Evaluation

Overall I feel this year has been the strongest year for my PPP. I think its because I could define who I was as a designer without pigeon holing myself. I have willingly gone to events & visits where as first & second year I wouldn't have wanted to go due to nerves but I have realised this year you just have to do what you have to do.
I didn't see it as a chore and I found it interesting and therefore reflecting on my practice and finding myself analysing everything and comparing & relating it again my work.

I wouldn't say I totally combatted my nerves about contacting professionals but I would definitely say I have come on leaps & bounds. I wouldn't dream of ringing up a studio as I believe that I would say the wrong thing and first impressions always count! I now feel more confident in my portfolio and will be proud when it is laid out at the end of year show. 

I have managed to complete one placement at Big Fish in which I learnt a lot from after a lot of deliberation with myself about how bad the week went initially. I have also managed to arrange another at Thompson Brand Partners which I extremely looking forward to after my visit last week! I feel I willa chieve more knowledge about the way the industry works here as Ian seems very friendly & helpful. He seems like he genuinely wants to help.

Although, I was disappointed from my placement at Big Fish. Now visiting Thompson that not all studios will be like that. I realised that I wouldn't want to move to London or anywhere far away just as of yet maybe for my first and second job because while I was over there I felt very lonely & made experience worse due to having a lot of time to reflect over the night, therefore I have focussed my research into jobs in travelling distance from myself, but not stop myself for aspiring to big & better studios later on in my career, its good to always have aspirations! I never want to get bogged down in one place.

PPP Boards

Thompson Placement Arranging

Today Ian has been in contact with me & Adam to tell us that they would like us both to go for the 2 week placement at the same time. And that we could chose a time that was best for us. 

I said to Adam that he could chose the time as he lives out of Leeds. So he said the weeks starting the 15th & the 22nd would be best for him... So I said that I would check with my work as it would depend if I could get the time of with such short notice.

I have contacted my manager and my current work place are getting a shop refit on those two weeks Adam has picked. So my manager said she can't authorise anything now within those two weeks. 

I then told Adam my issue and asked if he could do the week starting the week 6th of July. He hasn't replied as of yet... But I shouldn't think it will be a problem as he is moving out of his house on the 10th of June anyway so would have to find somewhere to stay no matter what date. 

If this is not ok with Adam I am going to suggest just going separately as I can't drop my work place as then I would have no job to fall back on.

Final Portfolio

This is my final portfolio that I have created. I am happy with it but this will be changing as I not want to input my whistles & log cabin within because I don't have good enough pictures of them both as of yet so these will be included.

Website Development

I have been very afraid of building my own website up to now.... I have started looking at domain names and now I have purchased my very own for two years... 

www.melissagater.com

I am now starting to build my website on Wix although I haven't got to a minimum stage of being able to publish it yet it is something that I am very looking forward to doing. 

I have at the moment made a simple mock-up of how I would like the website to look like...

These are just two pages of the four that I have developed.

I have choosen my template on the Wix website so now i just need to build it and then add my domain name to it. It is going to cost around £130 which I think is quite good to say how professional & easy it will look.

Business Cards

These are my business cards I have created. This is just a quick mock-up of what I want to do... I would like to duplex the card so its mint on the back with white screen printed detail and then the white card on the front with a diecut of the M so you can see the mint card through with the diamond in copper foil.

I chose to apply the information in more of a friendly way as I was sick of the boring old application I tried thinking of something new to apply to it.

Then I thought what is it that everyone knows. I thought about verbs telling people to do things will be more motivation people might feel like they should visit as I am telling them too. I am glad I chose this and its definitely a feature I am going to keep as I feel its more personal that the typical icons used.

CV & Mini Portfolio

This is my CV I have decided to do create it so it can fold up into a 10x 10 cm square as I wanted the interaction & they didn't get all the information at once.

I have decided to apply a mini portfolio on the back as this will lower postage costs and also give them a little insight into my work so they have a little background about me and my design work.

Originally I made this for my last branding and I have just applied my new logo and changed the colour scheme from purple to mint.

I have also created an envelope for this to be sent out in....