During my personal presentation I cover a range of topics, from my experience of Level 05, my work outside of university and ideas for the future.
I started the presentation with a brief overview of my work so far this year. Similar to Level 04, my work so far on Level 05 of this course has mainly been focused on Editorial design. I did thoroughly enjoy the Design for Screen brief as it was something that I had never done before and thought I would not be interested in. However it gave me a greater appreciation for user interfaces and the way design can influences actions and decisions, which will also translate across into how I design generally. I have also taken on the challenge of several live competition briefs this year, including a brief to design posters for the Student Union within College. This opportunity allowed me to practice communication with a client and to create a project that was more commercial in style and covered not only print but animation and moving image as well.
A large part of my practice this year has been running NEST magazine, the College's student magazine. I took over the position of Editorial Officer at the beginning of this year and it has been the most challenging role I have taken on, but also the most rewarding. In the presentation I covered my experience of this, from gathering submissions and designing the magazine to organising a launch event, screenprinting tote bags by hand and hand finishing 1000 copies of the new issue. Many of the tasks I had to undertake in this role were new to me and so I was forced to lean a plethora of new skills very quickly, but all of these skills are transferable to many different areas of Graphic Design and will provide with valuable experience in running and managing a magazine.
I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Pressision, the printers who took on the job, and to be able to see the magazine being printed and bound. This gave me invaluable experience in dealing with professional printers and the many demands that come with working in partnership with an external company. The launch and accompanying exhibition involved communicating with local art spaces such as Colours May Vary and curating a series of works. The launch night itself was a success and gave me insight into events planning and managing a budget. I utilised social media heavily in my efforts to promote the magazine and I collaborated with another Graphic Design student, Joe Turner, so as to create an effective social media presence.
I will continue to run the magazine this year and I also applied for the position again into next year. During the student elections I campaigned to promote myself as Editor-In-Chief, which equated to a large amount of public speaking. As a result of this I am now more confident speaking in front of audiences of all sizes and have gained skills that will be valuable when pitching ideas to clients as part of a studio.
I also covered the work I have undertaken outside of university. One such project is Shy Bairns, a collective I formed alongside three friends with a vision to create a platform to promote and give a voice to underrepresented artists in the North of England. This project involved creating a zine based platform in which we took submissions from creatives of all disciplines across the North and then compiled selected works into a 68 page, perfect bound, 2 colour risograph printed zine. The zine featured 26 Northern artists and was printed with worker co-op Footprint in Leeds. My role within the collective was to design the publication and work alongside Footprint to print the zine. The whole project relied on effective communication, strict budget management and tight deadlines, and was a chance for me to explore the kinds of freelance projects I might create after graduation. The project was crowdfunded through the sale of pre-order of the publication which also gave the group insight into how a freelance creative might finance artistic projects. As a collective we are currently working on a second issue and an upcoming exhibition, and Shy Bairns as a practice allows me to push my work beyond the College and begin making connections in the professional industry.
Making connections has been an important part of practice this year and the PPP interview studio brief has provided me with an opportunity to reach out and connect with creatives who influence and inspire me. For this brief I chose to interview a recent Graphic Design graduate called Will Knight. Myself and Will attended the same high school and grew up in the same town, but then attended different foundation courses and studied degrees at opposite ends of the country. Will's current work explores the North-South divide within the arts and I was interested in the similarities between our practices, having originally come from the same town. I emailed Will and asked him a selection of questions about his practice and he was keen to talk to me about his work and his experience doing a degree and then ultimately joining a Graphic Design studio in the South. This proved to be an important contact to make and one that I will utilise again through third year and after graduation.
Off the back of this communication with Will I also applied for an Editorial internship with Unit Editions, an independent publishing house that produced a wide variety of publications for an international audience. Initially the internship wasn't something that interested me, however I contact Unit Editions regardless and asked them for some feedback on my work, with varied success.
After this limited experience with contacting industry professionals I wanted to reevaluate the ways in which I present myself to the creative industries. Early this year I set up a Behance account online with a view to use it as an online portfolio that I could use to show contacts my work. My presence online is a factor of my practice that I wish to build on further over the coming year as this will strengthen the connections that I make and increase the number of opportunities that are available to me both during my degree and after graduation.
Looking to the future, plans for the summer include contacting Footprint again and having discussions with them on how to set up and run a workers co-op, as this is something that will greatly benefit the running of the Shy Bairns collective. Into Level 06 my main aims are to improve my skills further with Editorial Design and networking with creatives in Leeds and further afield in Manchester and London.
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