WEEK 1: Who? What? where? Why?

LECTURE REFLECTION

What is graphic design?

All the case studies presented really highlighted to me that graphic design is much more than just digital. I have self taught myself for about 6 years now, & mainly focus on creating album artworks from my laptop. I never really set out ideas in front of me or draw sketches by hand, which led me to realise that having some sort of a little wall just in the corner of my room could really inspire & help my flow of ideas.

These case studies have opened my eyes to the overall concept of graphic design, whether print or typography, & taught me that the digital side of it is only a fraction of the whole picture. This is very exciting to me & really makes me want to experiment with new ways of expressing myself through graphics. I always enjoy trying out new things & gaining experience in other areas.

I really appreciated Simon Manchipp mentioning that in order to do a good job, it is important for the graphic designer to understand the sector they are working in. For example, as I work a lot with bands & artists, it is always very important to have some understandings of music, this includes what sells, what is popular, what the trends are, & so on. This then leads me to be able to create something that the artist can really relate & connect to.

WORKSHOP CHALLENGE

Who am I? My name is Amandine Galli (you can call me Mandy for pronunciation reasons), I was born in France & left the country with my parents when I was 7, travelling to 5 different countries whilst growing up (Portugal, Laos, Thailand, the Philippines & now England). I pretty much consider English my 1st language. Growing up abroad & surrounded by so many cultures has really helped me become more open minded, aware & observant. I have also developed a love for travelling, & take a lot of pictures & videos whilst doing so. My influences range from various hobbies I’ve had interests in over the years, & the main one that stuck with me is music, where I rely on lyrics & instrumental composition to determine what I will create for my album artworks. My other main hobbies to this day consist of scuba diving, photography, videography & drumming.

What is it that I do? I have recently graduated from university with a BA in Music Business, & currently work as a freelance graphic designer and photographer under my new brand name “waterpup” which I came up with by combining my love for marine ecosystems with my signature line works (I randomly came up with these line works when I was a teenager, drawing them weirdly soothed my anxiety, & I kept drawing them as the years went by). My logo represents the line I always start my line works with (it also looks like a shark fin which is pretty cool I mean,,, shark fin? waterpup? nice. Definitely better than my last name: ‘noughp graphics’ haha.) The overall minimalistic look really appeals to me & I usually incorporate it in my art. I am very much intro branding too, love to work with artists & develop their brands from A to Z & make sure everything created links together in harmony. Unfortunately I have not worked with many artists on their brand development yet but it is something I would love to pursue.

Where am I? I currently live in Guildford, I moved here on my own after finishing high school in an American school in the Philippines. I did a BA in Music Business which I graduated from last summer. Guildford being a student town with a lot of bands & artists attending my past university, it was definitely a very good environment to start working in as I got opportunities to make covers & pretty much get away with basic trial and error & learn my way into learning this. It is pretty close to London too which has a lot of graphic opportunities so the placement is pretty sweet! I also often visit my parents in the Philippines, where I get to see a real contrast between Western culture & East Asian culture, giving me different photography opportunities & more food for thought.

Why Design? Design to me means the opportunity to perfect an idea by being able to work on it & tweak it around constantly until being happy with the outcome. The fact that you can work on a design for hours, days or months & are able to have so much freedom in the final outcome is very appealing to me. Being given a brief by an artist (what they want the work to convey, what elements they want to include & what colours they want to include) & then having the freedom to put my own twist on the work really excites me.

I first of all decided to make a collage to include all 4 images presented above so that they would all flow into 1 harmonious image, it gave this image above. My initial idea was to create a collage as I have always been a huge fan of using various elements to create 1 final outcome. I cropped, layered & assembled all 4 images (the scuba diving one I used as the overall blueish filter mainly to convey the cold icy feeling I feel from moving from a tropical country to… England). The “where” image, which is the outer layer of the whole image, is there as it conveys the surroundings. The picture that answers “who” & “why” (the 2 images of me), are placed there as the centre of the image. I chose to include all the graffiti I photographed to make sure they viewer had a lot of content: I absolutely love graffiti, & the fact that it makes the whole design look like there is a lot going on reflects my brain on a daily basis.

After printing out a copy, putting vellum paper over it, & drawing my lines, I figured it was way too big, & so decided to print it out in a quadriptych to then only highlight the relevant parts answering each question:

FINAL OUTCOME