SNASK. CHRISTMAS CARD.

A conversation that first evolved from just hearing about them to reading their amazing book "Make enemies & Gain fans" that I probably talked more about than any other design book that I have ever read. As even till no it remains just as described in my first ever conversation with Snask.

"A FRESH and REVOLUTIONARY take on design (and life)  and a good-read these are  the first things that come to mind after reading this amazing book 'Make Enemies and Gain Fans'. I would say that SNASK have crazy (good) attitude and a will of a thousand Greek men fighting against the Gods for their place on earth. I'm a graphic design student and so it is that we 'read' a lot of design books, but trough two years of 'studying' graphic design I have never discovered anything like this book. I'm glad that that one Autumn day in a small town called Leeds my tutor John Watters and course mate Mike Williams had that discussion about this book and got me into this SNASK'iness. While reading this book I started annoying (in a good way) everyone in the studio about challenging yourself, taking risks, doing what you enjoy and 'pink lies'. One day I even came in wearing PINK just to bring a little bit happiness/positiveness into the studio (so it happens that there were two other girls wearing pink sweaters that day, happy accidents). For all the student that are still looking for a place under the sun I would suggest reading this book. If the 'typical' story line is NOT your cup of tea you might find some inspiration, positiveness and encouragement in this journey of Snask. You also get a peak into the 'behind the scenes' which answers  the BIG question 'So HOW did THEY make it?'. When you put the book down after reading the last chapter you'll find yourself craving for more SNASK (yum). It's like a good romance story about Romeo and Juliet, just Snask and Design without the sad ending."

My first ever interaction with a design studio has never been as successful. I am very happy that Snask are and will always be my beloved branding & film agency. They definitely know how not only to create and challenge the norm BUT how to show love. This time as always the Christmas special that has become an annual thing now.

So I packed up many many different sweet and sprayed all the sour stuff in white. I'm not sure how much I spent on all the stuff all together but I would just like to make a statement here. I realized that I do not mind spending on projects even if it washes out my savings account. It's an investment from me to my projects and I guess to my future.So I do not regret not even one pound spent :} 

After I went into the AV room and Matt Burton gladly helped me with setting up and syncing  the high speed camera which all the smashing was filmed. Then I made a quick and (admiringly) rushed soundtrack yet again made it till the deadline and are happy to share the final result:



Round Two: SWEET CHRISTMAS from GretaMadline on Vimeo.

It was received well by Snask:

 I now always send these links to Fredrik and he always gives me the best feedback that I had trough my 3 years in LCA:

me: https://vimeo.com/82618006 <--- it's rainig candy on christmas eve!

Fredrik: Amazing Greta!! You blew our minds! Have a wonderful Christmas and a truly ground shaking new year!

Statement of Intent

-apparently-

I AM A CREATIVE WITH A GRAPHIC DESIGNER SKILL SET FOCUSING ON MULTI-FORMAT PROJECTS WHICH EXPAND UPON MY INTEREST IN CREATIVE DIRECTION AND ENTREPRENEURALSHIP

There will be unicorns.Thomas Burden

by looking at linkedin I discovered this studio apparantly it's a one mans band. The name was the first hook.

http://www.therewillbeunicorns.com/

When I first checked it out I was astonished by the color and playfulness and the 3d skills that this person had so I decided to write a fan e-mail to Thomas Burden who was the one that ran the studio. 

"Since graduating, to (my own) rapturous applause, from Camberwell College of Art's Graphic Design BA in 2007, I have mixed a freelance career with longer, full-time stints as a senior designer at leading design studios McfaulStudio and I Love Dust. I've been lucky enough to have my range of illustrative styles grace everything from book covers, ad campaigns and magazine editorials to packaging, animations, websites, stage visuals, building projections and the entire exterior of a Beirut shopping mall (true story) for clients Nike, Pathe, Greenpeace, Wall St Journal, Washington Post, The Guardian, UPS, Empire, Macy's, Faber & Faber, Penguin and pretty much every ad agency under the sun. I'm represented for my illustration work by the good folk of Handsome Frank"

I was really pleased when we managed to have a small discussion about graduating and graphic design. Most importantly I have learned one thing tho some of the methods of being professional do help but you don't need to present yourself in a "shablon". There is no wrong or right way of doing things or writing to people. The best advice that I got from T.Burden was:

" ' Graphic Design' was used by my tutors as a very vague term that covered anything creative and conceptual, when in reality most 'graphic designers' do exactly that - branding, web and print design. So it depends what you want to do as a career, if you're not a typography and layout geek, then that stuff probably isn't for you anyway. There's loads of other options career wise. Strong ideas, presented simply will always stand out best though I think. Don't over complicate stuff, that's probably my best advise for getting noticed. Whatever you want to do, you'll need to present your work in a professional and concise way."

I am going to take this advice further and from now on build up my own way to approach people, studios or clients. Work hard, be passionate, present yourself well and see what comes from it. 

First Presentation after Summer.

PPP PRESENTATION.

EXITING SELF DIRECTED PROJECT WITH MICHAEL WILLIAMS.

Creative director: Greta Madline
Production manager, typographer and co-director: Michael Williams

These are only few shots from part 2 that are going to be used for my creative CV.

'Shit I don't need' project. This is the unfinished project yet. But the initial idea was to collect un-needed stuff  create an alphabet from which later n to create typographic posters in the theme that 'Everything looks gold but not everything is', 'One man's garbage is another's treasure', 'Shit You don't need' and so on. I was quite exited about the project and working with Mike was so much fun, we hang out a lot but we have never done a project together. And he said he enjoyed it so did I. I will need to go on Monday and pick up all the stuff I left in the photography studios. Event the tutors there got very exited about the project. We got so much help from the Marcus and Paul - it's amazing and I feel so comfortable doing stuff like this. I think I will continue on exploring this type of graphics and see how I can adopt it for college purposes. 

I will be using thsi week to produce the final's we have a stop motion, few videos to go with the project, I still want to do some interviews and put a video together and explore it trough different media. We might have few exhibitions of this. One in Mrs Atha's and one in this Art festival. So very exited and can't wait for the other idea to hit, oh wait it already did. I already know my next installation!

We did Lithuanian letters as well so we can expand to our idea to another country. 

I-BRANDING.

I decided to listen to what other people have to say about me and let them lead my branding. This year I've got a person that draw this image and trough talking to him I influenced him to make changes. I have only met Jurgis Tamulis once and it was enough for him to remember me. This year I discovered as well that if You want creative freedom - You need to give creative freedom to others. I also learned the importance of working with other creatives, that's why in a way I wanted my business cards created by others. So this is how it looks:

For now this is the only thing I am going to do, these cards are going to be produced (each individually) after the deadline, because I want to emboss the image and dip die the paper in blue colour. I am really exited that I'm going toi be making rthem and hope they come out great, because than I can start giving them away.

I have been working on a concept for my send out packs and I have an idea in mind which I'm going to produce later on as well. Just to see reactions of companies. I am going to do them based around idea that a lot of people get their placements trough contacts and trough family and I think that way the industry is missing out on some really amazing talent. So I'm doing typographic mail out of  'Sorry, my aunt doesn't work in creative advertising but could I still get a chance'.

About the website I decided I have no need to create one right now because I started sharing my work on behance and I think that might be the right platform for now. I don't really know what kind of designer I am right now or where my creative practice might lead to so I don't want to create a website that I will never use.

THE AIM OF (MY) LIFE. Defining my WHY.

I have been watching a lot of talks and a lot of motivational videos done by motivational people.

http://www.break.com/index/a-deep-and-awesome-view-on-life-from-a-9-year-old-2425420 <---- this is a video of a boy talking about the meaning of life in a most simple and TRUE way. This made me think that maybe when we were children we already knew what the meaning of life is but than we grew up and forgot.

I also looked at why and how to be happy and successful and came to understanding that YOU NEED TO KNOW WHY are you living your life and WHAT you love doing and WHY you love doing it. And Tho I still don't know which path of creativity I want to choose (Looking into advertising right now). And tho I don't know that - I realized  that I know WHY am I here on this planet.

MY AIM OF LIFE:

'To create work and live the life that would INSPIRE and MOTIVATE people to ACT and LIVE the life THEY want to live without fear of failure. Bring more laughter  more positiveness and more kindness to the world around us (and maybe beyond). And give reason to believe in dreams, fairy-tales of real life and love/passion in everything we do trough the act of doing it (often).'

So that's out of the way now. I know what is my reason for creativity and life - now I just need to go and DO that. 

WHY-----> HOW-------> WHAT

The principle of success:

WHY ----> HOW -----> WHAT

'People don't buy WHAT you do they buy WHY you do it' - Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action (watch the talk)

GOING BACK TO LITHUANIA WAS AN EYE OPENER. PERSONAL PRACTICE. YES! I WILL BE TALKING ABOUT LITHUANIA. DON'T LIKE IT - DON'T READ.

I decided to share my experience of going back to Lithuania. I've learned a while ago not to compare any cultures but as I am a Lithuanian and don't want to forget my heritage maybe adapt some of the cultural things that  got from my homeland. I was talking with another Graphic Designer that is from Lithuania as well (Elena Jarmosh, Norwich university) and we discussed that CULTURE has a huge impact on the way you think and see the world.

Some times on the course I forget that I AM LITHUANIAN. It might be because I am always surrounded by British people, which is not bad at all, I am very glad to get to know this culture (way more than in London I did). Anyways, when I recently went back to Lithuania again after 6 months of not being there - It was an eye opener. I don't think I have ever had such an emotional and lightening journey.

(Translation. 'Shut up - Work more) This is the attitude I came back with. Don't like it - change it. Work hard for the things that matter and have your own mind  NEVER become a sheep and never let people crush who you really are. At the end it's going to be worth it and You'll have good stories to tell.

I also realized that recently I stopped having fun and was always trying to run away from Graphics rather than finding a way to enjoy it and I think that might have been because of the way we had to work on a professional level without THE BIG IDEA which makes everything pointless. It doesn't have to be a publication, if it is it doesn't have to be boring. Making things exiting! I found this quote on The Kenedys project blog 'WHY DO SOMETHING BORING WHEN YOU CAN DO SOMETHING AMAZING' The guys who said that do a lot of flyers, but their flyers look AMAZING! AND I realized that  it doesn't matter in what media or how but if the idea is good it can communicate. This image shows just a series of words on sheets of smth and it's outside the ART university in Lithuania, you can see it from the balcony (in which U CAN SMOKE) and it says 'COME BACK TO BED' I found it hilarious and it made me realize another thing, that it is about COMMUNICATION and the less it is limited the better it is, you shouldn't be afraid to put your ideas out there. If you play it safe and ONLY THINK AND RESEARCH and do a publication, well, You're not going to get FAR with that...Taking chances and making it happen! That's what get's the attention. NOT RULES.

http://www.ourmachine.com/page/designed-by-machine/ <--- visit this link to see OURMACHINE for NOT boring publications!

They also have this cool thing on the website where you can play music

 http://www.ourmachine.com/page/the-records/  <--- check it out.

On every corner I could fin interesting things and they are all about the idea! In this one beer the toilet sign was like this! And I do know Lithuania is full of bad design but there has been a change in these three years that I'm here. It seems people started putting ideas in front of everything and the nature of ASTONISHING with any design piece. It's clever enough it says WelCome in the WC sign but THEY HAVE AN ALIEN!!!!! Now I understand where my roots lie. My ideas are not crazy they are just Lithuanian! Aliens welcome, man I still find it funny every time I look at it

And You go inside the toilet thinking 'Well they can't astonish me more....' and here you go. THE SIGN OF FEMALE AND MALE. awesome! Brought me back to Fred's session in first year about semiotics and meaning and visual language. 

I went to see my mom in the Hotel that she lived in while visiting the capital Vilnius and even the hotel was amazing. We drank some coffee from these cups! 'BABY' How cheesy is that but it WORKS! It captures attention and flatters you BABY. 
PRETTY DAMN GOOD HOTEL. What a slogan. CHA! I was really surprised cuz the hotel was very luxurious still youth driven so i was thinking it's a 5 start hotel apparently it's only 3! Here you go - Lithuanian third world country - don't think so...

Than in our version of 'Starbucks' called 'COFFEE INN' one of the most popular cafe's in Lithuania I found this poster and only later I found out that this design studio that work I liked in the past as well just didn't know it - is going to be come one of the most inspiring things in my life and bringing back the hope that design in Lithuania is NOT DYING OR IS DEAD. NOT PERFECT - a design studio in Lithuania, check it out - absolutely astonishing WORK!

As I said before You can find good ideas FLOATING in the air. I can't tell you the exact translation of this writing but basically. The word high or higher can mean kind of outrageous in Lithuanian and this is basically it. So the text says it couldn't be more outrageous or HIGH... And it's on top of this old cinema building, on the VERY top! BAZINGA!

A wine place in Lithuania, thouth this is a very good idea how to create your environment piece by piece. Big jars that they put bottle tops in. And they have A LOT OF WINE, we probably drank most of it that night ;DDD

 When I visited the ART university 'VDA' we managed to sneak into the Visual Design sector and I wasn't very pleased with the distribution, but on their walls they had loads of students recent work, which were posters  (and again not pleased) BUT the ideas! The visual language and the detail of images they used, not as worried about type but. The first image. Look at it! See that yellow poster don't panic! HOW WELL DID THEY CHOSE THE CONCEPT, very simple - very communicative. After looking trough the posters I realized that probably this was a task to create a poster choosing any social problem. WELL DONE Lithuanian Graphics students! When You have a good idea than you can adapt it to any media that WORKS.

 TO FINISH OFF. 20 minutes before jumping into a car that would bring me back to my hometown I visited the gallery of the ART university and I WAS ASTONISHED. First of all THE SPACE! It's huge and only THE BEST STUDENTS ARE DISPLAYED from each course so it's around 15 students work in the gallery apparently the students need to apply for this space and  it's dedicated to STUDENT work. Just putting it out there. They all can CHOOSE the way their work is displayed and I was surprised that everything is done VERY unprofessionally. The graphics again had posters (sadly) but IDEAS! I was blown away. Not being afraid to say direct messages. Like this picture on the left. CHA! David would appreciate it. The fashion student displays were AMAZING. I am hoping one of my friends will get in to the university! Furniture as well, very modern - interesting. There was also architecture students - WOW! The detail, the analysis and the visuals themselves were just astonishing.  You could see all of the sketchbooks.

Just to record this - it took me an hour and 20 minutes to do this post. I was actually analyzing and thinking what I'm putting on, so just to break the thought - 'leave 20 minutes to do your blog posts each day' - 20 MINUTES! ARE YOU JOKING. YOU can get some crappy images in 20 minutes - if that's what this course requires with no analyzes. Not even gong to do that. I rather spend an hour and blog the important stuff that i actually find motivating and mind-opening than just putting out anything for the sake of blogging.

ONE MORE THING I LEARNED: I like contextual studies. (I went to few sessions in the Art university, they gladly let me stay and listen and even got me involved in the discussions we had)
AND: Knowledge is not about how much information you can consume into your brain it's about thinking and being bright, curious and open-minded AND not sitting in front of the computer for hours. You want to know your audience so be around your audience - meet your audience cuz the 'AUDIENCE' ARE PEOPLE!
AND: You can only spend so much time working if You enjoy it - than no time is wasted.
P.S: If you want good time management LET people manage their times as grown ups.

RESEARCH FOR PPP. CONTACTING.

I went on Wieden+Kennedys New York Office and found this. Thought it was amazing so decided to share it with you guys. A simple concept as 'the first pancake allways burns' (we have this saying in Lithuanian, not sure how it sounds in British). This guy has made a lot of pancakes. Enjoy your breakfast!

Description

In a world where making the font page of Reddit is equivalent to writing the great American novel and reaching 1 million Twitter followers makes you a celebrity, the idea of what it means to be culturally relevant has been shaken to its core.  What has changed? What does it take to become part of culture in the digital era? Can it be planned or is it, as it has always been, a serendipitous outcome of exceptional talent or creativity? This panel explores how the internet has changed the rules of what makes people, products and ideas part of culture.

Questions Answered

1. In a world where making the font page of Reddit is equivalent to writing the great American novel and reaching 1 million Twitter followers makes you a celebrity, the idea of what it means to be culturally relevant has been shaken to its core.  What has changed?
2. What does it take to become part of culture in the digital era?
3. Can one plan to make something culturally relevant or is it, as it has always been, a serendipitous outcome of exceptional talent or creativity?
4. Has the internet changed what it means to be a celebrity?
5. Lessons for brand building on the internet.

PPP. IMPROVE.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO IMPROVE:

1. Illustrator skills
2. LEARN embossing
3. More laser cut
4. Writing skills
5. Keeping up with blogging and not hatting it.
6. Documenting my thought process/design development
7. Care more about marks
8. Time management
9. Be more aware of what is happening in the design scene and the world
10. Staying focused
11. Learn about new and developing technology that might be used for interaction in design

While we were doing the 505 brief we had to write down things taht we need to improve on and this is my list. Thought would be useful to have it on PPP blog.