Evaluation
Following the Responsive module towards the end of second year which I throughly enjoyed and produced interesting and engaging concepts for, I was really looking forward to third year and taking a more self-directed role with my design work.
Having developed a keen interest within the branding and identity sector during my second year I relished the challenge of being able to write briefs within this particular area of Graphic Design allowing myself as much creative freedom as possible to explore concepts which is a key element of my design practice.
During the Responsive module I had become more and more concept-driven with my design work, putting an emphasis on creating an interactive idea which would inform subsequent design decisions, and this was something I wanted to build upon during my third and final year.
I also wanted to use the third year as an opportunity to further explore the hand-rendered and mixed medias which had been a large part of my practice throughout years one and two. I chose to concentrate more on mixed medias as opposed to hand-rendered as I felt this improve my confidence within the Abode suite whilst still reflecting the hand-rendered element which has underpinned my practice since the start of the course.
Having had quite a structured curriculum over the past two years in terms of mandatory workshops and critiques at pivotal points during the course of a brief I knew third year would be quite a culture shock and would require a lot of organisation by setting personal deadlines and critique points to ensure each of the briefs could be completed to a high standard.
With this in mind at the beginning of our first semester I decided to split the eight briefs I had written over the summer into two planning to complete four during the first semester and four during the second which not only helped me to organise my time management more effectively for each of the individual briefs but also made me feel a lot less daunted about the sheer amount of work I had to undertake during the course of the year.
Bearing in mind the Context of Practice module ran alongside Extended Practice during the first semester I do believe I completed a significant body work on the briefs I had planned to do. I did struggle a lot with the COP module and have done in years one and two which did influence the briefs I chose as I knew the written element of the COP module would take up a lot of my time.
Overall I am pleased with the body of work I completed during this time which have contributed significantly to my final portfolio. As well as producing a substantial exhibition book, screen-printed greetings cards, professional mail shot I also worked on a variety of smaller scale live brief which were extremely beneficial in terms of getting used to the method of working professionally within the industry.
A lot of the work I produced during this semester was primarily hand-rendered and I was able to experiment with several techniques I had not previously worked on before in particular the photocopier technique I used for the Hoax brief which I throughly enjoyed developing.
One of my favourite briefs which I undertook during first semester was the Ministry of Wonderful brief which was set by visiting professionals from Something More. Similarly to myself Something More work specifically in the branding sector with an emphasis on creating unique concepts and therefore I throughly enjoyed not only developing ambitious ideas but creating collateral for the brief which is reflected in the amount of work I have produced in response. Being able to meet with the professionals as a point of contact was also beneficial in gaining feedback and ideas in order to develop ideas and design for purpose.
I am extremely pleased with the work ethic which I demonstrated during the first semester and my time management skills, despite undertaking a substantial module during the same time I was able to organise my time to ensure all relevant research and tasks for each of the four briefs I had chosen to undertake were completed during the first semester with a fair body of work for each.
Unfortunately I feel I was not as organised with my time and projects during the second semester. I began the second semester similarly to the first by developing a list of tasks for each of the four briefs I had proposed to undertake in order to get some start on them.
The briefs I had chosen to do this semester were of much larger scale compared to the briefs in first semester as I knew I would not have the COP module running alongside.
I was really looking forward to undertaking briefs such as the Zoo Branding and Adidas packaging as not only were these briefs relevant to my personal interests within Graphic Design but would also improve my skills and be potential projects for my final portfolio.
Following my manifesto presentation and the developing significance of branding and identity to my design practice, I changed one of my set briefs from creating an advertising campaign, something which I did not enjoy during the COP module to a Branding Portfolio in which I would produce work to quick turnaround briefs which would bulk out not only my printed portfolio but also the online portfolios which I created on Behance, Instagram and Kin2Kin in conjunction with the Personal and Professional Practice module.
Along with poor organisation skills I massively underestimated how time consuming the DBA and YCN which I also undertook during semester two. As these were both collaborative briefs effectively for live clients with strict deadlines, I put an emphasis on producing work for these, and as a result my own briefs suffered.
I am however pleased with the body of work I produced for the one brief of my own which I completed, Zoo Branding. Similarly to DSM I really engaged with the idea of creating a overlying concept for the Zoo which informed a the deliverables I produced. Although this was the only brief which I undertook of my own during second semester I do believe the branding and deliverables I have produced are considered in terms of their relevance and how they would be interacted with for example using the branding guidelines to further reiterate the ethos of the brand rather than having them separate.
Although I do believe I could of further extended the brief in terms of branded collateral and into other areas of Graphic Design such as information and way finding this brief gave me a lot of collateral which photographed and would look good in my portfolio.
Again, although I made a start on the Branding Portfolio brief and was able to use the design work produced in response to extend both my printed and online portfolios, ideally I would have liked to have produced several more branding solutions in order to have a significant body of work available for submission.
Overall I have throughly enjoyed the self-directed role I have taken during the course of this year and in particular with the Extended Practice module, not only has this given me more creative freedom with my own briefs which I have relished but has also taught me a lot about my design practice, how a work and what it will be like to work within an agency.
At the beginning of the course I had very little confidence in myself and within my design work. I do believe the work I have produced during the third year has been significantly stronger than anything I have produced previously on the course and therefore I am proud to include this within my portfolio and would have confidence in presenting to professionals.
