Andy Chambers - Design Symposium 2009

The Liverpool Symposium finally arrived and myself and three classmates were eager to get there on time. As we arrived at Lime Street Station, we were slightly confused on where the location was. We found ourselves walking around Liverpool, portfolios in hand asking random people where the symposium could be. We finally walked in the first talk 15 minutes late but we were lucky not to miss much. Andy Chambers was the first speaker and his talk was great. He is co-Founder of Digit, one of the UK’s longest established digital design companies and had a black D&AD pencil for the National Gallery’s Grand Tour. He explained his area of design goes from illustration to advertising and his main area is using branding within channel advertising on television and the internet. He touched on the D&AD brief and explained an interesting strategy as looking at the brief, as a business objective by finding a way to match the brand and the consumer together will find your answer in the brief.

Andy explained different methods in advertising by exploiting things what we see and hear everyday. He advised we should use everything we have to get ideas. Being ‘’Crazy’’ and thinking outside the box will make you stand out in the crowd. When reading a brief, Andy said the insight is to find the solution of the problem and a way of doing this is to engage with the target audience. Using things what are today’s interests like Facebook and Twitter can give you an idea as your researching the audience by reading g there thoughts. Andy also touched on how branding would act and differ from the ideas you think of. He also touched on the Metro brief which was usful. All though we arrived late, the talk was very useful.

Design Workshop with the Chase ( Mika Shephard ) - Design Symposium 2009

As the symposium was going well, myself, Nick Entwistle and James Clancy was looking forward to a design workshop with the Chase which we registered the previous week. We all felt this was an opportunity not to be missed. As the confirmation e-mail was sent a day before the event, I was unable to put together any work but was happy to discuss ideas and indulge in thoughts and ideas of others. Designer Mika Shephard was great and was happy for us all to think of ideas no matter how silly they seemed to be. As myself, Nick and James was representing Stockport/John Moore’s University, three young students from Leeds studying MA Advertising as wel as a tutor from Preston also attended. The brief was to brand an underlay for a carpet and come up with ideas of how to advertise the product in an effective way. The Chase had previously done this brief back in 2004 and it was interesting to see their final ideas after discussing the possible outcomes we all thought of. I felt the workshop was refreshing and talking through ideas with different people other than my classmates was useful.

24/7 Thinking

These days, it feels like I have creative thinking on my mind all the time. I seem to be thinking about ideas with everything I see or hear. This in some strange way makes me feel good, as my motivation is always strong. I may think of an idea after watching a television advert and note it down in my phone or notebook so I don’t forget them. I tend to re visit the ideas weeks after thinking of them. I remember being half awake in the middle of the night this past week and for some reason, I had an idea in my mind and noted it down in my mobile phone. As I looked back at this the next day, I could not understand my thinking or what I was trying to tell myself. After a few days of thinking of my idea, or whatever it was I was telling myself, I realised what I was trying to say. Playing with strap lines or the use of type is effective in a creative way and all though I may no understand my full idea, I was happy to get something out of my thinking.

Design Symposium 2009

Last year, as a group, we made a trip to the 2008 the Design Symposium held in Liverpool. I have to admit, looking back, I felt I didn’t get as much out of the even as I could have. Throughout the past year, I have got to know the industry greatly and I was informed the 2009 symposium was due on the 4th of November but nothing was organised with my tutors for a class visit. I decided to look up the event and see what the schedule was. I was surprised to see a vast amount of lectures, talks and workshops being held this year and I instantly registered my places. Also on the card was a talk by designer Michael Wolf which cost £8. I was eager to go and made the purchase with a few classmates. Also on the schedule this year was portfolio crits with D&AD designers. Again, I was eager to get as much as I could out of the day so this was a perfect time to re-design my portfolio. I look forward to the 4th.

One Minue Brief - Nike

Fellow classmate Nick Entwistle had an idea of challenging yourself on one-minute briefs. He recently felt slightly bored and pressured working on the project he had at the time so he decided to step away from the project and work on random suggested briefs from other classmates and try to design something within a minute. I was intrigued about this and decided to give it a go. I was to re design the Nike logo and funnily enough, it had positive results. My idea was to change the wording from Nike to Swoosh, as the identity is not a tick, which Nike is passionate on letting people know about. I enjoyed taking part in this I plan to do this more often.

Word Festival (old work)

Looking back on my work once more was a nice feeling for me. I have briefly been searching some old data discs with some old work I had forgotten I had done to see my improvements as a designer. The particular project was to promote the 2008 Word Festival. A poster campaign was the main deliverability for the brief but designing a logo, flyer and ticket stub was extra work, which I had done and presented in my final show. All though I feel I have improved as a designer, looking back, I still feel proud for work I completed back on the HND and this motivates me to try my best with the projects I have today.

Word Festival (Old ideas)

I had recently come across my first ideas for the Word Festival brief his week. I noticed how differently I think now to how I thought back then. I feel my final was the best looking back on the project but still like the idea of playing with magnetic type.