Meet Gorilla Grafiks

Keeping up with our studio/designer features and this week is none other than Gorilla Grafiks. Like most of our other features we tend to find them through Twitter and for the last 6 or 7 months or so I’ve been following this chap. If memory serves me right I started following him through a poster giveaway he was doing! The things I’ll do for some freebies! The good news is Gorilla Grafiks have just launched their new website so make sure to get on and check them out! Below is a sneek peak at some of the cracking work to be had! Anyway, enough mindless rambling, ladies and gentlemen, meet Gorilla Grafiks!

About Gorilla Grafiks

Like a lot of freelancers, Gorilla Grafiks was born out of frustration and the need for a creative output.

Without trying to sound biblical. In the beginning, I worked within a small creative agency whilst I was studying. This was great for me as I had peers to bounce ideas off when it came to course work, whilst at the same time using the skills I was learning on commissioned projects. This gave me a realistic approach to client work from the beginning and allowed me to focus on briefs and visualise a workable outcome.

When my time there came to an end and I ventured in to the big wide world I found myself working for in-house design teams (not my preferred choice) and it was this that fuelled the start-up of Gorilla Grafiks. As I wasn’t getting the creative drive I needed from the 9 till 5 I decided to set up freelancing on the side, to allow me to work on self-initiated projects and get my work out there as well as taking on client work as much as possible. On the client side I started off focusing on branding and print then adopting digital as a key strength. Since setting up in 2010 Gorilla Grafiks has progressively grown…and continues to grow.

Thankfully I now have the creative fulfilment in both freelance and the 9 till 5 as I am now working for The Lane Agency based in Edinburgh.

The Cakehaus

The Cakehaus are a small independent cake makers who were starting up and in need of branding and a digital platform to showcase their creations. The fluid and curved styling of the logo marque along with the soft colour palette was used to reflect the style and delicious taste of the cakes. This project is still on going and hopefully packaging and promotional material will be showcased in the very near future.

MB Joinery

This project consisted of creating a brand and digital presence for an independent joinery firm in the early stages of establishing itself in the market, with a desire to come in above the competition and have a brand that reflected this.

A strong typeface incorporating a graphical marque was created. This was accompanied by a strong branding style across all platforms.

A Journey

This was an independent short film I produced around the theme of eternal youth. The film portrays the youthful essence of our personality that stays with us throughout our lives. The struggle is when this is counter balanced with the sometimes harsh reality of physical ageing. No matter how young we may feel, we are reminded of reality through the ageing of our bodies.

I carried out all stages of this project from initial storyboarding to the final edit.

Some Other Gorilla Grafiks Identities

What are you working on now?

At the moment I’m working on the final stages of The Cakehaus website as well as developing the brand across further materials.

I am also working with a band ‘Ruthless Young Souls’ to create their full brand and producing album artwork and the initial stages of their website. This is an exciting project as it will be my first interaction of designing for the music industry.

As well as this I have also just launched my new website which has been the main focus of my time recently. Hopefully this will raise the profile of my work and allow for new client relationships.

THANK YOU!

So a big thank you to Gorilla Grafiks for taking the time to write something for us and we wish them all the best for the future. Make sure to check out the website, follow them on Twitter and most of all…jump onto the store for some cracking prints! Get a good look as their might be one up for grabs in our upcoming giveaway!

Assessment Time at DJCAD

On Monday Craig, Aileen and I placed our semester two portfolios down for assessment! Then came the waiting game to find out our results…

DJCAD will be assessing the four projects that make up the ‘main study’ section of our course. For our semester one assessment we had our own room and we had to set up all our work on our desk, which took quite some time getting everything laid out nicely and labeled clearly. For this assessment we just had to put everything we have done in our portfolios and drop it off, so it was a much easier process.

The Projects

What’s In A Name?

Interpret creatively, a given Underground station name. Your outcome, which should be typographically driven, can be 2D or 3D, and would be installed in the station itself. Also, produce three carriage ads in the same style of your outcome that will be displayed on the tubes.

Pictorial Narration

Having been allocated your particular myth, tale or legend you should investigate a wide variety of visual languages to best communicate and effectively narrate your story. Be as creative as possible and the outcome of this brief is entirely open.

The Social Network

You have been commissioned to create a brand new Social Network. The theme for your Social Network is entirely up to you. Be creative! Don’t be a Facebook or Twitter clone, but take a look at the Unique Selling Points that make Facebook and Twitter the success that they are!

What Happens Next?

You have been given three components to work with; a famous German personality, a famous British personality and a location. Imagine the encounter between the two at the specified location. What might result in the meeting of these two individuals? What might their combined talents produce?

The Assessment

Craig’s Set Up

Aileen’s Set Up

My Set Up

Some quick questions…

What was your favourite brief of semester 2?

Craig: Favourite brief for me was The Creative Cookbook from the Friday group project, the work involved seemed almost like proper graphic design. Although stressful at times the final outcome was amazing and all my hard work paid off when I won an SVS Gold Award for my efforts. Winning!

Aileen: Think I enjoyed the Friday group project the most this semester. It was a bit more exciting due to the work being placed in an exhibition at the end, and the final outcomes were all quite quirky and fun.

Me: The brief I enjoyed the most was ‘Pictorial Narration’ – I guess it was because I got an unusual story (Diana & Acteon) to narrate that it was more of a challenge for me. I really enjoyed the print stage and loved binding my first book!

What do you think of the assessment process?

Craig: The assessment process suits me nicely as it gives me time to catch up on any sketchbook work that I may have outstanding. The only thing I would say is I wish they would grade you on the things you do and not the things you didn’t do. Any extra work seems to be overlooked at times and I often get screwed because of lack of sketchbooks.

Aileen: I have no grumbles about assessment time at all, as most of the work is done and its all just final tweaks left to do. Hate blowing my own trumpet on the self assessment forms though…

Me: I like the way we get assessed at the end of the semester, rather than as each project ends. It gives us time to add in the small details and obviously update sketchbooks. Although, as everyone keeps telling me it doesn’t seem to matter what grade you get, it gets me down a little because I do like to try my best at everything.

What are your hopes for 3rd year?

Craig: In third year I would like to delve into typography more. I say I know about typography but there is so much that I don’t know. Third year will hopefully be the year I feel like I’m learning something.

Aileen: I’m looking forward to things picking up a bit in relation to what we are learning about typography, and really raising the standard of work I put out for briefs. I’m also hoping I manage to leave myself some spare time to use my old Spotmatic and hide out in the darkroom for a bit.

Me: I would like to see us getting some different briefs in third year. I’d be happy to see a packaging brief and perhaps something digital. Most of all I hope to produce some great work for my portfolio!

Your best piece of work this semester?

Craig – Outcome for ‘What Happens Next?’

Aileen – Outcome for ‘Pictorial Narration’

Me – Outcome for ‘Pictorial Narration’

Meet We Are Draft

Second up on our studio features is We Are Draft, brought to you by the very talented Chris Smyth. I first saw the work of We Are Draft through following Chris on Twitter, he posted up some foil blocking for a promotional flyer, printed on black card! Loved it! So I got in touch and Chris kindly agreed to write some stuff up for us, tell us more about him and his studio as well as showing off some of his other work! Ladies and gentlemen, We Are Draft!

About We Are Draft

Six years ago I left a sunny seaside town of the south coast and found myself at design school in London. Now I have a first class degree (not that it’s made a difference), and rent small studio space in south-east London and people pay me to ‘be creative’. They don’t even mind if I get up at mid-day, work in my pyjamas or spill coffee on my Macbook, as long as I keep having ideas that make them money.

I find myself being obsessed daily with the relationship between type and print. I always get asked who my favourite or ideal client would be, expecting my response to be a big corporate firm with a big budget, but I would much rather work for someone who is open to exploring this relationship, between not only how we lay type aesthetically but how we can create real beauty by bringing the two together, experimenting with materials, or methods, or inks, foils or depth. There are far too many designers out there who have absolutely no understanding about basic print processes, and that bugs me everyday.

We Are Draft is still a very young studio but is growing quickly in reputation. Last year we were asked to write for the award-winning magazine Eight:48 on the subject of ‘the future of design’ which was nice to know that at least someone thought our opinion of the industry would make for an interesting read.

Over the last couple of years we have been commissioned to work for a number of very varied clients from churches, charities, African chefs, bands and conferences. Here are a handful of projects that captures what this studio stands for.
 

Not In Collection Poster

The limited edition ‘Not In Collection Poster‘ series was a campaign to promote a project we had been collaborating on for a while which aimed to give exposure to creative people who maybe weren’t, for one reason or the other, getting into the pages of the ‘mainstream’ design publications. The poster is a key based intro-graphic representing the skill sets of 60 different creatives broken into their mediums. The posters sold out via Counter Print early last year in a little over two months.

Christmas Event Promotion

The second project was a simple flyer to promote a Christmas event run by a church based in South East London. With so much rubbish being put through letter boxes over the Christmas period the church wanted a result which would engage the viewer and maybe change their perception of what they would expect to come through their door from a church. We chose a simple 380gsm black uncoated micron as the material that would be strong enough to endure a letterbox and foil blocked type. Resulting in a beautifully tactile feel with a shiny Christmasy edge to the final product.

The Alpha Course

The third project is an area I haven’t really had much experience in until a few projects have come along recently. The world of moving image is, in some ways, a million miles away from the print world but much of the creative processes and planning is much closer than you may think. This short video aimed to advertise the Alpha Course by profiling some of the individuals who had done the course. Shot with one Canon 5D MKll.

I’m sure you all agree that We Are Draft are certainly up there with some of the best working in the industry today. It only took one look at a foil block flyer to get me to look at their work, and I hope this short insight into the workings of We Are Draft is enough for you to take a closer look. Evolution and Us would like to thank Chris for taking the time to tell us about himself and his work and wish him all the best for the future! You can see all of We Are Draft’s work on their website and make sure to follow Chris on twitter.

What’s In A Name? – Tower Hill

Assessments are fast approaching at our Uni and Craig, Aileen and I have been getting our portfolios ready to be viewed tomorrow. My next few posts will feature the work I have been doing over this semester for Uni. I hope you enjoy!

The Brief

So the very first brief we got for the 2nd semester back in January was ‘What’s In A Name’, which was a 4 week brief. The challenge was to creatively interpret a given underground station name. The outcome was entirely open but had to be typographically driven and would be installed in the station itself. There was also a small add on brief of creating three carriage advertisements in the same style that would be installed on the tubes.

Research Stage

I began my research by looking at what people associate with Tower Hill as a station. I looked at the historical buildings that surround the station and the Tower of London stood out to me. I chose to focus on this building as the main reason for why people would get on and off at Tower Hill station. I think that advertisements for the Tower of London inside the station of Tower Hill would greatly increase interest in the historical building. I began to look at what went on inside the Tower of London and came across the weird and wonderful activities that took place.

Development

For my project I focused on the crown jewels, the royal menagerie and the execution site. I decided to create a poster that would show the different sides of the Tower of London and make a comparison to the wacky activities that Alice and friends enjoyed in Wonderland by using the famous quote “Curiouser and curiouser”.

Outcome

The three posters form sides of a triangle which sits on top of the spiral of text on the ground

Carriage Ads

I would say the challenge of the carriage ads was trying to make my design work within the landscape dimensions as the design I had come up with worked best with a portrait layout.

To see more of my work please go to my online portfolio & follow me on Twitter for the latest updates

Meet DE:STRUKT

First off the bat I would like to apologise for the lack of posts in the last month or so, Aileen, Marina and I have been swamped with University work and found very little time to get actual posts written. We have however been working slowly in the background getting materials so the next few weeks should be full of new posts. One element of the blog we are excited to continue with is the features on actual studios and freelancers alike. We also have some book reviews by AVA Books that should be up in the next few weeks; just in time for some summer reading on the decking! We also have our long-awaited anniversary giveaway that will go ahead just as soon as we have all the prizes to hand.

So without further ado I would like to introduce our first studio feature in the form of DE:STRUKT!

About De:strukt

We wanted to be an agency that was a bit different from the rest of Scotland and we know there are guys down South just like us, we just wanted to be part of that circle really. We were just a couple of graduates just out of university and were sick of applying for the same design jobs so we had a chat after a few beers and decided to form an agency. Since then we’ve grown to work with some of the biggest and coolest brands across the globe.

We want to work with more international clients, already we’ve won clients in USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Also we plan to open up another studio in New York later this year.

Rebel Rebel Barbers

We took over Rebel Rebel for a promo stunt that has never been attempted before for a barber shop in Glasgow and to also announce the launch of their new website. Our resident street artist was doing the live visuals on the shop front. We were tasked to come up with a PR Stunt for the Wee Rebels by giving away free haircuts, yup that’s right, FREE haircuts. We did a bit of doodling on the shop windows and provided killer tunes from the Spectra DJ’s. Have a look at what we do best!

Colin Bauld, Managing Director, Rebel Rebel Barbers – “The staff loved it and we have had some great feedback from the customers – might need to make this an annual event!”

Redbull Canvas Cooler

We were part of the Red Bull Bespoke Canvas Cooler as part of a unique art project. Hidden beneath the Low Level railway line in Studio Warehouse Glasgow (SWG3) fifteen artists collaborated with some of the most cutting edge bars in Glasgow and Edinburgh to take part in the Red Bull Canvas Cooler project, working on designs to compliment the venues where the fridges will be installed. Fifteen specially engineered fridges were waiting for the local artists arrival, providing a blank canvas for their creations. The artists had a full day to work on their cooler and it was clear that the room was not only full of spray paint fumes but original, raw talent. Once completed, the fridges were exhibited on the second level at SWG 3 which provided a platform to showcase the unique coolers to friends and family in the art world.

DeCourcy’s Kitchen Co

The team at DE:STRUKT were delighted to have been approached by DeCourcy’s Kitchen Co. They are a new bespoke kitchen design company arriving in Glasgow’s West End. Working closely with Euan Mackenzie we helped create the right brand identity and were tasked to produce a website showcasing the amazing kitchens the DeCourcy team supply to their customers. The website has been built using HTML5 and also works on smart phones and tablets.

Flat 0/1

Can you dig it? Caaan yoooou dig it? We teamed up with Flat 0/1 (right next to Lucky7) and we went to blow the top off and let out some steam. The theme was based on the classic 1979 Warriors movie and we illustrated 2 main characters from the film on the club front windows. The pad is very retro with old TV’s, books, traffic cones and even a fold up bed. This was also in connection with Secret Wars Glasgow and the place was jumping.

Some identity work by De:strukt

What are you working on just now?

At the moment we’re working on a massive website and branding for Australia based Sappstar, a sort of social network site for female strippers. They will be able to look for jobs, interact with other users, post videos/photos and much more. We have other websites ongoing which are close to completion. We’re branding a new Italian restaurant called Amodo Mio (attached) and we’ve finished off the branding stages, we’re waiting for the completion of the building that way we can start work on signage and interior work.

We’re also creating more wacky illustrations for Glasgow’s newest nightclub CLUB520 and London’s Dudebox. We’re hoping to announce a very big project but we can’t mention anything just yet.

THANK YOU!

We would just like to thank De:strukt for taking the time to write-up some stuff for us and allow us to show their work. You can see more work by visiting their website, and don’t forget to follow them on twitter. Keep an eye on them, great studio working in the industry today!

Chris Hewitt

Evolution and Us love seeing bodies of work from recent graduates, I think as we’re so keen to get there ourselves!  We’ve featured a lot of Duncan of Jordanstone graduates in the past, but recently I wanted to look around and see what was going on in the central belt.  This is how I came across Chris’s online portfolio and wanted to share with you some of his impressive work.  Chris graduated from Edinburgh College of Art last year, and is currently working for Pirhana Designs in Gibraltar.

One of my favourite pieces of his work is a personal project where he looked at ballet and physical form, and how this could relate back to typography and letterform. He worked very closely with a ballet dancer to see how her strength and grace could be mirrored in letterform, and how she interpreted letterform as movement.  The result is a very experimental approach to how, as designers, we can think about type in more lateral ways.

I also really liked the outcome for a sustainability brief that Chris worked on.  The idea was to create a piece of work that targeted sustainability in the design world.  Chris chose to make a hand held game using ball bearings to highlight there are only ever two choices in the matter: a sustainable or wasteful route. It was a really simple idea, accompanied by a leaflet that had example situations and questioned why you would ever choose a wasteful route over a sustainable one.

There wasn’t much information on Chris’s website about what he had been up to since graduating, so I got in touch with him and he very nicely agreed to answer some of my questions about life after ECA…

Can you tell us a wee bit about what you’ve been up to since graduating, and how you’ve ended up over in sunny Gibraltar (lucky you, scotland is still dreich as ever!)?

After the mad rush of the 4th year Degree Show, In Edinburgh ECA we pretty much had to go straight down to London for the D&AD New Blood Exhibition the same day as our Graduation. D&AD is a great experience, but if you are trusting on it to professionally boost your Graphic Design career, please think again. If you scroll down a few posts read Euan Gallacher’s, hes pretty much hit the nail on the head. D&AD is one route that is totally saturated with young graphic designers who more or less all wanted what you want – get out of that! network, contact people, do it yourself! Its silly to say, but only you can take yourself forward so get out there NOW and be clever about it. Having gone down to London for the experience I was however given the bonus of getting commended for my exhibited work, truthfully this really did nothing for job hunting, if you are a good graphic designer it will show from the work. I did get chosen with a handful of other post students to be in the Student Showcase 2011 Issue7 of Burst Magazine which was fun, however again zilch help for jobs – but good personal achievement.I got a few interests from my Degree Show and the D&AD New Blood Exhibition, London based Design Agencies with a few open job placements. Everyone around me was chanting ‘get a London placement’ ‘It looks really good on your CV’ which I’m sure it does, however as long as you are doing the type of work you love to the highest standard you can, I believe your work will shout out a lot more then where you worked. Hundreds of students wanted these few job placements and surprise surprise in the end I got nothing. Having recovered from the rushing around I remembered a contact I made 6 years ago. I was in high school and had no idea a was going to be a graphic designer, let alone go to an art college. We went on a family holiday to Gibraltar (small British colony at the bottom of Spain) I totally loved the place and made some friends at a beach there. One guy, Julian had graduated from Business Studies (or something like that) and was starting up a design agency that would do all sorts of design as well as web-design. Something clicked in my head that I should try and google his agency and see what was going on. I found it no problem, got his details and sent a rubbish email to him with work, my CV and portfolio website praying that he might remember me. Julian didn’t, he however liked the work, seemed to like me and gave me a skype interview. After a few more emails he said that he would offer to give me a two month placement, this then turned into three months as I was fitting in well and more work was coming in. Towards the end I was fortunate enough to be offered a job with them and I’m now currently on a 6 month contract+ with the agency Piranha Designs. I work more or less three weeks in Gibraltar and fly back to work in Edinburgh from home for one week, repeating this pattern. I requested this so that I could still be in contact with ‘dreich‘ Edinburgh as well as having fun in the sun in Gibraltar. Its going well so far, thumbs up.

How did you find your experience of trying to get a job in the industry as a new graduate?

Well it was certainly hard, and you cant give up, even when doors are closing all over the place. I would say this to others, get out of the UK! To be more specific… Get out of London! There is a massive world out there and yet London seems to be the city that gets flooded with young designers, only to be told to go home. Being out of the UK design bubble has been a breath of fresh air! Find contacts abroad, trust me you will love it, even if it is just for a placement. Being out of the UK design scene has really helped me open my eyes to new techniques. This is just my opinion but I don’t think it is that healthy to have what London says, UK does.

Once I got the placement I had to work my arse off! It seemed like a two week project at college was a days work in the agency, plus having to meet deadlines was now serious, clients and money are behind everything so any delay costs. I am getting into the swing of it now, however at the start I had to do major overtime. Having said all this, because the work is what I love doing it has never felt overwhelming, it can be really hard but very much enjoyable.

What has been your favourite project to date, and why?

My favorite project so far was when I was with Piranha just before Christmas. Elections where being held in Gibraltar and we were asked to design the new manifesto, election adverts, and any visual broadcasts for the Government in power. My boss Julian and I were with the Chief Minister (basically prime minister) for three days solid working on the manifesto from 8am-12pm. It was intense. We had classified images and copy that were not allowed to leave the room in case of a security breach! Being the government in power they were a little set in their ways, and it was hard to produce some really really fresh design work as we had to make some compromises. Overall it was a great experience, the jobs where really unique and high profile. Even though I had just been in Gibraltar for just over a month, I had met the Chief Minister and was working on a job with him, designed with highly classified information on the manifesto and I helped design something that when produced was sent out to every household in Gibraltar. Totally epic fun!

Your 4th Year at ECA sounded very interesting with setting up an in house agency! Invaluable experience? What was the most important thing you took from that?

It was, I feel really lucky to have been apart of the project. There where 5 in-house agencies within our studio, 4th years directing the agency with 3rd and 2nd years as the designers. Every in-house agency was given an Edinburgh based agency as a mentor. My agency ‘fetch’ was mentored by H&A Graphics, the director David gave us a huge amount of support and help, really offering all his advice and experience. Having to manage an agency really places everything in perspective, unfortunately the design part is only a small chunk of an operating agency, and having to deal with, human resources, team building, accounts, project managing… was a bit of a shock. Having come out of that 4th year shock and stepping out into the world I felt like I was one step ahead, much less scared to freelance, knowing how to do all the paper work and much more experienced in the design process overall. it was lots of fun also, with some great agency briefs.

A January blog post for me has got to feature thoughts for the year, so…. any resolutions or particular ambitions for 2012?

I’m just going to try and enjoy the adventures ahead. I realise that I still have loads to learn, so I want to soak up as much experience as I can from the designers and web designers around me.  I want to learn more Spanish cooking, the food here is incredible.  I am in the process of diving further into html/css so wish me luck with that one!  I would like a 2012 client who wants all the trimmings! Big budget for high quality stock & printing techniques. Yum. / I would like the opportunity to us GF Smith paper stock.  I’m a Christian so looking forward to another year growing further in all of that.  I would like to hold an exhibition with other artists/designers either in Edinburgh or in Gibraltar.

Can’t thank Chris enough for taking the time to answer my questions and all his great advice.  Hope you fulfill all those ambitions for 2012!  If you want to see more of his portfolio then you can find his website at cargocollective.com/chrishewitt.