ruth ansel

http://www.ruthansel.com/

Media legends have legendary beginnings. Ruth Ansel made a dramatic debut as a designer in 1962, when Harper's Bazaar art director Marvin Israel fell in love with a photo for a cover that looked suspiciously like the great Diana Vreeland. The editor-in-chief loathed it. To make matters worse she thought it was a man in drag. She wanted to kill it immediately, Israel went ballistic, the editor fired him — and, unexpectedly, Bea Feitler and Ruth Ansel became co-art directors of Harper's Bazaar. Ever since Ansel became one of the youngest art directors in the history of magazines, she has pushed the boundaries of magazine design. In a career spanning nearly five decades, she has been responsible for era-defining magazine pages and covers for Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair. Along the way, she has collaborated with Richard Avedon (who pronounced her “genius”), Diane Arbus, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Lee Friedlander, Hiro, Andy Warhol, Peter Beard, Bruce Weber and Annie Leibovitz. Hall of Femmes: Ruth Ansel, the first in a series created by the Swedish studio Hjarta Smarta, explores the work of leading female designers whose art direction helped define their times. Click on the arrows at the bottom of this screen to scroll through the book.

How to make your internship a success

Concept Personnel Blog : How to make your internship a success

If you’ve sharpened your elbows, called in favours from family and friends and managed to land yourself a juicy place, read our tips for how to get the best out of your internship.

Agree the terms
A well structured experience will be better for you and the employer, so make sure you agree all the details in advance of your start date. Will you get expenses and lunch, or be paid a small wage? If you are not being paid ask for some flexibility in your hours so you can fit in a part time job or studies. Find out who will be your mentor or work buddy, and the everyday stuff such as what the dress code is.

Set goals
Plan what you want to get out of the internship. Roles in the creative industries tend to be broadly similar, whether you are working at an agency or an in-house creative department so if you want the chance to write press releases or help organise an event, say so at the interview. You’ll be getting some valuable experience so ask if you can build a portfolio to include in your CV – for more help read our CV writing tips here.

Show enthusiasm
Yes you’ll almost certainly have to do some mundane jobs like filing, photocopying and the mid-afternoon cake run, so do try and look cheerful about it. Tell yourself it’s character-building.

When to keep quiet
Maintain absolute confidentiality, both in the office and when you leave. If colleagues are having a jolly chat about the shortcomings of senior management, don’t be tempted to join in. Do not check your emails and texts, or make personal calls while you are at work. Everyone else may well be doing it, but it doesn’t mean that you should. If management sees you skiving at the very time you are trying to impress them with your work ethic, what does that say about your chances of being offered a job or a good reference?

And when to speak up
Try and listen more than you talk, you’ll learn more that way. But don’t just show up and observe - speak up, without being a know-all. If you put yourself in the background, that’s where you’ll stay.

Be proactive
If you run out of work don’t be tempted to idle away some time on Facebook. Volunteer for extra tasks or ask around if anyone has anything you can help with. Ask if you can join in planning meetings and brainstorming sessions.

Ask questions
If you’re not sure about a task then ask someone, don’t just struggle on. No one expects you to know everything but they do expect you to be smart enough to ask questions if necessary.

Network
It’s a chance to meet a lot of new people so make it work for you. If you know in advance that there will be no job at the end of the placement, tactfully ask colleagues or your boss if they can suggest anyone you might approach, or know of any opportunities. We often have vacancies for interns, check our list of current jobs here.

Be nice
And not just to people higher up the food chain. Take the initiative and introduce yourself, you never know who you might meet and when you might bump into them again in the future.

Understand your employer’s viewpoint
They want you to have a good experience but at the same time remember that in their eyes you need a lot of time and support, and while you are keen to be let loose on exciting projects and given responsibility, your new boss is not sure where your strengths are until they have seen you in action.

End on a good note
Many internships leads to permanent jobs and hopefully yours will be one of them. But if not, it might just be that there are no vacancies for a role with your skills, and not a reflection on how you have performed. Leave on a good note by thanking the relevant people, and asking if you can keep in touch.

Internships are a great way to get work experience and show what you can do, follow these simple tips for making your placement a success. And we’d love to hear from you if you have any tips to add, or experiences you’d like to share.

neg/graffitti eyes project research

i will name my neg project graffitti eyes from now on.

i have started some research in what styles and looks are used in to designs for make up artist logo designs

http://www.phrizbie-design.com/makeup_artist_logo_design.html- site that does esquisite web and graphic design, has a page on make up logo designs.

make up logos

the designs may not be perfect but they do have lots of diffrent elements, like the style of font and how its used and logos tend to use illustration along side the logo name, they also quite bold making a statement whilst some others are quite fine in type which give a modern edgy look but does not have the same outstanding look as the bold logos, which is what i will be wanting to create because of the type of make and creative outcomes Abigail creates in her outcomes created on her models.

make with similar styles and looks abagail creates:

then following on after the logo, i will look in to designs of stationary sets, continuing my research, to produce a modern, girlie look with hopefully a bit of a wow factor.

seaton sluice first school logo revamped

after 4 months later since i did this project when we where asked to brand seaton sluice first school and with other new projects happening since in this time from novemeber 2010, has lead me to accquired some  new skills and techniques which has lead me to see things i couldnt see through a design perspective and so i went back and revamped my final logo design which will be handed in along side my space logo and neg project for my work based learning module.

so here is the new and improved logo below.

AD109 Work Based Learning 1: neg project idea

previously in march i said i would do identity branding for a make up artist- abagail mua also know as graffitti eyes, however with not enough free time i didnt have the chance to do so and so i thought this would be a good opportunity to tie in and do as my nec project of work based learning and it ties in with some other branding i have done that will contribute towards work based learning, so it should work in well together.

my plan is to design a personal logo for abagail mua  that shows her skill as a make up/special affects artitst and produce a stationary set after the logo is decided on.

these are some of her works she has done for clients for photoshoots.
from these photos you can clearly see her creative and artistic abaility as a make up artist that shows no limit.

i will look forward to start working on this!

AD109 :work based learning1

For this project I  had started it through the year doing live briefs, which meant there is sketch book with research and development to be handed in but still needed doing but more in the sense of how it would be done in the real world of the industry.

as part of this project i did 5 live briefs and a essay to follow it, covering what i have learnt and the skills i have aqcuiried and put to use in this project.

seaton sluice

For seaton sluice, they wanted their primary school logo rebranded, they wanted to recreate a image a 5 year old drawn to a more sophisticated standard.

blue bridge

space for newcastle college

ovoverall i think this project went really well, i didn't really encounter any problems, the design process ran quite smoothly and i had plenty of ideas to choose from, i tried all briefs with diffrent colours,layout and font for best results from this development.

the graffiti eyes logo was something abit diffent of which ive never really did in this style before as i did it as part illustration, and usually i kept all vector based, so this was new to me but it has come out really nice,i quite enjoyed it and it has a nice funnky but sophisticated look which my client said from her feed back and she loved it!

having revisited seaton sluice logo, it has been worth it, since keep developing it has turned out for the better than it had initially and the more skills ive aquried in the year, the better ive been able to make it work more.

the blue bridge logo was a bit harder than the others, music genre is not my kind of thing so it made it bit harder to design, especially when it has to fit all genres, so i decided on keeping it simple with no reflection to music but more to its appearance and its name with a corporate look.

For space i decided on the logo having the letter in the corner with loads of space inside in it around the letter and add symbols to show what exactly space is and that its more than just a bar.

having 2 colours used makes it stand out more and the red stands out for comfort and fun.

i learnt that logos dont have to always be vector based, they can be done by hand for a original design look  depending on the client they are deisgning for to make it fitting.

My time management has went well, i kept everything on top, following my schedule that kept me right and resulting in hitting my deadline.

SWOT Analysis

•   Strengths - What did I do well?:i was able to come up with diffrent design solutions for each brief which enabled me to come up with a design

•   Weaknesses - What do I need to improve? need to look at more fonts, i tend to look at a few and then stick with one, however i am always getting feedback on my logos to look at more fonts before finally deciding.

•   Opportunities -What do I need to do to build on my strengths and weaknesses? 
keep practising and building on my strenghts so that it comes naturally and try diffrent fonts when designing logos

•   Threat - What could stop me achieving my goals?  my weaknesses as outlined

SMART 

• •   Specific - Well defined:keep practising my drawing skills
• Measurable - Know when it has been achieved:when it becomes apparent of my drawing skills being better than before
•    Achievable – Are the goals achievable:yes if i work on this once/few times a week
• Realistic - Within the availability of resources, knowledge and time: using different mediums and experimenting with practice should make this realistically happen
•  Time Based - Enough time to achieve the goal: a year will show a great improvement.

AD107 digital skills

structuring my 1,500 word report, using the key learning outcome and what i need to write for each section

“Describe and comment on the use and development of digital applications within their art and design discipline” - learning outcome

Photoshop

describe and comment on the skills i have acquired and developed

Including how such skills are relevant to Graphic Design

My key strengths, weaknesses

How have they enabled you to develop design solutions and how is the software used in the sector?

Illustrator

describe and comment on the skills i have acquired and developed

Including how such skills are relevant to Graphic Design

My key strengths, weaknesses

How have they enabled you to develop design solutions and how is the software used in the sector?

Indesign

describe and comment on the skills i have acquired and developed

Including how such skills are relevant to Graphic Design

My key strengths, weaknesses

How have they enabled you to develop design solutions and how is the software used in the sector?

 and how i have implemented the skills into your final piece of work.

For my final piece of work that was conducted during the digital skills test, I was able to use the skills I learnt over the year to create my final piece.

I did this by… 

conclusion 

already having some experience and knowledge in most of the software, i found having the once a week I.T lesson for digital skills, was quite a useful, it allowed to expand my knowledge and creativity, as for each lesson we where shown something different on diffrent software:

• photoshop
• illustrator
• indesign.

the 1,500 word report turned out  alot more more than i had expected on my word count, i thought i might have trouble getting words down, but the words turned out more flowingly, which makes all the more easy to write.

it made me realise how much ive learnt and how far ive came with my new found knowledge from this one year, it has made a great diffence and its reflected this in to my projects in the year because of the new skills i was shown from my digital skills being quite handy and so ive quite enjoyed this project.
i've learnt skills from not knowing how to use indesign to using it with ease now, being able to setup a document and use it to bring everything together to create my final piece and the options i have at my hands whilst doing this, that indesign provides.

the lessons where easy to follow and i quite enjoyed learning something new and found i was able to complete them each week. i had a few encounters with some of the exercises that where being a bit difficult but after being shown 1-on-1, i was able to grasp it easier, what i was getting stuck on.


after completing the exercises each week i made sure was putting them away in my file, so that i make it, a easier experience to pull my I.T file together for the end of the year making my time management work affectively and allowing me to work on my essay the week after the .I.T lessons are complete, so that i can concentrate on getting my easy done and being able to finish before the deadline, being right on target and hit the deadline.

 SWOT Analysis

•   Strengths - What did I do well?:i was able to manage each lesson well, keeping up to date each week and keep organise.

•   Weaknesses - What do I need to improve? i dont feel there is any room for improvement since everything has well went.

•   Opportunities -What do I need to do to build on my strengths and weaknesses? keep learning tutorials and remember what i have learnt.
keep practising and building on my strenghts so that it comes naturally.

•   Threat - What could stop me achieving my goals? forgetting what i have learnt

SMART 

• •   Specific - Well defined:keep learning new tutorials
• Measurable - Know when it has been achieved:when i have acquired a new skill each time from a new tutorial
•    Achievable – Are the goals achievable:yes if i keep doing it
• Realistic - Within the availability of resources, knowledge and time: this could be don't once a week for an hour using the internet as the source of info.
•  Time Based - Enough time to achieve the goal: there is never enough time to learn everything and so there cant be an exact time of when this will be done, since i will keep on learning new tutorial all the time now, so useful and handy to know that it helps with design solutions.

pentagram:process of creating a logo

In a new video for The Atlantic, Michael Bierut talks about the process of creating a logo for the New World Symphony, the Miami orchestral academy that recently moved into a stunning new campus designed by Frank Gehry. The video accompanies “Project: First Drafts,” a special feature in The Atlantic.

this shows how a logo is not straight forward to create, and one idea can turn in to many other routes of its design, following trial and error in the processes.
it shows how design does not have to take inspiration from something visual, as pentagram show this as they use the shape of the sound waves created from music.

this shows me, the process of design is not straight forward, if i want to create a logo that is original and effective, i have to explore it well and in depth for the best results and that i can look at anything, it doesn't necessarily have to be design related, when i look at something for inspiration.

space:idea generation and development

screen shots of ideas so far

vk/vodka kick inspired designs

simple and retro

all in black with opacity to let the shapes appear through each square overlapping.

trying out diffrent way with colour and style, developing from the first idea, 

which is shown in the first screen shot.

tried with different fonts.

diffrent colours but finding visually the logo is not as strong as the other designs, so will therefore not develop this design further.

starting the process of elimination.

I have chosen the strongest logos, that are working best so far, these are shown in the image below.

strongest logos with diffrent variations are chosen and to get across what space is, icons are created.

here is the development and outcome from it.

i created icons to fit with space's main use:

• eating, 
• drinking, -bar
• music-live and on big speakers
• and watching films on the big screen

icons are paired with strongest logos, to get an idea if it works together and further more the process of elimination in choosing my final logo design.

looks abit too much and is not fitting in appearance when paired with icons, if it was to work, the icons would have to be introduced in another way or created  in making a brand new design, such as below.

However after creating this, i still dont think it it working affectively and so moving on with the next now, trying other design with the icons.

not as successful as its oroginal design.

this design works in with the icons well and the most successful from the other designs.

The design on the right appears more in shape and better looking.

this then leads me to developing that logo in to experiment the way the colour can be applied and even shortening the big box to a smaller size.

choosing one of these will be my final logo.

The designs work best that have more space, fitting in with the orignal idea of the s in the corner for the space around it.

The colours work best in the same use of the one colour, they both work successfully in either the red or for low printing costs-black which work, just as affectively.

my final designs.