Meeting James Littlewood - Design Project

One of my most admired design studios up north; Design Project has been one that I've been following for quite some time now; the work showcased on their website demonstrate an inspirational collection of work ranging from website designs for P+HS Architects to the 44th annual of the D&AD Awards.

Meeting James Littlewood, the director of Design Project was an invaluable experience. We chatted for just under an hour about graphic design, Design Project, my portfolio and few other things and received some positive and constructive feedback/advice on my work. One of the major things he picked on was that I didn't have many physical copies of my work, especially as I was talking about print finishes and wanting to focus more n design for print, this wasn't the 1st time it's been mentioned by a professional that I've spoken to so definitely need to sort this out before my next studio visit! I used to think that having a structured portfolio printed showing well photographed work was enough, but this doesn't seem to be engaging enough as they would most likely have seen my work on my website before anyway so definitely need to bring something more if I was to use up some of their time.

From speaking to James, I got some great advice and opinions from him about my work and where I'm thinking of heading with my 3rd year. It has definitely influenced the direction and my design strategy for the final year and beyond.

In general meeting James was a fantastic opportunity to talk to a working professional who produced work that I aspired to. Again the main thing he was a little disappointed about was that I didn't have many physical pieces of my work so it was difficult for him to make a judgement on it just from looking at the photos. In response to me finally asking about placement opportunities, he said that he wanted to see more work first, therefore has asked for me to go back in a couple of months with more physical and recent work and will go from there.

As an overall experience, I was very satisfied with meeting him and getting the feedback off my work. From now till December, I will be developing and printing out past work and work on some new briefs to produce some high end work to show him later in the year, which would hopefully impress him enough to offer me some placement experience at Design Project. It's going to be a busy few months for sure but also really looking forwards to producing work that I enjoy!