Recently I went on a University trip to New York City. Before I went I organised to go and visit two design agencies with my portfolio while I was there. One company I have been interested in for a while is Biggs & Co. The company have the contract for branding, packaging and advertising Soap&Glory beauty products. Soap&Glory is very well branded, using strong typography, retro images and excellent, witty copywriting. The products definitely stand out against the rest of the competition and it is one of the brands I looked at for inspiration during a recent re-brand project for Holland and Barrett.
Lauren and I both visited Biggs & Co with our portfolios and we saw a lady named Alli Truch, who is a Creative Partner at the New York office and also tutors third year degree students a few nights each week. I had been contacting Alli for a while before the visit and therefore had knowledge of the type of projects she was working on at the time, which made meeting her less daunting. Alli was extremely welcoming and before we even got round to showing her our portfolio's she showed Lauren and I her own portfolio of work. This made a nice change as designers are usually very busy and therefore cannot spare much time. Alli went through many projects she had worked on; explaining the highs and lows of each and describing certain obstacles she had come across, giving us advice on what to do in certain situations. It was a brilliant opportunity to see how rough ideas had been developed in to commercial, professional identities and product packaging. It was great to hear such informed advice from a designer working in a different environment and compare her experiences to the design industry in the UK.
Afterwards, I showed Alli my portfolio and talked her through each project within my folder. Alli then went back through the work to give feedback on what she had seen and was overall very complimentary. She stated that our use typography was at a high standard, much higher than the students she taught herself. She said that this must be a reflection of the emphasis Stockport College much put on crafting type. She told Lauren and I that this was impressive and a good skill to have because a lot of students neglect the importance of typography and concentrate on other aspects, which lets the final outcome of work down.
Alli was impressed with the layout of our portfolios and liked the fact that we had thought about how we would present our work in a professional manner, with the use of the box and sliding the pages across. However, she told us that we might want to think about personalising our folders. She suggested embossing our names and decorating the portfolio boxes in a creative and unique style, in order to ensure that we stand out and designers remember who we are. Alli also advised us to think about creating a leave-behind of our work to remind designers of the work we show, and also to think about designing business cards and ‘branding’ ourselves. She gave us a few examples of business cards and letterheads for Biggs & Co to take away with us and asked us to keep in touch.
Alli specialises in identities and packaging design, therefore Lauren and I plan to keep in contact with Alli and email her examples of our packaging work for the Holland and Barrett brief. We hope to gain feedback and advice from her as how to progress our ideas further and develop our ideas in to advertising and point of sale material.
