The most stressful and rewarding year of my life.
Throughout my degree, my aim was to develop a skill set each year.
First year I learnt exactly what Graphic Design is, as well as beginning to use Adobe Illustrator & InDesign. Second year I felt my skills in branding were something I pushed. This year, I am so glad I went to Slovenia and learnt about type design, as it's shaped this year significantly.
My first brief of the year was Madison, which taught me more about designing typefaces and universal typographic characters. This also taught me to look at letters closer, and developed my eye for identifying and using typefaces. Working on the metrics of the font also taught me about kerning, something I have utilised over all of my branding briefs.
Working so close with type has also helped me improve my layout of type, which was put to use with the 'Stack' brief, where choosing an appropriate headline and body copy typeface was key. The same could be said for my Design Publication, and the Photography Yearbook.
Unexpectedly, my interest in web design has vastly improved nearer the end of the year. Working on the 'Welsh & Jefferies' single page was a challenge, but definitely helped with designing the 'Svpply' website, which was considerably much more complex. There is much more to both of these than the way they look, and I have learnt the correct way to design websites for coders to work on. This will work when i'm working in industry at a studio significantly.
I loved the variety of branding briefs worked on this year, working with a variety of audience. The range can be seen from branding a library, to a DJ night, to a tailors, and to the North of England as a Northern Powerhouse. All of which used custom type design to create an identity that was entirely unique. Although I have spent a significant amount of time working on creating typefaces, I love the idea of implementing custom typefaces into branding projects, something quite rare in industry. However, beautiful examples can be seen by Build, a studio I would love to work at in the future.
Type design was further implemented in my design publication, where the potential for 20 or so future typefaces has been created. With Times Modern Swash fully developed, I intend on selling the full typeface in the future. There is also a huge scope for the other typefaces to be developed and sold, a great way to earn money on the side.
At the beginning of the year, I wanted to work on as many large, portfolio pieces as possible. I now feel that quite a few of my briefs will be great to show off at interviews and to clients, and i'm confident that what i've learnt this year will all be used in the future but at an industry standard.
