Personal and Professional Practice: It's Up To You

As part of our final hand in for PPP we were asked to produce information package that showed who we are. This was allowed to be anything we wanted as long as it displayed us as a learner, an individual and a designer.

I initially found this quite difficult, as I didn’t know the best way to package myself. After some very brief research into self-branding, self-promotional and receiving a item of clothing in the post, I decided the best way to package myself was by packaging an item of clothing with all the additions.

After I had decided on this idea, I started researching into clothing packaging, especially creative, innovative, interesting and sophisticated styles as this is something I wanted to portray in mine.

I wanted to produce something quite sophisticated, high-end and almost bespoke. From looking into existing designs I was able to work out what I needed to produce, what makes some designs much better than others and what I like, as it does have to represent me.

The components I wanted to create were; the packaging, a box, a bag, an envelope, the product, a shirt, an information booklet, a business card and an invoice. I also thought that the shirt should have a label with some information on it.

Before I started I wanted to come up with a logo and name so that I could brand everything the same. I found this very difficult, as I couldn’t decide on what I wanted to do. I came up with a number of different ideas, some using my initials and my handwriting, some using my name and physical attributes.

These are the hand-drawn designs I came up with using my initials and my handwriting. Although I liked some of these I didn't think they were me and showed me off for who I am and who I want to be. I then created some more structured designs using grids, a compass and a ruler.

I digitized some of my designs so that I could manipulate and play around with them.

Again, although I did like the designs, I did not think they reflected me or my personality, style and attributes well enough. With this in mind I wanted to incorporate some physical attributes. I am fairly tall and quite thin so I started drawing tall and thin letters which the evolved into the logo I finaly chose to use.

Now that I had settled on a logo I could manipulate it, change it and adjust it to what I wanted. The first thing I designed was my business cards. I designed several variations as I was initially undecided on which one I preferred.

Front:

Back:

I chose to use the first front design.

Now that I had my basic design sorted I needed to add the information to the clothing so that it could be sent away to be printed. As I have recently smartened up my look and approach I decided to package a shirt. I wanted the print on the back of the shirt as i wanted the shirt to retain its smartness and formality. Having it printed on the back also meant that the information was uninterrupted and entirely readable. The information on the back is about my style and approach in both clothing and design.

Now that the main product had been sent away to be printed I was now able to focus on the packaging and other information. I wanted the same information on the box and on the envelope, as well as on the bag. I created the design on Illustrator, keeping it simple yet sophisticated. I wanted to have a hand-made bespoke quality to my product and the easiest and best way to accomplish this was by screen printing these elements. I created the design incorporating the envelope net as when I went to screen print I was just able to tape over that area and cover it whilst I printed the box and the bag.

I also wanted to screen print the label for my shirt. I designed this almost identically to the business card, although all the information is on one side, it is a larger size and the logo is larger.

As it was supposed to be a purchased item, I also produced an 'invoice' that contains all of my information as well as what is contained within the bag. [I have removed my address]

Now that all the packaging had been designed and printed and the shirt was being printed professionally, it meant I could focus on the information booklet. I wanted to include as much information about me as possible without making it too informal.

I used a standard A5 size and used my standard 20 box grid which i could then modify and customize how I pleased. The information I put into the booklet was split into 3 sections. Personal, stuff about me that does not entirely relate to graphic design, Professional, stuff about me that does relate to graphic design and finally Practice, which was a portfolio of the work I have produced over the past 9 months.