Social Serendipities!

serendipity

ˌsɛr(ə)nˈdɪpɪti/

noun

1. The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

   "A fortunate stroke of serendipity".
2. 
   

So last night was a mad one! I ended up going to Nation of Shopkeepers to support a collaboration between Leeds College of Art & Leeds College of Music, they stylishly called it 'LCA x LCM'. The event was excellent, what with a Fine Art exhibition at one end of the bar and live music at the other. As you can imagine the nature of the project gathered the interest of many young creatives across the board so the atmosphere in there was buzzing. It was a really positive thing to be surrounded by so many people that were creatively inclined!

However the real personal success for me last night was of meeting a group of design professionals on Call Lane. I introduced myself and we got talking, and (like I nearly always do in normal everyday life) I ended up talking about Graphic Design. Normally that's not such a big deal because I do it all the time anyway, but you can appreciate I was a little taken aback when I learned that I was talking to the Director and Senior Designers of a massive Ad Agency. It was lovely meeting and talking to like minded individuals, if anything it gave me a projection of what I'd like to be doing in a couple of years.

I always feel comfortable when I can chat sh*t to people about Typography and they know what I'm talking about.

I left Call Lane with a big grin on my face and two new connections! I'm really excited about the potential of this, again I mentioned in a post a couple of days about how the internet is great for talking to people in certain contexts, but the fact is that as humans we relate a lot more to personal interaction. The old methods can still be the best. So anyway I did some research into the agency, and I was later surprised that I'd never heard of them. They're pretty big. To give you an idea, here's a small piece of text from their site: 

"We’re responsible for the marketing communications of many a household name. And we’re not bad at it. We’re on the RAR. We’re DADI award winning, a Google Partner and we’re in this year’s Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100. We’re also 3rd in the Top 50 agencies in the North* and of course, we’re very modest with it."

As impressive as that is, it's that final part that really hits home for me. There's a stigma surrounding the creative industries that gives the impression that the high flyers look down their noses at everybody else, and I'm sure that at times that may be the case. However it's times like these that I try to remind myself that there are creatives that love what they do, and stay modest about it. That really appeals to my design ethics. And I got that impression from those guys last night too, they really were lovely to talk to and engage with.

So. I have two new links on LinkedIn, and hopefully grounds to at least blag a studio tour. We'll see how it goes.

http://www.homeagency.co.uk/

Now if that's not a serendipity, then I don't know what is.

Letterpress Workshop

"I'm obviously a Typomaniac. Which is an incurable, if not fatal disease. I can't explain it. I just love looking at type. I just get a total kick out of it. They are my friends, you know. Other people look at bottles of wine or whatever, or, you know, girls bottoms; I get a kick out of looking at type. It's a little worrisome, I must admit, but it's a very nerdish thing to do."

- Erik Spiekermann

This is one of my favourite quotes of all time. I can actually remember making a typographic poster around 3 years ago of this quote. If I get the chance I'll get that posted up here, perhaps even improve it with the skills I've learned in the time gone since. This quote is even more relevant to me today.

Right now we're being shown the ropes of letter-pressing. It's something I've been aware of and wanted to do for years but never had the chance to do until now. So, we've had a letterpress technician come into the studio today and he's showing us the basics. I was lucky as I got to grab my letters first and getting cracking with it. Again the Spiekermann quote I mentioned is very relevant. 

I absolutely love sitting at a computer and designing type so meticulously that I have complete control over the leading, kerning, tracking etc. and today I had the exact same attitude, yet I was using technology that is around 500 years older than what you're viewing this on.

How is it relevant? Well, seen as though the aim of this brief is to promote my website through printed media (whilst considering themes of augmentation and interaction), and my website being about code, perhaps a logo that was made in a very pure and traditional way would make a nice juxtaposition. Either way, it's experimentation that counts towards my design process. Check out the youtube video I made of my process:

You'll notice I took a while arranging the type, with intent to make it look as good as I could.

 I'm afraid I just couldn't help uploading these to Instagram...

Liam's work is all about seeing faces within other things.

Here's what I made. And I'm pretty pleased with it! I think I was a little bit cheeky by putting a little TM sign on the end, but it definitely contextualises it a lot more considering I was experimenting with a logo. The typeface is Futura Bold, and it's bloody gorgeous. I'm pleased I took the time to play around with the type, as the kerning is BANG on.

Instagram

All right I'll admit it. I've only just got Instagram. And after seeing all the awesome stuff on there, I'm starting to wonder why it's taken me this long to catch on? Perhaps it's because I thought it would be full of selfies taken by 15 year olds...

But that's not the case. In fact, I've not seen one selfie yet! I was completely naive in thinking that I wouldn't be able to choose the material I'd be looking at one there. And it's so relevant too! There are tonnes of design studios on there that I'm now following, so it's essentially another channel for me to access the inspiration I need. I've mentioned before though that's it's not just graphic design that I'm interested in, so it's a place where I can pool a lot of my interests and get visual sources of inspiration. Here's a quick look at my page:

To start off with I posted some photographs I'd taken last year for my context of practice module. They're some of my personal favourites that I've taken myself so I didn't feel uncomfortable about uploading them. You'll notice that it's turing into a general lifestyle feed that focuses around my creative lifestyle and tastes. I'm looking forward to keeping up with Instagram and uploading (well photographed) pieces of work that I'll be making in future!

Skinner & T'witch and Google+

I mentioned in an earlier post that I went to see some music last Thursday, and I talked about how I got talking to the featured act of the night: Skinner & T'witch. I shared the blog post I wrote with them on their Facebook page, and since then they've got back to me expressing their appreciation. They've also shared the YouTube video I made of us lot singing along to their first performance of their 'Googling song'. What I've learned through this whole experience is that:

If you make that effort and go that extra little bit further, then good things will start to happen. There's really no harm in being proactive about your creative lifestyle.

There's a chance I've made a connection in those two, whether it's for graphic design reasons, or even if it's just that I'm now in the loop of their musical circle and stay up to date on their social on-goings.

On another note, I've started to appreciate the untapped potential that there is in Google+, the way I see it at the moment is at a kind of mid-point between Facebook and LinkedIn in terms of it's social stance that's centred around professionalism and has quite a fun edge to it. I'm currently trying to promote myself through it, because like I said, it is a small online community so far compared to Facebook, Twitter etc. yet there are still those how assign themselves to groups, graphic design within Google+ is therefore a very niche area, and if I approach it correctly, I could maximise this potential to make a name for myself. Here's a quick snippet of a blog post I shared on Google+ (see below). Also, really weird, but apparently I've already had 45,000 profile page views? If that's the case then it's even more beneficial for me to be utilising this online stage.

I thought using this image would be a good idea, even though it was taken a couple of years ago, it's still my work and captures that sense of mystery. Plus it's cool as f**k.

Photography Lighting Workshop

On Friday last week, the course was lucky enough to be given a photography introduction. A technician came up to our studio and showed us the ins and outs of taking professional standard photographs with the equipment they've got. This is something I value as much as any other part of the design process.

You should never underestimate the power of good photography when it comes to presenting your work.

I'm really lucky actually, before I came to Leeds College of Art I studied Art & Design for three years at Carlisle College of the Arts. The photography facilities there were second to none, and I'm extremely grateful for that, as I was shown how to operate flash guns, continuous light, high end DSLR's, infinity boards & backdrops etc. from the age of 16. Since then I've tried to make it an inherent part of my design processes.

Here's a quick look at some of the photography experimentation I used to get up to:

(Remember these were between two and four years ago, so don't judge too much...)

This is a bit of trickery I did with montaging and editing to give the impression I could float. I promise no wires were involved, which is more than what Dynamo could say...

I 100% convinced loads of my mates I had a twin brother with this one...

Again, on Friday we were told about the advantages of using high end flash guns to produce high quality photographs that could be captured with an extremely high shutter speed (perfect for modelling) where a moving subject is often used. This is a great example of this advantage.

You'll notice that digital photo-montaging was something I was heavily into at one point. Here's my best mate Joe (not looking too happy) modelling for me to show how with the right equipment, you can successfully replicate subjects within a scene.

As you can see I got up to quite a lot with the camera, and I'm fairly clued up on how to use one. However, Friday was brilliant for refreshing everything I'd previously learned, and because of my previous experience I was able to show others how to set up. I really enjoyed the day, there was a brilliant buzz in the studio where everybody was contributing towards something. But the most important thing I learned that day was that I've stopped doing as much photography as I'd like to, and right now it should be a super important part of my process. I'll reiterate on what I said earlier: 

It's great making the best piece of design you can that stretches the limits of your creativity, but if it's presented as though it's been photographed with a f***king potato then really what's the point?

So building on that, the point being that I'd like to be photographing my work more often and to a more professional standard, what am I going to do about it? Well I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I'm considering setting up an infinity board in our house somewhere so I'd have access to some kind of photography opportunities. However I'm starting to think this may be unnecessary what with the equipment from college being able to hire out whenever I want. So, I was talking to our student reps and mentioned that it could be massively beneficial if as a course we all borrowed the equipment together and set up our design studio as a make shift photography studio on a regular basis, I initially said perhaps every month, but on reflection I think it would be better if we all agreed to hire the equipment a few days leading up to every brief hand in.

Good stuff. That's that. I actually experimented a little bit by making a couple of time lapses and videos of us guys in the studio on Friday, here's the YouTube video that shows us setting up in the studio:

Never Undervalue the Power of 'Word of Mouth'

Last night me and a bunch of friends went to our local pub, The Chemic Tavern in Woodhouse, Leeds. Which is just around the corner from where we live. We found the place pretty much as soon as we moved into the area and have been regulars ever since, they host a brilliant open mic night every Thursday, where there are often some really top acts playing. Last night was a really great atmosphere, the music was fantastic and the people were their usual friendly selves. The headline act of the night were 'Skinner & T'witch', who are a really great folk duo heavily influenced by many styles of music, most notably of which flamenco. As a guitarist of 10(ish) years, I was astonished last night to see and appreciate such a high level of musical ability and skill being performed with such technical precision, not to mention passion.

The couple were selling CD's last night after there gig, and whilst buying one I got the opportunity to sit down with them and chat about many things including my appreciation of the flamenco style guitar playing, but more importantly the design work that was executed on there album design. We got talking about their album artwork and I eventually told them I was a graphic designer and recognised the effort and understanding that'd gone into it. I also left them with my name and email address, and invited them to involve me with any potential future work they had in mind.

If you don't ask. You don't get.

Even if they don't end up getting in touch, it was a pleasure meeting them, and I massively enjoyed their performance. So really, there was no harm in speaking to them.

Incidentally, last night was the first time in a while that I realised having business cards on me at all times would not be a bad thing...

I used to do it in the past, so why not now? I'm in the strongest position in terms of my design capabilities right now, I'm always learning new things and improving across the board. I can even remember being a few months fresh out of GCSE's at school and having business cards on me in my faux leather wallet ready to give to friends and people I met on the street. That was four years ago. So there's really no excuse for me not to be doing it now. I really should put an order in for some...

So again, back to my main point: As well as introducing myself to one potential client, I also introduced myself as a fresh-faced designer eager to get external work to the owners of the pub last night. Like I said, I spend a reasonable amount of my free time in there with friends, so it only seems fitting that I share my potential services with them. That worked out okay for me too, one of the owners took down my personal email and mobile number and saved me under 'Declan Design' in her phone. She also mentioned they needed some generic posters for the pub advertising quiz nights, open mic nights, closing & opening times etc. and I was only too eager to get involved.

It's about making connections.

So all in all a successful night, it just goes to show how even though we're extremely well connected to potentially everybody else on the planet what with social & digital technology, (which is great by the way), it's naive to assume that this is our only means of communication. There's nothing like shaking someones hand, explaining to them the service you provide, giving them a business card and building a bridge for a potential connection purely based on face value. Old fashion means can still be the most effective.

So building on this, my next step now is to get some business cards designed and ordered. Which realistically could be achieved in the next couple of days, I have all the content I need, it's just a case of sleekly executing the design in Adobe and getting them printed.

Here's something that will get me motivated to get some business cards made:

Also, purely just for entertainment purposes, heres a little snippet of the night we had last night. It's a clip of my personal favourite song from Skinner & T'witches setlist last night: you can find these guys on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/skinnerandtwitch?fref=ts

London Studio Visits Planning

From the 15th - 17th of January, I'll be in London. One of my favourite cities in the world. We've been recommended to go as a course to visit an exhibition at the V&A that's happening while we're there. As well as this, I've started to look at creative agencies that I like the look of, I plan to contact them and try and arrange some studio visits.

http://www.thestable-london.com/a-list-of-creative-agencies-in-london

The link above pointed me in the right direction for a lot of studios that caught my eye, I've selected a couple to show here. Again, I plan on emailing these studios within the next week, well in advance of my trip to improve my chances.

The Importance of Planning

Recently, I feel as though I've broken my way back into the creative lifestyle I used to be wrapped up in. And it's definitely down to method, scheduling and time management. Yesterday what I did differently was get up (as normal at around 7-8), shower, get dressed, ate. Then I cracked on with degree work. For as long as I could, literally just smashing it out (Obviously remembering to make time for eating and socialising). But really just getting on with stuff. I think I managed to get to about 7 o'clock, at which point I was proud of the amount and standard of work I'd produced in that time. Then I switched off from that. I decided that I'd done enough work, and it was time to get some down-time. But here's the real trick, I structured this too. Not to the extent where every minute of my day was accountable for, but so that I wasn't just lying in bed, or trawling through YouTube looking at "the top 10 most shocking conspiracy theories" for 5 hours solid. I made time for the other creative things in my life that I enjoy, and then I did them.

It's worth mentioning at this point that I've invested in an absolutely brilliant lifestyle app: 'Balanced'. All this is, is essentially a lifestyle app that aids me in tailoring how I spend my time. It allows to me to input the things that matter to me, asks me how often I'd like to be doing them, and then gently prompts me to get involved with it. It really is what it says on the tin, and already I feel as though I'm pursuing a more active, well-rounded and balanced lifestyle. I've actually recently surprised myself with how many hours there are in a day, and I definitely feel as though not only am I on top of my academic work, I'm also filling my spare time doing all the other things I love. Here are the list of things I input into the app:

• Get inspired
• Write in journal (daily)
• Read a book (3x a week)
• Listen to music (4x a week)
• Get creative
• Be thankful (Bit cheesy, but it never hurt anyone...)
• Catch up on the news (daily)
• Learn something (daily)
• Read a magazine (4x a week)
• Call family
• Get drunk with friends
• Study
• Paint, draw, illustrate etc.
• Go for a walk
• Cook something new
• Take a risk
• Meet new people
• Unclutter my life
• Call/Catch up with an old friend
• Watch a film
• Listen to a new band
• Travel
• Eat somewhere new
• Be spontaneous
• Write a blog entry (3x daily, including 1 PPP post)
• Chill out
• Take a great photo

That's a lot of stuff to do! But not unachievable, and I certainly feel like I wouldn't be doing these things if I didn't enjoy them. I feel like I'm on the right track to owning my own personal, professional practice.

Contacting Sergio, My Favourite Fashion Blogger

Today in studio we're focusing primarily on PPP, so I've started to make considerations towards people & studios in the creative industries that I'm interested in and want to be a part of. I've decided not to limit myself by singling out purely Graphic Design studios, I feel this is far too narrowing. I'm a creative person in many aspects of my life, so I want to contact not only designers, but musicians, successful business people, and fashion bloggers too!

Sergio Ines is my favourite fashion blogger. He's the creator of 'What My Boyfriend Wore', a project that initially was sparked by his then girlfriends Instagram account where she uploaded him and his 'dapper dexterity'. He now has thousands of followers and continues to influence people with his style. I emailed him a little earlier, simply asking if I could set up a little Skype interview. I explained how dressing sharp is something I'm passionate about too, and how any questions I would ask would be from the angle of a student, who was looking to look the part, without breaking there wallet. For me that's massive; and I've generally found that you don't have to spend £1000s of pounds on outfits to look good. I've found that I generally decide that an overall outfit looks good, because of a sense of many decorative interconnecting elements that work harmoniously together. There is a practice in this though.

If all goes ahead, and I do get the chance to speak to him (fingers crossed), I'd like to pitch an idea to him. I want to tell him about an idea I've had involving a potential section of his blog that focuses on the student representation of mens fashion. I'd love to be able to contribute to this, and see massive potential in terms of Graphic promotion work that I could provide. We'll see how this unfolds in the future.

Here's what I wrote to him:

Hi Sergio,

I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Declan Bell, a 2nd year Graphic Design student studying in Leeds, UK. I'd like to express my interest in your blog, and tell you that you and your engagement with mens fashion has been a massive influence on the way I dress and style myself for the past 2(ish) years. I've noticed too though, that not only do you have a keen eye for style in mens dress, but in visual aesthetics too. Your graphics on WMBW are always presented in a very clean and sharp style, with attention made to design principles, which is always nice!

I'm contacting you because I'd love to pick your brain about a few things, mostly fashion, style, and general taste in life. If you don't mind me asking, where is it you are based? Not that miles are much of a problem in terms of communication anymore, what with Skype interviews being commonplace now. If you were able to take the time to set up a date where I could ask a few questions, perhaps for 20 minutes or so, I'd appreciate that massively!

To give you a bit of background, I'd be approaching questions from the angle of a student, and I'm sure you can appreciate that because of the economic stigma attached to students, as much as I'd love to be able to wear Hugo Boss, Burberry and Armani, I simply can't afford it at the moment. One day perhaps. So again, my own personal style manifesto is simply of dressing sharp, and making an effort to abide by my own tastes in style, but without breaking the wallet, and certainly

I'd love to hear back from you, but appreciate that you must be busy.

Regards, Declan

Feel free to look me up on Facebook, Twitter @DeclanBell, Instagram (which I'm only just starting to appreciate the awesome power of...) declanbell63

New Blogger Format

I've decided on a new blogger format that streamlines my entries down the left hand side. I think it makes my posts more accessible, and gives it a more compact feel. The downside is that I did have a consistent feel to all of my blogs, what with my personalised minimalistic banner at the top of the page. I'd mentioned this in a much earlier post, and I don't particularly want to lose this part of my blog, however the dynamic templates for blogger are quite limiting. I do know however that you are able to input you're own CSS and override the stylesheets they use on blogger. If I get a bit more clued up on this, it could definitely be an option. Who knows, maybe before long I'll be a coding wizard and be able to come up with templates on my own!

Motivational Posters

I've decided to give myself an intervention. To bring me out of the creative rut I've been stuck in for a while now, I'm going to design some motivational posters. Possibly typographic. As well as giving me that extra boost to crack on with stuff, if I make it visually pleasing too, it'll be even better. Something that I can look at and feel proud of. The last time I've had that feeling was a couple of months ago, which is far too long!

I'm thinking of a couple of themes already, one I could do is: "Do a blog post everyday, and everything will fall into place."

In the meantime though, check out this photo of the Trinity centre Leeds I edited to appear as if it were a small model.

Link between Journaling & Blogging

Since getting back into the swing of university lifestyle, I've relearned and revalued the importance of establishing a clear link between the creative journals I keep, and my online presence through my PPP blog. I was quickly flicking through it last night when I suddenly realised: "Shit. I take a lot of notes. I could make entire blog posts out of some of the paragraphs I've scribbled into here". So I'm going to do that. Setting up that connection will massively boost productivity, because let's face it. Online blogging & creative journaling, they aren't enemies, they're simply singing the same song on two different octaves! And it's not just going to be useful for PPP either, I make countless notes by hand in studio whilst others do the same or frantically type into their laptops, so getting up to date with my thought processes in other modules will be certainly beneficial too.

So to start with, heres a quick round up of the stuff that's going on in my creative life: (I may go on to expand on some of these with their own blog posts if I feel it's necessary)

- It would probably be beneficial to do a round up of last years PPP, to reflect and build upon this and to assess how I've changed as a designer. It's also potentially worth sitting down and reading through all previous creative journals from last year too for the same reasons.

- I aim to do a quick write up on here about how my new living arrangements have influenced, boosted, and hindered my creative drive. I've got total freedom now, and that's sparked some interesting things that I look forward to sharing.

- Because of the freedom I now have in my living space, it's given me the opportunity to visually demonstrate the thought processes I've had and organise them to make them look more interesting, and seem more achievable. But I'll talk more about my genius system of thought & idea representation in a separate blog post, and I'll write up the individual ideas I've had in blog posts to come.

- I want to get a roll of white paper to make an infinity board, to bridge the gap between amateur and professional photography at home. I can't stress just how much the importance of quality photographs mean to me. They're so useful for representing work.

- I have a new app: 'Balanced'. It helps me focus on the productive and creative parts of my life, and do more of them, as opposed to lying in bed doing nothing. Procrastination can go f**k itself.

- I've been watching a lot of lectures and motivational videos on YouTube and Vimeo, it's definitely worth giving a quick write up on here for each.

- I'm going to start integrating more of my own lifestyle and what I choose to do in my free time into my PPP blog, and try and make an understanding of how it's relevant to my practice. I want to talk more about books I'm reading, documentaries I've seen, films I've watched, new bands I'm listening too, technologies I'm pursuing, magazines I'm keeping up with, my decisions and choices when it comes to fashion & style, gigs I'm going to see, my thoughts on what's happening in the news etc. And I think the best way to tackle this is to commit to doing at least one blogpost on creative life through my PPP blog everyday. This attitude will hopefully feed through into other modules too.

The last point is especially important. And not just for academic purposes, but so that I can concentrate on being a reasonably interesting person on top of all this. PPP is just a formal way of me scribbling down a lot of my creative thought processes. It's important to me that I do well academically, but at the same time it's about finding that balance. Enjoying myself, and stimulating myself with interesting stuff is important to me too.

MVMT Watch Brand

Today, whilst browsing for watches online I came across a reasonably new brand: MVMT. They've been featured in GQ. There main USP is that they've spotted that high end brands overvalue the prices of their watches to the point where it's ridiculous. This is what they're saying: "Quality timepieces crafted with a refined attention to detail: Timepieces that flow seamlessly into your lifestyle, without breaking your wallet." I like that. So I thought, why not contact them? Why not express my interest and see if they get me involved with any promotional work? So, I dropped them a message. 

If you don't ask, you don't get.

Hi Guys,

I came across MVMT in GQ, and you caught my attention pretty much from the get-go. Not only do I think the watch designs are beautiful, I also think you're absolutely bang-on with your attitude towards high end watch makers and how they massively overcharge.

As well as a watch enthusiast, I'm a 2nd year Graphic Design student, and I want to extend my interest to your project. I'm sure you understand just how important the Visual Representation of a brand can be.

I love my job. Designing with intent for mass communication is always exciting. However when you're designing for something that you fully endorse, it makes it that bit more engaging.

Feel free to email me on the address I've provided. I'd love to be involved in any promotional work you've got going on, even if it's just for an opinion. You may already have a team of designers on board, in which case I only wish you every success in your movement!

Regards, Declan Bell

Bookbinding Workshop

This morning was my first bookbinding workshop. I've bound work for projects before, but I've only ever checked youtube tutorials for guidance. Today I broadened my knowledge of binding, I attempted a simple saddle stitch booklet, a concertina booklet (that definitely didn't go to well), and a japanese fold book.

It was a lot of fun, and I definitely feel more confident in making booklets.

Design Board Template Design

I've decided that this year, I'm going to make an effort to streamline my design process, and make it as efficient as possible. To do this I've designed a template for all the design boards I'll make this year. There is a number of reasons this will be beneficial to my process:

- It will to establish a brand identity through consistency. Repetition is key.

- I won't have to design new boards each time for every project.

- It suggests a more sophisticated level of professionalism, as well as being excellent practice for the future.

Blog Customisation

When I was first assigned a blog, I made sure to customise to my liking, so it said something about my approaches to design, I wanted it to demonstrate my minimalistic attitude. And I feel it does.

Presentation

http://prezi.com/nrjg4vztqtj4/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Copy & Paste this link into your browser to access a copy of my PPP Presentation.

Personal Branding

Here's the response I came up with for my personal branding: It's a geometric icon I came up with, and applied a custom colour scheme that was Adobe Kuler matched to the Bauhaus building, which may seem like a bit of a gimmick, but it represents the the principles the Bauhaus stand by, that I also tend to agree with. It represents an attitude.

You can see how I've used it on various pieces of work, most notably this piece of editorial I did. I like the graphic, I think it's striking, and relevant once you understand it's importance; however I'm fairly certain it won't be the last piece of personal branding I do for myself. I'm always striving and pushing myself to do better, and I recognise there will be a point where I believe I'll be able to do better.

Pinterest

Pinterest is something else I'm now using quite a lot, it's a handy tool with a great interface for compiling both personal work and inspiration. I think I'll develop this further by splitting up the boards into my own work and the work of others; I've already had a number of re-pins which again means that I'm making some connections with like-minded people in the creative world.

LinkedIn

I'm now on LinkedIn, which I've found is a very useful stepping stone into the professional world. I was surprised to see the amount of connections I'd already had when I joined the site, people like Peter Ashley, who you can see at the bottom of the screen shot. I was lucky enough to work with him and his company last year on a project, so when I learned it matched up email connections I was rather pleased. 

Zalora Rebrand Competition

I've submitted a design to 'DesignCrowd.com', a website I check regularly that posts design jobs and competition entries. One recently tickled my fancy, so I've had a little pop at a design.

The brief was to re-imagine the current logo of 'Zalora', Asia's leading online fashion destination. What I've proposed are subtle yet effective changes to the original, which I feel really add a more solid statement for the brand. Here I've shown what I came up with:

You can see how the changes I've made really update the look of the brand, here's what I did:

- Changed the weight of Futura: I believe the weight of the original is far too light, the purpose of it needs to be impactful, and it is more so now.

- Removed the dotted A crossbars: These are unnecessary, I feel that they strike a juxtaposition with the natural angular character of Futura. Again it brings this design through to the modern age.

- Narrowed the kerning: It's been optically customised to what I personally feel looks best. Others may disagree, but I believe this solution is a massive improvement on the old. Also, I think for this style of logotype, optical kerning is the way forward, for me it's great too know the gaps between characters are decided by a precise algorithm.