Monday
22 February 2021

Conversations: Part 1

As per my earlier post, I started out taking my portfolio (in print and a proposal for the web redesign) around to design studios in Adelaide, going in with the basic premise of, ‘What am I missing?’ With thanks to Brenton Murray at Brighter and Jason Page from Quisk, I’ve significantly re-evaluated what I need to achieve.

The excuse I’ve been getting for years, and the one driving everything I’ve tried to show, is confirmed copout. I had suspected this for a while but to have it confirmed by two separate opinions feels very validating. Lack of ‘digital media design industry expreience’ is irrelevant; show what you can do well and that’s it. Studio bosses are looking for specialists, not a bit of everything. When looking for a web designer, you look for a web designer, not a graphic designer who can do web. When looking for a print designer, look for a print specialist.

For me, this was huge. It completely contradicts everything I’ve seen in job ads, who want everything from print/web/app design to marketing and social media and customer service and everything with some vague connection to design, but I’ll take the advice of people I’ve actually met and talked to over copy-and-paste clichéd job ads. I’ve been trying to make myself look like I can do whatever’s needed, when what I should be doing is really drilling down on what I do well, which is print. Get in with that and then I can start moving around and learning new things in the digital sphere (and anything else).

To that end, the greatest advice I’ve received is to strip my portfolio back to basics and start again. In terms of the content, focus it back on print, take out any superfluous designs, simplify what I’ve got and make it about the designs again. When I thought I was showing consistent identity across a branding suite, it just looked like a glut of stuff, too much stuff. I’ve learned being an artworker is a legitimate, valued thing to put in there, so I’ve now included Thirsty Camel to empasise that end (fortnightly POSM with hundreds of different data entry points across seven different pricing regions. Every 2 weeks since 2017 and not a single error). Design is boring as batshit but it’s a valuable skill so in it goes. I’ve also been told of the value of the Wendy’s brand refresh especially as a working-in-a-team project, so there’s more of them in there now, too. I’ve ripped outPalladium and the bulk of Corporate Clean Property Services (in as stationery set, now just the billboard) and taken out all but the large format items for Goolwa Surf Lifesaving Club. Also replaced a few of the older designs with shiny new ones (Construction Benefit Services replaced with disAbility Living).

To the design of the portfolio itself, again, stripping it back and clean it up and, biggest of all: rebrand. Drop bloogum and the gumleaf in the inkwell and start again. Brendan gave me some interesting advice for a concept, to design my portfolio for where I want to be in three years, but also not be afraid of admitting where I am now. Along with the word ‘simplify’ coming up a lot in our conversation, I need to ‘evolve’ which is exactly what I feel. I’m pigeonholed as a print designer, but I want to do so much more. I love to learn, but working in a print house there’s very little left to grow from. I’m stuck in a rut and need somewhere new to work so I can evolve.

I started from scratch to rebrand myself, throwing aside what I thought was me and going from a new blank slate. I made a list of everything I find aesthetically pleasing to start from a base:

• Cactus
• Ferns
• Green
• Bright colours
• Retro geometric patterns
• Citrus
• The Boots
• The Shoes (which are similar to Boots in strappy heel form, only with white, yellow and powder blue in place of the red, orange and hot pink)
• Natural textures (eg linen, brush strokes, mottley stamped look)

In writing it down I really began to get a sense of something cohesive. I certainly haven’t used all these in the rebrand, but a lot of it works together–The Boots are bright colours. Citrus, cacti and ferns are green. The Boots and The Shoes are both geometric, retro-inspired patterns. I’ve pulled this into a new logo which utilises one of my favourite colour combinations in the citrus colours of yellow, orange and lime green, with the hot pink from The Boots as an accent and to make it something that feels unique. The design itself takes the basic shapes of circles and the triangular wedge, but the biggest thing of it is the colour.

I recognised in picking the designs I wanted to display, all the very best I’ve ever done, the common thread through them is that they’re all colourful. It could be coincidental, as the bulk of clients already had their logo and identity sorted and, with that, the colours, but I don’t think so. Using colours excites me, so it stands to reason that the best stuff is when I’m given licence to use colours. My house is green! My boots are red, orange and hot pink! I dream of having a couch in mulberry purple! I AM COLOUR and yet I’ve spent almost a decade with a beige portfolio.

No longer. Both Jason and Brenton picked up on my flatlays, taken with my own camera, and recommended using templates online instead to really bump up the resolution and clarity. I’ve therefore bought a few templates and have utilised the green, yellow and orange in the backgrounds of the flatlays. Big, bold colour but, because they work so well together, and because the colour is the only challenging thing going on, it emboldens the designs on the page. The layout is in a grid, with enough white space to let everything breathe, small explanatory text in the bottom corner and a couple of pages with just the single, full-page image. I’ve given each section a cheeky little header (the only hot pink throughout) using design ad clichés like ‘works well in a team’ above the Wendy’s page and ‘excellent attention to detail’ above Thirsty Camel. Cos I’m sick of such clichés so I’ve turned them on their head.

I may have taken Brenton’s advice a little too literally, on designing for the future while being brave of the rut I’m stuck in at present, but we’ll see what he thinks. I’ve opened up with a little box, ‘this is me,’ with a the words that have defined me for too bloody long: ‘boxed | pigeonholed | stuck.’ That’s the only concession I’m giving to where I am now, though. The next page is where I want to be: bright colours, using the whole page, with a nice little bit of typography to clearly define where I want to be. I’ll work my way up from artworking and print, which is what I’m good at, and I’ll learn and evolve from there to do digital design, packaging, social media, all the fun stuff I’ve not had the opportunity to do.

I’ve had fun designing this new portfolio like I never had with the old one, and I’m sure it all comes down to the colours. Beige and neutral greys aren’t me. As soon as I introduced colour as the basis for my new brand, designing the logo and the portfolio around it was fun again, and that’s for sure resulted in a better design. I’ve been restrained and simplified with every other aspect so the colour is the throughline and the designs shine through.

I’ll take the portfolio first to both Brendan and Jason, and get more advice from a couple more designers before I move onto the website. Once I’ve got the print folio perfected as best I can, though, I’ll start applying again for jobs. I’ve got a good feeling about it this time around.

Comment    job hunting, logo design, things I learnt
Tags: job hunting, learning, logo design