On the 2nd day at Diverse I set to work on finishing my proposal design for Silcoates. I'm really glad I got to work on it more as I feel it looks a lot more completed now to be able to show the client. Obviously Sue and the client will change bits of it and tweak it here and there, but for a proposal idea I am pretty pleased with it. I stayed within the guidelines that Silcoates wanted so hopefully I will get good feedback from them. Sue said she will pass on their thoughts after she has been to visit them and let me know how it went.
Below is my example of the front cover design and a front page and double page spread layout for the Sports section. We thought it would be a good idea to use a different colour for each section, so I added a colour palette at the end to show the client what the other sections would look like.
After working on this, I worked on a different project for the rest of the afternoon that Sue was also working on. She has been designing a publication for a company that send out seasonal issues so this one was the winter version for January. Overall for Sue this is quite a big job and there's a lot to do in terms of the layout and trying to fit in all their stories, images and articles without altering the overall look that runs through each issue too much. I helped by working on one of the double page spreads and had 3/4's of the spread to work with fitting in the article and a few images. I loved this project and the challenges that it brings.
My first attempt below was very much how I'd have liked it to look, with lots of white space and a creative layout, but then I realised it didn't fit the theme of the rest of the publication.
My second attempt worked a lot better for what they wanted, but it needed added details to fit in right.
Here is the 3rd version, not too different from the 2nd, but I began to add in borders, and section a quote out from the rest of the article to split the text up a bit. This isn't quite finished, but it gives a better idea of what the client wants.
As well as working on the projects, I spent a bit of time over the two days chatting about my work and showing them what I have been working on recently and they showed me their portfolio and some of the clients they have worked for. It was really nice to see how their projects were developed and I saw a few examples of how they had designed on mountboards to present to the client instead of it always been digital or powerpoints, etc. This is very similar to how we display our work at the minute so that was really interesting.
Overall, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time, got loads out of the experience and will definitely be staying in contact with them and hopefully if they have any work over a busy period that they need a freelance to work on, I might be able to help them out, which would be a really exciting opportunity for me.
