The articles talked about:
- The best ways to present your portfolio; size, format, stock (if printed)
- What to include in your portfolio; your strongest work, your specific area of focus (if you gave one)
- Don’t have too many pieces of work in your portfolio, 15 or under is recommended.
- Categorize your work throughout your portfolio; fine art, logo design, etc.
- Keep your portfolio up to date; always include strong pieces of work that you have completed recently
- Know yourself; know what you are good at (ask friends if you’re not sure)
- Know your strengths and weaknesses; possibly work at your weaknesses so that they become strengths
- Know your own style; be unique and create what you feel (we’re all individuals)
- When brainstorming don’t sit in front of your compute and browse ideas, go for a walk or sit outside and let the ideas come to you.
- Design through experience
- Success can be found in failure, learn to take risks
- Know the software; take time to get to know it, know it well.
- Keep design ideas and concepts clear and concise for your client; explain ‘everything’ clearly.
- Intelligence and energy are the two vital keys for success.
- Make a ‘setting yourself apart’ list to remind you of what you need to be every day to achieve your professional goals:
- • Be honest
• Be friendly
• Be positive
• Be focused
• Be intelligent
• Be respectful
• Be persevering
• Be sales-minded
• Have a sense of humor
• Listen more than speaking
• Be different than everyone else
• Do not take rejection personally
• I am an intelligent colleague who is here to offer help
• Have an engaging conversational tone
• Be relaxed
• Speak clearly and concisely
• Don't use slang or profanity with clients or vendors
• Don't communicate political or religious views in business
• Don't hesitate or procrastinate
• Set goals
• Keep learning
• Be friendly, firm and fair in all your business activities.
- Self-promotion; to promote yourself as a designer, everything has to be ‘your own work’ find your own theme and use it
- To get to know your style/theme write down a few questions and answer the. This will get your mind thinking and the ideas rolling. The more questions you answer, the more the theme distills into a concept, which gives way to clear art direction.
- If your design is successful and honest, your audience, namely potential clients, will create a mental image of you and subconsciously decide if they like you or not — all by interacting with your self-design.
- What procrastination is and why it’s such a bad habit; we procrastinate due to lack of vision, distraction, fear of getting it wrong and lack of confidence, indecision, boring tasks, thinking that the task is overwhelming and that you don’t have time, telling yourself you don’t have a real deadline so its not that important to get done straight away.
- Denial – “I have nothing better to do tonight…maybe I can sway a couple of my colleagues to go have a couple of drinks and hang out – besides, it is so nice out.”
Anger – “You want me to write how many pages in an hour? Isn’t it enough that I got my daughter to school, showed up on time for the staff meeting, got caught up on my emails, and actually organized my desk before 11am?”
Bargaining – “If I spend 45 minutes working on the article, then I deserve to play Tetris for 15 minutes.”
Depression – “There’s too much to do, it is so overwhelming, where do I start, I’ll be up all night…gosh, I’m so tired - I think I’ll take a nap.”
Acceptance – “Why didn’t I start this article sooner? A paycheck would be nice right about now, so I guess I’ll do it.”
-
Artist Booklet Rationale
1. Prior to commencing this design I would firstly need to ask my client a few questions so that the job description is clear to me. I would ask questions such as:
- Exactly how many pages are needed in the booklet
- The sizing and positioning of the document (landscape or portrait)
- The sizing of text, headings, etc.
- Typefaces that the client preferably wants
- The kind of information that is going to be used
- Images, is the client going to provide me with high resolution images to work with
- Colour setup (full colour, colour front page only, etc.)
- Print details (What stock is going to be used, binding, pagination, etc.)
- How many copies will need to be printed (quantity)
- Payment
2. To avoid wasting time on something that the client doesn’t like, save a few drafts to present to the client to ensure you are on the right track before commencing the job. Ensure that both you and the client know what the job involves, and always make sure you know what the client wants.
Somewhere down the track, you may have to do a job that you don’t like, but the most important thing you have to remember is that you MUST do what the clients asks. No matter how much you don’t agree!
Research what the client does to ensure you know about the business, this will make it easier when designing for the client.
3. Before commencing the task, research is always useful. Researching to familiarize yourself with the type of work that the client does is always beneficial as it gives you scope and understanding as to what you must do. It also helps to know as designing without knowing about the job is almost like drawing with your eyes closed. There is really no point in wasting time trying to come up with something that you know nothing about. Finding the content in which to use will depend on what the client wants and needs for the job. If images are needed, the client will either supplies these or you will have to supply them yourself, take photographs yourself may be required.
Whatever else is needed for the job, including the information that may have to be put into a document may be obtained from old documents or from the client.
4. To improve on the brief I would suggest the client should include requirements such as:
- Printing specifications: size, stock, colour setup and quantity required.
- What is and is not allowed; what we can and cannot do when designing the project.
Another aspect of the brief the client could improve on is possibly by explaining the project a little better; ensure it is simple enough to read and understand. Other than that there isn’t really anything else that needs improving.
5. The limitations I faced during this project were the amount of photographs I could use. Ken Duncan’s work is so stunning I found it extremely difficult to choose photographs for the project. They are just all so beautiful. I didn’t want to clutter the booklet with too many images and I wanted to use the images in a style that complimented the artist so I used one photograph per page, except for the front cover of the booklet.
I wanted to show the beauty in ken’s work so I chose photographs that had radiant colours and each photograph with a different scene.
Another limitation I found with this project was the amount of information I could put into the booklet without making it look cluttered. I used a minimal approach and only used relevant information and the finished the booklet with a website for more information.
I kept my text at ‘10 point’ so I could give a more corporate, professional look to my booklet. I also tried my best to get rid of any widows.
6. With my first attempt of setting up my document I didn’t go so well. An A4 portrait layout didn’t seem to work for me as it limited me from my designing skills. When I chose a portrait layout I found it difficult to set out my text in a tight, professional looking manner. The images looked as if they were just pasted into the document for the sake of having images. It didn’t really work for me so I changed the layout to landscape, which was much simpler to work around, and started the project again.
With my new layout I was able to have good quality images set across each page. And with the information added into each page, it was looking more and more like it complimented the artist, like an artist booklet should.
When using Indesign, there are many options you can use to set up your document. For my artist booklet I used a black master page so that all the backgrounds in each page of my document were black.
I used at least three different paragraph styles; Felix Titling ALL CAPS for the artists name in the title of the booklet on the front cover page, Kunstler Script for the title of the booklet ‘Nature’s Masterpiece’ on the front cover page and for the headings on each page, and Myriad Pro-Regular for the text.
Because the pages of my booklet were black I made all the text colour white so it was readable; any other colour except black didn’t look as good and was as readable.
I didn’t want the text to look too cluttered in the document so I used the tracking and leading tool to position the text.
I used links in this project in case I had to edit any of the original images in a different format, such as change the contrast or change the image to black and white. Linking the images also ensured that I could package the document without any missing links.
7. When it is time to print my project, I will need to save my file as a ‘pdf’ and give this file to the printer. I should also give the printer a packaged file in case there are any problems with any of the images/photographs.
When sending your file to the printer, there are always problems that may arise. The printer may not have the same software as you; this makes it difficult for the printer to view the document. If the printer does have the software that you have, the printer or you may not have the same version, and this will cause problems with printing. To avoid this problem from arising, always make sure you save the document in a different version of the software, such as one that’s not as up to date.
To avoid any problems when in the process of printing, always stay in contact with the printer so it is easier to work around the problems.
I have decided to print my artist booklet on A4 ‘Envirocare’ paper as its better for the environment and a lot cheaper. The booklet will be printed in full colour and the quantity will be 1000. The price of printing this project with the included requirements will be $1652.40
Percept are recognised by a number of jobs such as the Packaging Design community with features in the Dieline, Packaging of the World and Labels Plus, and the Email Marketing community as featured in the Campaign Monitor Gallery and as well as winning an Inbox Award.
Percept have represented in the prestigious Desktop Create Design Awards. They have been twice honoured in the 36th Annual Creativity Awards. Percept has published 42 design projects in various international graphic design journals.
Percept have featured in Oz Graphic and the Desktop Design Directory, the publications featuring Australia’s top design studios.
Percept were Wine label design medallists at Printing Industries Craftsmanship Awards. They are also an active member of AGDA (Australia Graphic Design Association).
Percept is a Graphic Design agency that have been operating in Sydney, NSW, Australia since 1997. They were formally known as Eye Scream Graphic Design.
The services they offer can be divided into the following categories: Branding, internet, print and marketing. Branding includes corporate identity, rebranding, and brand naming. Internet includes web design, web hosting and email advertising. Print includes designs, stationary, digital and offset printing, photography and visual communication aids. Marketing includes advertising, collateral design and electronic marketing.
