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- If A equals success, then the formula is:
A = X + Y + Z
X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
- Albert Einstein
Q: If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
p.s I am a geek. And a boy. :)
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Blog entry
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Portfolio-oh-oh-oh!
Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009 12:08PM / Standard Entry / Design / Members only
15 commentsSomehow i keep losing my work to faulty hard drives and i'm not amused by one bit. People always say to back up, back up and back up. So yeah. I did. On to those frickin' stupid dead hard drives!! Arrghh! Hmm i know i work my tools proper hard but I'm a graphic designer therefore techy wise these damn machines gets a mean workout whenever i roll, haha...
Speaking of hard drives, this month i got some fabbo news announced in our annual company meeting. It turned out that my Christmas banner design that i did for Play.com won their best Christmas banner award of the year out of many affiliates and was given £160 to spend on their site!! Oooh!!
Originally the prize was this top spec'd sat nav gadget, but seriously, that'd have been totally useless to me, hahaha... anyways, so what should i get?? Yup you guessed it. A 2TB Lacie HDD!!! Seeing as though my 1TB (that's 1000 GB) had died a few months back and my portable 500GB mini drive is part corrupted. Yes i know, it's only been a few months since i blogged that purchase which i-oh-so decorated fantastically on, this defo came at a great time. My Macbook pro is dying with lack of RAM and memory is hanging by with an average 8GB (OMG!!!), so i must back up all my work and reformat all the hardware. *Sob sob*
Ooh let me show you what i've been busy working on lately. I currently work for an ecommerce marketing company and our clients include L'oreal, Dove, All Saints, Urban Outfitters, Guinness, Apple and Nike. This year i've single handedly designed and self managed the Christmas section on our site. During the better times of the company before the recession, we had a nice team of 6 designers... well no rest for the wicked eh?? We have two sites, one UK and the other is Irish as we're originally an Irish company.
Dare i say it but there's been an on-going competitiveness amongst the 2 offices. Ireland has the bigger company in Dublin and consists of 4 designers and London office only has me. Our CEO sent out a company email to both offices with feedback on the 2 designs the day the both went live.''I like both Christmas Zones and particularly understand the constraints.The sponsoring brands can impose a huge constaint / difficulty in Ireland .... it's harder to create a uniform or frame that looks Christmassy enough. The Irish zone achieves the Christmassy shopping feel v well in the supporting pages and what a shame many won't see them .... can we do anything about that? What about temporary homepages?I love the Christmassy feel of the UK zone in general. I also wonder if what A-yee did with the graphics at the bottom of the homepage could not be used in Ireland.On a broader important note - the zones are clearly created with nothing in common - is there not a way to work together in future? Constructive question .... for Ste. ''- Michael
Ste is my Art Director. Hahaha...I've pretty much been a rebel in the production team as i tend not to like their way of designing. It's tough when you're just another number on the plate. We're supposed to follow orders and give clients what they need in the fastest time possible. These days it's all about the turn around. Unfortunately that also means cutting corners and therefore compromising on creativity. Well i'm sorry if i'm the slowest designer in the club but my designs seems to work better. Right?
I've been with the company for 2 and half years and had been constantly trying to better myself. Since all the redundancies the past year or so, it's come to light that what i'm doing for the company is actually influential. Finally.
You know what? Sometimes it's better to work for a small company. Get an ok pay, gain more in experiences and opportunities than to work for a major company, swim in numbers and hidden away, get a fixed salary and have very little opportunities to climb. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting stability but for me, i pine for challenges too. There's nothing far greater than the feeling of succuess and achievement, especially when the odds are all against you.
So, working till 4am in the morning and waking up at 6.30am for 3 weeks straight was kinda worth it in the end. I may have lost a few brain cells, developed some nasty skin rash, consumed horrendous junk food as had no time to cook, slept very little and fallen ill for a couple of days here and there, i actually did it. Yay!Here are some image grabs of my illustrations and work on xmas site...
I needed to update my portfolio again and without my work at hand it's pretty difficult. Luckily i found some pieces on a usb key i did within the last two years but i reworked them again.Reworked
This was revamped from the piece below which was originally made into a poster and eflyer format. The party was titled 'Red Stiletto' which was held weekly in London 2 years ago.
Reworked
This was from another eflyer i did for an event called 'All things Italian'.
Ooh i found some more old eflyers i did...
I have to say that my design style has changed a lot now. However most of the time back then i was designing within client's brand guide lines (which i loathe lots), so gave little to flexibility. Footers are the worst on these eflyers. One thing they kept saying, 'but it's our template, you can't change it'. Eek!
I suppose trends come and go but i will always have a passion for funky retro flavours. I miss drawing. I must get my sketch book out again...
Old sketches
Holy pants it's 4am! Work in 2 hours! See Dreamy, i told you i lose hours on here, arrghhh!! >_<
Nighty night peeps! x
p.s more blogs and replies to come tomorrow. ;)
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