OUGD203 - End of module evaluation.

This module has been somewhat of a test for me; it has been hard, tiring and it has taught me a lot but ultimately, I have really enjoyed it. It has really tested my motivation; this was a largely self directed and self written brief, it gave me the opportunity to produce work in an area that I wanted to explore further but on the other hand, it was a relatively long brief - around 6 weeks and at times, I found it difficult to motivate myself to do something that I had written.

This time last year for the design practice module, I didn’t work as hard as I should have done and I knew I hadn’t done as well as I had hoped and consequently it was my lowest grade of the year. Obviously, I didn’t want to do the same this year but, as identified in a tutorial early in the brief, I seemed to be taking a downhill slope towards the summer - exactly the same as I did last year. Thankfully, I pulled myself back up hill and produced work that I am proud of and confident with. The latter part of the module has shown me how much I can produce if I plan my time effectively, for example I booked into the digital print room quite early to print my final products off and not only did this mean I could have high quality prints, it meant that I had a personal deadline to get the work finished by; if I hadn’t done this I would have spent a lot longer or worked a lot slower and consequently, wouldn’t have got as much work produced to an acceptable quality. In contrast to this, I have seen what can happen when I don’t manage time effectively because I didn’t make a booking to print my final presentation boards off so I had to print them on the laser printers on 2 A3 sheets per board, as a result of this, I was disappointed in the quality; the images are discoloured, the stock has bubbled as I prepared them a day before hand in and the join in the middle can be quite distracting. Therefore is something I definately won’t do next time; I intend to make bookings weeks in advance if necessary.

As mentioned previously, this brief gave me the chance to work with something that I wanted to develop; it wasn’t particularly a practical skill like print making or software skills, it was focusing on illustration and type/type as image, I wanted to produce a lot of the initial work off screen, therefore I spent a lot of time drawing, as apposed to just manipulating type on screen, which has made me realise how much I missed doing that.
In a few of the progress surgeries, it was mentioned that I seem to be developing a ‘style’, this wasn’t really my intention; I don’t see this as a negative but I don’t want this to limit my work in the next year.

I also drew on my experience from the ‘design for screen’ module to assist me with the digital distribution aspect of the brief; in terms of storyboarding and testing; I didn’t factor enough time into my timetables to produce high end quality pieces but I did produc animated proposals for what the pieces could look like; I was content with this, I just wish they were of a higher standard. I created one vector animation but I also did two short image sequences, using my own photographs, which I hadn’t really done before; once again, these weren’t a very high standard but it gave me a basic idea of how to do it and if I have the oppurtunity to work in this way again, I will feel a lot more comfortable going into it and now know what needs to be planned before hand i.e. somewhere with consistant lighting.

It was indentified in the final crit that I ‘got my initial idea and just went with it’. I don’t think this is particularly negative because for me specifically, I can spend a lot of time forcing myself to think of different initial ideas and then I don’t spend enough time actually designing, whereas this time, I knew what I wanted to do and spent a lot more time designing and for that reason, ended up with a lot more design variations - all based upon type as image, but they all looked quite different and focusing on type as image was my intention for this brief.
I feel my biggest weakness in this module was experimentation; I am very happy with the products I produced and I do believe that, even if I had experimented more I would have still used the same stocks etc. but I should really have done more in terms of different stocks. I wanted to try different printing methods but I never feel motivated enough to learnt how to do it; in all honesty, I would prefer to spend all of my time designing, rather than spend a day in the print rooms, but I am quite a control freak so maybe once I realise that this would give me full control over what I am printing, I would feel more motivated. It is possibly something I would like to at least try in the third year, especially printing onto t-shirts.

The aim of this module was to produce a product, a range and the distribution for that. I feel that I covered all areas of the brief to an acceptable standard; I believe my product is the type, the range is what I applied it to - tissue boxes, kitchen roll, toilet roll and ‘handy sized’ packs of tissues and I covered distribution both digitally and printed. I really like my products but there are aspects of it that I would change, for example the stock that I printed on wasn’t 100% transparent acetate, so I had to print onto a certain side for the colours to be as vivid as I wanted them to be; the smaller handy sized packs, the ink on the inside so the colours aren’t as bright but the red and green tissue boxed where the ink is on the outside, that side of the stock has quite a ‘sticky’ texture so the tangible nature of the product is quite let down by this.

OUG205 - End of module evaluation

The image module has given me the opportunity to develop my image based skills; prior to this I really wasn’t sure which area I preferred as a designer or which I was ‘good’ at but this had made me realise how much more comfortable I am working with image rather than type/layout.

I had two concerns before starting the module, the first being; I thought it would be completely image based i.e. I wouldn’t be able to use type/words at all but I soon realised that type can be image; the second concern was following on from this, if I couldn’t use type at all I don’t know if I’m imaginative enough? Thankfully, my concerns didn’t last long and even though I could use type in my work, I have started thinking more visually and ‘laterally’ (mainly after the 2D to 3D to 2D brief) and realised that everyones work looks different so, in this sense, I feel a lot more confident with my own work and the fact that it doesn’t matter that I aren’t very good character design etc.

An aspect of the module that I liked and had missed was week long or two week briefs. A disadvantage overall that came from this was that, because I hadn’t done it for a while, my development was lacking and I didn’t document it as well as I probably could have done. On the other hand, it was an advantage because I didn’t have enough time to worry about what idea I should develop etc. and I made decisions a lot faster than I normally do; however, at the same time it may have been a disadvantage because I rushed some things. Looking back on the amount of work I have done and some of the resolutions I have done in just a week, it will hopefully encourage me to work faster and not ponder over small things for a long time, in the future.

Although I enjoyed the shorter term briefs, I did still enjoy the final, longer negotiated brief. I knew that I wanted to work more on ‘type as image’ but wasn’t sure where to go from this; after some discussion it was decided I would use Lady Gaga lyrics. At first, I was excited about it and then the joy somewhat drifted away when I was trying to chose lyrics to base my ideas on but once I had made this decision – which took me too long – I was back to being comfortable with the brief. I wasn’t a particular fan of Lady Gaga before and I wouldn’t say this brief made me a fan but it did make me realise I don’t have to base work on things I personally 'love', to enjoy the brief; that would have probably been a bad thing as if I based the brief on one of my favourite artists, I would probably been sick of listening to them after this brief.

Overall I am pleased with the amount and the standard of work I have produced and feel that spending this time focusing on purely image has definitely helped me develop as a designer and will effect my future work in a positive way.

OUGD203 - Collaborative brief evaluation

As a designer, I never ‘look forward’ to collaborative briefs and leading up to it, I get extremely anxious. This collaborative brief wasn’t any different but now the deadline has been and gone, I am pleased with the work that we produced and I feel that the creative partnership worked well. In other collaborative partnerships I have followed the advice to not work with friends however in this instance I thought; if my friend has the design qualities I am looking for and I have never worked with them before, I’m never going to know whether it will or will not work.

As I stated on the original contract; ‘Nichola is commited to the course and is reliable so I know I can trust her.’ I’m glad to say that this stayed true and I felt confident working apart and meeting at set intervals to put our work together. Another point that I made on the contract was that ‘Nichola works well with type where I work better with image therefore I hope that putting our strengths together we can produce a successful piece’, we both worked on our strengths and when we were working alone, I’m sure were both happy with our work but when we came together it was hard to analyse each others; I don’t think this led to an unsuccessful piece but I do feel it made decision making take a little longer because, personally, I didn’t want to say something to upset Nichola so I ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’d’ a lot until I would suggest anything, even if it was a tiny decision where she’d ask me which typeface I liked; this was probably the biggest problem when it came to working with a friend, but on the other hand, we communicated a lot more than I ever have in any other collaborative brief.

Referring back to the contract and what we both wrote about design skills, I think we definately stuck to this; I stated that I wanted to work with image and a limited colour palette which I did get to do. Nichola mentioned her interest in typography which were needed throughout the brief, as well as her layout and InDesign skills. One particular area of the project that I felt we worked really well together on, was the research and we stated that this would be a joint responsibility; thankfully, this brief meant we could go on a ‘research trip’ to London; Nichola was ‘in charge’ of documenting it in terms of photography (with a good camera!), I had a little digital one, took notes and recorded all the info on our ‘interactive tickets’.

The final boards that we submit as a creative partnership to YCN were quite image dominated so when it comes to producing my own boards, I will document the development of the production of my images. In addition to this, I will show my own type work; this was Nichola’s area of the brief, and rightly so, because she is more skilled in this area as she did the type module and I did the image one, but I think it would be interesting to see how different it would have been if I was doing the brief on my own and I would have responsibility for the type aswell.

I stated on my creative partner ‘advert’ that I was ‘cooperative’. I don’t think that in this brief I was ‘uncooperative’ but I don’t think I could use that as one of my personal traits anymore; looking back on the brief, I do feel that I may have been a little overpowering sometimes and instead of discussing some things, I just said ‘I’ll do it’ and when it came to making images I produced them on my own and maybe forced the idea upon Nichola, at the time I didn’t do this intentionally and its not because I think I could do it any better than Nichola; I’m just a control freak.

Looking back on the creative partnership, I am happy with the work that we produced and I’m more than happy that I chose to work with Nichola. However, it has reinforced to me how much I like working alone; when I have to depend on other people or other people depend on me, I tend to panic, get very anxious and sometimes angry at the other person even when they haven’t done anything wrong. In the book ‘How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul’, the author explains that the freelance life suits two kinds of people; ‘the second type is best characterised as the creative loner. These are individuals who cannot be comfortably accomodated within the structure of a design group...They are often designers who cannot compromise their work.’

So overall, from this brief I have learnt that I am a control freak; a creative loner.

OUGD202 - End of module evaluation

This module has been hard work but ultimately good in terms of my personal development, as I have always had a keen interest in moving image but never really pursued it very much as I didn’t know how to use software such as After Effects etc. therefore when I found out that this was the focus of Design Production – Digital module I was looking forward to it.

Throughout this module I have developed skills in areas that I had none before i.e. the software and storyboarding. In terms of software, it has definitely shown me easier ways to do things that I would have known before so thinks that would have taken me hours or days before are much more realistic to do in terms of time management. I don’t think that my final resolution shows a particularly wide range of skills of using After Effects to its full potential however, it allowed me to create what I intended to from the start and I didn’t really need all the 3D tools etc, so I am content with my technical competence with After Effects and for this reason, would be comfortable using it again in the future and working more with it to develop skills. I didn’t spend as long working with DVD studio as I did with After Effects obviously but I think it is a really good piece of software to know how to use. Once again, I’m not sure my final resolution fully shows a great understanding of the software but I have a basic understanding that could be developed in the future if need be. On the non-digital side, I found that storyboarding is actually a lot more useful than I primarily thought. While taking part in the storyboarding workshops I did find them useful but found myself thinking that it wouldn’t exactly benefit however, as my work developed I was proved very wrong. I realised that all my storyboards didn’t need to be hugely detailed; as long as I understood them, it made turning my ideas into digital a lot easier; especially the pacing timetable.

In this module, I think that because I knew we were only handing in a DVD at the end and all my work would either need to be on there or my blog, the documentation of my work has got a lot better and so has updating my blog; at the beginning of the module it was terrible and I think I maybe did 10 posts in one day ‘panic updating’ and to save myself from doing that again, I updated a lot more and this made organising my work in the end for the DVD a lot easier than creating the PDF was for the last print module.

One of my weaknesses I feel in this module has actually been my research, particularly for the Top 10 and DVD brief; I did a lot of initial research at the beginning of Top 10 brief and then didn’t really do much more and I didn’t actually document any research into DVD interface design or DVD packaging. I am disappointed at myself for this, as research is usually one of my strengths and in the future I hope to find a balance between my Design Practice and Design Context blogs.

In terms of my final resolution, I am very happy with my title sequence; it captures the humorous tone that I wanted to portray and it works well with the subject matter, obviously there are things I could develop and when watching it over and over again I see tiny things that I want to change but for the time we had and the fact I didn’t know how to use After Effects at all at the beginning of the module, I am content with what I have produce and I think it reflects me as a designer as well. If I could go back, the thing I would probably spend more time on would be the DVD, it was somewhat left to the last minute; especially the final interface design (as documented on blog) and when played on a TV DVD player, it responds quite slowly so I would have spent time trying to rectify this but once again, in terms of building new skills and presenting my work in different way, I am quite happy with it. Also, even though it wasn’t a big part of the module; I feel that my DVD packaging works well with the context of the digitial work, I just wish I had done it earlier so that I would have posted my development work for it up on blog before the module deadline but I will still document it for my own purposes.

Overall, I am happy with the work that I have produced this module, I feel my biggest weakness has been making a decision and sticking to it and if I had done this, I would have probably got a bit more sleep.

5 things that I will do different next time:

1 – Experiment more with the software.
2 - Prioritise time better – don’t rush the DVD at the end.
3 – Communicate with tutors more – once I had eventually asked Mike for help, my work went a lot easier.
4 – Leave time for improvements at the end of the module – so then I would have had time to try and get my DVD to work better.
5 – Sleep more.

OUGD201 - Self Evaluation

This module was definately more challenging for me than I expected. As a starting point, I feel that research has been my strength within this module; I tried to gather information from a range of appropriate sources for example on my ‘What is Good’ brief, when I was planning my questionnaire, I knew I didn’t just want to ask students on my course so I thought about where would be an appropriate environment to ask people and I chose to put them in a hair salon as I thought people who take pride in their hair, care about their appearance and braces obviously effect your appearance. Leading on from facts about braces, I looked at a variety of sources to inspire my packaging which definately benefit my development work.

However, I feel that I kind of lost track of the basis of module. specifically on the ‘What is Good?’ brief and I should have researched more into print processess; instead of just reading about them, I could have actually tried some of them but due to the obvious, poor time management, I didn’t give myself enough time. In terms of the 16 page booklet, although my research helped to produce a booklet I was pleased with and it came from a variety of sources i.e. books, internet and workshops, I don’t think it was as ‘in depth’ as it could have potentially been, one area that I would like to look at more is commercial costing, because I think this could really benefit my future practice.

The workshops that were undertaken within this module to show us how to prepare documents for print, choosing colours and ways of printing etc. have definately broadened my knowledge within this particular area. I now feel competent using design software and choosing spot colours; these skills will always be useful in my design practice and did actually help with my idea generation and design developent. In my opinion the one area that I feel lets me down here however, is my lack of confidence with using InDesign; the workshops showed me how to use it to prepare documents for print and choosing colours etc. however, I found that when it came to actually making my booklet, I only used InDesign for adding text to my pages, but I was still happy with my end product and i don’t think this effected it hugely.

The documentation of my work has always been a weak point in my design practice, but I definately felt I improved a great deal in this module and it proved to me how much documentation and organisation can benefit your work, it also helped with my idea generation because my research was accessible and easy to understand. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the presentation of my final work was as successful. On the ‘What is Good?’ brief, I was happy with my 5 concept boards but when it came to doing a PDF of the decisive moments within the project, I found it difficult to select what would be appropriate to go on it without putting every single piece of work on. When I completed the PDF, I didn’t think it gave justice to the amount of work that I had done but regardless of how many times I went back and added more too it, I still felt I was somewhat ‘selling myself short’.

In terms of my final products, I was very happy with them and I think they related to the brief quite well and showed my ‘style’ as a designer off as well. On the ‘What is Good?’ brief, as previously mentioned, I wish I had looked more into print processes appropriate to the design but overall I think it ‘packaged and informed’ about braces as a good thing quite successfully. On the ‘What is design for print?’ brief, with the 16 page booklet, I think the one thing that would have improved this would have been to demonstrate various processes, for example, instead of just explaining what a spot colour is, I could have showed how to find a spot colour on illustrator or photoshop as I do have this information I just chose not to put it in the booklet. Overall, I am happy with the work that I ultimately produced but feel that I could have ‘pushed it further’.

5 things that I will do different next time:

1 - Try more practical things.
2 - Prioritise / Organise time better - I should have spent more on the 16 page booklet in relation to the other brief.
3 - Visualise more ideas.
4 - Constantly refer back to the brief.
5 - At the end of the module, present my work better.