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. 

Placement @ Exposed: Day 5-7

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 5-7 
Instagram Brief

Art Director Conor Lehane of Exposed (the digital sect of Exposure) set me the task of redesigning the Instagram account for Exposed as "it's a mess."

I began researching and ended up finding a lot of the prime examples came from people learning around me in my class which gave me a sense of pride for my peers, as we're up and coming and utilising these new styles and experimenting more with layout and aesthetic cohesion.

Suki Struggles

The relationship between me and the other 'founder' of Suki has turned unfortunately quite sour. I chose the name (the alternative he'd suggested was Rosa) from his list of two, came up with the whole design concept, at no point did he suggest anything useful of constructive; which is fine because I'm the designer and was happy to do all this myself. All I asked was to be credited in the Instagram page, he then started posting images that look like they'd been drawn with felt tip, my logo design on a skate deck, It was embarrassing especially when you've written quality skate brand in the instagram bio. He didn't listen to what I was saying which was in no way personal etc. I was just trying to explain the design needs to be consistent, in terms of quality and aesthetic so I should be the only one putting anything out there if I'm going to have my name all over this brand.

After he calmed down and realised it wasn't a personal attack, agreed to give me a cut of anything he sold with my logo on it and would consult me before putting any work out there. 

In order to prove Suki was in fact going to be selling high quality products... I needed to make sure there was some appropriate promo out there. With my new found love of after effects, I made a short promo video utilising skate footage from Southbank in the 90s. I presented it in amongst a row of collaged imaged utilising grid systems, the collage is purposely messy, chaotic and blurry/ glitchy, with use of garish vibrant colours often clashing, drawing inspiration from magazines such as Rad and Thrasher.

I composed the images from screen grabs from found footage of skaters all over the world in the 90s.

Music Ocean Wisdom ft Dirty Dike& Edward Scissor Tongue 'Freeze'

I chose this as I felt it was really fitting of the skate community, British brash abrasive aggressiveness.. this whole vibe of "I don't give a fuck" is the best way I can describe it. 

(fangirl moment, Dirty Dike liked the post)

I put this out and Matthew argued it wasn't the right 'brand ethos.. but looks sick', despite having never once mentioned anything about his brand ethos which he's apparently been working on "for years". He bought skate decks six months ago and still hasn't picked them up. I constantly said if we're going to paint them we need professional spray paint and linocut stencils to get a clean finish, 

NOT LIKE THIS ... 

 no

(his version) 

I'm in love with this promo video I've made despite this so am just going to post all my Suki work on my own design account, as more of a concept for a skatebrand because I don't want to work with him in the future, nor will he ever find the motivation to get it going himself. This is just further proof to myself I cannot do anything for free anymore. And don't collaborate with people you meet off Bumble.