Boomer's PPD Blog

Craig Oldham from Music came today to do a little talk and tutorial type workshop. I think its fair to say he's quite an earthy sort. He swears like a trooper, but he's very direct with his thoughts and how he sees things in the design environment. He showed us quite a bit of his work, but if i got anything out of the presentation itself it was their work with manchester city, which was a set of promotional stuff that basically when they played other teams advertised each of the players who had previously played for that team, so Adebayor for Arsenal, Tevez for Scum etc etc. WHat i liked most, apart from the really simple visuals, was that they'd just gone and slapped big posters up everywhere - billboards, lamposts, side of building, you name it, which for me is quite the inspiration for work in terms of both scale and context.




The tutorial was more of a relaxed Q&A which was great actually, i think he got a taste for us and we got to see designers are just normal blokes. He did say a couple of things that interested me though, firstly about creative cv/folios he said its not neccessary but kinda cool if you have something to leave with an agency or whatever after you leave as a reminder of you, which is something ive been wanting to do with my own work. He also said if you go for an interview or internship somewhere and you don't like the environment, or the people or place etc then say no. He said if you don;t like it don't do it because in the end you will fit in into a place where you like it and they like you. So don't force yourself to be someone you're not - be yourself and be happy. The last main point was that in design you have 2 options: showing and telling. You either show, or you tell, but never show and tell. It makes an ass out of the audience. Like you show an apple, you know its an apple. You write apple, you know it says apple. You show an apple and write apple and you treat your audience like a 3 year old.

Good advice all round then, even if he did eat all my maoam. Here's my notes:

Had a portfolio tutorial with Mark Howe today which was...interesting! Mark is primarily an illustrator and his work doesnt have a lot in common with mine, but I wasn't quick enough to sign up for all the popular tutorials this week and I figure at the end of the day it can only help. So here's my notes from the tutorial:



Mark was nice and helpful, though I got the feeling he didn't like my work ha. But there are 3 main things he said to me that really stuck:

1) black and White is hard to get right

By my own admission at a point last module I kinda just left my lost posters because I'd had enough of them. Mark said when you do black and White it has to be really in the money because it's more difficult to get it right.

2) Don't be afraid to revisit old briefs to make changes

There's no shame in returning to an old brief to put something right or change it to make sure when it does go in your portfolio it's as up to scratch and impressive as possible.

3) Let your work breathe

My portfolio boards are pretty packed, and mark just pointed out that I need to spend a little more time on the layout of my boards and giving my work room to breathe. It doesn't need to be full on explosion of images, just be more considerate and give the images plenty of room so it's not so much an assault on the senses.

There were a couple of projects he just flat out didnt like either so i dont quite know whether to take that as subjective opinion or if they are in fact crap.

Overally I thought it went really well especially considering it was my first if these kind of meetings/surgeries so it's onwards and upwards, time to make some changes to my portfolio...

Just started emaiing this guy who wants a new identity and stuff doing for a business he's setting up. Basically he's going to be creating and selling sample packs of music. I guess its like beats and drums and random stuff like that, but either way its a live brief, which i want to do, and an identity brief which again i'd like to try my hand at. This is what he does now:

Just fully updated my new Cargo Collective site in lieu of absence of a full website, and i think it's a pretty good temporary substitute. Does what i need it too anyways.

www.cargocollective.com/sonicboome

Last night i got a late call from Steve Banks (6:30pm) at PSS asking me to do a flier for a do him and his work colleagues are having this week. He sent me this .jpeg and said:

"hi dan
please can ya ammend the image to say.........
banksy & craig always say,
.......then the rest of it.......
and put it in the top left corner.

then underneath and in the bottom left corner put.......
join us for after work drinks at
Norman Bar, Call Lane, 6pm - 10pm
£2 on selected drinks


thanks
steve"

and this was the image he sent:



Now, as any one will know, you can't take a crappy jpeg, delete stuff, add text and alter bits without making a mess. I told Steve this and said the only way to do it would be to take a different photo, edit it to look like that one, then add the text. "Yeah great, thanks" he said.

"Oh and can i have it by tonight".

So i did. Here's the process:






Took me about an hour and i had to leave my beans and sausages on toast till later to get it done but i did it.
And i got it in one.

Got a call from Papa Boome aka. Señor Boome aka. Boome Snr. and he offered me some work, which is nice considering he's an old school joiner and hasn't offered me work since I gutted That Attic for him That One Time. Well it's not really work for him per se, but to cut a very long story and 45 min phone call short, a family friend collates, produces and distributes a small publication of local tradesmen, skilled labourers and local businesses. Think of it as a kind of local mini-yellow pages. Anyway it's into it's 6th edition now, and during a conversation with said family friend Old Papa mentioned I was a designer and would be happy to help out with layout etc.

So I've got a couple of old editions (see below) and hopefully should be working on the next one.

And getting paid. Happy days.

Sent from my iPhone