Which Logo?

Catching up on all of my blog posts today, they're clogging up my drafts! 

I know which my favourite logo is, but the question is what does everyone else pick? 

Could you all be dolls and vote for which one you prefer (and why, or how you'd improve?)

Big love!

Searching for an agent..........

One of the points of this project is to find someone you want to impress and make a piece of packaging that will impress them. I’ve been cooped up in the art world for too long and am not really aware of any agencies out there, so I’m off to google to see what I can do.

Workshop 002 – Logos

Still in the topic of branding ourselves, the focus of this workshop was to create a logo using our initials.

Had a go at drawing a few ideas out first but I always find I get further by actually playing with the physical letters and moving the shapes around until I find something to work with.

At first I thought ‘G and M? What a rubbish set of initials’ until I discovered circles. I really fell for the idea of simplifying the letter shapes, turning them both into circles with a stick to differentiate between the G and the M. Circles have connotations wholeness, protectiveness and honesty, which I think is perfect for representing this company and everything that they stand for.

Playing about with so many different ways of linking the G and the M, I decided I wanted the G to be thicker than the M, and for them to be the same size.

Inspiration #2

Hannah Höch

Dada-Ernst, Vera and Arturo Schwarz Collection, Milan

Untitled, Morton G. Family Collection

Hannah was one of a group of pioneers of Photomontage during the rise of the Dada movement (favourite movement alert, it encourages mess and embraces and nonsense). A lot of her work has the subject of beauty and materialism, but every piece is intricately put together to create an interesting piece that lets you see something new every time you look at it.

We touched upon the Dada movement last semester in a couple of our modules and shame on me for not researching it properly, but it seemed like the perfect design movement; cutting and sticking! My understanding of the movement, (or at least the bit where designers used collage as a medium) was using raw material, papers, photographs, anything on a particular subject (usually political) and would cut them up, mix them up any which way and would turn them into a piece that reflects their thoughts on that subject. To you and me it's a collage, but a clever one.

Linking to my previous Inspiration post, it's interesting to see where the work that Martin O'Neill does was born.

(It's a lot of fun)

Curated...by Narratives conference

I spent my Saturday this week at uni watching four very interesting people from the big wide world of design.
I always enjoy going to these sorts of events because there is just something about a person stood before you giving you a guided tour along their personal path, and through the turns they made before they became who they are today.

Morag Mysercough was first to take to the stage and opened with the words: "I'm going to spend the next hour telling you stories about my life" and I was captivated already. From a young age she was always exposed to a creative world and pooled every aspect of it together into her own work. Started off with Graphic Design but found it too 'limiting', Morag went onto to find her niche in using Graphic Design in the architectural sense. This began when she did some work purely for herself and displayed pieces in a makeshift exhibition called 'My House'. Since, she has formed 'Supergroup' based in London and has worked individually on projects varying from creating exhibitions at the Design Museum and more recently designing the interiors of schools and hospitals (slight touch of being star struck, she designed the new Kirk Balk, I know that school!) with a love of bright colours and flare for giving every piece a back story (note: getting children to create patterns to then merge them and use one super pattern).

Jack Schulze came up next with his entertaining presentation of his technical and electrical background. Him and his team 'Berg' have worked on so many ingenious projects, the world's favourite being 'Little Printer', and spoke honestly about the way him and his team would approach a project, learn about the subject by researching it as far as flying out to China to watch how it's made! I found his talk particularly reassuring because he spoke so honestly about long nights surviving only on Relentless (because it's cheaper than Red Bull) and made us all feel better about our future paths. Such a down to Earth designer in one of the fastest moving areas of 'production design' or, 'design for internet things', as he so quaintly put.

Jonny Kelly had the difficult job of keeping us entertained whilst we were digesting. He works for Nexus as a director of animations and has made some beautiful pieces for some really big name companies, (Adobe, Chipotle, Google/Youtube). He fed us with some videos that he himself found inspirational which was very interesting to see how his mind actually works, and picks up ideas. He mostly works with stop animation and the work within them varies across disciplines and creates a wonderfully handmade and unique feel to it.

After a long wait, Erik Kramer finally arrived (through our flash-blizzard) from Amsterdam to present to us his hilarious approach to producing quality Graphic Design. From the anti-advertising of possibly the worst hotel in Amsterdam to producing endless books of found photographs (of a woman through her life, a woman always in water and a  woman shooting her own photos) all telling an open story of their lives that leave so many possibilities that we become the storyteller. He left us all in a cheery mood after watching him flick through pictures of his bunny with objects on his head. A brilliant end to a fantastic day. Left feeling so inspired and dreaming of a day when I might be able to present to fresh-faced designers my story!

Inspiration #1

Martin O'Neill 

This man presented the first Curated...by lecture that I'd ever seen, and since that day, his work and style of working has stuck firmly in my mind. I found his collages really interesting, especially the nature of collecting the raw materials from various places: a dump, charity shops, flea markets, the closet... 

  

The Guardian - How to Write Poetry 

The Folio Society

Since seeing his work and hearing him speak so passionately about something as mundane as finding papers I have been transfixed with the idea of illustrating this way. I find there is so much energy and personality bursting out of every piece. I found him so inspiring, with so many stories tell and adventures to document, and this is what I like about a piece of illustration, if it can tell a good story. I'm gonna coin the term 'sentimental design'. 

Osum Oil - Taxi - Canada

The Folio Society

I noticed that a few of his commissioned pieces involved a character with collage bursting out, as if their mind had exploded right onto the page in front of him. 

My favourite thing about this man was his method of working. Obviously, to create such beautifully detailed collages you need a lot of raw materials. Lots of books, magazines, oodles and oodles of found papers and things. To accommodate this, he has a set of drawers which are just as detailed and intricately placed as his work. I love the idea of cutting up every interesting (or not!) image and tidying it away for a later date when it will be perfectly placed in another one of his masterpieces. 

Martin's desk tidy

It's amazing what you can do with a piece of paper (or several!)

Guided by Invoices