Time to Raise Hell(s)!

Hugh Van de Lande shares his DPS experiences so far from graphic design, wayfinding to mural painting and more.
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At the end of the final term of 2nd year I went straight into a months placement at a company called Holmes Wood in London, who are a leading design company specialising in wayfinding and graphic design, and have worked with large clients such as the V&A, Easy Jet, the Imperial War Museum and many others. I first made the connection with Holmes Wood in the Easter holidays earlier in the year where I spent a week doing some work experience in their office in Battersea, working on creating and developing tourist maps for a project they were working on. At this time they were just about to moving offices to a new location where they were joining an architectural company called Benoy.
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The month in summer was really great to see how the company had changed and expanded from (about 12 people to about 20) and how with the change of location they went from a converted apartment office to a more corporate office space. The team is really great, the atmosphere is so friendly and more like a Holmes Wood family than a strict office which is nice, I think the two directors of the company being women I think impacts this nicely.

During the month, I designed a new website for one of their projects which was really well received and pitched to the client. I also worked on kerning some room numbers for a large set of 3 apartment buildings, which I created and were then sent off into production during my time there. It was so satisfying and exciting as the work I was doing for them was all actually being used.

​After my month placement there I worked on a fantastic project with sign painter Corrin Kennington. With him I helped paint a ‘RAISE HELLS’ mural he had designed (referring to their main lager) for the new Camden Town Brewery in Enfield which was set to open later that September. This was fantastic and I really enjoyed working with Corin and learning more about sign painting. Usually he uses 1shot paint which is what I am used to using but as the mural was on corrugated steel behind the bar we had to use normal Dulux wall paint and had to overcome a number of challenges he does not usually have with projects due to the tricky surface we were faced with. Corin seemed keen to work on something else later in my DPS year where we can work on another full project and collaborate together which I really look forward to do with him soon.
Holmes Wood later offered me to return for a 3rd time after my summer placement and am now there for a 3 months paid internship until Christmas, working on many more exciting projects and a studio which I am really enjoying being a part of and am really feeling like a valued member of their team.
During my DPS time so far, I have also had a number of freelance projects going and have received more to begin working on soon. These mostly are logo design projects which I am treating everyone professionally, forcing myself to present ideas via proper presentations to keep in practice and putting to use many thinks I have learned so far.