OUGD403 - Module Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
The main skill I have developed throughout this module is my practical work on the computer, using Illustrator. At the beginning of the course I had used it for a minimal amount, only knowing the basic controls, but now after the workshops we were given I feel confident in my use of this program to create visual variations and my final outcomes. I think this has definitely aided in making my work look a lot more professional and finished. The use of Illustrator has allowed me be more creative and a lot less worried about taking risks in pieces as I can now change it at the click of a button. This in turn has helped my idea generation and development.
2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
My approach to design productions has definitely been more experimental throughout this module. I have taken time to get my ideas down on a piece of paper and then take it from there, whereas I used to just go for it and make the changes later. This has helped manage time during this project as I have a clear idea what I am doing before I start doing it digitally. The tasks in which we come up with ten or twenty variations has become a lot easier for me because of this. I have found I am a lot more open to what I can do creatively in development because I now have the skills to fulfil these on the computer/by hand. The main thing I have started doing is looking at the briefs as if I was a viewer and what I would understand, instead of as the designer who knows everything about it. This is important as these outcomes have had to be things that have to recognised and understood immediately, and I am learning to get a balance and capitalise on this.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
In my personal opinion, my final outcomes are my strong point. The professionalism and cleanness of them makes them aesthetically pleasing in my eyes. I need to bring this same approach to the development stage and remember to keep it all at the same level of professionalism. Another strength of my work is the ideas generation. Although I may not come up with a huge amount of ideas, I do feel that the ones I come up with are strong ideas and get the message across well. From the few strong ideas I have, I am able to combine them to create the final outcomes.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
My main weakness is that in the end, when we are doing group critiques, not everyone understands exactly the message that I am putting across. This is something I need to work on and to make the message as clearly as possible so anyone who looks at it will know exactly what they are looking at. Although I feel they are aesthetically pleasing, others may not and this could lead to them not understanding what I am saying through the piece. Another weakness is that I am more focussed on the final outcome than the development and ideas generation. I need to give myself a balance and be able to spend more time on this and hand drawn development than doing everything digitally to try get a final outcome quickly.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
1.     The first thing I want to change is the amount of digital to hand drawing ratio. I would like to increase the hand drawn element in my work, as this is an important feature of being a designer. I feel I have not done enough, however this could be down to the time frames of the brief and trying to get a final outcome out before the deadline. 2.     I would like to do more ideas and design development in the briefs so I can come up with a more resolved and thought about final outcome. This will help me learn what gets the message across and will benefit me in the future. 3.     Improving and sourcing my research is something I would like to work on. I want to be able to get a balance between research, development and the final outcome. Research is definitely the thing that is lacking and I have always had an issue with. 4.     The quality of my hand drawn works. A lot of my hand drawn pieces are development or quick sketches. I would like to incorporate this element into the final outcome some how so I can get some good quality drawing/hand rendered work in there. 5.     I would like to start making more sophisticated work. I don’t feel like I have been doing this yet. I think it   has all been quite simple so far and I would like to make more intelligent and sophisticated work. I would also like to make work that is more true to my style than the work I have been creating. I am more of a post-modernist designer than a modernist and I don’t feel that has been shown.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance					x
Punctuality					x
Motivation				x
Commitment					x
Quantity of work produced				x
Quality of work produced				x
Contribution to the group			x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

OUGD403 - Self Evaluation: Typeface

When given this brief my first initial thought was that it was going to be relatively hard to put across someones personality through an illustrative alphabet. It would be a challenge, but give me the opportunity to research into things and considering styles that I perhaps wouldn't have. It gives an opportunity to expand my creative ability through something I personally might never have thought about.

When asking my partner (Sean) about himself it was a bit of an information overload, which is a good thing but also a bad thing at the same time. It gives a huge amount of information and routes I could go down, but it also leaves me with the task of cutting it all down to the primary things that I want to get across in the typeface.

The main thing at this point that I didn't necessarily think about was the whole thing working well as a set. I thought about it in a sense of trying to get as much information about him in as possible. This meant that I was doing a different thing for pretty much every other letter, and in the end I know it would not have looked like a set at all.

However, when I narrowed it down to what I was going to focus on, it became much simpler and flowed into a set. Looking into stencil and skateboard-style graphics, it became pretty easy, just using straight lines and circles based on Swiss-style design work. This made it very easy to manipulate the style into each letter and create the alphabet. There were a couple of letters which I found difficult to do, the ones that had more than one join or had half-curves in them. The 'G' was particularly hard to do as it had both, a curve and a complicated join.

Looking back at the final alphabet there are certainly a few things I would do differently. I made changes to five of the letter: G, S, X, N, Y. However, looking over that one, there are still changes I wish I had made during the design process. The main one is that the thickness of the black lines in each letter varies. For example, the 'H' lines are a lot thinner than the 'J' ones. I think if I could go back and change it, I would make all the lines as thick as the 'J' as it fits in a lot more with the circular letters than the others.

Overall I am happy with the final outcome and enjoyed the process. I surprised myself at how easy I could take one thing that Sean said and create a whole alphabet based on it, and manage to keep it interesting, with each letter having their own uniqueness. I feel I have developed my typography and Adobe Illustrator skills throughout this brief, and have a clearer understanding in typography and how I can manipulate it.

OUGD403 - Critical Evaluation: Typeface

Today we had a critical evaluation session in a small group of six and the tutors, giving us five minutes each to explain our typeface research and ideas/development of the project so far. As it's a crit in the middle of the project, it gives us all time to make significant or small changes to create a better visual outcome.

Feedback for my project generally revolved around the idea that perhaps there was too much going on in the letter forms, and that when they were shrunk down they might not be as visible and obvious as to what each separate element is.

I found the feedback useful and found that they all agreed that the better style was the simple structures I had been using for the 'O' instead of what I have been using for the 'K' and 'H', although there are elements in those that could definitely be used. From this, I will stop looking at skateboarding graphic designs so much and start looking at more simplistic designs by Saul Bass, who had a small influence, but not a huge one. This seems to be the direction that is said I should go down, and it does work well with the stencil work as he used a small colour palette on every piece of work he's done, normally only two or three different colours.

The list below is everything I am now going to do from this point on:

• Stay with the stencil style work
• Keep it simple
• Simple line work
• Think about scale
• How it is going to work as a set

OUGD403 - Critical Evaluation: 'Shatter' Letters

Alphabet Soup Design Practice

For the critical evaluation for this project we were put into groups and had to explain our ten letters and how they came about. Once this was done, we each had to decide as a group, the five best from each persons ten. These were then stuck on the wall, under the word which they were associated with.

The five of mine that were chosen:

A couple that were chosen were a surprise to me as I thought they were the worst ones out of my ten, the 'P' and the 'W'. They were my least favorite out of the ten because I wasn't happy with their outcome at all. The other eight had some relation to one another, while these two were completely different.

Once up, we were moved to another table where we had to take down an image one by one under the criteria that it didn't fit the word. It wasn't so much about the visual quality, how amazing it was drawn, more of if it got the word across visually without explanation. We had to leave a total of five up, from any criteria which best showed the word they represented. As a group we had to discuss why we kept the five we did and explain it to the class.

The 'W' of mine was kept on as a top five from the group who evaluated it, which again was a surprise to me, but it shows that other people's opinions and views make a difference when it comes to your work as you could see it one way, and others see it another.