1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I think one of the main skills I've developed is working effectively to a brief and analysing and evaluating work in a professional manner. It's one of the first times I've worked to strict briefs and especially in such short and intense deadlines. I've surprised myself with the quantity of work and development of an idea in a few weeks and it's not something I've really achieved before. Working to a brief with quick deadlines is a part of professional life so it's good practise.
Timekeeping and organisation have also, I think, been improved as with all the stuff going on, it's important to keep on top of things and be wise with your time. There never seems to be enough hours in the day at times! but I think on the whole I've managed my time reasonably well and not been rushing around last minute for any brief and kept on top of it.
2. What approaches to/methods of idea generation have you developed and how have the informed your design development process?
I find blogging actually helps me a lot with idea generation, I find myself kind of talking to myself on my blog a lot when deciding what to do and where to go next. Especially at the start of the brief, I find it very helpful as I tend to find at the start of a project my ideas are all over the place and I don't have time to mess around and need to narrow the ideas down and crack on - so blogging helps. I also find researching into stuff helps, especially in regards to imagery so if you go on my context blog you might find, I make a sort of 'mood board' type post where I post loads of imagery relevant to a subject.
I also find myself writing to myself and sketching stuff a lot in sketchbooks. Design sheets are something new to me, and something I'll try and work on more frequently to work out stuff, rather than in my sketchbook.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I think one of the strengths of my work in this module is that it kind of gets the job done, especially in regards to the posters and mail shots. I think the simplicity works in favour of them as not alot can really go wrong and maybe it's hard to criticise them as 'bad' works of design. I think my personal favourite is the Alphabet Soup - Typeface for a partner project. At the start, I was finding it difficult to capture a theme or concept to pursue, but once I did it came quite easily and I had a lot of fun with it - especially as I've never really made a typeface before. Simplicity is always the goal for me, I don't like making things overcomplicated when there's no need for it. Sometimes this makes my work quite linear and abit 'dull' maybe?
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
As much as the simplicity of my work, I think, works for my work - I also think it has a few downsides. Just as hard as it may be to call them 'bad', at the same time I find it hard to call the work exceptional and eye catching. It's all just sort of 'there' - functional but not groundbreaking - maybe not necessarily a bad thing but I dunno. Compared to other peoples posters and mail shots, mine are quite simple and functional. This was actually the goal for me, I didn't want to waste paper and ink etc as it was an environmental campaign but I don't think it reflects my own character and personal style as much as maybe others do. Anyone could have done the work.
I think an area I need to improve on is to work to a brief, but at the same time find a way to put my own stamp on it rather than just make what it tells you to make. This is an area I really want to improve on, I don't want to just become some sort of graphic design robot that just answers briefs with functional work that does the job, I consider myself more of an ideas person, I thrive on creative, mad, ideas more than the sort of work I think I've made. It kind of feels like I've been on auto-pilot - In the future I want to make more mad, adventurous work which makes people go "oh, how did he do that?"
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do expect to gain from doing these?
One thing I would do differently next time is to, like I said, try and be more creative with my work rather than just going route one with everything. I think in terms of overall flair I think my typeface ones quite snazzy but apart from that it's all quite functional and dare I say, abit boring. I want to put my own stamp on my work and I hope to gain more personal satisfaction from it.
I also want to work more comfortably with design sheets and make my whole thought process and design process clearer, most of my work is quite scribbly and rough and once I go on the computer it magically turns into something slick, I need to make this jump clearer. It will make my development work clearer and more interesting to look at.
I would probably do my mail shot differently next time and think more in depth about the interaction between the user and the mail shot, and possibly make it more interesting and a bit different in the way it opens or closes or something. As it stands it's a fold up envelope that also acts as the mail shot itself, there's more avenues to explore here. With more development I could get a more interesting and interactive mail shot.
I also plan to spend more time researching in the library next time, rather than sort of working in isolation and relying on myself for inspiration I should also look to past work and current styles that I maybe don't know of yet. More knowledge is never a bad thing! It'd only help make my work stronger and more considered.
I also maybe could have been more experimental with my work. Sounds cheesy but "think outside the box" some other guys have used laser cutting and screen printing as really interesting resolutions, whereas my work is all bog standard digital prints. There's nothing wrong with that either, it depends what suits the purpose the most but it wouldn't hurt to have checked some of it out. If I carry this in next time it'll allow me I have a wider variety of work that shows a wide range of skills and ideas.
0 comments:
Post a Comment