Newclear Design

When I came back from Berlin I spoke to somebody who had a friend called Phil that is a director of a company called Newclear Design based in Manchester.

I didn't get to actually go to the offices as he said there was a lot of work lying around that his company are doing at the moment to do with huge canvases they've started creating. So we met at a local coffee shop where I showed him my portfolio and explained the kind of pathway I want to go down when I leave University which is to do something in either advertising, packaging/ product design.

To me this was a different experience to my previous visits to agencies as it was in a much more comfortable environment and had taken out a lot of time to sit and talk to me about his past experiences from leaving University to being where he is now. It was very interesting to find that he started in product design, then did a bit of freelancing and then decided to collaborate with his friend Ben who he went to University with who studied psychology but is also a photographer. He explained that this was good because clients trust their company a lot more as they have knowledge of what works in the industry and how peoples minds work and how we understand different designs.

Phil also told me that there are many stresses and strains of graphic design such as people wanting to change things at the last minute but its all part of the job which is a challenge and if you like a challenge you're right for the job.

He showed me a brochure of the kinds of things that his company creates such as:

Logo Design

Corporate Branding

Advertisements

Brochures

Posters

Leaflets

eShot Campaigns

Magazine Design and Layout

Product Packaging

Exhibition Design

Graphics for Print

And much, much more

He told me it would be worth perhaps E-mailing different graphic companies and do a placement for a couple of weeks for free. This then boosts skills and confidence in the industry and he said that sometimes they may even want to take you on for a job with them. This is something that I will definitely give a go because it's all about making contacts too.

He also told me to E-mail him some of the canvases I paint in my own free time to see what he thinks of them and if any contacts he knows would be interested in buying them. And he told me to stay in touch and keep E-mailing him some new recent things that I get up to and create.

This is the kind of company that in reality I would like to work for. It seems fast paced, a challenge and a good small group of people that work well together. Their work is flawless and to work as a collaboration can only be a good thing as they learn different things from each other all the time.

Hesign

Whilst on my travels in Berlin I went to an agency called hesign run by Jianping He (on the left). He has two agencies of the same name one based in Berlin and the other in Shanghai.

He was a lovely man who has a very witty nature about him. He always sees his problems as being funny and he will make his creation out of it.

I don't have the pictures to hand but he showed us a presentation that he had made using his own photographs which nobody has a copy of to explain some of his ideas. One example would be that he said a client rang him up and asked him to create a publication and after designing it he realised he didn't have enough paper so he made the book but using around the size of an A5 piece of paper and half this size constantly throughout the book, so the end result of the book looked as though it was a wedge of paper almost like a 3-D isosceles triangle. It looked fantastic, very unique. Also he explained that he was supposed to be putting on an exhibition in Shanghai to show the public his publications that he had made, his contact that was putting the event together rang him a day later and told him there wasn't 50 people turning up there was 5000! So again he realised that he didn't have enough books and he didn't want lots of people touching his work so he took his books down the road and had them put in what looked like a transparent pillow so people were unable to touch them. They were all then set out in a contemporary room spaced apart on long white tables. In my opinion this looked fantastic.

Here is one of his books that he created in 2006 which has been a massive hit to many graphic designers.

Overall he seemed pretty impressed with our portfolios and said that if we were ever in Berlin again then to pop back and E-mail him some of our ideas sometimes. He also had a guy from Scotland that was a interim for him which has opened my eyes a bit to perhaps gaining experience in another country which is what I plan to do with my future anyway. So I would definitely class this as one of my top portfolio visits as perhaps making a bit of a contact

123buero

Whilst in Berlin a select few of us that was interested in typography and had examples of good editorials and typography in our portfolios were chosen to visit a small graphic agency called 123buero. The main man was called Timo.

My first impression was that I could not believe how much space they had in a room where they work. It consisted of 2 chairs, 2 Macs and a huge shelf of design books. Here is an image below:

Timo was very nice and completely honest and critical about our portfolios. He firstly made us some ginger tea which seems to be quite popular in Berlin and we after we had all settled in a little we started going through our portfolios. He told us straight away if he didn't quite understand why something irrelevant was put in our work and he gave good constructive criticism about how we could make our portfolios better. He said that with mine I should have more scamps and the thought processes behind the final idea as he said it would be easier for a employer to understand your way of thinking. I found this very useful and have since

changed it and added more recent thought processed work.

He then started telling us about his company and what he had been up to recently. He also showed us his portfolio which obviously consisted of mostly typography and he showed us his high quality print outs that he had made in to books. One piece of work that I was very impressed with was A.D.Deertz which they are currently working on the future positioning and rebranding of the fashion label ADD, which will be redefined toA.D.Deertz with the collection of Fall/ Winter 2009/2010 and will be shift from a unisex concept to an all menswear line. He had directed the photography too.

Here is an image of one of the catalogues below:

Timo and his colleagues have also created a few of their own typefaces using Fontlab which he showed us the basic of how to use it which was very interesting. A couple of fonts to look out for when they are ready to be downloaded are: Maison and Naiv.

I overall really enjoyed this visit as it gave me an insight to how a small company works hard and is now getting big clients. He said it's always important to be able to get on with and work with somebody that is on your wave length so that there is no conflict and this gets the cogs of the company turning.