INTERIM SELF EVALUATION

List 5 practical skills that you have developed. When have they proved useful?

1. Software skills - Now able to transfer idea's from paper to screen.
2. Printing - A range of different process's, more range and freedom within work.
3. Book Making - Making a book is now a design option
4. Photography - I can now use good quality, primary images, with subject matter, lighting and effect controlled by myself.
5. Colour Theory - I can apply it to practise

List 5 transferable skills that you have developed. What have you used them for?

1. Effective time management - meeting deadlines
2. How to work well within a group - Able to get on with peers and work better with communication skills gained.
3. Organisation - Of work in general and important files at home.
4. Presentation skills - More confident and understand concept - now know whats expected of a presentation and can produce one.
5. Confident in talking about an idea - helps with pitching.

List 5 things that you have achieved. How have they helped your progress?

1. To learn how to use illustrator
2. To be confident enough to present work
3. An ability to produce professional quality work
4. An understanding of whats expected from you to get a good grade.
5. An ability to understand how to blog.

List 5 problems that you have had to face. How have you over come them?

1. Lack of communication and understanding within group work - organise group meetings.
2. Not knowing how to use elements of software. Ask peers and staff for help.
3. Not knowing how to set up printer and printing settings - Ask peers and staff.
4. Losing work - Eject memory sticks always!
5. Not knowing how to critically evaluate and analyse self - following given sheets gave me an understanding on how to do it myself.

List 5 facts that your have learned. When have they been useful?

1. Work can be just as good without hand drawn elements - A broader range of work
2. Primary research is essential and most useful for inspiration.
3. Plenty of design development makes a better outcome.
4. Staying at uni afterwards is the most productive time.
5. Sleep at least 8 hours in order to be at your best.

List 5 things that you will never do again. Why?

1. Work from your hard drive - Freezes computer
2. Work only by hand, it can never be perfected.
3. Not turn up to a briefing no matter how ill, tired or hungover - you miss out on important info
4. Do double sided in a mac room by guessing the settings. I ALWAYS do it wrong and waste print credit.
5. Get to a stage where i don't know what to do. I end up unmotivated and lost.

Which of these words describes the way you work as part of a group?

Confident

Vocal

Decisive

Which of these qualities do you most appreciate about yourself?

Honesty

Organised

Critical

Which of these attributes best describes the way you worked at the start of the brief group?

Focused

Direct

Critical

Which of these attitudes best describes the way you work now

Objective

Committed

Focused

List 5 things a first year needs to know?

1. To freeze bread
2. Pre - drink (it's the cheapest way!)
3. Keep a camera on you at all times
4. Work out a healthy balance between work and play
5. Never, ever, ever, miss a briefing.

List 5 problems a first year will encounter?

1. Finances - Get to know what you get and how to spend it
2. Flat mates - You don't always get on with the people you live with
3. Cooking - The inability to do so
4. Motivation to get to uni with a hangover.
5. Finding out what your real priorities are

List 5 rules a first year needs to learn

1. Blog everyday
2. Sometimes it's just not worth going out the previous night
3. Buy frozen food - It lasts so much longer!
4. Attend everything - You never know when you could be missing out on vital info
5. Visit home - Keep's you happy =]

VISUAL LANGUAGE - what is a line - Pen, ink and watercolour

After looking at Winnie the Pooh's illutsrations I became inspired to produce something similair in style and media. I know I want to creative something relevant to a child learning about nature in one way or another, whether that be about photosynthetsis or the names of partiuclar speicies of plants, using such an image style I feel is appropriate in that, it is so very detailed and realistic in form.

Direct observations from E.H Shepard 

Using watercolour and fineliner

I felt this media was a better choice due to the accuracy of the lines, I didn't have to predict where it would go or how thick the lines would be, I could choose a certain thickness of pen to do that for me. This was an issue when using pen and ink in the image below, the ink seemed to leek and be unpredicatble in thickness of line; it would rapidly change. Detail was lost and unable to produce due to this.

Another observation from a photo within another book this time

VISUAL LANGUAGE - What is a line - Photo shoot

As I had decided I wanted to produce a book that teaches children about the life cycle of a tree, I felt it be a good idea if I got out and took a few pictures, in which I could practise drawing in a similar style to the 'Winnie and the Poo' illustrations. So here's a few pictures, I tried to focus on older tree's which had a lot of shape and texture as it would be easier to create shadow when drawing.

COMMUNICATION IS A VIRUS - The feedback from presentation.

This is feedback we recieved on our presentation from group 7, aswell as from Jo and Amber

These are the questions the group had to consider while giving us feedback:
Was the concept clearly defined?
Was the context clearly defined?
Was the method of delivery clearly defined?
What methods were used to gather information?
What methods were used to evaluate information?
What methods were used to distribute information?
How was the problem resolved?
How could the problem be resolved more effectively?
Was the problem delivered in the correct context?
Did the problem communicate with an audience?

 - Liked the concept, think it is strong
- Might be better to challenge people rather than be too nice to them and guide them
- Fear motivates more than positivity, so could include facts and figures
- Posters are aesthetically nice but there isn't much depth and meaning
- More of a 'kick up the butt approach' could work
- Liked the posters but don't think they are motivating
- Would be worth creating other products that are more relevant to students
- It would be good to test the products now that you have actually produced them and to see whether they work
- The posters seem a bit girly so a different approach would be better for males
- Posters worked for Kirsty, she did think they were motivating
- Liked the logo, thought 'help yourself' was a clever title, could make more use of this logo
- Some of the type styles didn't relate to motivation
- The different skills of group members is useful
- How would you give the products out? Have you tested it? Does it work?


Unfortunately I was ill during the presentation and wasn't able to attend. But looking at the issues raised It looks like we needed to push it forward into the environment more to see if it actually worked. Also from this it was clear we hadn't worked close as a group, many of the concerns raised would have been resolved or non existent if we had worked closer as a group within our designs. It is defiantly something to think about when a group task next arises, that problems occur when communication is lost.

COMMUNICATION IS A VIRUS - Final designs

Final Designs


The Presentation:

The designs:

Kirsty:

Claudia:

Matt:

Mitch

Myself:

The screen printing process was very long, but I do feel it was worth it after seeing the final outcomes. This method also gave me freedom in printing medium. As I was able to print onto magnetic paper and doilies. The prints were cut down to a 2:1 ratio in accordance to the groups decisions to size, and we also tried to mix colours to the best of our ability to match our chosen pantones.


Final poster designs
Here are my final poster designs, which were motivational is trying to get our target audience of students to learn a new language. I feel these worked really well. There was continuity in my own designs in that the hand drawn type was similar in aesthetic quality. They also worked well with everybody else's posters, as chosen colours and size were the same, each person had their own qualities and hand rendered typography into their poster designs. Overall as a group I felt we worked really quite well. Being individual in some of our approaches to designing, I did feel would become an issue, but we came together in the end in our styles. Time management was essential for this project, we were forever arranging times to meet up and talk about what we were doing next, and going away with 'to do' lists!


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EVALUATION

I found this brief quite difficult to get a grasp of. Particularly by working within a group, I felt it took a lot to actually be able to be working along side with the same idea's, we found ourselves working independently for the majority of our work, which I feel let us down in answering the brief. 

I was most surprised with how the designs came along with my group, I did begin to think some of the idea's and designs were not working, and in any sense being motivational but we really came together at the end.

I really experimented with media within this brief, beginning with just pen, to move onto the computer, to then screen print both hand drawn and computer designs. Again exploring the use of materials, creating doilies, magnets and 2:1 scale posters, which were drawn and printed onto coloured card. I really enjoyed doing something different, avoiding the digital dungeon, it certainly gave a range to my work.

I'm gutted I wasn't able to attend the presentation given my the rest of my group, but I looked at some of the feedback and felt I should have pushed with a comment I made. I mentioned that we need to get our products out into the environment, but was overheard due to everyone being ever so busy so I tried myself, put up poster with detachable information. 

I have learnt that time management is KEY when working within a group, we should have worked together more to create consistency within designs. Creating designs which you have all had an input in doing I feel is a better way to go about things. 

COMMUNICATION IS A VIRUS - Working as a group

Overall as a group I felt we worked really quite well. Being individual in some of our approaches to designing, I did feel would become an issue, but we came together in the end in our styles. Time management was essential for this project, we were forever arranging times to meet up and talk about what we were doing next, and going away with 'to do' lists!

Going out of your way was something always being considered in approaching our work. Me and Kirsty decided to attend a drop in print session in our day off for 6 hours! But it definitely paid off, our final products were very different and varied in medium due to the freedom of print making. 

COMMUNICATION IS A VIRUS - Working with the logo in a different format