CUBE Gallery visit: Alan Fletcher: Fifty years of graphic work (and play)

As part of my new brief design in context: Floral Drawing project (Live) I decided to visit the Alan Fletcher exhibition, celebrating 50 years of his work and collaborations.

design in context final outcome

After a full on 4 weeks I finally finished my design in context brief, and I have to say its the first final outcome of a project that I'm really proud of. I Wanted to show the box in a space with a combination of Industrial v Quaint floral country style. I wanted to do this because its a total contrast between the two, and by putting my final piece which is visually more industrial with the essence of floral, it brings out the industrial look of the piece but does not overpower the setting.

Alex Russell Review

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Alex Russell, and for all you people who don't know who he is, he's a very successful freelance designer and specifies in interior and fashion. He was invited my tutors on my course to speak to us about his work and generally tell us how free lance designers work and the ups and downs of being in the world of design.
Alex's work is vary varied in the ways in which he creates his designs. He draws on anything and everything he can get his hands on and usually scans his raw material to the computer ready for the process stage. He admitted he is 'a bit of a geek' when it comes to using Photoshop and Illustrator, he did state that he mainly uses Illustrator. (This is something I'm becoming more of aware of at late, that Illustrator is a vital tool when designing, more so than Photoshop it seems, typical really, I'm quite rusty when it comes to Illustrator, but Its something I'm going to have to know inside out soon enough.)
He showed us vast amount of work, old and fresh new designs he only just finished. Every piece was brilliant. Alex had me captivated straight from the fact he seems to love the use of colour, like me. No design was the same and each design worked, faultless work. His work has a a hint of humour involved, especially his his illustrative pieces, quite random and cheeky, but none the less brilliant work.
Alex did point out something which was 'be adaptable'. A obvious thing to say I know, but if your not willing to be adaptable and willing to modify designs or to to listen to your clients, your set to fail.
Alex did expand on to the business side and in my opinion more complex side of the being a freelance designer: His prices for his designs depends on what field its in, so interior would be dearer than fashion, goes with out saying really. He said that Interior would  range from £600-£900 per design and fashion would be a from £300 - £500, all depending on the quality of design and the client, that also plays a part.
Overall Alex was a down to earth bubbly, optimistic guy that loved everything and anything to do with design. H was also very helpful in giving a good insight what it would take to be a freelance designer and the amount of work and chasing involved to get your designs out there for people to admire and enjoy.
He did say  'nothing beats having a cup of coffee in the morning, with the radio on and designing something on the computer', and that to me sounds like a good job to wake up to n the morning, don't you agree?.

http://www.alexrussell.com

more secondary images that have inspired me

More work by Tom Price

Random images that inspired me

Design in context: Exploration and my final outcome

My original idea of having glue sticks as a outer exterior, slightly changed due to an factor that I did not plan on happening. When pouring the plaster, when to runny is hit through the cracks. Something I wanted to avoid at all cost, but after the plaster set I liked the random line structures it made. So I decided to to keep it but balance it out by waring the plaster down so it looked like it already naturally there. Glue sticks combine the plaster lines I thought would of been too much and detracted from the actual purpose of the container.