END OF MODULE EVALUATION: OUGD406

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them? 

The skills I have developed through this module have been extensive. Firstly I have been introduced to some new software that I had never used before called Indesign, It's something that I am really interested in using further as most of the work I had done before starting my degree was based on editorial design which is something I see as a future career prospect. I have specifically learnt how to created a book and that in order for the book to be printed correctly the pages have to be in a multiple of 4. In my other module (design principles) I had created a book were I hadn't used this and during production it was unreadable. I have also learnt at lot of ways to experiment with type and image on Indesign through the day tutorials we had with technician mike. I really enjoyed these sessions and blogging them as we did them because when creating designs or other projects I could refer back to them as useful notes. I have applied the skills I have learnt through creating a double page spread for my animal brief were I experiment with grids and margins.

I have also learnt how to clean, prepare and do screen printing on fabric, this is something I always wanted to experiment with and I am glad I had the opportunity in the final module to do this before we leave and enter the second year. I also learnt what settings I had to set my design into in order for the screen print to work effectively which saved time.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design

I have taken a new approach to the way I generate my idea's, I think I have progressed in the amount of thumbnails I use to do in previous modules which I think has been very beneficial for me to create a multitude of designs. 

Another approach I have taken to design production is the experimentation with different stock and sources. For my group project we ordered in special stock to fit our magazines aesthetic and since doing so it's something I want to experiment with further such as foiling, screen printing and embossing. 

Also for the communication is a virus brief we had to mass produce our magazine, it was interesting to have to make certain adjustments to the magazine in order for us to get it printed in time, considering costs and also the design. All these factors towards producing this magazine informed me on what the limitations can be in design and how they affect the overall product.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?  

In this module I have been assigned to a lot of online roles, in communication is a virus I set up the blog, twitter and Facebook account which enabled me network with people and designers who wanted to work with our project. Also for speaking from experience I was assigned to creating the blog, spotify and instagram sites. Before even knowing I wanted to do graphic design I was always designing blogs and making websites for people. I think this area of design is something I am really interested in working more into and I have brought the adobe web design package so I can capitalise on these skills over the summer break.

I also have significantly started working with the other adobe software more to better my skills and I think gradually I am coming more accustomed to designing they way I see things in my head physically. I will also capitalise on my skills by experimenting with the software over the summer.

Another thing I found not specifically a strength but an interest in is music and event design. The live brief we got for design is about doing really inspired me and I enjoyed the process. To capitalise on this I have started looking into studios like the Kate Morross studio and looked at her work as a source of influence and I've started to collect posters of designs I like as a reference of what I would like to produce gradually.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

The weaknesses I can identify in this module are the drawing aspect of design, I know that I don't have to be amazing but I think that if I took the time to practice more my thumbnails or illustrations would look more neat and presentable.

I also think that in order for me to grasp a better understanding of design I need to look further into up to date blogs and attend more exhibitions to see whats out there. Over the summer I would hope to attend some.

Another weakness of mine is not being able to juggle my workload. I think in order for me to be stress free and feel organised I need to set up a routine of just getting things done straight away instead of leaving it to the last minute and it not reaching it's full potential.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. I would like to take on a more creative and designing role in group work, I feel like I haven't really produced a lot of physical design in this module and even with the online content I had done for communication is a virus, it wasn't completed due to all the other peoples work not being finished in time which made it look unprofessional. I think by doing this I can develop my skills further and also it would boost my confidence.
2. For the design is about doing brief I really liked the painting I did for the jesse ware sleeve but when I uploaded it to the competition it lost it's resolution and was saturated really badly and didn't look how I originally intended which was quite disappointing. If i had the chance do it differently I would check the colour modes and even to a test print or a test upload before fully submitting my work for future live briefs.
3. I would of liked to have more time on the communication as virus brief, although we worked really well as a group and got great interaction from our work, I feel like if I had more time when the magazine content was produced I really could of made some headway with the blog design. I did make some of my own design decisions using my initiative but sometimes it was a waste of time as it didn't go with the rest of the other designs. I think if I was more confident in pushing my ideas in group work then I would have sped up the design process.
4. I would of liked to have experimented further with Wallaby dps. I felt liked I focused more on the content than the design and I could of experimented further with the things I learnt in mikes sessions
5. I would like to continue to experiment further with different stocks and methods of designs like letter press because I want to broaden my design skills further than just doing everything digital. I think this will make me a well rounded designer.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance				x
Punctuality				x
Motivation				x
Commitment			x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced		x
Contribution to the group			x

SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE EVALUATION

For the brief speaking from experience I really enjoyed working in a group with Vicky, initially I thought it would be difficult working in a group with a friend but it I think the outcome of what we created was successful and communicated what we felt and learnt from the first year. I think it would also communicate to the students effectively because we created so many different things for them to interact with.

Intially our idea for the brief was to create 3 concertinas but after the crit we found that we could create more due to their being two of us in the group. The crit was really beneficial to the expansion of our project and our idea's. We worked together with the whole content and aesthetic side of 'The Key' project but we also worked well indivdually when we split the job load which made the work easier to complete. I think that by us working with both print and online media was a good idea as it could be accessible to all of the students in the first year and not just the students we end up having to present our  work to.

We met up regularly outside of uni to brainstorm idea's and showed each other our design ideas. This also made the production of our work quicker and more effective as we were both available. We also kept expanding our idea's from what we initially had and ended up creating business cards and posters also.

Although we worked well together we did face quite a few problems. The packaging of our products was quite difficult to execute. We had discussed a few idea's but when making our final it didn't fit all the products in. We then met up again a day before the deadline and created a new box which worked really well but for future group work we could have left more time to consider the format and size of our packaging to save money and stress.

 
  

I also felt I took on the same roles as I did in my last group project which was the online side of design. We split the job load according to what we was most familiar  at doing but I would have liked to contribute further to the overall print side of design aside from the t.shirt and stickers. 

In conclusion I think this brief was really good, I wish we had been introduced into the first year the way we are doing it now because I would have learnt so much from what the second years already know and would have been beneficial to what I would expect in the first year aside from what the tutors have to say.

SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE: CRIT 1

For our crit myself and Vicky presented our idea's to our tutors and peers of the concept we had developed.

OUR FEEDBACK WE RECEIVED-

We recieved some useful feedback to help guide us in the right direction

Positives

• Great idea
• Good personal concept 
• Digital / social networking is a good way getting in touch with the audience
• Good colour use for both genders
• Manifesto idea is relevant for inspiration and advice
• Good tone of voice

Considerations

• Is there going to be different quotes for each topic?
• How will you perforate it?
• Where will you get the dont's from?
• How many dont's will there be?
• Constantina might not be most appropriate, maybe something that would be a constant reminder
• Experiment with sizing and shape of concertina?
• Strong use of materials - print and use of digital
• Show experimentation with colour as development - even if they aren't used eventually.
• Tone of voice
• Extend with blog /podcast / website
• Quantity of work.
• Tone of voice could become a problem with trivial advice

Taking into consideration we then brainstormed some more idea's to help make the project bigger. We then expnded our project as we felt it wasn't enough for both of us. 

Blog / E-book - with a typographic based motivational manifesto to help designers in the right direction, our own experiences with possible audio podcast

Instagram - motivation  quotes, do's + dont's that we came up with.

Motivational pack - 3 concertina posters, screen printed top, badges, cd.

I felt the crit was really beneficial to the progression of our idea. Straight after the crit myself and vicky brainstormed some really good idea's and because there is two of us we can split the work load which would enable us to take on a bigger project.

COMMUNICATION IS A VIRUS EVALUATION

For the brief communication is a virus, I was in a group with 5 other people, I think working in a big group can sometimes be difficult as everyone has idea's that they want to incorporate and everyone has different tastes. 

However I think that my group worked really well together. We came up with our concept really quickly and we were all really enthusiastic about the project which made the experience more enjoyable. 

Working within this group enabled us to network with professional practitioners such as graduates from LCA and freelance designers. I found by doing this it was not only really interesting but beneficial for future projects because we have learnt how to approach people for advice and interviews.

During group work I would have liked to take on a bigger role when designing the magazine. Although I did like the networking and designing the online side of things, due to the time it took for us to get all the designing of the magazine done the website couldn't be updated. I then thought that the website looked reallly unprofessional and plain but we did recieved a lot of activity on the website which then proved that our message was getting noticed.

In regards to other roles in the group we assigned each person a task in the group, however I felt that we were still quite disorganised, an example of this would be that each person who interviewed and artist had to create their own double page spread, but when it came to looking at them all together there was no visual continuity. I think if we set specific style guidelines aside from the font style,  the production of the magazine would have been quicker.

When it came to piecing the design together we faced quite a few problems with the stock and sizing, there was a lot of pages that were cut wrongly and a few spelling mistakes that we noticed after we mass printed. In future group work projects I think we should of all had a thorough read before printing.

I also thought that due to the magazine being produced so lately we didn't have the chance to distribute to all of the places we intended and didn't have enough time to receive a lot of feedback on what they thought about the magazine. The majority of the interactions that we received from the project was through the social networking sites I produced were I updated the progress of what we was doing for '5'. In doing this I got a message from a bar manager who wanted to create a launch party for our magazine. When getting this email we as a group thought we could expand the project even further, which was exciting. However due to all of us having our own personal work to do, we decided to end the project after the brief. I think if we carried the magazine on it would have been interesting and possibly beneficial to see how far we could of gone. This group work has aught me that in order to get a message communicated you have to interact with people and the right audience to make the message spread.

I think as a group member I worked really well to make sure that whatever tasks I was given were produced on time. I also though that I really took charge of the communication side on the project which enabled our message to get spread. However I think to benefit from my next group work I would like to take on a slightly bigger role in the print design side of things.

SECRET 7 FINAL EVALUTION

For the brief design is about doing we was given a live brief were we had to create a record sleeve for a specific artist and I chose Jessie Ware.

During the process of creating my design variations I wanted to make them all completely difference but still having the same sort of themes that I interpreted from the songs. I think that buy doing multiple thumbnails and researching into music design studios likes the Kate Moross one expanded my approach to the design. I like how I changed my approach by experimenting with digital and handmade design.

I then presented my variations to my peers and recieved some useful feedback which is presented in another post. - Link

Taking on the comments from the final crit I made some changes to design and came up with this as my final design.

I used both hand renderd and digital techniques to create this design and the crit was really beneficial in helping me decide what design to choose for the project.

However when working in CMYK it didn't show on my computer screen the change of colours and for my submission the design turned out like this.

The design became really saturated and I couldn't resubmit my work, however this is something I will take into consideration and have learned from. I was really disappointed with the final outcome of the design due to the colour change. Aside from this issue I was really pleased with design and what I interpreted from the song.

When submitting my work for voting I thought it was quite daunting to showcase your work so publicly as this is something I haven't done before. 

However it was quite a confidence boosting experience, a few people left some really nice comments on what they thought about my work and I received quite a few votes and was in the top 50, despite there being a change in how I wanted the design to look.

In conclusion I really enjoyed this brief, the fact that it was a live brief gave me an insight of what to expect in the future for working with clients under specific guidelines, public awareness, colour modes and deadlines. It also made me realise that I have a bigger interest in music graphic design that I hadn't really considered before and want to continue to experiment and look into. I also liked how the brief was ethical and for a good cause, which was something I was happy to be apart of. 

SECRET 7 CRIT

For our secret 7 live brief, we presented our 5 variations of our design to our peers. In my crit group was Jordan, Leo, Abi, Jamie and Issy. The work displayed was all really interesting and well depicted for the artist's the chose to represent.

For my secret 7 project I decided to chose Jessie Ware. From the 5 variations I had displayed along with my design sheets and developments, my group decided upon my ink painted design of her.

The feedback I received was very positive and my group liked what I had created. They also offered some idea's and opinions to help improve my work which I found useful.

• Make the painting more small and central
• Less saturation of the colour
• The brownness of the face and the darker coloured ink would look nicer combined 
• You could experiment with 4 images for the ratchet test variation

• Mid way between the running of the ink and the crispness of the lines
• Use soft rubber on Photoshop