OUGD502: Think Happy, Be Happy

And You Are Doing a Freaking Great Job are tiny quirky and colourful books of inspiration with hand lettered typography and illustrations. I found these at YSP and thought they were a cute idea. I like the designs and they are something I would like to try include in a brief because a lot of this year has been about trying to stay a bit more positive. I find little quotes nice reminders to enjoy the little things and life isn't as hard as we think it is sometimes. These were my favourite little quotes from the books. 

OUGD502: Yorkshire Sculpture Park

I really enjoyed the first year trip to YSP last year. So we made an impromptu trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park to gain inspiration. I find nature and nice views helps me with creative block so it was nice to be outside, away from a computer and just walk around looking at things. Luckily it was quite a nice day too so the photos turned out alright. The sculptures outside were the same as the ones we saw last year but the exhibitions inside had changed. There was a lot of woodland art prints which were pretty to look at by Angela Harding. I will take her printing technique, style and colours into consideration with OUGD505.

OUGD502: Visiting Professional - Footprint

Workers co op that was set up in the late 90's by environmental activists. They were printing flyers, info sheets, anything about demos and antiroad protests.

Then they began Ristoprinting. Risoprinting is like digital screen printing. This means they're more environmentally friendly because they're using less inks. 100% recycled. Ethical energy tower. Avoid the big 6. Only ship to the UK, which reduces carbon footprint going abroad. They recycle everything they can. They have relationships with other co-ops. They give back some of their turn over back into the environment by sending someone in to plant seeds.

The reason they can work the way they do and put a strong emphasis on working sustainably and ethically is because they're a workers co-op. Being a co operative means they're owned and managed by the workers. No owner or boss of the business, it's just them. It came out of the labours movement, it's especially strong in the north of England. They were formed to cope with the evils of capitalism. Workers were trying to figure out ways to deal with the labour market with bad conditions and low pay and general exploitation. One was to become a collective and work on trade unions to help better conditions and better pay and the other was to create workers co operatives and form your own business which means you can run a company and decide your own conditions of how you work. A struggle is still to remain competitive but the profit is not massive. You're working to remain ethical.

"Love not money job."

If they don't agree with the content of what they're printing they won't print it. If any one of them feel uncomfortable with the content they won't.

They're known in co op circles because they're likeable. They do a lot of stuff for hippies and punks and the music scene like record sleeves for bands. Zines are a massive customer source for them.

They've said no sexist, homophobic and transphobic content. One time they've said they were not happy printing it so they changed their content. They don't print for political parties.

"It's like one of those things do you want it good fast or cheap? Pick two."

Part of their ethos is that they're affordable to people.

OUGD502: Visiting Professional - YCN & Harrogate Water | Thirsty Planet

YCN

YCN is a curated, creative network.
People that see a huge value in creativity.
Based in East London, Shoreditch.
Ongoing professional support for individuals

Can take a dry, complex subject matter and distill it into something more sustainable. Take a brief and engage it with the target audience to make the message as clear as possible.
Show how you analysed the problem, research, people want to see your thinking before you see the final outcome.
Always encourage students to really read the brief, answer it but don't be limited by that. Example: they didn't ask for an app but they developed one. They saw value in it so added it to it. Another people did 80 pages for their research and conducted a research survey.

Me and Steven from illustration have decided to do the Thirsty Planet brief for responsive so it was imperative to take notes on the talk:

Harrogate / Thirsty Planet

An important part is the heritage. Britain's oldest bottled water.

• Thirsty Planet is the only Charity Water brand which is actually bottled by the brand-owner. This takes place at source at our award-winning facility in Harrogate.
• Since launching in 2007 we've now raised over £2m for Pump Aid.
• Helped build over 8,000 pumps
• Bringing clean water to more than 1.35 million people

What makes them different:

• They guarantee a fixed donation with every bottle. There is a fixed donation on every single bottle which will go the charity.
• This allows a sustainable delivery program.
• They're responsible for producing our products in the most environmentally friendly way possible, doing everything they can to minimise their impact.

Pump Aid - pumpaid.org

• Chose Thirsty Planet because of their sustainable approach.
• Pump aid is all about delivery
• 95p of every £1 goes directly to the field.
• 50/60 people working there on the project.

People need to be told why they should buy it. They've kept the friendliness and now it's all about trying to make it seem cool. The people drinking bottled water is an 18-24 year old and female bias. Trying to make it a little bit edgy. Worldly and smart, afford to be casual and witty. No point pitching somewhere where they can't get the core demographic right. They want people to buy into the brand because it is a good brand. Doing good needs to become attractive to people. It's not about preaching and telling people the amount of people that are dying or guilt tripping people. It's about celebrating what they're doing.

How do we take thirsty planet and make it appeal to your age group? Make drinking water something you enjoy and something that's attractive.

OUGD502: Visiting Professional - Build

In this talk he discussed key things that triggered interests to eventual journey in being a professional graphic designer. He has been a professional for 26 years now. Music was something that he was really passionate about and has shaped his Graphic Design career. "Graphic Design is the thing that moves me." Examples of Iron Maiden's work were shown. He was inspired by the music and style, particular really big aspect. He said he didn't know it was graphic design, he just like the music. He thought there was something magical about this thing he was looking at and something that really captured my imagination as a teenager. There was no history of design in his family. He has a far better understanding of graphic design now. He then spoke about type faces and things do and don't stand the test of time in the world he was fascinated in and he more interested in technical drawing
because he had initial thoughts on being an architect. He was then given a letraset catalogue. This was a real marker for how he fully formed this idea graphic design was a thing people were paid to do it. It was a key point in his career. He did a foundation in Scarborough and studied in York and thinks "pretty graphic design is boring" prefers something "with a bit of umph to it, something that's not quite right." He ended up in Newcastle later on to study and turned out to be the wrong course for him. He wanted to do record sleeve design and the tutors thought there wasn't a future in record sleeve design. He says that their current studio would rather have someone that's super passionate and not as good rather than someone thats only good at the work and not passionate.

OUGD502: Visiting Professional - Buttercrumble

Key Values:

• Smile
• Foundations
• Collaboration

Social Enterprise

• Businesses that are changing the world for the better. 

How social enterprise can help:

• Portfolio
• Connections
• Exposure

Projects:

• 2012 - Doedemee
• 2017 - Leeds Indie Food Fest

Examples of their work from their online portfolio:

OUGD502: Visiting Professional - Claire - Studio 12

Studio 12 is open to 16 to 30 year olds in Leeds Library. It's a free space with a sound booth in with a photography studio with a green screen and macs with the whole adobe suite. Studio 12 started in 2002. They wanted to create a studio that was accessible to everyone. Incase they couldn't afford to go to university or come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Their main objectives:

• They empower people that are passionate about their culture. 
• They want to engage with young people living in Leeds and create a unique learning experience using new technology and non-digital resources. 
• This enables young people to become the producers of new media content. 
• The want to empower young people to transfer and further develop their skills in new environments and provide knowledge of and everyday access to the wide resources of library service. 
• It's the people that come to them's projects that are the most important.

Projects:

Writing Britain

"Live how you sleep. Live how you dream."

Wanted to showcase what the disadvantage young people of Leeds really thought. They went through processes of finding people and letting them work with poets etc to create pieces.  They developed their writing then they story boarded and produced films working with people from London to produce the films. 

British Art Show 8

They wanted to make a point of getting more women into tech because it's mainly a male dominant profession. They expressed dual culture. They like to do showcase events to empower people.

Studio Masterclass

BBC 1xtra live.  They gave students one to one advice on their music production. Studio 12 created a event called Women in Music which was a Q&A session bringing a network event for all the women in music in Leeds all together. Words First is another project, all these new projects bring people into them. 

Breeze Arts Festival

Mostly in the summer they do film workshops with people. They teach them how to film and edit.

Leeds Zine

New little project this year. Going to be having an exhibition in room 700 in Leeds Central Library. Asking designers, artists, poets to put their work into the exhibition. Hopefully to celebrate Leeds heritage, culture etc on  Saturday 28th March. 

What they do as well is people can come in with their show reel and help to adapt that and make it as good as possible. Graduate students can come with portfolios and look at how to update them. 

OUGD502: Film Presentation - The Perks of Being A Wallflower

The film I chose was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This is because it's my favourite film. It's based on a novel by Stephen Chbosky. It is a modern film that shows the highs and lows of growing up.

This is Charlie. He's the main character. He deals with depressing and a traumatic past losing his best friend from suicide and his auntie who he was close to. He struggles to make friends as an introverted student.  

This is Sam. Charlie falls in love with her almost instantaneously. 

This is Patrick, Sam's step brother. 

Sam and Patrick become close friends with Charlie and invite him to their social gatherings. 

Sam really cares about Charlie and wants him to feel included and an important thing to her is that his first kiss is special. This shows how much she cares about Charlie. 

Charlie then ends up dating Mary Elizabeth because she likes him and wants to spare her feelings. Although he loves Sam.

Later it is revealed how much Charlie likes Sam as in a game he is asked to kiss the prettiest girl in the room and Charlie kisses Sam instead of Mary Elizabeth.

The film also deals with themes of gay relationships. That have to be hidden because of a parents shame in his child. This ends up in a fight.

It also deals with domestic violence issues through Charlie's sister and her boyfriend.

The film is based on struggles and the realities teenagers face of not being good enough and making the wrong decisions because it's what they think they want. Sam questions why she always choses people that hurt her over people that would be nice to her. For example, Charlie. The most famous quote from the movie is in this scene.

"Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?" 

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

Charlie later gets flashbacks of his aunt and here it is made known to the viewer that she molested him as he was a child and he blames her death on himself because she was killed in a car accident on her way to Charlies. This induces him to react badly and become self destructive. Meaning he has to be rehabilitated for a while so he doesn't hurt himself.