At the end of the final crit for our main competition brief we were told that we should review where we were up to in the module at this point and evaluate ourselves against what we set out to do at the beginning, writing an interim evaluation of our progress.
The main aim I had when starting this module was to experience and take part in live/competition briefs. Typically I have shied away from this completely during the first year as it seems like such a huge step to take, to show my work and have other people judge it. Within this aim I had a number of different points I wanted to accomplish through these briefs. The first was that I wanted to work on a variety of different design challenges to expand my skills and improve my confidence in all areas of design. I also wanted to take part in briefs which were different in size, doing some quick ones and other longer ones.
Looking through all the competition briefs I have completed/completing at this point, I would say I have designed for different areas of the industry as I have been consciously looking for these. For example, I have designed a brand label for 'Glacier Coffee', but also designed a pizza box design for '131Pizza'. I have also done design in Christmas Cards for 'Tiger Print' & created a label for 'Pickled Pelican' jams. On top of these four briefs I am currently designing my submission for a CD cover for this years Secret 7" competition, and have another recently found a brief for an editorial design competition. The main competition brief I am taking part in is a large campaign proposal. This all shows that I am consciously taking on briefs which are fulfilling the aims that I set out for when it came to which briefs to choose.
Throughout these briefs I have undertaken I have tried to variate the designs, colour schemes and design elements. I am a designer who likes to work with primarily text, using image to back it up, so what I wanted to accomplish in this module was to be more competent and confidence in my design skills for vector images and creating images using Illustrator. I took this aim head-on when choosing my second competition briefs in the 'Glacier Coffee' branding. For this they wanted it to be very image driven, using an image of a mountain goat to be recognisable for their brand. This gave me the challenge in creating an Illustrator image which needed to be easily recognisable. During this brief I experimented with different styles of drawing in Illustrator, first going for a more realistic look, and then afterwards designing to a much more contemporary square look. Working on this brief gave me a lot more confidence in my ability to create images in Illustrator, and even though my design didn't win I do feel I did a pretty good job on it.
In regards to doing a substantial brief along with these small ones, I chose the YCN Domino's Pizza Campaign as it is a very open brief with a lot of possibilities. Throughout the course I haven't really had the opportunity to create a campaign of any kind either, so this would give me that chance to design over a range of media. Working on such a well known brand was something I wanted to experience as well as in reality I could potentially be asked to design collateral for a company with branding already. This brief gave me an idea of how to get into the mindset of designing for a branded company and how to use their guidelines for the designs and come out with a design which best represented them as a company. With this being such a large brief time management is key, and I have been actively making sure I kept on time for the deadlines given for studio sessions to do with this brief as it will give me a better chance to improve my response. I have found that keeping on time has benefitted me greatly in this module and in others as it leaves me in a much better position and gives me more time to spend on developing designs and concepts.
One thing that I wanted to experience in live briefs is creative compromise and meeting the clients needs even if it isn't what I feel is best as the designer. I found that this was definitely met while creating the 'Pickled Pelican' label. At the beginning the brief was completely at a minimal with no direction so that was a challenge to overcome, and then on top of that, when I thought I had created a good response to the brief, the client wanted large changes made, so in the end it looked nothing like the original idea, and was not anything that I was proud of at all. However I did win that brief and was paid for it so can't complain too much.
At this point in time it would seem that generally I had fulfilled the aims I had set for myself at the beginning of the module, but I do feel that these can still definitely be worked on. I would like to continue to work to find a variety of live briefs in different industries and with different needs. Something I haven't designed for yet is something that would be viewed digitally. This is definitely something that I would like to at least consider doing as it would give me more experience and confidence in this area of design.
Overall I am quite pleased with my progress in the aims I set myself. I'm not usually one to just go out and do live briefs or anything, but by throwing myself into the first one I got the confidence to take part in more, and I do think I am much more confident in this aspect of design. I think my design skills have improved throughout this module, and I am learning how to adapt them better to the design task given. I would like to do a few more briefs which are a bit more substantial and have a bit more to them than just creating a single brand image or something quick. I think working on the editorial brief will give me a decent start in working to complete this aim. Another thing I would like to work on is doing a piece of design which is much more conceptually driven, which is what I think the editorial design can start to help me work on. From this point forward I am going to continually develop my skills in the aims that I set myself and will continue to work to try better myself as a designer.
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