Making plans for the future

Our second lecture was based around opportunities abroad, a talk from IEMS (international experience for students) explained the process of their work and showed previous students trips. I am already familiar with the program as last year I enquired about a course at Shillington College in Australia. (I briefly mentioned this in an old post in my PDP last year). This lecture gave us information on the ERASMUS scheme and the possibilities of studying in Europe, with fees paid by the university with grants.

As well as thinking about making plans to study abroad, I have been focusing my time on creating some personal branding for myself so that when the time comes to apply for work experience to undertake in the last few months of my second year at uni. I will have a cover letter, CV and portfolio to showcase. This will also help me in applying for international experience studying or working abroad.

Today's seminar focused on our CV's and the experience and skills we have and are developing, I had previously wrote a CV this summer in preparation for the year ahead (below). I plan to add to this and strengthen through out the year and my journey through projects, placements and work experience, I also plan to add to my skills audit.

(My first draft for my creative CV)

We were also asked to think about possible professions/ career objectives and bullet point some actions/plans to take. I would like to explore the idea of teaching vs. working in a settled design team for a company. I would also like to think about possibly freelancing, to make a little extra money this year at university.

NAP x

... Many more to go

Our longest running project will be focusing around technology and increasing our knowledge in a variety of platforms to create our artwork. With a moving, static and interactive poster to create a campaign we have been set a revolutionary movement each to use as our subject matter. All posters created by the class will work together to advertise an exhibition. So far with this project we are in the research and development of ideas stage, I plan to showcase my posters and concept when finalized.

A new brief was set this week with the very open brief of creating a book based upon the name 'A hard rain'. No other requirements other than the title and the materials size - A2. In the next few weeks before Christmas lectures on typography will be held to help us visualise our ideas and aim to be a source of inspiration.

It has also been revealed to us that more briefs will be set before Christmas, with many projects and plans to juggle this festive season is going to be a very busy one!

NAP x

One down....

Our first deadline was yesterday and here is what I have been working on. I was asked to create a first class set of stamps which would be issued around the time of the Brazil 2014 Fifa world cup, along with a manipulation of the first class set to achieve a second class set. I choose to focus on the positives of what the event could bring to the locals, I found a project called 'Painting the Favela'. This project focused on updating the slums of Rio with vibrant colours and patterns on the exterior of surrounding buildings to give hope to its residents and onlookers. I chose to illustrate the buildings and the whole street for my subject matter on my stamps with a strap line 'Brazil 2014 World cup' to create a link back to the event.

NAP x

Hello 2nd year!

So a week back into my second year at university with four modules to balance, level 2 of personal development planning of creative pathways began. Last year's level was based around our own personal style and researching contextual artists relating to our work, reflecting with an in depth analysis. Level 2 is focused around the outside creative word and the industry, working on our own strengths and weakness' to develop into an employable designer. This year we have been asked to start planning our own path to employment and looking for opportunities that could possibly help us to achieve any set goals or achievements.

I mentioned in a previous post about the possibility of a year abroad studying or in a work placement, as well as focusing on my work this year I hope to also make plans for my future by gaining as much experience as possible and undertaking new and challenging projects.

NAP x

A mature (cheddar) film

As promised here's a little snapshot into the filming of our video inspired by PES and the site plate interactive. We wanted to showcase are 4 main topics which we have decided to base our pages on, the origin of The Moon, the space race and astronauts, the anatomy of The Moon and its craters and finally The Moon in the media. We wanted to animate everyday objects bring them to life in a playful and funny way as we felt it would fit with the overall tone of our website. I love our results just from quickly viewing all the pictures we were able to get an idea of how it will look, we now need to add in a few introduction scenes with text and credits, but heres a small selection of photos.

We will add a white screen to finish so as to illustrate the flash from the phone. I really enjoyed this style of filming, it was so easy and fun using everyday objects I hope to develop this further into a new medium to work with. Branching out into film will help strengthen my range of mediums and give a possible advantage, any experiments I pursue I will sure to document in the Easter break. 

NAP x

The End Is In Sight !

We also had our critiques today for our book cover as part of our Design in Context module, I was able to reach my final design in this session will the help of my tutors and peers around the class and their feedback. I'm very happy with the my result and hope to submit to Penguin in late April 2013.

My final Cover 

This week I have also been working on my essay discussing a quote from the extract 'The Crystal Goblet' or 'Printing Should be Invisible' by Beatrice Warde. My main focus was on psychedelia and transparent designs such as time tables, schedules etc, i'm very lucky to have the people in my life especially my family. They were a great help in writing this essay as my father (as seen in my Psychedelic Love post) and my cousin Jerry Richards (mentioned in my Music post) have both experienced the era and the lifestyle and were both happy to supply me with their stories and answers to my questions. 

The goblets represents methods of portraying the same content (wine), I'm always looking to push my work that little bit further and felt what a better way to present my essay than to apply these two design styles to it. For hand in on Friday I now need to print my essay after the applied designs and mount my cover, after that it will be a very long awaited 3 hour drive home to Blackpool.

NAP x

PES

Today we took the photos needed to build our video for the homepage, we wanted to create a fun handmade, playful stop frame animation. Ben showed me a few videos on youtube of animations created by PES yesterday, I had never seen these before and loved the style. Surprisingly Simon showed a few today in our lecture. 

A few of my favourites from PES 

His website portfolio is so inspiring!

Our plan for our video was include our 4 main topics we have discussed relating to the moon, however still include our concept of cheese. This style allowed us to 'play up' the humour and playful side we have to our website whilst bringing all elements together. 

We hope to have a finish our film on thursday by adding an opening to the video and credits with text, we also need to add either a soundtrack to the video or sound effects. I really believe what we have achieved today will look great on the website and be a great section in our portfolio. 

Hope to post the video on Thursday.

NAP x