Web 2.Dave

Just some web design from an ill spent (literally) afternoon. 

Its so much harder than it looks. Now I can see why it takes so long.

Sick Day Smick Pay

What did you get for christmas? I got loads of amazing presents and had a great christmas as I did sweet F.A. but enjoyed myself, work was very much at the back of my mind, which made it all the sweeter.

Now that I'm back, I thought I would get some work done before the new year celebrations. However the powers that be had other plans and have struck me down with Mr Flu, I say Mr because I have man flu which is a lot worse ;).

I guess work will have to wait (oh no...) 

I can honestly say it's only at UNI where being ill is not that much of an inconvenience, sound strange? it's not as strange as putting yourself in over 27,000 pounds worth of debt before having even started. 

We're just nutters us students.

The Wrong Impression.

Working hard or hardly working?

This wasn't exactly the impression I had imagined hard work would earn me!!!

Xx Merry Christmas xxX

www.davelawrie.com

www.davelawrie.com - not finished but is a web presence of sorts :) I love my logo 

(good job really...)

Job Offer!!!

Hooray no more need for this blog...

Just kidding, I did however get a job offer of sorts. My CV is available online to a bunch of recruiting agencies. I joined just to see what would happen as a lot of students do. To my absolute surprise I had a phone call a couple of days later from a very nice lady offering me a temporary position in a design agency in Ipswich.

Politely I told her that I hadn't graduated yet but it was good to know that it worked! the lady was very nice about it and I hung up the phone.

It may not sound, much but to me it was huge, I had a big smile on my face thinking "I might just be able to do this" I take any feel goodness when ever I can (not that kind of 'taken' happiness! you stereotyping boring businessman!)

So there you go all you creative industry folk if you want to feel good but don't particularly want to give anyone money, email a student to tell them their work is very good and guaranteed they will be on a (legal) high of esteem.

Part time jobs with full time losers.

This post is for all the students out there with a part time job.

They hire us knowing we need the money and that most of the time live very far away, they are sympathetic to our situation. 

In fact my boss is so nice and is so understanding of how short of cash I am, she gave me a late shift christmas eve and an early shift the day after boxing day. This means that not only am I earning a bit of extra money, I'm also saving a lot of money by not being able to go home to see my family at all. Proof that some bosses really do go beyond the call of duty...

More time for my dissertation too! 

Merry Christmas

Distractions!!!

Students have a knack of finding ways to do anything but their work, if they say they don't their big fat liars. Here is the latest of my finds :) 5 mins not much but enough...well back to work :(

Have you ever wondered what a dissertation looks like? (I'm here to prevent a widow)

Well now you can stop wondering :) I must apologise as this photo isn't entirely accurate, you see I mopped up the blood, sweat, hair and tears (possibly urine) before I took the picture. technically I should have made a sped up motion movie capturing 3 months of time but this would have resulted in a movie sadder than lassie and possibly more violent than hostel 1 and 2

Who ever said you shouldn't mix business with pleasure? a complete douche! thats for sure.

T-Shirts

If you can just about manage to use illustrator or photoshop you would have no doubt designed a T-Shirt at some stage, if not you have at least said "that would look great on a T-Shirt"  and if you haven't what the hell is wrong wrong with you!!! T-Shirt making is amazing fun and is what I did to raise money for my degree show a long side my courses "ABC" day where we all had stalls set up selling all sorts of christmassy things.

We raised Just under £43 and that was only the £2 deposit we charged. 27 T-Shirts in all but we have made nearly £200 which is great.

All in all I feel a lot better at having raised a sizable chunk out of my contribution to the show.

www.davelawrie.com

Heres a sneak preview of my personal website...well I can't use a blog forever!!! have began the process of building it and will form the base of my assault on the design world!

You may remember my logo from previous I have smartened it up considerably and I love it :)

watch this space for the URL :)

...ofcourse

...ofcourse, this was my groups answer to a new student portal.

we broke down the existing student portal into the 3 things it did that we found usefull and simply dropping the things we didn't. Thats deadline alerts, Downloading of lectures and a usefull place from which to have all your existing web conquests in one place. i.e. flickr or Deviant art

THE DOTS are our branding idea, simple, student friendly design that can cross age and nationality, there all called paul :)

Follow the link to our viral which would be the first point of contact for students, followed by a direct mail campaign.

http://www.sublenko.com/ofcourse/large.html

I won't say anymore hopefully they will use our idea and not just take the great name and do the same boring thing they all ways do! which is to try and be facebook :(

huge thanks goes out to the amazing Darragh, with out him our viral would just be a shit story board instead of a viral that we sent to the markers days before the presentation :) check him and his partner in crime nick cannons at

http://www.sublenko.com/

http://www.nickcannons.blogspot.com/

Sipping champagne in the emerald city.

If you have bothered to read any of my past blogs you would know I entered a competition to design a logo for a new consulting company in Farnham.

Good news! I won, I was very proud because design technically isn't what I'm studying but goes to show a good idea is whats important.

The project turned out to be a thorough test of everything I've learnt. Not only did I design the logo but he also wanted the whole stationary package, plus ideas for his website. How ever this wasn't an entirely new experience for me. What I learnt the most was how to work with the client himself, who luckily was a very nice man open to ideas, which is so refreshing since I have since become accustomed to that look a toddler gets when he thinks he's being clever, whenever I pitch an 'out there' idea. I was treated and worked like a professional.

Me and Alex are still in contact and have been working on getting other local businesses to utilise the talent that is at UCA, because of my other commitments i.e. my dissertation I was unable to take on another branding project as a result of the interest in my work with Alex. So its all good.

I got a nice giant cheque for my troubles as well :)

Yellow Brick Road Consulting is run by the amazing Alex Warren and if your interested to learn what he and his business does or you want to see my work working live visit.

www.yellowbrickroadconsulting.co.uk

BUSY with a capital F#@K!!!

I'm back!!! can't tell you how good it is to have the time to sit down and work on my blog :)

Mr Munch has helped me visually communicate the last month I've had in this stunning painting.

so whats been going on...well its November so naturally I had a really important presentation, this unit labeled creative campaign saw me and my creative partner squeeze VW, Twinnings Options and our very own UCA's black board student portal all in to one presentation. Now you may think this doesn't sound so bad but, and this is a big but not only did we have to fit the whole 3 presentations into 15 minutes, they had also limited us to 2 slides of our thoughts on the brand, 2 slides on further analysis of the brand, 2 slides for brand platform and 1 slide for each medium we have used.

Naturally I used 3 mediums, T.V, Print and Ambient. So this left me with 30 seconds per slide! all this in front of a board of directors of the university. piece of cake, I think not!

So what with getting all the research done and having it all executed to a professional standard, and rehearsed to a professional level, I thought we did ourselves proud.

However that's not what happened, what actually happened was 3 to 4 weeks of sleep deprivation, malnutrition, a slightly less than lethal dose of caffeine in the form of coca cola and coffee, a very neglected fiance!, a creative team who have known each other for over 10 years pushed to the limit of just how much you can like someone and a run through of the whole thing 10 minutes after we were meant to be there!

Luckily they were running late and we really pulled it out of the bag proving that we are not the worst creative team that has ever lived. ones thing for sure we would do nearly anything to meet a dead line! our lecturer came up to us afterwards to congradulate us, I could have cried... and I mean actual tears.

I have made it through this month and I feel a lot more optimistic about my future, and can get my ass putting up some work at last!

Am I a Product of (product) red?

Am I a product of (product) red? 

For my dissertation I will be exploring the ethics of advertising/marketing for charities. (Product) red is just one of them.

  Now when ethics and advertising are mentioned I'm met with either a groan or a lecture on why its bad or good either way it makes for a lively discussion.

  The case for advertising and marketing in the ethical world has been argued again and again and again. Is it bad and brainwashing?, is it good and an accurate reflection of our society? Personally I don't want to answer those questions as both in a way are false. I will be looking at the deliberate use of ethics in marketing/advertising and exploring whether it affects our personal autonomy. The paradox being if it does is it necessarily a bad thing if it makes me more ethical as a person e.g. helping fight aids in africa by buying a (product) red iPod?

  I have been a major fan of (product) red for years and consider it one of the best brands there is but I have never stopped to think about the implications of buying their products. I payed 50 pounds for a pair of (product) red converse shoes. Does converse care about Africa or do they want me to just buy their shoes? Does the fact that their for charity justify the premium price tag and does this mean I'm am essentially buying into what (product) red is apparently against, Elitist capitalism? or should I just shut my mouth and be happy that I can buy shoes I like whilst helping Africa?  could it be that major corporations do care and are doing their bit or are they just responding to the latest consumer trend of being ethical and green?

  Lots and lots of questions and I have barely touched the surface of it all, I just hope by the end I still want to buy into ethical brands because it's such a nice idea and that I still want to be in the business at all!

  Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to prove (product) red to be a farce, hopefully the opposite. I am much more interested in the paradoxes that lie within the two worlds as they become more and more intergrated with each other.

Design your own (product) red shoes like mine :)

www.joinred.com

(blog) red

Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

Do you need an extra brain?

Need help squashing any wicked competition?

These days you need courage to follow your heart or your business could blow away.

If you follow the yellow brick road, help can be just a click of the heels away.

Don't hide behind a curtain, see what you could have had all along.

Today I was accosted by a very frustrated romanian girl asking me whether I had done the yellow brick road brief. Of course my answer was, what brief?

  She sent me the brief and here it is, I can not disclose too much info but it is a competition amongst my Uni for a chance at designing a logo for a new company, this is my offering for a logo and possible brand platform. I couldn't resist messing around with the copy. If I win, there is a glowing reference and future work to be had so wish me luck. 

  If I win you can bet your ass I will tell you about it on here and I will be able to disclose the whole extent to which I went with this and it will make a lot more sense. :)

Free Range

  Free Range!!! for those of you unfamiliar with what I just cyber shouted you will find the link to their site at the bottom of this post.

  In student terms its one of the biggest exhibitions for new talent in europe, anyone who is anyone in the creative industry goes to this exhibition in brick lane in liverpool street, a well known creative hotspot.

  What this means for me is that a creative agency member could walk up to my work, really like it and hire me on the spot (I can dream). 

  What you can see in the picture is my courses gallery space as voted for since yesterday, we went to brick lane and had a look round all the different spaces and we did the usual talking of prices and set up times and the whole affair was done quite professionally. Naturally we remedied this by going out in london to places such as Carneby street and had a great night out in the city.

  At the moment the space is very bare, a blank canvas! but earlier this week we held a crisis meeting as there was some trouble in the ranks but we rallied together and laid everything out, assigned roles (I'm designing the website and invitations and just general art working with a team of designers from my course) everyone has there bit to do, A clear goal as to the money we were looking at raising (£5000!!!) and an over all new feeling of being in a team.

  Fundraising ideas came thick and fast, as they should we're a creative thinking course! and so lots of things are in the pipeline such as a car wash by some of the more attractive members of our course (no not me) and lets not forget the awesome success of DEATH MATCH by course members Luke, Wilf and George, which raised £200. I will include a link to that as well.

  Incidentally if your reading this and are interested in our cause we accept support in the form of cash, suggested donation £5 min (if the church can do it I bloody well can!)

  All in all everything has started to pick up pace after a slow start and I have only just ordered my books for my dissertation!!!

Never mind :)

DEATH MATCH

Free Range

Don't forget to check out our Facebook group ABC Degree Show.

p.s. If your wondering what the hell a big 3D ABC is doing in the picture it's the abbreviation for my course :)

new logo :)

Here it is my new logo for self branding purposes. website, email, print projects etc. you name it this will be on it.

 For my last project in my first year, I did a self branding presentation where I had a logo that I believed showed my personality. I made movies and other things all designed to show me as a person. Looking back I did a terrible job however designers find branding themselves notoriously hard and for my part I gave it a very good try.

 Two years on and I'm back armed with more knowledge, practical experience and a much better sense of my self and so this logo was born.

  Why bother branding myself? well apart from being immensely fun, I myself am a brand that I must sell to potential employers, I am unique, there is know one else in the world who is me, there maybe many people who are a lot like me and it is these bastards who I have to differentiate myself against.

  With this logo I wanted to create something that was versatile and could be changed and lend itself to expansion in lots of different things as hopefully I will be producing lots of fun things to send to agencies.

  I started sketching my name in different ways because I wanted my name as my brand (obviously) I took a step back and couldn't help notice that although the designs weren't bad (I had gone for a sketchy, spontaneous look) they all looked the same; in order from left to right. I also noticed that my name is quite long and didn't fit nicely into normal size formats such as A4, it just took up too much room.

  I started messing round with the letters in illustrator and ended up with a sculpture like design that was abstract but still looked good, I would say like me but I won't for fear of a back lash of comments.

  I ditched the sketchy pencil look and decided to keep the design open so that I can change it according to who I was sending it to. This feature also makes it possible to create new meanings within the basic design, plus a couple of weeks later I would have wanted to change the look of it any way. I'm never happy with my work!

  The design fits neatly into the corner of anything or can fill a space and the over all effect I feel is a visually engaging logo that you have to work at (not too hard) to decode, very handy on my CV. This logo actually looks like a design rather than just a name in fancy font. 

 A nice clean message.

 Well I like to think so anyway.

hello.

 

 hello! yes my first blog is titled hello and that took me long enough to decide on in the first place! but I feel that it has all ways been the best way to start anything.

  So yeah on with the introduction. So why The Creative Pilgrimage. Well a pilgrimage is a long (and believe me it has been) journey or search of something with great importance and there are fewer things more important to me than landing my dream job in a great agency and so instead of inflicting the internet with a blog on my relatively normal life, I thought I would use this amazing tool to document my attempt at making it in the advertising industry, one of the toughest industries to get into in the world today. 

  You will be able to follow me through my third and final year at University where I am currently studying Advertising and Brand Communication. My projects, my ideas, my hair brained schemes of getting my foot in the door, my successes and the all ways bigger piles of failures. All will be here for you to comment with your own stories or indeed wisdom.

  New posts will be up soon and a new design for the blog will be in place shortly, it all depends on how busy I am. Either I'm busy and i'll be posting a lot or I will be busy and won't have a chance to post a lot, either way you can see what kind of a year I'm in for.

  Hopefully if what I wanted to achieve with this blog is achieved, it will be for some, an interesting insight into what students put them selves through to get into this highly desirable industry, for others a chance to relate and reminisce of old times, maybe it will be just a chance to laugh at a poor unfortunate soul and his predicaments, my course mates will see this as a chance to either feel really good about their work or hopefully feel really bad because my work is so good but over all I hope it will just be a place where I can not only teach (in a manner of speaking) but learn a lot as well and if your a person in advertising in a place of power I wouldn't say no to a job which would make my life a lot easier, all though would render this blog completely useless but I reckon I'd get over it.

Enjoy :)