At the start of the year I think that I underestimated how much more this year demands. I think that I was too laid back at the start of the year and did not push myself or put enough effort in. I feel that due to this my first two marks from the poster project and the greeting cards reflected this.
At the start of the poster project I found that I kept changing my idea, which meant that when I had the final idea of an illiteracy awareness campaign and carried out some research I didn’t really have enough time to spend on the development stage. My feedback reflected this!
The second project was the greeting cards; at the start of this project it was still fresh in my mind that I need to settle on an idea fairly early on to allow for development. I went with the theme of 2012 Olympics, alto at the start I was un aware of what occasion they could be for, so I decided to just design them as ‘blank cards’. Towards the end of this unit in one of the crits it was brought to my attention that I could not use the existing logo of the rings and should think of other ways of implying Olympics without their logo. I didn’t really have the time to resign my cards to a high standard so I had to hand in something I was not happy with.
I felt that the final task of this unit, which was the animal packaging one, was by far my best. I was excited to learn about the process of designing packaging, as it was something I had previously not really thought about. I found it interesting learning about nets and how to place your design so it fits. My time management was spot on in this unit and this was a turning point. I found that I was not only meeting the deadlines the course set but my own. Due to this I had plenty of time in every stage in the project. I was also a lot more committed to this unit and the comments reflected this.
I feel that without the last unit incorporated to pull my mark up I would probably have failed or got a much lower mark. At the time when I received the feedback from this unit It was quite depressing and I was very de motivated. Although I had to take the positives, which were; the way I approached the last project (animal) was I should apply myself like that in the upcoming ones. Also that this would only be a small percentage of my overall final grade.
For the web unit I wanted to put my first two project behind me, and start where I left off with the animal one and approach it in the same way. I was very excited about this unit and learning the technical aspects of making you designs functional. During my Work placement at the end of last year I designed a few pages for a furniture company in photoshop at and I remember afterwards wanting to see what it would be like functioning. I found the researching side of this project very interesting, I enjoyed learning about web design and what makes a good website, and how the importance of a particular aspect can change depending on the purpose of the site. I was very motivated to produce a high standard website as it would be very important to me in the future.
I think that again I approached this unit in a very organized way and I was very pleased with my time management. I am still extremely happy with my final design I worked really hard on it. I was quite pleased with the mark I got for it although it only contributed 15% of my final mark.
I felt very positive about starting my professional project as I am confident that now I have developed much better time management skills which has meant that I have been a lot happier with my last outcomes. I feel that my portfolio has got a lot stronger this year and I have improved greatly as a designer.
This year I also attempted a ‘live brief’ as I wanted to see first hand what is involved when designing for a client. I designed a logo for ‘Tasty Marketing’. I found this very exciting as I was on a tight deadline while also having other work to complete. This defiantly helped me as a designer as in the industry it is very unlikely that I will get large amounts of time and I would also have more that one think on at once!
Another thing I wanted to achieve this year is to successfully enter a competition brief. For this I worked in a group with Ben, Rob and later joined by Chris. We started very well with this project; we had a strong concept of sexual innuendos to sell smoothies to 16-25 year olds. Although this unit started to drag on. Throughout this brief we had numerous visiting lectures which we felt we should use to our advantage, by getting as much advise as possible. I feel that although we were fortunate to have this help available we shouldn’t have let it change our minds so easily. At the start when we first had our idea of sexual innuendos Michael Ryan thought that this was a very strong concept and so did we and we were very excited to run with this; then we had another lecturer who was more illustration based as she felt that we should go down the road of bursting colours, liveliness like current campaigns so we started researching into this. We then started to run with this idea and developed initial ideas/ early posters to this. The we felt it was to main stream and just replicating what was already around, and we started looking into using photography – black and white images using colour to get the message across of the product and its appeal. In hindsight I wish we just stuck with our original idea and developed that more before getting more advice. We still plan to finish off our posters in the next couple of days and then submit them.
I think that the past year has pushed me as a designer and strengthened my portfolio massively. I have learned new skills such as what’s involved with designing packaging, and websites. I have broadened my understanding of website building software such as Dreamweaver and also how to build them in flash. I have found the website unit to be extremely stimulating and It is defiantly something I want to explore further. I plan to move to the 3rd year Graphic Design BA course next year to further my understanding of design and prepare me for a carrier in Graphic Design. I look forward to continuing with my professional project.
