End of Module Evaulation

End of Module Evaluation

0UGD603

This year has been a year for a major change in my design. At the beginning of my practice I was heavily influenced by illustration and didn’t relay know what kind of design style I wanted to approach. I was always interested in layout however, so some of my early briefs do reflect this. Toward the very late end of the year I started to realise that my strengths lied in layout, digital and branding. I didn’t realise this for a while, as my briefs were very wide in terms of project disciplines and design work produced. Toward the end of the course I realised that I actually had been catering to a defined audience without evening knowing. This led me to overlook all my project briefs and highlight the continuous pattern. I then used this to really push my design forward, hence a lot of briefs involving layout and digital design becoming more prevalent in the latter of my third year.

I found this processes very useful and started to become more confident within my design, trying out layout in editorial / pint and application / web design. This came in useful as I could enter more competition briefs and more commercial design became an option. I realised that Branding was automatically linked to most of the briefs I had written so it became more effective to produce brand guidelines and brand development more professionally. I used skills I had gathered from various briefs such as Elmwood and DR.ME to project conceptual skills when it came to creating a brand. The se techniques allowed me to create something that was more then a logo and to make the brand ‘live’.  This really had an impact on me, at this point I started to think different y about branding and realised that the idea was the crucial point.

I feel that my skills in presenting, layout and digital design have really improved this year. I have undergone a lot of briefs where the presentation of ideas was a key aspect to the communication of the content. Presenting to professionals in the Elmwood crit really helped gage my skills and to become clearer about communicating my idea.

Throughout this module I feel that my work is extremely varied in terms of quality and quantity. I did want to undergo long and short briefs but after changing a lot of briefs I lost time and confidence. It wasn’t until the completion briefs came out in late January that I started to really focus again. The brief really helped me to work out an idea that took time to complete –but reflected my concept clearly. I was very happy with the competition briefs I entered and thought hat they were some of my strongest pieces of work. I also feel that my briefs relating to culture aspects such as the film briefs really inspired my design. I enjoyed creating the briefs and designs therefore the effort I put in was of high quality. I was very disappointed with a handful of briefs I delivered. I feel that I could vastly go back and improve DR.ME, the condiment range and a few others. I feel that I gained new and better skills later in the course, and feel that with a new and improved skill set I could really enhance the older briefs and make them a standard of which I am happy with. 

I am extremely pleased with the collaboration briefs I worked on. I think that working on a brief with people really compliments my design style and allows for a bouncer, broader generation of ideas. I think doing these briefs has re-enforced my love with collaboration and highlighted the fact that I would like to work with collaboration throughout my professional career. I think that talking about ideas and creating with new skill set and different points of view really pushes an idea and final outcome processes.  Working with Chris on the poem book was a brief that I really enjoyed. The brief was from the beginning of the year, but took a while to complete as changes were made to contributors and there was a lot of illustration to be developed. I used this brief to portray my interest in illustration and thought it would be very beneficial to keep a ‘hobby’ as one of my briefs as it allowed me to always come back to it.  I also really enjoyed this illustrative aspect with the Champneys brief I created with Beth. It was interesting to put my designs into packaging but I really enjoyed the final product. I think that keeping illustrative techniques involved within my work is important as it balances with my new skill set and offers a playful side to my design.

Throughout this module I have been in touch with various studios, designers and creative that I have used in terms of 1^st hand research and designs. I think this was a great option in my design and really helped to influence a lot of my work. The design processes became easier and more productive gathering and meeting new people and was a really interesting way to work.

Overall I think I have improved a lot of skills within this module. However I feel that I need to produce work that is catered to the latter end of this module as I feel that it is my best work. I really would like to improve on my time management skills as this could really influence my briefs. I know that in the professional world short term briefs happen more so I really need to work on my time.

Over this module I haven’t really undergone many processes. I have used a majority that relate to my work but it’s quite minimal.  I think I really could of improved this to experiment more with processes and it could of given my designs that extra edge. Now I am confident with the design I am producing I thin it will become clear to me what processes I should use, when to use them and how effective they will be to a brief.

Overall I feel this module has been beneficial to my design practice. It’s overall been up and down with a variation in my technique and style but toward the end of the year I really feel that I improved a lot. This year has taught me a lot, in terms of curating, magangment, design and conceptual thinking. I will apply all these techniques to my professional practice and work hard to continue on my presentation and communication skill in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.

LTA EVALUATION

Evaluation

This brief really enhanced my professional practice and my personal practice also. It allowed me to really experiment with layout and to create something that worked on a digital platform. Although I can’t actually make the application is was great to work with a brief that was flexible and allowed a broad range of conceptual ideas.

From this brief I have developed a really great connection with designing for digital and commercial culture. I found this brief really interesting to work with and thought that aiming the concept and application to the audience specifically really allowed me to go into more detail within my design.  I have gained more skills within the practical aspect and presentation of final resolutions. I feel that the brief has allowed me to really broaden and enhance my layout ideas into a digital format. I have also improved my skills on presentation with the boards. This has heavily influenced the briefs I started to undertake after this competition brief.

I approached the design with simple and effective production. I wanted to keep that designs simple so the main information would be applied and stand out. I feel that my development process has continued throughout the module with documentation of all the major changes I decided to create.

I really feel that this brief went well and made me more inspired to start creating with my love for culture and design. It finally made me realize that I am interesting in identity, culture and digital design which has really allowed me to focus the design in to a very targeted audience.

If I could improve any elements it would be to create more promotional aspects for the application. I am happy with the final outcome of the design, mainly because it allowed me to get out of a rough patch in my design, but also because I feel that I resented my ideas clearly and conceptually, with reference to main aspects of the brief, and I feel that I have never really accomplished this before.

Evaulation

Evaluation:

This was one of the first briefs I created and I wanted to explore illustration and branding. I thought this would be a good brief to combine the two. However looking back over the brief there are vast improvements I could make. As this was such an early brief for me I feel that I could re-create the website and main brand elements to a much higher stand now reflecting on the brief.

Throughout this brief I have focused my skills on presenting a brand and how it would work o a modern aesthetic. I don’t think I fully applied any skills to this brief and it defiantly wasn’t to a high standard. The design skills consisted of rendering a logo and some illustrative packaging. I really don’t think I projected my skills to the brief.

I approached the brief with the knowledge that I would be using traditional styles of branding such as hand-rendering logos, paint, stencils that all relate to homemade products as well as the traditional style. I feel that these methods did inform my design and reflect the stage I was at when I completed the brief. However these methods of production could be vastly improved and done to a higher standard to make the brief content look more professional and branded. These processes did inform the development of my brief in terms of progressing the logo, but I think I should of created the designs with more thought and focus to ensure a high quality.

Looking back at this brief I feel that I could really improve almost every aspects. At the beginning of the year I was more focused on illustration, but now I have developed skills with branding and digital elements that I feel could really enhance this brief. Although the brief was minimal it seemed to be a massive learning curve for me and has allowed me to re-think strategy and concept.

Personal Branding Evaluation

Evaluation:

I have probably found this to be one of the hardest briefs. Purely because I think its so difficult to brand yourself and be happy with the final result as your work is always moving and this has to be a representation of you. I found the brief extremely lengthy, as I started it in October and finished it in May. Over this period I experiment with many variations and concepts for my branding, all of which were discarded. I also find coding a very tricky element of design. I personally know that I need to start to use this, as much of my design is focused on digital aspects. However this was my first time coding a website. I attempted to use various website hosts to develop a starting point and found it very difficult.

Through this brief I also experimented with design processes. I used embossing, screen-printing and vinyl to try and inculpate my style via this. However most of these processes didn’t add to my designs at the time. I think the use of Triplex printing really helped me to make my business cards feel and look professional. From there the brand just started to grow. I quite enjoyed how I incorporated my personality into the design by using grid and relating an almost word search via my business card that reflected thing I like and where I am from etc. Creating a promotional pack was a great way to bring my website and print aspects together.

I think these specific skills have opened my mind to the conceptual processes of branding. I enjoy the colour scheme I have worked with but I know that shortly I will not. I feel like this brief has turned out to reflect my style of design but it needs more evidence of processes and work to show my full range of ideas.

Work in progress Evaulation

Evaluation:

I really enjoyed this brief. It was a class collaboration but I had influence over window display and the building and dismount of the production and work. I thought this was an interesting way to develop my work as we monitored the processes via video go-pro. I thought the brief went well; it was one of my first experiences with vinyl so it was crucial part of my processes stage. I thought the final design of my vinyl worked well to inhabit the concept the exhibition was trying to display. The quote varied in stages and took time to set and crate. The processes of putting up the vinyl was quite tricky as it’s final placement was rendered to suit the concept and meant putting the vinyl on backwards to achieve this.

The overall event was a successes, I think it was a very useful brief to undertake as I improved my presentation and confidence skills. The brief helped me with my management, as I had to stay to take down and tidy up after the day’s events. The work I produced within that time frame also developed. This was an overall good experience but I feel that I should have embraced it more and started to play around with more ideas and concepts for the brief.

At first I struggled with my vinyl but after varied attempt its started to make sense. I believe that this is a weakness of mine by not trying lots of processes it often takes me a while to produce such things. I think this brief has taught me to become more open toward processes and the fact that mistakes will happen, it’s about learning from them that is the crucial part.

Talenthouse Poster - Evaulation

Evaluation:

This was a day brief that I did to re-establish my skills with layout and poster design. I thought it would be effective to include some day briefs within my design to show how I can apply my time and skills to a fixed schedule.

It also links to the sectors I am interested in working in. As the brief was to illustrate the films concept the concept for the poster was kind of already decided. 

I am quite happy with the final design I created. I wanted to portray the two sides of the films main character but in a subtle manner. The concept really works to relate to the film but I think the final design was maybe to ‘gridded’ and formatted for the type of poster Talenthouse would of wanted.

If I could develop the design I would create more of a concept and develop the idea further maybe building something physically or introducing some photography to push the conceptual aspects of the brief in a ‘fun’ format that could reflect the main aspects of the film.

I quite enjoyed working to a tight schedule, it different form the longer briefs I produced. The time frame allowed me to really plan out my work in stages and fulfilment at the end of the day wen I had created a final outcome with a creative concept to inform the design.