One of the most important aspects of one's online creative presence is ensuring you establish a brand which effectively communicates your practice. As a 2D generalist with a preference for character design I opted to showcase this aspect front-and-centre by incorporating a caricatured self portrait into the branding across my entire portfolio. One of the strongest elements to my drawing style is my linework, so I wanted to emphasise that as much as possible in my branding. Text retains a clean, hand-drawn aesthetic which foregoes cursive in favour of block lettering as to echo the contemporary style of web design which favours sans-serif font choices and simplicity of design.
Initial business card design printed for MAF (Back)
My initial business card designs which were hastily thrown together in time for Manchester Animation festival served as a template for my branding guidelines. Feedback I received from peers, tutors and professionals on the design of the cards leaned mostly positive, with some criticising the self portrait on the back as being boring, not communicating the fact I was an animator too clearly.
Self portrait used in branding for Website, CV, Showreel, Business Cards etc...
To amend this, for my updated design, my character is now at a graphics tablet drawing, with comically exaggerated curly blocking the face, which lends more character to the design. I also chose to more concisely highlight my social media links using icons, as there was some confusion as to whether my username was for my Instagram or my Twitter, as both use a similar format.
Updated business card design (Back)
jayfoster.co.uk
Website
My website (created in Wix) serves as the centrepiece of my online portfolio, a hub that links all my social media accounts together and serves as a promotional pack to highlight my strengths as a practitioner and areas in which I specialise. As a generalist, my showreel serves as the main showcase of my ability as an animator, while the gallery highlights pre-production work such as backgrounds and character designs using images and animated GIFs. I decided to give my gallery a collage style layout as I felt showing the images in full alongside one another was the best way to showcase my multi-disciplinary skillset. In future however I would like to subcategorise the gallery along the lines of Backgrounds, Character Design and Illustration, as I become more specialised with experience.
The headers at the top of each page also fall under the same style of branding, incorporating the handwritten, non-cursive look. The rest of the text lower down in the hierarchy is all Helvetica Light in keeping with the otherwise sleek contemporary web design layout. I also garnered some feedback on my site from my dad who works in web design in order to make my online portfolio more professional. He suggested changing the thumbnail of my portfolio on the homepage, as this doubles up with the header on the page as well as purchasing a domain and getting a Wix premium account in order to get rid of the Wix banner ads at the top of my page.
Over the course of my Extended Practice module I have gotten into the habit of posting pre-production work to my Instagram account in order to garner peer feedback. Instagram also serves as a useful way of showcasing work in a way which prevents plagiarism due to the sites image dimensions and compression. Luckily however this isn't usually an issue as UK copyright law grants rights to the original owner of the image if they can prove it, so by only showcasing lower resolution imagesthrough Instagram, I can ensure my work is not lifted by someone else.
It's also useful in terms of self promotion in the industry through the use of hashtags, which draws people to my work through search terms such as #BackgroundLayout & #CharacterDesign. One of the limitations however is images and video have to be uploaded from my Google Drive account via my Iphone which effects the quality of the overall image, which is why my website is designed to serve as my core portfolio. Instagram serves as more of a convenience, as people often access it through their smartphones.
Vimeo
I chose to set up a Vimeo account instead of a Youtube account as it is a more niche community for creators, with a more tight curation centred more on showcasing creativity over generating clickbait content. Vimeo isn't nearly as big as Youtube and hosts/promotes much more creative content from videography to animation, allowing users to post video in collaboration and with less stingy algorithmic restrictions on copyrighted content, which is useful for when I post my showreel. Vimeo's player also allows for a higher quality of video than Youtube's compression algorithm and makes for a more highly optimised video sharing experience. Overall the interface is just cleaner and largely free from ads, fitting the brand of my portfolio more than other video sharing sites.
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/what-is-vimeo/
Perhaps the most important aspect of a creative's online presence, my LinkedIn account serves as both a sort of online CV, linking to my actual CV as well as my showreel and a social network for professionals. My LinkedIn is likely the first thing a professional is exposed to as I apply for jobs working freelance or in studios, so it is important it best reflects my personal brand as a practitioner. Most the branding assets are on display here as well as links to all my other social media accounts and website. Its important for me to keep my LinkedIn up to date and I have been doing so as work has come in and showreels have been updated.LinkedIn also proves to be a valuable resource for keeping in touch with professionals via email as well as individual studios listing jobs as they are posted.
No comments:
Post a Comment