Ebola Video ( My creation)

Vaughn Oliver

Vaughn Oliver was todays speaker in university. He's most famous for creating album covers for bands like the Pixies, who are one of my favorites and other bands like The Breeders and Lush. He talked through his professional career, which was fascinating, especially working with some very difficult bands throughout. 

What was a core concept, which I keep hearing throughout my time at University from Professionals is creating an image with meaning behind it, Vaughn's case creating an image that linked to the song and had an attachment to the meaning of it. I also learnt about the layers of design and that without cooperation from the client and yourself then the idea can't happen. You have to remember that your creating work to fit the clients brief not yours.



This was a brilliant lecture, with some very humorous moments. It was just great to see so many awesome album designs and listen to someone who's been a huge part of the music industry. One other thing i picked up on was how he uses collage as a way of creating work, a style Im going to try and emulate in my Zine. 

Ian Pollock who created the recent Pixies album covers also came in which was very interesting.

One of my favorite Pixies songs.

Backgrounds/mark making

I wanted to make backgrounds for met social awareness images and felt that ink and experimentation was need for this. I was very happy with the outcome of the backgrounds. I used a wide range of techniques to produce these and love what I have produced.

John Walters Lecture

Club Lecture 

Club lecture is a chance for student like myself to hear from professional people in the design world. Its a chance for me to learn more about a professional environment, learn from talented professionals and hear about what they do. In my opinion it greatly enhances my learning and is a really useful event to attend. 

John Walters ( Eye Magazine ) 

John Walters is the extremely knowledgable editor of Eye Magazine and he came in to give everyone on my course a presentation on his experiences and advice he could give us. I learned that "eye" was a graphic design journal published mainly for designers, students and anyone with an interest in writing and visual culture. 

In the magazine a wide range of topics are covered for example, food. Each image and layout in the magazine is carefully designed and written by designers and professional writers. It was fascinating to learn more about the interdependence of writer and illustrator and how John talked about how the illustrations/designs have to have a purpose and mean something to the text. I also found myself thinking more along refinement and editing in my own work as each process is so carefully carried through, right from design to the printing stage. Each stage depended on each other and was so carefully carried through. The focus was on quality and producing a meaningful publication.  I need to implement that more in my own work and produce quality Illustrations. 

• A very interest point I have listened to is what type of character you need to be to be employed by someone like "Eye Magazine". Obviously the work has to be up to scratch, but you as a person have to be good to work with and easy to get along with. You also have to have a keen interest in what your looking at be that articles, Essays, images- you have to know and understand that to be able to produce a high standard or work. 

This was a very useful lecture and I learned and gained a lot from it. It also helped contribute towards my ideas for the Parkinsons equip editorial with his editorial skills helping me. Especially in terms of different ideas like placement and the use of a context page. 

8x8 - First Published work !

8 X 8 

Over the summer I was asked to respond to a short story written by author Laura Burns. My story was called "The Same Time Tomorrow". It was a moving story about the daily life of a depressed man on a train. He met new people but there was no colour or enjoyment in his life, he was depressed and lived a sad life. The Image above was how I responded to that. I was so happy with how it finally looked in the publication, i think I've really captured the mood of the story and the character. 

Im so proud to have my work published and author also was impressed :). The process really helped me to understand what any future jobs I do, may involve, especially in regards to working with authors. This was a great learning curve and something I'm proud of. 

Raising Money

Creating a beautiful publication is the aim of everyone in the Parkinson's group, but raising money was a core part of what we trying to do. In order to raise those funds some students decided to make cakes and sell them within college. They were delicious and helped to raise a lot of money for the cost of the publication and towards Parkinson's equip. 

Well done cake baking team !!! 

Risograph

As a group we wanted to produce work at  the cheapest cost possibly in order to save money that could then be given to Parkinson's.Risograph printing is a vibrant and economical method of producing anything from books to artist prints. It sits in the realm somewhere between screen print and offset lithography but with a unique aesthetic. 

Jim Stout 

Here is an example of riso work and I really like the style and texture of the print. To me it looks like a screen print and it will be very interesting to see the final images created and printed. I think this a very sensible choice.