End of Module Evaluation

Collaborative Form

OUGD301 Bibleography

Competition Brief - Sound Bites

Evaluation

I found this brief particularly difficult as I found out last minute that the competition brief we had to do, had to be a current, after being told otherwise. So I looked at a few on the ISTD briefs and found 'sound bites' we was very similar to my 'Doing my nut in' brief. It gave me the opportunity to produce the promotional material for my books, which I didn't have time for. Using the content of the 'Doing my nut in' brief, I created a visual concept for explaining sound visually. I loved the process of listening and trying to explain the sound through typography, it was something I hadn't done before. Considering the amount of time I had to do this brief, I was proud to have come up with such a strong concept and a suitable amount of work to cover 3 boards. This became strongly a concept and research driven brief, which I don't think I've done before. Ideally I'd like to re-do / spend more time on this brief and take it into FMP, to explore my concept further and how I can push it.

Typosgraphe

Evaluation

Working in a collaborations has been harder and more rewarding than I initially thought. Choosing a partner who had skills I wanted to improve worked to my benefit, I feel my type and layout skills have some what improved, and my communication skills - Having to email places to possibly hold the event, and networking to involve people to submit work. Creating an event at first was quite scary, but because I had a partner, we were able to push through and actually organise it between us, for the new year. We managed to organise our time very well, there were times were we hadn't touched the brief or spoke a out it for at least 2 week at the beginning so we decided on weekly weekend meetings in which we would decided what we'd do for the week ahead. These became more often during uni days, we'd organise day were we would go down to screen print together, or print. We would write a set f tasks, and between us, decided who'd be doing what, according to skill set. It was really good working with Sarah, she was very pro-active and did a lot of work which had been a problem with past collaboratives, I would certainly work with her again.

Things I would do differently would consist of writing the brief together, at several points we had different ideas and changed the brief, but communication was lost as these ideas weren't written down, which resulted in me being confused about what we should be doing at several points. This I can say was really the only issue we had, it been a successful collaboration in my eyes, and I look forward to the event in January.

Doing my nut in

Evaluation

This brief had a personal connection with me due to my birth origins and nature. I was able to relate myself within content, and grasp a better understanding. I have live in 12 different houses in 5 big cities so have a broad range of knowledge about dialect and accent, so was able to use this in communicating speech well. 

I had always wanted to write a brief which had a focus on type and content as I knew it was a skill of mine which needed improving, so it was best it was about something I was interested in and could produce imagery alongside - In this case the book covers. Toward the end of the brief, I was getting compliments about my type and layout which I never thought would happened!

Because I had a personal interest in the content of the book, it meant I enjoyed the brief, which resulted, I feel, in it being completing in good time, and to a high standard. Originally this was meant to take just a 2 weeks to complete as I was going to mock up products, but I really wanted to see and feel the products - I was able to do this due to good time management. Alongside other brief I found any 'spare time' to go to book binding workshops, to find out how best to approach it. It took 6 hours to glue, cut and bind all the books, as I hadn't produced anything like this before. Its certainly a skill I want to improve further and take into FMP. A problem I did have was after producing some high quality books, I found it difficult to photograph to retain the quality, but after the workshop I managed to obtain some good photographs for the boards. 

SOmething I would do differently next time, would be to focus on both sides of the brief, image and type, and for them to be as good as one another. I feel the covers could have been so much stronger if I had explored printing processes within it. I'm that bothered about it, I intend on taking this brief into FMP as a second, or special edition and improving on the designs.

Overall I have learnt a lot within this brief, my time management skills saved my sanity, book binding isn't as simple as it seems but now I know how, and my type skills although still not brilliant, I'm getting there.

Casa Mia

Evaluation

This brief was originally driven by another - a Tigerprint design a day brief. I've always been interested in hand rendered type so wanted to do a 'Type a day' project to obtain my own hand rendered typography resource. Rather than do this on the side, I wanted to incorporate it into a brief. This is when I came up with the idea of producing descriptives, this then gave me the idea of use a Menu for content. I happened to go for a meal in Casa Mia, firstly trying to book a table online: I found their webite very hard to use and aesthetically awful, it was overloaded with information and a christmas colour palette.

I really enjoyed writing for this brief, as it was some what real. A restaurant I had personally come across, experienced it bad design, created and thought up a concept and put it into play. Because I was genuinly passionate and interested I felt the brief came along a lot quicker, the amount of work I produced was something which would have taken me double the time last year. With the passion I had for this brief, I was driven to explore new processes which would compliment my hand rendered design elements. This included embossing, laminating, screen printing and exploring stock choices I hadn't otherwise used before. This brief alone has taught me so much, that your final products look so much better when you put the time and effort in, it really pays off. A few problems did arise when trying to screen print - the time I estimated it would take, ended up doubling. This was due to me not remembering how to screen print - so I needed help, which I couldn't get some days. This problem also occurred with new skills I wanted to learn, but on a positive note, I now know how to, and this will help me in the FMP. Another thing I've learnt within this brief is to consider the use of the products - my menus needed to be easy to read by customers, so my hand rendered type needed to be legible. This also to the staff, they needed to be able to quickly differentiate the menus, so I screen printed a single word on each a bold, gold colour. This brief become very much consumer and worked led.

Overall I'm really happy with the final results, I've met the brief and had fun doing it. Its been frustrating and challenging at times, but because I had managed my time in a 10 week chart, and left time for mistake, I was able to meet the deadline well in advance. I would love to potentially propose the idea to Casa Mia in the near future.