Thompson Inviting us to Present

A couple of weeks ago we received an email from Amber telling us that Ian from Thompson has been in touch with her to ask if we had time to go over to their studio to present our DBA presentation to his design team.

I thought this was a great opportunity, due me being able to see the environment I would be working within before setting up a placement.

From winning the DBA pitch we had the choice of picking one of the four studios to complete a two week placement at. Therefore Something More & Thompson where ones that I would have liked the opportunity to complete experience there.

So today we went to the Thompson studio in Roundhay, with Caitlin, Grace, Charlie & Adam. We got there and Ian greeted us straight away I loved this it seemed a very small and personal friendly studio. He then gave us a tour of the studio. It was a converted stables and therefore had exposed walls and beams. I loved this about it.

There was about 12 people that worked there so it was very cosy, but he did mention that they was looking to get somewhere bigger to expand. But they didn't want to lose the character or cosiness so its going to be hard to find somewhere just as nice.

He then took us to the boardroom where he told us to help ourselves to drinks and biscuits. Adam uploaded our presentation onto the big screen & we just relaxed a bit before starting the presentation.

During this time we had time to read through our notes from the presentation to refresh our memories as our actual presentation was over two months since we initially presented.

We then presented the pitch to Ian & four other designers, we used the same running order that we used in march as a lot of it we could remember and therefore just refreshing our memories.

Ian was very complementary about how close we worked together. He said he knew how hard it was working within a team and being able to generally get along well. And not being afraid of telling some or others saying that this one is stronger than yours. He told us that the way we have worked within the team tells him that we have the skill, as he said egos can tend to get in the way of working well together. 

He was interested in our design process and how we had got to the final resolution, which was a repeat from our last feedback, back in March. We explained that we all worked together to get logo ideas and then we picked one and refined it individually.

Something that one of his designers mentioned that we did not consider was the chevron not actually pointing north and are actually point north east. They said this something that the client would pick up on, and expect it to be changed to pointing north, not realising the amount of time that would take to make this happen. They asked if it would still make sense without the chevron within the C and the N but I explained that this would still flow but you may not realise the break within there and therefore the C & N would not be visible, as it would lose it clarity. I realised how much you look at something you may not able to see something until someone points it out to you.

They also suggested that we should change the posters because the grey shape behind the chevrons are not applying anything to the posters. And the white coloured chevrons seems to be our of place compared to the rest of the brand. Ian then suggested to reverse the chevrons and use the pattern in the colour as the background for more texture & depth & have the chevrons in white.

He told us that our brief really stood out compared to the rest and that we should definitely include it into our portfolios. But told us to think how to represent it effectively within a printed version.

He then asked for all our emails and told me he would get in contact with me about a placement, overall I found the visit very helpful and left me having faith within studios again after my bad experience at previous studios. I think the feedback was more professional & personal compared to the feedback we received in March.

I emailed Ian the next day:

Hi Ian, I just wanted to say a little thank you for inviting us to your studio yesterday afternoon. Myself & the rest of the group really enjoyed being able to present our work as well as discuss the project with you and the rest of your team. Previous to this I was a little undecided about were to go on a placement, but after our visit yesterday it has cemented in my mind that I would love the opportunity to be able to do a placement at your studio. It seemed very friendly, with such a lovely setting, unlike my latest visit I had at different studio. It gave me the back the glimmer of hope I needed about my future career.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Melissa Gater.

He then replied:

Hi Melissa,

I’ll be in touch soon about work placement. Good to see you all again the other day. The team were very impressed by your work.

Ian Thompson