2024 Graphic Communication

I'm not designing since I'm a fulltime teacher (except if like one of my instructors you think we are kind of teachnig designers...) but from time to time I'm still doing a little bit of it. Specially for associations.

Oftenly that could start with a bad attempt by an amateur and I offer to do better!

This is a poster for a street bands fest. Using the picture this amateur (part of the board) drew.

This poster won't be in any book about graphic design neither an inspiration for students: there a compromissions, dictated choices, preferences which give less visual impact but members feel conforting, in resume: I designed a poster.

Of course I also designed the flyer and the Facebook bann:

If I Were A Designer #25: branding

I wrote about the graphic identity I made when I was a student 20 years ago which lasted 10 years before evolving.

I recently received a news from a firm I was working for telling me (well not only me you can imagien they sent it to every person in their contact list) it was changing its brand to conserve only the most famous of its portfolio.

That's how I discovered that brands I created in 2006 were still alive until 2023 and believe me I wouldn't thought about that at the time!

An emotion came and took the time to mature to these 2 posts!

 

With the brands I also created the very first logos. They rapidly have been re-worked by a communication agency  when the brands had received a positive feddback from potentiel buyers (so we can tell that some of my brands failed these first tests and some others passed but did not survive as long).

 

If I Were A Designer #24: graphic identity for orchestra

More or less 20 years ago when I was a student I entered the Musicampus association conducting an universitarian orchestra. For the first concert I had to put a poster in my school and I still remember I made it at midnight because I didn't wanted to be seen with such an atrocity in my design school!

So I proposed to the association board: " I'm not a grapic designer but I can do better!

_ Nice! Could you make the logo for the association too?

_ Why not!"

I'm the one who answered that last question: Musicampus was the official name but everyone was naming directly the orchestra so I made a graphic identity for the orchestra: 

The logo is directly inspired by a poster by Muller-Brockmann:

My logo was less geometrical, circle arcs represent the sections of the orchestra, the name is at the conductor place, there is a strict square around because it's calssical music but it's ripped by the yougness (and the amateurism) of the members.

Blue and yellow were the association's colours (well actually those were the colour of the university and I'm pretty sure they changed the year after).

At the time this graphic design was intended to implant the identity of the orchestra and I though it would need to be changed 5 years later by a more serious one.

It lasted more than 10 years.

The new graphic identity is nice. It's not mine but the circle arcs are still here!

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Teacher For Real

... or may I wrote Real Teacher because here I am:

Close to 10 years ago I went for the first time to the exam to become a design teacher for in national college, just to know how it was, and of course I failed.

I tried a few times and always failed.

So I became an Applied Arts (mostly design) teacher as annual contractor and a colleague told me to pass the exam for what I was teaching and not for what I wanted to teach as it is simplier.

Indeed I passed it this year and today is my first day as a public teacher. A real teacher.

This is kind of a probation year but I'm not afraid to make it and to reach the next school year as an official public teacher.

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First hollidays this year

 That's one month I didn't published anything. The worst is that the posts all along september were made in advance.

I can't find neither the time nor the energy to make this AFTER my day. Teacher is said to be a nice job without working... Sometimes I would like not to work!

I'm not sure teachers ever have been "notables" but now their heads can be cutted by anyone who disagree.

Yvan prof take 2!!

That's years I want to teach design.

After my first design teaching job for a few years in Nantes here I am in a public high school In Vienne (close to Lyon, you know, not in Austria).

I'm starting this position in the middle of the semester and that causes me a few inconveniences like, find my rythm when students have their own for months now, and I'm curious to see what will happen in the year.




I think I will write on this blog some posts about my lessons, how I manage my progress schedule for each level, and other stuff.
After all this is a profesional blog, the posts about Estafette are really nice but that's not all folks.

Slide Designer

As I've been searching for my employment with keywords I've discovered jobs I couldn't imagine exist:
You are telling me someone can be employed to create and develop a design bible for video-projected slides, and help everyone in the teams to use it correctly.
Right now I understand this. My first surprise is they ask for a specialized profesional where I thought that every graphic designer could do it.
Mostly this is a long term contract! You would have your career just to design and redesign slides? How would you occup your working days? That's really questionning my knowledge about my skills! .

Head Hunting Accident

Some head hunters give themselves pleasure by selectioning my kind of profile for a job they dream to have me in the list they sell to their client even when I don't match the background you would need. That happened to me when I was really profesionally active.
Now that I have less pro news of course, less.
Well, now the hunting season is on [yes you can see their name because they spend some of my time for nothing]:

This text sounds like they introduce you to firms but on their website I can read that they offer coaching for bosses so where am I supposed to have something to do? Well, let's accept their appointment and see. Until the day before the day when I receive this in the afternoon:

So they just cancelled the appointment after they took a real look on my resume to finally see I'm not the one they were searching for.
You know what, if one day I have to work with them in any way... could I trust people who proved me they don't do their job properly?
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Less on: Bonus Track

I'm not a lot on the Internet so I didn't saw that but here are the results from last month:

Fb CoMet

So my students have all passed their examn, and I have to say I wasn't sure about that so that's a great surprise!
I'm not the one who did that as the design question(s) is about gaining 6 points over 80, but this is nice to know.
Bravo to all the teachers, all the administrative, and of course all the students (I have an even bigger think for the ones who were far away and had to surpass themselves to make it).
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Less-on #4

 That's my last delivery from my students before a long time as I don't teach anymore.
Some are easy like this one "the cost to buy it is a cost". Yes, I could'nt say better.

Some of them are really funny, while working about seasonal foods: "treks loose their leaves" (well, the original version is an error from arbres [trees] and arabes [arabs] but that's a fault on the order of the letters not on the word):

(well, the french version could be dys-understood, I assure there is no racism in here)

One more time, I'm not joking on the people, but on these small lights of sun they let me see in the fog of the corrections. Some are at an unexpected level for this degree (I was teachnig in a 2 years degree in social help, so the design is about 6 points in their exam):
 

Even sometimes I learn things! For example the national Health Plan advises to consume things at theit natural production period. I do understand it when it's about something that grows (fruits, vegetables, tubers...). But where is the point when you speak about cheeses (some of them could stay 5 to 36 months in a ripening cellar depending on how strong you want it):

 I'm working for the Beaufort cheese this year, and I don't even understand which season they choose!
In April the cows are still inside eating hay, the summer season of the cheese starts with June, so why eat the one in April? In a shop you can find all over the year this cheese from summer milk AND this from winter milk, more or less strong when you come to buy it.
That's not an historical season as in some parts of the region of production they were given the cows to a common mountain during the summer, so they had enough milk to make this big cheese, and they were keeping the cows at home during the wintertime, producing small cheese and butter to sell at the city. In other parts that was the opposite, they were a lot in the village during winter so they could produce big cheeses and they were each family in a different mountain during the summertime so each one was making its small cheese.

The Beaufort Cheese and the Comté Cheese are pretty similar, let's say cousins. And there is a kind of alternativity. Is it a choice in the sheet to make no one jalous?
And what about Aligot? That's a cooking with cheese, potatoes, garlics!
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Return of the Peddler

5 years ago I've been working for the promotion of the Beaufort cheese... which celebrates this year the 50 years of its protected name! For this occasion they wanted to make more events, 50 all over the year, and they choose to restart with one of the people having worked with them in this operation. My schedule was kind of free so I candidated and I've been chosen (to be fair I was the only one from the past summers to be able to make my time free).

So here I go again through mountains and cows (that's a nice joke in French, that's doesn't work at all in English) with 2 missions.

Firstly to animate meeting with producers and consumers. Mainly by visiting farms and going in nature to speak with producer about their daily job.

The most important is to take photo of every person working for this cheese. Mostly the producers, there are more than 400 farms so there is a lot of people to see! And that's so much fun! Because that's a nice way to meet people and discover how they live. Even more as that allows me to see buildings I could never saw! There are the all-new farms with big spaces and facilities:

and the opposite with very old farm where everything is handmade, from taking the shit away from the inside to... taking the milk from the caw!

The oldest one I've seen, still in use and mostly in its original form, is from 1618!!

Other ones are in a old house, even in the former village school:

I'm one of the very few to see all that jazz, I'm a very happy few!
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Remember 2017

May it be funny that I'm making this retrospectiv for the second consecutive year... that means I started to show my main projects of the year since I have no more projects as a freelancer main activity!
How logic I am!

My main job is now to organize a soccer contest for a small associative club (less than 170 members) so of course there is a poster for this competition (why am I starting by the end of the year??):

And for the same club there are a lot of communication products (performing their website, intern communication posters, presentation, cases) including the new year wishes:

A few before was the poster for a caritative concert:

And a few months ago was the one for my concert band:

I like this one, and not because I'm on it...
More than the poster were the videos from this concert, not a Hollywood movie but still a lot of time on it.

Aaaand even earlier was the management of the communication for the band fest Les Fanfaronnades, plus a few creations (schedule, videos...) including the adaptation of the fest poster (artwork by Siobhan Gately) to create the poster for the volunteers night:

A lot of colors in this year, aren't they?
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Variations For A Design

I recently wrote about the first poster I've done with an app I discovered this springtime. Here it is!
That's an occasion to show the variations of the poster during its final stage (that's not always easy to mix the designer's vision and the cutsomer's aim):

original photo : Jean-Pierre Malavialle under Free Art Licence

The second one is the one, that's a caritative concert on December 3th in Nantes (France) by the association Appel détresse.
There were no bad choice, of course, I do think I've done a good job on the three of these. My favorite was the first on left, the third on right was the one respecting the more the changes asked by the client, so may the second in the center be the right middle!
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Less-on #3

That's the third year I aks my students a work on a part of the history of design and each year there are a few candies.
There were not a lot of bad surprises this year, I would say they did a lot of good work, losing a little in the synthesis and some layout failures despite my (wise!) advices like a text block with a background colour out of nowhere regarding the booklet, or like images arranged to fill the blank ont eh last page when all the other pages were well balanced:

Then some people hope that they can have a better grade by flattering me:

"I thank you to put this name in the proposal mister teacher of design." I wasn't excpeting this!

Each time I say my students I prefer images than too much text. Buuuut, and as I wrote this year was a good one, some are able to give you the envy to read all the text just by the quality of their presentation:

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Back to School!

Yeah, I do know that a lot of people is yet at school for days, some others will have to wait their school to be rebuilt (and some others need the "helped contracts" for their collectivity to be validated).
But today is the day I start a new year with my students. That's my third prom!

It happens than this year we will make some lessons for the first level in the same time than for the second level so I had to remake my schedule in a few days (my planning has been definitive only on Thursday afternoon). So I can see the evolution of my process (for the same content, well, I make it evolve too):

First year: the day, the number of the lesson (very usefull) and the main subject. And my signature, but that's only for administrative reasons to be sure I've made my lesson.

Second year, there is a new column for the evaluated exercices. That's the big new thing.

 This year I could speak about progression, that's a teaching vocabulary! Very simple, I could go further with objectives and their evaluation but I only had 4 days to make this (4 days I was working on an other way) I wasn't able to make it more precise.
Even for me there is elements I need that I didn't wrote so this schedule will evolve by itself along the year.
So, let's eat and let's go!
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Less-ons #2

The beginning of the year is the period I have to correct the history of design works my students have done since the first semester. And some delicious things I can't not showing here!

First of all, like last year, the work about Apple (sugar, I've forgot to take a picture of it, so here is the quote): "[...] that Apple is making to keep its clients Fidel."

May she wrote it the week-end after the 25th of November?

I don't show the "jump-scare" words, like the preraphaelist heritage in Art Nouveau (here comes Wikipedia)! And here is the file about Matali Crasset (yes, exactly like last year, maybe there are subjects creating errors in the treatment?):

At the second line of the file I do now that it's a simple copy-paste from the designer's website without any effort to understand and reappropriate her work. Matali Crasset writes her name like a brand, in full without capitals. When the student write it like that I certainly know that's directly from the creator's site. Of course all the file is like that, with this beginning text in the third singular person, immediatly followed by the part What I can do for you and with you !
I really don't like to put bad grades, I have bad conscience putting a zero, but not this one time.
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Skills of Future

The World Economic Forum valid surveys and reports, including one intituled The Future of Jobs

http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/

I didn't read BUUUUT one part has came to me: THE 10 skills for tomorrow!

 

  

Firstly here are the 2015 most asked skills:

1. Complex problem solving (isn't that the exact definition of design?)
2. Coordinating with others
3. People management
4. Critical thinking
5. Negotiation
6. Quality control
7. Service orientation
8. Decision making
9. Active listening
10. Creativity

And now here are the 2020's most wanted skills:

1. Complex problem solving (why would you change a winning team)
2. Critical thinking (gooooood for me that!)
3. Creativity (until now that's promising for me)
4. People management (I still need a few XP)
5. Coordinating with others
6. Emotional intelligence (know how to use your sentiments, and other's ones)
7. Decision making (well, here I'm lost)
8. Service orientation
9. Negotiation
10. Cognitive sensibility (isn't that my capability to adapt myself?)

All about design thinking is partially from these questions, so basically we'll be wanted to be able to learn to leran.

I'm fine with this, I'm nearly ready for tomorrow! That's a pity it's in so lon time...

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World Teacher Day

It seems to be today, I didn't even knew that exists but why not?

At the moment I'm a formative, and no more than that, so am I a Teacher?
I think yes, this picture is totally me!
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Video shooting

Yesterday I was shooting for a movie!

Mon nom est Ed from Franck Jouneau and Guy Autret will be launched in 2017.
I'll be seenable in a meeting sequence, as a simple extra, but it was nice to see a movie shootage from the inside! Also to see rooms from the city hall I've never saw before!

My 5-years term

5 years and I'm away!

5 years I've been self-entreprise, and I stop today.

Before that I've worked my freelance design projects with an ''umbrella company''. I've been looking the self-entreprise when they created that and finally I started when they change it so it became more (financiary) interesting (while more flexible) in January of 2010.

There are several new obligations this year, like a bank account separated from the personal one, profesional taxations, and doubts about some assurances. All of this must be in place up to 2015 December 15th, we are the 14th, I don't want to lose time to understand every change, I'm afraid of what I'ld have to pay the next years, in short I would probably return to an ''umbrella company'' in 2016.

For now I stop my activity, I recall the last bills... and today I made my all-first penalities for a late payment. The last day, it was time!

My new website will be inline at the end of this winter, that makes a lot of changes to start a 2016 year I hope full of surprises.