Precept Placement

I've been on work placement at Precept for almost a year now. Its been an invaluable source of experience for me, particularly with it running alongside my studies. There have been a wide range of projects that I have been able to work on, and this has helped to significantly broaden my skill sets and understanding of working in a professional environment.

Precept regularly recruit interns and work placements, from a range of backgrounds such as design, illustration, copywriting and film and animation work. Working alongside peers from different backgrounds has really been an excellent source of inspiration to me, particularly with regard to learning a little about what they do, as well as being able to work alongside them in projects, allowing us all to create a level of work that we didn't think we'd be able to do so early in our careers. 

In this blog i've already gone into a little detail on the projects Precept have organised in conjunction with their   project shift, an ideas lab that promotes collaboration amongst professionals and students from all backgrounds. Here is an overview of the work i've done primarily at Precept over the last few months.

Shift

Whilst i've already talked about what Shift is and how i've helped with their events, I haven't yet shown the design side of things that I have done their. For example, after developing brand ideas, we started to look at how the website would look for Shift. As shift was an in house project, we didn't follow as strict time plans as we would with an outside client. Therefore there was periods when Shift's purpose and identity changed and adapted as we started to greater understand its position within the business and in the creative community. 

However, I still had a go at developing web visuals for the site. We knew the importance of functionality, as well as creating a site that would be visually appealing and exciting to students. We drew initial inspiration from websites such as Wolf Ollins and I was able to develop my use of grid systems in Photoshop to create mock ups that I believe were functional and attractive, and went some way to informing the actual Shift site that was create 4 months later.

For Shifts first event 'Open For Business', I developed a typeface alongside another intern Kieran. We looked at Shifts core goals and values of collaboration and innovation, and created a graphic representation of that, using a range of abstract lines to construct letterforms. The typeface was used throughout the printed and online material to promote the event and in the event itself.

Following on from that same visual style, we wanted to create an object for the event that visually explained what we were talking about when we meant 'collaboration'. Therefore Shift and a local bespoke furniture manufacturer Raskl developed a 3D tetrahedric heart using wooden rods and plastic connectors. We thought this was the perfect way to show how collaboration can be used to create really exciting things. The heart also linked with Precept's slogan #Lovewhatyoudo.

Viveras


Viveras enables Erasmus students to make the most of their year abroad by providing them with a user friendly, versatile platform. Users can connect and socialise with other Erasmus students and find out about their destination, explore and discover the latest hotspots and share their own tips and reviews.

This has been the largest project that I've worked on during my time at Precept. The client needed a large website, and phone app designed and built for them, as well as a brand identity and tone of voice. My key roles in this brief were to help develop a brand identity for Viveras.

One of the key things that impressed me about this project was the attention to detailed involved. With it being a fairly large client, there was the budget available to incredibly thorough with regards to research and evaluation of current competitors and what Viveras stood for. This laid the ground work for the rest of the project.

 

Above are some of my first initial sketches that I drew along with two others at Precept. We needed to create three possible routes to show to the clients for their next meeting, so at first we all worked together to generate some ideas. The initial ideas we played around with were how to use the ‘V’ intelligently in some way, along with using a globe , a pin on a map, and other ways we could get across the ideas of travel.

The ideas process was quite intensive. We worked hard to develop three strong routes, each giving a different, but strong message about the viveras brand. I particularly enjoyed being able to fully develop a route, as shown below. It was really beneficial to me to work very closely alongside the whole Precept team to develop my own route, as well as help with the other two. Once we'd created three logos, we then also created mock ups of our identities in situ for the client.

Since then, a brand identity was chosen and a website was built in house. With the website being built in house it was really interesting to look at the quantity of coding and effort needed to create a website such as this. With the site functioning like a social network, there were a huge range of things to consider from functionality, through to security and the tone of voice needed to make the site come together.

You can view the finished Viveras site here.

Shoreline

Shoreline is the project that I am currently working on at Precept. This is the first project that I have been given complete control over design side of things. Shoreline are a local North East brand that require a form of brand identity created for themselves that includes marketing materials as well as an art direction for their album art and live performances.

Following on from the Viveras brief, and other smaller branding briefs I have helped out with, I now have a much clearer understanding of how Precept operates with regards to the design process. Therefore I've found the research and design process to be pretty straightforward and an enjoyable experience to be able to do independently. I developed three visual routes based on the themes of 'Adventure', 'Atmosphere' and 'Precision. 

To represent the routes in situ, I created mock ups of album covers, merchandise and supplied images of how the style could translate to their live performances. The band decided that using both routes 2 and 3 would be their favoured concepts (I do not own the images used in my mock ups, and were used only to showcase visual ideas). Because branding a band is a little different to a commercial company for example, merging routes together is a far more straightforward process, because to some extent, their can be that air of ambiguity about a bands visual image, which is completely the opposite for a business, which needs to be clear and direct.

Since the band have chosen their desired route, I've been developing the route with the help of another Intern at Precept, Alex. Working with her has helped me to develop another skill, Art Direction. Its quite fulfilling to give direction to someone else and see your ideas come to life, particularly in a way that i'm not able to do myself. I also intend to work with a photographer to develop album art in the near future.

Reflection

My time at Precept has been, and continues to be a really important step for on my journey into the professional world of design. Whilst not all agencies are the same, i've learnt some much just from talking to the team at Precept. Things like asking them about their design education, their interests and inspirations, learning digital skills constantly and understanding what agencies are looking for when recruiting new members has been incredibly useful.