CK

Today is the hand in day for this unit and also the day I printed my CV and Cover Letter. I initially printed my CV and Cover Letter for Claire on my printer at home just to gauge roughly what it would look like, and then would print on high quality card at University: 

When printed they came out initially with a white border, which tested on these low quality print outs and cut the white borders off - making for a more professional design.  Here are some pictures of my high quality card CV and Cover Letter for Claire which has been printed and cut, all in a folder with my Cards, Pen and some small rectangular brand labels.

For the majority of this project, the programs I used were Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver. In this post I will analyse my use of these programs. Photoshop

Photoshop was an obvious choice to do all of my design work on, as I have years of experience using it and it has all the tools I needed. I was able to easily create and edit all of the design aspects for my CV, Website and Business Cards.  I found Photoshop’s grids and automatic guides to be of great use when creating my CV. However, I could have also used InDesign to layout my CV, as that is more for layout design. Even so, I find my way around Photoshop better and so decided to stick to Photoshop throughout. InDesign is something I would like to explore more later, and later take an Adobe exam in. The best thing about using Photoshop is the ability to use “brushes”. I was able to create and modify floral textures, which I then implanted into my background design. Without this feature, I would have been unable to create the effect that I did. I also had not used “brushes” much before, so it gave me an opportunity to learn some new tricks and tools on the software that I use so much! Dreamweaver

Following on my post showing all the components of my brand together.... I am proud of my work and believe that I have created a consistent brand with lots of evidence of synergy throughout. By implanting the same fonts, colours, imagery, logo etc. throughout all my pieces of work, the brand image is consistent.

The Importance of Brand Consistency

Ensuring that both your messaging and visual branding is clearly and consistently applied across all communication channels makes sense, as strong consistent branding reinforces your identity and drives positive sentiment and trust.

The Importance of Brand Consistency. (2016). Surefire Media. Retrieved 11 May 2016, from http://surefiremedia.co.uk/blog/importance-brand-consistency/

Here are some photos of everything that I have created for my brand in one post, so that you can see everything at the same time. 

CV

Business Cards

Other Merch (Labels, Pens)

Website  (www.katherinemathews.co.uk)

Today my other merch to promote my brand arrived! I am really pleased with how everything came out. Unfortunately some of the labels weren’t printed correctly and so there is a slight edge, but it is now too late to correct this.  I am super happy with the pens and labels as they offer a client/employer something a little extra than just the norm. 

Today my business cards from MOO arrived and I am super pleased with them! They came in a box which doubles as a nice little stand for the cards on my desk. The cards themselves came out pretty great - I chose a gloss finish for my cards and I am really pleased that I did as they look very high quality. I am also happy with my square design, although when looking for a  folder to give my work in I realised many folders have business card pockets which unfortunately the square design won’t fit in!  The main thing that I was concerned about was how the quality of my background, logo and text designs would come out. I am pleased how well the background came out, and also the main logo - I made sure the resolution of my uploaded designs was at the best it could be and this reflects in the cards. However the back of the cards, with my information on, aren’t of 100% quality (the text doesn’t look solid black)  Luckily this does not affect how successful my cards are, as it is only noticed when very close up! However, learning from this experience, in future print endeavours I will make sure to check the text resolution before printing. 

As previously mentioned, I do love to make the most of any opportunities to better my skills. I have known for a while that the Uni offer official Adobe Certifications, however with my uni workload and working full time at my new job, I have been unable to take them. Now that I am approaching the end of my last deadline (13th May), I will be looking at taking Adobe Certifications in Photoshop and Indesign. These credentials on my CV and portfolio will be an amazing addition to my qualifications and will help me secure any future jobs that I may want to pursue.... but even better they will also offer me the chance to study the programs in more detail and gain some new skills from the software that I can apply to my job! There are official credentials below that I will be able to put on my CV, website, anywhere I like! These are instantly recognisable in the industry and will help me gain trust from any clients or employers about how skilled I am using these programs, and so will aid the credibility of my “Creative Kat” brand. More info on the Certifications here: http://training.adobe.com/certification.html

After seeing some great promotional merch on vistaprint, I decided to order some additional products to help promote my brand. I ordered some envelope seals which will be used to seal envelopes with my brand name. I also ordered some promotional pens which could be given out at potential client meetings etc. Pens are great merch because they travel far, everyone uses them and so could potentially look at your brand every day!

Today I tested both my CV and business cards in black and white. By doing this, it raises any readability issues (if you can't see it in black and white it’s also not great in colour) and any issues that might arise when photocopying.

Today I finished all the sections in my website. Here they are, with screenshots to demonstrate: Header and Portfolio

This section introduces the user to my brand image, and straight away dives into about me and some examples of my work. Graduate Employment and Industry Experience

The next section is all about my relevant employment and work experience (so any irrelevant employment such as retail is left out here).

Skills

The skills bit is very engaging as it is easy to read, and animates to show my progress. This is a great section to give clients/employers an overview of what I can do. Education

Education is always an important section to include, as it shows off the qualifications behind me, and shows willingness to learn.  Blog

I really wanted to include a short, small blog with some little posts about updates in my world and how they relate back to me and the person reading my website. I think it’s a great way to add some personality to my portfolio website. Contact and Footer

This month I completed my final year project, which explored how design can be used within charity marketing campaigns to encourage participation from the young Generation Y.

To accompany my report I designed a variety of online and print material which you can see below: Print Booklet (Just a glance of it printed and a few pages, not the whole thing!)

Poster

Infographic

Social Media Post