Jan 22
Project Three: Equality Matters
Equality Matters is a project that prepares us for promoting our art to potential future clients. We were asked to explore three different ways of promotion choosing between the options of creating a portfolio, a website, a professional social media account or a self-promotional video. To support our art and build a foundation for our values, we were also requested to write and design an Artist Manifesto and Mission Statement.
RESEARCH
Promotional Methods and Asynchronous Tasks
Portfolio Websites
Wade, N. (2021) 20 Inspiring Graphic Design Portfolios You Need To See. Available at: https://bit.ly/3nNh4uM
I started my journey for this project by researching a variety of artist portfolios. Since I only had two artists of my own that I could think of, I found an article with a list of inspirational graphic design portfolios and picked out the ones that spoke to me.
Nando (Damn Graphics)
Nando (No Date) Damn Graphics. Available at:https://www.damn.graphics
The first one was Damn Graphics. This website takes you on a beautiful visual journey through layers of art and typography. His mission statement is revealed as one of the first things once you scrolled down, which is catchy and charismatic. Even though this style is far from my own, it was still very useful to look at how he used layers, bold typography, thoughtful composition, and scrolling effects to achieve such a memorable piece of work.
Matt Guyette
Guyette, M. (2021) Matt Guyette. Available at: https://www.mattguyette.com
As a stark contrast to Nando, the next one I looked at was Matt Guyette’s website. It was simple, sleek, and straight to the point, and even so, Matt’s website came across as super professional and well thought through. He had chosen pictures to represent his work that was very eye-catching and stylish, using a great variety of mock-ups to make his work stand out and seem very professional.
Alex Fisher
Fisher, A. (2021) Alex Fisher. Available at:https://www.alexfisherdesign.ca
My excitement was at its peak once I entered Alex Fisher’s website. She has become a very big inspiration to me as an artist, and I absolutely love her style and the way she has built this online artist portfolio. Fisher possesses a vintage style that creates a very calming and endearing environment for the visitor of her website. She uses clever motion graphics, such as the little wheel of personality traits by the picture of herself further down her homepage, a warm and dusty colour scheme, as well as beautifully illustrated layers of flowers that peak in and out of the page depending on where you are. I also found her service page very useful, explaining what services she offers to clients and what her design strategy usually looks like when working with clients.
Shanti Sparrow
Sparrow, S. (2022) Shanti Sparrow. Available at: https://www.shantisparrow.com
Shanti Sparrow is one of the graphic designers I have been following for a few years now. I remembered her website being very easy and straightforward to navigate, so I wanted to look further into how she had managed this.
Her artwork fills her homepage in various sizes of rectangles, but since all of it is very cohesive and uses bright and bold colour palettes, it’s a constant journey of inspiration and amazement of her work. Some of the squares include motion graphics which makes it fun and alive. She has a simple description at the top, a simple menu and her name logo on the upper left side.
Kelly Belter
Belter, K. (2019) Kelly Belter. Available at: https://www.kelbelter.com
I found Kelly Belter’s work during my first project, Stories Unearthed. When I entered her website, I was very inspired by what I saw. Much like Sparrow, Belter fills her homepage with squares of her artwork, with some of them including movement which engages the visitor. Her sub-website for her shop is very cohesive to her main page, but includes her little illustrated logo for her brand as a designer which I found very clever.
Artist Instagrams
Next step for me was to research some artist instagrams to see how they built a cohesive and stylish account that represented them as artists. I knew I wanted to choose Instagram as my social media account, since I already had an active artist instagram on there that I have been wanting to make more professional. With these examples, I would look at highlight designs and content, profile pictures, biographies and overall feed content along with their composition and choice of images.
Kelly Belter
— Belter, K. (2022) ByBelter. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/bybelter
I thought it would be useful to look at Kelly Belter’s instagram to compare her website with her social media account. On her instagram, she uses a profile picture of herself working on her art, making her seem approachable and friendly yet professional. Her briography states her profession, her location, her contact details and her other social links. Her feed includes close-ups of her illustrations, pictures of herself with her physical artwork, and it all follows a very cohesive, bold and earthy colour palette that drags you right into her world.
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Alex Fisher
— Fisher, A. (2022) AlexFisherDesign. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/alexfisherdesign/
I was interested to see if Alex Fisher would carry on the style of her website on her Instagram. Fortunately, she did, as much as Instagram will allow. The logo I had seen on her website also worked as her logo on her instagram, which makes her easier to recognise through multiple platforms. Her feed includes content that correlates with the style of her website, and she has written a useful biography about herself. Unfortunately, like Belter, Fisher didn’t do much with her highlights other than showing her colour palette with solid colours.
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StudioEMD
— StudioEMD. (2022) Studio.EMD. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/studio.emd/
I stumbled upon Studio.EMD’s instagram when I was looking for graphic design inspiration a while ago. Their instagram has got a very graphic and modern look to it, with a black and white geometrical logo, flat and colourful minimalistic designs, a variety of mock-ups to showcase them, and highlights matching their logo. It made me wonder why the designer doesn’t have any further links to their work, such as a portfolio or a website, and their biography seems a bit messy to me in comparison to the other artists.
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EverJadeDesign
— EverJadeDesign (2022) EverJadeDesign. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/everjadedesign/
The last designer I wanted to look at on Instagram was EverJadeDesign. This brand designer has a very cohesive colour palette, theme and overall style. It is pure, soft, elegant and friendly. She has got her logo as her profile pictures with muted leaf patterns in the background, starry highlights that suit her colour palette, a personal yet professional biography that tells us a little bit about her as a person but also as an artist, and then a variety of photos, such as mock-ups of her work, life photos, photos of herself and typography based graphics.
Artist Portfolios
For some portfolio inspiration, I looked at Karl Foster’s examples that he had uploaded to Moodle of past students’ portfolio work and analysed a few of them.
Kate Gamet
My biggest source of inspiration was the portfolio of designer and illustrator, Kate Gamet.
Gamet had split her portfolio into three sections, illustration, design and photography. It was filled with large pictures of her work with small descriptions that would tell you about the materials she used and what the work was made for. On her front page she had a little illustration of a person that was interactive and would take you to her About section when you clicked on it. She had also created a type-based logo for herself which made the whole thing seem very professional and stylish.
You can view her portfolio here: https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/040NE8q8ouhkQxQLQB6Y6LuyA#gamet%5Fkate%5Fportfolio
Amaia Zelaiaundi Parral
I also looked at Amaia Z Parral’s portfolio.
For some reason, I wasn’t quite fond of Parral’s front page. I believe it might be the colour scheme that put me off with the grey and the simple sans serif typeface altogether. Nevertheless, I really liked the way Parral showcased her work throughout her portfolio. It was clean, straightforward, and she included a lot of pictures for each project to show all angles and details which I found very lovely.
You can view Parral’s portfolio here: https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/054Wvky3fsJOgZku2a7YUhbHw#Zelaiaundi_Parral_A._Portfolio_2014
Luca Bresolin
The last portfolio I wanted to analyse was by Luca Bresolin.
Bresolin’s portfolio sort of took me by surprise with the small, typewriter style typeface and the massive amount of blank white space around it. Nevertheless, I really liked how Bresolin presented their work throughout the portfolio with big, close-up pictures that showed different angles and details of their work, much like Parral.
View their portfolio here: https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0cc85ft2jF-Vq9611CNYi9rjQ#Bresolin%5FLuca%5FPortfolio%5FPPD
Mission Statements
— McKenzie, N. (2016) Mission Statements for Artists. Available at: http://creativesandbusiness.com/3448-mission-statements-for-artists/
I found an article explaining the structure of a mission statement, what it can include, and some mission statement examples of various brands, artists, and companies.
It broke a mission statement into these questions:
1. What do I do?
2. Why I do it?
3. How do I do it?
4. For whom do I do it?
5. What benefits do I provide?
I picked out a few of the examples the article had provided and reflected on what I liked about them and what I didn’t like.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) “The Museum of Modern Art seeks to create a dialogue between the established and the experimental, the past and the present, in an environment that is responsive to the issues of modern and contemporary art, while being accessible to a public that ranges from scholars to young children.’’
I like how MoMa clearly stated what art they offer their guests to see, their accessibility for a younger audience, making them seem friendly and open-minded, and that they seem to have a wide range of art to suit their museum guests. It’s straight-forward and yet beautifully worded.
Sharon Black “As an art maker, I aspire to create art of original, emotive and edifying quality, to be exhibited and purchased through gallery representation and online distribution channels”
Unfortunately, Sharon Black wasn’t credited for her statement in the mentioned article, so I had to look for the artist behind the quote. Black’s statement is a simple overview of what kind of art she likes to create and how she wants her art to be used.
Oprah Winfrey Network “To create multiple platforms for women, men and their families with a purpose and a passion: to celebrate life, to inspire and entertain, empowering viewers around the world to live their best lives, and by doing so, lift the lives of those around them in ever-widening circles.”
Naturally, Oprah Winfrey’s statement would be packed with inspiration and comforting words. She states her audience, her encouraging and warm nature, and her courageous and empathic visions for others. It makes her seem incredibly amiable, enthusiastic to help others and she acts as a great role-model with her positive and strong outlook on life.
Manifestos
I was quite excited to look at artist manifestos. I think they’re such a fun way of getting to know the values of an artist and how they want to build their work and the journey forward.
I looked at three examples. Red Alan’s Manifesto, an Artist Manifesto written by Sandra Belegi and designed by Suzanne Copleston, and a Social Media Manifesto by The Might Cloud. Both Alan and The Might Cloud’s manifestos were step by step structures, yet The Might Cloud’s design was much more simple and straightforward in comparison to Alan’s. Red Alan had created a very busy manifesto with lots of small sketch-like illustrations and traditional handwriting, framing each step of his manifesto in speech-bubble like circles.
The one in the middle by Copleston was also quite busy, but this time solely with one font dominating the whole page and text in various sizes and kerning space. Overall, I liked the idea of a step by step manifesto, but I leaned more towards the typography based style that Copleston had designed.
WIX — Website Builder
I was now ready to think about my own promotion platforms. For my website, I was quite settled on the fact that I wanted to use Wix, since I have worked with it in the past but never had the change to properly explore it, and to play with the possibilities they provide. It also seemed that Wix was the most preferred website building platform all-around (Carney, L., 2022).
Wix can seem very overwhelming when you first start out, but once you get used to the platform, it will allow you to create a very unique website. You will be able to use page animations, changing icon buttons, animated image galleries, scroll effects, layers, and so much more. Since I knew I wanted to work with a few of these things, it was important to me that the website builder I chose would be easy to navigate but possess a lot of possibilities for me to explore various options. Wix was the ideal choice for this.
Who You Are — Asynchronous Task
In order for me to get an overview of who I was as an artist and to explore my values even further, we were asked to complete an asynchronous task consisting of three parts.
First Part
The first task was to answer ten questions that would explore why we create art. They were an intense list of questions that were supposed to feel daunting to find an answer to, and we had to dig very deep in order to explore these sides to ourselves. To me, it was an incredibly enriching task that taught me a lot about myself as an artist and where my passion for art derives from.
Who are you? I am a creative, loving and determined soul on a constant journey of growth, full of challenges and mistakes that shape who I am, who I will be, and who I choose to become.
Why do you think you are who you are? My choices in life have shaped who I am, especially my mistakes and my ignorance to the different nuances of the world, which has showed me tools to help me move onwards.
What do you believe to be true about yourself? That my core values will always remain the same. My resilience to stay true to who I am, my determination to reach my goals, and my passion to be kind to other people.
Where have you come from? I have come from an abusive and anxious path.
Where are you going to? I am going to a place of continued resilience, determination to succeed and the strength to overcome challenges in my way.
How do others see you? Others think I am intelligent, beautiful, mature, and hard-working, but they also see my insecurities and my overthinking mind.
What will be or is your legacy? Giving what I can to the happiness of other people, giving a voice to people in need, and showing that you can achieve close to anything with a determined mind.
What artefact best represents who you are? A raven — Independent, dark, elegant.
What is your main ambition? To be fearless of mistakes, to learn from challenges and to turn that knowledge into a strength that will bring me success.
Where will your practice be in 5, 10 or 20 years time? In five years, I will have settled a style of my own and a strong portfolio to show to clients, in 10 years I will be an established and successful graphic designer for a company or two and in 20 years I will be the owner of my own graphic design studio, designing for prestige products and working closely with the film and theatre industry.
Second Part
The second part of the task was to create my artist manifesto and mission statement.
The mission statement is what took me the longest, and I created a lot of drafts until I would decide on my final version. This was a challenge to me because I have two sides to myself as an artist — the sophisticated graphic designer who will make sure your brand identity and product design is intricate, professional and original, and the empathic, activist designer and illustrator who wants to tell the stories of people in society who have been neglected or treated as if they were invisible. My first few drafts focused a lot on the first side of me, so in the end, I decided to write one that focused on the second side, and merged them together.
Draft One
I aspire to use my artistic skillset to help transform a mental concept into a visual reality; to create art of distinctive, illustrative, and intricate quality that will represent the passion and purpose of the client; to treat the process of collaborate work as a journey of exploration, to be influenced by the essence of the client’s work and therefore, enhance originality and intelligible representation within my design; to unify my interests for working with people and the arts, and by doing so, create emotive, empathic and powerful designs.
Draft Two
I aspire to use my artistic skillset to create art of distinctive, illustrative, and intricate quality that will represent the passion and purpose of a project; to treat the process of collaborate work as a journey of exploration, to be influenced by the essence of identity and enhance originality and intelligible representation within my design; to unify my interests for working with people and the arts, and by doing so, create emotive, empathic and powerfulpieces of work.
Draft Three
Let my art be a bridge between the invisible and the seen; to tell a story of those who were neglected by society; to provide a space of empathy, power, and a passion to make a difference together.
Draft Four / The Final
I aspire to create art of distinctive, illustrative, and intricate quality that will represent the passion and purpose of a project, to treat collaborate work as a journey of exploration in order to enhance originality and authentic representation within my design, and finally, for my art to be a bridge between the invisible and the seen, to tell a story of those who were neglected by society, and to provide a space of empathy, power, and a passion to make a difference together.
The feedback I received from my tutor about my mission statement before my final draft was that it was missing a catch. It was also a little too verbose and didn’t show my humanistic side as much, relating more to client work. I decided to work on the verbosity by deleting a few unnecessary sentences and words, and as explained above, I found a way to merge the two sides together. I didn’t want my mission statement to be short and simple, I wanted it to be poetic and intricate, because that’s my style as an artist.
My manifesto came to me quite naturally. I have used a journal quite a lot in the past where I would write down the steps I needed to go through in order to succeed in something or reach a goal. It felt quite familiar for me to do the manifesto for this reason.
1. Be Fearless of Mistakes and Turn Your Lessons into Strengths.
2. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark; Dance Around in It.
3. Pay No Attention to the Lift, Take the Stairs and Don’t Skip a Single Step.
4. Treat Every Dream as a Perpetual Prophecy and Make Them Happen.
5. Use Your Passion to Navigate Your Path.
6. Use Your Resilience to Stay on Your Path.
7. Use Your Determination to Reach Your Destination.
For my manifesto, the feedback I received was that my manifesto was very poetic which suited my style as an artist and my personality. My tutor also said that you really had to read it before you realised what my steps were encouraging, which was much like a poem.
The Third Part
The Third and Final Part of the Asynchronous Task was to choose three bodies of work that best represents you as an artist. I was asked to explain why I chose each of these works, what they tell the world about me, and who my audience is. I was also asked to consider which of these works would be my strongest piece.
Voice of Minorities
I chose Voice of Minorities because I believe it is a strong and cohesive piece of work that raises awareness about a very important issue in society. It talks about the prejudices that society bears towards several minorities, and we hear about how these brave people had to deal with these challenges while growing up. It opens the discussion and raises the question of why these things need to happen in society and how severely it can affect people.
I believe this project showcases my ability to use my art in relation to activism and spreading awareness about human rights issues in society which is something I would love the world to recognise my work for. I shows that I understand how to work with colours, typography, graphics, illustration, and videography to inform the world about issues we need to address.
My audience is anyone who wants to listen. People who need to know they aren’t alone in facing these challenges, people who are a part of the problem, people who are acting passive, people who are active supporters and want to learn more, etc.
The Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voiceofminorities/
Behind The Times
I chose Behind the Times because I believe it is a piece of work with a great rationale raises awareness about sexual harassment in the hospitality industry. It includes 12 personal stories from real life by women who have worked in the hospitality industry and their experiences with sexual harassment. These stories are compared to quotes about sexual harassment in the Victorian Era to show the distressing likeness between these experiences. It encourages the reader to reflect on their own actions and to question themselves why this is still happening 200 years later?
Much like Voice of Minorities, I believe this project showcases my ability to use my art in relation to activism and spreading awareness about human rights issues in society. With Behind the Times, I also show my interest in history and my ability to analyse these societal issues by researching past times, as well as working with topics of very vulnerable nature and gaining the trust of my participants to share these experiences with me.
Once more, my audience is anyone who wants to listen. People who need to know they aren’t alone in facing these challenges, people who are a part of the problem, people who are acting passive, people who are active supporters and want to learn more, etc.
Nocturne Studios
I chose my logo design for Nocturne Studios to show a different side of my work. I believe it is a strong piece of work that shows professionalism, individuality, style, and creativity.
It shows that I can create logo and branding design with intricate details, appealing and professional themes and use my illustrative skills to create something original and interesting. With this design, I also want the world to know that this is my personal style. Meticulous details, vintage and Victorian themes, symbolic objects, and a good sense of typeface pairing.
My audience in this case would be brands and companies who are interested in a dark, serious, original, intricate, and elegant piece of design to represent them.
Overall, I believe Voice of Minorities is my strongest piece of work because of the variety of methods I used, the importance of the subject, the hard work I put into creating a cohesive outcome, and my ability to turn words into art and use my skills to raise awareness about issues in society.
DEVELOPMENT
Building My Promotional Platforms
Choosing Further Work To Represent Me
The first thing I did was to select works that I felt were useful for a promotional platform. I wanted each of the works to show a new skill within art that I possessed. This could be anything from animation, to film design, logo and branding design, traditional illustration, painting and more.
I made a list of the works I had chosen and wrote a quick little note to remind myself why I had chosen this specific piece to promote me. These list was in no particular order.
— Alice in Wonderland
Visual Merchandising, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom
— Voice of Minorities
Human Rights Campaign, social media design, typography, photography, videography, illustration, logo design.
— Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra
Website design, typography, composition, layout, behavioural design
— The Deceiver
Play design, poster, logo, leaflet, social media and playbill design.
— Dinosaurs 2121
Leaflet design, typography, graphics, infographics
— Behind The Times
Human Rights Zine, feminism, sexual harassment, spreading awareness, illustration, reportage work, typography
— Nocturne Studios
Logo and Branding design, illustration
— The Gig
Film design, poster, logo and social media design.
— Peter Pan and Croatian Architecture Illustration
Traditional illustration, pencil work, realism
— Sloth
Oil painting
Totem and Typeface
To further represent me, I wanted to think about the typefaces I wanted to use across the platforms, as well as a totem or an artefact to work as my artistic icon—something to recognise me by.
I chose Adobe Handwriting Ernie as the typeface for my titles because I believe it worked well with the vintage style I wanted to go for, while still keeping it personal and friendly. I find that Script typefaces work best in portfolio settings because they can be full of personality and make the artist seem more approachable. If I had used an elegant Serif typeface, such as Didot or Bodoni, I might have come across as too formal, despite the fact that these typefaces are two of my favourites and would seem ideal for me.
For the body I chose ITC Avant Garde Gothic. I find that this Sans Serif is easy to read, goes well with a Script typefaces such as Adobe Handwriting Ernie, and also seems approachable and friendly with its large counters and tall x-height.
To act as my totem, I designed a Raven icon. These birds have always been an inspiration to me and my art. They were the totem of my favourite poet, Edgar Allan Poe, who has inspired my style throughout my journey as an artist. I also see them as a symbol of the Victorian Era and my interest in the gothic subculture. They have appeared many times in my dreams in various ways, and once when I took a trip to Scotland on my own, a few ravens kept me company when I was relaxing in the courtyard of an old church.
Style and Symbols
I ended up being quite inspired by my zine, Behind The Times for my overall style, as well as using it as inspiration for the elements that would enhance the theme. I decided that I wanted to use the vintage style flowers, the bird cage, the dusty light beige colour, and the silhouette illustrations.
I created a banner with the flowers that I would be able to use as a background for headers, either on the website or on social media. At first I had created a banner that was full of flowers, much like the one I had used on the second page of my zine, but it became too busy for what I intended to use it for this time.
I also decided to create a mood-board for how I see myself and my style as an artist. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to work much from this mood-board in the end, but I have decided I will incorporate it more in the future since I strongly resonate with the overall theme and the style of these pictures.
(From top left to bottom right) The mood-board includes work by Cecilie Sigg, Natalia Drepina, Lloyd Stratton, Frank Bernard Dicksee, Ignat Makoto, SMLTart, Stranger and Stranger, OfeliaCreative, and Dan Hillier.
Designing my Portfolio
Despite my interest in intricacy and ornamental styles, I wanted my portfolio to be very simple and straightforward like Kate Gamet and the others, but still including illustrated elements and a script typeface that would add some personality to it.
At first I had tried to work with a black background, but it didn’t work with the raven icon and it also took away from the simplicity and friendliness that I wanted for the portfolio. Inspired by Kate Gamet once more, I made the raven interactive so it would jump down to my About page. Once you clicked on the raven in the about page, it would take you back to the top. In the beginning, I had included a branch illustration in my About page instead of a raven, but after receiving some feedback from Karl Foster, I replaced it with the raven.
When showcasing my work, I wanted the page to include the title of my work, a short description of what it was used for, what kind of methods I used, a large image of a mock-up or the overall design, and a small image to highlight any details.
At first, I didn’t have my manifesto or my mission statement in my portfolio, so I made sure to add the mission statement to my About page while I created a separate page for my manifesto. I also added my signature which was encouraged by Karl Foster in his feedback which you will see below. Additionally, I wanted to add my social links as interactive icons with hyperlinks that would open the platforms in a new browser window. I feel a little silly that I forgot to add my website to it, but I will remember that for the future!
Finally, I added my manifesto as the last page of my portfolio. I wanted this to stand out, so I used the black background for this as I would do on my other platforms for the manifesto. I am still disappointed in myself for not being more creative with the design of my manifesto, but at least I made it simple and easy to read.
Since I had originally created the portfolio for my transfer application to Graphic and Media Design, I received some feedback from Karl Foster who was with me and supported me throughout the process of the transfer.
The feedback from Karl:
Hello Emma,
I think your portfolio showcases the areas of design that you are focused on and the work is of a high standard that I think is suitable for Year 2 transfer to BA GMD.
It is clear to me that you are suited to that course as you are keen to create layouts and build on branding themes linked to personal growth. The interaction work for the Armenian Orchestra demonstrates your interest in coding and culture.
I checked out your Year 1 work for Illustration Practices, Methods and Processes and see that you have included the Hybrid Froms project which is great to see. It works well. You also have the animated work which I only saw at the Formative assessment stage. It is beautiful and rich and a still image of it would complement your portfolio, but it isn’t necessary at this time.
You can draw well which is a huge bonus and you are connecting with the world as it is and thinking about your part in the changes that are needed going forward.
Perhaps the Raven on the 1st page should also appear on the final page somewhere. I think this will unify the presentation and your signature should be there too (maybe these elements are smaller on the last page and seen off to the side as a letterhead type devise.)
I’m glad that you shared your work with me and hopefully my feedback will give you the confidence to send in your Portfolio to Helga. Add your name to the file name for the PDF so it cannot be misplaced.
I would send your portfolio to Helga now and we don’t need to meet in my opinion as I can add little more than what I mentioned already.
Let me know how everything goes.
Best,
Karl
I still remember the feeling I had after reading this feedback from Karl. It was the first time I had been properly assessed as an artist for my overall work which was a very special experience for me. Karl gave me the confidence to believe in myself and my work, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for his words.
Designing my Website
For my the homepage and the menu page of my website, I wanted to start from scratch. I opened a blank page in Wix and started with the raven in the centre of the canvas. I then got the idea of creating silhouette symbols that would symbolise each of my menu pages, which would be an About, Work, Manifesto and Contact page. I thought about what symbols would be good to symbolise each of these, and I wrote down my ideas.
About — Silhouette Portrait
Work—Art Tools
Manifesto—Quill in Ink Bottle
Contact—Vintage Telephone
I ended up with this.
At first, I had the idea of having these menu symbols in line with the raven, two on each side of it. In the end, that didn’t work for me because it didn’t introduce me, I was having trouble figure out what to put on the rest of the page, and I thought the symbols were strong enough to work on a page of their own.
So I created a new home page and put the symbols and the raven on a second page, solely to act as a menu.
I still left the raven in the centre of the homepage, so when you clicked on it and it took you to the menu, it would be a smooth transition with the raven staying in the same place and binding the two pages together. I then got the idea of having the raven open its beak when you hovered over the icon, and I created a second version of the illustration with an open beak for this reason.
For the home page, I knew I wanted my name and my profession apart from the raven. So I added my first name on the left side of the raven, and my surname on the right side of it. I used my title typeface Adobe Handwriting Ernie for this. Sadly, I couldn’t get ITC Avant Garde Gothic on Wix, so I used Brandon Grotesque for my body.
The next question was — how do I make this more interesting? This is when I remembered the bird cage from my zine, Behind The Times. I added it to the page, and immediately, an idea blossomed from that.
I turned to Procreate to create a sketch of what I had in mind. I didn’t get far until I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of the page. I started to create various of illustrations that would work as pendants for these strings.
I created a crescent moon with a face, inspired by vintage illustrations of the moon, and two different kinds of stars that I could use in various sizes to create some depths without the page being too busy.
And finally, I had the bird cage from my earlier project, and I created a vintage pocket watch illustration to match it.
Putting all of these together on the page and working with the composition to make sure it had a nice dynamic of weight on each side, I could see it working very well as an animation with the different objects swinging down from above in different tempi.
Finally, I added a nice light beige colour to the background to enhance the vintage feel of the website. Overall, this took me a very long time to come up with and put together, so I had less time to create the rest of the pages which was a shame. Nevertheless, first impressions are important, and I wanted to spend a lot of time making my home- and menu-page original and charismatic.
For my About, Work and Contact page, I used a template provided by Wix that I played around with to fit my theme. I added my typefaces, my own information and adapted the colours to fit my palette.
For the About page, I used the header background I had created earlier with the flowers from my zine, and added a black and white picture of myself so it fit the theme. I added my mission statement below as well as my signature to make it more personalised, inspired by Karl Foster’s feedback on my portfolio. Below, I filled out my education and work experience and added my social links.
For my portfolio page, I added all of my work in squares that would reveal the title and medium of the work when you hovered over an image. I put my projects in a gallery slider for them to stand out from my individual works. Once you clicked on an image, it would take you to another page that would explain everything about the project, include links if needed, and show you more pictures and details about the artwork.
Since I had spent so much time on the rest of my website, the Manifesto page ended up being incredibly simple. I was very disappointed with myself for this, because I had planned to make it very interactive and include some interesting animations. I had originally had a vision of having the number of the manifesto steps in the middle, and the text circling around the number, changing from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on. I had created a very rough sketch animation of my original idea.
Designing my Instagram Page
My instagram had been a mixture between my personal life and my art. Regrettably, it had absolutely slipped my mind to take a screenshot of what it looked like before, so I have to explain it in words the best I can.
My profile pictures was a picture of myself in black and white, and my biography had a quote by Oscar Wilde, ‘’Experience is merely the name we give to our mistakes.’’ from one of my favourite books, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Other than that, I had my age in Roman numerals, my personality type INFJ, and a line that stated my greatest interests, such as literature, theatre, mythology and art.
My highlights were the hardest thing for me to delete, but I found it necessary to keep my profile professional and less personal. They were all split into categories of my travels over the past few years, and I had all of my memories gathered from living in New Zealand. I also had a highlight for England and my Poetry. I was considering keeping my poetry highlight since it still had something to do with art, but I decided I would include that somewhere on my website in the future instead.
The feed of my account itself I didn’t change. I was already trying to make my feed more professional with mock-ups of my work and a more cohesive theme, so I decided to keep it as it was.
The first step for me was to create a logo for myself. I tried various of things with the raven icon at first, but in the end I decided for a simple type-based logo of my initials. I am still not satisfied with this, but I will keep thinking about a more original form of logo for the future.
This made it easy to create my highlight icons. I knew I wanted my highlight categories to be About, Services, Enquiries and Manifesto, so I simply took the first letter of each category in the same font as my logo and used that as my story highlights.
For the actual content of my highlights, I really had to think about what I wanted each category information to contain. For my about highlight, I decided I wanted the same text as I had included in my portfolio. First a slide with the casual introduction and then a slide with my mission statement.
For the Services highlight, I just wrote a list of the services I wanted to provide with my art, to make it easy and simple for people who are thinking of enquiring about a potential project and collaboration.
I split it into the two categories I specialise in, Graphic Design and Illustration.
It was also a nice way for me to know what I wanted to work on adding to my portfolio in the future so I can show examples of the work I have done for each of these services, and not just claim I can do them. I knew this would make me more trustworthy.
The Enquiries highlight was the most challenging one to write. Whenever I have worked with a client in the past, I have had the same problems over and over again. Either it was to do with revisions, communication or prices. I wanted this highlight to make my boundaries clear and create some guidelines for potential clients in the future. This would make sure I can protect my well-being and my workload when working for a client. I chose a black background for the terms and conditions after the white slides to catch the reader’s attention and let them know that this was an important slide to pay attention to.
With my manifesto, I continued the style I had done for my portfolio and my website.
Putting this up on my instagram was quite daunting since I feel it is very personal, with it being so poetic with a serious tone to it.
It almost felt as if I was giving out a secret recipe that I had kept hidden for so long, only to have it exposed to a large amount of strangers.
More so, I was not proud of the design for my manifesto, so it made it even harder for me to accept that I had to post it.
In the end, I tidied up my biography and made sure to include my profession titles, my email, where I was based, as well as a link to my website. I also added my pronouns, my full name at the top instead of just my first name as it had been previously, and an instagram title of ‘’Graphic Designer’’.
FINAL OUTCOMES
My Promotional Platforms
My Portfolio
My Portfolio ended up being a PDF that I could send via email or iCloud link. In the near future, I will be uploading it to Behance to make it even more accessible and public.
Overall, I believe my portfolio turned out to be a cohesive and strong piece of work. Personally, I find that this was my strongest work out of the three outcomes for this brief. I think it was simple and straightforward, without lacking personality or a sense of who I am as an artist. I was quite proud of my final work.
View my full portfolio here: https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/02b2Tx1iJNIExNr-hDaB7w5wA#Final_Portfolio
My Website
Overall, I was not proud of the outcome for my website. I believe I could have pushed myself further and added layers, scrolling effects and animations. I do like the home and menu page, but I don’t believe the website overall is clear enough on who I am as a person and an artist. This is especially because of my passion for website design, and that I know I am able to do better. And so, disappointed me that I didn’t get to use my full potential for this part of the brief. Nevertheless, it was a great place to start, and I definitely feel a lot more comfortable with website building now.
View my full website here:
https://www.emmavukman.com
My Instagram
Ibelieve my Instagram turned out to be quite cohesive, professional, elegant and informative for potential clients. However, much like my website, I feel like I could have pushed myself further to create a better and more original logo, consider my content feed even more and take the time to take some new photos of my art, and perhaps add some aesthetic photos in between or some type-based posts. Even so, I am just happy to have started my journey of a professional instagram that I can use to reach out to potential clients.
View my full Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/emmavukman/
EVALUATION
Reflection
Overall, I wasn’t satisfied with two of my outcomes for this brief, my website and instagram. I believe I could have worked harder to make these platforms express who I am as an artist, and use a wider variety of techniques and methods to make this happen.
Some of the things I would have done differently would be to create illustrated layers for my website that would interact with the scrolling of the visitor, small animated elements around the website that would bring the pages together, play with animation of typography and be more courageous with my typography designs, and create a cleaner and more stylish website overall. I would also have liked to have a page with the services I offer and explain more about my design strategy in this section. For my instagram, I would have loved a logo that really shows who I am while being original and memorable. Additionally, I wanted to work further with the colour scheme of all platforms to include more brown tones, and not just black and white.
My greatest passion lies within graphic design, and I know I have the potential to do much better than what I have performed in this round of work. Nonetheless, I will take my reflections with me on my journey forward and make sure I put all of my abilities to good use next time.
