Alumni Night Mint Lounge Manchester

20/04/17

On the 20th of April stockport college arranged an event in which designers and artists who are now active and working within the industry were invited to come and network with student still studying at the campus. A selection of these artists gave presentations in a petite cute format on their journey from studying at stockport college and insight into where they have progressed to within the industry.
The event was held at the mint lounge in manchester so it was had a more casual feel towards it and created a more comfortable and sociable environment which was good for the networking side of the event after the presentations and gave chance to ask for portfolio presentations to the designers and get feedback from professionals on the work i had done so far without it feeling too formal and there fore gives more options to engage on a social level as well and connect more with these people and build up a reputation and connections with people.

Presentations:

 Andrew Mosely
Gallery Educator, Lecturer and Atelierista at Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester College and co organiser for FORMAT Photography Festival.

he explained that he worked for the guardian newspaper for 10 years as a photojournalist and then became passionate about working on projects to help people and bring people together, he also worked on FACT which is a Foundation for Art and Creative Technology which dressed issues such as mental health.

some of his work:

Everything is Fine (Season 2) from Andrew Moseley on Vimeo.

Some of the key factors of inspiration and advice that i picked up on through out his speech was that he mentioned that it is important to have broad idea of what it is you want to do with regards to what area of the industry you will end up in as there is such a broad cross over within the creative industry that it is too hard to try and pin yourself down to one area so soon before seeing where you interests or preferences take you and you will have a more fulfilling time working if you go towards areas that make you passionate even if that isn't what the initial plan after education was intended. 

He also explained that networking is key and is a big part of this industry and very important to get yourself out to events and to create contacts.

Textbook Studio:


Textbook is a design studio based in Manchester / Salford. Our work focuses on printed materials, especially editorial and publication design, for arts and culture sector clients. Physically making things is really important to us, so our studio often functions as a workshop and print room.

Vik and Chris who are designers and co founders of textbook studios did their petite ketch presentation together.

they explained that they graduated stockport college in 2010 studying graphic design. And that they did a lot of broad experimentation work whilst on the course which  got them to start creating and thinking in broader ways. They explained that they were taught to think crazy as well as to not be afraid to be commercial. 

They said that it is very good to do your own personal projects where ever you can as this design process and active mindset within the creative area of your own inspirations feeds into and can influence and help with projects that are being paid for as well.

They explained that they decided to start a business together as when they were studying the did a lot of collaborative projects together and realised that they worked well and understood each other way of thinking creatively and so explained that it felt natural to continue this after their study. 

They said that they got talking to some people at an event they attended who have them the idea to get funding to start their business and explained that it was the right place at the right time for them and they were able to get the connections. 

To start their business off and to gain recognition they said that they made books which they left around manchester in train station coffee shops and cafes for people to find and explained that this is what gained them recognition and that they still have people to this day asking them about the books.


Natalie Wood:
Natalie wood is another inspirational designer who gave a presentation about her work and her journey and who began her journey at stockport college. 
She explained that she studied illustration when she was a stockport college but was able to be flexible with her approach to working methods and was able to have some experience using after effects to animate her illustrations to some degree whilst she was studying.
She is now an animator at Fuzzy Duck studios in media city and her talk gave an insight into how designers are not tied down to one specific category and metholgy of practise as she applied for the job whilst she was technically defining herself as an illustrator and is now skilful in the world of animation and motion design. 
She explained that it is good to be flexible across numerous pathways of techniques so that you as a designer can mould to the shape of what creative outcome you are aiming for without the restrictions of ability to do so. 

It was very interesting because of this to she how her work had evolved and progressed through out her career.



By day she is a full time Illustrator and Animator at Fuzzy Duck in Stockport. By night she is a Freelance Illustrator, which is something I have been doing since graduating in 2010. Before the world of Facebook she ran my own clothing company, Livid Thorn, which took up the majority of her time while studying for her first degree, and gave a brilliant grounding in working for herself. The first time round she's explained that she studied Design & Art Direction at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2008. Not feeling completely fulfilled after one course, she opted to study Illustration and graduated for the second time from Stockport College in 2010 which really highlights the quality and standards of the college that i have experienced myself whilst studying her and the appreciation i have built whilst studying here.

She also mentioned that she is influenced by a lot of different styles, with the main runners being Shepard Fairey, David Weidman and Jim Flora.”

Gemma Roe:

Another presentation given at this event was by Gemma Roe who is an interior designer who studied at stockport college as she explained a very inspiring and aspirational journey of bravery in taking risks and being true to yourself and finding happiness for yourself and doing somthing that you love and are passionate about and working hard for it. 

She explained that she was stuck in an unrewarding job working as an accountant, and decided to take the risk to do something she would enjoy and took an interior design course at stockport college at the night school courses that stockport offers. 

She explained how she was able to help out on site of the launch of a project for the building of eco homes in which she presented models that she made of the pods to the creator and was given the opportunities although for free, to help out with this project on something that she was very interested and passionate about. From here she explained dhow this eventually lead her to become a co owner of the company Rotunda which was initially created in 2011 to create a sustainable modular eco building which would enhance wellbeing and encourage togetherness. She drew inspiration 

from the curves in nature and the neolithic and iron age roundhouses. And the first prototype was tested in 2012.

I found it inspirational how passionately she spoke about what it is that she is doing now and how your self love and belief in yourself shone through and i think that this kind of speech and the honsety in what she was talking about i felt really does rub off onto those that hear as it did so for me. I have since had a further look at the rotundas that she creates and they are so beautiful and breath taking and i love the natural and spiritual quality that she has managed to weave into these creations which is clear to see has come from the heart and has been based on something she believes in. It was really amazing to hear about when she was explaining about why she chose to make the pods circular, taking design back to our historical roots, less disconnected from nature and how the flow of energy can be effected by design and therefore how important design is in everyday! somthing that i think we as a society have become slightly disconnected from in everyday life, but work like hers is drip feeding this connection back which i find very inspiring as a thought for when i am creating my own work!Although i have always admired and appreciated architecture and interior design i have never been so inspired and touched by it until Gemmas presentation and this has opened my eyes even further in the world of design as i think its very rewarding to find admiration and qualitys in all aspects of the creative industry to enrich my approach of thinking about creatively.

Over View:

Overall from the presentations at this event the themes of advice i found that i have taken from this is self love and passion for what it is i am doing and to work hard towards achieving my goals but enjoy what i am doing as well.

On top of this i also think especially after how great this event was for inspiring my approach to work and admiration for all corners of the design and creative industry, would be to stay active within the industry with regards to attending events such as these and hearing other people as this can be really great for opening up my mind to design approaches and new ideas, as well as creating nd forming great connections with others within the industry.

Fix8Group

I went to visit fix 8 a company based in stockport that does visual productions and event management. and create complex live environments incorporating projection and LED mapping, 3D interactive Design, immersive presentations, production lighting, video design, programming and operation and content creation.
They have different sector within the studio that specialise with the different technicality that they approach such as the lighting and electronics team and the digital creative team, which is who i went to meet up with for my work feedback, and then events organisers and managers.
I met with Directing manager Neil and head of 3D design filipe.

Some of the projects they have worked on:

 FIX8 were asked by Iain Whitehead of Production North to come on board as lighting and video programmers for LD Peter Barnes, for the Girls Aloud 10th anniversary tour.
They explained that for this project they built a 3D model of the visuals in 3ds Max which allowed them to build lots of looks and basic cue structure for the show. Matching lighting colours to the graphics on the LED screens gave them a head start in creating a more polished look so that when the girls arrived for rehearsals on the second day after load in, they already had a good first draft of all the lighting. Of course things changed and a few late nights were required but the hard work was worth it and a dynamic pop performance was created.

They also worked of the sett up and lightings for Eurovision and Michael Buble concerts:

I brought some of my work to them to get some feedback and advice for improvement and showed them my show reel and some of the clips from my most recent project at the time that i had finished.
i was told that my show reel was interesting and kept a good pass with keeps it interesting and that the song that i have put with it works well as it is upbeat and lively and the lyrics relate to the desired effect of the message for a show reel.


They said that some making off clips inside my show reel could be effective.

I also showed my silhouette animation which i was told was very aesthetically pleasing however would have been nice to have more of a narrative in it and some kind of climax which is the kind of feedback i have been receiving on this piece from a lot of designers that i have shown so far. One thing they did mention for this piece was to maybe cut it shorter or add a spoken narrative story to give it more depth and have the voice lead the story, so that it is still enthralling but does not take too much time to add too as i have already moved on from this project.

After having this meet up i was also offered the chance to start going in for some work experience with them which i agreed to go in for two days a week there.

I started off by being given tasks such as modelling practise in which i would be given a physical object in front of me to model with filipe helping me if i needed it or got stuck.

some of the first tasks i was given to work on was to try modelling certain objects that i was given, such as a light box, and i would model it digital from looking at it in real life. I also had a ruler that i took measurements with to try and create an accurately sized model.

This is another object i was given to model that was a bit different to give me experience with all types of shapes:

 I also did some lighting and materials exercises:

This is another model i was given to create focusing on the helix shaped mesh on the from of the speakers as being one of the things to work on. I used alpha channels in the texture to do this.

I made this texture on photoshop and used it to make the helix mesh for the speaker using the alpha channel option so that on the part of the model that i placed it onto, only the black shapes were present:

 I also had a go at experimenting with dynamics and some animation and made this dripping paint style shaped animation which the string falls from the top of the frame then folds and overpass itself once it hits the ground.

 This was based on one of the centre pieces they made for a previous job they had done to give me some understanding and testing with uv mapping. I had to create the helix shape for what would have been the centre piece at a show they were working for and then there would be lighting animations running down the sides of this helix shape, meaning that the uc mapping layout had to be correct in order to do so. Doing this gave me a good practise and understanding with the uv mapping tools and techniques indie cinema 4d:

I worked on my own project work quite a lot while here as well which they would help me with if i got stuck or needed advice with anything.

Design Bridge Project Feedback

On the 23rd march i visited Design Bridge Studios in london and met up Art Director John Sherwood.
Design Bridge is an independent brand design agency and have studios in London, Amsterdam, Singapore, and New York, too.

The studio mostly works with graphic design and prints for clients such as cadburys in which they have an ongoing contract with and design the branding and marketing schemes for. However i was shown around the studio and introduced to the motion team who worked with the likes of after effects and cinema 4D. Cinema 4d was used mostly for the 3D modelling of stills for their advertisements such as modelling the product and packaging for bottles or foods that they have clients for.

I was shown a a piece that had been put together by their motion team that was used for their show reel that was made on after effects and was told that the transitions are what makes a show reel flow when i come to thinking about doing mine, and also that it is best to try and use the sharpest quality pieces all the time to make things look professional. 

The studio was a very big size and had lots of inspiration all over the walls of each floor and lots of product references such as Smirnoff bottles and  prototype models. 

John explained that there were about 250 designers working at the studio and so they had different sectors that work on different projects and they have a large number of projects that are running at each given time so they all have seclude time tables to keep on top of their work. 

Dogs Bollocks awards:

He also explained that they are quite active in the creative industry and social networking and that they often make competition brief for students and amateur designers to get involved with, and also use this to seek new talent and create a creative community. 

After being shown around the work space and find out a bit more about the company and what they do i went into one of the offices to show John and his colleague some of the work i have been working on so far for some feedback.

As They are actually graphic designers he explained that he would try and give me feedback as best he could based on design aesthetics. 

So i showed him my silhouette animation:

He explained that the aesthetics are really great and from a graphic design point of view are very interesting. He said however it could be interesting to even further amplify the strange shapes to make the parts of the forest out of such as curling the branches of trees more or exaggerating parts of the landscapes in abstract ways.
I thought this was quite an interesting viewpoint on this piece as on of my inspirations for style;e was tim burtons nightmare before christmas and corpse bride for the landscape design and it was interesting that John was kind of picking up on this region of the style as tim burtons landscapes have exaggerated symbolic shapes to make up they landscapes in an abstract manner.

He said that he really liked the use of sound as well as the subtlety of it added to the tension and overall atmospheric feeling making the piece feel more ethereal and solemn yet intriguing.
For my show reel he mentioned that my introductory logo was really nice but felt it could reflect my style slightly better after seeing my work that i had made he explained that it was probably not bold enough to really show my style and nature of working although he thought it was creative and looked visually very pleasing and had been done well, just as to reflect myself as a designer maybe to make something else or edit it to reflect this.

My show reel logo:

i thought this was an interesting and very good point as i had not considered this i had made the short logo animation of just a means of introducing my showreel however he makes a very good point and i think it would be a lot more effective to use a design that does amplify the bolder darker style of my work. 

Nexus studio visit

On the 22nd March i visited Nexus studio while i was visiting London.

We met up with Luke Youngman one of the head directors at the studio.

He showed us some of the work produced by the company and explained that Nexus is an agency that  connects the client with a designer with regards to what the client is after and who will be the most suited.

I hada tour of the studio which was a very big size with floors of rows of designers, Luke explained that the designers usually are put together with regards to who is working on which projects so that the communication is better.
The studio is led by a team of technical directors, animators, designers,coders and artists backed by an animation and VFX pipeline capable of producing multiple high-end 3D projects. It also provides the creative and logistical support to our live-action and stop frame productions.

He showed us some of the work the company has produced for clients and explained that they always have numerous amounts of projects running at one given time and that it takes a lot of organisation between the employees there in order to keep on top of everything.

As a means of advice for me as a student he mentioned that sending in a show reel that i have made sure to have up to the highest standard i can and not just a half hearted pice is needed, as well as a good length, of about a minute, and to use the appropriate names when emailing, not just a copied an pasted email that looks like it has been sent around to lots of studios and sending of the most recent work i have been working on as well would be a good idea as its shows how i have been active with my work.

Because of the dynamics of the studio and the ability they have to pull in lots of different designers and people to work for the clients they produce a large amount of work and a very varied style of work which broadens the pool of clients they work for.

Examples of some of their work:

Pure Imagination from Nexus on Vimeo.

Radio Jones And His Robot Dad from Nexus on Vimeo.
Vodafone 'Surprise' from Nexus on Vimeo.

Matt Gealing

I met matt at the Glug animation festival in manchester that i attended on the 9th of February and arranged a portfolio crib meet up with him.

He is a 3D animator and designer from Fuzzy Duck Studios in media city, and explained that there is 17 people that work at the studio who all have different regions of techniques in which they specialise and this makes for a diverse spread of skills when coming to creating work for clients and exploring new ways of approaching the work they produce.

I went to visit him and i had the chance to show him some of my work that i have been producing and get some feedback on it from him which was very helpful especially at this point in my course as i am coming towards my final deadline and therefore need to make sure all of my work is the best i can make it, and i will be going back and tweaking some of my older projects to achieve this.

Firstly i showed him my show reel as this is something i have recently put together alongside while i have been working on my project briefs. He told me first off that the length of the show reel was a very good length as if it were to be longer than a minute/ a minute and a half it is generally too long as designers do not really have the time to spend more than this amount of time watching the clip, and so keeping it a shorter lengths is a good way of making sure that it will most likely get seen all the way through, which is what you want when showing your work and skill sets to potential employers.





He also explained that he thinks it is good that i have shown a variety of skill sets and techniques in the work i have created and shown in my show reel as this shows how i can be diverse with the work that i produce and how i produce it which is appealing to the industry as it shows how i can adapt my region of work and have some understanding of multiple techniques which is useful when coming up with ways to approach creating a piece of work relevant to the brief and with the freedom to then create a piece of work for this, as i am less likely to be restricted by the technique if i have some experience with a broad spectrum of work skills.
He also explained that this variety of techniques shows my interest toward the approach to working and makes the overall feeling of my show reel more interesting as it is more diverse and keeps the viewer interested.
He did mention, however that it is noticeable in my show reel that my skill sets and interests in techniques are leaning more towards the world of 3D animations, which is correct and i thought was quite interesting that he could pick up on this just from watching my show reel as it is not something i had noticed myself or thought about when i was making it but he said is a good thing as well as it gives the viewer a feel of who i am and how i am progressing with my work.
I was also very pleased to hear him say that he thinks my 3D work is very impressive considering how long i have been trying myself with it as well and said that its not just the 3D aspect with regards to skills that can be seen but he said a good design and creative approach is still present in my 3D work which is a really good combination as he said that there are lots of people who have the skills but not necessarily the creativity or design thought process involved but this is perhaps even more important that the skills when being able to come up with and produce work for the ideas that would make clients happy with the work that they receive.

I showed him a couple of clips from my most recent project i have been working on (as it was still unfinished at this point but i had some scenes for the piece rendered and finished that i could show him) because he was interested in seeing a bit more of the 3d work i have been making and he said that my character rigging especially for the wolf that i animated for my forest scene was really good with smooth movements and considering that character rigging can be particularly tricky at time i have done a good and effective job of it.

He also at this point explained to me how he tried to do a similar thing for his final piece animation when he was studying at stockport college in which he chose to create his animation using cinema 4d and that he uses cinema 4d in work now. He explained that the cross over between maya cinema 4d and ads max are all fairly similar but he prefers cinema 4d.

I did also show him my previous finished piece from this year (my silhouette animation) and he said that he can see the progression of my character animations and rigging from 2d to 3d and said that it is interesting to see where my skills in this area have evolved too.

He said that he likes my depth of field in this animation and it works quite well and he said that the cuts between scenes and transitions to the cuts work well as well.
He said regarding to how i could improve this animation that i could draw the eye of the viewer to the second tree that is shown in the first cut of the animation and to make it seem more like it is still the same area the characters are walking through the same area, to move the camera angle into the environment more so that the second tree becomes slightly visible.
He also mentioned that there are some parts of the animation where the boy is floating slightly and it could be a good idea to just tweak those keyframes slightly so that it dosnt happen.

Matt also said that i could send any of my work over to him for him and the other people he works with to have a look to get more freed back.

DBLG

While i was visiting London i visited DBLG studio and met with Grant Gilbert who i had the chance to speak to about the studio and the work they produce there as well.

I was shown the process and steps taken with one of the major projects they produced for channel 4. It was very interesting to see the stages of pitching ideas to the clients and how they cam up with the idea of breaking down the channel 4 logo into shapes and breaking it apart to come up with a new brand identity for the channel.
It was also interesting to hear about the various different aspects for the channel that they had to make designs and components for such as in the instance for the queen dying, along with the usual up next screen loading and the intros to particular shows on the channel such as the Simpsons channel 4 logo they made.

Grant explain that the rebrand they came up with was to reflect the channels public service and focused on innovation diversity and taking risks. They designed an identity that was playful and expressive and ever changing as the elements could move in anyway they wanted them too or could be positioned however they wanted and they could even change the count and number of segments that they used so it was very flexible and diverse yet kept a fluidity across the channel and signified the channels identity still. This new direction was the foundation for the Channel’s new Idents Directed by Jonathan Glazer and within the new bespoke font created by globally renowned design agency Brody Associates. They incorporated the blocks into the Channel 4 News identity and meeting room vinyls. As massive thanks to Steven Qua and 4Creative who we collaborated very closely with to create this project.




Grant explained how they have been working a lot with the 3D printer they have and how the client often likes to have somthing physical to see and to hold when pitching an idea and so this is a good means to communicate this. The example he told us was that when they were pitching the idea of breaking the channel 4 logo into pieces and using this as an interesting and creative was of representing and identify the channel that they printed out the segments of the shape of the number 4 with the 3d printer and threw them onto the table and let the clients move them around themselves.

Grant explained how they collaborated with typographers to create a font for the channel that reflected this new identity and they came up with the idea to cut of sections of the text using the blocks they made so it was symbolic even in the text of the channels identity.

They could also break down the blocks and use them as guide to place text inside to signify whats up next on screen. 

They had guides that they used to keep the style and over all aesthetic looking neat and organised and structured whilst still showing the identity, however because of the flexibility the identity offered they could use various colours and lay things out differently to some degree still. 

They also made lots of various screen sliders and because of the flexibility again were able to offer a huge range of different options.

Bear on stairs is a stop motion animation they made as an personal project using 3d printed models of a bear at different stages of a walk cycle walking up a set of stairs. This short video actually went viral as well due to the uniqueness of the approach at the time.



Due to the fact that they were making this animation using stop motion they had to print out around 50 models of the bear at different stages of walking up the stair and then they looped the animation so that it looked like it was on a never ending conveyor belt of stairs.

Grant explained that before they printed out the models, they made the animation in cinema 4d to see how the dynamics would work at to track the poses and motions the models would be in and to get an idea of how it should move etc. 

Again they said that cinema 4d is a programme that they use here which was interesting to find. However they also use after effects and live footage and showed us some of the work they made using a huge crowd of 1000 actors to create a piece for Freeview after pitching ideas to them.

They worked in partnership with Anomaly and created a set of commercials for the new freeview campaign, as freeview will run hundreds of short contextual films in TV ad breaks that comment on the storylines of programmes happening that day they wanted to connect with the viewer by creating a commercial that was warm and human. Using no VFX, filmed entirely in-camera they captured the collective energy of over 1000 people. To compliment the tone of the Freeview voiceover they also created over 30 charming visual worlds filled with mesmerising movement and colourful patterns. Never boring and always fun to look at.

 This is showing how they work with a range of different technique to meet the needs of the client.

The trip to this studio was again very interesting and gave a good insight into how they approached projects and worked through them. There is a lot of communication involved for these projects that they were working as there are a lot of regulations required for the channels that the client needed to go through with them and to keep up to date with them through out, however there was a level of freedom involved due to the ideas that they had pitched an decided on being quite diverse and open.