Hyper Island in Manchester ... Yes Please !

I regularly update myself with news from Hyper Island, as I have been keen to visit the school in Sweden. This nice surprise of it locating in Manchester's Northern Quarter was a treat! The school operates a program developed by the US Military in 1960s which required leadership skills and life/death decision making.

"The programme's creators realised that the leadership and communication skills were the best way to train personnel for the rapidly changing environment in which they found themselves."

It sounds exciting, with 92% of graduates getting a job before they've finished school - sounds more impressive than ever as it widely recognised across the creative industry.

I am visiting Sweden at the end of this week and I hope to meet the fabulous David McCall, this will definitely be a talking point not to be missed! Just hope he is free ...

LECTURE: Russell Hancock

All images : http://www.russellhancock.com/index.html

Russell Hancock came in yesterday and what a delight! A young, enthusiastic and inspirational designer who has worked on various large and small companies including, The Gadget Shop and Mentos.

After graduating in 2006 from Falmouth, he has worked both Free-lance and Self employed and his lecture was to give us an insight to how you should approach and work with clients, and the difficulties you may endure in doing so.

He has had non paid experience and well paid experience so it was great to hear the reality of a design graduate and all that we have to look forward to! Just some of his main advice was:

-Really listen to good clients, what they are saying will get you business.
-Show your mum (every opinion counts)
-Make yourself in-disposable
-Get your money and a signature upfront
-Getting people to pay for design is not easy!
-Be aware of when to step in with your opinion
-Asses free work carefully
-Remember people / Be remembered
-Become organised

-Get out and Socialise!

I liked his attitude - he was a down to earth character who new the business and how difficult it really is. What I admire about him and Craig Oldham alike is their pure honesty. There's no bullshit - they say it like it is. And personally I want to hear it like this. It is all good and well having fantastic Lecturers in but as we are so close to finishing we need to hear the reality of the Industry.

His work was also as enthusiastic and creative as his personality. He had some really nice work to show, my main favourite was The Gadget Shop as it was really interactive and original. (See images above).
I also liked his attitude to working with small/local business and it was good to hear another creative say that London really isn't the answer to inspiring creative's. The work he has done for the local cinema was also a favourite of mine, using his own initiative he successfully filed his own campaign to improving the building - although being rejected he continued to push and get to a stage he was happy with. Resulting in now working with the new owners to designing and branding the new concept and development.

"Have a life outside of design" was his last point he raised and I hope that after we graduate I can also begin to get my life back and start to enjoy the little things again...

LECTURE: Emily Forgot

Emily Forgot is an interesting designer, she has an interest and passion for Illustration but prefers the process of Graphic Design. Her main inspiration comes from Mid century Illustration, Surrealism and the artist A.M. Cassandra.

Graduating nearly six years ago, she has worked on several impressive commissions including Selfridges, Adidas and Creative Review. Her work is mainly a mix of hand drawn illustration combined with abstract forms of colours and collage. She likes to work collaboratively as the results are more exciting and successful, but finds personal work more liberating as it influences her commercial work.

She had a natural flare for design and I was surprised to see how commercial she worked, I was slightly confused by how she put her work together but obviously a combination of hand drawn work and the computer were used to arrange and add colour.

I liked her, her work was equally as impressive and it was great to see another female lecturer. She was not from my preferred discipline but it was great to see the opportunities she had had and how she overcome certain issues.

FUDGE : DIGITAL

Fudge agency came in to talk to second years today and I tagged along to see some of their work.

Fudge agency is based in Bolton and is currently celebrating its 10Th birthday, they originally worked mainly in print but as the recent rise in digital technologies has grown they have adapted their services to suit client needs. The Creative Director, Gavin Bates who has been with the company for over 6 years came in to give us a talk based on the re branding of "England Squash and Racket ball". This particular brief was for a period of 10 day to 2 weeks where they developed a full pitch based on project scope and evaluation, research and analysis, design concepts and design applications.

They re designed and re branded the brief in a way that eliminated what had already been done before. As he was the main designer he devised 6 concepts that he would show to the client, (shown below in the images) my favourite had to be the typographical approach as it looked ultra modern and it gave the sport a new perspective.

The talk was good, but he didn't really explain what the company did in detail - I think being in third year I want to know this as it gives me more of an insight into the industry. However it was good to go too and I am glad I went. See their website for more of their work:

http://madebyfudge.com/


This is the chosen concept that the client went for.

HEMISPHERE

Hemisphere is a local company based in the heart of the Northen Quarter, Manchester. With only 11 people in the team, they are a well established firm with over 22 years experience within Design and Marketing Consultancy, their experience has created = Strategic Brand Creation.

Hemispheres Creative Director- Grant, Marketing Director- Sue and Senior Designer- Fay came in to give us a talk about their recent work on the Metrolink, and to launch an illustration brief.
They briefed us on several projects they have worked on, e.g. IN Salford, Bolton and most importantly the work they have done with Manchester Trams.

As Manchester is investing a lot of money into the tram system they wanted it to look up to date, Hemisphere were chosen to re brand the Metrolink, and to change peoples perception on the transport system in and out of Manchester.

The brief was quite a difficult task but Hemisphere approached it thoroughly, their new approach was quite graphic and futuristic, taking the form of the colours yellow and metallic silver/bronze. Their approach was:

problem --> research problem/analyse it --> test visual identity against it.

For the re branding they didn't just re design the visuals, they re designed the typography, sign age system and personality. They wanted to make it more recognisable, bespoke and fitting within the city. The branding took three forms:

1)Pattern
2)Type
3)Speed diamond

At each time, two of the forms are used on each design so that it is not overbearing but easily recognisable all around the Greater Manchester area.


I really like the new designs and have seen them out and about in Manchester, so it was very exciting to know it had been done by a local agency. The talk for me was very engaging and it allowed us to hear about corporate guidelines etc, and how an agency worked on it.

Other projects:


Re branding GMEX = "Manchester Central"
The three colour branding is taken from the EU traffic signal for City centres, and as the GMEX complex is at the heart of Manchester is is a good representation.



Re Branding Bolton = The colours are created by a DNA based on colours of what Bolton meant to the people who lived there.

CAREERS ADVICE WITH JAN MOORE

The second lecture was with MMU's finest Jan Moore, a careers advisor for MMU students and graduates.

Although her talk was repeating points that many of us new, she did give some advice that I did not know or would never really have considered. Impressive to note, we can use the careers service up to three years after we graduate (hopefully one might not need too!) and its open all year round!
Her presentation was based on:

-How to be successful
-Networking
-CV/Cover letters
-Skills

The information was good, hugely helpful and I am sure will be most needed in the next few months when we graduate.

The BBC

This week has been truly exciting...we've had more lectures in one week than in the past three months!!

The first of them was with Leanne Dougan from the BBC, who works within the User Experience Design division. Since graduating in 2006, she joined the BBC as a junior designer, her main advice was to work really hard on your portfolio as that's what got her a job.

She now works for the User Experience Design division, with 120 people working within Journalism world service, TV platforms, Vision, Audio and Mobile Central and so forth. Leanne herself started within the Vision division and later moved to TV platforms.
The main things that the BBC look for are core skills that the individual can adapt to different areas, e.g.

-Usability and Accessibility
-Flash, After-effects, Final cut
-Excellent organisational skills and communication skills
-Team work
-User research
-Enthusiasm
-Original thinking

As the BBC is moving up North to MediaCity in Salford Quays there will be potentially a lot of jobs and it is now that we should be applying for and getting work experience. She told us to keep our eyes open!

What I was interested in was the BBC Design Trainee scheme, obviously highly competitive it gives 5 individuals to work within 3/4 departments within the User Experience Design Division. Applications open late June, to start in September.

The BBC is global and sounds like an incredible and fascinating company to work for, myself and several other people were talking about it afterwards and I really think that I would apply for the design trainee scheme or even apply for work experience there, as it is going to be huge in the future. I was very impressed with what she showed us and hope that good things will be in store for the BBC and me!!

LECTURES: HELEN MURGATROYD

I remember Helens work from first year, boy I was impressed then...still am today. She is clearly a talented designer who uses paper, pencil and print to reinvent and play with what affects can be achieved. Now at the RCA doing a MA in Printmaking, she still is exploring what she studied here at MMU. Throughout the 3years on D&AD she was interested in movement and mapping and how things interact with one another. Her studies of the kitchen map the movements and positions we use, almost like a recording of time.

I remember in first year, Sue showing us this work and I knew I had chose the right course, experimentation and opportunities to do your own studies still existed then and now. This is what makes are course different...and better!

She applied to do the MA straight after uni, but wasn’t accepted so she worked as a post lady delivering post and still drawing her journeys, mapping what she saw. In a way this made her more prepared and ready for the MA. The MA up to now is just another journey she is taking, still involving the physical and ways to make things.

She said she is interested in the picture making, than the print itself. It is an interesting thought as the stages we go through as designers becomes the more important, I can relate to what she said. I sometimes feel that the process and learning curve of doing a project always out shines the end result. But it doesn’t mean it’s less important, rather the opposite, as how would you get to that stage without it all?It’s nice to see someone doing what they love; so many people sacrifice opportunities but why should they?

Let life, plan itself on you, not vice versa...

See Helens website http://www.helenmurgatroyd.co.uk/

The human cycle.

This is also from D&AD, she did a project based on the house she lived in.

Some work she did for 'cup' in Manchetser.

LECTURES: HAMISH MUIR

Prior to this lecture I did my own research on his background and became familiar with his style. Part of 8vo, typographer and now a teacher he has had some fantastic experience for over 30 years.At college he never did art but science, from a young age he realised that making things interested him. But being an amateur photographer got him into uni at Bournemouth and Poole Art and Design School. After this he went onto do a Visual Communication BA, where the course leader was Benno Zehnder. It was at this time the work of Wolfgang Weinhart’s poster design of integrating text and image caught his eye. He later went on the Basel School of Design, where he was taught by Armin Hofmann, Kurt Hauert and Andre Gurtler.

After this he didn’t know what to do so he spent 4 years working as a 3D designer. In 1985 he later formed ‘8vo’ with Mark Holt and Simon Johnston. This collective partnership was derived from the printing definition ‘Octavo’. The work they produced was very much influenced from outside of the UK, and they concentrated on typeface design working together.

They worked on Hacienda posters, using collage and hand rendered type on full size posters. It was very much cut and paste. As it was pre-comp there was no record of what it looked like so they took photos to document it. Thank god they did, they were beautiful to look at and so different to the processes we go through now! It was a slow process though; a small correction could take hours. All the posters they designed were photographed in the environment. He believes that photography is disappearing; we are relying too much on 3D/digital, there is a massive difference between the two!The guitar album is only one example that shows how they used layers of glass, hand rendering the type, altering the light to get a photograph that would become the final image.

I really liked the Hacienda’s 7th Birthday poster which illuminated at night, adding a quirky edge, always improving their ideas.

The first computer they got cost £8,000. It took them a year tO use it and even then it was he computer controlling them not the other way round. Finally, they turned it around and began to create posters with a visual impact, distressing type.

The 8vo magazine released in 1986 was designed to be a 16 page booklet that would only have 8 issues, 1 every six months after this it would self destruct. It was a journey through type, each issue had its own individuality, whether with a grid or not it interacted with the viewer. In 1990, they had a two year break and the last issue was an interactive CD rom with voice interaction. The irony of it now is that it cannot be played, technology has out run it. That is the beauty of it, it now exists in a physical time and place.

After this he worked for the Boymans van Beuningen Museum for 5 years designing the posters and brochures.The Flux work he did really interested me, as he spoke about creating a system that was an important feature for any design. It was a design identity that could be applied into other advertising/media. The system has a purpose and function.

The work for 8vo closed in 2001 as web design had caught p with them, so now he teaches at the LCC and is a visiting lecturer at the Basel School of Art.

Some advice: There are too many books on Graphic Design but least his book on ‘8vo’ had something worth saying. It mentions pre comp and how the Industry has changed, talking in an honest way.The role of Graphic Design now is different to how it was. We now have to do it ourselves, there is no dialogue. His work is a great insight to how it was, obviously now we have it too easy...there is a missing link of creating it ourselves, being involved with the elements in a natural way.

For him though, how amazing to have seen this change happen, the progression from what it was, to what it is now, and then to where it is going. What an experience...The type design he is working on now ‘three six’, is all about playing with human perception, overlapping and interlocking become very abstract but the human eye and brain can still determine what the word is.

This is very interesting and relevant to my Silence project.
Website hamishmuir.com.

LECTURES: CRAIG OLDHAM

“This presentation contains foul language. It’s blunt, honest, opinionated, spoken in Yorkshire, wandering and, erm...”

What a delight! I couldn’t describe it better myself!!
He really was everything of the above; a truly honest designer who I felt knew my own insecurities and issues as he clearly had been through it himself. He spoke in language that was on our level, it was interesting and funny. Funny, in a certain way. We knew what he was saying. I remember him saying we bitched about the price of spray mount...and we do!! As he was only 24 years old he knew exactly what we were going through.
The talk was about 12 things he’s learnt outside uni, a basis of what’s to come and what we should expect. It was his opinion, we needed to remember that! Opinions on his experience. He wasn’t going to talk about his own work. He’s been working as a designer now for 3 years, first at the Chase and now Music. In doing this tour he gave us a booklet (a very funky sized booklet about the 12 things he’s learnt outside uni) I am not going to talk about this but the main points that gained my attention.
Firstly I need to understand what Graphic Design means to me, what is my personal view? When you strip away the words what does it mean? Emotional, logical? There is emotional design, it is something different, it appeals to us as humans. Then there is the logical, having meaning for what’s there. I need to choose what side I’m on, it will make it easier in the future. But I also need to be honest to myself, with what I’m good at. Take himself he couldn’t do web design, but he’d try to design the idea then pass it on; spoken as so beautifully “It’s like the fuckin dark arts to me”. Basically emphasizing, don’t bullshit, tell people what you can do and do it good!
Portfolios: you can’t please everyone. Make it clean and simple and relevant to what your showing. Good advice!

Some text he designed.

The front and back cover interact together.





This was for Manchester Evening News, he had about an hour to come up with ideas with other designers. This idea behind is that MEN were moving and how else better than to use the paper folded.

There were the booklets he gave us, a very interesting read.

Placements: in 2005 there were 15,500 graduates in the UK, that’s half of the European total! So don’t mess around, there will be many design graduates when I finish so make sure we are now getting placements. Do not let agencies take the piss of free labour, know when you’re getting the rough deal and move on. Do not let them feed you bullshit, if after 3 months you haven’t got a job move on!
Have a hit list. Know the agencies you want to work for, name your top 10 and aim for the sky. “Spell heir fucking name right”, know them and their work.
Some other advice: Admire and don’t hide ideas. As designers we cannot clock in or clock out, so it’s healthy to do other stuff outside of work, whether that’s taken pictures of type or whatever, we can’t stop being what we are. It’s like this, you’re a Graphic designer or you are a designer? I have decide. Example is Ben Kacey, the boss at The Chase who collected a visual diary for years, sticking 1 thing he did in each day...impressive!
Make mistakes, they are good for you.
He doesn’t ‘bum’ London, there are many great agencies working out of London, explore and know who they are.
His day consists of 20% design a day; the rest is going to meetings, meetings about meetings.
Work hard and be nice to people, make tea and communicate.
If you want it that much, you will get it.
Enjoy it and be honest with yourself.

Michael Bierut “The best thing about design is that it is almost always about something else”

Fantastic lecture and some sound advice. (I don’t think I’ve been so amused by a lecturer)
I felt so exhilarated after it, it sounded like just the life I wanted, well hopefully!?

LECTURE: ALEX FROM YCN

Alex is now working at YCN and came in to talk to us about the YCN Student awards and how we should go about them.

There was alot of really useful information from Alex and it was good to see a design agency open there doors for us to explore. The environment of which they work in, seems a relaxed but visually more interactive. For example they have an in-house library; designers come in to talk about a new brief or a new book they are promoting. He also said that it’s a great environment if I were ever in London, I should pop by and stay active.

The Eureka project was a really interesting graduate scheme that 6 individuals were part of. It made YCN changing the relationship with everyday, new creative people. They documented the 6 week internship on their blog.

Basically keep being creative and we should do all the briefs, get my name known.
The talk was useful, however it did run over and I think all of us could feel the strain of getting fidgety. Alex was tired, I understand that he had had a hectic week but I don’t think he fully represented what YCN are about and how fun they are.

Self Promotion: Graham Jones

Ah Graham, what a delight.

I have seen some of his work in previous years and it all its superbly, detailed thought out. I love the time spent and finishes he adds to his work, like he said "some times the little details count for more", I agree with him.

I really value and listen to everything he says as personally he always has a different opinion not only about my work but life in general. He is a great tutor, and offers fantastic aesthetic advice that brings to life any design. Although his style is unlike my own the simplicity and visual values have and probably will influence my designs.

Self Promotion is something that I generally think about, in this day and age when the Internet and mass media is taking over how can I be different and noticed. Its this stage where I as a designer must shout out and be original to get noticed, differentiate between the other thousand designers that will graduate with me. But I am not going to dwell too much on it now, but I am always thinking and evaluating myself. In a way though I am promoting myself daily thorough the work I produce and how I communicate it, this in turn will benefit me most.