Purple Penguin Portfolio Critique

Today I had my portfolio critique with Purple Penguin Design in Altrincham. As I have been working heavily on my final major project over the Easter holidays, I wanted to gain some advice and feedback from someone within the industry on how it is going so far. I decided to create a PowerPoint presentation with my ident, bumpers, schedule list and logo designs so far.

When I arrived at Purple Penguin, Rik greeted me and we discussed my course and what I have been creating over the last couple of years. I then started with the PowerPoint and shown him the existing logo and a few logo ideas that I have created. He said that he prefered the blocked out logo with the explanation on the right as it stands out clearly and is grammatically right rather than the explanation mark being on the left. He also explained that he would maybe change the colour of the background in the logo to red as this is E! Entertainment Televisions existing colour scheme and changing the colours would be quite a dramatic change and maybe unrecognizable to existing E! viewers. I agree with Rik completely on this and its great to have someone who designs logos for a living amongst other things saying he really liked the logo so far.

I continued the PowerPoint presentation and shown him the schedule list I have created so far. He said that he liked the transition as each program comes up but didn't think that the circles tied in with the channel logo that I had created and again said that he would change the colour of this to E! existing colour scheme. He said he would maybe use one of the shapes from my logo to show each program in. These schedule lists were only a test to see how I would fit live footage into a shape but I agree with his comments again and will explore and develop this idea.

I then moved on and shown him my ideas for my main ident. So far I have only created illustrations for each theme but he seemed to really like these and made several positive comments about them, which I was pleased to hear. I also shown him a little test of my masked illustrations I created in after effects and he seemed to like these too and asked me how I created them. He said the transition between the celebrities and the theme title should also have the same theme as the TV schedule. He said keeping a theme throughout gives a channel its own identity that would be easily recognized if it had a theme running throughout.

I finished the portfolio critique by showing him my Box channel ident I created last year which he seemed to like. He hasn't used 3D before but he liked the simple idea with the growing neon elements. I then lastly shown him my online portfolio, he said the white space worked well and emphasized the information on the screen which is important for the audience. I explained that I had gone of the layout of my website and was thinking about creating a new one, he advised me to use a website called wordpress.org that lets people create their own website using templates or creating their own template for free. This will be good for my final year show maybe if I'm running out of time to get a website online.

Rik's comments and advice was really helpful and educational and I will apply this changes as I continue to develop my final major project. I came out of the critique very happy and very confident that I will create a really good final piece. Rik said he will be happy for me to send over any work for his advice and would love to come to the end of year show. He also said that if a motion graphics piece came through to them would I be interested in doing some work on it, which I immediately answered yes! By going to Purple Penguin it has give me more confidence to work as hard as I can over the next few weeks to try and create the best work I possibly can.

After checking my emails when I got into college I received an email of Rik,


Hi Aaron,

It was good to meet you this morning.

You're work looks good and I'm sure it'll all come together for the end of the project. If you need to ask anymore about your project just drop me a line.

With regards to getting some business cards printed have a look at these people; http://www.daynightprint.co.uk/

With regards to a website / portfolio have a look at www.wordpress.org as to an idea [means you don't have to do the programming, always a bonus!]. You can get free themes from places like http://graphpaperpress.com/demo/ [use the dropdown to see different flavours]. If you're interested and need any help with this let me know. Examples of a couple of site were working on using wordpress are www.rcainteriors.co.uk and www.gritandgears.com

Finally, let me know about your show and I'd be glad to come along.

Regards - Rik

Hi Rick,

Thanks alot for letting me visit the studio and giving me feedback on my work so far. You gave me some really useful advice for my final major project that I will definitely take on board on and make changes.

I think the final year show will be around the 5th of June the tutors told me but it lasts for a week so hopefully won't be while your away.

Thanks for the website link, I will have a go at creating one once this project is out the way and have it ready for the show. I shall also use the business card website too.

Just like to thank you again for letting me visit and I will email you if I need your advice on anything else, if not I will send my final piece over as soon as it's complete

Regards

Aaron