- Only (obvious response) - music related
- Vapour
- Hungry Sandwich Club - animation
- Laundry (https://www.behance.net/laundry) - animation - uber, airbnb
- Tom Haugomat (https://www.behance.net/tomhaugomat) - illustration / animation
- Daniel Barkle (https://www.behance.net/Danbarkle)- type
Provide outline of each - why they inspire me, how interviewing them could develop my practise.
Only
A Leeds based studio addressing themselves as an award-winning strategy and design consultancy helping organisations to use design to innovate and grow.
I have already had good contact with them through their visits into uni for talks and crit sessions for Design for Screen so I may be tempted to look elsewhere.
They are very brand identity driven, with some very strong links into the dance music industry. They have recently just released a huge project with Printworks in London which has seriously made them even bigger on the map. The design work for the new groundbreaking, multi-purpose event space for the UK's capital city is a dance music temple which I would love to talk to them about!
However, I found with the massive exposure they have gotten, it has become increasingly difficult to get a response from them and they do now have plans to re-locate to Manchester so I will consider somewhere else as well as sending individual works to other designers/studios.
Vapour
Another Leeds based studio with a strong web design focus.
I was quick to get in touch with them when my girlfriend's Dad mentioned he needed his new business identity professionally done. Pointing him in their direction, as I was already familiar with the quality of their work, he turned into quite a decent sized side-line project for them - brand identity, website design, etc.
Having a strong role in helping her parents with the feedback once they started receiving the developed design ideas; I found that upon one of their frequent meetings to discuss developed ideas, Scott offered for me to come along - really giving me an amazing opportunity to go and experience the studio first-hand and gain inspiration from how they approached their whole designer-client relationship.
Their studio is an impressive long-running space with a sofa arrangement at the far end by the floor to ceiling window. The meeting was held very comfortably there, with there designs being presented on iPads.
The whole vibe these young guys gave off was very friendly and to the point, but approached in an easy and understandable way for the clients who are not particularly knowledgable of specific graphic related terminology; the studio is very chilled out and casual, but very cool - reflecting their personalities very well as soon as you come in as well as there graphic design.
The approachable feeling is then also strongly reinforced by their huge gorgeous dog, Lola, who welcomes you at the door and breaks that initial ice when you first arrive.
(She also stars in a City Talking Interview!) - http://www.thecitytalking.com/pets-in-leeds-lola/This first time meeting the guys went really well, and they were impressed with my inputs and knowledge. Knowing that this PPP brief was coming up I took their emails so I could stay in touch, with aims of possibly coming back for a visit to get some feedback on my portfolio and potentially get them to agree to the interview!
I emailed straight after the meeting linking them my online portfolio with the hopes of some feedback.
I didn't receive anything back for a couple of weeks, I understood they were a busy agency and hoped they'd just forgotten to reply, so I gave them a ring.
I ended up having a nice long chat with Jamie (the creative director) who did have the chance to look at my Behance but just didn't get round to writing anything up to send back!
His only feedback was he was impressed with the range of projects I've been able to already professionally mockup, only being in my second year. He particularly loved the experimental format of my Beograd publication, and the foil across the cover gave it that industry standard sleek quality.
Over the phone, I was able to ask if he would be happy for me to come in and get more in-depth feedback off them, and also if I could take some photos and ask some questions too. He got the jist of were I was going with it and said he'd love to have me back at the studio for an organised afternoon, just to email him!
About Vapour:
- don't need external developers as they have a new in-house developer as part of the team, including another team member who does work externally to the studio from abroad (currently in Thailand)
They talk about simplicity being key when communicating with clients.
They split their design approach into 3 core strands - brand, digital and graphic.
***Opened in 2007 offering only print design services.
In 2011, they decided to broaden the banks and launch a new site offering client branding design, digital design, social media boosting and general marketing services.
They ran a competition for a business to win their new logo free by Vapour - was this successful promotion??
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2011/04/21/leeds-agency-vapour-relaunches-new-services
Focus on 2 of the Vapour boys!? narrow it down to be more specific
- Jamie - creative director
- Dave - designer and illustrator
Cover how they got to where they are today.
Popular projects
- LWE
- Safehouse Management
- Arcadia
- Spektre
- 20/20 Vision (Ralph Lawson's label)
(all the above connected to the dance music industry)
- Nike ACG
- Alchemist
- Reds Bbq
Possible Qs
- 3 things you couldn't live without?
- Do you prefer working in a smaller, tight-knit collective of creatives?
- How do you divide up the projects that come in? Do you work as a collective (all chipping in) or as individual designers?
- How did you come together to form Vapour?
- Any practical issues you had to get around upon starting up? - premises/admin/finance?
- How else did you advertise yourself in the early days?
- Any studios/designers who you did/still do look up to and feel influences by?
- The story behind the name?
- If you could start again, how would you do it differently?
- Keep talent in design up north?
- Can you see yourselves branching out (maybe out of Leeds) in the future?
- If you weren't a designer/creative, what would you be?
- Your typical day?
- What makes a project most challenging? Are these the most rewarding?
- How did you think designers help shape the world?
- Advice to budding designers?
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