Design practice

Ougd301 Evaluation

While this module has been successful in many ways, it’s not gone without it’s difficulties.

The year got off to a slow start, as brief writing isn’t one of my strongest points.

From the beginning, I wanted to focus on briefs that I was interested in. So at week 1, I wrote a list of everything I was interested in and asked myself if that interest could turn into a brief.

I also wanted the briefs to reflect my skills. I would consider myself a print based designer but also I was aware of the increasing significance of web presence. So I wanted to create a balance between modern and traditional design.

As mentioned previously, brief writing isn’t one of my strengths, so initially I was very slow getting stuck into the briefs, which meant design direction was a tad slow. However, one of the skills I’ve managed to improve on this module, is my time management skill. As my time management improved, as did my enthusiasm for the briefs thus the designs improved in quality.

Blogging wasn’t necessarily another strong point of mine, but having 4 briefs running alongside each other forced me to keep up to date with blogging. This not only helped me to organise things but it also helped with keeping to quite a strict time schedule.       I’ve finally learnt the importance of action plans. Every time I felt unclear in terms of direction, I would either speak to Phil, Andy or thinking to myself. From this I would build an action plan for the week and try to stay as true to it as possible.

Having Andy and Phil on hand in the studio was a huge help. They seemed genuinely interested in my briefs and were very impressed with the quality of my work. It also helped to get a professional insight into some of the briefs. Andy, for example, has done work for the Hepworth Gallery, which helped when talking through my fine artist brief.

During the summer, I was lucky to have a placement with Joe Gilmore at Qubik.

I’ve always admired his work and was inspired to work with an artist. This began with a possible collaboration with a fine art student but it seemed everyone was either already collaborating or wasn’t interested in having an identity designed for them.

This didn’t put me off. During my time with Joe, I had noticed he did a lot of work within the culture sector and over the years, has produced beautiful pieces of work for art exhibitions. Feeling inspired I searched for an obscure artist to brand/propose an exhibition. I came across a past exhibition by the late artist, Darrell Viner. He worked a lot with computers and a device called a pen plotter.

He seemed to be driven by a concept, which is something I pride myself on.

During this module, I feel as if my concepts are getting much stronger. Whenever I start a brief, I approach it in a very conceptual manner. I try and build a solid concept and use it as a foundation for the designs. This way, I can justify every design element and the entire briefs’ thought process.

I’ve also learnt that I’m flexible as a designer. For the Space brief, I was inspired by vintage travel posters but realised it would require illustration to achieve this visual aesthetic. I didn’t feel 100% comfortable illustrating to begin with, but the results pleasantly surprised me. It made me realise I don’t have to be so rigid when it comes to design. This will help me significantly when it comes to employment.  

At the beginning of the module, Fred mentioned the “Buggeration factor” This is when something unpredictable happens during the module that is either out of your control or something that goes catastrophically wrong. I became victim to this when attempting to screenprint. I had spent 2 hours plus stripping and cleaning several screens ready for a multiple colour screenprint. This took so long because of the lack of equipment and the appropriate chemicals. When I returned the next day to expose my designs, I had discovered my screens had been stolen. This put me a week behind schedule as I had planned to dedicate that week to screenprinting. I tried to resolve this by moving onto another brief whilst waiting for another screen.

This was just one of the many “Buggerations” to occur. Another one being print slots clashing with a tutorial.

I would have liked to have completed more quick turn around briefs and have been guilty of faffing and I had to scrap a few briefs that didn't quote work (no comment brief)

The strongest briefs from the 5 I completed were the Darrell Viner brief and the Typeface brief.
Moslt;y because they had come from a process, a concept. The Space and atheist briefs came from one idea where as the others mentioned were the result of several ideas. I prefer design that is built on a solid concept and the visuals come from some sort of process.

The Darrell Viner logo came from the artist's way of working and the typeface came from Nordic architecture. These briefs were built on concepts and inspiration right from the very beginning.
I also hope to work within the culture sector so had a lot of fun with the Viner brief.

The most succesfull part of the module was managing to finish 4 + briefs within the short amount of time given. Another strength is that my beifs show a variety of interests, from space to art exhbitions. My favourite brief out of the module is the Darrell Viner brief, as it shows my conceptual skills and execution skills. Overall I am proud of the work completed!

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
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.