Design Practice Blog: May 2010

Evaluation

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

This is one of the first times taking my hand to branding & identity design, I have dabbled ever so slightly in the past but nothing to do with uni. Due to this my skills within this area have developed a fair amount, taking a greater respect for the art of it as i found it wasn’t as straight forward as i had presumed. Taking into account this was my first real identity / branding brief i feel that i applied myself effectively enough to portray what i had planned and wanted to create.

I also feel that my organisational skills have developed through this module. essentially living from an a4 sketchbook, maintaining the process of making lists, setting mini deadlines, outlining what i need to be doing and roughly when. I still believe i have a lot to learn within organisation and i admit i am not the best for it however i feel i am making progress.

This project was also based on working to a range, creating products over a vast amount of formats and media. I feel i pushed this quite far and therefore developed my skills on creating to produce sets and working over different forms of media. Although I know i didn’t push the range as far as i possibly could I made a conscious decision to keep what i made appropriate and effective aswell as propose certain other ideas. Although i may not have a vast amount of products I believe I designed to my fullest in producing something that works within print and then taking that product and producing a digital version, creating an effective range of designs forming the basis to a visual identity.

Lastly I’ve found that my skills in designing for print have developed. Since the module we had on it I’ve not been overly confident with printing to achieve a professional finish. However from working with print a bit more full on I feel a little more confident with it all, finally happy with something I’ve designed and printed.

What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

During this project i did my best to search thoroughly through the different sort of subject areas my work concerned. However looking back I can see that some of my research was quite defined. For example, i was looking at music labels but pre-dominantly certain genre’s appropriate to the label i was working with. This i feel helped me to keep everything appropriate and effective, looking at similar companies seeing the different styles and what not. So i feel that i have developed these skills somewhat further, however there is room for improvement as i should have looked at it from a broader sense aswell as keeping it all very relative.

Also feel that i’ve improved my process of research keeping it an on-going / constant thing, specially within this project where designing over a range lead me to research into all the aspects i was designing for, so nothing was designed without seeing what is already out there. Whats been done and what hasn’t, to a certain extent. I also feel as though I have developed my knowledge of what is out there, as i felt less need to to go straight to a google search, instead I was thinking of certain designs / designers that i already knew of, this often being the most helpful within informing my design development process, helping me to move forward.

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/ will you capitialise on these?

Think i have shown my strengths within typography during this brief, Showcasing versatility within it, having examples of type as image, editorial like design and type based logos. Setting out to answer the brief typographically I feel i have done very effectively. I plan to capitalise on this in the future by creating more designed alphabets, as i have two pieces of design from this that i could take into an entire alphabet, something i plan to do during my free time this summer.

I believe that my design process is a strength within my work as a whole, working and designing to a good flow with constant self evaluation and reflection being shown on my blog. Capitalising on this by having a coherent blog which is easy to follow and clearly see what i am producing.

Another strength I can identify is my ability to work over a range of media yet keep the designs to appear as a set without everything just looking exactly the same, effectively different to keep each separate product interesting in their own way yet being the same as each other at the same time.

A final strength i feel i have in my work is creating something a but unique and different to the usual. Aswell as offering the standard design solutions for a certain subject, thinking of something a bit extra that maybe hasn’t been done, or that hasn’t been done a lot and is typical.

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

One weakness in my work is that I have been apprehensive to print something during my design development other than on standard A3 paper, leaving it till the last stages of the brief to really consider how i am going to print and what I am to print on. This goes hand in hand with another weakness of mine is that I dont put as much thought and consideration into stock papers as i should, once I found some coloured card in the library that was that. In the future i shall address this by creating a more constant flow of printing something of quality throughout my development process taking full advantage of the print dungeon and its drop in sessions.

Another weakness i can see in my work is the fact i hadn’t made a lot of products, i only had the one main print product other than that it was digital screenshots and design mock up proposals. This can be put down to me maybe spending too much time concentrating on the design of the logo, which left me then little time ti play with actually creating my other proposed products. I shall address this issue by stepping out of my comfort zone more and begin to print / create products at an earlier stage in my development process. From doing so, even if i sack the product off it all feeds my design process making my body of work stronger and broader.

A final weakness for me personally is that at times i still dont think my work looks as professional as it could or should do, this being a concern for me through my projects. I think to address this issue in the future is to keep a constant line of communication and reflection with tutors and also fellow designers around the studio.

Identify 5 things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

Start printing at an earlier stage over more processes and stocks. Thus creating a larger and broader body of work.

Organise in advance specific dates to print, setting myself mini deadlines to meet. If i am to print on certain booked day i shall make sure that the work i need is created by that date.

Work within college more, Found myself more and more working from home, I dont necessarily believe this to be a bad thing but if i stay and work within the college more i shall be able to take full advantage of the printing and workshop drop in sessions.

Always work to creating a set or range of products, By doing so I think it will leave me with a much more deep and thorough body of work, also giving me more potential work to use in my portfolio.

Have more 1-on-1 discussions with tutors when they are available. Thus creating a frequent line of discussion / evaluation & reflection on my work.

Attendance 3

Punctuality 2

Motivation 3

Commitment 5

Quantity of work produced 4

Quality of work produced 3

Contribution to the group 4

CD Cover

So i designed a few simple mock ups very early on in the project for CD's and now having my three major products on place, Logo, Calendar & website i want to go back to the general merchandise products, like CD's vinyls t shirts and what not,

firstly tackle the CD cover...

I started off with just using what i already had, and thinking of a way to make them into a range. Came up with two different ones, firstly keep the range of the months, so every month along with the calendar there is a cd released or vinyl. It makes sense to maybe have the two, on vinyl have them released for each artist as they only hold a couple of songs, and for the cd's to be released every month with the calendars, which will hold a number of songs from each artist. Boom.

In terms of style i had a think and i wanted to make something more than just block colour and vector imagery, so had a cheeky think and thought id just photograph some interesting things, looking at texture at first etc then found my mixer! Highly appropriate!

Came to this finalised product pretty much, using the selection style from the website, think they work really well, quite minimal yet with busy imagery, not bad for a days work. So thats the cover.