to create a 'present' for Hort.

I decided to produce something that combined type, hand rendered design and digital animation creation. The final design is a stop motion animation of some paper cuts I produced. When placed together correctly they expose the word 'design'. 

This design is a simple yet effective way of demonstrating multiple skills within one gif. It also shows imagination (as I decided not to just produce a still image) and my passion for colourful and bold design.

This shows the still version of the image; incase its needed for part of a publication. 

~ Contact ideas ~

Emailing high status designers isn't the most effective way of contact as emails can often easily go ignored and left aside. Instead sending something personal to the designers is more likely to grab their attention and make you memorable. 

Hi my names Izzie Glazzard and i'm currently studying a degree in graphic design at Leeds College of Art (2nd year). Im contacting you firstly to say how much your work inspires me as a creative and I aspire to become as established and imaginative! Secondly I would love to have an informal interview/chat and art session with you weather that be via meeting in person, Skype, direct mail etc. 

During a previous brief I created a leaflet using interesting folding techniques with the purpose of grabbing attention from an audience. 

I'd love to use this interesting format within my letter/approach to designers. I could include examples of work, illustrations and a list of my aims and ethos as a designer. 

The designers I plan to send the letters to all work with bold bright colour and pattern. I felt a brilliant way of incorporating colour and boldness within my approach would be to use different coloured stock. 

The yellow represents the outer layer that could fold around the inner parts and be covered in illustration possibly? The green area represents a smaller stock that opens up like a standard format leaflet and would contain the personalised letter to the designers proposing an interview. Lastly the orange section represents the folded leaflet containing my personal ethos held in by a cut tab in the larger stock. 

Combining all these sections together takes the idea of something physical being more interesting a step further. This format of design encourages the audience to interact with the package making it memorable.

~ Creative report - OUGD502 ~

For this brief we have to research designers and studios that we personally find inspiring. This brief will be a good way to network with other graphic designers who already have a well established personal practice to help me develop my own. We need to then contact the designer of our choice and ask to interview them on their practice. 

What I want to get from the interview - 
- It's a brilliant chance to network with designers that heavily influence my own practice
- Get advice from them on issues i'm facing myself and hear stories of problems they've come across and ways of solving them
- A chance for them to know my face and personality in the hope of collaborating in the future or getting a job
- Publishing an interview with a well known designer online could boost my current online presence 
- Learn more about their personalities and way of working
- Learn good interview and people skills, the most professional ways of approaching and talking to other creatives
- Improve my confidence

Considerations - 
- Designers are very busy and often bombarded with emails so I need to think of a more creative way of contacting them (letter, package etc.) 
- How accessible are they to meet? Could we skype? Email interview?
- Are they okay with the interview being recorded and published?
- Avoid it looking like a questionnaire, a formal interview won't let the designer know your personality much but a slightly less formal conversation will continue the relationship between us a lot more effectively in the future. 
- Are they too busy to communicate with me?
- Has to be transcribed at the end 

Initial question ideas - 
- 1st question should put them at ease and be easy to answer for example, How long has the studio been running?
- What computer programmes do you use?
- What are your favourite materials to work with? (types of paint, pens etc.)
- If you could have a superpower what would it be and why?
- If you could have any invention imaginable right now what would it be?
- What's been your favourite project to do?
- Biggest problem you've ever faced during a brief?
- Can you doodle something for me? Maybe draw me?
- Last question - Have you got anything else you'd like to talk about?

Initial ideas for who to contact -
- Snask
- Hungry sandwich 
- Kate Moross 
- Camille Walala 
- Rob Lowe 

~ Study task 1 - summer - OUGD502 ~

Despite not doing a lot of creative work over summer I have still been massively inspired by my experiences and the new people I met. I worked in a drag bar and met a large group of entertainers challenging society's gender roles and generally spreading colour and happiness wherever they go. Just their makeup and handmade costumes were an artform but the most inspiring thing is their attitudes towards society and culture, they completely enlightened me into how fluid our personalities really are and taught me it's possible to have fun and be creative with who you are and identify as. This is extremely relevant to my personal practice because as a designer the world tries to push us into boxes (modernist, illustrator etc.) but this year I aim to not label myself under any category and instead just be create, vibrant and have fun with my work.

The creative work I did engage with over summer was all personally enhancing rather than for briefs. I took the quiet days in between work and drew things for friends. It was a chance to reconnect with the aspects of art that I find fun and interesting without anyone having to tell me to do them. I watched a lecture by Kate Moross who spoke about her work being inspired by childhood experiences and was inspired to do some potato printing which I felt was a really enriching thing to do. It was a chance to get really hands on and covered in paint which is something i'd lost touch with a lot during the first year of university. I also met an incredible illustrator and became really great friends with her, we did a live painting session at Hull Pride festival, painted a huge 2 wall mural and she inspired me massively to be more experimental with my materials and not label myself purely as a 'graphic designer or digital artist'.

Pressision print

As a student traveling around to studios, printers and events isn't something that's easily done on a tight budget. But living in Leeds makes me lucky to be a short train journey away from Bramley, the home of Pressision print.

We were greeted warmly with name badges designed in the company's branding that showed off the stunning digital white ink printing made possible by their HP indigo printer. We were given a tote bag full of free samples showing off the large range of work they can produce, from amazingly high quality and punchy coloured litho printing to delicate foiled business cards, the kind of party bag only a graphic designer could really appreciate.

We were shown the amazingly big litho printer (by far my favourite), the CMYK separations and smell of ink was utterly mesmerizing and I never wanted to leave. 

I loved how during the visit we were able to speak with the managers of the company, their personal passion for graphic design and beauty within print was really inspiring as usually printers aren't connected closely with the creative industries like Pressision clearly are. 

I found the whole experience really exciting as it gave me a sense of the ambition of other creatives in the world and how the endless possibilities within print are mindblowing. Their recent sponsorship of the Leeds Indie Food Festival and production of the Leeds College of Art magazine (NEST) shows their close involvement with the local community. I found this to be a really admirable quality of the company and hope to work with them in the future. I know I have a lot to learn from their team yet to come! 

Portfolio/self promotion book experiments. Trying to experiment with postmodernism, textures, kitsch etc.