Two Points

Two Points was my favourite studio we visited in Barcelona. We went at 4pm and despite it being absolutely boiling hot the studio space was amazing and the talk was really inspirational.

The work they presented was really my style as I love branding and their use of colour caught my eye, as I tend to use lots of colour in my own projects.

My favourite projects they'd done were the Quaderns magazines which were journals about architecture in Barcelona - these journals were beautiful and after looking at them I am now way more interested in looking at editorial work whereas I wasn't before the visit.

Some of the photos they used for this piece were quite bad quality and they way they counteracted this issue was using lower grade quality paper or converting the photos to monochrome - making the photo look as if it was meant to be lower quality. I loved this little tip as I thought it was resourceful and a way of giving individuality to your project without giving yourself extra work.

Another personal favourite was their identity for the ADI awards, the identity was created based on the previous symbols included in the old identity. The shapes, a triangle, hexagon and 12 sided shape were used based on Futura and used to create lettering. What I loved about this project was the way they honoured the old design whilst giving it a fresh new look. The studio chose not to create a logo for the awards as they wanted the identity to be flexible and one that could develop every year - and they consider a logo to be a fixed message. Instead they relied on the shapes to give some consistency.

The studio really got involved with explaining the project to us, showing us design boards which I found so helpful, it was good to see their process instead of just the finished product. 

Some of what the lady said really resonated and stuck with me.

The first thing was that form and content always influence eachother. Think of all elements in parallel - something at the end of the process influences the design decisions made earlier.

One tip was to watch/read the news and keep up to date with current affairs and trends. They had a problem once with a design an illustrator made because of a current issue on the news, and the illustration had to be adjusted so as not to offend anyone involved. 

Probably the thing that has stuck with me most is her advice to document everything. A well documented project will go further than a well presented project with no documentation - you cannot see the process going on behind the scenes and just relying on a well presented outcome will not get you the job.

hey studio

Hey studio was our second studio visit in Barcelona on the Friday. After walking for 45 minutes in the rain we arrived at the cool studio space.

The talk involved the lady who set up the studio talking through how she did it, and through each project that was on the table. The studio wokrs primarily with editorial design, illustration and branding, as well as creating products to sell on their shop.

One of my favourite projects was ArtFad: Contemporary Art and Craft Awards. The invites were based on the A from the ArtFad, and the A was broken up into shapes to create a structure. The patterns in each shape were applied individually by hand, and no 2 invites were created the same. This led to 500 unique invitations.

My personal favourite project was their every day project where the studio would illustrate a famous figure and post it to their Instagram page. The page amassed quite a following and led to the studio making a book and small statues out of the illustrations.

Barcelona

The Barcelona trip was just what I needed to clear my mind after the stress of the first and second module hand ins.

On the Monday we just explored the city a bit, we walked down to Las Ramblas, grabbed some paella and wandered down to the marina.

On Tuesday it was really hot so we took the day to explore the Sagrada Familia and then spent the day in Parc Guell which was one of the highlights of my trip as it was so hot and I really wound down and spent some time sketching and relaxing.
In the afternoon we went to Two Points design studio.

On the Wednesday we went to the design museum. There was an exhibition on about poster design through the years which was really interesting to look at.

Self Branding lesson

In a brainstorm session small groups of us helped each other to build a basis for our self branding brief.

As I love music and festivals, the idea was suggested that I incorporate that into my branding, and possibly create personalised songs for companies, inspired by Mr Bingo (above). However I am not a great singer I thought another idea might work better.

Someone mentioned the fact that I sometimes inform others of new designers/songs etc, so I thought this might be a good starting point.

'the little pot of inspiration'.

The premise being my business card would act as a source of inspiration to people.

The card would feature the phrase 'Have you seen this?' and a blank space below for me to handwrite something that has inspired me recently, for example, an artist/designer/singer/ website url, exhibitions, architecture etc. All business info would be on the back of the card.

When I revisited the idea I decided to change the name. After struggling for a while I settled on a play on words and branded myself 'sauce of inspiration.' After editing I cut it down to just 'sauce'.

Brand:

Sauce

The tastier mix of design and inspiration.

Leeds based designer aiming to inspire and enlighten the world.