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 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