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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