Owen Guildersleeve Response

I contacted Owen about a month ago but heard nothing, so decided to send a follow up email, to remind him of my previous email, to try and get a response. 


The follow up email:


Hello again, I emailed you a good month ago and was very upset to not hear back from you!

My names Steph, I'm a second year student at Leeds College of Art studying Graphic Design. I've fallen in love with paper craft, and all things using glue, scissors and paper. My style is very much hands on, like yourself, and I would love to emulate the high standard you do in your work. 

If possible, I would love some feedback on my work, I've attached a a PDF of my current work, or you can find my portfolio here: www.cargocollective.com/slouises

I'm aware of what a busy bee you must be, but would really appreciate to hear back from you!

I look forward to seeing your future work, as I'm a massive fan.

Stephanie Lawson

Owens Response:

Hi Stephanie,

Thanks for getting in touch.

Apologies about the slow reply, as you guessed things have been extremely busy recently.

Anyway, it's great to hear that your finding enjoyment from hands-on work. Although it's a hard way to work, and very time consuming, you should definitely keep at it!

Your paper craft work is nice, but I actually think you're hand-drawn type work shows a lot more personality. It would be interesting how you could develop this, and maybe there's a way for you to combine the two? 

Hope that's of some help. All the best with your course!

Cheers,

Owen

In conclusion:

It was nice to finally hear from Owen, even if he called y paper craft work 'nice'! I didn't think my typography was brilliant so it was nice to hear some positive feedback. I will try and do what he suggested, in trying to combine paper craft with my hand rendered typography.

Contacting Studios in Newcastle

Wonderfulstuff.com

Newcastlerootsandwings.co.uk

Sumdesign.co.uk

Wearefounded.com

Updated business card

Creating a letterhead

I wanted to start creating some stationary items, to push the identity and branding process of myself. I have business cards, so alongside this I want to produce invoice / comment slips and a letterhead design. These will be consistent with the layout, type and colour palette used within my business card design.

Letter head design:

Comment / Invoice slip:

Nursery Wall Mural Opportunity

An email was sent to me through university, of the opportunity to design and paint a wall mural for a charity run nursery in the Burmantofts area. Considering I've produced a wall mural before, its something I'm interested in. The fact that its for a good cause and the community immediately gained my interest, considering I will have some spare time over summer in-between doing work and research. It does mention some pay, which will contribute toward summer rent if I'm being honest!

Thinking about how this will help me as a designer, I've always enjoyed art, and painting, but as I found with 02 Ville, there was a huge amount of design, also working collaboratively as a group was challanging. I learnt a lot from this experience, both good and bad, realising certain things should have been done (writing a detailed contract), and more effort should have gone into recruiting more workers. But alongside this it was beneficial in learning about working as a group, learning about the importance of timekeeping, organisation and contact. 

So although wall murals may not be my forte in life, it certainly has attributes which a designer needs alongside the process. I am really looking forward to hearing back, and hopefully producing the wall mural over the summer.

The email received:

Good morning,

A charity run nursery in the Burmantofts area of Leeds are wanting 3 walls in their outside area decorating.

They are thinking of having some designs on each wall to brighten up the area.

Wall 1- is broken up into two as the door to the outside shed is in the middle, we had ideas of designing a house like feature on this wall with windows and ivy/leaves decorating around the edge.

Wall 2- ideas include: magical forest design, maybe 3d in places if possible.

Wall 3- as this wall is on the background of a raised decking area (stage) they were thinking along the lines of having a crowd of people with stars ect on this wall.

wall 1- 9ft by 6ft (approx)
wall 2 and 3- 6ft by 6ft 9 (approx)
 

Eventhough they have got their our own ideas on what they want they are still very open to other peoples inputs.

The ideas above are just conversations which staff members have had but hopefully LCA students can provide some artistic influence on what you think will work.

They also have a large playground that at the moment is very plain, if anyone has any ideas of floor art that they would be willing to share and maybe create, this would be brilliant.
 

The school are willing to pay for your help.

If anyone is interested in taking on this project please can you contact:
Rachael sharpe at Burmantofts Community Nursery on
0113 2408654 or email rsharpe@live.co.uk

My response:

Hello Rachel,

I recieved an email about the wall mural and am really interested in participating!

I've done a very large wall mural recently, just last year. You can have a look at the design me and a small design team produced for 02 on: www.cargocollective.com/slouises.

I am in Leeds throughout the summer doing a few bits and bobs, so will be free for a few weeks at a time.

When do you think it would be taking place?

Thanks 

Stephanie

PDF CV for Studio Visit

For the purpose of studio visits I created a PDF portfolio, meaning my work doesn't needed to be accessed online. It also means any further studios I contact, I can attach this to an email.

Quibik Visit - Preparation

Background - considering university, degrees, qualifications and experience. How he got into Graphic Design and further more, freelance. 


The kind of clients he has worked for, how he promotes himself and how he advises me, as a student, to promote myself and get 'out there'.


Does he work alone or does he bring people in, and / or works in collaborations.


Advice on creating a website - best way to go about it. 


Feedback on my work and business card - How I could improve it


How to improve my layout skills? As I want to get into publication 


I talked to a peer who had already made a studio visit and he advised me to create PDF to take showing all of my work thus far. Its a brilliant idea considering if I take my laptop, I may not have internet access to visit my online portfolio.