OUGD602 End of Year Evaluation

Positives throughout the module

I feel this year the PPP module has been a lot more self-driven and independent than it has been in the past. Consequently I feel it's been more relevant to the growing personal practice of everyone on the course - it was less task-heavy, and more of a log and journal of developments throughout the year. This is something I enjoyed and felt more natural doing than in the past.

PPP also gave me the platform to much improve my personal branding and think about my portfolio layout and design, I feel this was needed and the module gave me the excuse to crack on and do it. The result of the refinement is something I'm very happy with and once I finish putting the finishing touches on the print and digital pdf portfolio I feel confident approaching any studio with it.

PPP also made it part of the module to carry out interviews/visits, or placements as part of the module and keep some kind of journal. Fortunately, I managed to get a few placements. Again, I'm not sure if I would have had the push to get in touch with studios and carry out placements if it wasn't part of the module. Thanks to this little push, I did placements that were really useful and inspiring to me. They allowed me to form relationships that are starting to pay off now some months later with job opportunities.


Difficulties throughout the module


A difficulty throughout the year was figuring out what I should be doing, we didnt have many session with John, or workshops to do with PPP. This is understandable, as it's PPP and it's our last year so it should be more independent but I still feel things could have been a little more clearer.



Skills I have developed through the module

One of the main skills I've developed throughout this module, is stronger presentation and interview skills. As mentioned previously, this module has been great as its given me an excuse and nod to get in touch with studios and agencies. Following on from getting in touch, I've carried out quite a few interviews and presentations with studios. In the past it would have been daunting and nerve-wracking to do, but now I feel much better prepared and confident in talking to studios. Going to studios has made me realise, they're just the same as us, they are actually human just like the rest of us! Which sounds a bit mental, but this is exactly what you have in the back of your mind at the start - that people in studios are busy, ruthless and super hard to please.


Overall

Over the course of the PPP module at Leeds College of Art, PPP has allowed me to research into studios, discover so many studios I like and find a better understanding of where I fit in. It's also given me much more confidence and awareness within, and around design. It's allowed me to handle myself much more professionally, think about studios, actually set up a viable studio proposal, present to my peers and professionals frequently, and carry out placements. These are luxuries not many other students at other institutions have, so it's been a great experience.

PPP hasn't really felt like work in most cases, it's simply been tips and workshops on how to be better, and it's always been super relevant. I don't think I'd be anywhere near as professional or confident in presenting, or have as much knowledge about design as I do now. If it wasn't for Personal Pro Practice. It's been great.

Self-Branding Submission Boards

I've been working on refining and reevaluating my existing branding and identity, I decided to scrap some of the products I prodcued for the first draft, such as self-binded portfolio. It just wasn't productive in the real-world, you couldn't add in new work with ease and just wasn't as easy to read through and present with as a classic ringbinded portfolio.

Digital PDF's are vital in contemporary design, and I have been using my portfolio a lot on an iPad in interviews I have gone to, and the experience has gone down well. I wasn't happy with my first draft of a portfolio though, and felt it was clumsy in places and the images were too small, with slightly needless text taking up too much room. The new portfolio layout is much more sleek, across print and digital.

The new website, soon to be applied to the domain name I recently bought (www.abbasmushtaq.co.uk) has a much stronger relationship with porfolios across print and digital, in a way being a digital representation of them, and with menus.

Business cards have been reconsidered - no more edge printing - it's expensive, and time consuming. This has been replaced with triplexed businesscards I have hand-made, and am in the process of negotiating with printers such as Generation Press in the view of letterpressed, polished versions.


Scaling of the logo has been considered, in the past the A+ logo was a bit of a hindrance, as the system didn't allow scaling down, so often it was just too big and clumsy, now the logo can be scaled up and down, and also works in inverted white on black spreads. Which work really well on-screen, as there's less glare.




Boards:

Selected Images

 Triplexed business cards

 Abbas+ business cards, redesigned to allow space for personal messages. In this case, using Leeds based Design agency Golden as an example.

Digitial PDF Portfolio

 Website

 Redesigned Portfolio Layout

Cross Course Collaboration : Finished Talia Welka Identity

• Talia Welka is a final year photographer, with a focus on fashion and portraiture. preparing to leave college and enter the professional world. Consequently a bold, yet personal brand identity was required in order to project confidence and professionalism in taking the next step post-education.

  Talia's work is strong in composition, and bold colour, often focusing on creating beauty through 'imperfection' in terms of composition and lighting. In order to increase interest in Talia's portfolio, while still being impressive in it's own right, through a strong colour accent of purple. Talia's favourite colour is purple - although this is a simply justification, it is a logical, and personal solution.

  The identity aims to be reductive in design, yet simple and effective in its concept of a pinhole. The simple holepunched method of branding across all material is highly relevant to photography, yet simple and easy to apply to almost any material.

  he traditional photography rule of three grid, forms the structure of all layout, from type sizes working in multiples of threes to the grid system, focus rings draw your attention to key areas of interest, as seen on materials such as invoices. 

  Talia Welka's identity considers material from business cards, letterheads, invoices, to portfolios, mailouts, notepads and exhibition invites.
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• Invoice / Letterheads & Correspondence –

  Invoices, letterheads, folders and all correspondence are

  hand-stamped in order to create a personal seal on all material.

  The photographic grid system forms the basis of the structure of

  information, especially so on the invoice. The focus rings draw

  attention to important sections of information - further pushing

  photographic references.
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• Business cards –

  Business cards are triplexed with Purple GFsmith Colorplan

  and hand-stamped and holepunched, to further create a 

  personable attachment to clients which is essential.

  Alternate circular logo landscape business cards effectively

  illustrate a basic camera and lens with a pinhole to add fun

  and interactivity. 
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• Portfolio –

  To be displayed at Degree Show Exhibition and produced

  in small quantities to take to meetings, interviews and shows.

  Fold-out elementsts and screw binded, with purple spraypaint

  purposely scratched away to furthercreate an aura of imperfection 

  and roughness - important aspects of Talia's approach to photography.
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• Stamp & Holepunch Application –

  Ease of brand application is essential to the client,

  in order to be able to add a professional layer to any

  material and mail-outs produced in the future, the 

  rubber stamps achieve this in a cost-effective manner.

  The handheld holepunch is used to holepunch the

  circular element of all logos on all logical material,

  to create and extend the pinhole camera concept.
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• Private Viewing Invites for Talia's FMP exhibition –
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• Elasticated Stacks –

  Elasticated stacks of loose photographic material

  allow Talia to hand out photographs individually in 

  personal interactions or mail-outs. Individually or as

  a full stack.

  Pureposely designed to fit within a DL envelope,

  allowing the client to send out Private Viewing Invites

  and Photographic leafs, with business cards in

  one package.
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Cross Course Collaboration _ Progress Update

I'm coming towards the end of the cross-course collaboration I've been working on as part of PPP and Extended Practice. I've been working with 3rd year photographer, Talia Welka and it's been a lot of fun. I've produced a lot of work in what has pretty much been around a 10 day brief and it's been great to work with a client, who also is part of the creative industries but within a different specialism. It allows us to have very different strengths and knowledge in areas the other doesn't have.

It's felt much more of a collaboration than simply a service, as it has with other briefs I've done in the past for a client.

I feel this is vital moving forward - as The Beautiful Meme have said a few times, work with people who aren't necessary in the 'creative' industry - for example TBM revolve around a copywriter with no formal education in design, with a trained designer and their work shows it. I feel a similar approach is the key moving forward and working with Talia has further backed that.

Talia's work can be seen here: http://www.taliawelka.co.nr/




____ Progress


You can find more on this brief on my extended practice blog here:

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All print material was done to a point today, Talia came round to photograph which was great as she's an expert in photography compared to me. It's also fitting she photographs her own identity material, overall the photography went really well and having a specialist taking the photos rather than me has resulted in much better lighting than it would have been if I took them.

Overall the art direction for the photos has been thought through alot, we wanted the shoot to come across as a bit more loose and 'imperfect' as Talia's work seeks to be. A strong flash was implemented to create strong shadows in places to complement some of Talia's shoots for her 'Fitspiration' FMP project.

The next stage is editing and finetuning the levels and hues of the photos - which I don't anticipate will take long and I feel ready to draw a line under briefs for this year and working on presenting all the work I've done through design boards.

Selection of Unedited photographs :

Hand-stamped business cards which I feel really happy with, the triplex has come out well and the format and layout of the business cards is reminiscent of a camera and lens, which isn't a bad thing at all for a project such as this

Next steps:

1. The immediate steps for this project is to design a brand spec sheet outlining logo placement, sizing, fonts, swatches etc. Shouldn't take long at all-

2. Shortlist strongest photographs, edit... and figure out a streamlined and effective narrative of images in terms of presentation of concept, solution and application.

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I now feel ready to crack on with boards, hugely overdue. I feel I have done the work necessary in terms of blogging for most of the briefs, so hopefully it will be a case of slotting in images and strong copy and won't take as long a time as they could