Propsed/Position/Statement

Proposed Position Statement 

short but informative statements that identify my distinctive ‘positioning’ as a graphic designer. Considering my ambitions/skills/areas of creative interest all in relation to the market, clients, competition. 

.  I believe i am most skilled within typography, Using type as a normal means of communication and informing but also using type as a way of illustration and the central focus of design. 

. A big ambition of mine is to design the artwork for snowboards. There is a market for this in the UK however there is a much larger and significant market in America, more specifically on the west coast of America. 

. In the sense of location i propose to firstly work for design agencies around the area of Birmingham and my home town Solihull, this is not only convenient for me but Birmingham is a big city with lots of potential, famous for design based studios, The Custard Factory. 

. As i have a big passion for snowboarding id love to work in the industry. As there isn’t a whole lot of snow in the UK, this area of work could lead me abroad, whether this be in the Alpes or in Canada or America, essentially it could take me around the world. The ski and boarding industry is also seasonal, so the design vacancies may also be seasonal. 

. This year i have re-branded Leeds Met Snowsports, this included designing hoody’s and t-shirts, i have also been asked to design t shirts for a large charity event which is sponsored by some big names, the biggest being Nike. With this in mind i could see myself designing artwork for clothing, this market obviously being global and also very competitive. 

. I feel i am a versatile designer, having abilities within work for print and digital design, however i feel that my knowledge and skills within the field of design for print limit me to be the designer and not have a real part in the print process other than stating what i require. 

 

. Involving my passion for snowsports i can see myself working for related magazines. This genre of material tends to always be quite stylistic and not just a magazine with boring standard layouts, these being a large creative interest of mine. 

. I feel as a designer im not the best around, although i believe i am a competent graphic designer, the industry is a very competitive place and i doubt i am capable to work as a top of the line designer, but i am in the belief of it is who you know not what you know and im very nice!

. At some point during my life i hope to travel the world, go and see places, with this in mind i would like to at a stage become a freelance graphic designer, giving myself more freedomand options to work wherever and whenever. 

. I would love to be a designer and work as a collaborative with some of the friends i have met on the course, i feel doing something i have real passion for with talented and lovely fellow designers would be awsome. 

TaskFOUR///Competition/Evaluation

When looking at the three agencies around the area of Birmingham i found that their strengths and weaknesses were fairly similar. The one biggest difference between the three was that one had won awards and had been professionally recognised. This is one thing that i could aspire to, either winning awards, professional acclaim or working for an agency that had acquired it. I found it quite hard to really find any proper weaknesses in the company from just looking at their websites as they wont be putting any negative stuff about themselves on their and i can’t use subjective language. However i did feel that one agency wasn’t as innovative as the others.So an opportunity there is to always try and be innovative with my design and look at it as being a good strength to have. 

One common strength between the three agencies was the amount of work disciplines they offered, with one offering over 14 kinds. This I see as giving me two options, to compete with agencies/designers like this by offering as many disciplines of work as possible or try and be a specialist in a certain few. Although saying this one weakness i found within one agency was that the work seemed to all be similar so an opportunity would be to try and make all my designs appear to be different and not the same old generic work. Another main point i came across was the location of the studio, i feel the closer to the city centre or the town is better as it becomes more accessible.    

TaskFOUR///Competition

I have decided to look at and compare some design agencies from my home town, Birmingham.

- www.barques.co.uk

- www.bluechillistudio.co.uk

- www.htdl.co.uk

burques

based in city centre

established 1989

sectors; financial services, industrial, retail & leasure, public sector, charity, IT, property and developement, education and recruitment 

Work Offer:  

mostly brochures 

3d 

web pages

corporate ID/branding

10 staff, managers/directing manager, accountant, designers

HTDL

based in henley-in-arden

2 mins drive from my house

creative design/ advertising/ digital work/ branding

Advertising & direct mail

Brand identity & naming

Catalogue design & print

Corporate & sales literature

Corporate communications

Exhibitions & point of sale

Illustration & photography

Marketing & media planning

Packaging design & consultancy

Retail & architectural graphics

Search engine optimisation & social media

Signage & vehicle livery

Video, presentations & interactive

Web design & development

CLIENTS

AGCO

AV Racks

Aviva

Bratz

Britax

CB Richard Ellis

CCI

Cosmo Group

Doncasters

DTZ

General Dynamics Itronix

Global Betting & Gaming Consultants

Halstead Glen Dimplex

Install Automation

Keller

Legion Group Plc

Martineau

Mentus

MIRA

NEC

NFU

No5 Chambers

Number One Model Agency

Real Time Consultants

Redevco

Sellmymobile.com

Solus

Tata Motors

Tate & Lyle

Unipart

Vita Clinics

West FiftyFour

Xact Homes

10 staff members

Blue Chilli studio

quite a bit out of city centre

Advertising
Branding
Brochures
CD-Roms
Copywriting
Corporate Identities

Exhibition Stands

Packaging

Power Point Presentations

Sales Promotions

Website Design and Development

big clients, 

mercedes 

focua

michelin 

Blue Chilli now employs 11 people, 6 in the studio, 4 in account management and 1 in accounts.

                                  

Opportunity

-Selective work offers, specialist? be the biggest and best in that specific chosen field. 

-tours of the studio (seem more welcoming?) 

to offer something unique, something no one else does out of these guys, 

promotional packs?

quotes

taskTHREE///Promotion/Evaluation

How will i promote myself?

-4P’s PROMOTION 

There are for me two obvious and simple ways to advertise and promote myself as a professional designer,

firstly to create a website as a form of giving contact details and showing my work as an online portfolio. Secondly to get business cards printed again giving possibly clients my contact information. 

Looking further into the promotion of me as a product, referring to the marketing communication mix what else is there i can do?

Personal Selling, public relations and promotions are areas of the ‘mix’ that i feel dont really apply to me as a graphic designer. I think the most powerful segment of the mix is definitely the internet. As i said before the main thing would be to create a website, being an online portfolio and also clearly stating my contact information. There are more things i can use the internet for however, firstly, social networks, Creating a facebook page for me as a designer, stating again my contact info and abilities and skills etc. and an important aspect of the facebook page being a link to my website.

Furthermore another thing the internet allows is for me to create a blog as a way of documenting not only my work but also my design process. This being found within google searches which is used by possible clients. This actually happening to me earlier this year, so it does work! 

taskTHREE///Promotion

essential things;

website

-online portfolio

business cards

4 p’s 

product, place, PROMOTION, price

What they want to hear,

Passion for design, past clients/work

price- 4 P’s 

Location

Specialties/skills

marketing communication mix

personal selling

public relations

advertising

direct marketing

promotions

internet

personal selling- direct selling

not for me until acquired client relationship 

public relations

no

advertising 

mostly website

possible magazine/newspaper ad

promotions

no, dont see me doing any promotional offers

im not a high street store or a supermarket. 

direct marketing

not really

possibly tailored packaging- advertising myself to agencies

 

internet

web-site maximization 

links

directories

social sites, fb linking to website-online portfolio

taskTWO///Evaluation

In summary my potential clients are located in the ‘western’ or ‘westernised’ parts of the world, Europe, America, China, Japan, Australia. These then being shortened to countries with good english skills, as foreign countries that want me to work with their language will more than likely end badly as i would have no real grasp on what my designs would be saying. So another language is a big nono. English please. Aswell as languages being a barrier, religion and wider world cultures will affect people wanting me to work for them. 

 Advancements in technology mean i can work pretty much wherever and whenever, and concerning potential clients, as long as they have access to the technology i can send them all my work to them at any given point, A never ending point of communication. Another factor in the location of my clients would be that they would tend to be where the professional standard technology and latest tech would be! These tending to be in the larger, leading/booming/developed cities such as London, New York, Japan, Berlin. Logical to say that a lot of my potential clients will be based in cities such as these. 

Economics stops me really with working less modernized countries and parts of the world, as the consumer demand is close to nothing and with an un-wealthy country it is unlikely for the government to spend money on graphic design.

Politics and differing governments will also affect the location of my clients as there are places in the world that would not want me producing design for them, take North Korea, a country like that i will not be doing any work with or for. 

taskTWO

where are my potential clients located?

Loosely my potential clients is so broad that it could be any country around the world.

Tyring to define where my clients are! 

I would say the western world would tend to be the more potential clients in this day and age, african poverty and all that, 

concerning technology, the location of my clients isnt too much of a problem as i can send all kinds of files at any given point via email(point of contact) this allows me to essentially work with clients all around the world. 

Concerning economics, the need for my work depends upon the consumer demand, this leading to say that poorer countries of the world whom dont have any need or the capital/funds to go and pay me to do some fancy graphics. So to say my potential clients will be in the more ‘modern’ consumerist countires(western world) 

Concerning Politics, due to the state of different countries government and laws i wont be working with anyone from certain areas, e.g. north korea!

Concerning Society and cultural and religion etc it is unlikely me to be doing work for religious purposes as i am of no belief system and have no knowledge.

Although there are a lot of possibilities with working with the wider world, i do not speak any other language than english so this would severely hinder me when working with foreign countries and clients, leads to say they arnt the right clients!

no idea about different styles of lifes/lifestyles and cultures so wont be able to do the job, conerns about causing offense or the meaning lost through translation. How can i work and design something for people i know nothing about.

taskONE/// Evaluation

In general terms i am a graphic designer, i create and design pieces of work that are aesthetically pleasing whilst answering to a problem set, whether this be informing or advertising, etc.

I much prefer working with type, however i do also create and use illustrations throughout my designs and design process. As i do prefer type i am a Mac based designer although i consciously try and avoid jumping straight onto illustrator or photoshop when set a brief. i am an idea generator and a good one at that.  

One of my main skills i believe i possess is the ability to think of several good ideas for briefs and projects set.

Im fairly skilled with photoshop and illustrator and Indesign, Indesign being my weak point out of the three, however my progress with the program is ongoing.

I also have good people skills, having these from generally being a happy-go-lucky person! Evidence proving this being as i work in a successful bar and have done so for over 2 years and am social sec for leeds met snowsports. 

In a nutshell the people who need my skills as a designer are people on behalf of a business, corporation's, charities or organizations that need something designed. These people will either go through design agencies or with freelance designers, so it is also the agencies that require me and my creative skills!

Concerning my aims in a professional sense, i feel as though if i can live comfortably and happily via my income as a graphic designer il be all good! I also want to be able to see something in the public eye and be able to proudly say that i made it.

TaskONE

who am i?

who are they? 

 So who am i as a creative?

In general terms i am a graphic designer, i believe i create and design pieces of work that are aesthetically pleasing whilst answering to a problem set, whether this be informing or advertising. What kind of graphic designer am i? I much prefer working with type, however i do also create and use illustrations throughout my designs and design process. As i do prefer type i am a Mac based designer although i consciously try and avoid jumping straight onto illustrator or photoshop when set a brief. i am an idea generator and a good one at that i like to believe!  

What skills do i posses? 

.One of my main skills i believe i possess is the ability to think of several good ideas for briefs and projects set.

.Im fairly skilled with photoshop and illustrator and Indesign, Indesign being my weak point out of the three, however my knowledge of the program is ongoing.

.I have good people skills, from generally being a happy-go-lucky person! 

evidence proving this, worked in a successful bar for over 2 years and am social sec for leeds met snowsports. 

What skills are needed? Developing these skills?

A knowledge of print and print methods.  At the moment in time i have knowledge of like the fundamentals, however as the year progresses and we are taught and lead into the world of print and all its glory my knowledge and skills with it will increase! 

understanding of everything type, learning to look at your own designs and designs around the world and see if its right/works/does its job, matters concerning kerning,weight etc I am developing these skills through working with type through out my briefs and the type module itself. 

Skills and an understanding of design as a profession, experience. Learn through work placements in the next following years. 

My professional aims as a creative? 

essentially be a successful respected designer. Be able to live comfortably and happily with my income as a professional designer(freelance?) 

To have something in the public eye and be able to say proudly i designed that. 

How do these aims relate to the outer world?

-If i want to be able to live off an income earnt through being a professional graphic designer someones going to be paying me for work and my work will be going out into the world! If my work ends up being in the public eye then it will effectively have an impact on other peoples lives. 

 

Who is looking for me as a creative?

In a nutshell people/Business’s/companys/organizations/charities/brands that want graphic design/ something to be designed for them/their own purposes.

These people then going through design agencies/freelancers/in-house designers to get what they want. 

So can look at it from two angles      1. Design agencies looking for creatives to join their team/freelancers for a period of time.       2. People in the world wanting to pay for graphic design for their company.

Some research into existing Agencies lead me to the website,

http://www.ukgraphicdesigner.co.uk/

A search engine which shows Design agencies in your given Town or city, example below!

These are two examples of websites i found from this site,

The first being 7Nine, an agency based in Leeds,
And the website for freelance graphic designer, Russell Hall