OUGD602: Internship With Isabel & Helen

by Roxxie Blackham on Thursday, 30 April 2015

Isabel and Helen replied to my email from before earlier on today!!

We exchanged a few emails:






I'm very excited about this opportunity to work with Isabel and Helen during the summer! The reason I didn't really look for work experience during third year, was partly because I didn't feel as though I could find the time to get back down South as most of the studios I like are in London, but also due to the fact that I found it so extremely difficult to find a studio that I knew I would love to work in. As I'm becoming less and less interested in working on my computer, I found it difficult to find studios that did a lot of hand based craft etc.

But thankfully Isabel and Helen are looking to take someone on, so I will definitely go down to London and pay them a visit once I've graduated and see where we go from there! I think that having an internship with a set design and interactive installations studio means that I will get to experience something other than Graphic Design and see if that kind of work is what I want to pursue in the future, or whether I want to stick to typography and sign writing. I think that this opportunity will be really good for me both personally and professionally, and should hopefully give me a better insight into working in studios and in London.

OUGD602: Pressision Print Visit

by Roxxie Blackham on Wednesday, 29 April 2015

5 of us headed over to Pressision today to pay them a visit and see what they have to offer.





















I found the visit to Pressision really useful as we got to learn all about what they can offer as a printing service. I also really enjoyed getting to look at printers close up and see them in action! James was really informative and helpful - I definitely think I understand commercial printing a lot more than before I went there, even down to how many lazers digital printers can use (64 lazers) in order to print 2000dpi designs in 2 minutes!

I took a couple of notes on my phone whilst there:
- Spink and Thackray: book binders in Headingley
- They use liquid based inks which means that they can digitally print in white ink!!
- Underpinned printing in white highlights the colours printed on top of stock to make them stand out more.
- Perfect bound folded with perforation to make folds pristine.
- Foil block machines used at 136 degrees for foiling. Their oldest machine is from the 1950s.
- Personalised printing is available there.
- Can perfect bind an 8 page book. 1mm minimum spine - 60mm maximum.

OUGD602: Lord Whitney Visit

by Roxxie Blackham

After being turned down by Lord Whitney for a studio visit previously, I sent them a couple more messages and liked loads of their stuff on social media to show how keen I was and eventually I managed to get down to their studio for a visit and a quick chat!!






I was really excited to go and visit the studio as I absolutely love the work that they produce! I felt as though I could engage with their studio on a personal and professional level, as the work that they produce is so unique and unusual in comparison to most of the studios that I've been looking at. I think that their unique approach reflects on my own personal approach to designing, and could definitely see myself working at a studio like this in the future!

They both gave me a variety of tips for getting out there and working on your own and showed me some of the work that they're currently working on. Chatting to Amy and Rebekah was really inspiring and it was really good to see what they get up to behind the scenes and how they tackle their briefs.

Unfortunately they're not looking for any interns at the moment, as they've only just finished building their new studio and have a lot of stuff on at the moment so can't really fit the time in. However, I'm definitely going to keep in contact with them and see if there's any possibility of working with them in the future!

OUGD602: Lunasol Photoshoot // Talking To Creatives

by Roxxie Blackham on Monday, 27 April 2015

For mine and J'nae's jewellery branding project, we wanted to hire a photographer in order to produce a look book and promotional products for the brand.

I contacted a few different photographers, so that we had plenty of options.

Victoria Cadisch
www.victoriacadisch.co.uk





I lived with Victoria's sister last year, so spoke to her personally via Facebook to get a quote and see if she was available for the shoot as her work is absolutely incredible! Unfortunately, being professional and doing this for a living, Vic's quote was way out of our budget at £450, which was mates rates too! Usually she would charge about £1000 or so for fashion shoots, so she was offering us an amazing deal.

We spoke to Amber and Senior Management to see if there was any way in which we could fund this project, but unfortunately the uni didn't have a large enough budget for Graphic Design so we couldn't hire Vic.

Scott Taylor
www.flickr.com/photos/scotttaylorphotography/



I spoke to Joe via social media too, as he's a friend of a friend. He was really interested in doing the shoot for us, but we weren't entirely sure if we liked his style of photography, as it was quite high end and a bit too crisp and clean for our brand. However, we decided to keep him in the running until we decided otherwise, as his photography is really good.

Joseph Pickering
http://www.joepickering.co.uk



I contacted Joe to see if he could help us out and take our photos, as we really loved his style!


















We were really excited that Joe was up for doing the shoot and working with us! I think that outsourcing our photographer will definitely help to make our brand stand out as the photography will be professional and I always think that amazing images help to make designs look great!

I'm really looking forward to the shoot as I've never worked on a fashion shoot before and am really intrigued to see how the day pans out and how the photographs look at the end of it all. It's been extremely difficult and tiring to organise, but I definitely think that it's going to be worth it and be a really good portfolio piece!