Final year, Semester Two...time to start new projects

Between the time of handing in my projects for Semester One's assessment and the time now, I worked  on finishing my dissertation, was preparing myself for job applications and visiting my friends. I have received my results for Semester One which I am very proud of! I hope to maintain the same standard, if not, achieve a better standard! The dissertation was handed in last week so now I can fully concentrate on projects for Semester Two.

I have also attended the D&AD portfolio clinic in Sheffield as I thought it was a good opportunity to receive feedback from professionals in the industry to comment on my work. Two days ago, an ex-Loughborough University graduate came in to review portfolios as he is looking for someone to hire in his agency. This was a good learning experience and has helped me to gain more confidence in myself and my work. It has been clear from my tutors and from creative professionals that my NIKEID store concept project was the my best project (you can view it on my previous post).

As I consider myself as a creative rather than a designer, I have to carefully plan the amount of time I am going to spend for my forthcoming projects. I need to make sure I allow myself enough time for the execution of my idea as it accounts for 75% for this Semester. In Semester one it accounted for 50%.

Considering that my more successful projects last semester were based on concept projects that focussed on user experience in retail and branding, I intend to gear my projects towards this area. I made a visit to the library earlier this week to find inspiration by looking into advertising books and have also researched successful and innovative advertising campaigns online. I would recommend this website to view TV adverts: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/

The BA 'The Race' advert by BBH is one of my current favourites.

By exploring existing campaign ideas, I was motivated to develop new concepts that are fresh and exciting. This made me consider and question: What is out there that I can advertise in a way that has not been done before? What can advertising offer to people? And more importantly what can I offer to people? So i searched countless ads in all forms of media, analysed the product market- new products in particular and found myself coming up with lots of ideas! A good start to the term. I will present my ideas in my tutorial tomorrow to see what other people think of them so that I can select the best ones to execute.

Last night my friend commissioned me to create a poster for her University's fashion show event. She sent me the photographs and details that needed to be on the poster and left me to arrange the poster without restriction. Little did I know the deadline would be ASAP, meaning I only had a day to work on it.
So here is what I managed to create by rendering the photos and playing with the arrangement and typography in the time that I had:

© Kasumi Miyake 2012

© Kasumi Miyake 2012

I tried to create an fashion editorial aesthetic by employing a sans-serif masthead to mimic a magazine cover with the information details acting as taglines. I added some soft curvilinear lines to soften the image and contrast against the bold typography. The minimalistic aesthetic was intended to create a main focus on the subject matter to advertise the event.