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About Me
Name : |
Thomas O'Neill | |
Alias : |
T O Design | |
Location : |
Birmingham, United Kingdom. | |
|
Specialty : |
Illustration, Design, Art Direction & Print, | |
Tools of the Trade : |
Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Dreamweaver, Quarkxpress, 12" Tablet + good old pens & Pencils |
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Employed : |
Yes | |
Position : |
Print & Packaging Technician | |
Looking for another : |
Always! | |
Hobbies & Interests : |
Illustration, Origami, Break dancing, Mythology, fishing | |
Favourite Print Process : |
Litho or gravure | |
PC or Mac : |
Happily working on either | |
Favourite style of art : |
Vector, Abstract, Photo manipulation, Funky | |
Goals : |
To Become a successful British Designer | |
Awards : |
Graphic Design Specialist Student of the Year |
From a very young age I was creative, and knew that following this direction was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I studied Art & Design at school, A Level and then an Intensive foundation studies in Art & Design at Sutton Coldfield College. this gave me a new direction, and It wasn't till then that I knew I wanted to be a Graphic Designer/Illustrator. At the end of college I received the Graphic Design Specialist Student of the Year Award which proved to myself that I was heading on the right path.
When I left college the majority of my class mates went on to university as the course I was on is the "foundations" to lots of great Design courses. I thought hard about this for many weeks, but in the end I just didn't feel there would be enough benefits for going, as I felt I'd learnt everything I needed to know to at least start a career. I did like the idea of getting a nice shiny design Degree at the end of it but it just wasn't enough pull to get me to do it. I Still might go back later on in life to get one but for now I'm happy without one and to this day I still feel like it was the right decision.
My first Job came in the shape of Branding & Marketing for my auntie who was setting up a new business. I created a Brand Image, business cards, flyers, and a website. It was doing this that got my first real job in the Creative Industry. It wasn't designing or creating artwork but it was a start. It all happened when my aunt took all my work to a local Printers. When I next saw her, she said they wanted me to give them a ring. Which I did and they invited me in to have a look around and they offered me a job. It was like a Print apprenticeship in away they taught me everything they knew and what I loved about it was that they showed me all "the old ways" of doing things before technology had taken over which was great, I loved it.
4 years later I'm still there today. I work at a commercial printers who specialize in producing mainly FMCG packaging mock-ups for brand management consultancies & brand owners. An easier description is; say a company designs a new product and they want to see what a the product looks like in the "real" packaging before they go ahead with producing hundreds of thousands of them, Its a lot more cost effective to send the Design files it to someone like us to produce say 200 of them, Instead of printing 10,000 of them and finding out they don't like the colour, or there's a spelling mistake or their not happy with the artwork or the way its makes up. Its basically a giant product "Proofing" exercise. A lot of them are used as samples to sell the new product to retailers as well as setting standards for colour and Television commercials.
During my time working here I've been lucky enough to work on some really big brands, and have been given a real incite into how the print & packaging industry breaths, The workflow's design agency's use for R&D and how you get from a Design to the finished packaging.
" We were impressed with Tom's Professionalism and creativity. When presented with a blank canvas, he came up with exactly what we were after, in a speed manner. Tom kept us up to date with how the work was progressing, managed to present everything to us before the deadline. It's just pity there aren't more designers around like To,"
"Following months of Co-operation I can say that Thomas is a person of integrity who is able to follow instructions and guidelines and very willing to modify his work to meet client requirements. I very much appreciated Thomas' Willingness to accommodate my ideas and his readiness to help at every stage."
If you would like to know more please visit the contact page, and request my Digital Profile via Email.
