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.