Tigran Hakobyan

Graphic Designer

[dzygyt-blog]

I see an opportunity I take it.

My University is Offering to take apart in a Logo competition. The University Postgraduate Researchers need a logo. So I thought why not, I could at least try, and if I win, well let’s say it is going to be a good feeling to know that I have left another footprint in my University.

[dzygyt-blog]

Limited Edition Poster

I guess there are many ways of leading people from one of your web sites to other, like sharing posts reposting, give out business card (which I have done) or even telling people in person but I think this way is the most effective way of getting traffic in your web sites  - Poster is the answer. 

So I have managed to make a Limited edition poster. The shapes you see in the poster are my actual work which I made from paper but just a little bit of graphical adjustments and volia!

So whit this last post ( I just wount be bloging during summer) what I would like to say that 2nd year of university has come to an end ( which does not mean that I will not be doing work, you will still find updates in my portfolio during summer) but other than that it was a will and skill testing journey where I have learned more then imagined. Now I have a clear plan for my future, as I know how the industry works and what the industry wants, so for this summer my plans are just rest and do freelance work as I have no where to rush with placements and internships because my goal is to reach a master degree in design which means two more years for me, but I have already ideas where to apply next year! Peace!

PS. Just in case if you missed out few of my other portfolio/galleries or can’t see them (because of the quality tumblr uses) I will put them here:

Facebook - www.facebook.com/TigranHakobyanDesign Flicker - https://www.flickr.com/117901814@N04 Instagram – tigrandesigns

[dzygyt-blog]

Postcards

Finally had a chance to send out few of my own made post cards to some people.  I think that post cars is always a nice and simple way of getting someone attention or just making their day!

Tested out few of my post cards, send my first few to my lecturer and after a while I realised that I have like ten copies of each left so I send few to my family,( which they have not got yet, fingers crossed) and recently I have send one to Alex, the independent graphic designer who was nice enough to meet up with my and have a chat so I thought it would be nice way of my saying thank you to him, and hey you never know he might keep it and one day it might become an opportunity.

[dzygyt-blog]

YCN

Another day another competition. This time we were given the YCN competition as brief, to start with we were actually given a chance to pick from 3, and we do not get that very often which meant there could have been no excuses because all 3 entries where very different from each other: a2 Milk, Fedrigoni, Royal Opera House. For me it was either Fedrigoni or the Opera House, but since I am good with paper and paper is so good with me I thought: Right I will challenge myself again to see where I can go with it this time. And so I did pick Fedrigoni, who wanted us to make something that would make people go and visit their newly opened store in London Graphic Centre and for those who don’t know what Fedrigoni is, well…Fedrigoni is a very know paper company who are very professional in presenting their work and over a long period of time they have developed some really nice ways of approach the audience. I thought about it this way – for a company such as Fedrigoni you would probably have to make something unique in order to increase your chance of getting picked, because at the moment their work is so professional and yeah I suppose at some point you could make a simple thing with a nice approach and a meaning behind it but somehow I feel that is what most people are going to be doing so it would be great to stand out from that grey crowd and increase your chance of getting noticed, right?

This is one of the works that fedrigoni has made

 And so I did pick a direction to be different, but how can you manage to be different when the company you are doing work for, have tried everything from leaflets to cut outs, origamis, pop up cards and so on? Well I like to think about it this way – if you are trying on a new shoe that just came out and it is a new trend how many more new and different shoes are going to be released somewhere in the world by the time you buy the ones you have picked? A lot. In short they can use and try many styles but they will never wear all the shoes in the world. So you would expect that I had my fair share of late night research on paper which at some point I thought I have seen a lot of thing that can be done with paper and there was not much left.

One of few experiments I have made using Fedrigoni logo and cut outs

After trying all kinds of interesting cut outs and folds I have ran into something really amazing which includes just 2 printed sheets of paper but the result you get from those two sheets of paper is unbelievable.

This what you saw are the final pieces that I have submitted for YCN and this took my at least a month of developed and research. Yes a very long period of time, but the research I came across was just a bars printed on acetate with a really complex and not so clear animation and the instructions of doing this where inaccurate.

So from that I fixed and changed several things:

1.Instead of acetate with printed black bars I have use a nice black plike paper and cut out the parts where it is meant to be transparent.

2.Animation was unclear because white background was distracting from what was actually important but this was easily fixed by just putting the background the same colour as the paper.

3.And the hardest bit was, to actually fit this all in a sleeve whit an invitation to their new store .Even that was done with a meaning behind it, if you look at the animation carefully and then read what it say in the back of the it you will get it. 

Because this was developed carefully and accurately I have reached the stage where I would look at it and say “yeah this is it”.

All rights reserved by Tigran Hakobyan

[dzygyt-blog]

Interview with Alex Colley

So I had an arranged meeting with Alex Colley who is a independent graphic designer. Besides the annoying 4 hour trip to London every thing else went surprisingly good. Myself and Alex had quite a nice chat, it was mainly me asking questions and him trying to answer them. The main reason why I had approached an independent graphic designer is because I was always afraid of freelance and independency. For me every thing has to be as planed, as in I have to have a stable income and some how in my head I had this thought that being a freelancer is like living one month as a king and the other month starving to death. But I asked Alex what are his thoughts on this and he said that at the moment he is stable enough to allow himself not to work for months. That surprised me a lot as I knew that some time as a freelance you get jobs and then there are days when you get nothing but its clearly not like that. I had to ask Alex why did he decide to become a freelancer ( because Alex worked in several different companies before becoming and independent designer) and he said he really enjoys the freedom of freelancing no bosses, work when you want, work how you want. These words made me smile because I had that dream to be a free artist but also be financially stable and at that time I thought the chances for that to happen a very low, now I have a strong and clear plan what I want to do for the future. This chat with Alex boosted up my confidence, so now I know that after uni I might work in a creative agency or company BUT at my spare  time I will start to build up my freelance carrier get that name out there and hopefully when I feel that I am stable enough to be an independent designer, I will slowly let go of the agency work and get fully into freelancing.

[dzygyt-blog]

CV

Finally this glory moment came at last! My work in progress CV is seeing day light as it took me a lot of planing and redoing. Most of the time I had to fix or redo it because of my "amazing ability to formulate a sentence the way I have it in my head". It is not finished as there some bits of it that needs correcting in a more professional way which I cant do it as I am a bit week with that but hey I guess that is why I'm in uni. Any who it is ready for formal assessment!

THEN

NOW

When I said it took me a lot o planing this is what I meant: 

At some point I know there are gonna be people who are gonna question: why screen printing? Well first of all it gives that nice effect that you would never achieve with a printer second of all printing out on a 350g paper is a trouble. But talking about paper these are the papers from GFSMITH that i have ordered:

1. Plike - Black 140gsm A4 (for my animation that is going to be in my magazine/portfolio)

2. Zen 150gsm - Pure white A4 (for my magazine/portfolio page's) 

3. Heaven 42 - Soft Matt (white) 250gsm (for my CV)

4. Colorplan - Natural 350gsm A3 (for my CV cover)

Yeah like I said a lot of planing looking for proper papers and so on. But what I found odd is that I actually enjoyed designing my CV which I thought is gonna be difficult to do because when the time come to make something for yourself (as a designer) it is so difficult to make it the way you will like it, or its just me. But it turned out to be just fine as I was going thro professional CV's that others have made and my designer brain was picking up bits that thought looked good.

 Then I just started putting every thing together, making it from a blank page and my first step was to position my name and logo l, after that  everything float perfectly! 

In the end I think mu CV looks simple but effective, shows exactly who I am: professional and maybe a bit childish/funny but most importantly I like how it looks!

[dzygyt-blog]

Know about my existence

Since I lam finally happy with my logo and brand time to let people know I exist and help them find out more about me.

I do agree that social media is a big deal promotional wise, no doubt, BUT there is something in a physical item that social media will never achieve. The feel, the look. Talking about feels and looks I am thinking of having my business card on a simple nice uncoated card with a little bit of embossing.

Looked at some other designer business cards and I can say when it comes to presenting your own contact details, simplicity always works well, the last thing I want is people being confused about how to get in touch with me.

Few business cards I liked:

Business card by:  Joey Teehan

James Jack business card

A simple business card created for a graphic design studio by: Espainu

But like I said before the social media is a big deal when it comes to promoting yourself, thats why I have put quite a few contact info on the back of my business card. Some of them are more of a portfolio then a way of getting in touch with me, but thats the way it is meant to be, people that have already seen my work will go and email me or call me, people that want to have a look at my work again will go on my Facebook page or Instagram page. For now that is what I have, in a week or so I will start doing my portfolios-magazine to go with my cv.

[dzygyt-blog]

Redisngning

I was told that my in mu current logo there is to much going on, and to be fair I kinda agree with that, don't know how it happened...because I always tend to keep things simple.

Before

After a tutorial with my lecturer Gemma Ince, I understood that Im giving to much for the viewer to handle I think it might have happened because I was so into leaving a huge meaning behind my logo that I forgot the most simple basics of design when it comes logos. So I followed Gemma's advice that: "less is more" in other words making it less is sometimes better, and this is what I did with my logo.

Now

Quite happy with this, clean, smooth and a meaning behind it. This order of the letters this design that the roof of the "T" is joined with "H" was my first ever design that i did with my initials. Obviously a that time It looked worse thats why I never thought I could bring it to this level but gave it a go and volia! 

Moral: Sometimes old and dusty ideas can be the best ones if you want them to be. 

[dzygyt-blog]

Future of thDesign

Me an my future plans...This is one of those subjects that I didn't want to touch, not because i don't like it but because it is a bit complicated as I am complicated myself. Don't get me wrong my personality is one and the work I do is other, but then again I tend to put a piece of myself in my work. We all do tho.

In short its complicated because I want to do everything and it might sound cocky but I can do anything that involves me in creating something, any tool you give me I will be creative with it.Give me a scalpel and i will make cut outs and designs that you would be amazed. For example the algorithm  brief I got to solve and this is what I did with it.

Not much to explain as every thing should be clear you have a word and a word has its own identical sound wave and Tigran has some ideas and some paper and some scalpels so he takes just a simple wave and makes it into o pop up card, I mean common how often do you get to touch a sound wave or see it in this creative way?

Give me a subject tell me to solve it and expect it to be solved, people where asking me why I want a chameleon on my logo well because I think about it it this way: I am the chameleon, you put me in an environment and I will lean it and become it. Give me time in the new environment and I will research it from A to Z and make my own interpretation of it (if needed). I can put a few ideas or a few things I have learned into one thing that would reflect that environment.

So at this point I don't know is it a bad thing or a good thing. Might be a good thing because I feel I would be happy any where, where I can be creative and create. Sometime I feel like what Jarod Kintz said in his book: Gosh, I probably shouldn't publish this

“I wanted to study graphic design, because I wanted to work in an office with designer desks, ergonomic chairs, pool tables, and walls so colorful it looks like a flock of flamingoes exploded and splattered evenly from floor to ceiling.”

But to make this more simple, I have enjoyed designing packages, stands, using scalpel different paper and other materials so I could actually imagine myself in packaging design or even a bit of product design. But for now I am free bird and I can and will explore any thing that has to do with graphics and design because I am a Graphic Designer.

“Clever pack helps prevent any painful incidents” Packaging Design by Melissa Archer    

[dzygyt-blog]

What is Graphic Design?

A quick text layout by me using presentational mock ups

What is graphic design?Well for the outside world graphic design should be mostly everything, but I bet most of them don't even realize that, to be fare Im in Arts for quite a while if I haven't told you about me graduating art school well... You know now... I did it for 4 years, I did not do specific design, but I did a LOT when it comes to art. Any way even after graduating Art school I did not realize that graphic design can cover so much... Only after actually getting properly into graphics with a lot of hard work it opened my eyes as now when I walk in the streets and I see poster or ANYTHING done digitally I immediately start deconstructing it: how is it done? Why is it done? What program? Where are the mistakes? These questions pass thro my head. I have never done this in past, used to just pass thro any add on large screens but don't get me wrong I was not a potato I still had understanding in what is nice for the eye and what is not, and if it was eye catching I would remember it and be like "hm thats nice".  At that time we can say that I was the viewer, and I'm pretty sure thats how it works for every one else you don't have to have a degree in arts to know whats good and whats not, it either gets your attention or no, end of story. BUT the viewer never thinks about how it got a place on the screen or in the magazine or even how was it made...but we designers do.  We know the process and it seems like we go thro all this work banging our head to the wall to get some ideas and people pass thro it in 3sec they are gonna either like it or no, no one will stop to think "ow this is done right and this is good, so okay I like it its good" literary pass thro it...for example road signs! What did you think just random people make it? Nope, that is still a designer's work, Richard "Jock" Kinneir thats the name you are looking for, this man who started designing road signs in UK. I repeat myself again: Graphic Design is every where.

1,2,3 those glory judgment seconds, but at the same time this is what I live for... All that hard work can pay of in those seconds believe me or not.

[dzygyt-blog]

Meeting Practitioners/ hearing about creative projects and lifestyle/ workflow of illustration, animation and design.

London Trip 26.02.16

 Recently I got an opportunity to visit London, which was quite exiting since it is my 2nd time. Any way we went to visit the “House of Illustration” at Kings Cross, the goal of the trip was to meet Practitioners/ hearing about creative projects and lifestyle/ workflow of illustration, animation and design. Illustrator/animator David Lemm talked about his exhibition work that we came to see and the work he had done in the past. It is always exciting to see someone’s work but as a designer I am also interested in the story behind it.

 He told us from what he started as and who he is now, which shows the creative speakers progress as an artist, and that is vital because you always have a start in order to finish. Currently Lemm is redesigning maps (mapping) which at first for me sounded BORING, although I am Designer I never judge the book by its cover (the irony).

Leith Creative by David Lemm

He finished his story and it seem that he was so passion about mapping that he managed to take it to a next level, his illustrations where so simple and provoking at the same time, Lemm had this idea about redesigning the “everyday world” which I have blogged about it in the past, and I find that a really brave thing to decide and DO.

Photos taken by me

As an artist, Lemm really got my attention with his simple visual problem solving, not because it is just mapping but also the way he approached it as a human being. He gave people a chance to interact with his creations:

So I created an illustration of the area (above) which contained a route and doubled as a map to navigate by. I got Workhorse Press in Edinburgh to Riso print 2 versions of the illustration - one of my final artwork, and a template version missing the final layer.

Participants received a print with the first layer of the composition - complete with blank areas to fill.

They were invited to follow this route through the area surrounding House Of Illustration and find a series of 'urban' cairns I had made to mark the path.

The idea was to fill in the blanks with drawings made from observations in the landscape at each corresponding cairn.

David Lemm

[dzygyt-blog]

“Look it’s wrong”

Understanding a visual problem is one of the key steps to solving it. Everyone thinks differently, everyone is differently creative that is why raising a problem or understanding it can have different outcome in between artists, but that does not mean it is wrong.

Logo created by me

“Debate” usually it means discussion between two or more sides, well in this case that is exactly what it is: “Dialogue day” was given to me as a creative response task. I was expected to produce a leaflet, an invitation leaflet to a debate, interesting part was that the debaters could have been any one we wanted to be, some found it great to have such freedom others had so much options that they struggled to pick.

At first I was in one of those groups, yep, the second one I had so much debaters politics vs students, students vs teachers, moms vs tads and so on, but I got to a point where I started to understand that picking the sides didn’t actually matter, I realised that the purpose of this task is to focus more on the solving of the problem rather than creating it.

I have picked Vegetarian vs Meat eaters this was a very simple choice I had in the back of my mind that all the food we eat meat/vegetables they are both equally colourful. The idea was to get more people involved in the event, so how would you make leaflet for both debaters? If I make a green leaflet with vegetables on it I would get a few vegetarian attention, but then there  are meat eaters that wouldn’t even pick up a leaflet like that and I need more people interested in this, so having both sides involved would mean more people! 

For solving this I have picked a playful and strong strategy, If you remember my 1nd blog about wrong things getting people’s attention so this is exactly what I did this time. I thought to myself that having a bit of both sides on the leaflet would be fair. But wouldn’t it be boring to have vegetables and meat in the same bowl or something like that? Like said before wrong things get people’s attention in a bad or a good way doesn’t matter they notice it and as we know that is one of the keys to success. So in my head I started putting things into places that they do not belong, and a photo that I found while researching leaded me to some ideas. I found a photoshoped sliced banana with the inside of a kiwi and there it was I thought I could do the same only with meat and the results came out really interesting and playful.

The results I got worked the way I wanted eye catching and discussion causing. Eye-catching because that is not how baby chicks look like… And discussion causing because people would see how the two environments are equally mixed together and would get their own thoughts about it despite what side they are on.

Just to make the leaf let more playful I had a go with funny invitational words that in a way would get both sides to smile.

P.S making people smile is a success to.

[dzygyt-blog]

POPAI

Competition - the act or process of trying to get or win something (such as a prize or a higher level of success) that someone else is also trying to get or win: the act or process of competing.

In Design industry this word is used more often then u can imagine. Maybe people do not say it but they definitely realise the importance of it. Why is competing so important? Well lets say it is the best way of deciding who is good and who is not so. It might sound harsh but that is the cruel reality, people always want and expect the best quality work u can offer them. Your phone is broken you take it to a repair service in hope that it will be fixed you do not take it there so you could get it back the same way you have left it there, right? Same with design industry clients approach you in hope you can offer them something good or help them with their visual problem. But how do you and not the guy sitting next to you get to the stage where you are trusted to hep people? By proving that u can do that job better then him, there are many ways of proving that, for example; portfolio, CV, blogs, work experience and so on. This is called competition, in learning facility’s students are given a chance to compete with one another it is a way of preparing a student for the industry.

POPAI

Like said before, students like me are offered a chance to test their skills with other students and POPAI was one of those chances. It was given to me in 1st semester of my 2nd year, POPAI - Point of Purchase Advertising International, a brief where one has to pick a brand and present the brands product, but the goal is to make the shopper buy it. Now you can make from stands to simple packaging’s either can be a winner.

 For this task I have picked a direction to sit down and think what product that I know has a potential to be bought but its not delivered properly to the viewer. This was the most strategic plan I could come up with, had many options before it: looking into products that are nice, shiny or not known product/brand. The “not known” one was very popular in my surrounding but I knew it was for far not the best option to show people “oh look you have not seen this, now buy it”.

So I remember the best coffee place that is popular in all age groups and is one of my favourites as well: “Starbucks”. Do not be one of those people who judge me and say I picked it because it is a famous brand, nope I am not going to make people buy their coffee they are already doing it. The thing I am after is the “Marshmallow Twizzle” that Starbucks has to offer to their clients Its just not presented it the way it should be, something so nice should not be put on a tissue or under a glass stand. And in general sweets are something kids and some adults will love, how do I know? Experience. I work in a restaurant buffet where we have a corner that is full of any sweets u can think of. I have worked more then over a year now, and you know what have I noticed? All those little kids running with the marshmallows on the sticks. There is something special to have the marshmallow on a stick because in this restaurant the marshmallows are provided in big bowl of which u can collect and have it either on a stick or a plate I can confidently say that more people even adults pick the stick, do not ask why because I would pick the stick as well and I don’t know why, I just like to eat it from a stick.

 Design I had all the information I needed now was the time to proceed making it real. I thought since every one loves these marshmallows on a stick I am going to make a big marshmallow on a stick stand. This way the customers will notice the playful and bright design. Took my time and made a 3D model so I could see if it look realistic enough and then I decided to make a real model to make sure my idea was legit.

And what goes to where it is going to stand in the shop I have picked near the check out, I have picked this spot based on my research and experience. Over all I think every thing went well the acrylic pink and white colours o the wooden material looked very soft and playful the product was presented to the viewer in the most playful and eye catching way. Learned a lot realised a lot and happy with my creation.

[dzygyt-blog]

Project “Life”

“There is always a way to solve a problem”. Always. This was given to my as a brief: to create a poster for prison art exhibition. Now the interesting part of solving a visual problem is finding and understanding it. the way it was presented to me was that the client wanted free people to be a part of the exhibition. Now how do you make a free person to go be a part of a prison life? Obstacles: Fear and doubt.

I have thought to take a direction of helping people realise that something beautiful can be created by something not so beautiful. Making the realise that this is the their way of being free.

This is what i did whit this piece of design. Using the letters from the exhibition name “Life” i have made a cube shape, why a cube shape? Well this might have been a bit cliche from my side but that is the way of representing something closed, something trapped, most of the prisoners rooms are closed and cube shape. I have used the letters “L” “i” “F” “E” to construct that cube. This was also inspired by Neville Brody’s “Commercials for Nike”, where a messy layout is used to lure the viewer in trying to figure out what is says, because of this effect I have ignored the fact that it might be cliche, I liked how it looked and how it worked

The red paint dripping from the top of the page or as some would say “what is that blood” was made to prove that most people are disposed to think violent when it come to the word “prison” for my first design I have used a very deep red colour but then it looked violent even to me, thats why I lured it down to more of a worm red, dais putting the viewer into a situation of discussion. Also the paint dripping from the “E” is made to simulate the prison bars to make the trapped cube idea more understandable for the viewer. But initially the red/pink colour was made to represent paint and artistry.

Overall I think the problem was more or less solved, as making it look visually good and leaving a meaning behind it.

[dzygyt-blog]

The artist inside. Every thing around me is an influence for creativity, starting from every day views from the window to art museum gallery’s. If my influence was a person it would definitely be Neville Brody.

The postmodernist style that he has created by making our every day environment look wrong and making it look good design wise, despite all the graphic design “rule breaking” he had attracted a lot of peoples attention, that is my style I like to break the rules, because the more rules I learn the more I can break and I am in a stage of my life where I learn and learn and learn more, I know a place and a time where I have to modern and I will, but I will always prefer to do things wrong and differently, that is my way of getting the viewer interested. I want people to see my creations, because in the end of the day that is one of the main steps to solving a visual problem, a problem will not be solved if no one gets a chance to see’s what you have to offer.

My long journey started when I was no bigger than a bucket, in a small city with a comfy neighbourhood, where al the kids liked to collect stickers with cartoon characters. At that time my family did not have too much money don’t get me wrong I had everything needed but other kids had more. You’d had to buy this pack of gums in order to get the sticker, I did buy them a few times but to get the rare stickers you’d had to buy more (which was a clever marketing move at that time). So every one had all these cool stickers that they where exchanging whit each other, and I couldn’t because I had only a few that no one needed, and then it happened a regular summer day I have came with the idea of making my own stickers it didn't work out well the first time when I tried to do it in the same size as the sticker, but once I have taken a A4 paper and started making it bigger version of the sticker every thing had changed it was so much fun to see those lines come into something real. By the end of summer I had a stack of drawings (black pencil) and half of he neighbourhood used to gather around me and i’d show them my drawing and exchange them into real rare sticker. Funny... it was as if I started my own business. I loved that feeling that is still inside me an that is what I live for, that it is what I want to do: show my people my designs, sell them and be noticed.

Moral: there is always a way to solve a problem and stubbornness can be a great tool to make it happen.