Evaluation - OUGD406

OUGD406 – Evaluation.

With this module being the last of the year, I anticipated it being fast paced and hard work, but I was pleasantly surprised to realise that it was equally enjoyable as the last few before it.

Secret 7 was a breath of fresh air for me, I thought it would be a great opportunity to experiment with what techniques I use to produce my work. The song choices were all great but Underworld stood out to me more than the rest, as it is the music that I have been influenced with all my life. This seemed like a good idea at first, but I later realised that it was quite the opposite as I already had a good bit of knowledge of the song through its history and its use in Trainspotting.

Using an abstract form of photography, I was able to create something I was not so happy with. I now realise this is because I didn’t quiet spend enough time in the idea generation stages to really give myself enough diversity throughout my designs.

Moving onto the book cover brief was somewhat of a relief for me as I enjoyed it much more than the S7 unit. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is because I used a technique I was not entirely confident with. So I stuck to my guns for this one and focused on what I know best, typography, modernism and layout.

Picking Just My Type by Simon Garfield, I was slightly hesitant on whether to swap for a book I might not have heard of before, but I later reconsidered this, as I cannot stand the current cover. I think it is overly childlike and hard to take seriously, as a book relating to design, I would have thought it would be better off more vanilla and less post-modern.

I set myself a target to make it appeal to an audience such as myself (students) rather than what it currently is, a humour/reference book for people who may have heard of Helvetica. My choice to keep it simple and modernist was an easy decision, colour choice was poor as I had originally opted for a neon green which is too difficult to replicate with a standard printer, so I changed to 100% cyan to keep it as bright and interesting as I possibly could.

I will admit although this module was enjoyable, I was slightly disorganised due to my time management, with personal and professional practice and design principles fast approaching I do realise that I should have considered this in my time plan, then maybe I wouldn’t have had to rush toward the end to get things finished, and I would have a screen print to show for studio brief 02 - (My screen failed to expose which then made me unable to print onto it. As well as not having any time planned to fix this, I will now ensure I consider all running modules to make sure I am more organised in the future).

Collaborative practice was an interesting one. I feel the team I was in had great ideas but lacked motivation, including myself. The concept was strong as stated in the critique, but we failed to see it though and the end result was slightly distorted as I think we all had different visions of what the brand would look like.

We produced a high quantity of work and I’d like to think of a high standard as I found it beneficial to always have people to refer ideas to and bounce off of.

I was shocked to hear the final brief was Speaking Form Experience, as it only feels like last week the second year students were showing us their resolutions. I enjoyed this brief the most, although I spent the least time on it due to my organisation, I feel the final outcomes are strong and reflect my brief to a tee.

To expand on the subject of brief writing, I feel this benefited me greatly due to not being restricted to any boundaries. The only things to consider were it has to be aimed at the next level 4 group, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be related to graphic design. I decided to go along the lines of using humour to give advise I wish I’d knew before starting the course. This was to be in the form of a series of posters. These posters then could be adapted into anything; I chose to do a memo book inspired by Field Notes.

With the memo book being slightly rushed, I would have loved to have gone back and fixed everything that was wrong with it. In the future, I will be sure to do mock-ups and ensure that I know things can’t go wrong before doing any final designs.

Overall, this module has been a good experience for me as I’ve truly realised how important time management really is. Collaborating has made me more open to receiving feedback and providing appropriate responses, something of which I have struggled with in the past that has now been addressed. I look forward to what the second year brings and I’m sure to learn from my mistakes I’ve made this year.