OUGD602 - Personal Branding - Stationary

The final set of outcomes that I have produced are physical. The brand guidelines and CV have been printed as they have already been designed; however, I wanted to produce business cards and an invoice.

The business cards have been kept very simple, showing my logo on one side and website address on the other. As I wanted them to feel very high-quality, a variety of G.F Smith stock was used. Having business cards now allows me the ability to have something physical when networking that links to my online portfolio and contact information.

For the invoice, I used the template that I have been using for my music work and have incorporated my logo and typeface to create my own design invoice. This will be used for all freelance work from now on.

OUGD602 - Getting In Contact With Smith Dawson & Arranging A Placement

As Smith Dawson is a studio that I have identified I want to do a placement at I have got in touch with them by using a very direct approach. I sent an email over to their contact address from my business email (hello@matt-fraser.co.uk) essentially introducing myself, explaining that I'd like to a placement with them. I included a link to my new website so that they could quickly and easily check out my portfolio. I managed to receive a response within a matter of days asking which days I was free to go in and have a chat. The email conversation can be seen below.

As I was in London at the time to meet Stu from Utopia Productions I was able to go in to Smith Dawson's studio the day after receiving a reply. Myself and Mark had a quick chat and I took him through some of my projects. He has offered me a week placement starting on the 5th March. This is fantastic as they are a design studio that I would like to work with. Mark said that I should do more than a week with them; however, due to the amount of projects I need to do in the OUGD603 module I said that we should further discuss dates after I finish Uni. He was happy with this and I am going to go and work at the studio next week for 5 days.

OUGD602 - Meeting With Stu Chapman (Utopia Productions) & Arranging A Placement

Back in January I got in touch with Stu Chapman about potentially doing a week placement at his company Utopia Productions. He told me that he was very busy at the time and that I should contact him again in a month or two. To raise the question again I rang him again last week. He told me that he has just got a new client that will want some motion work to be done in a month. He asked if we could meet up to see some of my work. As he needed to be in Knightsbridge for a meeting with the Pirelli Calendar team I suggested that we meet at The Brompton cafe.

The catch up went really well. We are both very enthusiastic about music, video and design, therefore we had a great conversation about work and industry. He explained that he thinks using young creatives is vital as they are more up to date with current matters. He talked me through the client and project that he had recently been given and we discussed potential placement dates that worked for the both of us. In the end it has been agreed that I will do a placement with him commencing the week of the 9th April. He explained that he wants me to work on the live motion graphics for a corporate company. I will therefore have to allocate a week for this placement. I am going to have to re-evaluate the briefs that I am going to do in the OUGD603 module as this gives me one less week to complete the required work.

OUGD602 - Personal Branding - Online Presence

To extend my online presence I have also updated my Behance page and Linkedin account. Both have my up-to-date CV on and I'm going to upload projects to the Behance account after hand in to try and build online interest in my work after Uni. This may potentially lead to some collaborations, or ideally freelance work.

When I interviewed Deuce Studios last year they explained that they got all their initial freelance work from Behance, as opposed to Instagram. As they started up straight after graduating, I felt that it was more important to focus on my Behance at this stage in the process. I aim to put time and effort into a design Instagram account once I begin working in industry.

Socials:

Behance.net/matt-fraser

Linkedin.com/in/matt-fraser

OUGD602 - Personal Branding - Portfolio & Website

Creating a brand guidelines and CV has given me the perfect starting point to create a new website. As Adobe Muse is very time consuming to use, I looked into other possible services. Cargo Collective is the best online site builder that I have found as it allows custom CSS and HTML coding, meaning that templates can be fully personalised. 

To start I have collated my work and picked a variety of my strongest, most current branding, editorial, motion and print projects. A short description has been written for each project, informed by the concise writing task completed earlier in this module, and high-res photographs have been organised. These was used to create a homepage and project pages.

To ensure that studios can find out a little about me, my practice and how they can get in contact I have also made an info page. This details my skillset, experience and social links.

Due to Cargo's easy-to-use platform the site was made fully responsive in a matter of minutes. This is one aspect that I have wanted to perfect as it is extremely important to have my portfolio available on all devices. The domain 'matt-fraser.co.uk' was purchased and the website is now live. It took roughly a week to fully make.

Website:

http://www.matt-fraser.co.uk

OUGD602 - Personal Branding - CV

As I'm going away for three months after University I really need a CV that I can use to apply for UK jobs when out there. By using the brand guidelines I made a digital document that contains my contact details, personal statement, education, experience and skillset. Research into creative CVs was made initially to find out about what was required in a CV. Some that inspired the development can be seen below.

The sections were broken up for easier readability and I aimed to include information about my design practice and musical experience in my personal statement. The CV will be updated after graduating and a few aspects may be changed; however, the layout is there to be used.

OUGD602 - Personal Branding - Brand Guidelines

To ensure that my branding is as consistent as possible I started the process by producing a small brand guidelines booklet. This includes instructions on logo use, typefaces, the colour scheme and patterns. I will be able to refer to this in the future when producing other outcomes and use it to also give to collaborators. I researched into a variety of professional brand guidelines to get a rough idea about layout and content. Some that inspired my outcome can be seen below.

As I already had a logo that I was content with, the first main focus was picking a typeface. As my work is very modern and the majority is digital, a sans-serif typeface was more appropriate as they are less traditional in appearance and more widely used for on-screen design. Because of this, I opted to use the DIN type family for my branding - the typeface became a standard for traffic signs, street signs, house numbers and license plates in Germany, essentially highlighting that it is extremely legible, and the letterforms are very simple, allowing my branding to appear clean and slick. As I used Cargo to build my final website, explained in the following section, I used DINosuar Light for all web design as it came with the platform. For all digital, editorial and print work, DIN Pro Light is to be used.

Due to my portfolio being very colourful, I wanted to have a subtle, stripped back colour scheme that accompanies my work. By having a greyscale scheme, I feel that my portfolio is able to be the main focus of attention. A four-colour palette of white, light grey, dark grey and black was chosen to represent my brand. Patterns were also included in the guidelines. Due to the isometric design of my logo it can be repeated diagonally to create a pattern. This could be used for collaborations and adding character to my branding.

The guidelines were printed on high-quality stock and bound. Photographs can be seen below.

OUGD602 - Getting In Contact With Nigel Robers & Brains & Hunch

Over the previous Summer period I met up with Nigel Roberts, founder of the design agency Leopold Ltd. Keeping good relations with him is important as he has some great contacts and industry experience. To keep this contact going I met up with Nigel last week and went for a few drinks with him in London. We had a good catch up and I asked him whether he needs a hand with any projects; however, as he is mainly a freelancer, he told me that he isn't too busy at the minute.

Nigel has been following my DJing progression on social media and asked me a fair bit about how it is all going. After discussing music for a while I asked whether he knows any music studios that I could get in contact with to potentially gain some experience at. He is very well connected and told me that his close friends run a music agency called Brains & Hunch. They work with a huge range of clients, such as Dreamworks, Disney, BBC, Google, MTV, Virgin, Sony & more, writing music for films and ads. After the catch up I texted Nigel and asked if he could possibly reach out to them and ask if they could let me come down to work at the studio for a few days. The conversation was as follows:

I rang Tom from Brains & Hunch earlier today explaining a little about myself, my affiliation with Nigel and why I am getting in contact. The conversation was really laid back and Tom was very friendly. He said that I am welcome to come in at any time to check out their studios and help out with any ongoing projects. I have explained that I am very busy with Uni work and told Tom that I will get back in contact with him in a few months to discuss potential dates. He was fine with this and said he looks forward to hearing back from me. This is great as I have the opportunity to gain some experience outside of the field of graphic design.

OUGD602 - Personal Branding - Aims & Deliverables

In one the Spy Studios task I attempted to try and get a placement. The approach taken was to research into their style of work, produce something personal and send it to them with a message about myself. This tactic did work as I managed to get a response from the studio; however, due to my email being set up incorrectly on my phone I did not see the message for over a week. This has since been resolved but was a big learning curve.

The message received from Spy was very positive and they asked to see my portfolio, which I sent over; but, looking back, the portfolio was lacking in new content and work that really reflected my practice and style. The message itself highlighted one clear aspect that needed to be resolved - 'your website doesn't work'. In response to this I built my own website in Adobe Muse. This was submitted for one of this module's tasks where I received a fairly low grade. This was very understandable looking back - the project pages weren't complete, there was no information about myself on the website whatsoever and the responsiveness was very buggy.

Because of these experiences, I have learnt that I really need to improve my online prescence, portfolio and stationary. The Spy task did highlight that getting a response from studios is fairly straightforward when considered carefully; therefore, for this personal branding project I aim to focus on the aspects that really needed to be developed. I already have a logo that is personal to me, unique and, I feel, represents my practice. For this reason, the deliverables that I am going to produce in this project are as follows:

A fully functioning website that works on mobile, tablet and desktop devices. This should include all up-to-date projects and an information section about myself. As I have a lot of motion work, GIFs and videos must be able to be embedded.

• An up-to-date Behance profile.
• An up-to-date Linkedin profile.
• An email footer.
• An invoice template for all freelance work.
• An up-to-date CV.
• Business cards that link to my portfolio.
• My own brand guidelines.

I aim to complete these over the following week and a half.