I am a freelance Graphic Designer with an eye for detail and a passion for branding and information design. For the past six years I have been working with various local clients in Berkshire on products such as flyers, posters, t-shirts, newsletters, drinks coasters, wall murals and logos. In this time I have gained the experience needed to reach out and communicate with clients in a helpful and efficient manner. I am proficient in Adobe Creative Suite and my skills include editorial design, branding, illustration, photography and typography. I would say I am most proficient in taking the information and texts given to me, breaking them down into easily digestible chunks and formatting this in a way that considers the hierarchy of importance while also keeping the viewer's interest through use of fresh and exciting stylistic elements.
I come from an artistic background, as far back as I can remember I have been into drawing and painting. I have over the years acquired many other creative skills through my hobbies, such as filmmaking, writing music and writing my own stories. I like to combine my various artistic skills in different mediums, namely my skill for drawing and my editorial design work. My earliest design work from GCSE and A Level incoroporates scanned in artwork within publications which I printed and bound myself. One of my previous commissioned pieces was illustration work for a book on healthy living, in which I chose to produce illustrations solely using Adobe Indesign as opposed to drawing them by hand as I wanted to exclude any white negative space from the images.
I am experienced in producing print-ready pieces with print marks and print specifications for the client, one of my previous works being a double-sided flyer for fitness instructor MzFitt which was handed out to competitors of the 2012 Reading Half Marathon. In my time as a freelance Graphic Designer I have liased with many of my clients in person, I have a knack for extracting the necessary information needed during these meetings, such as the essence of the brand, the print methods involved and the contextual purpose of the outcome. I can, however manage projects remotely, and have done for a few of my commissions, such as designing the logo for children's television show "Seaside Antics", in which communication between me and the client was brief via phone and email conversations, although I was able to gain all the information I needed to produce a successful outcome.
In my experience using Adobe Creative Suite, I have switched between using Mac and PC over the years, learning all the necessary skills on both operating systems both at school and university. I predominately use Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, although I was once commissioned to make a fifteen minute video montage, condensing almost two hours' worth of footage in which I taught myself to use Adobe Premiere, the client was very pleased with the final video as it was made for her to share with her family. I gained my knowledge of filmmaking and editing from studying Media Studies at GCSE and A Level and producing my own music video and short horror film independently using Final Cut Pro.
Since my time at Falmouth University, I have taken a number of part-time online courses pertaining to search engine optimisation, online marketing (including social media) and programming, as these are becomig increasingly prevalent in the world of Graphic Design. Previously I attained a Merit in GCSE IT for designing and making a partially functioning music streaming site named "Whaleshark" in which I used HTML to make all the interactive features animate and respond to inputs such as scrolling over or clicking on buttons. I am still in the process of teaching myself all popular programming languages such as; C++, C#, Javascript and PHP so that I can work in collaboration with other programmers to make a consistent range of interactive design pieces. I hope to be able to put these skills to good use, creating apps which can be utilised by the student body to make the most of their university experience, as this is proven to be an effective way of keeping people involved and engaged in the information age.
Work history
Graphic Designer
Reading, United KingdomFreelance
I have been working as a freelance graphic designer from the start of 2012 and I have been using this as a chance to network and build my customer relationship skills whilst working a number of part-time jobs over the years.
Skills
- Editorial Design
- Information Design
- Print Design
- Digital Design
- Illustration
- Screen Printing
- Branding
- Corporate Identity
- Photography
- Book Binding
Education
BA (Hons) Graphic DesignFalmouth University
- Falmouth, United Kingdom
Here I learned about consumerism, branding, typography and collaborative practice. I also learned how to manage multiple self-directed projects at the same time.
11 A-C Gcses and 3 A Levels
- Reading, United Kingdom
I studied Graphic Design in GCSE and got an A, I then took A Level Graphic Design and got a B, I also studied Fine Art and Media Studies