Self Promo Evaluation

I had already done a project like this last year as part of my visual studies so I pretty much knew what I was doing and was able to learn from mistakes from last time – for example printing all of my promo off professionally then not using it! Not a wise idea. So I know not to do this this time. As I had already done a self-promo project last year we had originally planned for me to do something else. We had a few chats about what I could do and I decided I was going to do a book based on 50 or so mini projects – nothing took off from this and before I knew it I had actually forgotten about it amongst all of my other projects so I decided that time was ticking on and perhaps I should do this self-promotion brief as actually I didn’t like my current branding. The fact I forgot to do the project originally planned now looking back concerns me as I know what I’m like and I let things slip so timekeeping and time management is really one of my downfalls which I need to work on for sure!

So now that I decided yes I want to do my self-promo I definitely needed to get a move on considering everyone else had already had a good few weeks on this and many had made a good start on it however a few others were still at my stage of just starting so I didn’t feel so behind which made me feel better – but to be fair I know that once I put my mind to it I can get lots done so I wasn’t at all worried I somewhat felt more worried for some of the others who hadn’t done much even though they had started before me. The annoying part for me was the research – it has to be done but it is the most tedious and long winded part of the design process. Once this was out of the way I was able to get into it – I knew I wanted something different and I was thinking in terms of the “language” of design. Lots of designers use the words hello, hi etc. on their branding such as their CV’s and stuff and I went into the project not liking that but I have now completing the project doing the same thing which is quite funny as I didn’t like it but now I’ve done it myself but I do ask myself now have I done that because of following the trend or because I actually now do like that aspect? And to be fair I actually don’t know why perhaps it was just to follow the trend. But that aside I actually am pleased with the way it has turned out like that. I also wanted to use the phrase that most designers use which is they say things like pop in for a chat and a coffee to talk about projects etc. so I wanted to use this in some sort of way which brought me to the idea of creating a coffee cup and using this as a host for my business card! And this idea just took off and the result is brilliant – so now I had this theme I wanted to follow it so I designed sandwich style bags and promo napkins to go with the while café/coffee theme which I think works great. The whole branding package has a consistent theme, colour scheme and font set so it looks fab!

Now that I had the branding package sorted I needed to work on the website – to be honest I feel I left this a little late so I had to carefully decide what I was going to use to create this site which would be easy and quick enough for me to do in time and was good enough to create a stunning and efficient website. After research and consideration I decided to use Behance Prosite because my work was already on there so there was no upload needed and it allowed me to make the website highly personal to me and my current branding package. I was able to use the same background images and colours as my new stationary which allowed it to be consistent throughout – the only downside was that I was not able to use the same fonts so was restricted to a fairly basic set of fonts off the web builder however I worked with this as there was nothing I could really do about it and in the end I feel the fonts I used work anyway and are clear and crisp for the viewer to read – a complicated/funky font may have been harder to read anyway so maybe this was a good thing that I couldn’t use my own fonts. I was able to add my logo to the site however only to the homepage – I would have liked it on each project page too, perhaps in the top left corner but I wasn’t able to do this on the web builder. But I managed to get it on there at least somewhere on the homepage so it was there – but I would have liked to have it bigger, but again I wasn’t able to do so, so I had to stick to what it could do and I think this works well anyway. All in all the web builder had everything I wanted with a few restrictions however I worked well with these and worked my way around them the best I could and still I feel produced a highly creative and personal website which I think presents my work well.

Overall I am really pleased with the way this project has turned out considering that I started later than others and had a few setbacks it has turned out great! I can see myself using this promotional material as a young designer whereas with my previous branding I did not like it so I think it is good that I actually like it and will want to keep it considering I usually dismiss my own work and pick fault with it – of course there are changes I would make but they are only minor and I can live with them. For myself as a designer I have a few faults which really need changing such as my time keeping which in the past has proven to be a big problem when it comes to deadlines - I get the work done but I tend to leave things until last minute, I don’t as such have a routine which I really need to get into one and fast in order to be efficient with my work.