This summer I got a placement working at the Leeds Guide magazine, working with the design team and I worked there for two weeks. I got the opportunity to produce a brochure for Leeds Opera in the Park, to produce layouts for the magazine that went to print and create adverts for clients. As a bonus I also got interviewed for the magazine insert they produce called city living.
These are just a sample of the layouts I produced for the Leeds Guide Supplement called “City living” and this magazine is what i did the most work on during my work experience. I would have to produce a layout of what I thought looked appropriate and then take it to the editor for him to approve. Everything was provided, such as images and text and I just had to place them in a pleasing layout.
I also got to create adverts for outside clients that would pay for advert space in the magazine. I would have a few rules that i would have to stick to such as certain sentences or phrases and logos or colours but the layout and design would be completely my choice. I would then send a draft off to the client and would wait for the go ahead to place it in the magazine or for changes to be made. The top left image is of the final design i produced for Haha Bar and this is the design the clients went with. In the bottom left you can see an image that I produced as a mock front cover that would go in the back of the current magazine and be used to advertise the next issue. I got to work directly with the head designer on the magazine layouts each week and got given certain layouts that I had to produce to the same deadlines of the design team. Working alongside the other designers and to the same deadlines was a challenge but if I ever didn’t understand anything or know what to do, they were always there to ask questions.
While working at the magazine they asked me if I wanted to be interviewed for their regular column in the City Living section, which focuses on people who live in Leeds and their homes. Then I would also be able to layout my own interview. The images on the right show my interview and the photos they took of my apartment and me. The image on the top left shows the brochure I produced alongside the magazine layouts for the Leeds Guide as they also design things for local businesses and the client was Leeds City Council. I designed the whole brochure from start to finish for the Opera in the Park festival except the adverts that were already created and the client already chose the template of the green tree. This brochure of my design was sent to print and sold at the event, I got my copy for free!
These images are examples of the cover designs I produced for the Leeds Guide student guide that they produce once a year. I had total freedom to create imagery and the use of a huge image library. They wanted to re-brand the magazine and wanted it to feel more student-like so they asked me to produce small doodles and sketches that I could incorporate into the designs of the brand and the cover.
These images are of some of the re-branding ideas I had for the Student Guide and I had to stick to the headings, titles and topics they cover but I got to play around with type, image, colour and layout. While creating re-branding for the magazine I also suggested they approach Don't Panic to place advertising in their packages in the form of postcards and mini flyers advertising the Leeds guide and what they cover in the magazine. After my placement was over the head designer said he liked what I had produced and how I work fits in well within their team, so if when I finish university I don't know what to do, I should come and apply to work as a full time designer for the Leeds Guide, as they would gladly take me on.
Over the summer I decided to focus on developing my illustration skills as I had developed my layout and typography skills at the magazine and wanted to develop another of my weak areas. I decided to focus on a main brief of creating an A-Z book of Birds, and I worked on my illustrations also by drawing regularly. With all this loose work I decided I would create a series of books as an end product and as I had quite a bit of work from my work experience I also created three booklets, one of layouts, one of illustrator experiments and one of cover designs. I then created a booklet of the A-Z of Birds and a booklet of doodles and drawing experiments that I had created over summer. I chose to focus on making books as it is something I would like to go into in my third year, small publications and focusing on design for print, it also fit quite nicely into my dissertation topic too which is to focus on what gives small handmade publications value.
These are a few of the bird illustrations I did. I researched a few birds and found a bird for every letter of the alphabet then as I really wanted to develop both my hand drawn and digital illustrating skills, I created them by hand first, just the general outline drawing, then I scanned them into the computer and transferred them into illustrator to be coloured. I then placed these images into an InDesign document to create the A-Z booklet of illustrated birds and as I was doing this I had been contacting designers and illustrators in regards to my work and I contacted Michael Nobbs, an illustrator, about my bird designs and he promoted them on his twitter account and since then I have kept in contact with him, showing him my work and have had a good response, just keeping up communication.
These are a small selection of my other work I did to develop my illustration skills and understanding of hand drawn typography. With some of them, I experimented with different materials to what I use normally and the first image is of a water colour background and hand drawn typography which I scanned in and turned into a vectors, the second image is of cut out typography from collected paper and the third top image is a silhouette style image that I created. The bottom right image is also a small hand drawn, pen and paper experiment that I created. Throughout the booklet of summer doodles I have experimented with typography and illustration to get me to draw more, as this is something I know I need to do.
Before summer I had an interest in papercut typography and artwork, which I wanted to develop into something I could use myself in my own work. These are just a few people that I admire in that art form. The first top image and first bottom image is by Heather Moore; a South African paper cut artist and illustrator, who I have also contacted for her opinion on my paper cut work and got a really positive response back. The second image is by Julene Harrison, who’s illustrated typography mixed with paper cut art I find really inspiring and the third top image and second bottom images are by Annie Vought. I have taken inspiration from these designers and created my own paper cut work.
These are a few of my paper cut designs that I have created over summer. I wanted to create something that would show the patience and skill involved to create, something so fragile and as I had created a few paper cut quote designs before summer, on a theme of Alice in Wonderland, I stuck with quotes from this and used my illustrated leaves that I produced in the first year project of a book of 100 leaves to create the bottom paper cut of two leaves.
This summer I have opened an online shop on a website called etsy, that is based in America., where you can buy and sell anything handmade such as illustrations, paper creations, hand made books and things like that and I have made my paper cut designs available for sale. Within a few hours of making my bird/mirror paper cut from the previous slide, available for sale, it made it to the front page of the website and I got over 1000 views in a few hours. After this etsy also put two of my paper cut designs in gift guides for buyers to view and that got me two sales from my shop. I then uploaded a few of these images to a website called Society6. This website is a place to upload your work and your place on the website is called your studio. Within a few hours of me uploading my work there I was on the front page of that website too and within the week I was one of their top 15 studios that has been promoted by 27 other users. For this online shop and presence I have also created a blog and branded everything to do with my work so people will recognize my work and me.
My dissertation topic is “What is the Value of hanmade publications?” and these are images of people’s work who I have contacted in regards to my dissertation research. I contacted Alex Wrekk who is the author of “Stolen Sharpie Revolution” a mini book about zines and zine culture. The next image is of a small light blue zine called “Shebang zine” and the third and bottom images are of work by Craig Atkinson of Café Royal, who produces zines and also distributes them. I have asked them all questions and have received answers from Alex and Craig but im still waiting to hear back from Shebang Zine.
The following images are of people’s work that I would like to focus on next year. Not their actual work but the things they produce an their processes. In my final year I would like to develop my skills in paper cutting, illustrating, hand drawn typography, and creating small publications. These are things that I am already interested in but would like to focus more on to develop and I would like to incorporate all these processes in all my work this year. I also would like to get another work experience placement with a more creative company or visit illustrators to see the processes they use and the way they take on a brief as my placement was quite regimented and wasn’t that creative, which has been a learning curve for me as I I know now that I do not want to go into magazine layout, but before summer, I did.