Everything Different is an advertising agency in Newcastle. The company is expanding and moving into new things such as, research, branding and strategy and more. It's clear that it's in the middle of keeping up with the changing design community, and doing well at it.
First/second day - 19th April
I met Ian who is one of the founders of the company. He explained what Everything. do and what I was interested in. We went down to the basement for a presentation about Values and Purposes.
This was interesting to see that companies still do educational presentations to their staff - in order to keep them focused on projects.
This TedTalk was used as an example, and I'm really glad I recognised that diagram and understood what they were talking about.
I was introduced to all the different departments of the company. Theres design, doing the actual designs, studio, who finalise and do tweaks, animation, marketing and more. There is the department who purely work with the client. Get the brief, right it up and give to the designers. This was an interesting system to find out about because it shows how briefs are dealt with in a commercial company.
I was set a brief by the senior designer Kaara. It was to create 3 poster concepts for the Student Lock in which happens nation wide. she explained who the clients were, what they expect and showed me past examples. It was interesting to learn that I was designing for what the client thinks the students like. And not what the students, the target audience, actual like.
This was last years design. The mandatories were that the three logos for the shopping centre and lock in were on the poster. All the logos of the brands involved to also be on the poster. Possible use of image as well. So already it was going to be a busy design and had a lot of things to remember to include.
For the first and second day I worked on the three concepts. I asked for Kara's opinion on the second day. After that it led me in more of a direction on how to really design something more suiting for the brief. I was able to design a 'safe', 'half way safe' and 'unsafe' option for the client.
I began by looking at colours and typefaces that I thought would suit this type of brief. I chose typefaces I'd seen before on similar things in order to create something the client wanted.
This idea has stuck, needs refining but it reads well across the page.
Unbalanced
Too busy with the logos.
These were my three ideas that I started with. I wanted to use the structure from Constructivism because it's a useful way to organise all the information and logos. I tried to use colours that are bright and eye catching. This will be put up around City Centres so it needs to be interesting to look at. I showed this to Kara and she liked the idea of the structures but this would count as one idea to the client. So I went back and thought of another couple of solutions. She also said that the logos should all be the same size so one isn't favoured. I had resized them in order to pull out the best seller kind of shops.
This design was deemed the unsafe (out there, not very corporate) option
I created a lot of colour ways with this design, too use range and a starting point for other ideas. Kara recognised that the strip across the page could be too big and need to make more of the 35% off. The hierarchy in these types of poster are really important, I don't think I've thought about it for a while. So it was really good to design something with a very logical hierarchy and purpose.
This was the remade design with more of a hierarchy.
This was deemed the half safe option.
I designed this with Primark in my mind. It's a design style that's really popular with big brands to make them look cooler and younger. I think my use of hierarchy is getting a lot better and using all those colours was fun.
This was the 'safe' option. A lot clearer and simpler.
I organised the brands to be the same size and neatly arranged. They don't detract from the main information.
I Learned when doing this brief that it doesn't really matter what you think or know about design when it's a big regular client's brief. This type of corporate work isn't that exciting but it does pay.
3rd/4th Day - 20th April
I was shown the program Cinema 4D which I had never heard of. So it was quite exciting to learn about it. I sat with Frazer who is the animator and he showed me After Effects as well.
Ian went through Cinema 4D with me in more detail and it looks like a program which would be really useful to learn. It's a 3D drawing program which is really good for drawing mockups.
So if you've designed a brochure, you can draw the shape and put you're work into that. It uses 360 angle so you can change the angle and view point, rather than a flat image. This really makes it a lot easier for the Client to understand the idea in context.
It closes that gap of communication.
After this I was set another brief, which is live for the company.
I had to create an identity, logo, poster, brochure, newspaper advert and possible web page for this event.
Because it is live and not finished yet I can't name it.
For that day and the next I was working on this brief. Ian wanted to see what I could with just being given a brief.
We had a crit and he went through the designs.
It was really useful to speak to him because he highlighted the importance of type and type hierarchy.
I learned that you really need posters and flyers to communicate what the brand/product etc is about. Be clear and informative if you want someone to be interested.
This whole idea has helped with designing TOP DOGS. I've gone through my designs and changed the type so that there is a hierarchy and so its obvious what TOP DOGS is.
the rest of the week I was working on TopDogs. Ian was really helpful and we had crits everyday which was so helpful. I drew up some posters and he just should me that you have to tell people what you're selling and not to be subtle. This brief has been changed a little in the way of audience, because it's open to everyone now not just young cool people. The posters have a lot more information on them, which I worried about but it was actually really necessary.
Wednesday 27th
The second week of the placement i was just working on TopDogs. But I was able to go to a voiceover recording for an online advert. The avert was for Leeds Trinity and is being shown on Facebook and other platforms at the minute. It was really good to go to that, I went with a copywriter - because she had written the script.
Some things I learned -
What a copywriter is
How important type hierarchy is
Tell the viewer what they need to know
What cinema 4D is
How important it is to mock designs up, so the client understands what it is
What you should put in a pitch/presentation
I really enjoyed my placement, I'm so glad I did it because it showed me the corporate world of design and although it didn't seem the most exciting, it was good and interesting.
