OUGD502 PPP Personal Branding Research Study Task 1

Because we are being asked to create our own self branding I thought it would be useful, first of all to look into what I produced as part of this module last year but also at professionals self branding and what inspires me and catches my eye.

Lat year my self branding centred around the name, the loquacious student and I created a set of merchandise that fitted together to make a tea set to chat over.

At the time I did feel that this project reflected me as a designer. However, as we talked about it in our first PPP session this year I find that It is not messy enough for me now. To elaborate, I mean that over the summer I have increasingly depended on my drawing and hand rendered type skills. I appreciate the work I do this way much more and I enjoy the process in a much more tangible fashion. I also think that it shows a limited message when it comes to my skills as a designer because although it shows that I can use screen print and come up with a solid idea, all it is showing is typographic prowess, and nothing that amazing at that.

So, of this years self branding project I want to do something more illustrative and hands on, because this really communicates that I like to produce my work physically even though I do have an awareness of digital tools.

When I was looking at some website designs for my web design brief I found quite a few portfolios that had interesting brands and logo designs so I will bring these across from that brief and look at them from a branding stand point rather than a web design one.

It can't really be seen in this screen shot but this is the home page logo of the portfolio of Richie Jacobs. He is partially a front end designer as well as a graphic designer. So it is quite minimal design that works well in a digital situation. The tracking of the lettering is really interesting and creates a distinctive look to an otherwise simple font. Although this bares very little resemblance to the logo I want to create for myself, it has the distinct sense of self and continuity of brand. This it achieved by repeating the clean lines and block colours suggested by the font chosen.

I really like the mix of hand drawn type and a digital format. This is closer to the feel and essence that I want to create in my own logo. This is a mix of media that has interested me for a while and something that I need to consider when designing my logo because although the first port of call will be print it needs to look good in digital formats as well, in situations such as my blog or an online portfolio. However, this seems to be created using pixelated images rather than vector graphics which would not actually work well for either print or screen because loading it on a web page is slow and sizing it up for various print dimensions is difficult.

The process of this caught my eye more than the design its self in this situation. This is in fact something that I found a few weeks ago on Pinterest but it seemed relevant in this situation. I believe that this was created using the latest advances in letterpress, in which the design is printed out onto a 3d polymer plate that is then coated wit ink and imprinted into the paper. I love the tactility that this provides and I think this could work really well with some really punch hand drawn type. So, it looks like I need to form a collection of type styles that I could draw from when designing my logo.