Grafik

After I went to London to visit papa Cummings and his girlfriend, Margarita who is a tutor and artist at the Royal College of Art, I managed to meet some rather interesting individuals. 
I met Richard Brucht, AKA HUGO who writes for Grafik and expressed interest in doing a talk at the college at some point in the near future, although have been told he is often tied up with freelance work and obviously the job at Grafik. 

Home took my house away

After hearing nothing back from the local agencies in Harrogate, my house being on the market, and my job starting to take a particular zing from my free life, it seemed all is lost.

But wait, the buyers of our house are a couple who both work for and run a design agency who specialise in advertising, and are a lovely couple.

Hurrah! Lift the veil of angst and longing for a house that will be never seen again, hope is on the horizon.

I got talking to them and they have offered to let me have a look round, and get a chance to get a potential placement.

Here is some of the work they do:

So its alot of public domain work, and some of their work may not be what I'm completely interested in, but I think it would be a good place to start, considering I would like to work towards branding, and advertising. Their intro video shows that it looks like a huge hub of creatives working as a team, not just a practicing studio.

About?com

Found this great opener stressing the importance of having a strong portfolio as a graphic designer - 

'When trying to break into the field of graphic design, having a solid portfolio is crucial. 

If you are job-hunting, your portfolio is what employers will be looking at to decide whether or not to give you an interview. 

If you are starting a freelance business, potential clients will be comparing portfolios to choose a designer for a project.'

There are several choices for what type of portfolio to build already available, and each one has its pros and cons. If I'm considering a website, its easy to access, provides an interactive hub of my work, and can be sent out as a link quite easily. 

However, it is rather time consuming, can run the risk of looking run-of-the-mill, need to know the tech skills to set one up and depending on how I do it, can cost a bomb concerning domain names, etc.

PDF's are standard as we all know now, handy for reviewing work, with additional space for notes, and in some case indications of how to read a presentation board and so on.

They are also incredibly easy to email, print, produce, and read through, with the handy 'Book' style format they have. 

I would not say that the traditional portfolio is anything to be ashamed of, or something that is unnecessary, as its always good to view something in its true context and its entirety, rather than a flat, digital representation of it. Just that its much easier to send off to clients, employers and agencies.