External PositioningEmma Wilkinson - Avis

Graphic Design, Year 3

Self Promotion & Web Presence

In the design world it is very important to have a goo presence on the web for people to be able to look at your work. I have

designed and developed a website for myself to promote my work and show off my designs. I also designed a logo and

from this created business cards that I will be giving out to events that I go to.

design

Emma Wilkinson - AvisWeb Designer & D eveloperGraphic Designer

www.ewilkinsonavis.co.ukinfo@ewilkinsonavis.co.uk

design

Emma Wilkinson - AvisWeb Designer & D eveloperGraphic Designer

www.ewilkinsonavis.co.ukinfo@ewilkinsonavis.co.uk

design

design

design

design

Website

This is my personal website to get my work externalised. It is not completely finished yet but it will be a place for me to

update my most recent projects along with a link to my uni blog which after graduating I will upgrade to a blog system in

the actual website. The link to the website is:

www.ewilkinsonavis.co.uk

Penguin Adult Brief - One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

I chose to do the Penguin Adult Book Cover Design Competition to design the cover jacket for the book ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest’.For my initial research I decided to read the original book by Ken Keesey and also watch the 1975 film which was based on the book.I then look at previous covers that have been used.

Initial Ideas

Below are my inital sketchbook notes to get my ideas rolling for this Penguin Brief.

Idea Development

After jotting down some notes and watching the films and reading the book, I then started to get my ideas going for the

book cover design. Above are my ideas.

Ideas

The idea I chose to continue development on was the one that is circled in pink with he star next to it. The idea was of an

illustration of a brain with hand rendered text inside each side. One side would be quotes from Nurse Ratched and the other staff and the other side was quotes of McMurphys. The idea is to visually show the differences and the divisions between he

staff and the patients.

Continued Development

I then started jotting down some of my favourite quotes from the book for both sides of the illustration. I chose quotes that I

thought really summed up the characters personalities.Next I started on the illustration. Initially I drew the shape of the brain and put it into illustrator so I could print it off and use it to

begin the typography.

Illustration

Above is my final brain illustration with hand rendered type of my chosen quotes.

Development

I then took the hand rendered type illustrations into Illustrator and vectorised them before playing around with different

colour schemes and use of shadows. My final design is a white background with the character ‘McMurphy’s’ quotes in bright,

bold colours and ‘Nurse Ratched’s’ quotes in monotone to highlight the differences in characteristics. I also chose to

have a drop shadow to highlight the words.

Final Design

Above is my final book cover design for ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.

RSA Stamp Brief- B

I chose to do the postage stamps ‘World with a Future’ brief by RSA. Above are my initial sketching ideas for the stamps. To help and inspire me I looked at various recycling websites and also previous winners of the RSA Stamp briefs.

Previous Experience

The next stage was to begin the ideas of what my stamps would look like. I drew out a few sketches then decided

to take the image at the bottom of the page on further. I wanted to create a very simple design that stood out on the

stamp with just two colours.

Stamp Illustrations and Colours

Above are my final typographic illustrations for each of the six stamps. On the page opposite are different colour

schemes that I worked through before settling upon the beige background colour.

Final Stamps

On the following pages are my final stamp designs at 400%. They still need alterations and may change before the final

deadline but I am really happy with he outcome so far.

Final Stamps

Above are my final designs for the RSA postage stamps in their actual size. I think the stamps work really well at this size as the colours stand out from the background and you can still read the text. The stamps still need some final work tot hem and a

few alterations which I will complete before the final deadline.

D&AD - Illustration, ‘Little White Lies’ Magazine Cover

I decided to enter the D&AD competition for the illustration category. The brief was to design a magazine cover fro the

well known film magazine ‘Little White Lies’. There was a choice of 5 of the years best films to choose from and you had

to illustrate the main character. I chose the film Black Swan.

Digital/ Illustration

Initially I wanted to create the illustration digitally as this is always my preferred method but after playing around with a

few different ideas, one of which is on the opposite page, I decided this wasn’t the right way to go as it didn’t fit with the

film. I then started basic some pencil illustrations of the main character.

Final Design

Above is my final design for the D&AD ‘Little White Lies’ magazine cover. I really enjoyed doing the illustration by hand with pencil and charcoal but then I thought that the digital illustrated eyes really stood out against the illustration and as it is the main focal point of her face it worked really well.

PaperCo

Last year one of the set briefs of the tern was to enter the PaperCo competition to design a piece of Direct Mail to

educate their customers on sustainable procurement. This was a real shock to me as it was all so fast paced but gave such a valuable insight into the design world. I worked with Yurina on

this brief and we won the Silver Award for our category. This gave me a real boost of confidence and really inspired me to enter more competitions as it is such a good way to get your

work seen.

Previous Experience

During the summer I worked in a Web Design company called Wight 365. Over my time there I helped the main Web

Designers and Developers on various websites for companies.Towards the end of my time there they asked me to design

and develop a photo gallery website for a ‘Status Quo’ and ‘Manfreds’ concert that had been on the week before. It

felt really good to be given the chance to do this website on my own and for it to be used. Below are screenshots of the

website. The link to the websites is:http://rockinthedock.co.uk

Independent Practice

My Independent Practice project for this semester has been based around Web Design as it is my main passion and the area I aim to get into in the future. I decided to design and develop a website for my brother who is studying Photography. For him to upload and show off his work. Below are screenshots of the website.The link to the website is:www.olliewilkinsonavis.co.uk

Skills

The diagrams above are to illustrate what I feel my strengths and weaknesses are in Design, Web and Personal.As you can see from the first diagram my main weaknesses are handmade/ analogue processes which I may need to work on although as you can see from the second diagram my main bulk of skills lay in Web and Digital which I feel in the modern world are extremely important especially with how quickly the digital world moves, to have the basic skills that I can then work on is a must.I need to work on my weaknesses such as having limited contacts in the industry and also my confidence when approaching people otherwise my work will never become known.

Then, Now, Future

During my time at university apart from doing the set briefs each semester I have never had any particular in-dependent direction or style that was defined. Although I still don’t have a set style I have decided that the area I wasn’t to go into in the future is definitely going to be Web Design. I have such a passion for it and learning all the new developments to me is very exciting. In the future I want to be employed in a Web Company whilst doing less and less independent work, although I do en-joy doing the competition briefs so I will continue these.

Evaluation:

This external poisoning unit has been so useful for me in developing my skills in a more varied way than I would in my independent work. I usually focus and only use digital media

but through working on the D&AD brief “Little White Lies” magazine cover, I had the opportunity to go back to pencil

and paper which felt really nice and inspired me to do more handmade work.

My favourite competition that I have work on in this unit is the Penguin Book Cover for ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.

The reason I chose to do this brief was because I am studying ‘Open Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest’ for my dissertation so it was

really interesting to be able to work on and look at one text from two different angles, as a designer and also as a critic.

In the future my aim is to be employed in a Web Design company. I would then like in distant future to set up my own Web Company. I am going to teach myself and maybe enrol

on courses to learn as many web languages as I can so I have a proficiency in a wide range which will make me more

employable.

References:

Magazines & Newspapers:

Computer Arts Magazine.Net MagazineWeb Designer MagazineObserver MagazineLayers MagazineDigital Arts Magazine

Websites:

www.w3schools.comwww.recyclenow.comwww.recycle.co.ukwww.wireandtwine.comwww.50waystohelp.comwww.thersa.orgwww.dandad.orgwww.penguin.co.ukwww.vimeo.co.ukwww.youtube.co.ukwww.jquery.comwww.gomockingbird.co.ukwww.wight365.co.ukwww.dynamicdrive.co.ukwww.csszengarden.comwww.cssplay.comwww.smashingmagazine.comwww.netmagazine.co.ukwww.computerarts.co.ukwww.wordpress.com

Books:

HTML, XHTML and CSS Bible. (2010) Steven M. SchaferBrilliant HTML and CSS. (2008) James A BrannanZEN of CSS Design. (2005) Dave SheaThe Principles of Beautiful Web Design. (2010) Jason Beaird