Portfolio Blogs (ALL in One)

Portfolio Blog:

 

Finding Companies to work for:

  • Find Your Intern – I discovered the Instagram account ‘Find Your Intern’ through my friends on my course a few years ago. The appeal of this company’s database of jobs is that they promote only paid roles; they have a strong ethical front on the fact that unpaid internships and jobs within the creative industries are corrupt and unfair, that people should deserved to be paid for their work no matter how big or small. As I agree with this, and I would not be in a position to be able to work without getting paid for it in terms of financial survival, I will only look into websites similar to Find Your Intern which also share paid roles only. Find Your Intern has a membership option which allows extra help on your CVs and cover letters, exclusive tips and lots of webinars, meetings and one on one conversations to aid your professional practice. This is something that I could see myself doing as I aim to work after I finish university, while hoping to gain some more skills to complete some freelance work in the future. Being able to get someone to go through my own CVs and cover letters to really analyse the information I’m putting out there versus what I would like to portray myself as, would be incredibly helpful as it would be an induvial tailored service, as opposed to a class room which has a lesson catered for everybody. This website is very useful in finding opportunities specifically for graduates that are entry level roles, as some other websites I have been browsing on such as Linkedin Jobs, usually has a surplus of job advertisements for mid-weight or heavyweight designer roles with a lot of experience, whereas this is specifically catered for the average creative graduate or student. The pages on the website are very student friendly and encourage us to work while studying which is an incredible useful skill.
  • Run The Check – Run The Check came to my attention when I was studying my art foundation diploma at Ravensbourne University London. A friend of mine showed the Instagram page to me which also has the same premise as Find Your Intern, hence the name “Run The Check”. This page was mainly of use to me when I was studying in London, as I assumed I would be staying there indefinitely but changed my mind to come to Brighton. Most of the roles placed on this website differ greatly from Find Your Intern, even though they have as similar premise. This is useful in searching for a multitude of jobs, because I feel as if the actual company and role matters more than anything else, therefore gaining some research from multiple job posting websites would higher my chances of finding a creative job. The roles featured on this website are mainly full time roles within London or surrounding areas, which is why I do not use this website too often as I plan to stay in Brighton for a little while longer but could potentially move back to London a few years along the line. Another thing I like about Run The Check is that they frequently post calls for commissions or competitions which is something I had not thought about prior to reaching their website. After university, in my free time when I am not working, I would love to attempt to enter some creative competitions or the calls for submissions and commissions. This is because it would be a great way to get my designs out there for a multitude of audiences to discover. Not even for the joy of winning a competition, but the be able to work on live briefs and submit work of a completed finished project could slot in nicely to my portfolio, especially if the project differs from the rest of my portfolio. This would be very helpful as I feel like I need to diversify my content, as I mainly produce mixed media collage work, but when applying for jobs I would need to showcase my skills in marketing, social media, print, writing etc.
  • Creative Opportunities – This website is ran by The University of the Arts London (UAL) one of the highest ranked arts universities in the world, which makes this a very reputable source for finding work placements, internships and jobs. These jobs differ from the previous websites as these are more one-off jobs; there are lot of two month projects or fixed time contract roles which could be useful when in between jobs, or trying to discover what works for me and what does not. I think that in the near future, instead of getting a graduate job straight away as most people do, it would be nice to take part in several internships back to back, or a few part time internships at the same time with fixed contracts. This would allow me to be able to network with a variety of people within different sectors of the creative industries that I had gained experience in. Not only that, but I would be able to discover the parts of the creative industries that I enjoy and don’t enjoy, to help aid my future process of seeking out jobs that are appropriate for my skill range and interests.
  • Fashion Workie – Showcases mainly internships, very fashion based compared to the others
  • Indeed – large range of jobs, harder to gain a job from there due to the high range of competition; everyone is using Indeed to search for jobs which means more applications and less chances.

 

Researching jobs that look appealing to me:

  • Oldstrom – Sales and Marketing Apprentice
  • I found this job on Find Your Intern, and the fact that it was catered to grads is what sold it to me. The role gains insight into a different role within fashion like buying and merchandising which I have not previously delved into that much yet. However, as the roles on here are all entry level roles, the fact that I have studying fashion communication would allow myself to have enough experience to apply. The brand seems very sophisticated and luxurious which would be such a nice way to learn how to work for a different style of brand than I am used to.
  • Jori Papa – Social Media & Marketing Coordinator
  • This role was discovered on Find Your Intern as well. I love the photography from the brand; the studio shoots seem really full of character and the actual products are so unique. I love the idea of the role, to work within social media. As I enjoy engaging in conversations with people and communications, this role would suit my interests greatly. I’ve seen that a job role like thus requires the candidate to know the software or program Klavyio and HTML design, and as I am very unskilled in these areas, it could be wise to start some online training courses on these to ensure I have up to date skills for the types of roles which are being put out there. The more of these smaller skills I have, the more likely someone would be willing to hire me.
  • Science to Skin / All Things Nails – Marketing Assistant & Content Creative
  • Seed Marketing – Campaigns Assistant
  • Virtine Art Commission 2021, New Covent Garden Market
  • Studio Voltair – Operations Coordinator
  • LIFT – Development & Marketing Assistant Internship

 

 

Researching companies and they way they present themselves:

  • Fruity Booty – This brand stands out to me due to their very strong aesthetic and the way they present themselves. They seem like a very inclusive and supportive brand; showcasing women of all shapes and sizes, with mainly unedited content, especially what they post on Instagram. This is very important as a brand being transparent with their audience on the realities of their shoots and the models is enabling the consumers to feel the same way, to feel connected to the brand as well as represented. There are few brands which solely sell underwear which do this, for example, Lounge Underwear are a luxury underwear brand with prices similar to those of Fruity Booty. Yet Longue Underwear had advertisements all over snapchat a few years ago, and I distinctively remember all of the models being extremely slim in size with a huge lack of diversity. Therefore, being able to work for a brand like Fruity Booty would be great! Especially as they hire graduates and placement year opportunities.
  • Moontrap London – This is a smaller brand also based in London which sells high quality luxury jewellery. The designs are of such a high standard and I have not seen anything like it! The use of fun background such as the purple checkerboard emphasises their playful and fun personality which is tied together sophisticatedly through their design and products. They find the balance between high quality content and products with a playful and approachable design scheme.
  • House of Sunny – This brand has such a nice aura about them as they promote sustainability, mindfulness and all their products seem very comforting and luxurious. The show that they’re luxurious through the design of the website and the Instagram content. The Instagram is full of very high quality professional photographs which differs from Moontrap London’s Instagram which mainly has cute edits and bright colours with close ups of the products on their own. The difference shows that House of Sunny clearly has a bigger budget as all their content is high quality editorials. I would not mind working for either brand because they present themselves and fun, friendly and approachable with the most amazing products.
  • Peachy Den
  • Jaded London

 

Building Concepts for my own work

  • Visual Inspiration – I am mainly inspired by my Instagram explore page, Twitter and TikTok. This is due to the fact that I changed all of my personal social medias into more art based accounts, this means following only friends, family and inspirational content, therefore when scrolling aimlessly through these social media channels (which I tend to do fairly often, like most people) the content I would be taking in is mainly creative, inspirational project. This is technique I have learned to motivate myself more and become inspired, as I find I frequently have creative blocks and negative days where I do not feel inspired. This also changed my social media habits and allows myself to create a database of images on Instagram in the ‘saved’ pane. This is me essentially creating a mood board of everything I get inspired by which I add to daily. Accounts like @hel717 and @savemymind are some of my favourites for inspiration. David Carson and Neville Brody.
  • Conceptual Inspiration – Philosophy in books like “The Power of Now” and Mitch Albom books

My plans for after university:

  • Learn more
  • Freelance
  • Work
  • Brighton
  • Masters

 

 

 

FMP WEEK 23 (WC: 03/05/2021)

In one of my tutorials it was recommended that I used Adobe After Effects to produce some content that contains moving image or animated fonts. As a result of this, I went onto LinkedIn Learning, found some videos and began to learn. I thought this would be a very successful idea for the Instagram page because it would mean the content that I am putting out there switches up a bit; video content is always good at pulling in the audience to spend more time interacting with the post as there is the moving visual element to it. Learning Adobe After Effects was proving to be a great challenge; I am extremely proud of pushing myself out of my comfort zone to make some content using Adobe After Effects as this is a program I had been aiming to learn for so long. However, just because it was recommended to me by a teacher I attempted to make some content (some good, some bad) and after a lot of bad attempts I managed to animate don’t, create moving backgrounds as well as learn things like making a moving font banner, learning how to make a shape move, and masks and multiple images at once. I was very pleased with my actual results however because the program is extremely complex, it meant that it took me a very long time to be able to come to terms with the layout, process and technical buttons which I am still not completely confident in. I followed an Envato+ Tutorial for Adobe which taught me everything I needed to know. I was recommended a course which was paid but I found this on YouTube for free with 4 hours worth of content to learn from. This has proven to have been useful in expanding my technical abilities within moving image while allowing myself to branch out of my comfort zone and produce work which has a lot fo time and thought going into it. On the other hand, in terms of practicality, learning how to use Adobe After Effects after never using it properly before only right before my deadline was not my most logical move within this project as a lot of time which was spent learning different techniques could have been spent by making work for the magazine. This has led me to make more Instagram content but lacking in the actual Sentient Magazine content which has pushed me back a few steps.

I have began writing up my articles for my magazine, there is also proving to be very time-consuming and difficult resulting in me having to cut down a lot of the written content for my magazine in order to get everything done on time. I have adapted the visual side of the magazine by making the decision to scrap the articles on the 12 laws of karma and just use quote pages for them because realistically, I would not be able to get them all done in time. This is another decision which is logical for me to make at this point, even though it is slightly disappointing, I remember the complexity of making a magazine is a huge thing to master and the fact that I have created any content at all is extremely good news for my personal development.

The interviews I conducted for the magazine will be placed at the front; the whole point of my magazine is to uplift people, present interesting insights into people’s lives and opinions and to positively influence someone’s day as shown in the choice of articles I have researched and written, therefore placing the interviews first allows there to be some engaging written content to pull in the readers initially. The interviews are all done with people that inspire me, which is a relevant choice for a magazine catered to people like me.

FMP WEEK 22 (WC: 26/04/2021)

Although deadlines are approaching, I have naturally found it difficult to keep my motivation levels up as I felt like it was hard to progress my work. I decided to take the images from last week, edit them all using the inspiration of all the work I had previously made in the past and used my technique of just producing a lot of content in one go to make a large range of work to refine. Using Photoshop, Illustrator and other applications like PhotoMosh and PicsArt, I produced a range of imagery which suits the style of my magazine.

The first set of images I had edited were pictures I had taken on a walk around the race course in Brighton. The edits were made on Photoshop using the photoshop blend tools which allow images to bleed into each other and highlight different elements of the design like the hue and colour, brightness and contrast or highlighting the texture and composition. I chose images which included a lot more open space on the page, as I had altered my style to suit a more refined and calm manner than the previous hectic designs, and I used colours to emphasis the atmosphere I was portraying. The use of these abstract colour palettes make the images seem more questionable; they seem as if they’re part of a series now, that they flow together to tell a story of a certain place. The fact that these are edited subtly enough that they are still very clear landscapes but also enough to stay true to my style and the style of Sentient Magazine show that these would be very successful in the magazine.

The images I had taken of myself worked very well initially in the contact sheet, however, I produced a variety of edits but I felt as if they were not of a decent enough quality to not only suit the magazine, but to form enough of a series that the images would be placed within an appropriate context, and not just randomly placed in the magazine. As i was still working on flat plans I was becoming aware of the importance of creating a series of work for the magazine that is made up of several different images that have one original point. However, I found that although these edits were strong individually, I could not produce enough content that would differ from each other. This is potentially due to the images taken, although I was pleased with the variety of poses, they were all from the same angle, position and have the same crop, which has led to me not being able to experiment as much as I would have hoped.

FMP WEEK 20 (WC: 12/04/2021)

As emphasised in my last blog post, my focus was on gaining photographic content. After researching some philosophical theories and ideas, I became inspired on my walk around Brighton one day when I had no intention of finding content. I also stated in his last blog post that my most effective work has been produced when I stop overthinking which is why it made sense that when I was on a walk I was able to clear my head and create some more content for my magazine. I took a walk to Shoram and documented the journey along the way and once I got there, there were a variety of images mainly around the seafront and a different streets. I found the experience very interesting because I was exploring a place that I didn’t know that well, forcing me to think outside the box in terms of what pictures I was taking as I didn’t know what to look for. The overall experience was very positive as I always have enjoyed taking photographs but within the realms of fashion, i don’t find myself as passionate about photography. However, this could be seen as a good thing as this would allow me to create photographic images which are more experimental in terms of style and editing because being able to take a picture and collage / edit in photoshop is more suited to my style of working than to carefully construct an editorial shoot. Which led me to my decision previously to not include any typical editorials within my magazine. my style is more ‘zine’ like; very experimental, visual based, graphic- I’ve made something similar as my final project for my foundation course but Sentient Magazine would be a massive step up, showing my improvement in graphic design, which is what I aim to pursue post university.

Overall I am pleased with the quality of the content I produced. I decided to go on some more walks and take pictures in different areas of Brighton. The main theme regarding these images was to document a place that holds a lot of character which is usually known for being hectic and chaotic but shown in a way which provokes questions and changes the way the place is perceived. In this case, I was documenting various places in Brighton and exploring how they made me feel through the images I was producing. By capturing frequent close ups, shots of patterns, details, unusual designs, obscure and random words or phrases as well as seemingly abandon areas, I was evoking a certain atmosphere through the bleak and desolate landscape. I wanted to show the parts of Brighton and Sussex which completely changed the usual perspective, to show an individual’s view on certain areas of Brighton, and how the peaceful parts of the city can become the most hidden or unacknowledged.

As I found the whole experience extremely positive, I wanted to take some more images, resulting in me modelling for a spontaneous shoot involving in mainly capturing a human face, as my intentions were to take these images and distort them into something completely different. I found the actual contact sheet of images quite strong as they feature me in several different interesting poses, emphasising the complexity of the human form and the different ways we can manually distort our bodies to produce unique outcomes. I used a fish eye lens on Instagram as this further distorted the features but in a subtle way which would allow me the freedom to still play around with them on Photoshop.

FMP WEEK 19 (WC: 05/04/2021)

These past two weeks I have been running behind my schedule of wanting to finish the magazine by the end of March. This was because prior to that commitment, I had not created the flat plan for my magazine which was influenced my illogical choice, this has resulted in me falling slightly behind however, I do feel as if because I have never made a magazine before, the time management will be incredibly difficult to master but the fact that I am attempting it is enough to be proud of. Being overly ambitious is a trait I tend to have however since the deadline is 10th May, it would be more appropriate for me to have the magazine done for May as the end of March would have been quite unnecessary and would make the magazine become deprived of more work done in those later months. This will adapt to my working style and I would be able to continue making content with no pressure to produce things for the magazine, but to make work that I enjoy and see what suits the flow of the magazine and what does not. I have realised that this would be a learning curve for me, to stop being too precious with the work that I am creating, meaning that I just need to create work without overthinking each step of the way, as I have previously discovered in other modules that the work that I produce which is of the highest quality is when I have made content quickly with ideas that spring to my mind instantly rather than over thinking. I make many minds maps quite frequently due to this reason; it creates authentic and organic content.

I’ve now made a media pack for my magazine which is something I should have done prior to creating the content for it, which may mean that the content I make from this pint would be easier for me, as I have something to refer to that ties up the magazine all in one, to ensure I don’t stray too far away from the style. I have found that as the magazine would realistically be over 100 pages, it would be hard to guarantee the pages all suit the overall style of the magazine if a media pack had not been made as this ties up the style, inspiration, and content in one document. I have used the font ‘Haike’ again to reflect the diversity of the type face and the way the variations compliment each other very well. This also ensures the style of the media pack shares qualities of the flat plans I have created about the twelve laws of the universe. I should have done this in the opposite order, however I am glad the flat plans really improved my design skills because it has made me develop a consistent style for the actual visuals of the magazines and articles featured within.

Although I am pleased with the flat plans of the articles, the visual content such as collages, poster designs and graphics are lacking. I could include the Instagram graphics to my magazine however, my intentions were to separate the Instagram content to the magazine content for diversity and for the danger of producing repetitive content which could deter viewers sway from buying the magazine themselves.

FMP WEEK 16 (WC: 15/03/2021)

I spent this week creating the other flat plans for the article pages, once again was very time consuming and further proved to me to limit the content that I create for the magazine in this style. For efficiency and time management it is important to alter the content of my magazine frequently to avoid becoming over ambitious considering I am attempting to make a magazine for the first time in a global pandemic with limited resources, limited Wi-Fi and several distractions with a lack of library/ studio space. I have committed to making 12 double pages for each theme, one for the twelve laws of the universe and one for the twelve laws of karma. Which would be 48 pages of articles in total, this feels like a large amount, but I want to ensure that the text is limited and it contains bug design pages of quotes, something that could be ripped out the magazine due to its style yet also educational, mixing the two most important factors I found out when creating my customer profiles at the beginning of my sketchbook.

In my tutorial, it was stated that these pages were not working as effectively as they could be, looked quite amateur and were sadly not as effective as I had hoped. However, I loved these pages, and they suited the philosophical side of the magazine with a lot of refinement and research to back it up. My art style has developed considerable by creating these flat plans due to the technical abilities I have strengthened by creating innovative layouts and harmonising the choice of fonts with he position of the text and adding in images to create a coherent layout that appropriately reflects the content I am producing.

FMP WEEK 15 (WC: 08/03/2021)

My plan was to finish my magazine by the end of March, which means that I needed to work on my flat plans. I had previously struggled with the flat plans I had been producing as I had little experience in this. The magazine project in second year taught me how to do this briefly, but I was always unsure on layout and the impact it can have on a piece of work. This led me to using a software called ‘Krita’ which I have used to create drawings using a graphics tablet in the past. Because I had used the graphics tablet before, I felt like I could used these to sketch out some flat plans however these were increasingly difficult to create and they became quite sloppy and messy looking, and consequently quite hard to understand. This guided me towards drawing them by hand in my physical sketchbook, but this became quite tedious as I soon realised I would have over 100 pages of my magazine flat plan to draw by hand and refine. So, for efficiency, I decided on just creating the content which I want to feature on the magazine with filler text placed, images finalised, and titles finalised, so I can print them out, annotate and see how they work together to then refine again to ensure the flat plans look as accurate as possible.

The finished draft of flat plans for the twelve laws of the universe were inspired heavily by the designs I had explored last week which had influenced a new style for me inspired by the philosophical content of my work. These took a very long time for me to make which has made me thin further about getting my work done as soon as possible. I’m extremely happy with these designs as they seem to flow together and complement each other nicely. I have attempted to create a harmony between the designs by using the same colour palette, mainly black, grey, white, purple and dark blue as well as different variations of the same font ‘Haike’. As stated before, I wanted the font and type in general to look very experimental and diverse which is why using the font ‘Haike’ was perfect for this section of the magazine. The font has so many variations which ensure that when placed together, such as one as a subtext and one as the title, they compliment each other extremely well. Pairing a very bold and thick font with and italic, thinner version would complement each other nicely as they are complete opposites yet share the similarities of being the same typeface technically. The imagery of butterflies and hands etc. are inspired by the content of the articles, such as the butterfly effect and the impact of your actions on the mood of another person. I have placed filler text of the body and used the pen tool which allowed me to experiment with the placement of text on a page by making unusual shapes and creating more dynamic layouts. I had no previous experience in making a flat plan this way which is why it took me so long, this has made me realise that I might not be able to make a large amount of content in this format due to me needing to finish the magazine by the end of March. In order to combat this realistically I feel as if it is appropriate to stick to these sections as my articles and have no more written content, this would allow my readers to see a lot of inspiring visual content as well, which I had concluded was very important for my magazine through my market research, as this was an important factor amongst ny friends in regards to their opinions surrounding which magazines they buy and why.

FMP WEEK 14 (WC: 01/03/2021)

I have slightly altered the aesthetic of my content to reflect my developing style as well as what is on the Instagram. My older work for this module was slightly more all over the place and experimental, which is true to my own style however, for a magazine, especially one that will be delivering educational content, I aim to make the design slightly easier to read and create so I can ensure consistency throughout the magazine and social media platforms. These are some examples of the work that I have been inspired by, the difference between them is that these are slightly more feminine and soft which is similar to my style anyway. I find that this would suit the philosophical articles I have written for the magazine by complimenting the content with the visuals. The graphics tend to use as lot of the blur tool, which I had just been experimenting with more lately anyway, therefore I thought it would be suitable to find some innovative ways that the blur tool is being used which I could gain some inspiration from.

I have developed my style for this magazine from tactile collage and photo manipulation techniques into digital graphic design work made using the Adobe Creative Suite. This development came from the beginnings of my research into the articles that I am creating; these will be based on the 12 universal laws of the universe, such as the law of attraction. This came due to my interest in Philosophy and reading books such as “The Power of Now” which details the importance of these twelve universal laws but adapts them into a universal perspective which allows you to relate and connect to the book. This is my aim for the magazine, it would be such a nice feeling to improve someone’s day by talking about these topics. I have watched “The Secret” On Netflix to gain a different perspective on the law of attraction, as this is presented in a film formant when mainly I had been looking at articles online. This film was very impactful in terms of changing the way your think about things and process information. This has solidified my idea to write about the twelve laws of the universe. ‘The Secret’ also has input from several different sources through interviews, which is a very authentic way of gaining information for research purposes and these are people’s mostly unfiltered and natural thoughts which they say on camera.

The two elements, design and philosophy had to come together more fittingly in terms of the art direction of the magazine, which is why the graphics became more impactful, such as creating a design and placing a sentence or word on top, or integrating with the design, as the focal point. The use of text within my designs was to create more eye-catching educational graphics, such as ones which have a message behind them. Using text lead me to using dafont and 1001fonts to source some more diverse typefaces to use. The use of typography is extremely important in magazine design, consequently I wanted a large range of different fonts to mix and match my magazine with. I did not want to stick to three or four fonts as the style of my magazine was not as hectic anymore, I wanted to express that experimental side of my work through the position, size and quality of the fonts used. To push my designs further, I took my experimentations and used some YouTube Tutorials on Adobe Illustrator to change the fonts using the blend tool with specific steps to create gradients. Or alter the tool further to make a pattern with the text around a focal point. I also used these to make the fonts placed around a shape or design. The idea was to push my graphic design skills further as the main body of work I am producing is graphic design on Photoshop, and so I wanted each section to be very unique.

FMP WEEK 13 (WC: 22/02/2021)

As I start to create the visual content for my magazine, I can see my approach to work is beginning to develop further which has been leading to a refinement in the type of art I am presenting for Sentient Magazine. The work I have been producing previously had been all very busy and chaotic, however I wanted the Instagram content to be slightly different. First of all, I aimed to differentiate the content between the social media content and the actual contents of the magazine, this is due to the fact that I did not want to repeat the content too much, have too much of the same being repeated or to spoil too much of the magazine before it gets released to the public as they would have seen most of it on Instagram anyway. Therefore, this has led me to create smaller square dimensional graphics which fit as Instagram posts nicely and complement the content in the magazine, as opposed to screenshotting pages and uploading. I have made sure to keep a colour palette which is consistent throughout the Instagram pages so all the content flows well together in the feed, as this is essential to building a brand. I have utilised the classes we have had in fashion communication previously on creating a strong brand identity for ourselves but translating it into the magazine’s string brand identity, which is really helping me. I have been scheduling content on apps such as Later, Hootsuite, which is good for Pinterest and ContentCal which is good to use on the desktop or laptop, as some are only for iOS or Andriod as opposed to a website page. This has led me to become more effective at planning my time, as creating a post for Instagram for the same time everyday which includes everything essential such as hashtags, a long and exciting caption, geotagging locations as well as interacting with other content creators to gain exposure, will be incredibly time consuming and tedious. I learned these techniques in a LinkedIn Learning video about building a new brand, and this has proven to be successful as I have gained some interaction and followers from these techniques; all transferable skills useful for any job within the creative sector.

I have been using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator as well as tutorials on TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn Learning to enhance my technical abilities. An example of this is the graphic I made titled “You Are in Charge of Your Own Body” which was inspired by a liquefy tutorial I had seen on TikTok. I found that this tool on Photoshop was very useful in making content that suited the style of my work as it was very abstract and when blurred became quite intriguing to look at. Being able to utilise social media to my own advantage for creative purposes is one of the most useful things I have done for this project. As social media is used by the majority of people, it is a catalyst for reaching a larger audience, putting yourself or your content out there for the world to see as well as an opportunity to grow the people that you interact with on a daily basis. This is why the content on the Sentient Instagram page is very reflective and philosophical, in order to let me audience really reflect on their lives and to think deeper as this is the main point of me creating the magazine in the first place.

 

FMP WEEK 12 (WC: 15/02/2021)

I have been continuing to make creative content these past few weeks. I have found that producing visual work frequently has been improving my technical design skills as I have been refining and improving my professional abilities on software and applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. The more I practice, the more different skills I learn by trial and error or just by making first-hand as this is what helps me more as opposed to just watching videos on how to do something. Finding out the way that I work best and retain information most effectively is essential for my professional design practice, therefore I will continue to produce my work in this experimental manner as I have been doing before as this leads to more positive and successful results.

My tutorial this week was really successful in making me more motivated to do work, as I have really struggled during this pandemic in terms of equipment and resources, functioning Wi-Fi and lack of access to Wi-Fi (as the connection issues in my house will interfere with me doing work or stop and start frequently/lose connection) therefore hindering my ability to create and therefore affecting my motivation to produce work which is up to my standard. However, after showing my tutor and the people in my group my work, I gained some positive feedback on my presentation skills as well as being able to manage my time affectively as I have been producing a lot of content which I had been praised for. We had to present the concept of our magazines and my feedback was that Sentient Magazine was very unique and unlike most magazines that are popular on the market as well as being praised for its authenticity by staying true to my own style. This is one of the reasons why I used myself and my closest friends from home as my customer profiles. Mainly as I was able to gain some primary research from the people closest to me and therefore this would create a more authentic magazine. But also because this is my final university project of my third year at university; and being in education my whole life, I wanted to dedicate the magazine to myself mainly. The importance of being proud of your work and making content for yourself is something I am very passionate about, it has been the way that I have produced some of my best work, such as the magazine and illustration project in first year of university. The success of that project is what influenced me to create this magazine, as my tutor stated to find the project you enjoyed the most and create that as your starting point for your FMP as this makes the most sense. I found it appropriate use myself as I wanted the customer to be me, I want the magazine to be something that reflects not only my personality, but my interests, design style and influences which is why I also want to seek out some of my friends to use as interviews. I placed these at the beginning of my sketchbook for the viewer to understand the content being produced is for a specific target market which has been researched and refined.

I made this pieced titled “Connected to Each Other” using an image from Unsplash, a website recommended to me by a tutor, which has copywrite free imagery to use within commercial or personal projects. And as I stated before, I did not want to produce too much photographic content, as this personally is not my favourite thing to do, however I needed some visual content for my magazine, and I found that this was a perfect solution. However, I will sill be using my own imagery in my magazine and within my collages; I aim to utilise resources like these recommended by teachers for an extra dimension and to access imagery that I would not be able to make by myself anyway. Usually, I edit the images and mix them around with my own designs anyway that they become a part of something completely different. They become transformed into my own style, similar to what I did with the mood boards of the magazines I researched for visual content for my magazine a few weeks go.