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!

Monday 31 October 2011

New Work




As well as various client projects I've recently finished, which will be updated on the blog soon, I created this information graphics piece about the August Riots in London after statistics were published recently.

Any crits are welcome, this piece was just created to visually communicate all the long boring lists I was reading online :) enjoy!

Monday 10 October 2011

The partners - an insight into their incredible agency

The Partners - a multi award-winning London-based design and branding agency

Amazing insight into the way that they work, check it out!

Links

Please take a moment to peruse my pages online, some may interest you! :)

Cut.It.Out - My laserart page

An example of what can be found at Cut.It.Out


Cwmbran Craft Fayre - Amazing craft fayre with really different stalls from local craft people

Every second Sunday of the month: Next craft fayre is Sunday 13th November 2011, don't forget to 'like' us on facebook!

Adam & Eve - Crochet Accessories

An example of what can be found at Adam&Eve! Ghosts and pumpkins £2 each (60p p&p).

Wednesday 14 September 2011

News

I started a course Monday for freelancing, by participating in this course I will gain a qualification with ILM. I've found the first three days really interesting and incredibly insightful and helpful towards my business ideas. Today mainly concentrated on finance, which was much more difficult to get my head around and has left me with a few headaches! I think perhaps if there had been a few case studies it would have helped me learn as I think the style of my learning, being a creative person, is through visual aids and examples.. but I'm sure I'll get it soon :)

The last three weeks have been so busy, setting up the Craft Fayre was relatively quick in terms of booking stalls as people who have been interested began contacting us after our first wave of advertising. The next, harder, steps were to make sure we were getting the customers through the doors to make it all worthwhile. This involved going out every day and wandering the streets of Cwmbran posting flyers through doors. Luckily we gained some help along the way, but we've still not finished the whole of Cwmbran.. it's actually a lot bigger than I thought.. even though I've lived in Cwmbran for 22 years!

The fayre was a success, especially considering it was the first fayre, and hopefully word of mouth and more advertising will guarantee an even bigger turn out next month! With regards to my designs that I've been selling at the fayre, and at Usk Show the day before, I've done pretty well! Especially with gathering interest from customers who are looking for particular commissions, such as wedding invitations, personal poems and potential sales to shops!

Everything is really exciting at the moment, I've always wanted my own business and so hopefully I'm taking the right steps for this to become a reality! :)

As far as design work goes, I'm almost finished with a client website which can be seen here: www.twileansolutions.co.uk but would like to STRESS that the logo design is nothing to do with me and unfortunately my web design had to include the logo.. I think I've made my opinion on that quite clear so I won't go on.

Also, for my lasercut designs I am trading as 'Cut.It.Out' and my design for that logo is below:

You can find my page on facebook to have a nose through my work: Cut.It.Out If you do have a browse, please click like!

Enough of my rambling for now :)

Monday 22 August 2011

Summer 2011



I've been non-stop busy since the start of July and have to apologise big time for not keeping you updated about what's been going on.. and also apologise because this is going to be one hell of an update!

So I started the summer by receiving my results! FIRST CLASS HONOURS! chuffed :) Then I was off to London to exhibit at New Designers 2011! Being chosen for this by my university was excellent, and what I'd been working so hard towards all year long!

Here are a few pics:






I had lots of positive comments about my work which was really nice to hear, after staring at your work for so long it makes you a bit unsure whether it looks good to other people! I had quite a few conversations with industry people and emails from people who had picked up my business cards which was really great too! As I'm currently only looking for freelance work to do alongside my MA I replied to these companies letting them know, but hopefully when my MA is done these companies will be looking for me again :)

I had a great time in Camden for that week with people from my class and If you hadn't been there with me I wouldn't have got through what I did. Big special thanks to Rejane, Alice and Dan.

Next was my birthday, and then graduation! Jam packed month and that was just the first two weeks!

I'd post a photo of my graduation here, but I'm sure you're not too interested in that!

So.. graphic design time sheets have been pretty choc full too! I started with the design of Cwmbran Craft Fayre, a venture between me and my best friend and business partner Michaela Rossiter. Check out our Facebook page here for details: Cwmbran Craft Fayre

Here's my design for the colour poster:




This has been an ongoing design project as we've started promoting the fayre starting September 11th, our 10,000 flyers are arriving this week ready to flyer bomb Cwmbran, the internet has been bombarded with adverts and posters are appearing everywhere! In other craft news, we are appearing at every Craft stall event that we can get to! so far we've been to Chepstow Show, Caerwent Show and Caerleon. Next stop Rogerstone!

Here are some photos from Chepstow:








Another design job i've completed this month is a logo for Crystal Creations. Check out their Facebook page; Crystal Creations





I'm currently finishing my website project for a client, it will be finished by this Wednesday. The link for this website is, www.twileansolutions.co.uk I did not design the logo. Check back soon for the completed website!

Other projects I have on the go are logo designs for 'Adam and Eve' Crochet designs and 'Cut it out' paper art designs (my own project).

This update has been so incredibly brief, I need to set aside time every other day to update this, if I ever find five minutes!

In the meantime, I hope you're all well :)

Laura.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Jammie Dodger Adverts






So these are the adverts, finally released four days ago! It was so great to sit in the marketing presentation, big thanks to Burtons Foods. Also had a great discussion with the marketing director Mandy.

These adverts are great, and for anyone interested.. here's the youtube channel Dodger Monkeys they should be uploading the 'making of' video too I think, I'll let you know! It was really great seeing how they made it out in America :)

.laura

Monday 18 April 2011

Jammie Dodger - Marketing Presentation

Last week I had a great opportunity to go into Burtons Food factory in my hometown to sit in for a presentation from the Marketing Director about the brand new advertising campaign hitting our TV screens at the start of May.

This advertising campaign comes due to the creation of Toffee and Choccie Dodgers, and a complete rebranding of the product. The design has really been brought into 2011 and is definitely a product that competes against the biggest in the biscuit market.

The presentation was really interesting, it was really great to hear all the branding information I learnt last year in university actually put into practice for a real company with real budgets.

Check out the article below, it explains the design considerations of the agency that handled the project.
Jammie Dodger Rebrand Article

There isn't anything online for the TV adverts yet, we were the first to see it! It has three monkey puppets tempting a mum to choose the dodger that they represent. It really connects with kids and parents which is what was set out in the brief, their market research was so thorough which is to be expected with such a massive budget on the line! I really think the adverts will be a success, can't wait to see it on the TV now :) I'll post the link as soon as it's on youtube!

.laura

Monday 28 March 2011

books!



These are the majority of books and journals i've collected related to graphic design over the last four years :)

And here are some that I'd really love to add to the collection...

Nice to meet you too - Victionary


Naive: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design


Impressive Printmaking


Invitation Only - Victionary


...just to name a few, I could go on forever. oh how I love books.. print will never die :)

.laura

Tuesday 22 March 2011

viva

I had my viva (final presentation for the tutors) yesterday.. once again I was so nervous, for what turned out to be a perfectly normal chat about my work. It has to be said, they hype the vivas up so much, although if you have the work done then it's a breeze I guess you only really need to worry if you've not done a lot!


So for anyone interested, they told me if I stopped working now.. and handed all the projects i've done so far I would get a 2:1! Which I'm very chuffed about, however, I'm not the type of person to sit back and relax and think everythings gonna be fine. I'm determined to push my work to the limits so when I graduate I know I really put my all into it :)

I haven't had much of a 'student' social life over the past few months and I'd like to justify that with the grade I get when I leave!


Anywho enough of the personals, I just wanted to update everyone with some of the surface pattern brochure project i've been working on... here's one of the adverts that will be appearing in Elle magazine, Selvedge magazine and Craft magazine in the next month.



I'll post up the layout work asap :)

.laura

Sunday 20 March 2011

crochet hippo







My first (and probably last for a while) crochet hippo :)
I find crochet relaxing and quickly rewarding, I'm hoping to sell these and other designs asap

.laura

Saturday 19 March 2011

Self Branding

It could be said that creating your own logo as a designer would be a doddle! You design logos for different people/clients/businesses on a regular basis, as a designer it's quite often a basic skill...

HOWEVER, don't be fooled, designing for yourself is one of the hardest things i've done yet. How you want yourself to be perceived by others is very complex. The best way I found was to sit myself down with a pen and paper and write down what I felt I wanted to represent me visually... just as you would do with a client!

I already have my freelance name 'UnicornFeathers' but to apply for jobs I feel this would become confusing to prospective employers, are they employing an individual... or is this an established agency? So I stuck with my name 'laura adams', which to me seems very plain, there are sooo many girls with this name and not just in the UK. I created so many sketches and development work for my logo, literally a sketchbook full. Throughout this process I found I was trying much to hard to create something unique and AMAZING, when really.. my work should show my talents and my logo should be kept simple..

so here it is! after all that jibber jabber..



and here it is applied onto a business card... a possible layout :)



Let me know what you think!

.laura

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Time Lapse

This video is amazing, 'My London' is the title, brilliantly shot.

I love time lapse, I've often felt like the world is rushing past me whilst I'm concentrating hard on a project and this would be a perfect way to visually describe this feeling. Here's the video guys..



Enjoy!

.laura

Thursday 3 March 2011



Reinventing Letterpress book


I recommend having a flick through this book on amazon, it's really impressive in your hands too. I really want to buy it, but I think it will make me wish I had access to a letterpress machine even more :(

Letterpress typography poster

I have a lot of time for anything produced in this way, the craft is unique now, considering this was the only way of printing not too long ago! I can really appreciate the work that goes into this kind of print and I'd love to have access to all the tools one day!

.laura

Exhibition Fundraising




As a class it was decided that creating prints to sell would be a way to raise funds for our exhibition in May.

Here is my limited edition print with the lyrics from the legendary Bob Marley :)
Any comments would be greatly appreciated, this is the first piece of work I've ever created to sell, so I have no idea how well it will!

.laura

Wednesday 2 March 2011

Updates!

Hey guys, not had change to post for what seems forever!
I have actually produced quite a bit of work, considering the dissertation has taken over my life until last week!

For now I will just post images from the photography course exhibition brochure design 'competition'. Basically our class was briefed by the director of the course to submit designs for their exhibition brochure. I got down to the final 4.. but not any further!

The images are here..


Front cover.


An example of an inside double page spread.



As soon as these designs were submitted I received images and the name 'Seamless' for the surface pattern brochure and decided to crack on with designs before I had even found out the results of the photography brief. Lots of my class submitted for this, and I was chuffed to be shortlisted to the final four again, they required some amendments before they made their choice which I created and got back to them within a week.

Yesterday I found out my designs were picked! Very chuffed :) So i'll be posting my first design and process to my final design soon :)

Meanwhile, here's a picture of my dissertation printed and bound, I'd like to thank Jem printing in the uplands Jason did a great job, and I'll definitely be sending my exhibition prints there!




.laura

Sunday 30 January 2011

for the dancers amongst us..















New York Photographer Jordan Matter, such a clever idea. Watch the video, you'll hopefully be as impressed as I was.






Advertising is bombarded at us every second of every day, really.. unless you're in a padded white cell you really won't get away from it all. This video is about product placement, Hersheys being the first company to pay for their product to be in a film.

Looking around my room now i'm hard pressed to find anything that doesn't have a logo on it somewhere, I suppose my carpet doesnt..

Have a watch, its pretty interesting :)

Unicorn.Feathers

Saturday 29 January 2011

Incredible

I really need to share this work with you guys..











Marion Bataille has won awards for her 3d pop up books - these are so beautiful and cleverly crafted. I'd really like them, thank you please! :)

Thursday 20 January 2011

Five months left...

ARRRRRGGGHHH!

..this thought is on a continuous loop in my head at the moment.
I can't think of much else other than our final deadline day of the 9th of May at 12pm!!!

It's all about the deadlines for the next five months, and if I haven't been particularly organised for the best part of my degree so far, then this is the time to really glue my butt to the computer chair and cover my walls in lists and calenders.

This being said, I have managed to get some new work and ideas down..




The above image is from a photograph of my boyfriend taken by Constantinos Kokkinopoulos. Using type I recreated the image.
This was just a test, to take my mind away from deadlines and experiment with other, fun, graphic design work. However, I really like the effect, and although it took me a good few hours to do this.. I would really like to apply it to a project, or perhaps evolve my own personal project from this.

One of my tutors suggested using a full size photograph of me and using this type technique recreate the image and use it for my exhibition space for the end of year show. Much like supermarkets use full size models to scare the crap outta you in the supermarkets (i'm sure that isn't their exact intentions..) ..see below.




I'm gonna leave you with a website.. a graphic designer I've loved since I was sixteen http://www.bantjes.com/
If you're unfamiliar with her work.. why?!

stress stress stress :)
unicorn.feathers