We had quite a few practitioners this year at Stockport College. Practitioners are very helpful to me as a student because it gives me an insight of how they run their design agency and explain their ideas, thoughts and processes along with their personal experiences. There are a number of different practitioners that come from different practices which is interesting to see and hear their talks. The two practitioners that I will be writing about are Mike Rigby and Lauren Moriarty. Mike Rigby is Graphic Designer who has worked in a number of different agencies like The Chase, True North and Pentagram. I found his talk very interesting because it was more about his personal experience and instead of what work he did but did give us useful tips in his presentation. Lauren Moriarty who did Text Styles and now does 3D product design. I found her talk very interesting because she was very confident in her style of work; she liked what she did and gave very useful tips on how to get your work noticed.
Mike Rigby gave his presentation in our graphics room rather than in the lecture theater like Lauren Moriarty, this felt like it was just for graphic designer students but anyone could come along. Mike stared off by talking about how he had gone travelling which was a bit unexpected because normally most practitioners would introduce their agency first and then move on to talk about their work. Mike showed us pictures of his travels to Thailand and talked about his experiences, he explained that it was important to go travel after your studies rather than taking a gap year. Laurens talk was very different from Mikes as she introduced herself and showed one of her design pieces and how experimenting with different materials led her to do similar work. Lauren than talked about the interests and the positive feedback she got from other people from the design industry when she was exhibiting her work. She didn’t expect to get that much noticed and even had a few valuable contacts; one of the contacts was Toyota the big car manufacturer. She said it’s sometime a nice surprise when someone who hasn’t contacted you in ages gets in touch with you suddenly; she said that’s something you should be papered for.
Mike moved on to talk about why he does graphic design and the positives and negative of the design industry. Mike gave good reasons for doing what he does which you cloud clearly see in his work, he said he loves to do graphics and it’s something that he has enjoyed doing. Mike moved on to talk about the positive and the negative areas of graphic design from his personal experience, I found this helpful as it gave me an idea of what to expect when I leave university. Lauren didn’t talk about the positives and the negatives of the industry but more about how to exhibit your work to get you noticed, she gave a few names of places that she feels will offer the best chance of getting you noticed. It was good to hear what Mike had to say about the benefits of being a graphic designer and all the people you meet along the way, I found that very useful.
Lauren who liked what she did which was textstyles but her FMP led to explore 3D design, this was not what she expected but was pleased with the outcome and continued to explore this technique. Lauren explained that it was important to identify an area of your design work that you feel strongly about and show that piece of work in context. It was evident that Laurens textstyles skill is shown through some of her design pieces. I found this advice very helpful and have been asked the question, what are your areas of area of expertise? I find it hard to answer this question as I like to design everything rather than having a specialty in designing type.
Mike moved on to talk about some his design work and gave tips from his personal experience as worked work in quite a few different agencies, he said by having a good idea behind your work and executing them well will help which I could relate. He then showed a few pieces of his work and briefly explained them. He also said that you should be yourself when going to an interview and be positive towards your design work which I found very helpful. Lauren also gave useful advice saying that you should make a website so that people can see your work and have an idea of what you do.
What I found interesting about Lauren Moriarty’s works was that she experiments with different types of materials for her product design. Lauren had experiment with light effects, heat reactive inks and tiles that make up a pattern when they get wet; I really liked how she was very excited about what she was doing and identified with what she was good at. Lauren showed her pieces of work in the situe which looked very nice. I find design work that uses a special paper, material or inks very interesting because it’s different from what you normally would see. What I found interesting about Mikes work the ideas behind his work, as a graphic designer it’s important to have a concept behind his work but I can’t say that Laurens work is very idea based because of her practice.
The reason I chose Mike Rigby and Lauren Moriarty was that they both have come from different practices. I thought it was interesting to see what how Lauren had done since she left university, I liked how she has her own shop where she sells different types of products and continues to experiment with her work. I also found her motivation to learn new techniques of product design very helpful. Mike Rigby does graphics which is different from what Lauren does so the outcome of his work is very different from Laurens, doing graphics means Mike focused more on his layout, idea and typeface to produce his work.
I really found both Mikes and Laurens talks very helpful and it has given me a better understanding of how different industries work.
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