One week left, tying up loose ends

So not much to update this week. Most items are pretty much finished and its just tweaking the last bits and bobs before this all gets submitted in a week.

I have devised a small box to use as my leave behind post interview, it'll be designed similar to the box from last week thus keeping within my overall theme.

It will function similar thusly, the box will appear similar to last weeks concept, with a container that fits within.

This will be filled with foam that has a void cut out for one of these. The knife will have a PDF of my portfolio, a link to my website, my video, e-business card etc. On top of that will be placed one of my business cards (when and whenever I manage to get one).

The two items will be nested in the box and sealed as per the design I presented last week.

I will be printing and making these two last items over the next few days, and I will be designing a small email card that will be sent out post interview to thank the interviewer for their time.

After that I guess I can hang this project up to dry... One week to go.

Getting Scary!

Argh,

Looks like we are getting way too close to the finish line for my liking.... I got a gorillion little threads to chase down...

This week had me drumming up a business card, finally getting my poster pretty much visualized, resume started and a redesign of the case for my "knife".

Business Card: Front

Business Card: Back

Poster: Mostly Done

Knife Case, From Top to bottom left to right:

Bottom portion side panel, top portion side panels, how case will open, side view and front view with "seal" in place.

Second pass at resume first version worth presenting.

Portfolio layout, left and right pages, work in progress.

Work has been kicking me around, homework is piling up, and there is still so much to do... I just have to keep my head down and get through the last couple of weeks... Then what?

Tweak and tweak and tweak some more

Here we are, another week down and another update.

Last week didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped, but this all part of a learning curve. Onwards and upwards with every week.

Fortunately my imagery seems to be congealing, its just a matter of narrowing down the message a bit. So thats what I did.

I took some feedback from Nancy and changed how I was presenting myself, taking her words and changing them a bit so I wasn't using them verbatim, cause that would be a bit lazy.

So here we are this week, with new changes in place:

Here, we see I removed the logo. It was mentioned that the personal branding might be a hindrance, so it's gone, leaving my "tagline" as the sole content of the cover.

 Wording here was changed a bit here, message brought more inline with Nancy's suggestion.

I made two new slides with two more multitools with a simple message on each "blade" each short message image reinforcing how much I can do, and in different "environments". The axe represents a different environment than the USB adapter and suggests different functions in different environments and requirements.

One last "multitool" and a last little jab reflecting my sense of humour, contrasting the white trash, greasy fast food association of the cheap plastic silly disposable spork against the line that I'm a sophisticated individual. Wording on the final "blade" was changed to be more inline with Nancy's suggestion of pushing a unified message.

Back cover, nothing to see here.

Here is the poster again. It may frustrate to see I am sticking with the original message, but I wanted to produce a poster that could be used as wall art if I am not hired by the company I'm applying to. I felt that this line can still work as a motivational statement and be a little more versatile thereby maybe keeping my presence around a bit longer than a direct single use message advertising me.

I did add my tagline and phone number to the bottom of the poster in order to unify my message and keep drumming my contact information into the audiences head.

This weekend I will finally be sourcing photographs of my own nail in order to finally get rid of this pixellated mess that I've been using for the last few weeks. I've got a couple concepts to chase for the nail, but the overall layout of the poster won't be changing.

Tune in next week, where you just might see this thing assembled! I'm kinda excited.

"Reading Break" Thats awfully funny.

So here we are post reading break, and I did anything but have a break. Since the last post I made I have bodged together the rickety frame of what will be considered my online presence, I have begun scripting for the video component of my project and I have finally begun visually developing the components of my marketing strategy.

So here is what I have arrived at for this week. I have begun the first component of my "campaign", a full size poster that will be mailed out to the potential employer. During my meeting with Nancy and Patrick, he made a passing comment about using a single tool and I ran with it.

Upon researching the actual quote I learned that it is called The Law Of the Instrument and it reads thusly:

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail"


I really struggled with the wording of that as I didn't want to insinuate that the firm(s) I'd be applying to are one note jokes or limited in their abilities, so the wording had to be changed to neutralize it a bit.

Here are my first run of comps for the poster. The typography is EXTREMELY rough, I know the spacing makes it all look like a box of sardines...

So far I'm partial to the second design with the big nail placed at the bottom. Initial feedback I have received has been to remove the red strokes at the top and bottom of the text. I have two more concept I'm going to chase before settling on a final direction, but I am liking this direction so far.

Next the Swiss Army knife concept. Here we have from left to right, the front "cover", the inner core that is going to hold the pages, a sample rough for one of the pages, and the back "cover".  Followed by a secondary full bleed potential treatment for the inner cards. I am personally leaning towards the full bleed visually as it looks a little more resolved. The image without bleed resembles a polaroid photo a bit too much for my liking. Upon review I believe I am going to lose the logo from the front cover component and leave the bigger logo on the back cover. The text was aligned in portrait orientation as i figure as the viewer slides the book out of the sleeve the text would reveal itself and get its snark, sarcasm and slightly confrontational message across better as it was being revealed.

These inner components will contain some sort of URL or QR code as you can see here that will direct the viewer to the video component. Said video will act as an introductory component and call to action to contact me. The video will end with my website URL, Email address and phone number so the viewer will be able to contact me immediately after viewing.

I want to ship the poster in a black tube sealed with my logo, and then the knife will ship in a package that I am designing that will be similar to a sleeve for an actual knife. This package will once again be clasped shut with a magnet bearing my logo.

Speaking of my logo, this is where I'm at. It's not perfect, and has some tweaking to do, but I'm pleased with it so far. There is a lot at play here conceptually. The logo uses my initials to complete the "project" that is the box. While the box also symbolizes my first initial as well. The scratchy, icky typewriter lettering that reflects me, the a.d. that can be inferred as me, "after design", advertising, or even the concept of time (e.g. 2014 ad.). The design needs to be tweaked for lower resolutions, but I'm stoked at how it turned out. Nancy suggested that we go for a simple relatively neutral concept and I think this succeeds, yet it allows just enough of my personality to seep through.

I'm feeling good about where this is headed, but I still have a lot of kinks to iron out over the next few weeks. I gotta keep my head down and keep plugging away. It is relieving to finally be getting some steam behind me now. It has been a scary couple of weeks to be sure.

Onward and upward and all that stuff...

Back to Square One and a Half...

So much for me and my big fat ideas....

I went to my one on one with Nancy last week and lets just say its good that I didn't charge ahead with my concepts from last week. I had more holes poked in my ideas than there are in a wheel of the finest of swiss cheeses.

This wasn't bad though. It stressed me out and was the first time I've really had a concept fall apart in my "career". The feedback told me that I wasn't being honest to myself, and that feedback couldn't have been better for me.

I went back to the drawing board and have reassessed my approach. I spent the last few days racking my brain trying to find a new angle to approach. Today I felt I had another breakthrough and a possible new direction to approach.

I felt the whole concept of the swiss army knife was close to my personality and skills but still a little off of the mark. I pursued it a little further and tried developing the concept a bit further into a play off of a butterfly knife.

The biggest problem is that I fell in love with my own idea. After bouncing my ideas off of a couple people I might have become a little too married to the concept and chased it too far off of the mark.

Now I am beginning to get a little antsy... This is why I never make artwork for myself, I am too wishy washy to make concrete decisions, and this is one of my biggest character flaws. I am going to do some more brainstorming tomorrow and get up to the school to talk with Nancy a bit to get more feedback and see if I can twist this into a functioning project, somehow. I can practically hear the clock ticking...

Other progress has been made with my potential portfolio layout, I spent a couple hours working on my grid and trying to hash out how the interior of this thing is going to look. Attached you will see what I have so far as well as my brainstorming from the last few days.

Finally! The work begins!

So last week we finally started the wheels turning for the actual creative process for our identity work. We have been handed the reins to start working on our items we are using for our mail out "campaign".

We had to sign up for 2 meetings with Nancy that are to happen over the next 6 weeks. I threw myself under the bus for first week meetings and am due to visit with her again on March 19th. I will most likely attend next weeks class just to buy myself a little more feedback considering the tight schedule I put myself under for this first week.

So now that I have my first deadline in place I have to have some work ready for this weeks class.
So I spent my week drumming up thumbnails and researching places where I can possibly buy or order materials that will work with my concept.

I began by figuring out my "angle" as to exactly what I am trying to convey. I have been kicking around the concept of being a puzzle or problem solver since the beginning of term. I have courted ideas involving rubrics cubes, Japanese finger traps, and other puzzle concepts.

I have settled on the idea of producing a small 12 piece magnet backed puzzle with some sort of witty or silly comment along the lines of "I don't know what your problem is..." printed on the puzzle.

I will mail out 11 of the 12 pieces to the design firm I have targeted. A week later I will mail out the last piece.

This last piece will have a small cartoony drawing of me holding a qr code as some sort of sign or placard. Therefore, I help solve the problem. I can be the missing piece for the studio!

The qr code will direct to a short video slideshow or clip that will provide an introduction of myself to the company and provide them a brief glimpse of who I am as a person. From there, the video will provide a URL to my online portfolio and my contact information should the studio decide to contact me.

Once this idea is left to develop over the next couple of weeks I will also begin development on my leave behind.

I am now experiencing a confusing sensation of excitement to move forward and stress that these ideas have to develop alongside my monstrosity of a website project.

Or maybe it's just gas....

Getting Moody

"Do Not Even Take In Head To Offend Children" Viktor Safonkin

Our major homework assignment was to begin gathering images, typefaces, colour palettes and imagery that will allow us to start finding the voice for what our portfolios are going to look like.

Fortunately I am an internet hoarder. Over these years in school whenever I have been researching projects and looking for imagery that inspires me, I have collected images that I found to be clever and humorous.

I started by going through these images and narrowing images that represented my mindset and world outlook down to about 10 images. I need to know exactly what "feel" my portfolio is going to have.

I then went through another collection of images that I use for wallpapers on my laptop and culled out a handful of images that I found to really please me with their colour palettes, content and aesthetic.

I find that I am drawn to the Red, Black and Grey and White colour scheme constantly. Whoda thunk I'd wind up settling on De Stijl colours after four years? Surprises abound. Aside from this, I have also always been keen on cooler colours, especially purples and blues.

As I looked over these selected images for "mood" and colour palette I began coming to a horrifying conclusion. A conclusion rooted in something that has always creeped around in the corners of my mind... I am a very complicated person when it comes to taste and what I like.

I am not saying complicated as in refined. Complicated as in what I like aesthetically seems to be a confusing muddling of two extremely contrasting styles.

I am drawn to content rooted the dark; ugly, morbid, bleak, rusted, worn, and creepy visuals. It always seems to be countered with some sort of tongue in cheek, contrarian and silly subtext.

If I had to go back and find where this comes from, I have always found beauty in the horrific and dark. I listen to scary dark music, I watch my body weight in horror movies, and some of my favourite works of art are by Francis Bacon and HR Giger.

These things feed my soul. I find them beautiful, yet I have always been a "victim" of "normal" people telling me that the things I like aren't art. Why would anyone like these ugly and dark things, it's not... normal. So I believe that over the years I have learned not to take appreciating this stuff as seriously as I should. A perfect example of this is my taste in music. I have never been a slobbering stereotypical heavy metal fiend. I see the genre, its people and its traditions as having its tongue rooted firmly in cheek and it just being for fun. Honestly, how could all of this evilness be taken seriously.

I have also realized that if I can't take my own personal tastes and passions as deadly serious, you can sure as hell bet I'm going to approach you with the same type of cynicism. No offence intended.

The scary conclusion that I have come to is that I am going to have to find a way to come across as approachable, yet true to my creative voice and influences. I can design for myself, that I am sure of. What I am going to have to overcome in this project is how to design myself for others.... No sweat.