Sami France - Emerging Graphic Designer

I created this logo for a beauty salon. I then applied it to gift vouchers and appointment cards.

This is a project I took part in at Design By Day. Nettie Frolic is one of Design By Day’s long term clients and requires seasonal animations for her jewelry site.

My part in this animation (and the christmas one previous) was to produce the concept (helped along by my lovely colleagues) and the artwork to handover to the talented animators.

I really enjoy these projects :D

An A5 folded leaflet I designed for a lovely little B&B

Harwood Solictors.

I have been quick to learn that not all projects are super creative… sometimes the norm is what people require. I usually find these projects are harder to achieve than something super conceptual. However these are excellent jobs to practice type setting and layout.

It’s been too long since I uploaded work on here, or anywhere else for that matter. However when working for a client you have to wait till everything is launched on their behalf etc, they wouldn’t be too happy you giving the game away before their official launch.

Any who this is a lovely freelance project I have done for a friend. Identity for her Vintage Clothes party business. Probably the best logo I have ever done, and enjoyed doing. I also purchased my first font for this project. Sometimes Dafont and Font Squirrel dont cut it.

The first image is a postcard that will be used to put in peoples bags/around local business’s etc. The budget was very low and with the client wanting business cards and leaflets, it seemed like the perfect solution to amalgamate them both into a postcard.

I had these printed digitally on a 250gsm Gesso (slightly textured) stock. Printed by ‘The Digital Print Partnership’ a highly recommended online digital printers. Good quality print at low cost, with a very usable website and (on request) a really helpful sample pack.

The second image is a poster for an event she has coming up.

I love a bit of cleaning, and generally I am a tidy person, however constantly designing for myself at uni has lead me to having VERY untidy design habits. Only recently realised this as I have started to pass work over to other people. Some of these include…

1. Labelling layers in Illustrator/Photoshop. 

2. Organising folders so somebody else can find everything.

3. Using correct punctuation and grammer and really considering what I’m putting in emails, (Don’t judge me by this post).

4. Deleting odd little bits of shapes, extra punctuation marks, layers you have worked over the top of etc, in documents.

5. Saving different versions when you make changes. (MOST IMPORTANT ONE)

So yes still learning to stop being an untidy designer. Reading this back it just seems like common to sense to design this way however I have 0% common sense.

A very useful thing to learn is how to package up a logo properly, if it’s for your own archive or to pass to a client. Saving many different versions is the main part of this. EPS and illustrator files- convert everything to outlines/shapes and lock them so it prevents anyone trying to change it who thinks they are designer because they have some adobe software. If the logo has different elements (i.e text and an icon) save them separately as well as together. Save it in Black & White (JPEG, PDF) incase they want to use it for any in-house print, then save it for web. High and low Res versions (JPEG’s)

I still have some more to learn on this as I’m currently packaging up a logo for a freelance job.

Clients can change their minds unexpectedly.

So yes… the ladies at Design by Day welcomed me into the world of graphic design today when a client asked me to change a web design -not completely- but a moderate amount. The design had pretty much been signed off: designed and coded with flash features! His deadline is this week.

A very different experience from the development ‘tit bits’ we are coaxed into at uni. First reactions were slight panic, then a breather, an assessment, a realisation that the client was right and this way will be better (probs not always the case, but my client is a good guy!) then booking the time in to ammend. Which only took about 4 hours. 

I guess as long as the client is willing to pay for your time and understands initial deadlines may not be met, you have to do it. I’m sure it can be a lot more awkward if they dont take these factors in to consideration, I’m sure this will be something I will experience in the near future…

mybigfatsalfordshow:

So as promised the lovely Karlie McCulloch http://karliemc.blogspot.com/ has her work up at the fantastic Magma in Manchester http://www.magmabooks.com/

SOOOOOOOO go along have a look, take a pic, smile and browse some magnificent books while you are there….

…For that lovely post!

Just wanted to pick up on something Tash said incase anyone actually reads this and would like some ‘placement expectation’ advice.

I have done a few different placement/industry experience things, however only one other at a design agency, which was at the end of 2nd year. Let me tell you that I HATED IT! I only stuck it out for 3 days as after this amount of time I completely lost confidence in the design industry, my design skills, and decided I wanted to be a teacher ha ha! (Did I ever tell you I was a dramatic character?) Anyway my point is the first placement you do (or any after that infact) might be bad, it might be good! Try not too throw it out of the window like I did, but I did what was right for me, and for a while I felt I had let myself down, and thrown away a fantastic opportunity. I now realsie it was a super small part of my life which was significant because I learnt very quickly who I wouldn’t want to work for, which is sometimes better experience.

It made me look into who I actually would like to work for, based on their work and general personality. I think it’s VITAL you look at this, as if you enjoy looking at the companies work, you are more likely to have common design interests, which is always a good start! (although differences are just as important) And they as a company will have more respect for you as you have taken time to check their workout and consider them.

I hope this is of help to someone… if not never mind I actually enjoyed writing it :D 

Don’t forget it’s really ok NOT to like a placement, don’t be an idiot and pretend to everyone that it was brilliant! You look like a right dipstick!