@DRME_STUDIO - visiting professional

"Make good shit"

The visiting professionals DRME Studios came to talk about their individual journeys to where they are now within the Graphic Design industry. They mainly focused on the fact that you can be just as successful without needing to be based in London, something many people associate to be the place to be for the creative industry.

Mike Perry - 'My mother caught me doodling'

Asking was the one thing that they saw to be most valuable and successful tool to accessing opportunities in the creative industry. Knowing that they were going on a trip to New York, they organised a meeting with Mike Perry Studio and landed themselves a 2 month internship the following summer. 

'365 days of collage'

The '365 days of collage' started as a personal project, as a way to use found imagery and personal photography that they had collected over the years and to also promote themselves as designers. The daily images became very popular to those following their design work because they posted at the same time each day on instagram and people started to notice. The aim was to changing perceptions and create new worlds. They sold the images online each day at a small price, so that they were available to everyone.This lead to their work being displayed in 'HOME' Manchester's exhibition. 

It is important to set yourself challenges and goals so that you grow as a person and a creative individual. I do not plan to commit to making a collage everyday, but it is something I would like to have a go at maybe weekly or monthly throughout 2017. It is a field of design that I have always used as inspiration, but I have yet to try it.  

"Do it for the love and then you'll get good shit at the end"

Advice:
- "Make good shit" 
- Collaboration is where opportunities are made
- "See shit"in galleries, new cities or new countries
- "Be fucking brave" 
- "Just ask" as jobs arise from this
- "Just be you" and do not only follow the trends

http://www.dr-me.com/ 

What's my name again?

Hi my name is Hannah (obviously) and I like Graphic Design (obviously).

Lets make this more interesting… maybe?

Hi my name is Hannah and I believe that everyone should constantly question, ‘what is the worst thing that is going to happen’, way way way more often. A random beginning you may think, but it is this question that has given me the confidence to achieve more than I knew I was able. 

Teeny tiny Hannah was very shy and did not believe that Graphic Design was a career she would be capable of pursuing. With ‘what is the worst thing that is going to happen’ ringing in my head, I was able to put myself in new social situations and along the way gain the confidence to share my work with others and be proud of what I was creating. To me, design is about making other peoples world more beautiful by either sharing nice messages, information or just aesthetic pieces of work. 

I feel like I should mention that my hair colour is Pantone Orange 021 U and that I’m also known as the one that doesn’t ever stop talking. Who knows, one day I might also be known for a piece of design work. That is the dream anyways.

12 inspirations

As a task during the festive period, we created a list of 12 inspirations that could help to positively influence our work as designers. It was decided that these inspirations did not all have to be design related as sometimes using other interests and disciplines can broaden the way in which we would approach a brief.

The DO Lectures

These are inspirational talks from passionate and creative people, people that DO things and want to inspire everyone else to go and DO things too. 







Chicken Shed Chronicles 

Inspiration from the 'chicken shed' is the weekly newsletter for 'The DO Lectures', sharing creative and general articles of interest and inspiration. 














99u.com

This is a bēhance account that helps creative people push ideas forward, empowering the creative community. I have signed up to the weekly email which sends over creative career insights, helping me to develop my knowledge on what kind of career I could pursue in the future. 
I found this article to be interesting and useful, as travelling as I work is something that I would be interested in doing in the future. Travelling whilst working is seen to be positive because it is clear that we don't have to work a 9 to 5 office job to be our most productive, creatives do not necessarily thrive off of a routine. 
The interview also explains how side projects are the 'gateway to creative freedom' as they do not have the same constraints that a client lead brief has and they ensure that as designers we do not begin to view it as a chore.

Seth Godin

A blog on marketing, tribes and respect. 
The article on tribe management interested me because it was a new way of looking at the world that I had never heard of. 
It starts with permission and the ability to connect. The permission is used by a company so that they can begin to build a tribe of people who want to connect and receive updates from the company. Everything that the organisation does is to feed, grow and satisfy the tribe; seeking products for the target audience, not seeking customers for your product. 




Swiss Miss

It is a design blog run by Tina Roth Eisenberg who founded and runs Tattly, CreativeMornings, TeuxDeux and her Brooklyn based co-working space Friends. 
Each of her businesses stemmed from a personal rule that she has, “I have a rule: If I keep complaining about something, I either do something about it or let it go,” allowing her to develop businesses that positively impact the lives of others. 

Malcom Gladwell
As a writer for the New Yorker Magazine, Gladwell also delivers public talks and has published his own books. 'The  Tipping Point' is one based on when an idea/trend crosses a threshold and spreads 'like a wildfire'. The book explores the tipping point phenomenon and has began to change the way in which people think when selling products and developing ideas. 





Martin Scorsese's mum & dad
The short film set in the 70s of his parents and how they react to different situations and day to day life is interesting as it can be used to remind that there is inspiration al around us and that we can use things as simple as our surroundings to influence our design decisions and approaches.










Medium 
A website that connects you with voices and perspectives that matter. It is a platform that allows anyone to publish their ideas and perspectives. Medium then sorts through and shares the best ones for you and delivers them to your personal homepage. 






Wayne McGregor

McGregor is a CBE multi award winning British choreographer and director who is internationally known for innovations in performance that have radically redefined dane in the modern era. His ideas are driven by his curiosity about movement and the creative potential that can be found through the dialogue between the different artistic forms, scientific disciplines and technological interventions.

Leadership from a dancing guy

A leader must be easy to follow, that is key. The first follower has a crucial role of publicly showing people how to follow. The leader must then embrace him as an equal so that others then feel comfortable to join. 

Sagmeister & Walsh
Sagmeister & Walsh is a NYC based design firm that creates brand identities, commercials, websites, apps, films, books and objects for clients and audiences. 
http://sagmeisterwalsh.com/ has a live camera of the office, suggesting that they have nothing to hide as a company. I also find that by having this live footage on my screen I feel more motivated to carry on working as I know that others are also working hard on projects. 

The die line

http://www.thedieline.com/
This website/blog shares the best in packaging design worldwide and shares the value that lies in well-designed brand packaging. 
As I am unsure as to what area of Graphic Design I specifically want to specialise in, it is important to follow a variety of different blogs. I think finding a specialised one for packaging will be valuable for me to be able to see all of the elements that would be involved, allowing me to decide if its the area I would like to be involved in or not. 

Self Branding - Video Research

Video 1: 
Do what you like, like what you do
Bert Jacobs

-Focusing on whats good with out lives will help fix whats wrong with our lives
-Focus on the opportunity, not the obstacles
-Our view of the world makes us happy
-Lessons learned from his personal experience make him focus on making his work fulfilling and to make others happy

"your life is a road trip"


Video 2:
Building a personal brand
Jacob Cass

1. DEFINE your brand
2. CREATE your website/blogs
3. UTILISE your networks

1. Know your goals, audience, USP and visual identity. You need to decide who you want to work for or what you want to produce so that you can target your branding and the way in which you work towards this.
2. The website should include a homepage, portfolio, about you, testimonials and links to your blog.
3. Creating a tribe of followers is important as you need to have people who want to listen to your opinions and see your work. The relationships with others should be established to ensure more chance of your work being shared and becoming known.

Inspiration

My Inspirations

In todays session on self-branding, we started to think about all of the things that inspired our design decisions. Throughout the morning, I began to realise that it wasn't necessarily the designers and artists that informed my work, but actually my personal interests and hobbies. 

David Bowie once said "the only art i'll ever study is the stuff I can steal from" which is something I would also agree with. The work of other artists should inform my own practice, trigger ideas and eventually help me to find my own design preferences. 

I think it is also important to recognise the fact that taking inspiration from other artists should be seen as a positive thing and as long as you are not plagiarising their ideas it is fine. To successfully take inspiration from an artist, you need to credit them for their work but also make sure what you produce is a transformation and complete remix of their original piece of work. 

Become a sponge and absorb everything around you as possible sources of inspiration.

Designers/Studios

Lo Siento 

Artist

Jose Romussi

Painting

Fernand Leger, Le Pont du remorqueur

Sculpture

Ai Weiwei, bicycle sculpture

Song

Changes, Faul

Recording artist

Alessia Cara

Book

Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber

Poem/Poet

Porphyria's lover, Robert Browning

Quote

"Never resist the unfamiliar" - The Beach

Building

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

After individually completing the list of 10 different inspirations in our lives, the pieces of paper were passed around the classroom so that everyone could share their inspirations. I found this useful because I now have a long list of different sources of inspiration I can refer back to when starting new projects or for general inspirations.

I found the quotes and the song choices the most interesting ones to read through as I believe that these are the most personal of the categories. The quotes that inspire people are particular character defining and can really show how a person may approach different situations in life, also influencing their design decisions. 

 

 

The results are stunning.

Following on from the session about stress management, I found this article particularly engaging as it highlighted that punishment isn't always the best solution to mistakes.

Robert W. Coleman Elementary School realised that making a child attend a detention session was not positively productive as staring at the blank walls did not encourage them to reflect upon their behaviour, instead the boredom created agitation. The school introduced the Mindful Moment room instead which is filled with lamps, decorations and purple pillows. The children are encouraged to sit in the room and got through practices like breathing and meditation, helping them to calm and re-centre.

It is thought that mindful meditation can improve a person attention span and focus. This is something I may consider starting when I have a lot of different projects all at once. To manage the workload, it is important not to procrastinate and the hours put in must be used to their best. I think at the start of a long period of work, I would benefit from clearing my head and focusing exactly on what needs to be done.

Source: http://www.upworthy.com/this-school-replaced-detention-with-meditation-the-results-are-stunning