Colin Davies - Guest Speaker

Today we were treated to an inspirational talk by Colin Davies of 'one nine four' design studio based in Heaton. Colin is a self taught graphic designer and has learnt all he knows from books, in fact he is still learning from books and can't speak highly enough of this method of education. Colin began university education studying business but soon decided that it wasn't for him and began learning the basics of design, Colin now runs his own successful studio, one nine four, which is the number of the flat the company first originated from, today he shared 10 lessons to live by on the road to becoming a successful graphic designer...

Lesson 1: trust your instincts

Colin advised us that if your instincts tell you that something isn't right for you to trust them and not do it. Colin refers here to the fact that he hated studying business and knew that it wasn't for him. 

Lesson 2: develop your own identity

I like this one, Colin's work is colourful and fun. His business branding is fluent and consistent from the business card he gave me to the one nine four website

Lesson 3: make yourself appear bigger than you are

You don't have to run a massive organisation to take on a big job, Colin told us how he has, on occasion made out that his studio is bigger than it is to secure a job. You can always collaborate with others to get the job done, Davies is a fan of collaboration.

Lesson 4: get everything in writing

This is to ensure you get paid what you are due, as verbal agreement can often change. If it's written in black and white there can be no discrepancy, speaking from experience.

Lesson 5: have a good idea before you do anything

If the idea is good then the design will generally work. If it's not a good idea then why bother.

Lesson 6: if you don't think you can do it - do it anyway

Push yourself, see what happens.

Lesson 7: if you are using a different language, get it proof read

Don't just take an internet translation and run with it, find someone who knows an check. This could save time, money and embarrassment.

Lesson 8: if there is a problem, discuss it,  then there is no problem

Get things out in the open. Discuss issues with clients, it makes life easier. Discussing the issues with Go North East's busses with their head office lead to a big job for Colin and his team, he spent hours travelling on the busses, taking photographs of conflicting design issues and confusing displays, when he presented the findings to the head office, they asked if he would design a streamline brand to run throughout the company.

Lesson 9: be nice, clients will warm to you more as a person

It is great to build rapport with a client, they will be more likely to contact you for future jobs and recommend you to others. #befriendly

Lesson 10: develop your own intellectual property

This could serve you for life.

This talk was truly inspirational, I am keen to get my hands on some good graphic design books and expand my creativity. I will definitely be thinking about Colin's words of wisdom and taking his advice on board in the future.

I have been enjoying looking at the work on the one nine four website take a look :-)

Time Plan... November

Final Packaging Nets

These are nets of how the final packaging for Phonica would look, I am really pleased with the way my design worked on the card, it has a rustic feel that I was trying to achieve. The address is to be hand written in a black marker pen for each parcel as this adds a more personal touch. I had the marker pen idea during my research, throughout the Phonica store labels and posters have been written by hand in marker pen, incorporating this in to my design also incorporates a little of the personality of the shop in to the online shopping experience.

 

I created the black ink lines and swirls using oil paint and a plastic knife,

• I sqeezed a blob of black oil paint on to a large sheet of paper and used a roller to spread it evenly.
• I then took another sheet of paper and lay this on top.
• I used the edge of a plastic knife to create shapes on the paper, I went for swirls and wavy lines to immitate the look of a vinyl record and of sound waves.
• I then separated the pages and scanned the images in to photoshop.

Laser Cut Prototypes

These are my laser cut packages, a poster tube and a cd box, the design has worked really well and all of the dimensions were accurate. There was a slight problem, as I expected, with the fold lines due to the card being corrugated in the middle so I would need to look at other card if my designs were to go in to production, however, I overcame this problem for the sake of these models by scoring deeper fold lines using a metal rule and some scissors.

Today I drew up the nets for my package designs using illustrator and prepared them for the laser cutter, i followed the guidelines from the tutorial with Nick.

I used etch along the lines that are to be folded in order to score them. The nets looked good on the computer so I'm hoping they will turn out well. I selected quite a thick card for the packaging and have since found that, because it is corrugated in the middle, It may experience a problem with certain folds.  

Factory Records

I have been looking at the iconic record label Factory Records, during my research of the label I came across this Factory branded parcel tape. I was inspired by this to create a tape that would work well with Phonica packaging, this is what I came up with...

Phonica competitor research

I have looked at other independent record stores that also offer online shopping, I came across Rough Trade East which has been around nearly as long as Phonica and is also hugely successful. Sister Ray and Sounds of the Universe.

Rough Trade East has a similar feel to Phonica, they offer online shopping and host events instore, online shopping is more competetive than highstreet as location does not play a factor, customers could be swayed by packaging or the look of a website.

I can't find a website for Sister Ray so I don't think they will be an online competitor for Phonica but, they do take part in events such as record store day and are a hugely successful independent store.

Sounds of the universe also has a website and offers online shopping.

The websites for the stores are all well presented and the products are clearly visible making shopping easy, I want my packaging to help create a brand loyalty to Phonica, of all the stores I think that Phonica has a slightly more edgy feel, I aim to reflect this in my design.

Phonica Records Packaging

The brief is to design mail order packaging for Phonica Records that gives the customer a taste of the instore buying experience...

I started research for thiis brief by looking at Phonica records website and store, to help get a feel for the look and colours used I created some moodboards in my sketchbook, from these moodboards, a black, white and grey colour scheme emerged. The Phonica website is designed using greyscale, this helps the album artwork stand out from the screen when viewing the website.

This colour scheme inspired me to try out some patterns and designs using mixed media, I used charcoal, graphite, marker pens, fine liners, oil paints and ink to try out mark making, I wanted to create a hand rendered look as in my research of the store many of the signs and labels had been created by hand using marker pens.

Phonica Research

People shop at Phonica for a personal, unique shopping experience that can't be achieved in high street chains. Phonica website has a distinctive style and I feel that the packaging I develop should reflect this and recreate some sense of the in store experience. In order to inject the 'Phonica look' in to my packaging I have been looking at the logo and colour scheme of the Phonica website.The Phonica logo is catchy, I like the small lines and dots underneath the letters, I will try out some patterns and designs using these shapes. There is a distinctive grey scale theme with everything that is not actual record artwork on the website, this really makes the artwork stand out and creates continuity throughout. I plan to experiment with this colour scheme, I want the parcel that arrives to be instantly recognisable as a 'Phonica' parcel.

My next task is to look at the products I will be designing packaging for. Phonica offer a wide range of products for sale aside from music, the range includes:  

VINYL
RECORD SLEEVES
HEADPHONES
T-SHIRTS
SPEAKERS
MAGAZINES/BOOKS
RECORD BAGS
CD'S
POSTERS

The product range is extensive so I have decided to concentrate on just a couple of these products for my designs to create a feel for what the full range would look like.

Love Chloe re-brand

I am collaborating with Donna McTaggart for the rebrand task, we have decided to re-brand the 'Love Chloe' perfume bottle and packaging as we thought it looked a little tired and we wanted the challenge of bringing it up to date for a contemporary market.

After researching the brand I fohisund that Chloe is celebrating it's 60 year anniversary, with this in mind I was inspired to create some designs based on 1950's style, when the fashion house was founded, but with a contemporary twist...