OUGD502 // Study Task 10 // PPP Presentation

This is my PPP Presentation which reflect over the last year of being on the course.

OUGD502 // Study Task 6 // What Do 'They' Do

Based on the principles that have been introduced in the PPP2 sessions so far and your responses to the previous tasks, evaluate the Strengths and Weaknesses of three practitioners or design agencies as objectively as you can. You should aim to identify a large, medium and small company from a sector or service that reflects your interests within the creative industries.

What opportunities for your own practice have revealed themselves to you as a result of this research,analysis and evaluation?

Do not use subjective language or make unfounded comments about other people’s businesses.It is essential that you make references to SWOT and PEST analysis and evaluate their usefulness as an analysis or evaluation tool.

SWOT
Strengths: characteristics of the business, or project team that give it an advantage over others
Weaknesses: are characteristics that place the team at a disadvantage relative to others
Opportunities: external chances to improve performance (e.g. make greater profits) in the environment
Threats: external elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project

PEST
Political factors
Economic factors
Social factors
Technological factors


In responding to this task you will need to consider the following questions:
Who am I competing against?
What do they offer?
What makes me better?
What makes me different?

Small Design company
Because Studio

Who are they?

Because Studio is the creative practice of Loz Ives.
Collaborating with an ever growing list of talented creative folk and exciting clients, producing crafted outcomes in equal strength across analogue, digital and environmental disciplines.

Strengths

They offer a wide range of services across all forms of media and environmental discipline too. I think that the design style of the studio is very illustrative and this runs through all the different products that they create. I have mainly seen the print work in which they have produced and even though they seem very illustrative, this always as dominent within products such as editorial or promotional material. The illustration is used as a visual aid - they know where to use it and where not to over use it. 

Weaknesses

If you compare them to other companies which are offering the same sort of services, i feel they are limited within the design outcomes because of the interest and strong use of illustration. Other companies can offer a better final outcome in areas such as editorial design because they have a stronger design aesthetic and focus within this area. 

If you think about design of today, you see most companies taking on a digital approach, or offering this as a main service, with because studio, i have seen printed work with little digital work, maybe this is another limitation to them. 

Opportunities

The main opportunity for the studio would be to widen the design style and become more loose around this illustrative style, this could bring in more custom and maybe make a better design style for the company to work with, which could enable more versatile projects coming in for them. 

Another opportunity would be the digital aspect, as technology is rising and becoming a big part of todays life, digital outcomes are asked for more and more. I think if they took up this opportunity, again they could get more clients and custom, as the technology is developing and you can do a lot with web design today, the companies illustrative style can still be adapted for web and presented well.

Threats

The threats of design today are that the smaller companies can no longer last was the current climate of the country, this i would imagine is the kinds of companies that Because Studio would approach and work for, with these on the decline, i think there clientele may be on the decline. Especially with the style of design they have, i think its to them more creative and speciality companies, but again a lot of these can no longer make it through the recession. 

As a company this will effect there turnover and over heads for future work, you could probable see that a more commercial style of design will start to come in and these would be the clients they would have to work for instead. 

What Makes Me Different?

As i have previously said i am interested in this studio because of the print work that they produce, which is something i am interested myself. I think that i would be able to broaden their design style, as im not just about illustration, i use image and type within my print work, so this would bode well for them. Also with having a keen focus on publications, i could offer a strong design aesthetic for there publications and other branded print work. I believe this could be suitable for both commercial and non commercial work, bringing in more clients for the company. 

Medium Design Company

Six

Who Are They?

We are an independent creative consultancy based in the UK, specialising in design and art direction for an international roster of clients.

Our aim is to produce design with intelligence, integrity and craft that both we and our clients can be proud of.

With equal strength across print, brand and screen we work on complete identity programmes as well as individual strategic projects. Each of our founders has over a decade of experience working with start-ups to established brands.

Services:

Brand Strategy

Visual Identity

Print Design

Digital Design

Art Direction

Strengths

As a company they offer a wide range of services which they have the same standard of work for each one. None of the services are less used or aren't designed as well as the others, they have an all round very high standard to their work. 

All work is very design led and you can tell there is a lot of thought behind it all as it communicates well and presents the idea and concept that it is set out to do. Presentation of all work is great too which helps when you are looking are companies to work with. 

Their clientele is very large and is from around around the world, which shows they have ambition and can actually do the work. Also working for large companies such as umbro, uniform wares, kirschner, shows that the company can work with big clients and deliver the needed products to a good standard. 

Weaknesses

Even though the company has a good design aesthetic and is very professional and corporate, I think this can limit them in the sorts of clients and work they will receive. They will get all the commercial work and corporate branding etc, but this is very mondane and the same with every client. They dont have anything that makes them a little bit different or quirky, if they introduced illustration or some sort of print technique or something to their work it would make it a little bit more fun and have more of an personality to it. Im not saying that the work they produce isn't god or doesn't have any of these ideas within them, i just think they could make themselves be a bit more interesting and use make it more fn and playful?

Opportunity

As i have just mentioned, i think the opportunities that they have as a company is to broaden the design style and how they work aesthetically. They work over print and web and offer branding etc within all this so the disciplines of design are covered, but they have a very professional and corporate feel to their work, which works for their clientele they have worked for. But if they adapt the ability to use illustration, more colour, print techniques, interesting binding techniques i think they would open their doors to whole new clientele. This can still work with the aesthetic they already have and maybe be incorporated throughout everything. 

Threats

As discussed earlier, the company have a very corporate design feel. They have a modernist design aesthetic that is built around a very clean and precise design style, that uses sans serif type, limited colour palette and if any a couple of images. As a studio this is a good aesthetic to carry and they do use this throughout all the work they create, so everything is consistent. But as a threat, i think this could be their downfall. They are limiting themselves to a certain audience and market out there which is very competitive within. As i have said before if they introduced some sort of aspect to there design discipline that made them different from the rest, i think it could open the studio to new clients and broaden the clients even more. 

What makes me different?

I believe that i can offer a lot of what this company can offer. With my own practice i am very interesting in print work, with a keen interest in editorial and promotional material, also i have some skills within digital design, so i think i would be able to fit in well with this studio and get along with the sort of design work they produce. What i could offer the studio is more of illustrative style, along with the idea of having a well structured and thought out design i like to bring in illustration to aid the type and image and make it something a little different. Also within the print area, i have a good interest within stock and format, which i think working around these elements you can produce a more interesting product by looking at binding techniques, printing techniques and other things that make it more unique. 

Large Design Company

Pentagram

Who are they?

Pentagram is the world's largest independent design consultancy. The firm is owned and run by 19 partners, a group of friends who are all leaders in their individual creative fields.

We work in London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Austin. We design everything: architecture, interiors, products, identities, publications, posters, books, exhibitions, websites, and digital installations.

Each of our clients works directly with one or more of our partners. This reflects our conviction that great design cannot happen without passion, intelligence, and personal commitment, which is demonstrated by a portfolio of work that spans five decades.

Strengths

Pentagram are know worldwide as a company that produces amazing graphic design across all means of media. As they are such a large company and have so many designers within them they can offer a extensive range of services which pretty cover the whole discipline of graphic design. Which ever project or product you look at which Pentagram have designed, you can see the quality of design that has been taken with it and you can see that they know exactly what they are doing with any project. They have a certain professional design style that you can tell is pentagram when you see a product or project designed by them. 

Weaknesses

With such a large company that cover so many disciplines and clients within the design world it is hard to pick out the well designed pieces. I would say overall that pentagram produce high quality work, but I dont think it is interesting or that engaging because it is standard commercial work. I think because they are so large and have so many clients, which all will be worked on at the same time, everything can kind of look the same and nothing is that special within their portfolio. When i look through the large portfolio on their website, i can see that it is well designed and looks really good, but nothing stands out to me or seems that interesting to stop and take a closer look at. 

Opportunities

Within the work they produce because the majority of it is commercial there seems to be no real personality to the work. I think that the work is effective in the design and it communicates well but there isn't anything that makes it different or stand out, i think this should be addressed by the company. Also i think clients use pentagram because of the name and the brand, you could probably get the same design from a smaller company, which you could be more engaged with and have more of a say within the design process. 

Threats

I don't really think there is a threat to the company, they have been around for a long time now and built up the brand name throughout the years to make them worldwide known. I dont think they have any sort of threat because of who they are and what they can produce. I personally think they are just a commercial company that produces the same design work for each project they take on. There is no personality within the work. 

What Makes me different?

If i was to work with Pentagram, which i probably wouldn't because it is such a big company that i feel I would just be a pen pusher, someone that works a mouse at a computer and not be known for anything. I would feel lost within the vast designers of the company. 

But anyway I find the areas in which the company work in interesting: print, typography, branding and identity etc. The only thing i would do different is to make it have more personality, make it seem that it has had a lot of thought and time taken into the process of the design and developed to create the final outcome. I would want to make it more interesting by using print techniques, different formats and stocks. This would be how i would tackle the pentagram company and inject my own personality into the design of the projects - break the mould. 

OUGD502 // Task 5 // Who am I? - Who are they?

Client groups which use Graphic Design in their products or services
Graphic design is within the tertiary sector - the service industry in particular because we are given out a service to a client. Alot of the client groups are also within the service industry - the private and public sectors, which for me as a designer would be the clients that I would aim for.
Here are the areas of design that I have identified:
Retail
Publishing
Print - screen printing, letterpress etc
Journalism
Educational
Finance - accounting and banking
TV and Film
Food and drink
Health
Public domain
Tourism
Hospitality

Client group which reflects my creative ambition:
The client group which I can identify with the most is publishing, I love publishing and editorial design, it is one of the areas that I work the best within and have the most ambition and fun when working in it. I think as an area of design it is very broad because publishing can fit within many other area of design and client groups itself. With this I would always combine book binding and print within it, these two areas are other particular favourites of mine and ones in which I think I am the strongest in, combining these areas together with publishing creates a better outcomes and something which I feel makes my publishing different.
At the minute I would want to keep this client group broad as I don't have a particular view on where I could aim or do publishing within, as I said before it can fit into a lot of the bigger client groups. If I was to choose now, it would be retail, because again this is still quite broad and offers a lot of variety within it. You can design for clothing, music, technology, food - supermarket, etc which publishing can be apart of them all in some way.

What skills and interests I have and how they relate to client group:
I am very interested in editorial design and publishing itself. I think I work well within editorial design and get a buzz of it myself. I love to work with type and image and creating a layout which displays this bout also challenges it too, by mixing the two together.
Within my recent editorial design projects I have always tried to look at the format of the publication, creating a format which is moving away from the standard A and B formats, but using these are a basis to work within as to print they have to fit within these sizes. Creating a publication that has a different format and way to interact with, makes it more interesting to both read and look through. I think this is something that I can offer to my client group.
I feel that I am strong at layout design and create a good structure to work with type and image, again mixing these together in a more creative way makes the design better. Another area I have been improving on and now using much more within my own practice is illustration, this has been coming through into all design area that I use, but mostly editorial design.
I also have a good interest in branding, I don't feel as strong within this area of design as publishing and editorial, but I think by working on it more it will get better. Using this with publishing I think I can create a good practise of being able to create a brand for a client which has a strong focus on communicating the company through publishing and other branding products.

What skills are needed and what skills are needed to develop:
Skills that area needed to work with clients:
Time management - working to strict deadlines and having the final product developed and finished for this deadline as this is key to produce work for a client in the industry.
Communication and dealing with clients in a professional manner - having the knowledge of how to approach new clients and talking to them in the right way to get the work in and being ale to work for the client.
Proposals / presentation - developing my skills for presentations, I feel quite strong at them but not for industrial proposes and pitching for a job. I also think I need to improve my presentation boards and how I present the work for the client to see the full concept and idea.
What I feel I need to develop further:
Creating work that can be produced at mass and for print within the industry - at the minute creating one of publications and printing on our printers at Uni isn't the same as I would for industry. Depending on the scale of the print run would determine if it was printed digital or through litho etc - this would change how the product would have to be designed.
Improve skills on branding - I want to get better at branding and be able to offer this as a service, if I could I think having this as a concept for my practice would work well. Being to brand a company, with the focus on publishing and other branding products - normal branding literature.
Refine my editorial design skills to be able to adjust for each different client but still offer something different - develop a style which I can work within publishing at can be adapted well for different clients, but still work as something that offers a different look/ style on the normal be this by looking into the format, printing techniques and binding of the publications.

My professional/creative aims and how they relate to the needs of the client group:
My professional aims at the moment is to carry on working within the areas of design that I am most interested in and get them to the professional standard that i feel will be good enough to be out in the industry and to get work from clients. I want to create a professional portfolio that shows my work and area of practice to the best ability, this will focus on publishing and branding and hopefully communicate the design style and way that I work within my own practice. I also want to look at getting experience in working within the this area of design and also getting visits and placements within studios that are focussed around this area of design also - publishing, print, branding.
I feel that the way in which I work and the work that I produce, if I keep challenging pushing and editorial, by using printing techniques and focussing on the format then I can will have something different to offer the clients which I feel this I necessary to do, everyone wants to see something different and have a product that is better and out there than what everyone else has. I think looking at the branding side of clients will also work in my advantage and offer a good service too.
If I develop these skills and carry on working on the areas that I have discussed above I think that this will work the best for my client group and relate to the needs that they will be looking for, but present them with something different at the same time.

OUGD502 // Task 8 // Contacting Studios & Creative CV

In oder to create a Creative CV i first need to identify the studios that i would want to contact and hopefully get to go and visit. This also will help me think about a portfolio which i can put together to either email or post to them too.

Two - Think, Work, Observe
Think Work Observe is a graphic design practice born in 2011, based in Italy and run by Piero Di Biase and Alberto Moreu. We follow different projects in graphic design, typography and photography. We design printed matter, visual identities and websites, with a background of past experiences in developing identities for design furniture companies. We also acquired skills in designing our own typefaces, as well as customizing already existing fonts, using them to make a more focused project. We work on creating objects and shaping contents, and in the end creating and managing a flux of skilled professionals.

Contact:

Think Work Observe

Piero Di Biase / Alberto Moreu

Udine / Tolmezzo — Italy

+39 340 5922156 / 347 6126218

contact@t-wo.it

Qus Qus

QusQus is a graphic design studio founded by Dima Kuzmichev. We love magazines and books, presentation booklets and annual reports, typography and high-quality paper. We develop trademarks design and visual identity.

Contact:

QUSQUS 

Graphic design 

& Art direction

hello@qus-qus.com

+7 (921) 325 0959

Heydays

Heydays is an Oslo-based design studio that creates strong visual concepts that trigger curiosity, create excitement and show ambition. We listen, research and challenge. We remove noise to add value.

Contact:

Hey­days AS

Vibes gate 17

0356 Oslo

Norway

(+47) 905 19 260

studio@heydays.no

Matter Strategic Design

Matter are a strategic design firm. We help individuals, organisations and causes matter to those who matter most to them. 

Contact:

264 Riverdale Avenue

Toronto, Ontario M4K 1C6

CANADA

hello@matter.to

416 712 5201

Made By Six

We are an independent creative consultancy based in the UK, specialising in design and art direction for an international roster of clients.

Our aim is to produce design with intelligence, integrity and craft that both we and our clients can be proud of.

Contact:

The Loft

20 Narborough Wood Park

Desford Rd, Enderby

Leicestershire LE19 4XT 

+44 (0)116 238 6555

hello@madebysix.com

Effektive Design

We are a young, but established, design and ideas studio based in Glasgow. With a passion for what we do, we deliver relevant, considered and engaging work for clients both locally and internationally. Our approach is simple; we aim to develop strong long-term relationships with clients and suppliers; we listen, learn, understand and simplify to deliver design that adds value to our clients business. We work across business sectors from arts, culture and fashion to retail, corporate and education. This allows us to specialise in a variety of areas including identity & brand development, print design & production, digital design and design for environment.

Contact:

Effektive®

South Block Studio 107

60 Osbourne Street Glasgow G1 5QH

+44 (0)141 271 4721

studio@effektivedesign.co.uk

This Is Studio

THIS IS Studio is a multidisciplinary design practice based in London.

Our approach is ideas-led; tailored to the needs of each individual client. We engage with each project without a preconceived style and create a bespoke solution based on research, concept and materials. THIS IS Studio was founded by Richard Barnett, Barney Beech and Dougal Burgess.

Contact:

THIS IS Studio

Studio 7, 49 – 59 Old Street

London, EC1V 9HX

+44 (0)20 7253 7999

info@thisisstudio.co.uk

work@thisisstudio.co.uk

Because Studio

Because Studio is the creative practice of Loz Ives.

Collaborating with an ever growing list of talented creative folk and exciting clients, producing crafted outcomes in equal strength across analogue, digital and environmental disciplines.

Contact:

The Watermark,

9 — 15 Ribbleton Lane,

Preston PR1 5EZ

+44 (0)1772 821 460

hello@becausestudio.co.uk

Huvi Design

Huvi is a multidisciplinary design studio based in Manchester UK specialising in brand identity, printed media, interactive design, web, packaging, and illustration.

Founded by Adam Robson and Matt Keers we are a young eclectic studio, our goal is to produce work that excites our clients and their customers through a playful yet practical approach to design that is tailored to their needs.

Contact:

info@huvidesign.com

+44 (0) 7891 080 592

The Engine Room

We get a real kick out of giving brands a magnetic personality. It's the Gok Wan treatment for your business. We’ll prod you around a bit to get a feel of where you’re coming from… but you can keep your clothes on while we do it.

Based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, The Engine Room is a small team of graphic designers, strategists, marketeers and brand consultants. We have a genuine passion for the benefits that good design can bring to business. We also like pizza.

Working mainly in the B2B market, we mix creative thinking, design and strategy to transform businesses through renewed brand identity and reinvigorated marketing communications that engage with customers and deliver measurable returns.

Contact:

Loft 12, The Creative Lofts

15 Northumberland Street

Huddersfield

West Yorkshire

HD1 1DT

01484 483087

darren@engineroomdesign.com

Creative CV

From identifying these studios that i would like to contact i can now work on my creative CV and know what information i need to present. 

For some inspiration for the design of the CV i have looked into some existing creative CV's: