Module Evaluation

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

Through this module I think I have developed quite a few skills, I can now use inDesign which is a whole new programme I new nothing about before and now I feel I could produce a piece of design using it. I don’t feel like I am an expert in using inDesign but I hope my skills will keep improving. I think from the group brief my skills for working in a group have definitely improved a lot, I now work better in a team and really enjoy that brief.

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

I think my approach to research has developed in the way that I try and get as my primary research as possibly instead of just relying on the internet for secondary sources. I’ve also tried to look at sources that you may not instantly associate with design, such as books with written research that lends itself to the ideas and design I have and want to create.

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

I am happy with the typefaces I designed for the live brief, especially one of them, people asked me if they could have prints of it which is always a nice thing to hear. I think working as a group and producing something whilst having fun is definitely a strength and I think in future group briefs I will be able to work really work and produce something great.

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

I think I have improved in not over thinking everything too much and not getting on with it but I still think I could improve on this. For speaking from experience brief I started off really well just going for it and seeing what happened but then in the last week of the project I froze and didn’t know what to do and then my final piece didn’t turn out how I wanted it to even though the project had started out well. I still think my software skills need to improve, I have used indesign, photoshop and illustrator during this module but my skills still need a lot of improvement but I think that is something I have to keep working at and it will come with tim.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Make sure I use my time wisely during in each brief to get the best work done I can do in the time

2. Try not to get side tracked off what I want to produce as I quite often seem to be unhappy with my final outcome and wished I had produced something else.

3. Try and get more to grips and engage with software so I can improve my work standard.

4. Use my skills and work that I do outside of college and apply them to my college work as I feel like I don’t use my skills to their best potential.

5. Keep trying new things because you can never stop learning!

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

Attendance -5

Punctuality -5

Motivation -3

Commitment -4

Quantity of Work Produced -3

Quality of Work Produced -3

Contribution to the group -4

Speaking From Experience-New Outcome

I decided after my crit that a book just wasn't working and wasn't the way to go, in my crit the feedback said that it worked apart but not when put all together. From that I decided to make posters with my images instead of a book, these are my final three that I think worked the best. I think if I had more time I would maybe go into each area in more detail and then make little books covering each part of graphic design.

Speaking From Experience- Crit Feedback

 

My crit feedback was pretty much what I thought it was going to be like, the format of the book has been commented on and how everything works individually but not all together, so I think I might scrap the book idea and take my images and make posters, it was also said I should maybe focus on one topic or maybe make seperate books on each topic.

Speaking From Experience- Book

These are the final images from my book I am going to present in my crit on Friday, overall I am not that happy with the outcome. I like my idea and I like the content of the book I am just not happy with the layout, I had a mare with inDesign, its not really my best friend at the moment and I am still trying to get to grips with it. However I have to have something to present in my crit and I am happy for peoples criticism and input on how to imporve it but I already know I am going to change it, maybe even not have my final outcome as a book but as posters instead, ah well, on to the crit. Lets see what happens.

Futher Book Design Experiments

More experimentation with layout for book design, looking at colour, type and images to use.

Speaking From Experience- Book layout

These are my first tries at laying out my book for my final outcome for the speaking from experience brief, I think I have decided that I like the landscape layout, it works better with the photos I have taken that I want to use.

InDesign-Final Design

This is my final double page spread about Alex, overall I am happy with it, I still feel I have a lot to learn when it comes to inDesign and I want to keep using it so I can improve my skills because I think its an important programme to be able to use.

InDesign-Development

This is my near final layout for my inDesign double page spread on Alex, I have decided to use the photo of Alex with the dogs and I felt that reflected what he said about his love for animals which I have spoken about in the article. Here I have looked at the positioning of all the parts of the layout and where I want everything to go and what works best. This is what I have written about Alex in the article-

Alex Slippens is a silly, smiley, 20 year old guy from the south. However Ales hasn’t stayed in one place during his life, so far he has lived in Holland, France and England, making him quite a well travelled man.

Alex is an only child and has a good relationship with his mum and admits to being a bit of a mummys boy, he says ‘I am open with my mum, I wouldn’t keep anything from her.’

Being comfortable and in a familiar environment is important to Alex, he likes

Being at home and works best in his own environment. He a straight forward and organised guy and likes to be alone a lot of the time and is independent, however this doesn’t mean he isn’t a good friend, he has very good close friends and is always loyal.

Alex is an animal lover who also cares a lot about the environment, he has a cat at home called Molly who he talks about very fondly. One of Alex’s dreams would be ‘if I ever get rich I would like to open my own wildlife reserve.’

Alex’s likes to have fun, maybe too much fun sometimes, claiming him self that he smokes too much and often drinks too much, resulting in not so fun hangovers. But being silly and random are all part of Alex’s character, as well as being a clear headed, straight forward guy who knows what he likes in life. And what Alex likes in life are the nicer things, he says he would rather spend his money on a few nicer things rather than lots of stuff which isn’t as good, for example he has his trusty iPhone and likes treating himself to nice meals.

Something Alex’s dislikes about himself is his hair, he says ‘it annoys me!’ and he corrected me when I said he was ginger, saying he is strawberry blond. Alex works well and best under pressure and is an organised person, however he doesn say he has a short attention span. Overall Alex is very ambitious and strives to do well in everything he does. He also claims to be very opinionated but says he tries not to dwell on things and just likes to live life and take it as it comes.

Paper Size Flyers

I've taken all the flyers I got at the start of the year and ordered them by paper size, lots of them aren't actual paper sizes they slightly vary in size from the official measurements but I have organised them the best I could, if i use these images in my final book I might put the sizes/measurements over the images on Photoshop.

Organising Cameras

 In this photo the cameras are ordered alphabetically by make which is one of the organising methods in the five hat racks.

In this image I have organised the cameras by size/lens size in decending order, this is also a method used in the five hat racks, this image could also be photographed from eye level so you can see the cameras going down in height order.

Organising Pens in a Grid

Using my marker pens I created a grid based on the ones that I learnt about in the type and grid sessions, using the promarkers as collums with 3cm between them and creating about a 1cm gutter then using the fine liners as margins.

Book Layouts

Design sheets looking at possibly layouts for my book I want to design for my final outcome.

To illustrate or not to illustrate...

I tested out what my photographs would look like if I illustrated them, I think I prefer them as photographs and it shows what I am trying to say better, but it was nice to do anyway and helped direct my outcome.

Organising Books with Graphic design

 Typeface-Sans Serif/Serif

 Continuum-Highest/Lowest

Case-Upper Case/Lower Case

Speaking From Experience-Crit Feedback- 13/5/11

On Friday we had our second crit for the speaking from experience brief, we were split into smaller groups this time and I had my crit with Jo.

Overall my crit went really well, Jo and my group really liked my idea and the work I had done so far.

The feeback I got was to look back over what we learnt in visual language and apply that to what I am doing now, I had started doing this but I think I will revisit it in more detail.

It was also suggested that I could possibly set up a blog where people could submit their own versions of organising their life with graphic design that everyone could look at and learn from.

I need to consider what my final outcome is going to be, probably either a book or poster and then how exactly I want it to be recieved, if I am trying to teach people about graphics, for example this is what you will learn this year or if it is helping people to apply their skills they have already learnt.

I need to look at all the ways of categorising things, how to brake things down, Jo suggested two artists to look at James Maeda and Andy Byram.

Type and Grid

For Lorenzos type and grid session we had to produce layouts based on one of our magazines we looked at in the previous sessions. We had to do convential layouts and then more radical layouts, here are my radical layouts based on the article in i-D magazine-

And here are my more convential layouts-