Train Journey Home

I had a rather interesting train journey back home. I stated working on the indendity design for my Curious Eats brief and the guy sitting next to be became rather interested and turns out he is a designer for Dolcie & Gabanna, having previously worked with Gucci and was also the Senior Deisgner for Boots for many years!

Over the course of the journey we talked about what sort of design we both did, I showed him my work, and he showed me the designs that he did. Just to make it even better, he was the designer of many of the D & G adverts and also specialised in designing the packaging for the perfume and a new range of mascara that is going to be released. This is an area that I am very interested in. I know that my main interest in in packaging but I also love all the designs for the beauty sector, so this was a huge opportunity to be able to talk to him. He gave me feedback and pointers for some of my work, which proved very useful.

I also managed to talk to him about how he first got into design and how he got to where he was today. Turned out that he started as a fashion illustrator and did his degree at Central St Martins in London and just kept working up from there. He said that working in Boots was the most exiting job he had. He also showed me designs that he had done for them. Turns out he first became interested in what I was doing on my mac because he saw my crit boards and saw a packaging design that looked like something he did!.

He also talked to me about some of the ways he got the attention of the people he was trying to get a job with...very insightful and just proved that you do need to do something different to stand out. He took a picture of himself holding he portfolio wearing nothing and then put this image on the front of his portfolio when going to the interview. He got the job, but was then known as the naked designer!

Here are some of the adverts that he has designed:

Unfortunately, after overhearing a few of his phone conversations it sounded like he was about to be pushed out of his job at D & G so I didn't feel it would be appropriate to ask for his business card. However, he did talk to me about the beauty product range (Esell Organics) that he girl friend sells and who lives 20 minutes away from me at home, I have the name of that and if I ever feel I should get in contact with him then I can use these contact details.