Personal Branding: Website Revamp

ILO: 6C2 

Develop and implement a personal promotion strategy to communicate to relevant organisations

ILO: 6D2

Use a range of appropriate communication methods to present themselves as a professional practitioner to a relevant audience.

WEBSITE REVAMP

This is the home page of my website, or what it looked like before this revamp. As much as I love the whacky video backgrounds it feels inconsistent (with the exception of my blog as I feel this is an extension of my website...)

Original contact pages:

This I felt was more consistent as the backdrop is still black however I felt it was too distracting in context.

Portfolio page:

This was originally white with black text.

Blog page

I absolutely love the video of the jellyfish as my background. However I felt it looked disconnected to the rest of the website, so also changed it to black:

It looks so boring and ugly, and not anything like how I want to represent my work. So I changed it back and modified it, so it does actually work in the sense it's still neat as I played around with the alignment of the header and post colour so it's more visible and legible than it originally was. I realised I also needed to change the logotype, I originally just had put a small white stroke around it so it worked on the black background, now as a transparent png I reverted it to white, it's a lot cleaner and will easily blend into any background.

Integrating branding that was on my business cards, I made white .png's of the characters I used on the backs of the cards, maintaining a visual link throughout my personal branding.

The logotype looks so much less like 'word art' and more refined. The involvement of the character's I really like, it adds a touch of my personality without going overboard which I often struggle with.

I also gave the header a lot more space, I feel originally everything was a bit too close together, I aligned the start of each page.

I wanted to add socials in the footer but realised I only had instagram which looks really bizarre floating by itself... but fits in nicely in the header this way as well it's always visible at the top of every page.

Main Changes

Integrated visuals consistent throughout branding

Updated logotype

Let things breath, spacious layout

More fluidity in terms of backgrounds especially

Custom domain and monthly subscription paid for (got rid of that unprofessional ad banner)

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Portfolio Section Update

Branding:

Updated:

Publications:

I made and Issu Video but the gif they produce for your publication is so fast and has an ugly grey banner across it at the end.

Then I thought about using this plug in which seemed perfect, you can flick through the pages and it animates it like a book however as I found out later they play Google ads over every other page...

So I decided to upload a sneak peak video for each publication and have it linked to Issu, so you can view it in full.

Each has a link to the full publication in the text beside it.

I changed the 'Artwork' page under portfolio to moving image, where I can put the Childline brief, my Research brief and Suki promotional video, all with links to their relevant project pages offering more information like so:

Complete Updated Website

https://www.aligraycreates.com/ 

Personal Branding: Business Cards

Business Cards

Thinking about what I wanted to change from my first business card I remember mocking up in first year covered in fake paint splatters... I considered this list

• Having a stronger (more unique) visual identity 
• Cleaner, neater but without loosing personality
• Incorporate characters I've explored throughout this year.

Characters:

Lemon head

Lazy Gear head (as featured in Lemonade music video I directed and edited)

Aloe Vera man (relating to two studio brief projects)

The original Lemon heads are made from giant balloons and 500 sheets of newsprint and about a litre of PVA, this was definitely the most ambitious project I've undertaken and one I'm incredibly proud of so want to incorporate this. This lead me to the idea of tracing him so he's more cartoony which fits perfectly with other cartoon style characters I always seem to produce.

I've kept my logotype the same, the reason being I literally have this font tattooed on my hand, I want people to make this visual link when they shake my hand...

They may not know I'm a Magical Mystical Princess yet but they'll figure that out when they work with me.

subtext: Andale Mono

I like the contrast with this kind of analogue/ typewriter aesthetic as I use traditional methods quite a lot especially sticking to hand drawn graphics.

I experimented with the layout and how the text could intertwine with the logotype as it curves.

I decided to use Invasion 2000 for the subtext as it's a font I've used consistently and I feel suggests that not only am I an illustrator as demonstrated by the back designs, I love a bit of tacky digital design.

Branding Research

Word Person is the pseudonym of copywriter Ellen Holcombe. Ellen wanted a more professional identity but still wanted to portray a sense of fun into her business.

I personally think the characters on the back of her cards are really sweet, I like that there's a small variety of back cover designs which makes me think about including my own characters on the back of mine.

Nick Paton's American Illustrator's Business Cards

The simplistic white and black contrast I feel would really work well with my characters as line drawings otherwise they may all be in different mediums/ colours, this way they'd act as more of a teaser.

"Mexican graphic design and branding studio Anagrama was approached to develop a sophisticated coffee house branding for Umutu Coffee Company, which is a new Nigerian coffee house. Anagrama’s approach was to design a visual identity that reflects Nigeria’s new social coffee culture similar to companies like Starbucks or Tim Hortons. Anagrama’s identity concept is a balancing act between creating someting completely new in this location but not too unfamiliar to the local market. The brand should be iconic, with a vibe of a contemporary lifestyle. The designers decided to stay away from a stereotypical African color palette. Instead, they mainly use the simple color combination of black and white to convey an eternally chic. The logotype was designed in form of a monogram. It conveys solidity and quality." 

Following on with this black and white theme, the simple white ink logo against the black is really striking and sheek. I'm not aiming for the sheek aspect of this but I love how much it stands out against the background, I could utilise this method, so print white ink characters onto black card.

I think this branding for Mermaid Bay water is so beautiful, it's really clean and simple but has the illustrative qualities on one side free from any text and is allowed to speak for itself, I want to allow my branding to breath, I often cram things together I think it's important to allow especially my illustrations to stand alone and make sure text isn't squished together.

A Thank You To Exposed: Placement Article

Read on Issu

I wrote an editorial style article as a response to my 2 week placement

Placement @ Exposed: Day 10

ILO: 6 A2 
Demonstrate specific knowledge and specialist understanding of the professional and contextual location of their practice.

ILO: 6 C2

Develop and implement a personal promotion strategy to communicate to relevant organisations..

Day 10
Presentation

I'd asked few days ago whilst preparing the Instagram decks wether it would be possible to present my findings at their weekly 'Show and Tell', where everyone grabs a beer and presents projects they've been working on throughout the week. 


I recorded this on my mac:

I was completely overwhelmed with the response and the lovely introduction. They all invited me for drinks afterwards (which I definitely needed) and congratulated me, even people I didn't know came up and said well done it was amazing! The two weeks working here have been really eye opening, fun and made me realise... I'd love to work here. Conor asked when I could come back so I'm hoping I can work with them in the future. 

Placement @ Exposed: Days 8 & 9

ILO: 6 A2 
Demonstrate specific knowledge and specialist understanding of the professional and contextual location of their practice.

ILO: 6 B2
Undertake research to identify and evaluate their personal and professional skills and the career or progression opportunities available to them.

ILO: 6 D2

Use a range of appropriate communication methods to present themselves as a professional practitioner to a relevant audience.

Days 8 & 9 
Instagram Brief: Identify layout routes

Conor loved my first deck and I was really pleased, he then asked me to narrow it down as there's a lot of research and possibilities, to two or three different options in terms of how they can lay out their posts in the future. This felt rewarding as they're wanting to implement a new technique based on my research and input.

I identified two routes : Rows & Cohesion...

With this deck I made sure to add more high profile brands so Conor could see how it's been implemented by more established companies. 

The last slide I utilised images of their existing work and manipulated them so it was like a mock up Instagram feed, the images to the sides of the middle three being images they would add on carousels as I highlighted it's important to not have a post that's almost blank as a detail of a larger image, you need each social media post to be representative of your brand.

Professional Feedback

Professional Feedback On My Lemonade Music Video Project (OUGD603)

I managed to finish the editing just before I got back to London for my placement, but now I'm here it would be the perfect opportunity to get some professional feedback from video editors. I showed it to my new friend here Joe who does just that and I was so surprised and thrilled he said it was brilliant and couldn't think of anything that needed changing in terms of the shots etc. but he gave me some really useful tips on how to give it a more professional feel.

Dimensions 

By changing the screen dimensions to 1920x (roughly around) 818 - can be played around with, "whatever looks best". This will give it a more cinematic look as when these dimensions are uploaded to youtube it automatically widens the video , so whilst editing there will be black borders but when it's uploaded it will get rid of them . He specifically said do not add black shapes mimicking this as you'll have way too much black space and they will stay when its lengthened on youtube. 

Colour grading

Learn how to use Lumetri: colour wheels on After Effects can really give it that depth & colour balance. This will be perfect as he mentioned it I could agree noticing some parts due to lighting and the lower quality of the fish eye lens were mis-coloured and a little inconsistent. 

Joe then suggested his personal preferences and go-to settings, explaining it seems to be the perfect balance, but to be careful of skin tones as you can end up looking a little orange if it's too much!

mid tones: more towards the orange 

shadows: more towards the blue

at the end play with the highlight which can help avoiding anyone looking like they're wearing too much tan! It was really insightful and encouraging feedback, I'm going to try out all of these methods.