EVALUATION

Looking back at this module I feel as though I have come a long way since last year, ending up with a body of work that I am proud to have done and happy with in terms of making a portfolio out of. Throughout OUGD301 I feel as though I have continuously learnt things the hard way, which although frustrating and aggravating means that I am still growing and getting better as a designer. Considering this I’ve come away feeling very positive as I believe I can improve in certain areas and aspects of design, which will only strengthen and help develop my skills set.
Although obvious and cliché I’ve learnt what is possible in terms of producing work in a short space of time, making the transition from second to third year quite well. Although stressful at times I feel I handled the work load well, organising and effectively managing my time in a manner that suited my style of work. Referring back to my statement of intent where I talked of working for briefs for two days at a time. This being a fairly successful process I followed and maintained throughout the module, and something that I feel really helped with getting all of my briefs up and running. Other than that my organisation and management mostly took the form of lists and A3 sized weekly planners, although a bit messy and causing a fair stack of off cut paper it really helped me to stay on top of each brief, allowing me to know at any given point where I was with each brief and what my next step was. Nevertheless saying this there is room for improvement on these skills, possibly making it a bit more formal, or having an icalendar aswell as these lists, this way I wont risk losing any important lists as the icalendar would act as a back up. As well as this I intend to use icalendar to help plan out the module in full, as for OUGD301 I was pretty much taking it week by week and at times day by day, although this didn’t create too many problems I feel things would have run a lot smoother if I had at least a loose monthly plan of action to stick to.
Something that I unfortunately learnt the hard way was how to work across different computers, organising files and keeping on top of all the work that was being produced at the same time. Essentially, don’t rely on pen-drives, I foolishly did and it did blow in my face a little, thankfully nothing huge or significant was lost, only a few hours of my day, but the little things all add up. So what I’ve taken from this is to always have hard copies of things, my intention is to make full use of my hard-drive, using that more often than just a couple of USB sticks.
Referring back to my module proposal and rationale, I feel as though I stayed true to what I proposed, that being I produced a body of type based work for subjects that I hold a strong interest in, designing across a range of formats and media and at times having fun doing so. I feel as though I could have exploited and maybe experimented a little more within certain briefs but as a whole I feel content with what I produced and proposed throughout all 6 projects. One thing I have noticed however that I intend to address next term is that I mostly designed for print throughout all the briefs, adding digital / for web designs as a small part of the range, I didn’t consciously avoid this as it is something I want to include within my work being that it is an area of design I hold an interest in. In regards to this I intend to try and split my later work down the middle having an even mix of digital and print, whether that means having projects that are purely one or the other or to produce both for a substantial large brief. A positive to take from this however is that from producing a body of mostly print based work my skills within that field have developed ten fold. In previous modules and briefs I have always been hesitant to print as I had little confidence within it and until now I didn’t have any print work I was fully happy with. Furthermore I now have a better understanding on stock choices, process of designing for print and the costs associated with it.
Overall Im very happy with the work I produced and more than satisfied with the effort I put in. Although it caused a fair amount of both stress and problems I now know what it takes to produce the kind of work I want and work I am proud to call my own. Furthermore I acknowledge that I am still learning and that there are some faults within my design process, which leads to me believing that I will only improve throughout the rest of my time here.

Project Managment

Here we have documentation of my project management. It essentially shows how I go about working and organising everything through a daily basis.
Mostly it consists of lists, things I need to do that day and as the module developed the more I was planning full weeks out, day by day setting certain amounts of work that I needed to get done. Although not a very formal way of working I feel it works well as it is planning and organising but is very easy to change and swap things around as problems / set backs were always popping up. What it did mean however, the amount of set backs I encountered that is, is that I did make a lot of plans and lists of 'to do's'.

Final Boards

Here we have the final board designs, ended up with three boards, one with the original poster and brief, then the extension of the brief went over two, one for product and design and the other for context, Tells all that needs to be said.

Context

Nipped into Tescos, planted the box and took a few snaps. Showing how it fits around other cereals and whether it looks genuine!



I think it pulls it off very well. Would be good to try and record peoples reactions but I simply don't have the time for stuff like that!

And here's Ed the friendly tiger, proud mascot.

Printed Products / Cereal Box

And there we have it, the finished to scale box, there were a few hiccups. Firstly I totally forgot about the GDA facts and that I had shrunk them down by quite a bit so they were borderline illegible! Aswell as that when folded it did crack a bit, as you can in the photos on the edges. But apart from that i think its come out good, I've had a lot of good feedback from peers around the studio so that's a result right there.

Cereal box

Taking the design to the net plan, adding the Kellogs and WWF logos to the sides, printing an mocking up a draft box!

It came out a little dark because of the printer but other than I think it works really well. Now for full scale.

Cereal Box

So recreating the Frosties box, at first went horribly. for some reason I tried to make it in illustrator, which meant i couldnt import a decent image of tony or the box because I decreased the size of the image for Illustrator to let it open, so that was an issue. I tried to solve this by printing an image of tony from the box, trace him then scan him back in and live trace him as the live trace wasn't working at all with the transferred image. This went okay, giving me a basic image of tony but it wasn't as good as the original and this was evident.
It suddenly hit me, I needed to clearly do it in Photoshop, from there it was smooth sailing. Always learning the hard way. A short documentation of this proceeds...





From scanning in the images and then taking them to Photoshop it went pretty smoothly, coming out with this...



I wanted the front to look just like a Frosties box, furthermore if someone was to walk past it at first glance it would seem normal but then that oh what? moment hits.
Then the information in place of GDA, and then using the back to get across the message where the ingredients and that would normally sit as well as still catering to kids with the cheeky puzzle of saving the tiger, pushing the message behind the box further.


Time to take this to the net plan and print!