Module evaluation

This module is basically about my personal career, branding, and interest. I really like working on this module because this is a really great platform to develop ourselves rather than just working on uni's works. Therefore, this module is really useful to build up our career in the future and after graduation. It allows us to make a good plan of what we need to do afterward, otherwise, I am sure most of us don't really sure what to do in the future.

During the module, I am really happy to develop my own branding, as a professional designer, we should have our own branding to promote our works and show to different clients. Usually, I just design brands for the clients, while, this time was about myself. Therefore, everything that I made represents to me. I really like everything that I made for my personal branding, especially the illustration in the anime style of myself.

I made a clean plan that I really want to do after graduation, I will keep practicing my illustration skill if I want to work on this industry. Studying the Japanese language is the compulsory thing if I want to study aboard in Japan. In this year, I joined the Japanese society at "University of Leeds" and I met a lot of Japanese friends which is one of the best things I have done over this year.

Overall, I think I become more independent and professional in this year, we have more independent study day in this year, usually, we just need to go back to university on Monday and Friday, the rest is just working independently. I remember during the first year, we need to go back to university from Monday to Friday and most of the days were from 9:30am to 3:30pm. However, this year, we just need to stay around one day from 10:00am to 3:30pm. I spent most of my time working in studio and accommodation rather than having a lecture so I think it is the main difference compared with the previous two years as we are more "professional".

No matter the time-planning and quality of the briefs that I did this year, I think is better than before and that is what we want to achieve as a student. What I feel quite sad is when I sent the emails to some studios, I couldn't get a reply or they don't allow me to visit their studios. However, when I go back to Hong Kong, I will definitely visit some studios, workshops, and galleries extend my knowledge and skills.

Studio brief2 evaluation

I would describe this year as “Semi-professional year”. As we worked on individual briefs based on our specific interest, it was different to last two years. This year is more like working as a “professional graphic designer”. After graduation, we need to start working as a full-time designer, so I will definitely miss everything at the university. Over the year, I appreciated everything I have done because it showed my effort and improvement. I really happy that I developed a lot of skills this year which I didn’t usually do it in the past and all of them are really useful to my design career. What I can do better is be more confident in everything that I have designed, I should be proud of my designs.

Character with Japanese anime style

Recently, I looked at a website about western movie characters transforming to Japanese anime style. I found it is really interesting.

The movie is "Harry Potter", it is one of my favourite movie for sure but I couldn't imagine what it will look like in the Japanese anime style until I looked at this website.

The iconic Hogwarts alumni have been reimagined as manga characters, doe-eyes, button noses and all. I like how the way they make a realistic face into manga style and produce different graphics works which are really inspiring to me. Therefore, I can try to design something like this for my personal branding.
(6A2),(6B2)

Digital portfolio

It is a different purpose compared to the booklet, the booklet is mainly for giving people and pocketable. However, the digital version is in A3 landscape so that the size is a larger and wider than the booklet which allows viewers can look clearly to the images. It will be uploaded online through "Issuu" which is accessible

Depending on the event such as exhibition, this A3 portfolio will be printed and shown on the table so it is more comfortable to visitors, working with my other personal branding materials such as business card or the booklet, everything linked to each other.

https://issuu.com/yc265365.1619/docs/digital_portfolio._compressedpdf

I will upload this link through my social media account so that people can have a look of it.

(6C2),(6D2)

Promotion for my personal branding

Rather than my business card, I also designed a publication to show most of my best designs from my design journey, basically, it is connected to my business and my personal website so I used the same colour and typeface. This publication allows people to know more what I produced if they are interested, they can contact me.
(6C2)

Printed business card

I printed my business cards using Matt Laminated Card (350g Double-Sided Coated Art Paper) so that the quality is a lot better than 250g Double-Sided Coated Art Paper, the card won't easy to be folded.
(6C2)

Rebrand/redesign for a "Bad design logo"

In this lecture, I think it is really funny and enjoyable which I can learn different from it, basically, in this lecture, we were asked to choose a "Shit design" and how we can promote it based on the bad design, afterwards, we need to rebrand or redesign to make it better and promote it but need to keep most of the original design. I think the lecture is really funny because it is really difficult to promote the company if the logo looks really bad, however, as a designer, we should be creative and love to face challenges.

I choose a Japanese medical brand because the logo looks really bad and misunderstanding. Hence, I want to redesign it.

The brand is "Kudawara", no matter the colour or design, I totally disagree that it is a medical company, furthermore, the main problem is the upper case "K", it seems a couple having sex. Due to this reason, I rebranded for them by taking the letter "K"' idea and the medical company idea. I choose to make it especially selling sex medicine so that it makes everything more sense.

Simply, this lecture allows us to makes everything become possible even it is a bad design, I really like what we produced.
(6A2),(6B2)

Sakura festival in Leeds VOL.2

I went to an event called "Sakura Festival in Leeds VOL.2" during December 2018 which is a festival introducing the Japanese traditional culture to visitors. It is also same as the festival that I designed branding for the organization(Sakura Festival in Leeds VOL.3). This was the second festival before "VOL.3" in June 2019.

Generally, I looked at many traditional Japanese culture performance, for example trying traditional Japanese costume, TaiKo Drummer, Calligraphy demonstration, etc. I could see a lot of great performance which allows me to learn more Japanese culture so that I can apply it to my design knowledge.
(6A2), (6B2)

Anime posters

In order to put my interest and use it with my graphics knowledge, I did a brief on extended practice that celebrates the Japanese anime in the Heisei period(One of the Japanese era). As the Japanese animation posters are more focusing on character illustrations, hence, I tried to illustrate the characters in order to make the poster. This brief allows me to try/imagine working in the anime industry in Japan, I really like designing this kind of kinds of stuff. This gave me an experience of how to designing Japanese anime posters which is really helpful to my further career.
(6A2),(6B2)

Illustration that I did in this academic year

Over this academic year, I kept pushing myself to practice more on characters illustrations when I have spare time so that it allows me to improve and do better in my career. Most of them I illustrated by hands because it is easier to draw the character, afterwards, I scanned them to the computer and illustrated with the digital software, such as colouring.
(6A2)

Other than just drawing, as I have my personal branding and it is one of my favourite areas, hence, I selected some of them and post it to my website so that viewers can look at it. There is a selection called Ïllustration" from my website.
(6D2)

My site

Japanese anime posters

Since Japan is the best country to produce anime/manga, there are a lot of different productions. Therefore when they promote or introduce their anime/manga, they also need a lot of graphics works such as posters in order to promote their anime/manga.

I looked at some of the posters and I think it is quite different from the western animation posters, the Japanese animation posters are more focusing on character illustrations, while the western style is more focusing on the actual design and more "3D" effect.

It is good to know what is the difference between both styles of posters so that if I have a chance to design a Japanese animation poster, I can know about it.
(6A2),(6B2)

Anime style brief from extended practice

Rather than the graphics posters, I was thinking to make a publication about Japanese anime and manga as one of my research brief from extended practice. Due to the fact that as I have a large interest in this theme, I should know deeper about the Japanese anime industry, therefore, I used my graphics knowledge to produce this publication which explains the history of Japanese anime, how they transform to the anime and manga nowadays, the unique drawing style, etc. Generally, it was a really interesting brief because I could find what I should know exactly if I want to work a similar thing in my career. Hence, this book is really useful for me rather than just for submission.
(6A2),(6B2)

Japanese anime and manga school

Since I am planning to study anime and manga course in Japan after graduation if possible, therefore, I did some research brief in extended practice in order to let myself understand more. I found different school/university that provides this course and organize them in a better format and I could get a lot of useful information from it. In order to let me practice more with my skills, I designed some graphics posters to present what I have found from this research brief, I used the manga style and made it like a storyboard with the characters that I illustrated by myself. I really enjoyed working on this brief because I like the way that I made the final outcome to present my research, it linked to my graphics knowledge as well as my interest. In these posters, I put the information about the school/university, for example, the contact details and what is their course about.
(6A2),(6B2)

After graduation plan

After graduation, I will go back to Hong Kong, while, I am planning to study some Japanese language courses first so that I can do the further planning that studying anime/manga course in Japan. There are so many Japanese language schools in Hong Kong because a lot of Hong Kong people love Japanese culture.

Other than that, I would like to continue developing my own branding/business, I will try to contact more clients in Hong Kong and work for them as a freelancer. I will also try to work in a small company to get more experience first. Hong Kong doesn't like the UK, there are not many studios so most people just working for a company instead of running a studio.

I will definitely continue practising the anime character drawing skills because I know I still have a lot to learn and improve. Hence, I think I will participate in some workshops related to it when I go back to Hong Kong.

When I have free time, I would also like to set up a jewellery design business, for example, making simple jewellery like earrings and sell them online or in the market. Nowadays, when I have some spare time, I keep making simple jewellery but not often as drawing characters. Hence, I will put this as the last plan.
(6A2),(6B2)

Email to studio visit

I sent some emails to different studios and asked if I could visit their studio to gain and learn some experience, unfortunately, it was more complicated than what I thought because I couldn't get their reply or some just rejected my request because of some reason.

At the first stage, I was really struggling because here is the UK but not in Hong Kong or other Asian countries, therefore, I felt really struggling and uncomfortable. Hence, I asked one of my tutor-John Watters to guide and help me as he knows about my interests, problems, etc. Therefore, asking for his help is really helpful for my learning.

I sent the emails to some studios around Leeds that is doing branding design as it is one of my interest areas. I looked at their website before I sent the emails to them because their works are really inspiring to me which I think I can learn something from them. Unlikely, I wasn't able to visit their studios.

Also, as here is the UK, I couldn't find any studio or mesuems that's producing works related to Japanese animes, however, I will definitely visit some studios and mesuems that doing a similar thing as Japanese anime in Hong Kong when I go back in summer as there will be a lot easier to find studios and mesuems doing Japanese anime in Hong Kong.

Basically, I am more confident contacting to westerners by email because of the language barrier, if I talk with them through phone, I feel really struggling because I always feel difficult to communicate with others by phone and I don't like it, hence, I always prefer to communicate to westerners by email as I can also keep the records easily. However, I don't feel any difficult when communicating with Asian because we have a similar level of English. Of course, that is the main problem which I really need to tackle and I am trying hard to tackle it.
(6D2)

Working for a Japanese festival in Leeds

Since I joined the Japanese society at the University of Leeds, I met a lot of good Japanese friends. It is the best platform for me to try to find if I can work for any Japanese clients. Fortunately, there were a group of Japanese exchange students from the society asked me to work for them.

As they are organizing an event that's called "Sakura Festival in Leeds VOL.3". Therefore, they need to find someone to design the brand for them in order to promote the event. I am glad to be the one who works for them because I can learn some Japanese culture from it which is good for my career. Furthermore, it allows me to work for a Japanese client which fits my interest.

Through the brief, I designed a full campaign for them to promote their event in Leeds by physical advertising and social media.

Before I developed any ideas, I had a face to face meeting with some of the members of the organization which allow us to communicate easier, I could know what they want exactly. Face to Face meeting is really helpful in this way because when working for a client, we need to know what they want exactly so that we can design a thing that is suitable for them.

I learned a lot of things from this brief, for example, it allows me to talk to more people and understand what they want, moreover, I am really happy to design something that is related to the Japanese culture, it was an unforgettable experience.
(6A2), (6C2), (6D2)