Ellen Haywood
MA Graphic Design
Reflective Journal
Week One:
Who, What, Where and Why?
Who?
My name is Ellen,I am 24 and live in Bristol. After spending 3 years in Cardiff doing my Fashion Promotion degree, I have spent a year or so working out what my next steps are and trying out different jobs. I have come to the decision that an MA in Graphic Design is the next step for me.With textiles and photography being my two favorite subjects in school, I always knew I would veer off into a more creative career path than the rest of my peers. However, my love for creativity doesn;’t mean I am naturally gifted when it comes to art, if anything it means the complete opposite. I feel like art, in all its forms, is an act of exp[ression, and although graphic design and the fashion and beauty world have huge elements of expression to them, it is not in the same way as an art student is ready to express. I am too much of a perfectionist for art to be my thing, which is why digital design and creation is perfect for me, as I can sketch and work out what I want things to look like, where I want them to be and how I want to create them while still having a pixel perfect outcome.
I am heavily influenced by editorial design , the appearance social media, packaging and branding for all kinds of fashion, beauty and lifestyles brands. This is where a lot of my attention goes when either shopping or scrolling through social media. If I like the visual appearance of a brand, I will likely become a loyal customer.
What?
Like I mentioned above, I studied fashion promotion at university. This course was great for me as it opened my eyes to an industry I have been intrigued about for a very long time. The fashion, beauty and lifestyle industry have always been a key part in my interests while growing up, eve from a young age I can remember reading Cosmopolitan magazine over and over again just looking at the pages and loving how they’d been designed.Throughout my three years I didn't really have much of a direction as to where I wanted to take my degree. That was until August between my second and third year, the whole country was in lockdown and I was doing some of my own independent work and research in preparation for my Final Project. It was here that I stumbled across the world of graphic design within the industry. It’s silly to say because of course there is a HUGE element of digital design that goes into pretty much every part of the fashion and beauty industry, but for some reason the two just didn’t really click in my head, it also did not register that this was the reason I love looking through magazines so much, not even reading the copy, just flicking through the pretty pages.. From this point in my degree I focused on digital design where I could. My final major project had a huge branding and digital design element to it and I was shortlisted out of hundreds for the portfolio communications award at Graduate Fashion Week. This is one of the pivotal moments in my career so far as it was an award that wasn’t even on my radar to be put forward for, let alone actually be shortlisted. My overall love for graphic and digital design is the act of communication through visual stimulus, and the ability it has to bring people together from all over the world.
Where?
Minus my university years, I have lived my whole life in Bristol. Bristol is a great place full of creative people, there are so many opportunities and knowledge out there. I lived in Cardiff for university, which once again is a great city to be a student in, very different from Bristol but still has all the opportunities, and amazing companies to work for. At some point I would really love to be able to say my ‘where’ is anywhere! The ability to travel and work from anywhere would be absolutely incredible and is something I strive for.
Why?
As I mentioned above, I love the ability design has to communicate through different languages and cultures all across the world. It also has such a prominent role in the communication for people with disabilities such as visual impairment. When I was 12 I was diagnosed with a condition called Stargardt Disease, this affects my central vision. For me, the design of everything makes a huge impact, whether it is the choice of colour, the choice of typeface, the prominence of the logo. Even simply being able to find a certain product in a shop, the more unique and recognisable the packaging is,the more likely I am to find it and buy it. I would love to take my design career in a direction to make the fashion and beauty industry more accessible.
What am i looking at this week
IntoDesign
I found this case study really interesting to learn about as they spoke in-depth about the spectrum of design, and that essentially design is what you want it to be and that depending on what you’re designing for depends on what you do. The idea of moving image design is something that really interests me as video is surely becoming the next big thing that brands are doing to communicate with their audiences. I think looking into doing this would be really interesting and beneficial. I also found it really interesting when they were talking about the fact that nowadays they have to design a lot more efficiently, and in a way reusing material in a slightly different way, due to clients cutting their budgets. This once again proves that maybe the field of moving image is something more brands would be willing to pay more for as it is the current form of communication for most people.
Reflections
As cliche as it sounds, this week's challenge has opened my eyes to how important it is to ask these short and simple questions. I have become so much more aware of who I am and why i am doing what i'm doing. Seeing what other students had done as well really inspired me to use my own style and not ‘follow the herd’ as everyone's responses to this question were so different.