Throughout evaluating my practice and my work for this module I will analyse what went well, what I enjoyed, what I didn't enjoy so much and struggles I had. Finishing up with what I plan to do different for future briefs in order to be more successful.
In terms of which brief I feel was the most visually engaging, personally enjoyable and most successful I have to say it was the ISTD, Design For Print & Web brief. It was a very enjoyable experience, especially when designing the posters. It allowed me to blend my love for hip-hop music with graphic design, something I'd never done before. It also allowed me to step away from the usual 'contemporary' design and very art college style of design and do something a bit hand-rendered and purposely 'undesigned'. It was actually quite difficult to make things look bad, so they can look good! For example I stretched type in ways it 'shouldn't' be stretched, in order to gain the grungy 90's hip-hop look. I also enjoyed the animation element, it was cool to create a static poster, which animates. So in a way it's animation but with graphic design sensibilities which I find very interesting and in todays digital age I think there's definitely more to gain in this area. I had a lot of fun making work that was loud and kind of like music but in visual form, so hopefully people can see I had fun by viewing the posters.
One of the major struggles I've had throughout the Print Production module and Level 05 so far is not so much the workload, but the scattered nature of working and thinking. I personally, in an ideal world like to work on one project for at least a few days, to a week, so my only focus is that one brief, I feel I work best this way and push out more possibilities. One of the main learning curves of Level 05 is to switch on and switch off each project and work on a different project, sometimes 2-3 in the same day in a very fast moving environment. I've always been quite an organised person and like to feel in control, at the start of the year it just felt like my brain was spinning with all that was going on and it kind of hit me for six. I found it hard to switch off and constantly felt on edge, I realised it was something I had to get used to and get some perspective on and I've definitely taken steps to change my own time management and working pattern to deal with working in a pretty scattered way and I feel I'm pretty much fine with it now, I know when I need a break and when I don't. So in a way a positive has come out of a negative?
Through analysing what I didn't enjoy in the module, I've also become more aware of what I enjoy, what I'm 'good' at and I feel a little bit more closer to knowing where I stand in the design world because of it. My least favourite brief in terms of creativity and research was the What is Design For Print? brief. I actually quite enjoyed researching certain elements of researching design for print and it's infinitely useful in the design world, I've learnt so much key stuff such as print processes and finishing processes. The aspect of the brief which I didn't enjoy was all the stuff to consider, it was a bit of an information overload at the start of the year and for some reason everything kind of worried me. Alongside this my brain was on fire with getting to grips with working in such a scattered way compared to the first year and the whole brief was a bit of a struggle. It was a bit of a grind. I don't think I achieved as much as I could and I'm glad I managed to get all the content done for PDF presentation and proposal but it was definitely a struggle and not a very enjoyable time for me.
A positive that came out of this struggle was that I decided I needed to step away from the brief and do what I enjoy and find my passion for design again and I found myself designing a lot of posters just for fun and ro relieve stress and doing some freelance briefs for a local cinema involving movie posters, and I feel this struggle allowed me to realise what aspects of design I don't enjoy so much and aspects of design I love which don't feel like 'work'.
Another issue I've got with my portfolio of work for this module and college work in general is the inconsistency of it, the styles are pretty varied and some work is a hit and some work is a miss, but at the same time I'm also glad it is, as I always try to do things differently and challenge myself. I know what I'm comfortable with and I've tried to do something a bit different and new to me, so sometimes I look at it and think hmmm it's a bit dodgy this, but at the same time I'm glad I'm trying it. A prime example is the ISTD brief, which overall in terms of visuals I'm very happy with.
In terms of finishing my work to a high degree I feel I've not taken my work as far as I could have again, it's been a steep learning curve getting to grips with 2nd year and I've maybe not taken things as far as I could have, with not giving myself enough breathing space to do so. For example with my Verbal Acrobatics ISTD brief, it would have been amazing to make an animated website like in my concept which does it justice with animated posters that play music and it would have been nice to foil and emboss the record sleeve but I didn't do anything and found myself simply digitally printing it and gluing it together.
I'm also still yet to screenprint, when looking at my work, especially personal work and other modules it's begging to be screen-printed but I never do, for fear of faffing about too much and not being able to expose a screen properly. I REALLY need to do this and be on my way with it as I feel traditionally printed posters and so on could well be an avenue of design I'd be chuffed to work extensively in as a career.
So moving forward and what I'd do differently for the coming modules, I'm definitely going to manage my time a little better, I've definitely made a lot of progress compared to the start of the year but there's a lot of room for improvement. I also plan to think outside the box a little bit, and work in a more traditional and hands-on way. I'm planning on doing an entire brief by hand, the analogue way, via photocopying, drawing, exposing, screen-printing etc - with computers only used for documentation and blogging. Saul Bass didn't use no mac! This is very exciting and I'm waiting for the right brief to allow this. I also want to laser cut, emboss and foil more and overall just create a much more polished package if the brief calls for it. One of the main things Ive taken away from this module is that I've kept trying to challenge myself and do something new, in terms of visuals, but moving forward I need to challenge myself in terms of new processes such as screenprint and packaging my work and distributing it with more flair so it's a real world viable product. As much as I've enjoyed aspects of this module I'm glad to see the back of it and excited to receive new briefs and opportunities in the coming weeks, most importantly I want to have fun and for my work to show it.
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