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 - Printing Workshop

I have taken part in three printing workshops, two at the Rossington Street studio, and one at Blenheim Walk. 

The first at Rossington was an introduction to the different types and ways of printing, including etching, lino, screen and mono printing. The second at Rossington involved us actually doing some printing ourselves. There were three ways set out for us, mono, lino and wood-press.

I took a letter form that I had done for the 'Shatter' brief so it gave me something to use.

I was most interested in lino printing as it is something I've never done before, so I started with that, cutting out the area around the letter so that it would not be printed. This process took quite a while as it was a shape that was quite hard to cut out as it had a lot of corners.

I then moved onto wood-press, which involved inking up some wood blocks, putting them on the piece of paper and applying pressure. Although I found this interesting and easy to use, I preferred the lino printing as it was my image and my work. The work done on the wood-press can easily be done by anyone else.

In the print studio in Blenheim Walk we were introduced to screen printing for fabric and paper, and the process to create a screen and clean a screen. I have done screen printing before so it was nothing new to me, however the tables used to keep everything in place were completely new to me, so I found that bit quite interesting. At the end we had a go each with a pre-prepared screen.

OUGD403 - Alphabet Soup: Typeface (Finals)

Alphabet:

Original

Edited

Name Tag:

Original

Edited

Self Evaluation

OUGD403 - Alphabet Soup: Typeface (5)

After completing the alphabet set, there were 5 letters that I felt didn't fit in as well as the other 27: 

S, Y, G, X & N

Because of this I took those four and redesigned them so they had the same characteristics as the rest of them.

S: The ends are the only issue with this. In the others, all the ends are steps, this one has straight edges, and doesn't really suit the rest of the letters.

Original

Sketches

New Version

Y: I realised that for some reason I had done this letter in lowercase. Although it wasn't that noticeable, I put amends to it.

Original

Sketch

New Version

G: The G has been the main problem I've had with the alphabet. There isn't really any other letter with the same shape & joins as this one, so it made it very hard to create. I ended up just putting the rings on the join to solve the issue, but I still didn't think it looked right.

Original

New Version

X: Like the 'S', this letter was completely different to the rest of the set as it's edges are straight and not stepped, and the middle black cross doesn't even join the edges.

Original

New Version 

N: I like this one, but it didn't fit in with the rest of the set because of how the three lines are completely separate and not joined like the other letters. I put it back into Illustrator and joined up all the lines and it flows a lot better and looks a lot more like the other letters in the alphabet.

Original

New Version

 New Alphabet

Name Tag:

Original 

Edited Letters

Colour

Outline

OUGD403 - Alphabet Soup: Typeface (4)

I carried on with the patterns I was using for the 'R' and the 'X' - mainly straight lines and perfect curves. Once I had those two base ideas, it became pretty simple to create the rest of the letter forms. I just put them together and manipulated them to create the letter I wanted.

The main issue that arose was how complicated to make them. This was down to the use of the circles and how many of them to use. Originally I intended to use the 'O' for every circle I needed, however, when scaling down, the lines started to blur into one another and made it quite difficult to tell where they were separated.

To solve this, I decided that, depending on the size of the circle, the number of rings would be reduced. The 'P' is an example of this. I got rid of the inner rings to stop the clutter and sort of give an outline to where the letterform stops in the centre. It makes it a little more obvious what the letterform is than if it was just the 'O'.

From then on it was pretty simple to create a full alphabet. However when it came to creating a couple, I had a few different ways of doing it, and had to take some time to try figure out exactly which one to use, taking into consideration the whole alphabet working as a set.

The 'N':

I was trying to make the 'N' in the same style as the 'M' with the circles at the joints, but however I tried it, it wasn't working very well. I used the 4th one as my final one as it looked better and sat with the rest of the alphabet a lot better.

The V:

I settled on the last one as it showed the point and the other three made the letter seem quite soft, which is not what the letter is at all, as they look a bit more the a 'U' than a 'V'. In the end I did actually use the first one as the final 'U'.

The same problem happened in 'W':

Again, like the 'V', I decided to use the last one as I knew there would be other letters with exactly the same issue, so decided from this point onwards all those letters would be done in this way.

As there are a lot of different shapes in the alphabet I put them into a couple of different categories to make it easier to create them.

1) Straight lined:

2) 'O' as a main feature:

 

3) Straight lined & 'O' combined:

 

4) The Glyphs:

I put all the letters in the layout for the poster:

The finished hand-drawn poster:

Name Tag: