Task 5.

One. 

Portfolio - Build a strong portfolio of work of which I think represents me as a designer.

Two.

Brand - design a logo for myself of which intrigues people and is remembered over others. 

Three. 

Promote - promote myself and make myself known by designers and design agencies to work with and alongside on briefs.

Four. 

Find where my target audience is and find out what others in that area are and are not doing and work to provide a new aspect of design. 

Five.

Clients - Make a good relationship with clients to build a good reputation to meet more clients.

Six.

Adapting - The design industry is forever changing so you need to keep up to date and also be different to competitors.

Seven.

Software - learn as much as i can about as many different software programs as i can and see me needing to use in the future. 

Eight.

Time - Be as time efficient for clients as possible to ensure that the response to their brief has been fulfilled to its utmost in the time available. 

Nine.

Designers - Although other designers are competition, you can learn a lot from working alongside a company/designer whom in your opinion may be doing things right or wrong.

Ten. 

Competition - make sure you are working up to and beyond their standard. Giving what they offer alongside something unique to yourself. 

Task 4 (i dont know why but 'underlined' is stuck on!) 

Who am I competing against? What do they offer? What makes me better? What makes me different?

Jason Naylor

Jason Naylor works and lives in New York, he is a successful designer and has worked for a number of clients such as: 

MAC makeup company

German Vogue

McQueen

He is a graphic designer of whom has skills in both typography, illustration and photography.

Although i would love to work for some of the clients Naylor has our work is fairly different in that his work both personal and for few clients is illustration led, of which i am not really a fan of. My work is fairly more clean cut using photography and type not hand drawn designs. 

Task 3.

What do they want to hear?
Clients want to hear what your best offer is, what you can give them and how you can relate to and create what they are asking for.

What should you say to them? 
I would be completely honest and never agree to something that I would not think could be achievable. At the same time I would work hard to achieve as much as i could to my full potential for a client.

How will i communicate with them?
I think it is very important to keep a strong communication with the client so you both have a clear understanding of what is going to be achieved and are both reading from the same page. Giving both sides the confidence in getting the work done to its highest standard.

Summary

To promote myself I would firstly need to get people's attention, make people notice who I am and what i do. Basically to initially promote oneself, attend designers events, networking events and run a blog so once you have met people and they are interested there is then somewhere for those people to go and grow interest. There are many ways to create interest, such as using the social media, write articles, advertise yourself. Also Facebook and social network sites are huge now a perfect way to be known. I also would create a strong portfolio of work of which I thought represented me as a designer to take around to show others. Also once you do get a client make sure you are giving them the best of your ability and efficiently. Once you do have clients keep contact and ask for feedback of which you can then use to improve your service. People speak so make sure each and every client is looked after and has a good word to say about you in conversation.

Task 2.


I have found that there are a few companies/employers of whom i would like to work for and seem to be quite successful with a list of clients. I think if i would want to work like this or for these companies Manchester would definitely be a strong possibility.

One studio in particular that caught my eye was:

Local: Raw Design Studio Manchester
Raw Design Studio

I like how they are quite a versatile design company that not only has typographic work yet works closely with photography, layouts and illustration of which means they have a wider target audience. If i was to work within this company I would find my strengths in type and photography, and also enjoy being able to use both in my designs.

National: The Designers Republic
The Designers Republic

I would love to work for/in The Designers Republic as they have a strong catalogue of clients from quite prestigious places. I would also like to work with type and layout within this company and also use my photography to benefit designs in such things as magazine layouts.

European: PI6
PI6

pi6 is based in Athens Greece, when looking through the website I found that a lot of their work was layout and type driven of which i would love to work in. It was also very different, each piece of work was different yet worked, also there was a very good relationship between type, layout and photography of which i like to have in my designs.

Transnational: Two Points
Two Points

Two Points is a design company based in Barcelona, Spain. Works in Graphic Design using illustration, type, layout and photography in their work.  The main style of their work seems to be layout and type also poster design used in exhibitions/events of which I think i would enjoy doing. As i do like print and having your work finely printed to have your design on paper.

They have done work for clients in Germany, Hong Kong, Madrid and locally.

PEST analysis: Political, Economical, Social, Technoligical

Task one.

There are many client groups of which either use graphic design for production, distribution, promotion and or communication of their products such as: 

Retail

Food 

Music

Television

Charities

Businesses

Travelling

Cosmetics

Gaming

The main client groups i would associate myself with or aim for are:

Editorial 

Magazines

Layout & Type

Retail

Fashion

Photography

Promotion

What skills do you have and how would they relate to the needs of your client group? 

I believe my skills are listening to a client and understanding what they are asking for and adapting that to designs and therefore making the client happy with the final product. Also keeping in contact with the client and letting them know the progression of the design and therefore they have confidence in the service they are getting. I also have skills in photography of which i would like to bring to my targeted clients such as magazine layouts and fashion to incorporate into layout designs saving the client money and time looking for a photographer. I also work well in a group welcome others ideas and try and use the strengths from each individual to make the end product the best it could be. 

What skills are needed and what skills do you need to develop? 

Skills needed in the client groups i would like to go into are such thing as a wide software knowledge, versatility in design, the knowledge of their clients and who that group target market is. You also need to have a wide knowledge of what can be done (in a creative aspect) work closely to the printers and use their facilities to their full potential. 

I would like to develop my software knowledge as there is always more too learn, you can never know enough about how to do something. 

I would also like to meet other designers, make contacts and also learn from experience to understand more about the environment i would like to go into. 

What are your professional/creative aims and how do they relate to the needs of the client groups? 

My aims have grown and grown as i have learnt more and more about the industry. At this point I am aiming very high. I would like to have worked my way up through the graphic design industry networking and act like a sponge and soak up all knowledge and understanding of which i can then build on to work for a successful layout/magazine. Allowing me to not only design the layout but also use my skills/passion for photography in my job. I would be very happy if I had built strong contacts within the industry which then allowed me to work freelance and had produced work for happy clients and had a continuous stream of work. 

Summary

My skills are working with the client to produce a product of which they are happy with and keeping the communication between the client and I, giving the client the confidence that the design will be up to a high standard and what they want from me. I also have skills in photography, therefore I can produce a layout along with the imagery a client may need in promotion or layouts for magazines. Saving the client having to look for another individual. I would like to build upon my software skills as there is always more to learn. Also work closer to the printers to widen my creative opportunities when designing for print. In the future I hope to have gained a lot more industry knowledge, make contacts of which we could benefit each other to help the clients have the best service they could hope for. I also want to discover my target market in depth, learn what they want from a graphic designer/photographer and adapt myself and be different to what is already out there, bring something new to the table, alongside earning profitably.