Watercress Signage

At the weekend I visited the Croudace Watercress development in Alton, Hampshire that I designed the logo and identity for. It was great to see the logo big and shiny on the signs and also great to see how Octavia the graphic designer at Croudace had adapted the logo for different signs.

Below are a few snaps of the signs at the development.

Watercress Brochure

This is a brochure I worked on while I was working at Croudace Homes. I designed the cover and chose the colours and fonts for the brochure as well as placing some of the images. It was so exciting to receive the finished brochure a few weeks ago. The brochure was completed by ex-colleague Octavia Winrow.

Here are a few pictures of the brochure. I am really pleased with how it has come out!

Trip to the printers

On my last day at Croudace the Graphic Designer was kind enough to arrange a trip with the print management company we used to both their print management office and design studio and then on to a printers.

The owner shows us how the plates are made for litho printing
The metal sheets are fed through this machine to imprint the design

One sheet is used for each colour of CMYK
The plates are then loaded into the printing machine..
Each section of the printer is for a different part of CMYK
The reverse of the plate is printed onto a roller and then onto the paper
Paper is cut to size
And loaded into the machine
Pots of ink
Machine to check accuracy of colours when printed
All pantone colours are made using these inks
And measured using these pantone scales
Machine cutting paper to size

There were stacks of paper and ink everywhere. The machines were so loud it was hard to think straight! There were also machines for folding booklets, creating multipage booklets with staples and digital printers. Amazing to see a real life printing press and helps to understand how to design for print when you see how the process works in real life!

This is where I have been hiding for the past 3 months..

So the reason I've not really been very active for the last 3 months is that I have been very busy working for Croudace Homes Group

Here is a quick look at some of the things I got up to whilst I was there..

When I started the Graphic Designer was just working on rebranding the company.. So i assisted with this and with other everyday tasks such as adverts, leaflets and brochures. Here are a few photos from the rebrand

The girls sporting the new company colours on launch day:
Playing with the new company branded Rubick's cubes:
The newly branded company mug I worked on:
The newly branded company keyring:
With the rebrand of the company came redesigning adverts, brochures, booklets.. Such as the published advert below:
And invitations to open weekends:
And brochures for new developments:

This doesn't show the half of what I got up to in my 3 months at Croudace, but just a little sample of the work I did while I was there. I had a brilliant 3 months, learnt loads and made some good friends a long the way!