Hi, I'm Tom, and I'm one of the designers in the Brand & Creative team. My time is usually split between concept development for new brands/campaigns and bringing them to life with motion graphics and animation. No two weeks are ever the same and this one had it all...
Monday
The first task on Monday morning is usually checking through my emails and Teams notifications to start putting a plan together for what my week is going to look like. Alongside this, it's a lovely opportunity to have a quick chat with other team members and give fusses to the dogs (Ozzy, Pip and Nel are in today) before heading into our weekly Brand & Creative meeting at 10am to plan the week in more detail. After this I’ll usually have a schedule jam-packed with projects which can vary wildly from brand concept work to social media animation and anything in between.
Then it’s time to get cracking on the first job of the week. Today I’m coming up with a new web advertising campaign for one of our regular clients. Working alongside one of our copywriters we’ll get the idea nailed down before putting together some storyboards ready to present to the client.
Tuesday
This morning I’m back in the realm of physical media, as I've been briefed on an 8-page printed brochure for IVC Evidensia, on behalf of one of their veterinary practices. These are always quite good fun to work on because the practices are generally small businesses without established brand identities, meaning I have the freedom to create something really exciting. Getting positive feedback from these clients is always a joy and sometimes opens the door for full rebrand projects further down the line.
This afternoon I’m also making some final amends to the storyboards from yesterday’s web adverts, a few tweaks to the images and they’ll be good to go!
Wednesday
The Fluid studio is a wonderful creative space (I mean, it’s a world heritage site with coffee and dogs, what’s not to love!?) but sometimes I need to lock myself away from the world and power through some tasks. That’s the case today with the web adverts project I’ve been working on (which has now been approved) and this is where Fluid’s remote working really comes into its own. Quietly tucked away in my home office it’s time to put my headphones on, fire up After Effects and start animating! It can be quite a fiddly and very time-consuming task, but seeing your ideas come to life in full-motion is something I’ll never get tired of!
Working from home is also an ideal opportunity to get started on my next task of the week, developing a logo design for one of our care home clients who are launching a new podcast. For me, being able to get initial ideas and sketches down on paper in a distraction-free environment is an important part of the process.
Thursday
Today I’m heading back into the studio with my logo concepts ready to share internally and get feedback from the team. This is another important part of the process to make sure we can nail down the final designs. Once I’ve worked through the feedback and cleaned up the artwork I’ll start putting a report together so we can present the final designs to the client.
This afternoon, I’m putting my animation hat back on to support the Image & Motion team with a piece they’re working on. It’s a stunning 3D production featuring a range of automotive products that we’ve previously done branding work for. I’m tasked with creating some animated clips featuring slick typography and jazzy transitions which will be placed on giant LED screens within the CGI scene. It sounds confusing but looks awesome!
Friday
The studio is a lovely place to be on a Friday, it’s a little less busy than the rest of the week, there’s usually a stonking playlist on the Sonos and there’s the option to join in with McDonald’s or KFC for lunch. It’s also a nice opportunity to finish up some of the smaller tasks that have accumulated over the week, whether it’s packaging up some artwork files, editing some photos or converting a video to a different aspect ratio.
Today my main task is finishing off the brochure I started on Tuesday. The client has sent over a few changes as well as some new images so it now needs rejigging so that everything fits and reads correctly. Once I’m happy with the design and I’ve completed all the checks from a technical perspective (gotta watch out for those pesky low-res images), I’ll hand over the final PDF to one of the copywriters who will give it a thorough proof-read and (hopefully) give it the A-OK to go to the client!