Thank you for visiting my blog, my name is Laura Adams and I am currently in my final year studying graphic design. I'm using this blog to keep people updated with my work, enjoy!

Thursday 23 December 2010

Antonis Demetriou







Finally got these bad boys printed a month ago using solopress, the turnaround and quality of this printer was great, I really recommend these guys to anyone looking to print! Also sent me a nice pack of all the examples that they print on to, really nice design on that too! It's a really great feeling to see your work printed for the first time - and an even better feeling to have a satisfied client! :)

Thanks Antonis!

Meanwhile.. i've been getting a lot of work done lately! Got 5000 words ready for my 4000 word deadline when we go back to uni in jan, pretty happy with my designs for the photography exhibition brochure and working on a magazine client project with Rhys at the moment! Things are happening!

Unicorn.Feathers

Thursday 18 November 2010

Pure Nothingness!

So! after handing in the two (only two we're given in our third year) university briefs two weeks ago and a 2000 word draft of the dissertation a week ago! I found myself feeling very very alone.. HOWEVER, really excited to be free to do my own things! So far I've written two personal briefs and whittled my client briefs down to two for the moment. Both have been approved by the tutor, with praise, and so I need to get cracking before the Viva.

I only wish I didn't need to work each weekend, I'd have alot more time to crack this design business. I'm just going to become a hermit within the week and not leave my mac alone!

I'm not giving any ideas away for my briefs yet, not until I have some visuals to put up here to explain things a little better!

I need to find my personal fuel - don't drink tea or coffee.. energy drinks don't seem to do anything.. and I live of sweets so sugar won't work. suggestions on a postcard?

Unicorn.Feathers

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Packaging Project

Over Summer we were given a packaging project. To go into a supermarket/DIY store and choose a product that has a set of three to redesign. The existing packaging had to be really poorly designed in our opinion. Firstly I chose the value range of paint in homebase, even the next level up of quality homebase paint was poorly designed. Does anyone really want to see a woman sat in a painted room on their tin? More of the colour swatch should have been visable...

However, I decided against this idea as the project was to last me over the summer period.. I didn't want to get bored! So I decided to do something that I buy regularly, I settled upon Doughnut packaging. The bad packaging culprit was ASDA, I recognised the bag for the doughnuts has been chosen as the doughnuts are made in store and are bagged when made. However, there are weird 'doughnut' shapes squirting juice on the bags which have a weird orange/brown colour printed on to the bag. The label also left design to be desired.

So! enough bitching about the ASDA doughnut packaging... here's my idea!



The top section of the label is reversed so that when folded over the brown paper bag to seal it the label will be facing downwards. I kept to a paper bag for ease of packaging shipment and bagging in store. However, i kept to a plain brown bag because I feel that it gives the bakery brand a homemade feel.. much like the logo I produced for the bakery.

My idea for the small symbol illustrations for the doughtnuts came from an original idea wher I drew a line of four for each confectionary product. I developed this and feel the idea could be spread across the whole confectionary section of the bakery. Below is the idea on cupcake labels, which would be stuck on the plastic packaging currently used. For more gourmet cupcakes I am thinking of developing a box myself for a personal project. I'll keep you posted!



Unicorn.Feathers x

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Client Work

Catch up!
Throughout summer I made a dedicated start on my progress towards third year! as well as having a holiday and a life..

So here are a few client projects I did over my summer and carried on into my first semester back in Swansea.





My first Client brief was from a lady wanting to open a Hair Salon in Cyprus, the salon would be called XTC and the colours had to be vibrant green and purples. Other than these requirements I was left to my own devices. Below shows how the logo can be adapted to suit other needs or colour requirements.




Next, my local scout group approached me as they wanted to get their own version of the scouting logo produced for their uniform, neckers and any other material they would use the logo on. They gave me colour requirements and showed me the original welsh scouting logo. I showed them a few ideas, and this is what they chose.





A Hairdresser approached me to make business cards for him to use when doing freelance work or networking with potential clients and customers. There was no brief set, I created a few different samples and showed the client, below is the final business card.



My latest complete client project is for Crow Valley Line Dancing, a line dancing company based in my home town of Cwmbran. I produced a logo for the company as they had never had one before. I was only briefed on colours, through research I found myself coming to the solution shown below and the client is now using this logo.





I have two other Client projects on at the moment, as well as two university briefs and my dissertation. However, I'm always looking for new work and more experience. If you know anyone who I could help with some graphic design knowledge or work, please don't hesitate to contact me! limelor@msn.com

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Our final major project of year two of the course! Make the 'Uncool' cool, each person in the class was given a different uncool hobby, mine was badminton! Which I found particularly hard as all the research I found led me to believe Badminton is really popular! However, I did find statistics which told me the number of younger players are decreasing!

So this was my solution! Posters showing all different ages enjoying the game, I created the logo, photographs and poster designs. As well as designing collectable shuttles for children, the idea being they would be sold in shops to attract a much younger generation and hook them to the game!















Tuesday 27 July 2010

Book Design - Sins and Virtues

















An illustrative book. Showing my sins and virtues within the field of design.

Unicorn.Feathers

Visual Studies - Experimentation and Graphics!










If you haven't spotted the deliberate mistake already! the logo on the last poster is wrong, but I can't find the final edit!

We were given eight random words, mine included, dinosaur and black hole. From these eight words we could create anything, this was our first project of second year. It was to get our imagination going, and our experimentation within graphic design back on form. Many briefs through graphic design specify the exact requirements/measurements/specifications and leave very little room for experimentation so this project was great! I designed three posters for children's adventure holidays including the logo for the company so the posters looked more authentic! I found illustrating the characters very difficult, but with practice I think I could get better!

Unicorn.Feathers
FinePrint printing company project, a name I came up with, this is a combination of a branding project and a web design project. The web design was created to introduce us to designing for web, image sizes etc.




Above are two screenshots of two pages from the site, the index page and the About Us page. Below are the branding aspects of the project.





After feedback of my designs I found that I could have changed a lot about the layout for the compliment slip, letterhead and business card, which you may see for yourselves in the above design. I should have been more confident with the logo I created, instead of what I did create.

This project was entirely web design, we were given the name Ulterior and told we could make it any business/manufacturer we liked. I chose to design for an eco art supply company, as I thought this would be completely original and the obvious choice was interior retail. Below is the design for the index page. I tried to make the design of the site very organic looking, by scanning in cardboard and using earthy colours.



Every link of the website worked through dreamweaver and led to the next working webpage.


Second year proved to be a lot more difficult than year one, however, trying to hold down a part time job did prove to add to the difficulty I had. This is why I will not be keeping my part time job past christmas of this year, as I want to focus purely on my design work, and not have my degree suffer on behalf of working in a shop!

Here are images of the work I produced throughout second year, beginning with our new branding class, our first project was to design the brand imagery and corporate i.d for a made up company. I began by researching competition, the obvious being Starbucks and Costa and I looked at how smaller chains and one off businesses cope against these retail giants. Working with branding I needed to look at who my target audience was, their needs, and any design specifics that would help the business appeal to them. Here is what I came up with!



As well as the logo, business card, compliment slip and letterhead we had to think how the logo could be used in the environment of the business, which is essential if the logo is to be a success!



Next in the branding lessons we had a project to design a fashion brand! Same principles applied, researching, deciding a target audience, researching some more! I actually do love researching, almost my favorite part! Below is the logo I created for my fashion brand called 'Aphrodite', with grecian influences and a target audience of women aged 18-25 with a lot of money!



Below is the front cover for the fashion brochure I produced to advertise the high end clothing range, the design and photography used within the brochure were created by myself rather than using images off the internet, purely to give an idea of what the brochure could look like if the photographs were produced in a professional studio instead.


Next post will be showing everything to do with website design that I learnt throughout second year!

Unicorn.Feathers
To keep posting until I have updated this blog with images of work in chronological order or not? I will keep doing it... just incase anybody is actually interested!


Below is an image of the piece I created in my first year for the stamp project, based on the idea of saving energy!





I really enjoyed illustrating for these stamps, I think it showed in my project work as I had a distinction for this project also :)




Above is a competition I entered to create the European Organic Logo, I didn't win, however I learnt a lot whilst creating it and enjoyed the process!

As far as first year goes this is all I'm going to upload! A lot of the work we produced in first year was mainly typographical exercises and experimentation! Next post.. second year!

Unicorn.Feathers
So, I found my password! Haha, here are a few of the images of pieces I created from the first and second years of my Graphic Design course in Swansea.


My work for the Digital Image Manipulation Class 1st year of Graphic Design.
I basically took the idea of manipulating the images to the extreme, and manipulated every element that I added!







Above is a page from the Dance Magazine I designed as a first magazine project, mastering Quark was the hardest bit but once master pages and style sheets were in the bag it was smooth running!





Above is my first project working as a designer for a client, unfortunately I had very little contact with my client, however I still had a distinction for this project! Below is the front and back design for the business card.







Throughout the first year of the course I had to become used to working in a different way as I had been working for A level Graphic Design and also Foundation Graphic Design, learning new software, as well as moving away from home for the first time! My experiences throughout first year and coping with many more projects at a time helped me move on to second year, which I will be posting work from in the next couple of blogs!




Unicorn.Feathers.x

Tuesday 8 June 2010

First Post!

At first a blog was something I wanted to avoid. Is anyone really bothered with what I have to say? Will this be a pointless waste of time? However, I enjoy keeping up to date with friends work and so I thought there may be a possibility of someone being interested in mine!

This summer I intend to pull my finger out and really get a head start on the third year work. I really want to be organised this year, I think this is the only way that I'll produce first class pieces! Over the next few blogs I will be posting my work from the second year to show everyone where I'm at and hopefully show you new ideas and projects over the next few months!

If you have any comments on anything they would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks Guys,
Laura:)