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
THIS IS Studio Review
I finished up yesterday at THIS IS Studio, so just a short internship of two weeks. The guys, Barney, Richard and Dougal have been great to work with and it has been really interesting working alongside three young designers who have only had the studio for a few years straight after graduation. However, they are all on the ball, really enthusiastic and hard working, with lots of exciting current projects and more in the pipeline.
The studio was unfortunately broken into on Monday evening with a few computers going walkies so this week was a bit up and down in that sense, but I’ve had another great week. I’ve been helping Barney on some exhibition boards that the studio is doing for a convention in Los Angeles and not only have I put some more decent hours into Adobe Illustrator, but it was also great to get some experience at dealing with production companies, costing, quotes and all the rest. I also this week was helping Dougal re-create a booklet (which was not backed up on the computers that got stolen) which was really good, getting some good practice at type setting accurately.
It’s only been a few weeks, but I’ve leanrt lots from the trio and it was great to be back in a design studio. They gave me a Jan Tschichold book for my hard work, and have asked me to come back and help out on future projects which I’m super excited about, thanks guys.
Next stop…
First week at THIS IS Studio
Onto internship no. 4 this week with the guys at THIS IS Studio; Barney, Richard and Dougal. They’ve recently moved studios from Camberwell to Rivington Street in Shoreditch to what is a very swish space. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was helping design some flyers to go along with some posters the guys had already done for the Watchmen film event that was held at SeOne last night. Some classic themed posters were flyposted by myself, Barney, Dougal and roped in helpers Anna and Jamie inside and outside on some specially made boards. A massive poster of a horned Nixon finished off my work for the event. A great few days and the entire event looked amazing. Check out the whole set of photos I took on my Flickr gallery here.
I was back in the studio on Friday helping out with the new address stationary and archiving some work and just beginning on a new brief and side project continuing next week so I’m looking forward to it!
The Famous Five
So I’ve been working hard away sorting out placements, projects and just about everything else I can get my hands on and with the summer over and starting at Not Actual Size last week, I thought I would just update you all on my placement schedule so far for the year out. I have a few more things up my sleeve and a few projects here and there, but once they are 100% going ahead, I will post an update. So the placements look like this, some you may recognise and a few new ones.
Not Actual Size – www.notactualsize.co.uk
Pentagram Berlin – www.pentagram.co.uk
Cunning – www.cunning.com
THIS IS Studio – www.thisisstudio.com
Lateral – www.lateral.net
NIKE Sportswear Presented…..THIS IS Studio
I was invited to the Nike 1948 pop up store yesterday to attend a screen printing demonstration and talk by THIS IS Studio. The two from THIS IS Studio talked a little bit about the work they do and printed a run of limited editions and I got to take a couple home with me.
The Nike 1948 concept store on Batemans Row in East London has had a whole series of creative events happening over the last 2 weeks and will continue for a bit longer, put on by the guys from YCN. So head on down there to take a look at the art, clothes and trainers.
Check out the full set of photographs on my Flickr page here. And the YCN page here.
Digesting Design 
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