Sophie D'Agostino

1 year ago

I Got a Star

Me on stage collecting my award.And me with my award the next day in uni (completely over the moon)

This is slightly old news now, (although I’m still smiling) which is proof of either how bad I am at updating this blog, or that I’ve been so busy that I’ve not had time to, I like to think it’s a bit of both.

I shall start from the beginning.

It was a couple of months ago and through uni I entered the Marketing Society Star Award, the brief was for American Bourbon brand, Makers Mark. We were asked to develop the creative look and communication for a new advertising/promotional campaign designed aimed at 25- 30 year old males to increase consumer awareness and to encourage a large number of consumers to try and subsequently adopt Maker’s Mark as their drink of choice. There was very little constriction and apart from a few helpful pointers, we were given free reign to be as creative as we liked. There was one twist however, instead of jumping straight to the sketch book or Mac and creating a visual response which is what I would normally do as a graphic designer we were asked to write a proposal of what we would do, how we would do it and the anticipated results.

At the time I was super busy at uni and had a couple of other projects on at the same time and although I worked really hard on my submission, I was completely blown away when I received an email before Easter to tell me that I had been shortlisted as one of six students to go through to the final. This meant developing my ideas from my written submission into visuals and then going to Edinburgh to present my work to seven industry judges in a 30 min interview.

From start to finish the experience was amazing, it really challenged me and made me think really carefully about what I was doing and why I was doing it. I also felt hugely confident about my work when I came to present as I knew it inside out, every part was carefully considered, I could justify every part of the design and concept.

The really really exciting part was being able to attend the award ceremony at Glasgow’s Fruit Market Concert Hall with over 300 people attending from Design agencies from all across scotland and hosted by Kaye Adams no less! This is when we would all find out who had won…. And it was me!

I had to walk right from the back of the room (being a lowly student they stuck us at a table right at the back) all the way though the tables up onto the stage to collect my award (no easy feat when wearing huge heels that you can barely walk in!) I was smiling so much, in fact haven’t stopped since and could just hear everyone clapping, I couldn’t hear anything else!

Sadly I had to leave early from the award ceremony as I had to be in Dundee the next day for an interview for a work placement in London but it was nice to be able to see my tutors and friends with my award. (And a big congrats to Gemma, Mark and Ross from my class who won the placement in London with Brand Union)

So that’s how I won a star, which currently has pride of place in my bed room.

1 year ago (1 note)

I’m in the News!

Remember these wee guys? They were the characters I created as part of my Captain Kate’s Juice packaging brief we received from Glasgow based agency Good Creative, original post can be found here.

I was completely blown away and very happy with the positive feedback I was given from Keith and Gale from the agency when they came to the uni to crit our work and was even more delighted to be offered a summer long placement with the agency. Which I start in just under two weeks! (very excited)

I have just enjoyed a week in Florence with my boyfriend and my parents and while I was away my dad received an email from a work colleague informing him that I was in the Edinburgh Herald and Post! It was a huge picture of my face and a short article about… “An Edinburgh student has landed a placement at Scotland’s top design agency after winning a challenge to produce a branding and marketing strategy for a range of fruit drinks” The article also included information on Good Creative and the real juice.

And since I got home I’ve had lots of friends and family call, text and tweet me to let me know where I’m popping up!

Here are a few from the web…

Link

I was also in the Edinburgh Evening News, here.

It’s quite strange seeing yourself in the paper, although it’s not for the first time this year, I was in the Dundee Courier back in March! This time I’m much happier to be in the paper for my work though!

2 years ago

Some of my work from third year

I thought I’d share with you some of my work from third year, I have really enjoyed this year (much more than second year anyway). This semester has just whizzed by, they’ve been working us hard, its been stressful at times and long hours have been spent at uni but I’ve really enjoyed it and have received some very positive feedback. Most importantly I really love graphic design, it was the best decision of my life to change to it from illustration and am really excited about my work placement at Good Creative in Glasgow in the summer, I also have an interview lined up for some more graphics work for the summer so will be interesting to see how that goes too, I am determined not to spend my summer working in a cafe!!

Yqueue:
This was our very first project when we came back after summer in September, it was a three week group project and was suppose to have a tie in or something to do with Wolf Olins, a design and branding agency in New York and London but for some reason that never happened and in fact despite pestering our tutors we are still waiting on feedback from this project! :(

If I remember correctly the brief was to take inspiration from positive aspects of online shopping and invent a service or product which would encourage people to shop on the high street. It was quite a tricky brief as not only did we have to brand and advertise a product we had to invent it too! It was also my first experience of working in a team solidly for three weeks which was… interesting.

The product we invented was, Yqueue, a service used within shopping centre which cuts out queues and eliminates carrying your shopping bags from shop to shop, allowing you to pick up your purchases at any time convenient to you. Through the use of an app and QR codes items can be scanned and added to a virtual shopping basket, once the customer has finished shopping they can then pay for multiple items from a different shops at a click of a button. A Yqueue employee then collects the customers purchases ready for the customer to collect at a time convenient to them.

The promotion takes inspiration form WWII posters, we wanted to creat a victorious message about our triumph over the queue.

Type and Layout:
The main objective of this brief was teaching us all about typography and layout, it was a 6 week project where every week we’d go to our tutor with our work and he’d give us corrections, we’d change stuff and then the next week we’d go back and he’s give us different corrections and suggestions and we’d go away and change stuff… So slowly we refined and refined our work. I spent a long time looking for a typeface for this project and experimented with a lot but eventually settled on Museo which can be found here.

The Open University:
This is my YCN submission, I chose the Open University brief, I’m not sure why, I think it was because all the protests and debates about rising tuition fees was gong on at the time and education was obviously on my brain.

The brief was to encourage 16-18 year olds to study for a degree with the open university, I decided to tackle where, when and how students study and used bold colours and cheeky slogans to attract viewer attention.

Yuck ‘n’ Yum:
This was my Roses submission, the brief was really open and something along the lines of, “Create and promote an unlikely coalition.” My idea was to open a diner which combined different types of foods which would be revolting together but aim it at pregnant woman with crazy cravings. It was a wacky but fun brief, I really enjoyed creating the illustrations, teh typeface I used was Market Deco and can be found here .

2 years ago

Captain Kate!

Recently I’ve been working on a brief set by the nice people at Glasgow’s Good Creative. It’s to re-brand and repackage a kids juice which was originally called Kate’s Magic Fruit Potions. A company set up by a mum who couldn’t find a juice that didn’t have added preservatives, flavours and sweeteners for her kid to take to school.

We had pretty much free reign with the brand as long as we conveyed the message of a caring small cottage industry with Kate, a trained natural therapist at it’s core and showed the drinks unique qualities such as added vitamins and prebiotics.

Kate is central to the brand so I wanted to keep the focus on her however I knew I didn’t want to keep the name or the magical theme. I chose superheros as felt children relate really well with them and thought it was a nice twist that Kate was acting as the hero of the lunch box world, fighting the evil additives and protecting our children!

And so Captain Kate’s was born. But now thankfully it’s finished. There has been a few late nights but I’m looking forward to presenting on Friday.

2 years ago

The Return of the Flash Mob

It’s not often I watch TV just for the adverts, however on Friday at 10 on channel 4 the new T Mobile ad will be aired for the first time. Filmed at Heathrow T5, passengers were welcomed home by 500 actors disguised as taxi drivers, passengers and cabin crew who suddenly sprung into song and dance. This ad ties in with the other flash mob ads they’ve done in the past, all promoting the idea that ‘Life’s for Sharing’.

2 years ago (1 note)

Typography and the City

I have been greatly enjoying our classes from Gary Gowans this semester, they are concentrating on typography, layout and grid structures. I have always loved typography, I love the power it provides to create endless styles, different tones of voice and creative expression just from your choice of font. It is an art form, but it is also extremely technical, there is a lot to learn about how to use typography to achieve the best results.

Although I learnt the basics back in College (I received the highest score in the year in the test!) it has been great to recap and refresh my memory. I have particularly enjoyed discovering the importance grids, they have always scared me a little and although I knew they were important I must admit I scarcely ever used them efficiently, if at all.

Our brief from Gary is to go out onto the streets and around town to take as many photos as we could of examples of environmental type, we are then to create a 5 page magazine spread, thinking about composition, white space, grids, choice of typography etc. The magazine is to be classy, think Baseline not a woman’s weekly.

Here are a few examples of my photography, I concentrated on old and weather beaten shop fronts and examples of hand painted signage. I find this really interesting and quite beautiful especially as very few still exist. I wanted to keep all my photography black and white to keep with the old fashioned feel of the lettering.

Here is the first draft of my layout, I am aware things (like my widowed lines of text) still need to be tweaked. I chose two fonts from The League of Moveable Type , League Scrip #1 and Raleway, both are beautiful, thin and elegant. I picked League Scrip #1 as although it’s a modern typeface, I feel it’s vintage feel and handwritten elegance creates an interesting contrast between the thick and heavy style of the type in the photos. Raleway is much more legible for headings and subheadings yet still compliments the over all feel of the layout. The body copy is in Georgia.

2 years ago

Is the Most Successful Design Invisible?

When I’m asked by people, ‘What do you do?’ the question that normally follows, (combined with a slightly puzzled expression) is, ‘Oh? And what does a graphic designer do?’. I then proceed by trying to explain the hugely diverse range of work graphic designers ‘do’.

Inevitably I end up looking like a lunatic franticly pointing around whatever environment we’re in, saying, “Look, this is graphic design! And this, and so is this!” until whoever I’m explaining it to begins to understands or at least pretends to, to get me to shut up, probably wishing they had kept their mouth, and just Googled it when they got home.

I was puzzled myself by the vast variety and different type of work being expected of me when I first started college two years ago: from corporate identity; digital and web design; typography; branding; publication layout; animation; ad campaigns; creative thinking; copy writing. The list goes on. I and found myself uttering, ‘But this isn’t what a graphic designer does?!’ I very quickly learnt that there is much more to being a graphic designer than simply designing business cards and club night flyers. Ultimately a graphic designer’s job is to use visual elements to help communicate information, whatever that may be.

There is a great poster I saw a while ago, which reads ‘Good Typography is Invisible. Bad Typography is Everywhere.’ (I believe it was done by NY agency,Words Are Pictures.) From the moment I saw it I identified with the statement. Now when explaining to someone what graphic design is I always conclude, ‘Good design is invisible. Bad design is Everywhere.’

The two short sentences sum up exactly what I’m trying to explain when I go into overdrive pointing at every piece of design in my path. I want them to understand that we are surrounded by design - not only typography, or graphic design but design of all shapes and forms, from service design to product design - it is a discipline that encompasses our lives every single day. Even things like a bus timetable, the washing instructions of their clothes or the road signs they follow to work, they are all are designed yet they are all things we take for granted as just being there. The designer and their decisions simply fade into the background.

The difference between Transport (top) and Curlz (bottom)!

Imagine if all the road signs in the UK were to be changed from the highly thought through and legible typeface - “Transport” - to something cluttered, complex and decorative such as “Curlz”. Then everyone would notice because no one would be able to read the directions, would inevitably get lost and then complain about the design of the road signs being terrible. Conversely though, no one congratulates the designers of the “Transport” typeface at the end of a journey for giving them clear directions to their destination!

This is a topic that really interests me, I think it could be applied to so many cases. For example, Gaps recent logo change (who was talking about Gap before that hideous Helvetica thing was released?!). Their “well designed” previous logo was invisible to people and isolated from their judgement simply because it was always there, serving it’s purpose.

I would like to develop the idea that the most successful design is always invisible. In a world saturated by design all competing for our attention. As a designer does your work not only have to satisfy the brief in hand, but also shout above the crowd? Perhaps proving that good design doesn’t always have to be invisible.

These are all just the very beginning of lots of ideas that I am going to research and look into further for my dissertation. I have created a mind map of my though process so far. Tomorrow we have our first dissertation seminar so I am sure that will give me a clearer idea of what is expected from a dissertation, at the moment I am a little clueless! But it’s a start…

PS. I realise that the picture of the mind map is tiny, I have uploaded it to photo bucket HERE it’s still pretty small. However it is too late to sort it out tonight, I’ll rescan it tomorrow bigger :) night!

2 years ago

Travel Poster Love!

If like me you’ve got a bit of a thing for vintage travel posters then you can imagine my delight when I came across this site. It has loads of links to various vintage clip art at really good resolutions but most excitingly look at all these iconic vintage American travel posters!

See more here.

2 years ago

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Glad to be back!

Me on Tower Bridge, London

Here I am back at uni, sitting in a deserted media lab after a very long break. So what have I been up to?

Not long after breaking up from uni my boyfriend and I jumped on a train (first class no less!) down to London for a long weekend as a belated birthday celebration. We went to the transport museum, where I would of bought as many cool vintage travel posters as I could if Lee hadn’t dragged me away and thankfully prevented my from spending all my money at once (I settled for a couple of postcards). We paid a visit to the London Museum and Tower Bridge museum and greatly enjoyed just wandered around soaking up the atmosphere doing many other touristy things on route.

A highlight was going to see Avenue Q, which I had wanted to see last time I was in London but it was taking a break. It was hilarious, they had the whole theatre in fits of laughter and gasps of “OhMyGoodnessCanYouBeliveTheyJustSaidThat?!”. Brilliant, it was like watching a grownups version of Sesame Street, well worth the money. And as always when I go to a musical I was humming the songs for days and days after, although this time I was getting a few funny looks…!

And then I was off to Rome (Yes, another birthday present…!) with my Godfather. We spent a very relaxing week in the Italian countryside halfway up a mountain before hitting Rome. It was so rural we were the only tourists for miles and miles, quite a culture shock having spent a few days in London. The food and scenery were to die for. Rome was superb but far far to busy for my liking, I had a great time but would love to go back in the off season for a proper visit and to see the city a without feeling I am being swept along with the crowd.

Then I was off to Northumberland camping with my parents, a little less glamourous and a little damper than Rome or London but good fun all the same. Especially getting a fish supper and and ice cream in Seahouses. Yum.

And a spot of knitting on the beach…?!

When all my gallivanting was oven it was back to work in Rocket Cafe at Churchill (Morningside) in Edinburgh, which keep me busy very. It’s a lovely little cafe and they do really good coffee, it was also very very busy!

More excitingly, I have also been working on a ‘proper job’, designing a website, which I will reveal a little later.

And a very good childhood friend had her first baby, a lovely little girl called Lily. As a birth present I designed and got printed thank you cards for her.

So I’ve been kept busy but am super happy to be back at uni.

2 years ago

Voice artists, integral to a brand…

The other night as I was drifting off to sleep I was listening to a programme on Radio 4, it was a documentary about voice artists. I wish I hadn’t been so tired and fallen asleep half way through as what I remember of it was very interesting. (I tried and failed to find it on iPlayer)

One part of the programme was talking about companies using voice to enhance part of their brand not only within their advertising but as a whole, using the same voice artist for their radio ads and for their internal staff memos. Therefor increasing and creating consistent brand values throughout every aspect the company.

I found this so interesting because as a graphic designer it is integral for me to realise what a brand is, (not just a logo!) and I had never thought about how important a voice might be to a brand. Although it seems so obviously important now, the programme highlighted that it is often the last thing to be considered by the advertising industry too.

There is also great skill needed to be a voice artists, not just being able to read off a script. (although I think that might play a big part in it!) Often they have to fit vast amounts of information into only a few seconds, condensing their voice but not the quality.

3 years ago

Malcolm Gladwell Lecture

Birthday present round two commenced last sunday evening when I went to the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh to see Malcolm Gladwell give a lecture supporting his new book, What the Dog Saw.

I have only read one of his books, The Tipping Point as a university assignment but enjoyed it and found it very interesting. So although I wasn’t sure what to expect I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say.

His chosen subject for the lecture was serendipity, concentrating on the roll serendipity plays in science, focusing on the story of two friends who worked to develop cancer fighting drugs.

I did not come away from the evening feeling overwhelmed with new theories or innovative concepts, I did not feel like it had changed my life or I would carry what he had said with me for years to come. When you pay to see an influential author I think you may expect to come out with some of these boxes ticked.

However he was a very talented speaker and story teller, he kept everyone engaged and interested. And I came away with an insight into how hard it is to bring medication to market, how rigorous the testing process is and although it seemed there was no obvious significant information imparted to us, on further reflection there are definitely underlying and subtal messages that can be taken from the lecture.

And it was delivered in an entertaining way.

(Also for some reason, he didn’t look how I imagined him to!)