Professional Practice UCBC

Ian Swift (Swifty) has come to Blackburn College and arrived at the science and media building. 

At 11:04pm we have started. Born in the mid 60s. He left school at 16 and his sister said get to a art college in Warrington and never left and went to padgate and fell in love with the silk stream and inspired by andy warhol.  from Warrington college he went to Manchester polytech. Dave crow and started a magazine called Fresh. He inerhated this for my 3rd year project. days before computers. 

Ian Wright - photocopy king, great for creating for headlines and feeds paper tissue to go through the photocopier as a creative tool. 

Paul Bradshaw published one of his own magazine with straight (no chaser). FIVE ) and Ian got on board with this as he needs a designer to get on board and Ian got the job.

1990, I had enough freelance work and left Neville's and ronsonol was the inspiration for me s well. He still did work for straight no chaser. 

FPO (For positioning only), never had proofs, only had instructions for the printer, black pantone with colour and blue key line was key to show the print off. That does not go away and then does photocopies of the work. 

Jazz scene, reid miles was one of most graphic designers in modernisation scene. Type and image was his strengths and was his inspiration as well. He loves that scene. 

Saul Bass is another inspirational - Godfather of type sequence. Young disciplines - A few band covers he created. 

Two colour and more labels this is still in the early 90s. 

Marcel Deushamps was his other inspiration with labels.

Digital started to overtake the copy and paste and he did some letterpressing and he put that in the first photoshop and he then created his first work digitally then.

I spoken to Lawrie, she is the director of the company and she said just send over your CV and see what we can do. She mentioned nothing paid but I am sure you can join us on intern. I am like yes that will be good but hopeful for paid soon after. 

Manchester International Festival:

I started this assignment by creating an overview of what we need to do for the project and creating a 5-year plan to help me create a career plan. The 5-year plan was a useful strategy to help me map my professional future; this was a visual and creative task and was very engaging for all students who were able to share ideas. However, I did struggle deciding which path to take as after I carried out a lot of research for different jobs I could not focus on one career path as I wanted to incorporate my personal interests in my career choice. At one point I did become overwhelmed by the workload for the course and the commitments of my personal life and took advice from my tutor. He suggested to focus on my university work and to get that done and think about my career path later. For my research into job roles I screenshot job vacancies and application forms onto my blog and annotated them. I think my methods were not appropriate as I did not work in a structured and logic way.

My next activity was to develop an artist bio in order to create a professional media presence which will be online and added this to my portfolio. This was key to my professional practice. I researched into other artist’s biographies to help me decide on the structure and content of my biography. Group work in class allowed the group to share the ideas and enabled me to get feedback on my own. The activity was very informative and beneficial for the class and myself. We presented our ideas in front of each other It was helpful to get feedback from peers and tutors. This helped me with structure and identifying issues in the body of the biography such as grammar and spelling. If I could do this again I would try to obtain more feedback and try to get this sooner as I was struggling with my biography which I thought was not good but did not get help soon enough.

The next exercise was to start creating business cards. The method I used to create the cards was to start to research into other graphic designers and community artist business cards to see what I can do to relate to the relevant fields. This was very effective as it gave me lots of ideas about possible suitable format, design and colour ideas for my own cards.

The developmental process was good as I did research well and this helped me to develop a couple of my own ideas which I sketched out on A3 paper.

The sketches and first draft of business cards were submitted to my tutor for feedback which turned out great because she guided me away from ideas which she felt will not work. I drew up more ideas from identity and branding from last year as that was one of the best projects for me so I decided to sketch ideas and went on the computer quite early at this stage. I started to think more about the colour and the overall layout of the card. This demonstrated the key importance of what I do as an artist and thought that taking images and showing what I do is key to the overall design of the card. I thought my first idea which focused on Blackburn and I took from the identity and branding module was not great as it did not really demonstrate my skills and the grey background was not suitable for business cards as it did not represent my character.

Although, I feel passionate about my town I realised that this idea taken from identity and branding would not be appropriate for my business cards. I developed my final idea which was to include more photographs of landscapes and what I am good at and what I use and settled with that. If I could do this activity again I would take more time to develop more ideas and take time to think of what I could add and do on my card. Instead of thinking of my finished design.

The website was one of my last projects within the assignment. I started this by researching into portfolios and other people’s websites to see help me decide on what I want to do. This was very useful as it stimulated my ideas for content and format. This helped me to develop my site on Wix. This was an on-going process as I updated my site regularly, changing the overall design. Additionally, I did change the dock, social media links and the overall layout on each page. I designed the website to fit for purpose and for potential clients. Nowadays a digital presence is key, but to have a physical portfolio is a great way to show your work off. I think having a physical portfolio is also important as it is the internet cannot always be relied on. If I could do this part of the assignment again I would look back and research more into other artists and see potential clients (organisations) websites to see what I could do.

Overall, I did enjoy this assignment however, I did have my struggles as I thought I was rushing into this assignment and did not research that much. This is not good for myself as I do love research. Additionally, I did struggle to come up with ideas suitable for my work and to create a professional presence. If I could do this again I would research more, experiment with more ideas and not go on the computer straight away. At the end of this project I realised that I needed to prioritise more effectively and focus one task at a time.

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/professionalpracticeucbc

Their responsibilities vary slightly from school to school, but their broad role is to enhance the undergraduate and postgraduate taught student experience and academic engagement working in close collaboration with colleagues. The Student Experience Officers are a visible and friendly presence for students in each school and work on a wide variety of projects and initiatives including:

Student events: running cultural, intellectual and social activities, working with student societies and organising student conferences and exhibitions.

Student communications: working closely with Staff-Student Committees, meeting with groups of undergraduate students and with academic staff about comments and suggestions and feeding back to students about how their comments have been acted upon.

Social media: keeping undergraduate students up to date with what’s happening in schools.

Induction and transition: working closely with academic colleagues to support undergraduate student induction and transition to life at the University of Birmingham.

New initiatives: developing innovative projects which enrich the student experience.

I have emailed this through to Repro and hoping to send my documents over to them so it will make it easier. I have sent this at 13:24pm on 9th of May 2018! 

This section of about me is a brief description of myself what I have done and what I specialise in. An Artist bio is another term for this. I put on a coming out video which is in the middle of this page to show my personality and the freedom of what I did to do that as I was scared but I wanted to show you are not alone and wanted to share my story to all.

The other screenshots of my site is purely what I like to do amongst other things. I do love taking photographs as seen this is my pictures what I have took across the UK. At the moment just Sheffield as it is one of my favourite  spots. I added a few images of Tanya who has downs syndrome but does not stop her to raw and be proactive she is an amazing woman and a great help for me in a few arts and crafts sessions which I will help over the summer with my parents. 

Propraxia: 

The logo and the charater I have placed is under my name on the top left of this page a breif write up of what it is next to that. I have applied underneath my pack. They are all going to be on this page. But I am on with making up this pack. I am thinking of taking some professional photographs with this but in the mean time I will keep adding to this page and I have attached the twitter page which is @propraxia, which you can find more about the pack and thr progress. Also on the blog section I have a link on the right to the blog posts for FMP on Tumblr.

Students’ Union:

Future U:

Future U is a an organisation which helps young people to thrive and try to succeed in what they are good at. I help throughout and help to get students engaging with each other and I am here for them to help them through any issues they could face. As I have dyspraxia and aspergous and I can offer my help and give out student experience talks. It is a clear message where anyone can achieve virtually anything if you set your heart out on it!

I love working with the students and the general public as I do want what’s best for people. I do feel passionate about this.

Greenfields Community Centre:

Logo Designs: 

I started of with a few different companies and do work which mostly was just free as to get my head around the work and volunteer in a host of these establishment. I feel passionate about the community which is evident within the site. As you go on the site you will have my name and social media links at the top then at the bottom is the dock and the drop down menu will have separate pages. I do like the way of the blocked logo designs and even the develop side of the logo designs which is key to the design process. 

Identity Blackburn: 

I started with this project last year for the clog and Billycok and Northcorte but it turned out to be in the festival of making; first event at Blackburn which is another kettle of fish and involves art and heritage of this great town.

The project was to create an identity of Blackburn and I mapped places where it is disused and empty green spaces around the area. It is quite upsetting but that is life and there is changes which is getting there for the town. More on the website. 

Community work:

Home Page (Portfolio):

 These are screenshots on what I have got on the website. I have too complete my portfolio which is going to be physical piece but will have that printed for exhibition. 

I do like the way I have work as a scroll on the top of the page. I have social media links on the top right which is consistant on every page on the top with my name; I do not have no brand as I am not going towards much brand and identity as of much, but I do like that kind of design. Which explains what my strengths are on the top left just underneath the social media links. 

Strategy –

The users who will come onto my site will be a various range of people from a wide range of backgrounds and fields which they have taken. This site will be accessible for all, with no sign-up pages for private forums or any other pages like that. My site will get recognition hopefully across all platforms and professions to see what I do and what I have done through-out my learning. The public who will be accessing the site will be able to identify any relevant information about me and how to contact which you can on top of the navigation bar (as will be explained). The site will hopefully be useful for all of the public especially who are in the business area; such as Community-based arts, graphic designers and other relevant fields. I feel the passion and the relationship between you and the companies and colleagues are hugely important for yourself and the design process.

A wide range of designs which will be accessible and easy to access and easy on the eye basis for people to navigate around. The menu bar at the top is a great and short easy to see. The colours on the site is clear, simple and not many colours to lose the attraction for the site. I feel this is important and great to have a look around the site without the person getting confused and easily miss-lead. The site will offer no confusion and will offer opportunities to companies as well as more commissioned work in the future.

The site’s aim is to get myself out there as a community-based and a graphic artist to the world. As this site will be published to the public.

Scope My site will have a menu bar (Navigation Bar) to help you guide you to other sections of the website. The viewers who will access the site will have an option to click on ‘contact us’ which will be directly in the navigation bar. This page will have a brief description on how to contact the artist “me”at any one time. I will include information to other companies and groups who I have worked with this will include a blog and a forum onto the site. The site will have many features on there, such as; Menu, galleries, drops down menu option, also other options to keep the viewer engaged with in the site. Also, the site will have other graphic elements such as; animated features to keep the viewer wowed but not too much to mix up the viewer’s views on the site and then they will leave instantly. This will be an easier feature to navigate around and will not be that hard to access and go to places. The site will have other options will be situated on the bottom at the dock with ‘Portfolio’, ‘About’, ‘My CV’, ‘Blog’ and ‘Contact’. The buttons on the dock will be an easy to access to go around the site fluently and without an issue. The menu bar will be black and white, whilst you hover over the bar it will automatically invert to the opposite. It is important that the brightness and the colour are sharp and clear as this is key to the process of the site.

Skeleton

This element is a skeleton of the site for another example of way to put it; it’s just like a back bone of a site. I will have up to five pages to start what links to other pages and menus to create a structure of a site. Firstly, there will be have a ‘Portfolio’ button at the top in the menu bar with a drop-down menu showing how to get involved and to show the viewer of my work. On the drop down menu bar I do have multiple projects on individual pages and will have a brief description on how I did this and what it was about. Next, on the ‘about’ page this will have my artist bio and some images of my community/youth work what I have done. Next will be a ‘My CV’ page which will be a clear page to access some of my CV experiences and social media accounts as this will be known across all over the website, but more provident on my CV page as it is more ideal to be placed there more. Then, I will have a ‘Blog’page which will be ideal for costumers, clients, peers, tutors or other relevant people in the industry of design to look at to keep an eye on day-to-day basis of the artist “Me”. This was talked about briefly on the ‘scope’ but this time will have an underline what is the linkage of the site and were to go for what and were within my site. So that again is a way of navigating around the website – (Navigation Bar) or (Menu bar).  On bottom of my navigation bar (dock) I will have ‘About’ this page will tell you everything about me and what I offer and what I can do to help the community and to get an insight of the site and see what viewers can do to get involved and to hopefully take ideas what I have done to fit in their criteria. Added to the about page I will have images of landscapes or other work I have done as in a community setting. Next is my CV page which will have ideal relevant experience of what I got and done. I have been with 13 other companies as a volunteer. It is important that you have much experience of volunteering than payed, due to the importance of that and teaching yourself and getting that under your belt is key. Finally, on top of the site in the navigation bar will be the ‘Contact’ page this will have relevant information on how to contact me and my social media accounts. Then, I have other links on all the pages as well.

Structure

This is like ‘Surface’ but this time a more in depth consider the design of the my website ; placement of buttons, tabs, photos and block of texts. So, within the site, there will be my name on the top left of the page and at the bottom will be a ‘Navigation bar’ where it has 5 option buttons plus plenty of drop-down menus running alongside ‘portfolio’ . The 5 options will link you to pages and corresponds to the page name and will go and direct you to where it says it will do. Also, a drop-down menu on the buttons will be attached also known as tabs these will again link you to places or go back to the main menu which it is ‘portfolio’ section. There will also have a small picture of different designs and patterns on the page, there will be a photo alongside a small text bow saying what the site is. There will be an attachment to link all social media platforms where you will find all the work what I have done and the on-going work what I am currently doing and what my aims are as a project. So, there will be many small buttons to indicate a state of importance and a must for the viewers’ or my customers to check out. The footer of the site will the menu dock but at the top footer you will have my name and social media links to include other links within my site.