NEWCASTLE RADIO ON TWITTER

NEWCASTLE RADIO STATION

Back in September 2011, I attended an interview for the role of a web developer for an agency in Newcastle named "Th_nk". 

I have experience of working with PHP and developing CSS, but it was seen very quickly during the test session of the interview that I still had a lot to learn to take on such a technical role. That saying, the result was that I was not offered the place. The senior developer at Think was incredibly helpful when giving me feedback and felt that my enthusiasm for the practice was undoubted, but my skills were still in need of developing further. 

He mentioned that if this was going to be something I was serious about getting into, I needed to learn to hand code in HTML, so that is what I went about doing. 

Whilst picking up the basics, I felt that I needed to put some context to my learning and come up with a project that I could add to, learn more to better it and generally, have something that would keep me motivated. 

I came up with GumBum Radio. I love using social media, so set the site up to connect to Twitter where I began to tweet YouTube music videos that showed up on my site. At first a one page site, but as I began to tweet, I began to gain followers and in particular, independent artists asking to have their own videos tweeted to my followers. The growth in just  the first week, took the follower stats to 1000 and also got my radio station (I mean this in creative terms) to a featured station on reelr.tv.  

I have had the pleasure of now interviewing several artists and even held my first Tweeterview with a talented rapper Bl'eve Brown. I have a tune of the week and artists request plays every day. My last is an artist call DjCell Block who's last mixtape got 500,000 downloads before he approached me.

In addition, the connection that twitter has given me with these artists, has even resulted in couple of design projects for them, branding for Freezy and soon, a new site for Bl'eve Brown. 

Please take a look at the work and I hope you enjoy the music that these musicians fortunately share with me. 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO GUMBUMRADIO. 

Logo Designer, Newcastle

I am currently sat in a chair waiting for a scan on my knee- as I recently had an acl reconstruction, so thought with aid of my beloved iPhone would do something useful and blog about Logo design.

If you take a trip to my site, you will notice that some of my portfolio is found on Design Crowd. Design Crowd for any free-lance designer is a great way to start out building a decent set of cross-industry pieces for graphic and web design work. Plus, a great way to earn a little extra cash from time to time!

I have been working on Design Crowd for around 12 months and currently rank 41/2nd in the UK.

I only tend to respond to project invites nowadays and the example below was a result of a recent project invite.

After looking at current trends with logo design, what is seeming to be emerging is "stamp" type branding - simple, one colour, print type logos. I am guessing that this may well be down to print costs being lower if the brand is a print rather than a "gradient-powered" piece.

Taking this into account, I have looked to create designs using solid shapes, one colour and essentially what would come from using negative space. In the below instance, take a look at how I have achieved this. The actual example
did not get selected, but I feel that the Klimt expressions the client was looking for was achieved. But never mind.

Employment in Design

Employed Designers: 

Employed Designers are those who work full-time 9-5 (Monday to Friday) for a Design Studio and produce solutions for clients are part of that Design Brand. e.g. If you worked for Portobella Rain all work you would do would be for clients associated with Portobella Rain and would thus belong to Portobella Rain's Portfolio.

Free-Lance Designers are those who might work for a studio during the day, but also in their spare time, produce work that they then sell to clients for a fixed rate as additional income. e.g You work for Portobella Rain, but when you get home, work on a web site that you are selling to a local plumber near you for some extra cash.

Self-Employed Designers are those who work full-time for themselves, they have so much work coming in that they do not need to work for anyone else and may be thinking of bringing more people to work for them.

How Does This Affect Taxes? 

If you work and earn money, you must pay taxes. What type of employment you have will determine what type/ amount of tax you must pay. We pay taxes so that our streets are clean and tidy, we have a police force and we can have a decent education - all of our taxes go to paying this.

Now, dependent on what type of employment you are in, say self-employed or employed you have to give a certain amount of your earnings for taxation.

Diffrerent Rates: 

Click Here to see the rates of taxation - As an earner you will be given a tax allowance. A tax allowance is an amount of earnings you can make BEFORE you have to pay tax.Once you earn more than that amount in a tax year, every month, you must give up a certain percentage  of your wage for taxation. The link above will show you what the percentages are.

At the bottom of the web page you will see how your percentages change as you earn more.

So looking at this and understanding it, how will being a Free-Lance affect your rates of taxation? If you are Self-Employed and making lots of money, what tax rates will you have to pay?

How do these types of employment affect your day? Which would you say are more secure as forms of work? Which allow you to be most independent and free to do what you want, when you want?

SOME OTHER STUDIOS IN NEWCASTLE:

http://www.wonderstuffstudio.com/

http://www.guerilla.co.uk/

http://www.think.eu/

Looking at the types of studios, which would you most want to work for and why? Do they do work you have an interest in, do they have a style of working you like? What do they do that you can do?

HOW TO CREATE A DESIGN CV USING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: 

PART 1: RESEARCH, GOOGLE, INKSCAPE. 

PART 2: ADDING BODY TEXT, LINKS AND GRAPHICS

Click Here To Download Inkscape

Click Here To Open Monster.co.uk 

Using your brand new up to date CV, it's time to have a look for what types of roles there are out there at Junior Level for the next step of your Career in Graphic or Web Design. Thinking about your skills (i.e what you find easy and know within yourself you are capable of doing) the last task is to look at vacancies out there and apply for a role.

Instructions: 

1. Sign Up To Monster

2. Search for Junior Positions in The North East 

3. Using the Cover Letter Facility and Upload Function, Apply For A Job! 

Film Logos From Newcastle

PARADOX FILM LOGOS: 

A week or so ago, I posted up a DVD Cover I drew up for Layer Cake. All part of the paradox approach or falsidical paradox approach to creating design work. 

The first piece of work I brought together was a series of logos which I post daily on Tumblr and have been gaining some interest and the odd follower or two. 

The above are the first crop of icons that to explain use an iconic or well known film and look a little closer into the name and the plot of them. Using a little bit of lateral thinking, some comic touches and at times, common sense the above examples are the result. 

ALL EXAMPLES CAN BE FOUND HERE ON TUMBLR

COMIC BOOK HEROES.

COMIC BOOK HEROES: 

After a flick through Tumblr, I found a piece done by another artist that inspired this work. In actual fact, it was embroidery, but the design of the characters gave me enough of a nudge to build my own using Inkscape. 

I have done some Marvel Characters, you can see them here on Facebook. 

WOLVERINE BUSINESS CARD DESIGN

BATMAN BUSINESS CARD DESIGN

IRONMAN BUSINESS CARD DESIGN

CAPTAIN AMERICA BUSINESS CARD DESIGN

BUSINESS CARD DESIGN - COMIC BOOK STYLE

WOLVERINE BUSINESS CARD TUTORIAL USING INKSCAPE OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY.

The tutorial will show you how I put the card together.

FLYER DESIGN & GIMP

FLYER DESIGN USING OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY.

As a Digital Trainer, I have to find ways by which my learners can develop at home without facing barriers that come from using mainstream software. Many don't have the programs at home and what's more, may not have the finance to purchase them either.

So finding GIMP 2.0 was a great breakthrough; as many of the tools in Photoshop can be found here too.

I placed this up on my YouTube Channel a while back, I tend to use the videos for teaching the small groups I work with, so don't expect a huge amount of traffic to them. This Flyer Design Tutorial has ended up with over a 1000 views, not much in the grand scheme of things, but still, not bad.

I love comic books so, thought a Comic Book Convention Flyer would be a good example to give.

If you have any questions, please get in touch.