OUGD406 Design Practice - Evaluation

OUGD406 Design Practice- Evaluation

For me, Design Practice has been the module I think I have enjoyed the most but also the one where certain briefs I have struggled with the most. I have really enjoyed expanding my design skills and finding new ways of working, and  I've definitely built upon my skills from the last module through developmental and conceptual work. From the previous modules I think it has really put me in a good position at the start of this module, and feel I have really improved as a designer now coming to the end of first year. I feel now that I am a lot more moulded as a designer and I know what I like and what I don't. In addition I think I've really learnt so much and am looking forward to applying all my knowledge and skills into second year to really produce work that I am proud of.
Studio Brief 1 and 2 have definitely been the briefs I have most enjoyed. Design such as these really appeal to me, especially the conceptual side in Studio Brief 1, creating a visual response to music. While Studio Brief 2 however it was the screen printing that I really loved. I think working with other mediums definitely appeal to me and I know that I need to branch out more as I do a lot of digital print work. I really want to experiment with things such as embossing, foiling, laser cutting, vinyl and more screen printing and letter press. So in second year I am definitely going to throw myself into experimentation as I love more hands on work.
I have still found that editorial design is something that really interests, but now after reflection, I feel I really want to produce more print based designs and I can branch out into any creative areas. This I have learnt from PPP but going to creative network events at uni have confirmed this. I feel now what I what most is to experiment and develop my skills even further, which I can apply my own styles to. This makes me excited for the future and what's next to come during second year.
I feel that I have further improved in critiques this module as I have come more so to the realisation that I love giving and receiving feedback. I definitely feel that I'm confident in expressing my views when I disagree with something or feel some things can be improved. Which is valuable as for me, constructive feedback is key. Presenting as well I have found much less daunting and think  I would say I have achieved my own personal goal in improving at 
presenting. 
I have actually found Studio Brief 3 the least enjoyable for me. Although collaborative practice is something that really appeals to me, I didn't so much enjoy the collaborative side in this brief as we all had very different taste and I wasn't really happy with what we produced. It was definitely an experience however as in life your not always going to work with people with the same styles as you, so working together and compromising in this brief has taught me valuable lessons. I also found myself taking on a bit of a leader role within my group, I think I'm good at working within a team but now I feel more confident in taking on leader roles.

Overall I have enjoyed the tasks set to us and have overcome my struggles while developing my ideas and produced my work to a standard I am happy with at this initial stage in the course. I think this first year is really a learning stage but this module has allowed me to produce work that I am happy and think has elements of me within it. 
I've attended every possible session I can and regularly stay later than 3:30 at Leeds College of Art. I do think though that my time management has been the worst in this module. Although my attendance is good, I think personally I could of planned my time better. Studio Brief 4 for example left me and jess really restricted for time and unfortunately we couldn't do the screen printing that we initially wanted to do. If I were to do this briefing again, I think sticking to the lists I make for time management would of been a lot more beneficial for me so that I'm not limited for time. I did however book all my printing slots well in advance which really paid off and is something I will continue on doing. I am keen to progress further and cannot wait to learn more and continue on in the course. 

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Production

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Production

Overall I'm happy with what we have produced. I felt that me and jess worked well together as every step we did together, and we always mutually agreed and didn't have any disagreements. There is continuity and consistency throughout and the large scale makes it easier for the calendar to inform students and by being more accessible and interactive. The title and paragraph clarify the intention of the the calendar and the importance of attending events outside of university for research, networking and inspiration. I think we could have created a more interesting and challenging calendar poster if we had finalised our idea early. I would have liked to have screenprinted the poster on coloured paper so that we could print with white ink for the frame and text. Also because the printer needs to be professionally cleaned there are stripes down the grey frame which makes our work look shoddy. As we produced this quickly without much development,  I would of much preferred to have more time to work on this, as we took quite a while with our idea generation, and I think it would of looked a lot better screen printed. I do however, think it answers our brief by helping first year students be aware of things outside uni and the importance of that and the idea for me is the main strength as I think it really can be useful to not only first year students but to second and third years as well. 

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Development

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Development

As me and jess gave our idea a lot of thought, we left ourselves slightly restricted for time so unfortunately we felt it would be best not to do a screen print, as screenprinting is a time consuming process. We did however still have our initial digital print slot so we decided we would just print it. We started to digitalise our calendar and wanted to give it a modern feel based from our research. Jess came up with the the idea of using a 'Hive' concept so we started to play around with hexagons as it's a lot more modern and quite aesthetically pleasing. We also played around with different fonts as although we could no longer screenprint, we still wanted a letterpress style so used different kernings etc to create a slight post modern approach to the type. However we both agreed that in these experiments it came across as childish rather than post modern.

 

Final Crit

We agreed that there wasn't enough space for people to write before the crit and the final crit confirmed this.  It seemed that people didn't really understand what we meant by an events calendar and I thought that the crit was very negative. The tutor didn't have anything positive to say about the layout or the idea.  We received feedback from people saying that we should have a monthly calendar that was interactive which people agreed with which was essentially our idea but on a three monthly basis.  I think I articulating our idea well but what we didn't articulate well was why the calendar is needed and why students should go to events. I think that aspect me and jess knew but hadn't actually discussed before so I felt a bit caught out as there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on this. Which is what we should of really articulated this better as I got the impression from the negative vibes that people thought that we hadn't done much - which isn't true as me and jess had put a lot of thought and effort into this. In addition we were told in the interim crit that it had to be specific to graphic design students and I felt that the crit was unfair and unequal amongst the students - some people hadn't made it specific to graphic design students and that was apparently okay - suggesting that we could have stuck with some of our original ideas.  It was also suggested that we wouldn't be producing enough for two people so we should create a book that informs students of events that we found useful and allow space for notes at the back. We took this crit seriously and have decided to do exactly as asked so that we can't be scrutinised for not listening to feedback.

After our crit, we decided to incorporate the acetate as someone had suggested to do a one month calendar instead rather than three. This way people can just use a marker pen to change each month but we would still use printed paper to display the acetate on. We eventually decided to keep the typeface simple and straight with Baskerville. Because our layout was simple we decided that a serif font would present the letterpress/traditional style - combining it with sans serif Verdana for the body font would create a balance.  We decided on the title 'What's On' because we noticed that on a lot of gallery websites, their exhibitions and events are labelled under a 'What's On' navigation button. The orange grid would be printed on A2 acetate and the white paper in the background would be A1 - this would have 'What's On?' and the paragraph explaining the intention of the calendar.  This informs students of why it is important to attend outside events. Furthermore, we both agreed to use such large papers to solve the problem of not having enough room to write.

We then also wanted to create a book as suggested in the crit. However we both decided to produce a book on where's the best places to go or check up on so it relates to the calendar but has more emphasis on where rather than when. We felt that this would be more useful to students as it relates to the calendar, in that if ever there isn't any events on currently, students can refer to the book to look into where to go instead, as all the places we chose you could just walk in and wasn't a specific exhibition.
We wanted the aesthetic to relate to the calendar as well. Although we did try out the wonky, post modernist approach we felt it didn't have any continuity and both the calendar and booklet should be consistent. The orange line on the cover and throughout the book represent the grid of the calendar.  The condensed layout & brief explanation further presents the idea of adding info on to a calendar. We used the same sans serif typeface throughout the book to keep consistency with the calendar & the 'Notes' page uses baskerville, again to be consistent with the title on the cover and on the calendar. The notes page asks people to keep note of events they have been to or know about so that they can inform people for next year or put it on the calendar for everyone to be aware of.  At the back we reminded people that they should PPP blog about the things they attended.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Research

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Research

As we had decided to do a calendar, we found it appropriate to research modern calendars and see how this could be applied to our work. There seemed to be a consistent them in our research that that contemporary calendars have a well thought out balance of white space. In addition the use of shapes was really interesting and this is something that me and jess wanted to incorporate. We found one example with orange, white and grey which me and jess both found to be a really nice colour scheme. One thing that we wanted to aim for was a unisex calendar, so we wanted natural colours. We then found another example that used shapes for the actual boxes within the calendar. We both found this really interesting and very contemporary so we though this hexagon theme along with the use of the colour orange could be interesting, and like a Hive. Therefore we thought this could be a possible theme for our calendar.

We actually got a lot of further inspiration from posters around the uni. This example sparked our interest and made us consider screen printing for our calendar. We both mutually agreed that screen printing it would give it that extra edge and have a really nice aesthetic. Examples in our studio of letterpress styled words confirmed this as this is the aesthetic we both wanted to go for. I think the use of bright, bold colours together really makes the poster stand out, but predominately the type for me is what really makes it. The bold style draws your attention straight away, especially the choice of colour on a subtle tone. This aesthetic to us would work well as the calendar could be an example to students that you don't need to digitalise everything. I love hands on things although the idea of screen printing or letterpress is a bit ambition, I think it would definitely be worth it as it has much more of a creative aesthetic which would appeal more to students here. 

OUGD404 Design Principles - Evaluation

OUGD404 Design Principles - Evaluation

Design Principles is something I have found usually and really come to enjoy on this course. I found our sessions for Studio Brief One really interesting, particularly by the fun manner of the tasks we were set. It certainly taught me more about typeography which went hand in hand with Design Skills and the typograhy side of this course. The most usefu session I found was with John - the logo, signs and icon session. This taught me valuable knowledge to think outside the box, and also that some things do not need redesigning. This realisation came out when we were asked to redesign the Fire Exit sign, for this our group decided that it was infact perfect the way it was, the only adjustment we made was to give it a sound alarm so it can apply to deaf people as well. This was interesting as John made us really think about who our audience were, and at the debriefing, John really made us think outside the box with his ideas of using guided lighting rather than an actaul sign. I think this way of thinking can really be applied to anything, especially while thinking of concepts for design ideas.
Coming onto Studio Brief two really made me enjoy Design Principles as we were given the chance to create our own book. This is something I've fundementally enjoyed as I never thought I could say that I've created my own book. As my book was influenced by Context of Practise I have really seen all of the modules relate and inform one another, particularly now as I look back on all of our sessions. The workshops for me are also something I have come to really enjoy, particularly the book binding workshop. It has given me valuable knowledge for my future and I now feel confident binding methods and what are the most appropiate binding methods.
Along with this, I feel I have developed a deepened understanding of what a book is. Our sessions have certainly been conceptual and I have loved looking at really creative books. It has made me realise just how creative and unique you really can be while designing a book - usually I just think of typical novels when I think of books, but now I have completely broadened my knowledge.  I think through previous years, concepts has been something that I've really struggled with and left me feeling stuck, but through sessions like these and really expanding my mind, I have certainly improved and concepts is something now I always take into consideration.
Text setting is something that I had no prior knowledge of but has been extremely helpful to me. Although this is something I have found I've struggled with, it has certainly helped me a lot for page and text layouts, something key to book design. I  think keeping a good rag has been the think I have struggled the most with, as it is time consuming it is however definately worth it to create an aesthetically pleasing block of text.  These are all key and what I now and do take into consideration while thinking about type and layout. Certainly key for me as this course, and certainly this module has made me interested in editorial design. I really hope that page layout and type setting is something I will only get better and better at, and I believe it will as I have come so far now from having no knowledge what so ever on this subject at the begining of the course.

I believe good time managment is something I have achieved on this module, although I think there was room for improvement. I managed to have my book completed and printed before the easter holidays as I stuck to my time managment plan which is something I am proud of. Altohugh due to overlooking a piece of information, I had not set my book out right for the type of bind I wanted to do, and as it was already printed there was nothing I could do about it. In addition I think if I had completed the final draft for my book earlier, I could of had more critiques on it and perhaps could of found something that needed changing. Although I did have really good feedback in a critique I held, perhaps with more I could of gone further. Nevertheless I am happy with what I have produced and proud that I have come this far on this module and learnt so much.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Idea Generation

OUGD406 Studio Brief 4 - Idea Generation

Me and my coursemate jess decided to work collaboratively for this project, as we both had previously discussed a problem we found during this first year. Therefore we felt it would be beneficial to both produce a response to the brief together which can help to inform the next first years. We both found that we never really knew about what events were on or how to find out about these. Certain things that we had been to such as the Tetley Book fair were really worthwhile to go to, however we were told about this by our tutor and we cannot always rely on him to feed us information. In addition it is just as worthwhile to attend events that aren't specific to graphic design but we both didn't know how to find or check up on these events. Leeds always seem to have a vast amount on during the months so me and jess wanted to produce a solution to this so first years will know when and where these events are and not miss out. 

So we started to brainstorm ideas about how we should go about doing this and we came up with producing a calendar. We feel that a calendar could be easy to use and check up on to see what events are going on, I then suggested that students and our tutor could write on it themselves as well so they can inform others too, making the calendar very interactive. Due to this the calendar does not have to be limited to first years, I thought second and maybe third years could add to this too as they will have a broader knowledge of events on.

Together, we then started to draw the layout out and share ideas. We both were on the same page of how we wanted to produce this and put a lot of initial thought into what we would produce.