Aaron McCauley @aaronmccauleydesign-blog - Tumblr Blog

Really interesting talk from Tony Fadell about habituation. It's very easy for problems to become a part of everyday life, to become ‘normal’. Every problem can be challenged and it's up to us to try and come up with solutions for these problems.

Sky Sports has announced the launch of nine dedicated sports channels, and with it a top-to-bottom rebrand by Nomad and Sky Creative. The seven-month project saw Nomad working in-house with the Sky team to redesign everything from its logo, typography and photography to set design and digital output, including a digital-first design, making it the biggest change to the branding in Sky Sports’ 26-year history.

Sky Sports Re–Brand

So Sky Sports recently revealed that they were giving every sport a separate and personal channel. You can now only pay for the sports you want rather than forking out for the whole sports package. Along with this came a full rebrand. I am constantly on Sky Sports as I am a huge football fan, Constantly using their app to update me on the latest news and scores. Each sport has it's on typeface and colour way making it easy to navigate and although each sport has a different feel they all still feel apart of Sky Sports. They all look very modern and the mobile app is very easy to use and navigate. Really appreciate where Sky are going with the brand and I am even more interested because it involves my two favorite things, football, and design. Let's see how the design develops into the sport in the future.

#graphic design

“It is very important to embrace failure and to do a lot of stuff — as much stuff as possible — with as little fear as possible. It’s much, much better to wind up with a lot of crap having tried it than to overthink in the beginning and not do it.”

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister is easily one of the most influential graphic designers of our generation. When you think of graphic design his name is on the tip of your tongue, university references him a lot and no matter what project you're doing he always seems to pop up somewhere as he's tried his craft in so many different areas. He believed that young designers should try as many different things as possible just like he did. He talks about bringing the personal and human into design also being quoted “Ensure it feels like it's made by humans, for humans.”

Below is a video in which he talks about his Methodology when working on a project and it is fairly similar to how we as designers would approach a project also.

Know your onions

Know your onions by Drew de Soto. This book has been a lifesaver to me over the past few years going through university. It has everything about graphic design inside ranging from how you think as a designer, designing, layout rules of typography, colour, print finishing and paper, and although it's the basics its stuff you need to know. Throughout university your loaded with all this information on ‘good design’ and realistically your not able to store it all in your head. Having a book that you can constantly refer back to while working on projects can really help and I know that I will continue to use this book even when I leave university so I always have something to look back on if I forget something.

Whitenoise 2016 Mograph Showreel from Whitenoise Studios on Vimeo.

Local Studio - Whitenoise

I became interested in Whitenoise because they do a lot of branding development projects. Branding is a possible career route I see myself going down and this studio seems like somewhere I would like to work. It feels friendly and it's not a big corporate company. They also do a lot of motion graphics which is an area I would be keen to work in also, I've always wanted to be able to create motion graphics and maybe in a studio like this, I could develop that skill.

Whitenoise is a multi-award winning agency offering a broad range of creative services including brand development, motion graphics, and film production for broadcast, business, and events.

Check them out here. http://whitenoisestudios.com

#vimeo

Wolfgang Weingart.

I first heard of Weingart when I found out he was going to be at OFFSET Dublin 2017, he ended up he had to pull out although I was intrigued by his work and researched it further. I was working on a project around the acid craze in the 1980s and looking at Weingart’s work was really inspirational. Although his main focus was around Swiss typography it was the way he experimented with a type that I was interested in. He created this distorted imagery with type and this was very useful for me because the acid craze was filled with trippy patterns and distortions. I then began to create my own visual style using distorted type for my project and I used Weingart as inspiration throughout.

“I want to live abroad.”

When I was young I've always dreamt of living somewhere different. Every kid has those dreams that they want to live in a big house on the beach with the sun shining or a luxury apartment in America. As I've gotten older I've become more interested in traveling, I try to cram in city breaks and holidays throughout the year, I always want to go somewhere different each time. When I graduate from university I would like to stay at home for 1 or 2 years working in a Belfast design studio then move abroad and see what another opportunity there are. I hate the thoughts of being stuck in one city knowing there's a lot more going on in the world and I want to explore that, whether I find a city I like and settle or keep on moving and exploring I'm not sure yet, however, I do see myself outside of Northern Ireland in the future.

Easily distracted.

It's very easy to get distracted when your half way through a project, social media (scroll, scroll, scroll), friends, tv, video games, etc. Then you come across an image or video that will kick you back into gear. I am currently working my last few projects and I recently came across this image. At that moment in time, it was what I needed to help me stay focused on what I needed to do. It's blunt but effective, it makes you remember your goals and makes you want to achieve them. I started following a lot of design led inspiration pages on Instagram and they always seem to have that one post that talks to you and push you along. I would recommend to anyone starting out to follow as many designs led pages, groups, feeds as you can because it all helps you stay motivated and gives you inspiration from all angles.

Local Studio - Sort Design.

Sort is a smaller design studio in Belfast, they have a smaller employee circle compared to some of the other studios. I am attracted here because of that, in my head, I feel I would be better suited to work with a smaller group when I first leave University rather than a large company with loads of moving parts but again that could also be used and a good learning curve. For me an up and coming studio with say 5 or 6 designers all working alongside each other sounds far more appealing to me than a bigger corporate studio. I am also interested in branding, and Sort seems to do a fair bit so that also attracts me. Not saying that I want to focus on branding myself but at the moment its what I am into and am interested in.

You’ve done the work, but now you need to stand out from the crowd by presenting it in the best light. To help make the most of your assets, and avoid common mistakes, we spoke to creatives from top studios including Pentagram, ustwo, Wieden+Kennedy and Moving Brands to get their advice. Each of them has seen countless portfolios, and here they pass on their wisdom.

Yay or nay.

As I am in my final year and starting to look forward to getting a job, there's one thing I need to work on and that's my portfolio. Trying to promote yourself, make yourself a CV etc can be pretty difficult because you're not sure whats right and whats wrong. You want to make the best first impression you can and that based on your portfolio. I recently came across this post on itsnicethat.com and it they interviewed top studios top including Pentagram, ustwo, Wieden+Kennedy and Moving Brands to get their advice on what the dos and donts are when it comes to portfolios. This can be very helpful for student designers like me as it gives us an insight from our employers on what to do and what not to do.

#the graduates 2017

OFFSET 2017.

So I just got back from OFFSET. During the day I got to hear talks from Rod Hunt who created this really nice 3D illustrated worlds, Bruno Maag chairman of Dalton Maag, Jean Paul Goude known for his recent ‘break the internet’ stunt, Eco lab, Nils Lenard and Kirsten Lepore. The one that stood out the most was the talk on typography from Bruno Maag, as I am currently working on a typography project for ISTD it gives me a different insight into typography that I could use. He talked about form being function and how science is linked with typography. I got some cool publications with nice layout and type that I can use as reference and also got two screen prints which related to Rod Hunt and Dalton Maag. One thing I learned from every talk was NEVER WORK FOR FREE.

#offset #graphic design #illustration #dalton maag #rod hunt #jean paul goude #eco lab #kirsten lepore

Italian football club Juventus has been given a new identity courtesy of design studio Interbrand. The identity sees the club’s ideals embodied in a new logo that utilises the distinctive black and white stripes of the team’s home kit in a new logotype in the shape of the letter J. The club, one of the oldest teams in Italy and famous throughout the world, has announced that the logo be used on kits as of next season.

Is football becoming more design focused?

Juventus have recently been given a new identity by design studio Interbrand. Very much moving in the complete opposite direction from their current more elegant and classic crest to a very modern graphic letter, it has a monogram feel to it. Being a football fan personally, I think this logo is very cool. A lot of Juventus fans are unhappy they have taken away the original crest but from a designers point of view, I feel it brings a new sense of the direction football is going in these days. You see these little promotion videos for football kits and they have graphic animation going on in them, the design is starting to play a bigger role in football through advertising and now it has taken the step onto the kits. Will we see the old classical style be replaced by clean modern design? Only time will tell.

#graphic design

Graphic designer Rick Banks, who runs Face37, has launched a new website for his foundry "F37":http://www.f37foundry.com/ that allows designers to test out typefaces within a web browser.

Typeface Testing.

Rick Banks has created an online type tester which allows you to test out typefaces in a web browser. It allows you to change the weight, size and adjust the kerning, tracking and leading. You can also change the colour of both the type and the background to suit yourself. This could be revolutionary for designers and would allow them to learn more about the type and how to adjust and style a typeface. When starting out as a student designer you can't really afford to be splashing out on well-built typefaces and you chose the free ones instead which are not so greatly built, this can then affect your design and with a tool like this, it could make using free typefaces a lot easier.

#graphic design

There’s a first for everything.

Hi, my name is Aaron McCauley. I am a student graphic designer at the University of Ulster. I’m currently going into my second semester of final year and we have been tasked with creating a blog over the next 12 weeks to document how we are getting on (hopefully I can keep updating the blog with weekly posts). I will include my own personal development, other companies or people of interest to me, how I get inspired and I will also let you know how my trip to OFFSET in Dublin went and any interesting things I picked up on while I was there. I will engage with recent projects that have been carried out and discuss my own opinions. I think that is a good start and I hope you enjoy the rest of my blogs in the upcoming weeks.

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