Extended Practice: Evaluation

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

This year I have really developed my finishing skills and quality of presentation of my briefs. I have took time over crafting the final pieces, put more effort into developing the outcomes for briefs and photographed them to a high standard. I did a few photo shoots which meant learning the equipment, setting up the studio and playing with art direction and composition to photograph the products. I really enjoyed this aspect at the end of the year and feel it really shows the dramatic change from the beginning to the end how much i've improved. My briefs feel all together more professionals and consistent towards the end of year with a clear direction and focus in the kind of design I am creating. You can tell the difference between the briefs I enjoyed and weren't intreats in drastically by the final outcome due to the effort put into pushing them so much further. Another skill I think that I have learnt this year is what works best for me as a designer. I've really come to realise what I want to do, my tastes, the kind of work I want to produce and how I can go about producing it. Realising this has really improved my work ethic and motivation. I have effectively applied this skill to the briefs towards the end of the year where I was realising these factors. I was able to resolve issue faster by analysing what was going wrong, make effective decisions quicker and self reflect on my work critically. Over all these skills have both transformed my projects to a much higher standard of professional work that I can be proud of as well as given me the ability to discuss myself as a designer clearly and confidently.

2. What approaches to methods of idea generation have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

This year I really realised that its things in general life outside of graphic design that really inspire my methods idea generation. I gain visual research in my own personal experiences and I usually log these through photography. I draw on these experiences as a form of inspiration in my design and creativity. I have now become more organised and focused in my forms of visual inspiration and put them onto a blog. This I can use for my own personal use as well as give to professionals as an insight into my creative influences. They have formed my design development process as I have frequently felt uninspired and unmotivated this year where briefs have been a struggle and i've been really stuck. By doing activities outside of design, discussing with people and experiences new things I have been able to open my creative process, have a better state of mind and inform my design process. I have frequently gone back to research throughout briefs to help aid and inspire my work so that the resolution is appropriate and relevant. 

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

The main strength in my work is the concepts. I feel this is a skill that i've really focused on developing over the last three years and i've tried to make this a key aspect of my design process. It's important to me that my design has substance and is strong enough to last rather than be momental. I can now capitalise on this strength by demonstrating this skill in my portfolio. This will help my future career as its important to develop design based on research, history and with a strong base to represent something.

A strength is the quality of the final outcomes. I have in the past struggle to produce final pieces how I wanted them to but due to my organisation and pre planning I was able to produce a range of products to a more professional quality. I also managed to develop different outcomes such as art direct a campaign myself and a modelling shoot. These are final outcomes I'd never done before. I was pleased with the results and even with minor defects and mistakes, which I have learnt from, I still came out with a range of products which work together over a range of briefs. I have created final brief outcomes I would be happy to put in my portfolio. I capitalised on my new skill in the quality of production of products by creating a range of different formats and designing more products as I went along. This is beneficial as now I have a stronger portfolio that show attention to detail and high standards. In the future this strength will be useful as i now understand production methods and challenges of designing for different formats. It also demonstrates my concepts and ideas to the best representation possible.

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

I think one of my weaknesses as a designer is working with typography and therefore as a whole this is what I identify to be weak in my work. I will address this in the future by pushing myself to work with it more, to work with it alone without being alongside a visual. This will help me to make my typographic skills stronger as the more practice I have using it the more I can learn and understand what works and what doesn't. I also feel as a whole this yeah I have pushed the boundaries of application within my projects. The application I have applied is standard and expected avenues in order to display something such as a billboard rather than thinking outside the box and thinking how I could apply it more to the environment or in alternative places. In the future I will dedicate time to thinking about application and how the concept can be pushed to the extremes in all routes. This is something I forgot to do this year and I feel that my briefs would be much more improved if I was now to consider how they could move even more forward.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

Test Colours
Do test and trails of colours so I can make an informed decisions before I do final printing.
Briefs
Think through before doing a brief and analyse wether its something I want to do, what will benefit me from dong it
Application
Push application to extreme formats and this will make my briefs stronger overall and more creative. 
Organise
I'd set out clear deadlines of when briefs would be finished by otherwise I keep on carrying them on and other briefs miss out.This will benefit my time management and general professionalism.

Collaborate
I wish i'd collaborated more with different people as I much prefer working with others. I will gain better communication skills, a more varied ability in idea generation and the ability to work with others.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Attendance - 5

Punctuality - 5

Motivation - 4

Commitment - 4

Quantity or work produced - 4

Quality of work produced - 4

Contribution to the group - 5

CoP: Development

I cut out the net on the new flexible stock I sourced and I had to experiment with different settings in order to cut through the stock without burning it.

I did two test nets to see which way folded best.

I then tested this with the full set inside to see if it fitted which it did.

I also tested the stickers I printed against the mock ups and the scale worked well.

I wrote out a title, a definition and an explanation of each category to explain the different kind of visual inspiration I had. I used definitions as in my initial research and ideas I often define key words to open my understanding, knowledge and vocabulary. I also doubled this information as separation layers between the different tiles to protect the images.

Final products packaged in there sets and categorised.

602: Brief Evaluations

Nest: Final Resolution

Nest: Design Development

I decided to go with the sans serif typeface I had chosen in my initial search as I felt it represent the honest, modern yet soft personality of the brand. I tried to create a bird using the letter 's' so it appeared as if there was a bird sat in the nest.

 I also tried to create an egg shape in the curves of the letterform as a subliminal visual this however wasn't working.

 Therefore I tried to add the eggs underneath the letterform as if a bird was sat upon them, nesting. This was to represent the nesting, calm element to the stores home ware produce.

 I tried creating a bird using the letterform adding details to make it evident. I didn't feel this bird fitted right with the word. I looked online and found a curvy illustration. I adapted this to create two points so that when tilted it formed an 's'. I used the neutral colour palette I had chosen through my research to represent the brand personality traits such as calm, raw and honest.

I really struggled to make the branch net base work alongside the text but I felt it was important to include it as the logo wasn't as strong in representing a nest without it. I tried curving the edges, changing the widths, altering the composition and shape. Although it was improving I didn't feel it was completely there. I realised I think it was the scale that was wrong and decided to change the scale to fit just under the eggs.

I feel this is much more appropriate for a logo as the line is less dominate and the hierarchy is now different and more focused on the word.

I tried different colour ways to see if it was better for the bird to look more in unison with the word nest to make it read any better. I think that pale bird works best as it works better with the other letter and is a better colour way. This makes the little blue eggs stand out more as key feature in the logo. 

Nest: Research

As I was struggling to create an identity for this brand so I decided to analyse the brand personality, brainstorm and then define the key words to generate a wider vocabulary to stimulate ideas to visually communicate those attributes.

Other branding and typefaces that fell under the word 'honest'. There quite heavy weighted sans serif typefaces. This is what I working with originally so I felt I was on the right track.

Looking at the definitions really helped me realise what I was trying to communicate. I tried of thinking of ways that these could be represented such as in the typeface or colour palette.

D&AD: New Boards

As we didn't have enough time to do good mock ups for the D&AD deadline we came back to the brief and re did the mock ups to a higher quality for our personal satisfaction and portfolio. These show our designs a lot better than our original boards as it shows them in format and context.