Mike Rigby

On the 26th November Mike Rigby from design agency True North came into college to give us a few words of wisdom about his life as a graphic designer and priceless advice that has helped him on his way. Mike graduated in 2002 from Preston and since then has worked at Chase Manchester, Mark Studio, Pentagram in London as well as travelling and ending up in Australia working Landor and Moon design.

Mike describe how design is a great job, with no 2 jobs ever the same, he like's it because it's interesting and challenging and being able to meet with different people and collaborate is definitely a positive. Other positives that Mike highlighted involved being part of a strong design community, being able to go to design ceremonies and being able to work for yourself whenever you want. However with positives come negatives and Mike spoke about how competitive the industry is focusing on key points such as long hours, lots of pressure due to working hard and long deadlines, client interference and lost pitches. He also spoke of the anguish at not being able to get a job.

Work with True North, Royal Mail Yearbook:

  

Mike felt that placements are an essential requirement to help getting a job after graduation. As well as getting to work on live briefs in a real design environment you are forced to work at the same pace as everyone else therefore this speeds up the pace you work on. To get the most out of a placement it's important to take professional pride in everything you do even if it's simply just a mock up. Always socialise and ask questions, be enthusiastic as well as making a brew are all fundamental parts towards succeeding whilst on placement. Mike also thought it was important to remember that if you don't get a placement or you don't get offered a job from a placement to not worry. Rejection is part of design and it doesn't mean your not good enough.

Mike also spoke about the importance of taking a break and said that the best thing he ever did was to just quit and travel the world. He showed us some AMAZING pictures of his travels and although I would like to make it in the industry the thought of going travelling for a while is very appealing to me as I feel I have been in education for ever now! Whilst travelling Mike also landed a job abroad and he couldn't express any more how much of a great experience this was, you meet great people and it's a fantastic lifestyle.

True North work, expecting a baby:

  

Mike's 'final rambling's' were for us to ask ourselves why are we doing design? are we commited enough? He felt that it's important for us to ask ourselves now who we want to work for rather than deciding later. We should ignore the doom and gloom and believe in our own ability.

He ended the talk on this quote... ' If I could live at any point in human civilisation I'd still choose now'

I really enjoyed Mike Rigby's talk it was very insightful and gave me a lot to think about.

Lin

Mine and Sarah's 2nd portfolio visit whilst in New York was at Lin, an agency ran by Alex who I had previously been in contact with.

Upon arrival we met with Alex who invited us into his small studio where himself and another designer worked. We sat down and once again both took it in turns to speak through our portfolio. This time I felt as though as I could speak through my work with a bit more ease as seeing Erin from Prime Studios a couple of hours prior to this had made me feel a bit more confident talking about my own work as well as feeling more confident about the work I had produced.

Similar to Erin, Alex didn't understand my end sting at first as it was something they had never come across before. Alex felt that seeing this idea on paper in the form of a storyboard was probably not the best way to execute the idea, I mentioned that it had been advised to place it on a TV screen and he felt this may work better, otherwise to maybe bring the animation along with the portfolio.

With some of the design work such as work for the 'Manchester literature festival' and 'A brief history of furniture' Alex felt that working with colour and changing the colours to create other poster variations would show that I have tried out other designs as well as bulking up all the work I had already produced. This was something Erin had also touched upon earlier in the morning.

For my fifteen types spreads it was suggested that maybe I re photograph these images and drop them onto live surface spreads like I had done for my British dental museum editorial spreads. By doing this it would look more professional as well as creating a bit more room on the page itself.

Alex paid compliments to my typography as he felt most students work he had seen don't pay much attention to final details. I feel typography is something I really enjoy working with and looking at so i'm glad that he picked up on this.

Alex liked the overall design of the portfolio and liked the idea of a book yet suggested making it slightly a bit bigger and maybe a different shape. On returning to college however I would like to buy a box to display my work in yet I will still take Alex's feedback on board.

After showing our portfolio's to Alex he spoke to us about design in New York and was interested to see how it compared to the industry in Manchester let alone the UK.

It was interesting meeting with Alex and I very much valued his feedback. I now know from my visit with himself and Erin from our previous visit what changes I need to make to my portfolio and I will consider these changes when designing my box.

Prime Studios

Whilst in New York myself and another student from my course visited a design agency called Prime Studio. Prime studio is an integrated product and brand design consultancy which is dedicated to providing successful solutions for clients. They launched in 1998 and have experience in consumer products, house ware, personal ware and other numerous areas.

So on the 10th November myself and Sarah set off with our map in search of Prime Studio. Being in a strange city where we had no real sense of direction we made sure we gave ourselves plenty of time to find the studio, and it was quite suprisingly easy to find. 

On arrival we met with Erin Buchanan who Sarah had previously been in contact with. Erin was very friendly and welcomed us into Prime's small, very white, clean studio. Whilst their we spoke about our portfolios and their design work and also what we had been up to in New York. Overall I felt Erin was extremely impressed with the work both Sarah and I presented.

I was quite suprised by Erin's comments on my portfolio, some of my designs I didn't feel were personally very strong she actually loved. For example my end sting I produced for the Saatchi Gallery, she actually loved the concept. However, Erin advised me that it's not really clear what the end sting is also some of the storyboard boxes were quite small so that it was hard to identify what would actually be moving and changing throughout each box change. Erin thought that each change of the end sting would not be needed and I should maybe blow up to of the boxes larger and even place one of my designs in situe, for example in  TV screen. This was a thought I hadn't even considered yet will be one I will definitely try.

For the brief 'A brief history of furniture' Erin suggested showing other colour designs as I had only placed one in my portfolio. It was also suggested maybe adding in sketchbook designs to bulk up the work. By showing only one piece/ one final idea. It may come across to people that this particular piece only took a couple of hours to make where it actually took longer and more colours and designs were made before deciding on the final one. I thought this was a very good piece of advice.

Erin really liked my use of typography especially in my Fifteen Types spreads and my editorial for the British Dental Museum. Erin suggested changing the layout of my fifteen types spreads as I had placed both designs on the same page and this looked a bit cluttered, moving them onto 2 seperate pages would create more space and people would be able to spend more time paying attention to the typography.

The typeface I produced for the typography elective named 'A play thing' was percieved quite well, Erin liked the idea behind it and felt it was fun and interesting, to expand this project a bit it was suggested that I try and produce the alphabet in uppercase as well as lower case and maybe to try add colour into them, this would create a whole new type family and would again bulk up my portfolio.

Erin liked that my portfolio was set in a book and she also liked Sarah's box, these were ways of displaying our work in which she had never seen before as students normally take in folders. She also liked how my pictogram on the back cover of my portfolio as she felt this was an interesting way to identify ourselves and set us aside from every other student.

After we had spoke through our portfolios Erin showed us some work which Prime Studios had recently been working on, their ideas were very inspiring and well executed.

   

I came away from the visit feeling very positive about the feedback Erin had given us and I will definitely take her feedback on board when re producing my portfolio.

New york

So on the 9th November till the 13th myself and 50 other students from various pathways and different years visited New York. Firstly it was AMAZING and secondly I think we were extremely lucky to get the chance and go and visit such an exciting city. It was great to be able to visit places only ever seen on Television programmes or in films, and like proper British tourists with maps and cameras myself and my friends managed to see the famous sites such as; The statue of Liberty, Central Park,Times Square, Empire state building, Ground Zero, as well as going visiting design agencies. The Rockerfeller centre at night and iceskating were definite highlights of the trip for me. Although I had an amazing time their were still places I wish i had visited such as The Guggenheim and Brooklyn bridge. I would definately love to go back to New York.

Note to self

I recently came across this book called 'note to self' by Alex Ostrowski, who is an ideas-led graphic designer. The book is based upon Ostrowski's ideas which she designs to help her remember. Ostrowski states 

'' Every now and then I am stuck with a refreshing clarity of head, a lovely moment in which i can see a thought so plainly that it offers me a simpler perspective on things. I try to write them down but usually lose the note- hence this rather large book of tear - out posters! Each one is designed to help me remember something which I usually forget day -to - day.'' 

   

Mike carter

On the 5th of November Mike carter from Orchard creative recruitment came into college to talk to us regarding how to get a job, CV's and how to prepare a portfolio. With an average of 456,000 graduates each year there is a lot of competition when looking for a job in design.

Mike felt that it's a good idea to get a head start on making contacts within the industry and preparing CV's and keeping an updated portfolio would be what gets us ahead of other graduates. This advice was particularly helpful.

Mike gave us constructive advice on jobs and how agencies will look for enthusiasm, commitment and organization over anything. He touched on how to compose a good CV making sure that we communicate what we want to say in 3 seconds stating who we are, what we want and why we want it. He spoke about portfolio's and how we should make them relevant to what job we are going for, whether it be for packaging or advertising.

On the whole Mike's lecture was very insightful and extremely helpful.