OUGD602 | Personal & Professional Practice 3 | Overall Module Evaluation

OUGD602 | Personal & Professional Practice 3 - Module Evaluation

In conclusion of the overall module of OUGD602 - Personal and Professional Practice 3. I found this module inspiring and interesting. This especially the studio visits such as Robot food, The Elephant and The Pop up agency. These various talks enabled an insight on what to expect when either freelancing or working in a company. This is something to consider when applying to jobs or starting an own business after University. The talks explains their experience with working in this industries the challenges, positives and hardships which help and was relatable to what I would like to execute in the near future. In particular starting my own brand is what I am currently interested in, another interest is finding a stable job at an agency or company and considering a Masters degree in Graphic Design but this is not of interest yet.

Thus before creating the new brand’s designs aspects and concepts, I needed to rebrand my self-identity logo, which is also part of the modules outcomes. The initial stages of rebranding my logo was challenging at first, this was due to challenge of wanting me self-brand to consist of my initials of my forename and surname. Unlike other logo designs which designers use their initials as their brand, the letters of my name were difficult to merge or combine together in a harmonious and parallel format. After a numerous amounts of trials and errors when designing my self-branding logo design I was able to create my finalised self-branding logo which is known as ‘Sung’. Sung is my surname and the Chinese writing translation of this is like this ‘宋’. The Chinese character ‘Sung’ still consists of my first letters of both my forename and surname. Overall, I am very pleased that my rebrand logo identity was successful and I am satisfied with my results. The new rebrand logo is now my new profile for two social media platforms: Instagram and Behance.

Despite this achievement of the rebrand logo, I am still inactive in these platforms. The reasoning of this is that I was not proud to upload images of my lasts projects and design. But I have tried coming out of my shell and tried to be active online. One way I have is by creating a website with Squarespace and this has become my online portfolio and in Linkedin I have tried to be more active by updating my profile picture and engaging/connecting with others. These accounts will be able to assist me after graduating at the university and hopefully get a head start to a new chapter in my life as a Graphic designer.

Unfortunately, it took more time than I expected to secure a placement, for a number of reasons. I received rejections from some companies who explained they had already taken on their quota or were not accepting any creative internship at that particular time. Some replies were received rather late and I did not receive replies to some of my requests.

However, I have now managed to organise a two placement. One located in London called Digital Light Ltd and the other in Manchester at a manufacturing company, named Rainbow. Which both will commence in June and August of 2018. On reflection, feel I did not send enough emails early enough, as I expected to receive positive replies. I now know that this task is not as easy as I had anticipated.

In future, I would therefore send many emails earlier, in the knowledge that I may not receive a positive reply from a proportion of these. I would also take my requests wider, to include manufacturing companies.

In addition, I believe I did lack in the PPP3 module by not going/visiting talks and studios outside of University. This was due to my lack of timescale on the module OUGD603 Extended Practice, I focussed on Extended Practice too much that I left PPP3 till the last minute. To conclude, PPP3 has been insightful and helpful with preparing me on what to do after University and the reality expectations of working in this kind of industry. I now know I need to be more active and approachable as a designer and find lots of opportunities even if placement to build up my CV.

OUGD602 | Personal & Professional Practice 3 | Placements Information

Digital Light Ltd, London - http://digitallightltd.com

About - Team

Based in London, we are a creative post production team trusted by the worlds leading brands. We’ve come a long way in the last 10 years expanding into all key areas of post production. Our ethos has remained unchanged - use our passion and creativity combined with our expertise to produce inspiring visual content. We apply the same principles of refinement and artistry to everything we touch.

WHAT WE DO?
At Digital Light we create iconic and award winning imagery. We have honed our skills in retouching, animation, CGI and video grading to consistently realise our clients' vision. We pride ourselves on our meticulous attention to detail and hold each other to those high standards. The team’s friendly and personal service extends to both pre and post production advice, so whatever your project requires - we’ve got it covered.

• Creative Direction
• Photographic Retouching
• Matte Painting
• CGI Creation & Animation
• Video Editing
• Motion VFX & Compositing
• Video Grading
• Epson GMG Certified Proofing
• Secure Client FTP

Rainbow, Manchester - http://www.rainbowcosmetics.co.uk

About Us

Rainbow Cosmetics is a family run business established in 1990 by husband and wife team, John and Heather Sharman, to wholesale top brand fragrances and cosmetics.

Prior to setting up Rainbow Cosmetics John and Heather worked for Heather’s grandfather’s business, Neilds (household toiletries and food wholesalers), where they witnessed a strong demand for discounted fragrance. Seizing the opportunity they set up their own fragrance kiosk which turned over in excess £1m in the first year.

From there the wholesale business quickly grew in size and reputation to become one of today’s largest independent distributers of top brand perfumes and cosmetics in the UK with a rapidly growing international presence. Rainbow was instrumental in bringing affordable perfumes to the consumer through the Co-op, Somerfield, Savers and Bodycare.

In 2000 Rainbow introduced their own cosmetics brands Sunkissed and Active Cosmetics - to increment the fragrance sales.

In 2010 Stephen Sharman joined Rainbow as Managing Director, allowing his father John to step into the role of chairman. Stephen's introduction to the business injected fresh ideas and retail experience; he was previously Sales Operation Manager at Lidl. He also brought a renewed focus on the Rainbow brands and export opportunities. In the same year Stephen joined the business Rainbow Cosmetics was shortlisted for the HSBC Business Thinking Regional Award and was listed 34th in the UK International Track 100 in 2011.

More recently, Rainbow, determined in the development of its own brand portfolio introduced a specialist brand team and invested in the research and development of new collections. In 2013 Rainbow introduced a new self-tan collection under the Sunkissed brand and launched Style & Grace The English Gift Company with three eye-catching collections: Style & Grace Signature, Decadence and the Spa Collection.

OUGD602 | Personal & Professional Practice 3 | Placement Confirmations

Third attempted - resending third emails
Due to the lack of responses and rejections from many agencies. I retried to contact the agencies which did not reply to be just in case they had not seen my email. A few days or weeks later I was able to received to confirmation emails from the design agencies: 'Digital Light Ltd, located in London' and 'Rainbow, located in Manchester'. Underneath are screenshots of the confirmation of the placement being set.  

Placement - Digital Light Ltd, email confirmation

Placement - Rainbow, email confirmation

For the Rainbow placement, the reason why they could not give me a definitely answer as the manufacturing company did not think it was fair to have placement without getting pay. Therefore the Operation manager needed to authorise this, I had to call the Operation manager to confirm the information from me to start
placement. 

Placement Sheet forms

Rainbow packaging manufacturing company

Digital Light Ltd 

Evaluation of Placement

These placements will start after the end of my degree which is in June and August of 2018). To repeat unfortunately, it took more time than I expected to secure a placement, for a number of reasons. I received rejections from some companies who explained they had already taken on their quota or were not accepting any creative internships at that particular time. Some replies were received rather late and I did not receive replies to some of my requests. 

However, I have now managed to organise a placement in London at Digital Lights and to organise a second placement at a manufacturing company, named Rainbow in Manchester. These placements were either secured through family connections or the company did not respond immediately to my request, but on a second email to them, they agreed that I could work with their agency during the dates shown above. I felt comfortable in emailing again, as I had previously been on placement at this company during the summer break, which followed the first year of my degree course.

Overall, I did feel I did not send enough emails early enough, as I expected to receive positive replies. I now know that this task is not as easy as I had anticipated. In future, I would therefore send many emails earlier, in the knowledge that I may not receive a positive reply from a proportion of these.

OUGD602 | Personal & Professional Practice 3 | Self branding Reform - Final Design & Evaluation

Final Design
Below are my final design of my redesigned self branding logo 'Sung'.

 

Evaluation

In conclusion, the redesign of my self-branding was very success. In the initial stages of redesigning my self-branding identity logo I found it challenging when combining the first initials of my forename and surname. Compare to others self-branding logo design that also consists of a combination of their first and second name.  Majority had letters that were similar shape and size especially when its has straighter edges ad lines. Whereas my initials have two different shapes and size the letter ‘K’ has lots of straight edges and the letter ‘S’ contains more curved edges.

Despite this trial and error of merging the two initials together I was able to make the letters work in harmony. Before the logo became a Chinese character logo, it was first supposed to look like my forename and surname. But after a numerous amount of times of observing the logo design and adding the extra line in the middle stroke in-between the ‘K’ and ‘S’ and rotating it at 90 degrees became more like a Chinese Character which is the written Chinese writing of my surname, Sung.  This concluded my final logo design as when given feedback majority said that the Chinese character is more like a brand logo.

For the colour scheme and typeface choice, I used but slightly altered the previous colour scheme and typeface from my previous self-branding logo known as ‘Beyond’. The beyond logo’s colour scheme was gold, dark blue, silver and white.  The dark blue colour was altered to a light blue instead and it fit with the concept and a shadow for the finalised ‘Sung’ logo.  The typeface of the new logo is the same typeface used for the previous self-identity. The reasoning of this remaining is that my logo is designed in a geometric style, this is similar to the creation of the 'Futura' typeface. Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner. It was designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurt-project. It is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period.

I believe this kind of logo can potentially be marketed further due to its shape and design. By visually viewing the logo printed on business cards, poster designs and the sticker set. I may even produce more merchandise later on to make sure that my brand is well known across the industry. Therefore this brief has been the most enjoyable and satisfactory as I am proud to use and show off the audience and platforms.