It's been a bit manic to say it's a Monday!

After my blog entry yesterday, I ended up on a very productive spin and really got my name out there! I joined a couple of design forums, finally uploaded things onto Flickr, began sorting out my website, made a couple of logos, blah blah blah! And WOW did I get some results. I had literally been on the forums for half an hour and I already had over ten replies and helpful comments, my Twitter went mad with new followers and this blog, even though it's only just started, went from 3 or 4 fews to almost 40 in one hour! As they say in Yorkshire, I was dead chuffed! Even more exciting was a post I noticed from a photographer up Newcastle way who required a graphic designers help. I thought 'o yeah, al av a go pushin me luck whilst I'm on a roll' (yep, I have a very broad Yorkshire accent) so I dropped him an email about his request for a designer to edit all his photos for him. Went to bed and didn't think nothing more on it until I checked my emails this morning...HE'D REPLIED! He said he'd looked at my work and was very impressed and wanted to know if I was willing to edit a tester piece for him before we went serious (I talk about this as if it's a romance haha, kinda feels like it at the minute!). So yeah, good mood today despite the masses of work I have to do. Whilst I'm waiting for a reply, please head over to his site and check him out:

Nicholas Ainsley Photography

and keep your fingers and toes crossed for me on that one :) Anyway, onto other things...

As I said before, I've been creating a few types of logos for my self branding task. I ended up sat doodling in my marketing lecture this morning and came up with a design that was simple yet memorable and captures the essence of my design brand (clean cut, modern designs, efficient etc). Decided to colour co-ordinate logo to the applicable site they are to be assigned to, with hopefully this reflected on my website in links such as liannamay|twitter in the associated colour for example. What do you reckon?

And I'm thinking this for my main website logo? Too girly? Boring? Crit me :)

I'm off now, I've rushed through my pasta sketches today so I've got more time to research establishing a website/getting a domain name etc. Crit day tomorrow so my mood may have changed by the next time I blog...

So it's Sunday...

For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter, I am currently working on a brief for uni where I have to rebrand pasta. This includes coming up with a new brand name, devising new packaging and basically solving everything what is currently wrong with pasta. Apparently I came off lucky as the other assigned products were sugar or tuna. I'm not so sure. I HATE pasta (awaits the shock of this revelation). I have never liked the stuff so I have no clue about anything pasta related so research has been extensive (so has the amount of pasta my boyfriend has had to eat due to it being a new addition on the shopping list). Anyway, today's task has been looking at pasta portioning and the impact it'll have on my packaging. Sounds boring yeah? Well, for the first time during this project, I have actually enjoyed playing with pasta! I got to use maths! I have missed maths so much since A Levels and it turns out, an A Level in Maths and Further Maths really does come in handy during design! My knowledge on volume and formulas helped me devise the optimum size for a 500g cylindrical packet of pasta which satisfies both long strands and pasta shapes (I realise by now you guys may have drifted off with the prospect of maths so I'll just add a photo of my work to elaborate).

As you can see, I've also done a lot of research this weekend into types of packaging and its sustainability which went totally out of my comfort zone. As someone who likes to stick to 2D work and the more advertising side of design, packaging design has been a whole different world to me. My Graphic Products GCSE has really come in handy so I'm kinda glad this brief has widened my design spectrum a little and allowed me to get even more involved in my design in terms of researching production, materials etc.

My current idea for the brand name is Impression due to the brand creating a good impression on your shelves should someone see it (looks expensive), it creates a good impression on you pocket due to it actually being affordable and impressions of pasta will be on the front (thinking of somehow putting simple silhouettes of pasta on the tube either via a window or engraving etc). I'll let you all know what the crit session thinks to the name but in the meantime, what do you reckon?

Moving on, I'm still on the hunt for summer placements next year. Spoke to my personal tutor the other day and he agreed with me on my idea to do placements over the summer rather than taking a year out because I really, really, really (yep, that much) want to stay on at Leeds Uni and do the MA in Advertising and Design for an extra year. Already applied to a few places back home in Sheffield, will probably search for some in Leeds this week. One I've applied to which I really hope they get back to me from is a company in Sheffield called Blue Strawberry Elephant Their work is amazing, I really would advise checking them out. A family friend knows a designer there so hopefully a placement should get pulled off, if not, I am determined to find one so watch this space!