Live Briefs

Through the University we were given a live brief called Forest of Imagination which was creating all the design work needed for a festival. We each chose areas that we wanted to focus on such as way-finding, branding and apparel. I chose the way finding group. However I and a few of my class mates have decided to try and find our own live brief. This is mainly because within the way finding group there was too much domination of what was happening between just a few select people and it was almost impossible to feel part of it. This was no one's fault, just the way it seemed to pan out.

I have contacted my dad who is the Commercial Lines Director at Covéa Insurance and explained what we were doing. He has told me to create a very clear email on what we are wanting to do and send it to him who will then send it on to the marketing team within the business. I am currently trying to make the email and am struggling to sound professional enough. It is a fantastic opportunity and I am excited about it!


From my other blog called 'interviews with designers and illustrators' you can see what happened between now and when I wrote the above two blog entries. I am now doing a live brief on designing everything (bottle shape, name, logo, etc) for a beer brewery in Bolivia (South America). We have been given this brief from Pat from Design Activity to practise a live brief and present our findings to him in a professional form. He has given us a timetable of when he wants everything doing by and it is an intense schedule.

Here is the brief he has given us:

These are some of the photo's I took yesterday of us all working in the studio and of us discussing ideas with Pat and what he's wants us to achieve. They are also photos of us working on the brief and and sharing our ideas and thoughts.

The man in the right is Pat. And the window is boarded up in the background because there is scaffolding up and I was told by the other designers who work there (whilst making a cup of tea) that the last time they had scaffolding up, they were broken in to six times in the space of five weeks. So they now have to be extra careful. However this made the room extremely hot and stuffy which made it hard to work in.

Pat has asked us to spend a lot of time at the studio over the Easter break so we can work on the brief in a professional environment. He was extremely busy this time we were there and said that next time we go there will be much more room downstairs for us to work which will be a much better experience because we will be working amongst other professional designers.



This is the email we all received off of him describing the timetable and what we should have done for the following time we met:

I have just got back from my second meeting with Pat. This time was much more exciting and productive. This was because we were in an official conference room and we had to present our work to him and another Graphic Design Director called Mark. It was intimidating but great practise! I did most of the work he had asked apart from the style board which I am working on now. He gave me a lot of criticism on the work I had done, especially the designs because I hadn't done very much variety and had got stuck on just the one idea which wasn't actually very strong. This was very productive criticism however because I learnt so much about how they present there work and how much is actually expected off you.

Because I hadn't done as much on the Brand Marque as they had hoped, they asked me to email them with my ideas before our next visit. I did so and had this as a reply:

I did as they had asked in the email and was determined to get better feedback for my work this time.

I did pages upon pages of research on Bolivia and the mining there and also other beers that come from Bolivia such as Paceña before I began my mood boards and style board. This is the best mood board I made and the style board I presented:

I worked so hard on coming up with a brand marque I was happy with. The following images are of me working on them in my refill pad. This is something Pat told us they work in because the paper in them are almost like tracing paper but more not so flimsy. This way you can sketch out lots of rough ideas and when you have a good one you can trace over it again and again so you can replicate your ideas in different ways. They are also loads cheaper than sketchpads making you more likely to unload all your ideas, good and bad, enabling you to come up with the best of your ability.

We had our second official meeting at 3.00pm on Thursday 1st May. For the first hour of us being there, Pat and Mark gave us lots of advice on how to approach our current Uni projects we are working on and also how to write our dissertation. Then it was our turn to present what we had been working on. Out of the four of us girls, I had to go first. I usually really struggle to talk about my work in public but I managed to talk confidently about what I had done without shaking too much. Pat and Mark really liked the ideas I had come up with and the amount of work I had put it. They also gave me some great pointers as to where I could potentially take the idea next and advice on what to leave out to prevent it from being too much.

Although they liked the work I had come up with, they said it was clear I was more of an Illustrator than a Packaging Designer. I already knew this and was happy that they had recognised it. I took this opportunity to ask about how Illustrators work and whether they have Agency's such as theirs. They told me that it was much more common for Illustrators to work Freelance but also work with an Agency that will have their work in a book. 'Contact Creative' is an example of an Agency that works in this way. They gave me a fantastic book by Contact Creative that they get sent which is full of contemporary Illustrators from all over the world. I was told I need to have a unique style and I would do well. They informed me of the importance of having my own website and of websites such iStock. This is where businesses will buy an image for a piece of design and pay a small amount for it. I could be earning money through this now and it something I am going to start doing over the summer. This is the book they gave me:

This book is fantastic inspiration for me and is great for research into contemporary Illustrators and particular styles that I like.

For the next part of the brief is putting it all together on the computer professionally. Here comes the really exciting part! Pat has said that for five days we will each be put with one of his Designers who will spend the week teaching us how to use the programs and put all our ideas into them, such as making the bottle shape we designed and our design on it. We originally planned for the week of the 12th May to do this. However this is an extremely important week with Uni and clashes with our presentation. The week after also wasn't possible. So annoyingly we will be doing this the week after we hand in all of our work, so the week of the 26th May. This means I won't be able to write about it as part of my Professional Context. But it does mean I can purely focus on getting my work done and then focus all my attention to this and really get the most from the experience rather than add to the stress of what we already have going on.

So far this has been such an exciting and eye opening experience and I have learnt so much about how the industry works. I have also got some fantastic contacts now for future work experience opportunities. I am considering potentially doing another brief over the summer break. For originally Pat said to come to him whenever we want some more briefs, to help build up our portfolio.

Interviews with Professional Designers and Illustrators

Potential Questions:

How did you get to where you are now?

What have been the highlights of your career so far?

What have been the most difficult times in your professional career?

Where did you study?

What did you first do when you graduated (if you graduated)?

Have you worked for any big companies?

Who are your inspirations?

What advice would you give to us to becoming successful Designers/Illustrators?

What would you warn us of?

What made you want to become a designer/illustrator?


My classmate Jen arranged through emails to meet with a Graphic Designer from the agency Design Activity so we could interview him to get a good insight into the industry. These are the emails that were communicated between them. Myself, Jen, Emily and Yazz all drove to Bristol to the Studio on Thursday and we couldn't believe how successful it was.

These were the questions we all prepared together, we each took turns in asking the questions:

We had our interview today with Pat Starke from Design Activity and It couldn't have been more successful or exciting. Everyone at the studio were so friendly and it was such an amazing place. My favourite part of it was the giant spiral staircase leading up the attic where we had our interview. We were shown around the whole studio itself first which was a great opportunity to see people working on real life projects and the environment they work in.

The attic room we had the interview in was also amazing as it was a room with two giant bright orange bean bags in and a bright orange sofa top. It was the most relaxed and casual interview i've ever experienced. Pat himself was so lovely and broke the ice by placing out some cards which each had a picture on the other side. We were told to pick one and he would tell us a story that was linked to the picture. Some were personal and some were work orientated and about how he runs the company and his team. We also had a very large set of questions which we asked him about the industry.

Rather than just being there for an hour or so like we were expecting, we were there for four hours! And Pat gave us some live briefs and some that he had made up himself to work on and told us we could use his studio every thursday if we wanted to so we could get a good experience of working in a real Graphic Design Studio. It is an incredible opportunity and we are all so excited for this thursday. I will be documenting my work on the projects for my client based experience. There is one illustration project he has told me about which is to create the packaging for a London fast food company so I am looking forward to being briefed for that when I next go in.

Pat and his colleague also took the time to show us their Portfolios. Pat's was much older and all on paper and in a giant folder. Where as his colleague's was very compact, the size of an A4 book and very clever. They gave us advice on how to apply for jobs and said our application has to be very unique for it to even be considered. If they get a white piece of paper with black writing it will be going straight in the bin. They told us some brilliant examples of applications they had received which were very amusing.

Below are the links to the recording of our interview with Pat Starke. They are quite long and the picture quality isn't brilliant, but it is full of so much information about the Industry. I cannot believe how much we learned from him.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsu_A-E-M3o&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6R_46QFhlQ&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txIlW9qcGUI&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4inEWo1okLo&feature=youtu.be

The iPad ran out of battery towards the end so Jen recorded the remainder on her phone and typed it all out for us:

"Tim May and John Larkin who were the bosses of Design House (who were fucking nuts). It was absolutely fabulous. They were proper, pretentious, hardcore designers. They were in their 50’s, I was 25. Tim may was a bit posh and John Larkin was a bit of a barrack boy, he called me Pato. Tim used to get quite nervous and he’d almost have turrets. We used to do this new business meeting a couple of times a month where they’d go through and tell us what’s been going on in pitches and whether we won or lost. Tim would go “we pitched for BT, and I thought it was fucking good so fuck them”. When we were pitching for ASDA, he got really nervous on the train on the way up with this account handler Pippa, and he just suddenly blurted out “I’ve got a really small penis”. Then Larkin, he was a fairly ferocious character, he used to go to this Belgium restaurant. He used to go there pretty much every day and he’d go there at 12 and come out at 2 (get a little bit pissed). He always used to have the same table, but this one time there was a big queue, so we walked up to the front of the queue (and there was, probably, a new member of staff) and he just went: “Alright there love, I’ll have my usual table please”. And she’s like I’m sorry sir as you can see there is a bit of a queue. “Right... Ok, come on Pato”, so we went to the back of the queue. Literally, he was there for about 5 seconds and just said “No”. He went back up and said, ”Excuse me love, this queue... this works for you does it?” She’s like yeah it does. “Well it’s not working for me. I’ll have that table.” I was doing some work for ASDA on fish fingers and I’d done an orange background and the category, so I was showing him all this stuff. “So Pato, Orange? That’s fish fingers is it?” and I replied, “Yes it fucking is!” I went off on one, and he basically told me to calm down. He was quite intimidating, but I just got so angry. I actually gave back because he did teach me to stand up for yourself.
My boss in my third job was called Peter Matthews at Nucleus of which was a complete different style of agency. He’s lost his wife to cancer about four years before I’d joined. He was quite quiet and I suppose that in a way he was depressed, as he was left with three grieving daughters. So as a result it was a really calm studio. He tried to make the effort, it wasn’t like he was crying into his knuckles, but he was obviously going through a tough time. Overall he was a kind person. The last Friday of every month, we’d go to an Italian restaurant and they’d layout a set lunch and everyone got to chat. At the time I was engaged, and we’d came back from Australia (got married). Basically Jackie (my first wife) walked out on me for a merchant banker and I was just devastated. Pete saw this and he just said, “Go away, and sort yourself out for a couple weeks. Don’t worry about work and then come back and we’ll talk.” So I had a couple weeks off and thought I’ll get back into it. However I just couldn’t re-function, I was in London but I didn’t want to be in London anymore. There was no reason for me to be here so I started to look at moving back to the West, looking more towards jobs in oxford. I was on three months notice and Peter told me just to take those three months (paid) so I didn’t have to worry about selling the house or finances, so I could just focus on getting another job. That was incredibly kind of him and a couple of years ago I got back in contact with him and said I really appreciate what you did there, you didn’t have to do that. I use that approach in

dealing with my own team, however if some is just royally taking the piss then I will come down on them. But if they need help, I’m willing.
Is there an area that you’d like to expand into?
Most people would say digital; I suppose that would be the one area, but we’d get a lot bigger in terms of that. It would be a big investment. For me more than anything I would want to expand the business into other countries. I think there is definitely work to be done in the Middle East such as Dubai, as they just love English design and UK products. So think there is money to be made there.
What is your favourite media to work with?
It’s got to be Illustrator and Photoshop. Over the years, working on typography as well.
How important do you feel that it is important to have a separate web presence of your own to the agency?
No. Not at all, not unless you was thinking about breaking away than yes I suppose or if I got a big ego. I say that, but that’s just me. Take someone like Johnny Ellery, he has one and he’ll find it important as he’s a designer but also a conceptual artist. If I do anything on the web, it’s concerned with DA (Design Activity) such as our blog. We have a twitter feed but twitter is really irrelevant to us. We use the blog because it’s good for web search optimisation. I think it’s important to have your personality on the website of the agency. However for you guy’s its very important. That’s where your portfolio is. Your web presence must be about your work, I would put a blog out there. Try and keep it up to date. Try and get as many links as you can in there too, to make it nice and sticky.
Is there anything that you would warn us about the industry? It’s not going to pay as much as merchant banking!
The money isn’t as good as if you went into insurance or high-end marketing. It gets better the more senior you get. I think you should end up trying (if you’ve got the ambition) to own what you’re working in. That can be ultimately rewarding. I think designers get more out of their careers than I general office worker would. My sister works for the council here, and she designs parks and that kind of thing. When we go for walks, she just bitches about politics and stuff.
It’s very tough to get into these days, especially in London. When I started, my take home pay was £420 and rent was £120, so I had a bit of money left over. Studios are fairly “un-PC” places, and some are worse for that than others. We had a period when we had a lot of banter and I like banter. There is humour that will bring people along with you, and then there is humour that can be

misconstrued as being rude or sexually offensive. There is a fine line with the 2. I’m quite good at recognising the fine line, whereas one of my guys isn’t. He got himself into a lot of trouble because people didn’t like him, as people thought he was being overt and disrespectful. An agency up the road, their creative director sends hardcore photoshopped pornography of their co-directors to them. There was a place that I used to work at where that’s what we did for every body’s birthday cards. We basically photoshopped their head onto something obscene. That was until somebody complained. That may be something you may come across and potentially be sensitive to.
I did this to one of my friends. So I worked in this agency called Hurricane. Caroline (my wife) was head of artwork. There was only about 6 of us in the whole company. This girl called Caron (Caroline’s best friend from college), and I did put my cock in a bap and presented it to her.
Did you find it difficult getting into the industry?
No luckily, because I put the effort in. I started around the recession of 1987; so don’t let anything put you off. Because you are worth so little in terms of salary, people will often take juniors and graduates on because they’ll take you on for your creativity and then you can be trained up.
I asked for a job, I did two weeks work experience and then stayed on for another few weeks. I wanted to do as much as I could. Then I said on for another four days just to get a job finished. Then I was going to say goodbye and asked for a job. Before I had a chance to say anything, he told me an overview of what he thought of my time there and my portfolio and asked would I like a job.
What are the main issues you come across when working with a client?
Budget! We tend to do more work than we budget for sometimes which can be a problem. Sometimes their own internal structure/system can be an issue. You can do all this work, present it to a junior marketing person and then by the time it gets to the marketing director, they’ve either misinterpreted the brief or maybe briefed you out of turn. So that can either come back with a lot of changes or it might get shelved. We are working with a client at the moment, we are working with another agency. The work got split into two, but we are rivals and we don’t like them. You generally get on well with other agencies because you all end up working together, but this agency are very unprincipled and very unprofessional. They used to work here and set up by themselves. They took some of our ideas and clients. So we are now working with them and the client is now saying; well we like that of yours then give it to them, and then they’ll carry on with it. So that’s another pitfall, controlling the client.
If you could give us three of your top tips for when we leave university, would they be?

It’s about your portfolio, which is going to be a very sensitive subject for you at Bath. I say this because I don’t rate your lecturers. You’re second years so you have time to make up for it.
We did your buddy system and we’ve done it for four years now. A couple of students have been good and gone up to London, however they have struggled. But this year we have had 2 and they have been dire! I’ve been really shocked by the stand of work. We are not getting through to the lecturers. They are too arty farty. What we do is commercial. You have to have that! You have to know then how to do it and I don’t think you’re being taught that as much as you should be compared to other colleges. Ultimately what you are doing now should be getting you to what I’m doing now. Therefore, you need a great portfolio, which means you need to be taught what you need to know. If you’re not being taught that, then you need to keep asking and asking. You need to be in college every day. People say to me there isn’t enough space, then go and work in the canteen. You are not going to work in your room. You can’t self- study design. There is the right way and a wrong way to doing typography, and unless for some reason you are genetically a good typographer, you won’t get it. The first three years of my job I learnt so much more than I did when I was at college, and I went to a good college. You have to learn from other people! Coming back to the question, it’s about that portfolio. It will get you a job more than qualification. Then it’s your ambition, just keep going despite any knock backs. Next is your personality. You’ve got to be able to present yourself well. Don’t be too shy. Be confident in the way that you talk. Ask questions. Don’t just say well this is what you did. You’ve got to explain it from start to finish. Try to avoid things like all those “I was just playing with the typography”, type of lines. We don’t want to really do that.

INTERVIEW OVER

Question the brief if you need too."

We just met Claire Anderson and she showed us her presentation of her work of real things! Such as her re-design of 'Sudafed' and the story of The Fresh Olive Company.