Emily Forgot

Emily forgot A.K.A Emily Alston is a Graphic designer come illustrator who works in London. She graduated 6 years ago from Liverpool and is now a successful freelancer! Fingers crossed I can hope to be as accomplished and connected as she is in 6 years time!

I really enjoyed looking at Emily's work because it was so surreal. She has very distinct and recognisable styles which included simple minimal drawings to very detailed images. I particularly liked how surreal her work was and the use of colour, her work felt quite dark and always visually stimulating. She talked about how she was inspired by the likes of Aldridge and Koon and was openly honest about what she liked and how she always tries to get something random into a piece. She particularly likes juxtaposition in her work, something I have always been into myself.

With Jobs like Selfridges window displays and Creative Review covers, Emily has definitely made a name for herself in the industry and I'm sure her success will only continue.

Emily talked a lot about life after university, missing the facilities that we have access to when we're here, being put into a box and always getting asked to just repeat your 'style' for a different client. I totally related to what she said about being in London - it's not that the city itself inspires you but that you feel like your in the middle of something and it's easier to get into those circles and meet the right people. Something that really stuck with me is the idea that your personal work can help influence your commercial career. This is something I intend to keep in mind, I don't expect to be able to work on the briefs/clients that I want to immediately but keeping up a personal portfolio should help to remind people what I want to do and what I am capable of.

I got these images from Emily's website, and while I was visiting it I noticed she had used the same simple format to build hers as we are doing in our workshops with Chris. She actually has a very similar design to mine that I have been laying out recently - the thumbnail portfolio that links to the work and use of black lines will be appearing in mine soon! But it's good to see that this will work and that you can build a website simply and yet still have a very effective tool to promote yourself. Watch this space for my new website which is currently in the middle of two designs (after spending ages on it I totally changed my mind and am revamping it already)!

Self Promotion

For ages I have been thinking of an idea for my self promotion. I didn't want to do a logo as that is not one of my strengths in design, my initials are a bit boring to work with. I was having difficulty thinking of something that represented what I do and how I want to be seen out in the real world, when I finally thought about this idea. I wanted to get across that my work relies heavily on research and concepts, that I enjoy all aspects of a brief from the beginning to the end and I can turn my hand to many different things. Hence Left Brain Right Brain! This shows two different sides of the business card, reflecting different sides of the brain. And there was the added bonus of it looking like a speech bubble!

I am really pleased with this idea and design, which i'm going to put across my website, portfolio and CV. I'll be sending these to John in the Litho print before the degree show!

South Killingholme

I deliberated for the last week on what to do with my images that I took of my home village. I was going to make a book, but thought I'd just be doing that for the sake of it, so I decided to make this poster. There is no rhyme or reason behind this mini project, it's an extension of Britishness and directly inspired by the Caravan gallery. I personally like the use of the photos here, I think the shapes enhance them. I chose the type face because it looked industrial and the shapes reflected the shapes of the landscape.

Well I don't think i'm going to take this any further, but I do like the outcome. I might tweak the poster design a bit. I do think when you look at the photos they tell you a lot about the area and my village, and if you look closely the photos are interesting and well juxtaposed. Liz didn't have much to say about it - I think one of the other tutors might have appreciated it a bit more. Needless to say I have achieved what I set out to do!

Mini roof design!

Today was the big results of the mini competition design that Stacie and myself entered. There were numerous entries but due to a mix up of where to send them, only ours and another girls were displayed in the show. All the entries were still judged though, and were announced as being in the top two. Sadly we didn't win, which I was pretty disappointed about, but we did get loads of free mini stuff including a mouse, usb stick and notebooks and free mini cakes.

The girl who won was a 3rd year embroidery student, whose idea was based on road markings. I may be biased, but I thought our design was much more original and interesting than her's, but she did present it better which I think is what swung it for her. Rooky mistake on our part that we didn't present the work as a mock up and put our explanation at the front (it was on the back), I was a bit angry with myself that we didn't - just slipped our minds being so busy with everything else - it would have been an amazing opportunity to win! However, I consider myself well and truly taught my lesson that I will not forget soon - always make sure your work is presented in the very best possible mannor! A good lesson to have finally sunk as we loom closer to the end.

I will be re-doing the presentation complete with mini mock ups for my portfolio!

Development: Mini

Here are a few of the designs we've worked on so far:

In style of 'the car in front is a Toyota' we wanted to imply that the mini was heading North. We wanted to use the space well instead of just plonking a design onto the roof that already existed.

Mini roof design!

Stacie and myself started working on the mini roof design brief that was posted just as we broke up as something a little extra to mix it up a bit! This was a very quick turn around with not much sketchbook work so here's a little insight.

First of all i'm going to cheat and say you can find our visual inspiration here.

Secondly, we were really inspired by this artist who has just won the Northern Art prize 2010, Pavel Buchler.

When you see our final design you may not think it resembles any influence of his work, but discovering the work started off a long train of thought!

''I love Manchester. Of all the regional cities I know, it has the least 'regional' attitude. Artists there are not chippy about the rest of the world." Buchler

Christoph Grunenberg, director of Tate Liverpool, agreed: "We are fighting against the London centre of gravity," he said. "And so we should be: there is incredible work going on here."

We wanted to make a design which represented the buzz in the North, not just creatively but in general. We began to think about the North star and how it is a guiding light, always leading North.

South Killingholme

After going to the Caravan Gallery talk I got inspired to do a similar study of my home town over Easter. My parents live in a little village called South Killingholme which is about two hours from here, directly East and by the coast. There is not much in Lincolnshire other than flat country side and industrial areas, because it sits right on the river Humber. There are many sharp contrasts in the scenery - open countryside for miles, quaint little villages and old fashioned farms mixed with dirty power stations, shipping docks and machinery.

Unfortunately, the day I had to take the photos was a terrible day and I had a lot of problems with exposure. However, the aim of this study was to follow in the footsteps of the caravan gallery and really document the village, so it wasn't about the perfect picture, just about capturing the essence of the place. I was surprised how much I found to document once I started looking around, lots of interesting subjects and I enjoyed looking out for juxta positions and interesting shots. I'm getting more and more into the art direction side of things lately!

This mini project is part of my bigger stamp project - off on a bit of a tangent, but I've started to look a lot more widely at British culture and expand beyond the brief with different outcomes other than stamps!

Ireland, Scotland, Wales

Sneak peak

Just before Easter I did the photoshoot I planned for part of the RSA stamp brief. When I began this project it was supposed to be quite a quick brief but it turns out I've found a lot to do and got a little side tracked. Consequently this is going to form part of one of my bigger projects to hand in in June.

Below are a few of the images we took. I had the help of a photographer and two lovely actors from the drama department. This was a great idea of mine and I'm really glad I went to the trouble to find these people as I think it adds a completely different dimension to the shots which I wouldn't have been able to achieve without their brilliant acting/photography skills or someone from our course whose face we all recognised.

Anyway, the shoot was a real success. I really enjoyed art directing, working with such a professional team was a real experience for me. These photos still need a bit of editing, but the raw expressions and quality is in there. A lot of importance lies on the cropping, particularly for the stamps, but I'm also going to make some animations, postcards and posters with them. Watch this space for Scotland, Ireland and Wales pics to come!

Blooming lovely

I made these cards for easter as I was really to poor to buy easter eggs for everyone =)

Come on spring weather, where are you!?

Jane Eyre

I am a sucker for romantic old stories. After reading Wuthering Heights in the summer and being totally shocked, I found Jane Eyre by another one of the Bronte sisters in a charity shop. What always surprizes me about stories from this era, especially those by classic female authors, is how modern they are. I guess that’s why they’re classics. Granted, there is no sex involved, which most people these days see as the sign of a good story, but these novels are so full of love, passion, scandel, heartache, betrayal and violence, it more than makes up for it. Once you get past the some times flowery language, really the heart of the books is just a good story that is what most modern day rom-coms and chick lit are based on! This book wasn’t as shocking as Wuthering heights, which completely caught me off guard as I did not expect it to be so gritty and gruesome, but I still couldn’t put it down. Now what I would really love is for some modern directors (namely my favourite, Baz Luhrman) to get their hands on these books and make them into incredible films Romeo&Juliet/Moulin Rouge stylee, which really revive them for a modern audience and bring out the raw genius of the writing!