As a fourth year Graphic Design student, it is of the utmost importance to tackle the dreaded reality that within the next year you will be cast out into the real world with the intention of getting a job within the design industry. With anything creative, standing out from the crowd is vital, questions such as, ‘what value can I add to an organisation?’ & ‘what sort of working environment do I want to work in?’ become recurring thoughts and with time, become more and more crucial to respond to. The ‘Me, Myself & I’ brief delivered by Elastic Creative has without doubt helped to address these questions. By self-branding we are required to think about ourselves deeply, in ways trying to detach ourselves from our consciousness and think about ourselves as products or as a business.
The process began with thinking about my personality and what characteristics I would potentially want to communicate through my brand. It was after some development I came to the realisation that rather than focusing on my persona to inform the brand, I could use my approach to solving creative problems, thus titling my personal brand as ‘Now’. Now is the embodiment of my approach, I tend to tackle creative problems in a very hands on, jump straight into the deep end way or in other words, no crap…just make things happen. This makes things happen attitude is at the heart of the narrative within my thirty-second motion piece. Divided into three statements, ‘take a stand, break the mould, make a difference’ I had the idea to include inspiring people and events from history that felt synonyms with these messages. Visual style was influenced by multiple exposure photography, I really enjoyed playing with the idea of applying a sense movement to what you could maybe consider as a ‘now’ moment or simply just an impactful still photograph.
As for my logo, I felt it was appropriate for it to feel straight to the point and fit with the ethos of the brand therefore I decided to use a contemporary sans serif typeface that feels punchy and immediate. After reviewing my outcomes I believe there may have been room for the logo to play more of an important role within the video rather than simply appearing at the final seconds, other than this I am pleased with my response to the brief.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank Elastic Creative, specifically Alex and Jacob for taking the time out of their busy schedules to come and mentor each of us in the fourth year Duncan of Jordanstone Graphic Design class of 2017/18. Cheers guys, I am off to the pub now.