PPP - Studio Brief 01 - Leather Fashions

When I was visiting Canterbury I came across a range of old-fashioned signage on shops, and Leather Fashions was one of the signs I was most interested in. It looks handcrafted as you can see by the slight asymmetrical features that appear throughout the sign. The shop has been there for decades and it's something I feel you wouldn't see as commonly in somewhere modern like London. The shop sold handcrafted leather clothing and accessories only, and you could tell that it had a story behind it. I tried to find a website for the shop, but they didn't seem to have any which I thought also added to the feeling of genuinely being a one-off shop that offers a hands-on only approach.

Today we went through with an icebreaker task to get to know eachother more and why we joined the course, what we want to get out of it and so on.

The first question asked why we chose to study the course and why we chose Leeds College of Art, and I personally wrote these 5 points:

1. To become independent by moving very far from home, which would throw me into the deep end in order to learn how to live alone.
2. To further develop my style and find a stronger direction in which I want to take my work.
3. The atmosphere of the college feels very similar to my previous college in the fact that creativity runs throughout the whole building and ideas are constantly bouncing throughout the college itself.
4. I got a good feeling from the interview when I was talking to Amber and Simon as it was quite a casual interview but you could tell they were passionate.
5. I love the city of Leeds!

The next task was to write another 5 reasons on what we wanted to learn during the course, my answers were as follows:

1. I want to learn to create professional typefaces as type in general fascinates me.
2. I want to be good enough to be in the D&AD exhibition as that is where I first found out I wanted to do Graphic Design as a degree for certain.
3. Again, I want to be thrown into the deep end and I've heard how strict the course is at Leeds College of Art.
4. How to iron, with which my tutors told me to just wave the clothes around when they come out the drier, so I can tick that off my list!
5. Money management as I have never had to manage a budget or anything similar, so it would be very useful to become good at.

My following task asked me what my strengths were, and I wrote:

1. Working under pressure.
2. Have a reasonably clear style of which I can adapt.
3. Good at working as a team and efficiently communicating.
4. Good self motivation to complete my work, as I love what I do.
5. Solid prior knowledge of key design principles due to my past education.

The fourth task asked me to write down what inspired me, and my answers were:

1. The production of music, as I believe it's quite similar to design in the fact that every little detail counts toward the final result.
2. Behance as a whole is a massive part of my inspiration and has shaped my style I follow today.
3. The Air Max 1 shoe in general I believe is a thing of beauty, and being a trainer enthusiast I would go as far as to say it is the perfect shoe in my eyes. The Nike lead designers are massive inspiration to me.
4. Failing. I think failing is an unorthodox but effective to motivate me as it forces me to work under pressure, which is one of my strengths.
5. Scandinavian design. I love most Scandinavian design but their Graphic Design and Interior Design is what strikes me the most. The amount of detail that they put into their work, even though they keep it extremely simple and to the point is something that inspires me as it shows they must have a very pure design mind.