Completed Creative CV

Below is the completed design for my creative CV. I have stayed faithful to the branding used on my website and social media, incorporating the cardboard aesthetic representative of my use of collage style in many of my animations. This works well as it provides the overall design with both colour and texture without causing the CV to appear garish or over the top. As I mentioned in my creative CV research post earlier, I was very taken by the use of horizontal bars to display skill levels in different areas. I employed this technique in my design, however unlike many creative CVs I have seen, I opted to have the bars span the full width of the screen; this suggests that although I feel I have less skill in some areas e.g. Adobe Illustrator, I still have plenty of skill to use the program comfortably. I am pleased with the layout also, as it is fairly spacious and text is broken up into small, manageable segments.

Final Showreel

Having completed my third year final film, I have finally been able to edit my showreel (posted previously) to include my most recent work. In addition to this, I have updated the splash screens at the beginning and end of my showreel to match the branding as used on my social media pages and website:

Creative CV Inspiration

Today I set about looking into existing creative CV designs. In this post I will compare and contrast a number of creative CVs to determine what makes a successful design.

The primary source for the designs featured in this post was Pinterest.

The first CV that caught my eye did so due to it's pure simplicity. The layout is exceptionally tidy and well broken up to clearly denote different areas of the CV. The colour scheme is very reserved, which works in a way, however even the edition of some more very subdued colour would make the piece more eye-catching as a whole. the use of horizontal bars to indicate different skill levels works well and provides a much more clear interpretation of competency in each area than a brief description would. The amount of text is just right in this CV, there are no excessively lengthy paragraphs and all the text is broken up into manageable chunks.

This CV is slightly less minimalistic than the first CV I looked at, yet shows how the use of slightly more colour can make a design more eye-catching. The addition of an earthy brown tone also makes the CV feel more warm and inviting - which may or may not be appropriate depending on the recipient. A more casual company may take well to a CV that feels warm and inviting, whereas a corporation might view colder tones as more professional.

Moving onto a different design entirely, this CV incorporates imagery much more strongly. While this definitely reiterates the applicant's status as a designer, I'm not sure the imagery has been used to the best effect in terms of layout etc. and have a tendency to make the CV look quite claustrophobic and cluttered. The use of a large block of unbroken text at a small font size right at the beginning of the CV also makes the design feel cluttered and cramped. The info-graphic style is however quite eyecatching.

I particularly enjoy the use of texture in this CV, it adds substance to the CV and makes it feel less clinical, without having to incorporate a lot of colour into the design. That said, the subtle implementation of colour in the skill wheel really makes the design pop, and directs the eye immediately to the skills of the applicant, instantly enabling an employer to ascertain how talented the individual is in different areas.

From this exercise I have learned that in creating my creative CV I should:

• Use a reserved amount of subdued colour
• Incorporate a subtle texture to in the design if appropriate
• Use images, but not too much
• Avoid blocks of unbroken text
• Break up information into clear, easily definable sections

Domain Name Update

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had not been able to secure a .com or .co.uk domain name featuring of my own name and as such opted for the domain name 'theclockworkdog.com'. Today however, I was able to purchase the domain name 'Dan-Hodgson.com'. I have linked this domain name to my website however I am in two minds as to whether or not to completely replace my existing domain name with it.

The reason I am unsure as to whether or not to replace my domain name completely is that I feel 'theclockworkdog' is a much more unique and memorable name than 'Dan-hodgson', particularly as the hyphenation used in the latter will inevitably lead to confusion, given that when typed without the hyphen a different site is accessed.

For now, my intention is to use the domain name 'Dan-hodgson' to promote my website professionally (for business cards etc.), while retaining the primary domain name 'theclockworkdog' for its memorability. In either case, a google search for 'Dan Hodgson Animation' still provides a link to my website.

Link to my website (New Domain): http://www.Dan-Hodgson.com

Final Logo Design

In a previous post, I discussed how my logo had developed since my initial experimentation. I talked about how the simplicity and texture of the logo was important to me. In that spirit I decided to have another attempt at simplifying my logo to it's most basic form, while still maintaining readability and texture. This is the result:

I'm really happy with this logo - the round shape feels more friendly than my previous attempts, and my initials sit together more legibly, rather than having one within the other. Furthermore, this is such a simple design that it could easily be transferred to solid black and white for use as a letter header or watermark. I am confident that this will be the final design of my logo.

My task now is to update the headers and backgrounds of my social media pages and website in order to correspond to this logo. Here are some examples of the designs I shall be using to accompany my logo:

Standard Social Media Page Header

Semi-transparent Watermark

Website Header

Logo Design Rethink

When I last posted about a potential logo design for my website and social media branding, I was experimenting with the use of an animated character gif. Since then, I have come to the conclusion that this would simply be too over the top for use as a logo and that I needed to design a logo that was much more subdued and simple while still conveying what my brand is.

Above is my latest logo design, using only my initials portrayed in a collage style, a style frequently used throughout my animations and thus representative of my brand. I was quite happy with this logo as it is clear, clean, simplistic and the texture given by the cardboard provides a richness preventing it from coming across as too plain. The neutral colour is also a positive as it will look fairly complimentary on just about any colour/backdrop when used across my work.

I experimented further with the design and made a slight change, removing the outer stroke from the letter D, simplifying the design somewhat more. Below is the result, along with the text that will accompany the logo on social media headers and on my website. 

Showreel First Draft

Responding to what I learned during the last showreel session, I have now produced a draft of my own animation showreel. As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to ensure that my showreel was both as short as possible while still showcasing my best work and that I featured my best work at the beginning of the video, and the end of the video. I considered this during the production of my showreel and was very pleased with the results.

During this week's session we were tasked with presenting our showreel to the rest of the class for feedback. My showreel was generally well received, with one minor criticism - the 3D segment let's the showreel down. For my completed showreel, I intend to remove this segment and replace it with footage from my third year final animation. Expanding on this point, I feel that this piece should also be removed given that I would prefer to be represented as a traditional animator with skills in digital animation, rather than to be perceived as a wholly 3D animator - as this piece suggests.