OUGD602: PPP - PERSONAL BRANDING

Brief:

Produce a range of self-promotional material for delivery through print and/or electronic media as appropriate to your individual professional and design practice. 

Assets to include:

Portfolio 

Appropriate online presence

Self-promotion material

Documentation of process

Considerations:

What do you want/need to say about yourself?

Who is your audience?

What do they expect to see and what do they want to see it?

Research: 

One of my favourite books in the subject of graphic design is to How to by Michael Bierut. 
This book gives an insight into one the best and most established graphic designers on the planet. Walking you through his life and design process was huge inspiration for a lot of my work this year in particular my personal branding. 

Really like this concept of slicing up your logotype and creating abstract shape forms. This simple technique can then be used to create patterns for assets, like Beirut has done with this brand.

- inspiration from bold minimal logos 

Having done this I then looked at some design studios for inspiration. These are pieces and styles of design I warm to. They are all bold strong pieces of design that are functional through the legibility. Although in different ways, they all take a considered minimalist approach, something i like to do in my design.  


Commission Studio:

John Morgan studio

Pentagram:

  
Design ethos:

okis sato:

Oki Sato

Oki Sato is one of my favourite designers. His multi disciplinary skills allow him to create work across the design industry. His design ethos is simple create design that is functional, but has to be fun. This approach focuses on contrasting aspects of design. Although so simple this design ethos is consistent across his many pieces and this is what makes his design so engaging for audiences.

initial designs:

With my initial ideas I experimented with a range of styles. I knew I wanted to use just a logotype and not create any kind of logo or symbol within my branding. This stage of designing was purely about finding a typeface and style which I felt reflected me as a designer. I was also ensure whether to brand my self as finn.s design or finns design. finn.s plays on the word finesse, a word which well describes my style of design. although some serif fonts worked here , such as Baskerville I felt this was to aggressive as a type and I needed to use a sans serif to portray a friendly mood. 

developing:

Developing the designs I made the decision of choosing a sans serif type. I liked some the designs I having used Helvetica and connecting the words in previous designs.I experimented a range of weights and sans serif types to see what worked best. 

final logo:

I wanted to use something fresh and more punchy than Helvetica but similar for legibility and neutrality. I chose Circular STD, this more rounded version of Helvetica is very bold whilst not being intimidating. I then played around with different ways of using this type, I ended up playing with the kerning allowing the words to interconnect by making changes to specific letterforms. I feel this works really well making the logotype connected as seen and areas as one. I specifically worked on the f, completely changing the top of the letterform extending the stroke to act as the dot of the i. I also used this same technique for the i in design, extending the n. These small details that sit fittingly on the logotype make it work. Although different spacing between the finns, and design this had to be done and I feel doesn't look out of place allowing finns, they key part to breathe more.  This logo aims to be clear, putting a stamp on my design with a strong approachable logotype.

To develop this, I took inspiration from Michael Beirut technique of chopping up the logotype, I then repeated this in different patterns creating an aesthetic to use use across my branding. This visually represents me using my range of skills for different projects. These powerful abstract patterns represent my minimal and clean style. I also created an animation of my logotype. The animation reveals the letter forms as they come together to create one logo, the intention was for this to be used on my website but squarespace doesn't allow moving image on the title. I have also mocked up my business cards, I didn't print these due to my job offer, meaning I will be getting business cards from my work when I start. 

animation link:  https://vimeo.com/334533655

Michael Bierut: