So I emailed all of the case studies I had on Monday with my snazzy new @benbowsher email address. Here are the copies of what I wrote...
Build:
Hi guys!
Sorry to be yet another (probably) very annoying student, but...
I'm third year at Leeds College of art on the Graphic Design course. I'm a big time admirer of your work, especially some of the collaboration with Generation Press. I'm doing a series of case studies on design agencies who's work is relevant to my own practice as part of my final major project. I was just wondering whether I could possibly either visit to ask you some questions, or failing that, I guess do it over email correspondence.
Thank you for your time
Ben Bowsher
The Consult:
Hi there,
I appreciate you must get emails like this quite often, so my apologies...
I'm a third year at Leeds College of Art and I'm doing a case study on your practice as part of my final major practice. I know one of your designers is coming into university on Friday, but I wasn't able to schedule a session. I was wondering whether it would be possible to pay you guys a visit in regards to my case study and just ask a few questions. I know your time is incredibly valuable but I'd love to visit the studio.
Kind regards
Ben Bowsher
Graphic Design
hello@benbowsher.co.uk
(+44)7794270594
Sagmeister:
Hi,
I'm a third year graphic design student over at Leeds College of Art,
England. I'm a massive fan of a lot of your work, particularly the
books and publications you've produced. I'm doing a case study on a
few of your works, and I'd like to ask you some questions regarding
some of your book and publication briefs, if that is OK?
Kind Regards
Ben Bowsher
Graphic Design
hello@benbowsher.co.uk
(+44)7794270594
Music:
Hi,
First off, I'd like to say that I'm a massive fan of some of the work you produce, particularly the books for the MIER Reports. The covers look so lovely.
I'm a third year over at Leeds College of Art and I'm doing a case study on you as part of my final major project. I was wondering whether there would be the possibility of going down to see your studio and ask you a few questions as part of my study?
Thanks for your time,
Ben Bowsher
Graphic Design
hello@benbowsher.co.uk
(+44)7794270594
Workshop:
Hi guys,
You may know me from BAGD in the year below, you may not. Anyway, myself and one or two others on the course were interested in paying your studio a quick visit to ask you some questions about your practice and such as part of our FMPs. You produce some excellent work and you've got some unique insight into post-graduation and getting work etc. that we could really benefit from.
Thanks for your time
Ben Bowsher
Graphic Design
hello@benbowsher.co.uk
(+44)7794270594
Generation Press:
Hi guys!
I'm a third year student at Leeds College of Art, I've known about you guys for some time and attended the seminar that you gave at University. Anyway, I really admire the quality of the work you produce and I'm interested in print and finish and I'd really just love to have a look around or a chat with you about some of the print processes you use, the relationship you have with clients and also learn some things about prepping my work for print.
If you think you can help, I'd really appreciate it. I realise your time is incredibly valuable.
Thanks very much,
Ben Bowsher
Graphic Design
hello@benbowsher.co.uk
(+44)7794270594
Team Impression
Hi there
I'm a design student over at Leeds College of Art and I'm a big fan of your work. I was just wondering about the possibility of 1 or 2 of us paying you a very short visit to just to look at some of the processes you use and understand the designer-printer relationship a bit more as part of our Final Major Projects. Your work is some of the best printing I've seen and it would be an absolute dream to visit. I appreciate your time is extremely precious, but let me know if this is a possibility.
Kind Regards,
Ben Bowsher
Graphic Design
hello@benbowsher.co.uk
(+44)7794270594
Hopefully they'll get back to me within the next week or so otherwise I'm going to have to call them, which I'm dreading. I think I came across OK, I was positive, relatively informal yet professional. reading them back feels a bit cringey, especially when a lot of it is sucking up, but I guess that's the nature of it.
Showing posts with label case study: Printer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label case study: Printer. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Questions to ask case studies.
OK, so before I get in touch with the various studios and printers I've been looking at, I thought it would be important to at least plan out what information I want from getting in touch with them directly:
Workshop
There's a few things I'm interested in terms of their practice in relation to mine, firstly, and this has a lot of crossover with ppd, is about being a relatively new practice and how they attract clients from various parts of the culture industry, or how they had clients. I also want to know a lot about the fonts they use, whether they make them themselves, whether they do this using fonts they have the rights for, or whether they make them from scratch. This would be useful both as part of my practice and would apply specifically to the 'copyright, copytype' brief that I want to begin working on fairly soon. It's probably emailing them at first to ask whether it's ok to either visit or ask some questions in relation to this case study.
Music
Music's work is so varied, and their part of a team, I guess there's some significant questions to the collaborative element of their practice. There's a few collaborative briefs I want to go for this module, such as the year book and pitching for the publication that Gary Barker wants to produce about his work. Both of those are live briefs, so there are a lot of questions; How do you define roles when collaborating? This kind of covers, collaborating with similar roles, where every element is coordinated between the two, three, four or however many in the collaboration. It also covers collaborating when there's very clearly defined roles. In terms of managing finances, do you have an accountant for the firm who works it out and you consult them? is one person in charge of the budget? There's also questions about project management, etc. to deal with. Again the best policy is just to email them about coming to see them for a visit, although I think there is a possibility they're coming up as a visiting professional to do a lecture. Either way, it's important to try and arrange to see them with a view to asking them about the specific of their collaborative practice.
Build
I think the important thing about build's practice, and whilst it's not really a focus in my rationale, is that they work a lot with print finishes, a long with quite high profile clients that demand quite unique print and finish techniques, so this could be something significant to ask about. Their 'not for commercial use' collaboration with generation press is a good example of the relationships and community in the design industry, so some primary research about this could come in handy for my 'copyright, copytype' brief (a brief that is essentially about the design community) in terms of the visual language and tone it uses.
'not for commercial use'.
Sagmeister
Sagmeister are a huge studio, and the size of what they do is a little intimidating. In terms of approaching them and the information I can extract from them, I think significantly, it's best to ask about their practice when it comes to publication design, perhaps suggesting asking questions about specific briefs. The 'made you look' book is one I particularly admire, a long with the annual books they did for Columbia University; 'Abstract'. So asking about the briefs they got, why they made certain design decisions etc. as well as the general process that makes up their design practice.
Consult
The consult are local, the man contact with universit, Alex, is likely to be coming in again at somepoint soon, even so, it would be nice to get in touch before this and ask about how the studio works as the 4 of them. Do they collaborate on briefs? Do they take individual briefs each? How do they get some of their culture industry clientele?
Generation Press
with generation Press, I think the things of significance are my interest in print finish, and their collaboration with build. I think the best thing is to get in touch with them with a view to visiting them to gain more understanding about print finish, how you specify certain finishes, etc. and hope that they get back in touch and say it's OK.
Team Impression
Team Impression are a simmilarly high spec printers to generation press, so organising a visit and understanding the print finish process would be an important part of talking to them. It would inform my design practice once leaving this course and be highly applicable to the design practice of my final major project.
Given that it's Sunday today, I think the best option is to contact them over the course of tomorrow.
Workshop
There's a few things I'm interested in terms of their practice in relation to mine, firstly, and this has a lot of crossover with ppd, is about being a relatively new practice and how they attract clients from various parts of the culture industry, or how they had clients. I also want to know a lot about the fonts they use, whether they make them themselves, whether they do this using fonts they have the rights for, or whether they make them from scratch. This would be useful both as part of my practice and would apply specifically to the 'copyright, copytype' brief that I want to begin working on fairly soon. It's probably emailing them at first to ask whether it's ok to either visit or ask some questions in relation to this case study.
Music
Music's work is so varied, and their part of a team, I guess there's some significant questions to the collaborative element of their practice. There's a few collaborative briefs I want to go for this module, such as the year book and pitching for the publication that Gary Barker wants to produce about his work. Both of those are live briefs, so there are a lot of questions; How do you define roles when collaborating? This kind of covers, collaborating with similar roles, where every element is coordinated between the two, three, four or however many in the collaboration. It also covers collaborating when there's very clearly defined roles. In terms of managing finances, do you have an accountant for the firm who works it out and you consult them? is one person in charge of the budget? There's also questions about project management, etc. to deal with. Again the best policy is just to email them about coming to see them for a visit, although I think there is a possibility they're coming up as a visiting professional to do a lecture. Either way, it's important to try and arrange to see them with a view to asking them about the specific of their collaborative practice.
Build
I think the important thing about build's practice, and whilst it's not really a focus in my rationale, is that they work a lot with print finishes, a long with quite high profile clients that demand quite unique print and finish techniques, so this could be something significant to ask about. Their 'not for commercial use' collaboration with generation press is a good example of the relationships and community in the design industry, so some primary research about this could come in handy for my 'copyright, copytype' brief (a brief that is essentially about the design community) in terms of the visual language and tone it uses.
'not for commercial use'.
Sagmeister
Sagmeister are a huge studio, and the size of what they do is a little intimidating. In terms of approaching them and the information I can extract from them, I think significantly, it's best to ask about their practice when it comes to publication design, perhaps suggesting asking questions about specific briefs. The 'made you look' book is one I particularly admire, a long with the annual books they did for Columbia University; 'Abstract'. So asking about the briefs they got, why they made certain design decisions etc. as well as the general process that makes up their design practice.
Consult
The consult are local, the man contact with universit, Alex, is likely to be coming in again at somepoint soon, even so, it would be nice to get in touch before this and ask about how the studio works as the 4 of them. Do they collaborate on briefs? Do they take individual briefs each? How do they get some of their culture industry clientele?
Generation Press
with generation Press, I think the things of significance are my interest in print finish, and their collaboration with build. I think the best thing is to get in touch with them with a view to visiting them to gain more understanding about print finish, how you specify certain finishes, etc. and hope that they get back in touch and say it's OK.
Team Impression
Team Impression are a simmilarly high spec printers to generation press, so organising a visit and understanding the print finish process would be an important part of talking to them. It would inform my design practice once leaving this course and be highly applicable to the design practice of my final major project.
Given that it's Sunday today, I think the best option is to contact them over the course of tomorrow.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Case Study: Team Impression
Team Impression are another printers that look at high spec print finish techniques. They're based locally, so it might be possible to arrange either a quick visit or at least ask them some questions. So again I need to start thinking of appropriate questions to ask each of the case study printers and studios that I'm looking at. I imagine my next blog post will focus on this.
Case Study: Generation Press
Generation Press are one of the forerunners of high quality, impressive print and finish. They work with an outstanding selection of designers, including frequent collaborators build to realise some of the most beautiful printed design work in the world. I would love to talk to them in terms of getting advice about specifying work to go to print, particularly regarding specialist finishes. They came to give a lecture last term and it was very informative, they also seem like extremely helpful and interesting people. I would also love to look at the more technical aspects of how the work is printed, so I'm definitely going to contact them asap and try and arrange a visit or something.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Nature of studio case studies
To clarify and from the input of today's workshop, I thought it might be wise to clarify exactly what these case studies are and what's going to happen. They're going to be an ongoing research based on each studio I cover, including contacting them and talking to them about relevant research to do with my FMP, with that in mind, I am going to tag them as case study: Studio. In the case of printers, whom I also aim to do case studies on, I will tag them as case study: Printer. This then can perhaps become a chapter in my contextual research book, or at least there is that possibility. Hopefully this will then allow me to sustain a large amount of synthesised primary research.
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