Week 5

First of all I did the finishing touches to the presenter for Brantano, and then I had to place the postcards into place in Dreamweaver so that they could be used as E-flyers. The whole postcard project was a big job, but now they can just easily send it out each month without worrying about putting it together and if there are any mistakes, so I've learnt that it is best to get something over and done with to save wasting time.




I had to put text into a presenter for a client of another catering company. Apart from spending a lot of time deciphering the text(!) I had to lay it out so that it matched the design. Luckily they load the swatches onto each document, something that I will definitely be doing from now on. I chose a colour and a matching font face and it was quite straight forward. I had to change the words around so that they sounded the same as each page, as it looked as if it had been written quite quickly. Even though this may sound boring, I actually enjoy things like this because it enables me to see another project and side of Caramba and gives me more ideas and inspiration. The images in the presenter were all of ones in situ that I'm sure I could have created in seconds anyway!...




I also had more amendments for WhiteOaks, promotional material for an old people's home. The wide range of clients here really keep you on your toes as you need to know what type of person needs what. Needless to say this range was a bit calm and simple, yet quite bright, and had a lot of large text. Amending many different documents (as there is 12 every time) really puts my newly learned shortcuts into action, and I am constantly picking up more speed.



At the end of the week I was back on working for Lovefood, first of all a few amendments to the pictures in situ. The client wanted us to show what it would look like with certain walls painted, and I hadn't done this yet but I found it quite easy and straight forward. I think my best project yet though was creating a new range of icons. The Lovefood concept was going to be introduced into infant schools and the icons needed a more fun, bright feel that would fit in better than photographs. I illustrated different versions of each icon, and had fun experimenting with the different brushes and techniques in Illustrator, a program that I don't use very often and don't have much passion to mess around in. I was very pleased with my results and hopefully some might be considered. Its great when a project you enjoy comes along because it increases your drive and makes the day go quick!

Week 4

The first brief of the week was to find new images for Brantano to include on their website. Some of the images that were currently on there were not as suitable of effective as they'd like. So I searched through stock photo sites to try and find some better ones. It was quite hard as images for "little to large" and "choose by size" are going to be quite similar. I tried to also get a wide range, including some abstract ones, but these were not too popular and would not be right for the client. Brantano's marketing budget has been dramatically cut in the past few years, so they couldn't afford their own photography which is a shame as anyone and everyone can be using the same images. I have realised that it is quite a painstaking job, and choosing the right image is vital.


They also wanted me to find an image for their facebook and twitter pages. I did research into their competitors and it was quite surprising to see that there was not a lot of continuity across the different web pages. Next has a certain style of photography which was quite recognisable, but again, with Brantano not having any of their own images this was going to be a hard task. I focused on their strap line "Shoes for all the family" and even though it may have been a little obvious I still think it worked well. I didn't expect that I would be using a lot of my time searching for images in a graphics studio, but knowing what you want and using the right words is a very good skill to have. as it can be very time consuming.



I had various amends, this time including more recruitment posters and changing layout. I also had to amend the Caramba postcards. As I prepared to lay them out for an e-flyer, there were a few mistakes such as forgetting to put the full stop in bold etc, small things that can be easily missed so it is essential to keep looking through your work.

A company called Barlett Mitchell, another catering company, required posters for special promotions. They have a very clean and minimal layout so it can be hard to do different options. I also had to create a loyalty card for a promotion where the customer can get a free deli sandwich when they buy 5. I quite liked this and again it is interesting to work from A3 down to credit card size. It shows the importance of a good logo, and I think that their particular logo struggles when it is reduced. I found that they make good use of tints; I would normally choose a different colour but keeping the swatches down to a minimum is key.

Week 3

In the third week I was trusted more with bigger projects and responsibility, which felt great. I finally settled into a really good routine where I was happy and comfortable with my surroundings.
I was given a bit of free reign with my creativity when I had to design a few options for a poster for Brantano. "Sole Searcher" was the title, and the aim was to advertise the last chance to buy certain varieties of shoes. Some designs had been done previously, so I Already knew they wanted an 80's theme because of "sole" and "soul". I learnt a few techniques here, such as placing objects into shapes, which is very useful and I can use it in many ways. There was a lot of layout issues to work through, and I chose an alternative colour scheme. Overall I was quite pleased with the results. I placed this into a presenter which is expected at the end of every project like this and they are becoming common knowledge to me, so I can quickly produce it now.




There were more amends, mostly to seasonal promotions, images and text needing to be dropped into place. I had to amend various things for Brantano, such as job vacancies, manager contact cards and vouchers for different stores. When different content needs to be entered it can be annoying because of words looking odd at the end of a paragraph etc and suddenly a quick job can take a bit longer.



An interesting challenge was a button on their website - the user needed to click on this to access the page to print off their voucher. The specifications were very small, which is understandable for a website, but it brought up issues of legibility and I had to make it work.
I have also been working of some promotional food posters for 'Love food' which will be put up in a school. They wanted two for each month; one celebrating an event or holiday and the other trying to encourage eating more healthy food. I did many variations of images and colour ways so there is lots to choose from.

Week 2

The next week at Caramba I am carrying on doing similar things, just making small amendments to various projects. I was given the responsibility of updating a leaflet for Brantano, a page created for kids to keep them entertained whilst in the store. A competition to win an ipod from last year needed the newer model dropping in. I spent a while on it because I knew how many were going to be printed!

Other work included helping to create postcards to send out to various companies. Caramba are constantly targeting new potential companies to work for, something that I didn't expect. I thought that the other companies would be targeting them, although they are only a small company. Their idea was to send out a postcard every month with big headings that look like they mean the total opposite, e.g. "We don't want your job" and on the other side "...we want your business". I think they're really catchy, and a good idea as if one was sent with lots of information on it, it would get thrown away. These keep pestering and may catch a company at an vulnerable time. With this I had to choose clever images to go with each caption. They were in turn altered to include the company's colours of orange and purple, also garish yet eye catching. For smaller companies they went for a different tact; for food establishments they had a picture of two pears and used the play on words, being very personal. I have also worked on ones for local schools and these were cheeky using phrases from school like "Please see me" which can be used literally too.




Following on from last week I designed a menu board for LoveFood and a takeaway menu for Spice of Life. A lot of the images have already been created so its a case of trying different layouts. Again, I put these in situ. I also created an order form for BlueBox POS which was quite tricky working to such a small scale.

Week 1

So my 1st week of being in a real graphics studio environment.Initial meetings and greeting over, we started off with putting signs into context. Caramba do a lot of graphics for food and catering, so it was mainly placing directional and informative signs in real situations. The process starts off with a brief form Mark, who gathers all of the information from the companies, and we go through each photograph from the site and draw on where everything goes. I'm quite comfortable with this as I have done some before, but a few pictures need a lot of cloning and airbrushing where the previous sign was bigger than the new one. This was more challenging for me, but with a bit of persistence and a lot of keyboard shortcuts learned I managed to get them out in a reasonable time.Other work in the week included doing amends, where the client had changed their minds for work such as leaflets, and I had to alter the content to their needs. It is surprising that some work can be done once or twice and it is fine, yet others get sent backwards and forwards to make certain that everything is correct. These are usually the bigger clients and businesses.The studio is split up into 2 teams. The A-team works on many different and smaller projects, where as the B-team have large and few clients, such as Brantano. From talking to people in the B-team, I have found that they have little opportunity for creativity. Everything is very precise and the client has a certain "feel" that needs to come across on each piece of work.

I have also had a play around on Sketchup, a free 3D program that is sometimes used for visualising the end look of a room with all signage in place, when the building is being re-fitted etc. I found it quite fun because I haven't used anything like it before, and also is good experience for me if I do go down the packaging line.

Towards the end of the week I created a new layout for POS products (plastic casing etc). It needed to be more clean and professional and this was achieved in an afternoon. Simple things such as learning a few new shortcuts make all the difference.

The atmosphere is very relaxed, and I was pleasantly surprised to see these people who have been in the graphics industry for around 10 years still shout out for help on certain programs. As asking for help has never been one of my favourite things to do, this has boosted my confidence.