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How do you decide what to put in your graphic design portfolio?

January 31st, 2010

Design portfolio

It’s that time of year again where you are assessing your bulging business plan, deciding what new piece of marketing material you are going to use to wow potential clients with in 2010 and, for us, it’s time to freshen up our website and reflect on what work we include in our portfolio. The problem is that we are a particularly fussy lot here at Eightyone Design and not every piece of work we complete makes the grade. In fact, only a mere fraction of our work makes it in to our design portfolio.

This can leave our portfolio looking a little stale at times against others which seem to be regularly changing. It also means that whilst we are always working with new clients, other potential clients are not aware of this due to the work not being included in our graphic design portfolio. This got us thinking ‘what is the best way to build your graphic design portfolio?’ As we see it there are the following options available to any graphic designer: Read the rest of this entry »

WBR World Beach Rugby Winter 2009 Clothing Designs

January 11th, 2010

WBR t-shirt design

As you all probably know by now we work (what seems like continuously) on a little project called World Beach Rugby. Twice a year we design a range of clothing which is sold online through the UK’s no. 1 rugby retailer, Lovell Rugby. 

However this summer they wanted something a little different, rather than the usual t-shirt designs, they wanted us to create some designs to be sublimated onto fitted style rugby shirts. The designs would be dyed directly into the fabric so we were therefore able to utilise the whole shirt for the design rather than just the front. We were also asked to make the t-shirt designs as bold and wild as possible, so they would really (I mean really) stand out from the crowd. When usually working on screen printed t-shirt designs, we have to work with limited amount of colours within the design as each extra colour means a new print plate. However, due to the new sublimated format there were certain design constraints which were lifted. We were therefore able to use gradients and colour blends to create different effects. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking back at 2009!

January 3rd, 2010

Eightyone Design personal photography 2009

Well 2009 has come and gone, so it’s time for a little bit of reflection. This time last year we posted about our New Years resolutions, some of which we adopted and some fell by the wayside before we’d even hit February! We managed to stop naming files ‘this-one’ or ‘final-this-one’, although our desktop’s are still as full as ever. We did, however, launch our new website back in March, so overall we are pretty proud. One New Years resolution we would like to expand upon was our pledge to create more personal projects. I have thoroughly enjoyed indulging in photography this year with my DSLR, but that’s as far as the personal projects went, so in 2010 we will try our best to develop more personal projects. Read the rest of this entry »

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December 24th, 2009

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Eightyone Design

We would just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their ongoing support throughout 2009. Thanks to our blog subscribers, everyone who has taken time to take part in the blog discussions and most of all many thanks to each and everyone of our clients, it has been great to work with you this year and look forward to new projects in 2010. We hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year!

Eightyone Design Christmas Cards 2009

December 21st, 2009

Eightyone Design Christmas Cards Design

Well, time has certainly flown, it doesn’t seem that long ago we were designing our 2008 Christmas cards! Unlike last year, we were particularly organised this year and started designing our 2009 Christmas cards in early November. We were already developing Christmas artwork for clients so whilst we were in the full festive flow (with “Jingle Bells” playing loudly and mince pies and hot chocolate on hand) we thought we’d get down to work and create the Eightyone Christmas cards. Read the rest of this entry »

A short lesson in colour

December 10th, 2009

A lesson in colour

Working with colour in graphic design can be a minefield. Pantones, RGB and CMYK can all be confusing and it is sometimes a very tricky concept to convey to clients. We usually hit this problem full force during the logo design process. The clients shiny new logo design will come packaged as an eps, pantoned and ready to use.

However, due to backlight computer screens displaying RGB approximations for the pantone the colour can look very different on a monitor. To combat this, we also create a version of the logo for web, with an accompanying RGB reference. We try to explain the basics (outlined below) and emphasise that you will always have problems with colour matching across different mediums.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo’s of our trip to Amsterdam

November 25th, 2009

Amsterdam photograph

We were lucky enough to enjoy a short trip to Amsterdam recently. We were taken back by the friendly people and outstanding sights and buildings. Wandering around the small side streets and Canals you can’t help but get inspired. If you haven’t been to Amsterdam before, we would both certainly recommend it.

We thought we’d share a brief selection of our photographs with you. Read the rest of this entry »

Website design for AIS - The International School, Sydney, Australia

November 9th, 2009

AIS website image

AIS is an International School based in Sydney, Australia. They provide education to the highest academic standard, and have a practical approach to teaching and learning while catering to both international and local students with its integrated Australian and American curriculum.

AIS were looking for someone to re-design their website and found us through our graphic design blog. Several Skype meetings later they accepted our proposal and had a strong brief to work to. AIS already had a team of programmers in house and required us to design and build template HTML pages that they could use to build, edit and expand the website themselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Why does everyone think they are a social media expert?

October 15th, 2009

Why does everyone think they are a social media expert?

As I scroll through my twitter feed on any given day, I can guarantee you there will be at least a dozen people promoting their Social Media workshops. These are all aimed at helping people grow their businesses through online networking tools. Any workshop which states they can ‘grow your business’ denotes to me that they must know what they are talking about and are therefore an “expert”. Read the rest of this entry »

Logo design and development for Prioritise

September 28th, 2009

Prioritise logo design

Prioritise is a small business which was established in July 2007 and is based in Devon.  It provides administrative, marketing and planning support to consultants and businesses throughout the South West. Managing Director Lucy Ash approached Eightyone Design to design and develop a new logo design and brand identity for the marketing and virtual PA company. Read the rest of this entry »