Design (just about) Digested
I began my year out away from my graphic design degree at LCC way back in June last year and it has been one of hell year in all honestly. I’ve learnt so much not only about what I want to do, but also about myself as a designer, met some amazing people along the way and been involved in some fantastic internships, freelance work, exhibitions, projects and everything else in-between. The highlights have included:
BRAG/Firehouse weekend in Brighton, YCN/Becks Fusion Live Studio, Print Club, ongoing involvement with UK Street Art, YCN Live: 250 Shoeboxes, 1 Superstar, Blyk/YCN Workshop, NOISE Festival 2008 short-listing, Not Actual Size, the BBC ‘Big Mic’ in Berlin, eBoy, A Delivery of Typography, Deutsche Kinemathek Alfred Hitchcock exhibition, Pentagram Berlin, ContainerPLUS, Cunning, THIS IS Studio, D&AD Student Awards, G20 music video, Type Tarts, Tunnel 228, the Ghibli Museum, breakfast with John Maeda, Trashed, Pecha Kucha Tokyo, Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo, Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition, Don’t Panic, Little Music Break to Paris, Wieden+Kennedy London, London Design Festival, Adobe Creative Bursary nomination and ideAporting.
A massive thanks goes out to all the people this year who have helped me, discussed projects, taught me and lots more. Ron and Chuck from Firehouse along with Jamie, Rhys and everyone else at BRAG. Nick, Sarah and the rest of the YCN team. Fred from Print Club. The UK Street Art team, Mark and Tom. Dan, Simon and Stephen from Not Actual Size. Svend of eBoy. Anja and Barbara from the Buchstaben Museum. Justus, Uta, Josephine, Christiane and Nikola from Pentagram Berlin. Luise of ContainerPLUS. Aidan, Becca, Spencer, Olly and everyone else from Cunning. Barney, Dougal and Richard from THIS IS Studio. Vicky, Danielle, Richard and the rest of the KK Outlet team. John Maeda. Alan, Simone and Mark from Trashed. Mark and Tomoko from KleinDytham. Eric and the rest of the W+K Tokyo team. Joe from Don’t Panic. Sarah, Sandrine and Camille from We Are Social, Guy from W+K London and everyone else who I have met along the way.
I came into this year thinking I wanted to be an ideas person in either an agency or studio and I’ve come away knowing that I want to be and ideas based designer. My typography skills have improved greatly as well my computer software skills. I’ve developed a much greater appreciation for the finer details of design and I know that I will always work on projects that excite me. I’m now collaborating more and more with interesting people and believe it’s the only way to produce the best work. People know something you don’t and you know something they don’t. I’ve learnt and developed greatly this year and have had so much fun doing it. I start back at LCC today and I will take what I have learnt this year and use it to get the most out of my final year, as a graduate and beyond.
For the immediate and long term future, I am currently working on ideAporting, which you can sign up for here, working on my dissertation which is based on the theme of Digital vs. Print and carrying on with my final year self-initiated project (watch this space). During my final year, I am hoping to continue the experiences I have had whilst interning, by working at a studio for 1 day a week, so I’m currently designing some self promotion and sourcing studios for that. I am also involved with a newspaper publication about student and graduate experiences with written and visual contributions that is soon to be produced. The project is being run by fellow designers Alex and Charlie. I am continuing to work with Pecha Kucha here in London, Trashed, UK Street Art, Don’t Panic and finishing up projects with Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo. I’ve also recently completed the identity for web based activists Turnfront which can be seen here and then finally, I have more self-initiated projects in the pipeline, both online and offline.
I now have a Twitter account so you can follow me at http://twitter.com/pauljenk and www.theshavedhead.com is soon to re-launch with a new design and new projects so watch this space. You can also continue to follow me on Flickr as well here. It’s been a pleasure to keep everyone updated about the last 16 months or so and thanks to everyone who has commented and emailed me. I’ve had 125 posts on the blog, documenting every creative thing I have done and over 20,000+ blog hits. I’m currently designing an outcome to summarise this year out so check my website for that soon. If you want to get in touch, drop me a line at paul@theshavedhead.com or on +44(0)792 166 7913. Finally, I will starting up a new personal blog soon so keep your eyes peeled for that.
That’s all, cheers.
Paul
Pentagram Berlin Review
Well that’s it, 3 months in Berlin and at Pentagram is over and I’m back in London, it has gone very very fast and I’m sad to have left. Berlin has definitely grown on me and I’ve loved my time being at Pentagram. You’ve all had a review over the last few months so I will keep this a more generalized view aside from a short bit about what I did in my last month.
In January I was working on a poster, PDF front and back covers, and several adverts for some very nice clients of Pentagram and hopefully later on in the year I will be able to have some of this work to show. It was a very busy with tight deadlines last few weeks but definitely saving the best till last. And while I was doing these pieces, I learnt all about setting work up for professional printing from Josephine which is going to be invaluable, as I’ve never done that before, but I am sure during my final year I will be. Balancing designing the work but also to tight deadlines and dealing (via a German speaker) with clients and then actually meeting them was a great learning curve as well. All in all, a great way to finish of the internship, having a valued contribution to some projects, and the clients were pleased with the work I’d done as well.
Overall Pentagram has been fantastic and I have learnt lots and lots about not only designing in a professional context, but also about myself a huge deal. I now have a real appreciation of the effort that goes into great design whether it be print, web, books, or even smaller design tasks, they all count to have time and care taken over them. I’m taking more time and aesthetic consideration over my work and in the personal projects that I am working on currently now and will continue to do so in the future. My typography skills have definitely improved, along with my Photoshop, InDesign and I never thought I’d say this, but also my Illustrator skills. Like I said before, I also learnt about the printing process and through my first two months, organizing and looking after work and dealing with clients. Being and working in a great studio in itself has been a valuable experience as well, designing in an atmosphere where everyone is enthusiastic and passionate about what they do.
So a huge HUGE thanks to Justus, Uta, Josephine, Christiane and Nikola for making my time at Pentagram and Berlin fantastic, a great bunch of people who I have now promised to learn German to when I head over to Berlin next time, which I definitely will. I got an awesome book for my birthday mid January and the Pentagram Bible as a leaving present. Tschuss Pentagram and Berlin (for now).
You can see all the photos I took whilst in Berlin on my Flickr page here.
‘Casting a Shadow. Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film’ Exhibition Private View
This evening, the whole of Pentagram except Justus who is away on a business meeting went to the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum fur Film und Fernsehen (film and television museum) for the private view of the new Alfred Hitchcock exhibition ‘Casting a Shadow. Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film‘. The exhibition started off in America, but Berlin is the only European stop for its tour. The exhibition was opened by various speeches (unfortunately in German, so I couldn’t understand) but never the less, very high profile stuff, obviously for a very high profile man. The exhibition is all about the collaboration that went into Hitchcock’s films whether this was through sound, storyboarding, choice of actors and actresses etc.
And I’ve got to say how amazed I was at his original storyboards, sketches and drawings, truely outstanding, just using pencil, water colours and other basic mark making materials. I was seriously buzzing off it all. I think nearly all his movies’ original artworks were in the exhibition as well as magazines, a few props, and of course some fantastic film posters, I especially loved ‘The Birds‘ poster. I also managed to spot a small photograph in there, with the view of a scene being shot, and with Hitchcock out of his chair and obviously the chair reads, “Mr. Hitchcock“, amazing.
The Deutsche Kinemathek itself is an amazing building in Potsdamer Platz with some excellent exhibits and things on display, I will try my best to get there again before I leave later this week, but I definitely will return to Berlin at some point for another look.
Check out all the stunning other pieces by Hitchcock on my Flickr page here. There’s a lot of photos now that I’ve taken whilst being in Berlin so make sure you scroll all the way down to the bottom!
Digesting Design 
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