Broadway Malyan

A new placement for 2 weeks! In a similar architecture based design company based in London Bridge, Broadway Malyan.

On my first day, I was given an architectural sketch of an invented French area, to digitally create on illustrator or indesign. Although I'd hardly done anything like this before, I had some previous work of theirs to refer to and help me, and I think it went quite well...

Also, at the end of the day, I was briefed on rebranding a project for a development in Azerbaijan which I will continue with tomorrow...

What an end...

So thanks to the ridiculously heavy rain yesterday morning, which left me drenched from the knee's down, the office leaked too... literally buckets full... So, due to electrics and water and repairs and what not, I was sent home so that my computer would be free for Theo to use if needs be...

However, it all continued on friday, which was meant to be my last day, with the graphics team in between floors of the building, I stayed home and kept out of the way.... Pretty rubbish end, but it couldn't be helped...

Overall my time at HTA has been worth it just to get a feel of a real working Graphic Design company. Helping out on real life projects and even doing the odd jobs here and there has all added up to a great experience in a brilliant environment. Thank you very much HTA :)

Bits and Bobs...

While it's quiet for the company, I've mainly helped out on bits and pieces here and there, extracting the text from a previously completed project, name tags and place names for the seminar, and browsing other websites and blogs for ideas to help inspire the rebranding of HTA's website - all things that need to be done...

Team Meeting...

This morning I sat in on a team meeting, where everyone was updated and who's doing what and when projects and jobs need to be finished by. It was good to see how much communication is needed, to see who has a lot of work on, and who could take on more, it was also an opportunity to clear up any queries and bounce ideas off each other. Definitely worth sitting in on!

Left Handed Drawings...

Yesterday afternoon I was challenged to draw people working in the office, however, not being that confident in drawing people and faces, Rachel suggested drawing with only my left hand, then it was acceptable if they were laughable....It was strange at first, my left hand started to ache, but then it got used to it, which was an odd feeling, and I think my drawings may even have improved as I got into it.I think some of them went quite well! I might start doing it more to strangers on the train, in the pub, anywhere really... We'll see.

Week 2 at HTA

It was kind of exciting seeing work that I'd done and contributed to, in a completed, perfect bound, finished book for the Castleward bid! I'm getting a copy to keep for my portfolio, so I can highlight what bits of the infographics I helped with for a project in the real world. (I'm also going to challenge my parents to see if they can tell which bits I did)

Over the past few days I've just been helping out with odd bits and pieces for projects.

I was given a copy of a magazine GQ, Gallions Quarter, laying out and re-jigging some of the pages. It is challenging when pages are already laid out and looked pretty good to see other options beyond that, especially when all the content on the pages was what I had to work with. I've ended up doing a few of the unfinished pages and adverts. Thats still an ongoing project for me to play around with...

Another task was to lay out a document which was to be sent to attendees of a seminar for next week, again, I had all the content to put on, but also make it look good. Working from the invitation, I kept it simple, having the HTA logo and a strip of the image used on the invite. Because people recieving this were likely to print this out on a crappy printer, it didn't need to be too special.

Organising the bookshelf and making tea is also another perk to the experience!

Final Design

I chose this design over the others, from this design I editted my blog so the branding was consistent.

Branding myself...

Another task was to work on branding myself as a designer, hence the blog. I started by creating some business cards, playing around on illustrator, looking at different layouts, colouring and typefaces. Which then led on to the layout and design of this blog.

Business Card Work:




This was one of my first designs, I tried out different colours but I think the typeface isn't working here.

I didn't like these designs at all, I tried playing around with the initials of my name, but I think the font makes it look very dated and it's overall a look I wasn't going for.

Trying a whole new approach I kept it simple, and went for a handwriting effect. However, I think this is too simple and this look may be better suited to a specialism like illustration...

One sided: Instead of a double sided business card I put together some portrait styled cards. I quite liked these designs as they were simple, using minimal colouring and clear text.

For these cards I tried out the 2 colours I was favouring after experimentation. I liked these designs as they were again simple using a range of 3 colours, and overall I prefered the looked of a double sided card.

HTA Placement

From 31st of May I started a work placement at HTA Graphic Design, which will last 3 weeks. During my first week I have helped out with ongoing projects on a new housing development in Derby, designing some infographics for the project, including maps about travel, and other infographics work on Derby stats. My job was to make the boring charts and tables look more interesting! For all this I was working in Illustrator, which I hadn't used too much beforehand, and even in a few days I feel much more confident in this program, and getting to grips with the tools with guidance.