Sunday 4 November 2012

Professional Development III//Placement at Glad Creative (Pt. II)



My weekly diary from my second week spent at Glad Creative, up in Gateshead, from 29 Oct- 2 November, accounting the work undertaken and experience of my time in the studio, as well as selected examples of work executed during the week.

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MONDAY
Development of dot-to-dot Christmas cards, submission to V&A

TUESDAY
Development of illustrative technical diagrams for the 'Invasive Weed' company.



WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY/FRIDAY
Editorial design and concept development for the 2013 Scottish Chamber Orchestra programme publications (Edinburgh & Glasgow, Jan-May 2013)


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GLAD DIARY

MONDAY 29 OCTOBER 2012

After arriving in Newcastle yesterday afternoon, checking into the hotel and having a visit to The Baltic (which the last placement I was at in Newcastle, ‘Founded’, designed the brand identity for- including bespoke typeface, point of sale, wayfinding, signage, etc.) and the city center, I was ready to start again at Glad for my placement week this morning.

Again, feeling a little nervous about heading back (something that I don’t think will ever leave me!), I was relieved to settle back in pretty easily and start the studio routine back again, which felt great to feel so welcome and “natural” in the studio environment.

Sadly, for me, Sam is taking the week off this week as annual leave (purely because I felt we got on so well before, and his feedback was always so constructive and useful), however, it’ll give me a little more opportunity to get to know and work alongside Dave and Ant (the latter of whom I didn’t get much opportunity to work with before), which will be fantastic.

Today I largely working on developing some more dot-to-dot designs for the proposed Glad Christmas card range, which I had been working on during my last time at the studio, as well as helping to organise some of the Glad Rag t-shirt and baby grow designs that had been printed and sent through this afternoon, ready for a photo shoot tomorrow, which is sure to be exciting as the designs go live and ready for sale to the public.

TUESDAY 30 OCTOBER 2012

Today, as now expected (of course!), was another great day in the studio, which went by all too soon.

The day started off on a really happy and playful note with Creative Director, Dave’s wife, Heather, coming in to the studio along with their four lovely children (all around five to one years old), for Charlotte (the youngest at sixteen months) to come and pose for some photographs for the Glad Rags ‘Kern, Baby, Kern’ baby grow/onesie, which, fortunately, was a perfect fit. Along with the kids, three models, Sarah, Rich and Jen (Ant’s partner) all came in to model the adult size t-shirts, and produced some fantastic images which will hopefully be added to the Glad site when it’s re-launched and live on Friday, along with the Glad Store (which I’m sure to be promoting, no end).

In the late afternoon and morning I was working on publications for the new year for the Glasgow and Edinburgh concert hall programme prints for The Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Although I was, essentially, at this point, working on maneuvering the existing type and layout, and adding new copy, it was great to be able to try out something new and a little different (particularly in reflection of the past placement work I’ve executed), and will certainly help me as I go on and try to develop my design work within my Design Practice III module and ongoing University projects.

A fun day, and looking forward to hopefully gaining some feedback from the work so far tomorrow and developing the publications further.

WEDNESDAY 31 OCTOBER 2012

Another great day in the studio- this week is going so quickly, already I’m wishing that I could stay longer.
Today I managed to get quite a lot of work done, and quite a variation too, which was fun, and again pushed my existing design knowledge and experience a little out of my comfort zone which was really exciting.
Firstly, I developed a vector-based line drawing for the Invasive Weed company, which was quite industrial and formal (though, of course, with a playful twist that Glad are now known for), so was, of course, quite different to my usual style of work.
I then went on to do some simple editorial work for the HAS Interior company through Photoshop, and finished the day returning to work on the conceptual and visual development of the publication for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with the proposed tagline of ‘The Key to a Happy New Year’ (see what I did there), which should be exciting to carry on with tomorrow and hopefully develop a range of proposed outcomes for feedback from both Ant and Dave.
More than anything, spending time at Glad makes hope that when I graduate I can find a studio just like them to employ me. My time spent with them so far has been so fantastic, and has completely changed my outlook on my personal and professional design practice. I can’t wait to become a real part of it someday soon.

THURSDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2012

Today I started work on developing the New Year publication for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra further, a long standing, and high-profile client of the studio, so, naturally, I was really excited to start developing some concepts and design outcomes for this live brief.
Essentially, the publication is for the events and evenings as hosted in Edinburgh and Glasgow by the orchestra, but, true to Glad form, there’s always something conceptual and clever about everything they produce, no matter what the digital/printed outcome, whether it be ‘Get closer to the music’, or ‘Resolutions’, the latter of which was the theme for their last year publication. So, throughout today and this evening I’ll get working on developing a strong concept to hopefully have a finalized cover and DPS for presenting to the client ready for tomorrow.
Busy day!

FRIDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2012

Another week over at Glad, and, again, all much too quickly for my liking! Again, I had another great last day filled with 90’s dance music (the Friday afternoon tradition, which, if I ever set up a design studio of my own, I must carry the torch for…), and a lunch at a bar called ‘Eye of the Tyne’ where I had another feedback review with Dave and Ant and got to chat a little bit about the studio, and what I hope to get out of my time spent there for another week, and my plans for the rest of the year and upon graduating.
Perhaps more importantly (a little less so for my stomach, however…), I carried on developing the editorial and publication work for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra today, which was great to be able to push my ideas and concept for ‘Take Note: Advice from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’ (crammed with music-related puns such as ‘Look sharp’, ‘Keep in time’, etc) further, and from the feedback, Dave said he liked how my ideas had developed, which, of course, I was really pleased about.
From my time at Glad, overall, I would say that the thing I’ve learnt the most is how to apply concepts to visual outcomes, and conceptual, and simple, yet effective branding is something I really want to push further in both my personal and professional design practice, and I’m really looking forward to executing this in my University projects throughout the next year.
With a pack of Glad-made Christmas cards and one of their typographic t-shirts, and not to mention a whole wealth of experience, I left again, and can safely say, once more, it was one of the best working weeks of my life.

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