D&AD Education Day: Wash Portfolio Visit

Back to Preston again! After I'd spoken James from Dorothy at the portfolio session, I had a bit of spare time whilst waiting for others to finish their visits, so I went back to see if there was any chance of speaking to somebody else about my portfolio.

 

Fortunately there was still an open spot, and I was able to speak to Andy Walmsley of Wash Design, a Preston based studio. He was, once again, a really nice guy to talk to, and actually went through my portfolio pretty quickly without me explaining anything to begin with, as he said he wanted to have a look through and then he'd go back and talk to me about the work. 
First of all, he really liked the presentation of the portfolio and the little explanations and titles at the bottom of each page (thanks Ian!). He also said that he was quite pleased at the range of work I had in there as he went from page to page, as it seemed spread over a few different areas (editorial, poster, etc.). This is again something I've found everyone seems to consider a positive attribute in a portfolio. And again, he seemed to appreciate seeing things in print which I'd taken with me; the Stolen Peace Album cover for example.

He seemed to like the work I had in there, in particular the origami/transformation newsletter image. As this is one of my least favourite images in my portfolio, I'm always surprised when people like it! I think it's definitely more of a concept based piece, but he like the geometric design and compared it to a kind of Metropolis, art deco type design. I do love art deco so I think that was a nice comparison to hear, but I can't say I consciously was aiming for that look, maybe it's evident just through the balanced, graphic nature of the image anyway...

He thought that the weakest image I had was perhaps my MASI tram image, because of the windows. This is something I've actually been waiting for someone to mention, as they are the only bit of that image I'm not really happy with. Due to the deadline I just wasn't able to work on them as much as I'd like and so they look a bit flat and boring. He said they probably didn't need the slight flare on them as it clashes with the blockyness of the rest of the image. I do agree with him on this, and it does grate a bit using what I guess are stock effects in photoshop, I think I was really just trying to sell it being a window. I think I could definitely improve this somehow, maybe adding more detail and working on the through and through aspect of the tram. I also used a flare on my astronaut piece, but I think it worked ok on there because it was a bright light reflection, might try out a custom reflection of some sort on there though...I'm not sure...


Overall it was a really positive viewing, and he really seemed interested in my work. He gave me a card and told me to send work through to him throughout the year when I do anything new and he'd be happy to take a look at it and see how it progresses. This was really generous of him and positive for me as I guess he saw some potential in my work (or that's what I'm telling myself!). Cool. Thanks Andy!