To all the jobs I’ve ever had
Like many people, my first job came after a long internship. I remember it was St Patrick's day when they asked me to stay and I was elated. No more sleeping on my sister's sofa. I could finally get my first flat and move onto the next stage of my life. I try to remember those days. I was so eager and energised. My first project was to work on the D&AD website. I was stoked. I was a very minor part of the team. I can't even remember what I ...
Experience
Is work experience a bunch of bull? Does it really teach you anything or are you just a skivvy for free? Nowadays I have to work with young designers on work experience every few weeks and how I treat them is based largely on my own experience in their shoes. It all feels so long a go. Was it any use?
Giving a talk
For the last couple of years I have been invited by Central Saint Martins to take part in a day long series of lectures for third year design students, based on ‘real world experiences’. I was asked to talk about rejection. I feel I am imminently qualified to waffle on about this subject so I agreed.
Before and After
The magic of befores and afters. Some things are burnt on the sacrificial alter of the graphic design gods until they are motes of charcoal floating in the breeze when they are redesigned. Others are tweaked so slightly, no one overtly notices, they just realise something is better about them.
Education
Over the years I have worked a great deal with educational institutions working on a range of items from prospectus’ to alumni marketing material. The most common pieces of literature being magazines and prospectus’, but there are also quite a few smaller items with smaller budgets which I have worked on. I thought I’d show you some.
The Trade Mag Pitch
There are many types of magazine in the world. Some everyone has heard of, some no one has heard of and some that only very specific people have heard of. Today, I am thinking about specific people and their specific magazines; namely The Trade Magazine.
Fitness Apps
Let's Get Physical! A lot has changed since I last went to a gym. Above you can see my notebook I used to carry around with me. Anal? Probably, but my progress is my incentive; every last scrap of it. I love seeing improvement so I literally needed to see minute results. It's a system which has worked for me in the past. But notebooks, really? This is 2017! So here I am just about to join a gym and try and get a bit healthy. I think there must be ...
Trivial Matters
Recently in the studio I had the pleasure to work with small publisher, Trivia Press creating a simple one page site for people to land on and find out how to buy their publications. It’s early days, but this is just the start. The books all centre around Kasmin’s postcards; a unique collection spanning many years all themed into three current books: Want, Burden and Perform. View the website I proposed three approaches. A bold image-led route to incite the imagination and give an air of mystery. A route showing ...
Learning Sketch + Principle
Many many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth I had a conversation with a guy on my course about how I was going to learn Illustrator. We talked at length about how perfect Aldus Freehand was, how brilliantly it performed, how difficult it would be to learn something new…
Working Inhouse
Working in-house is always an eye-opening experience. I am a naturally nosey person so I love being able to poke my nose into a new place and see if it challenges my preconceptions. Here are a few I used to have. Big companies are more organised Some big companies seem to be in a constant state of winging it, living from one deadline to the next. They get you in last minute and literally throw you into the chaos. Although, that might seem negative, sometimes those environments are energising and create a really good ...