It's about time (no, it really is)

Derrian Bradder

Entry for ISTD 2015

A response to 2 briefs combined – "Milestones" and "Taboos":

The history of mental illness
"Why should there be a distinction between people who are sick above the neck and those sick below the neck?"
– Abraham Low

(For much better quality images please feel free to visit my website: derrianbradder.com)

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Photos of a graphic designer placing things

It's the final day before my ISTD submission is packed up and sent off, meaning yesterday I took my final photographs of the packaging, and development work etc which is needed for their archives if my work is awarded membership. 

I've put a serious amount of work into this project from start to finish, and I'll admit I am proud of myself and the designs I've produced. There's nothing wrong with being proud of your work and the things you achieve, you just need to stay humble. 

Here are 2 what look like stock photos of me prepping my work to be photographed – I can assure you I was in motion at the time, I'm just verrrrrry careful and steady. 

As the timeline is over 2 metres long and needs to be unfolded to be viewed, I've made an A2 presentation board showcasing images of the finals to put in with the physical final designs. 

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Return to the homeland

I went home for the weekend, which is always nice. I miss Leeds every time I'm away from it but I suppose it's true what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder because I appreciate it more and more every time I'm back. I had a very quiet weekend which is why there's not many photos, but I think these 3 sum it up pretty well:

1. Train journeys are great, they don't make me travel sick and it's a perfect opportunity to read.
2. Train journeys (or any "occasion" really) are a great excuse for coffee. Especially Costa coffee.
3. It's a known crime to be in Leeds and not go to the Lego shop and Primark. 

What did you do this weekend?

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Let's talk business (cards)

(Apologies for the poor quality photos, they're from my Instagram account)

This week myself and Edwin attended a "networking event" at the uni, where we were able to talk to a range of people in the industry within Cumbria who could potentially open up a lot of opportunities for us. This would have been great if I wasn't so terrible at talking to people. I did speak to a few people though, and got possibly myself some work experience, so I can't have done too badly ey?

I'm getting off track here, but basically we needed business cards. I'd already made mine a few weeks ago, but never actually got round to having them printed. It wasn't ideal having to double-sided print at uni and cut out manually but I'd say they came out pretty good. For next time though, I'll be having them done professionally.

My design is an extension of my website and all of my personal branding, and feature 5 different faces to choose from – happy, happier, fangs, stressed and shocked. My favourite is the fangs, it seemed to prove popular on the night too! 

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Timeline 2.0

Timeline 2.0 – now with pull quotes

This week marked the final printing of timeline 2.0 as I've started calling it. In 3 days everything will be sent off to ISTD for judging and it will just be a waiting game to see how I did.

Again with the apologies for the poor quality Instagram photos. I've taken some ~proper~ photos which I'm currently editing as they're part of my submission, I'll be uploading them when I can. 

I'm so pleased with how this piece has turned out – the alterations I chose to make, and the ones suggested to me, have made a HUGE difference. 

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Endings and beginnings

Mental illness is something very important to me and close to home, so it's only natural that I make it the subject of some of my projects. Now that we're onto self-initiated briefs for our final semester it was clear to me that mental illness would be the first subject to tackle. I enjoyed working on my ISTD entry enormously, because I was so passionate about it, and I want to recapture that in a new area of mental illness and be much more specific this time around. 

Before beginning my new project I needed to perfect my ISTD entry ready to be sent off in the next couple of weeks. It felt really good to revisit it and make some small changes that made a HUGE difference to the overall look. However, drawing all over my original felt like sacrilege.

For my current project I'm looking at the mental health of prisoners, and how they face a double stigma due to being both criminals and victims of mental illness. Through my research into various areas of mental illness I became very interested in the statistics surrounding poor mental health in prisoners, although at first I considered this may be too much of a controversial subject. I haven't quite decided where I'm going with the project currently, potentially a campaign of some kind to raise awareness surrounding the issue, or an editorial piece. We shall have to see. 

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Altrincham adventure

6am start, 9 hours across 5 trains, 1 trip to Costa, 1 interview and several lovely people.
Followed by a well earned sleep. 

That was my Thursday this week. I had an interview for a junior designer position in Altrincham, Manchester. It was definitely an adventure, to say the least, but I had a really good day. It was nice to go somewhere new and feel completely at home there straight away, followed by a very positive interview experience. It was quite a draining day, but so worth it.

Highlights included:

– Perfect reading opportunities on the train
– Mrs Doubtfire style changing in and out of outfits appropriate for travel and interview
– Getting to sample Costa's chicken and basil gluten free wrap

– People watching 

I was still feeling the effects this morning, so I treated myself to an omelette and a couple of episodes of Friends (because it will NEVER get old), before coming into uni to work.  

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Current reading situation

As a self confessed bookworm, I seem to see it almost as a challenge to read as many books as I can in a small space of time. I'm a fast reader, which is extremely helpful, but that's not to say I don't take it all in and enjoy it. In fact, it's quite the opposite; I enjoy them so much I'm just devouring them and wanting to see what the next page will bring. And with that lovely image in mind, here's what I've been reading over the past week or so: 

I'd almost finished "Girl, Interrupted" so I got myself some books from the uni library. I thought it was time I got down to some classics, else I'd have to stop calling myself an avid reader. I've been finding them a bit heavy going for bedtime reading, so I think they'd be better suited accompanying a morning coffee when my brain is less fried. 

Although I got this book for Christmas I hadn't actually started it until last week, where I read a couple of pages here and there on a night-time but was struggling a little to get into it. However, that all changed when I went home for the weekend and spent a collective 5 hours on trains, where I read the whole book. I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy it, but I will say it doesn't hold a candle to Nicholls' previous book "One Day", one of my absolute favourites. 

For a quick and easy read last week I settled on "Seconds", not only because it's beautiful, but because the story is so immersing. I find new things that I didn't notice before each time I read it. Also, it's just a bonus getting to open it and seeing it signed to you by the author. 

I've now started reading "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, which I'm really enjoying. It's another book I got for Christmas but have only just got round to reading, but so far so good. 

What have you been reading lately? Any recommendations?
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Real life happenings

These daily comics are brought to you by Edwin Burrow, this is his website: edwinburrow.com (he's very good you should go check it out). Our mundane student life, made interesting through the medium of comics. These were from last week:

.@edwinburrow's daily comic for today ft. me and my @parcelforce problems ✎ I'm much nicer on the phone than this tho pic.twitter.com/9T9dPVDFXM
— Derrian Bradder (@DerrianBradder) February 25, 2015

Someone stole our bin. It's a tragedy. (It really is, there's 6 of us, rubbish builds up fast) with @DerrianBradder pic.twitter.com/RuZy329GaG
— Edwin Burrow (@edwinburrow) February 27, 2015

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My week on Twitter 4 & 5

I've been super busy with uni work, planning projects and getting started on them, so I haven't been on Twitter that much. I've read quite a few interesting articles though, for both work and fun, but haven't retweeted them (boo!). Here's what I've enjoyed over the past couple of weeks:

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