Etsy - Sales picking up

I set up my Etsy a good 6 months ago and found it very difficult to achieve sales, I had no purchase made within this time and it was getting pretty depressing! But I did finally manage to make my first sale after promoting myself through Facebook, Twitter, friends and family. Since my first sale i've only made one other, but you have to start somewhere I guess! I intend on attending a lot more craft fairs for further promotion of my work.

My Etsy Site: www.Etsy.com/shop/SLouises

Loving Type too much...

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Typography-lover/5142265

One day, I want to be able to do something like this...

Promotional Concertina Mailout

One of the Tasks for wednesday, was to pin up a promotional piece you had for yourself. I hadn't yet had the chance to design any form of mail out so decided this an opportunity to create something which I could potentially send out to potential companies and clients I'd like to visit / go on work placement / work for. I have created a simple concertina book which shows snippets of a range of my work over the time I've been at University. It has a Business Card quality, containing all the design elements, colour and design my business card has (consistency between products). This will fold up to be able to fit in a standard envelope, with a little room, I do want to try a few other designs, this has been put together simply for wednesday, but its a start.

Inside

Outside

Dissertation Research : No Logo - Notes

Updated Business Cards - Level 06

I was pretty disappointed with the business cards I got printed earlier in the year, I finally got round to designing a new one, although using the same frontal image. I'm going to try and produce a range of different ways to illustrate my name, to create a collection of business cards to call my own. I have finally got my act together and put my Etsy site on this one, as when I sold my work at Reetsweet Craft Fair many were disappointed thinking I didn't sell my work online (i do!).

Design Strategies Presentation

Notes:

Slide 1 : Intro

So I'm going to talk about what I've done over summer, where my skills are and how this has informed my decisions toward my chosen briefs, What I want to get out of my third year, and my approach to my dissertation.

Slide 2: Summer Industry experience

Over summer I managed to get two placements sorted. I also got contacted by a guy in York who owns a motorcycle suspension business, who was enthused by the fact I still use a pencil and has asked me to produce 100 drawings for a catalogue for his company. Were still in discussion but that should be happening alongside uni.

So firstly I had a placement at Founded in Newcastle for a week, it was all a bit awkward as the guys working there didn't know who i was or why I was in, so over the week there wasn't any work for me so I found myself just getting on with my own work, and doing competition briefs.

Slide 3: Summer Industry experience

My second placement in September I managed to get a week with Glad in Gateshead, a primarily branding company, which was brilliant, I got a tonne of experience, they suited briefs to my style of work, and I managed to improve my branding and logo design.

Slide 4: Glad Work 'MTN'

Just some of the work I did for glad, some logo designs for the Music Theatre Network

Slide 5 Glad work 'Ongoing'

And a publication cover for Harriet Ansthruther, An interior designer who wanted the 'ongoing' made of up the materials used within her products.

Slide 6: Skills - Etsy

So what do I want to do, well I think this is based on where my skills lie, and what I want to do with them. Ever since I started selling my work on Etsy, I've got a real interest in Stationary and gift ware, to make and sell work for companies like M&S, Tigerprint, and hallmark. I'm not sure if stationary is directly where I would like to go, or whether surface pattern and illustration is what I like best. With this I would like to try designing for Homeware, and to possibly improve my type and layout skills to give more context to my image work.

Slide 7: Selected Briefs

So my ten selected briefs, I've collated all of them from Past Tigerprint competition briefs, and ISTD Briefs, researched them an adapted them. 

-The first a Tigerprint Pattern brief, based on 21st century male grooming. The idea for it to be pushed across the retail graphics within Boots the Chemists Male toiletries section.

- The second came from a tigerprint design a day brief, I love producing hand rendered type so I was going to do a design a day project, based on the descriptives used within Casa Mia restaurant menu. I'm going to push this across a total re-brand of the restaurant, creating a new logo, menu design and restaurant graphics.

- The next a M&S Tigerprint brief, looking at giftware. I pushed this a little further looking at gift boxes and packaging within M&S. M&S sell fresh bread but not cake, so my concept was produced from this. To produce a range of packaging designs for fresh cake products, an identity for an instore bakery along within instore graphic and display design.

- Yet another Tigerprint brief, which was focused at producing Christmas giftware and stationary, i wanted to use the concept around producing designs for an M&S crockery range, I've always wanted to design for homeware, with an illustrative focus. 

- The next brief I made up, I'd always loves accessorizes in-store graphics so wanted to produce the retail graphics for their 2012 Autumn and Winter collection. WIth an illustrative focus, looking directly at the products they sell and link them to the graphics I produce.

Slide 8: Selected briefs 2

- The next few briefs I wanted to focus on improving my type and layout skills. The first an ISTD brief looking at premium end alcohol packaging. I've developed a concept based on the idea with clubs and bar, which people purchase drinks, for them often to be spilt due to overcrowded bars or clumsy punters. I'm going to produce a range of non spill alcoholic packaging, which is ethological and avoids the use of glass, to be dispensed from a supervised vending machine.

- The next a ISTD publication brief based on British regional dialect, looking at informing and educating people about what certain regional phrases, slang and words mean, using a dictionary style format. This is going to be typographically driven.

- The next brief was the focus on collecting and producing a catalogue with some kind of organisational element, I came across the Royal Collection, a collection of items which link to British History, which I want to make available internationally through designing a catalogue and publication pull out.

- My next brief is a collaboration with Sarah Roberts, we are looking at an ISTD Event brief called 'type factory' which looks at educating people about typography. We are going to focus on 5 typefaces which have stood the test of time, linking designs produced on walls, to a handheld publication.

- 10 things you should know about. This is a ISTD brief which involves focusing on a topic I feel people need to know about. I have focused on the idea that children need to learn a lot of things, which aren't taught in school. Such as when to call 999 etc. I will produce 10 childrens books, on ten topics, they will be highly illustrative so children don't need a parents supervision to read them.

Slide 9 : Skills Plan

So looking at my skills. Last year I thought they lay primarily in Print, image and illustration. The skills I know I now need to improve include type and layout, branding, book making and web design.

The areas I want to focus on over third year are hand rendered type, retail graphics, homeward and stationary design.

By graduation I want to have gained some more studio experience, to have improved my existing skills, and gained some new ones, to specialise some what in hand rendered type and hopefully stay up north.

So some of my level 6 aims to get there is to have my own signature style, to improve my layout skills, to produce some of my own typeface designs. I also want to produce several publications, to obtain my own self identity which includes my own website and to have some knowledge and capability of using HTML coding. I also want to have a collection of my own hand rendered type, to have designed for stationary and homeware, and for my Etsy store to have really picked up.

Slide 10 : Dissertation

So the start of the summer in relation to dissertation research, honestly all I've done is read a lot of books, and make a lot of notes. I have yet to respond to the feedback given, and a lot to think about over the coming months. I want to start writing the dissertation ASAP as I know its going to be something I'll struggle with.

So my original proposal was, The social changes led by the uprise of Tesco. After a bit of thought, I realised I was really interested in the illusion of choice Tesco gave you.The feedback given was to, infact, find a more focused theme, to find what it is i'm trying to find out and what i find interesting.

The above are the research and tasks which were suggested. Another point made was what it was I was interested in, which consist of retail graphics, advertising, psychology and the effects and strengths of a brand. I hope these as my interests will really give me a lot of focus in completing my dissertation sooner rather than later!

Final

And thats it, thanks for listening

Further contact - Motorcycle Suspension Company

The client has got back in touch with this response, attaching some images:

Hi Stephanie,

Thanks for the reply, I'm glad I haven’t bored you instantly.

 

I’ve taken some pictures of a component but didn’t have the good sense to bring my download lead with me so I’ve attached some old images I’ve got on file.

Image 23 shows the component that I’ve drawn a hatched line around in the scan from the link I sent, if you sliced through the outside of the tube you can see what’s inside as in image 22.

The other two images on the scan basically show what it would be like if you sliced through the assemblies inside the tube.

 

I’ll send the images of the individual parts later then you’ll have a good idea of what the components look like and you can have a play with how to draw them, they don’t need to be to scale or accurate just a good representation, as much as I admire the highly detailed technical illustrations from the 50’s and 60’s, I’d be quite happy with a Quentin Blake style interpretation.

 

All the best,

Gareth.