Presentations questions answered

What have you learned and what do you want to learn? 

As an individual i have learnt:

-To handle being away from home for long periods of time, moved to london for a year last year, and leeds this year.

-Became a fan of cooking and eating healthier, not such a fan of tuna pasta anymore.

-Budget my money a lot more, no more shopping sprees.

As an individual i want to learn:

-How to bake.

-More about film photography.

-How to organise my money a lot more.

-More about Leeds, the best places to go to find new music.

As a designer i have learnt:

-How to work under pressure, and in a studio environment

-Juggle brief, and meet strict deadlines

-How to work as an individual and within groups

-Gained practical skills in photography, screen printing and digital software

As a designer i would like to learn:

-A lot more about typography

-Photoshop

-Laser cutting and letter press

-How to be more confident in explaining my work, and promoting it

-More contextual knowledge about graphic design

-How to combine my interests of fashion, illustration, installation and photography into my designs sometimes.

What mistakes have you made and how have you learned from them? 

As an individual:

-Always run out of money: I have hidden a bank card which i use for emergencies only

-That home bargains is a deceiving shop: from now on i only buy heinz beans in there, no more sweets and pot noodles.

-Sometimes my social life comes before the course which isn't a good thing sometimes because i fall behind with work: From now on i need to plan my tim effectively 

How will this affect your future development? 

I think if i plan my time more effectively i will be able to enjoy being a student as well as do well on the course, being more organised with money and with work will make me a stress free individual. 

What are your strengths and how have you/will you develop them further?

As an individual:

-I think of myself as a friendly, chatty person sometimes a bit too talkative.

-But i'd like to think i'm a fun and approachable person easy for people to get along with.

As a designer:

-I enjoy designing, and try not to get too stressed.

-Feel like i've gained a lot of skills over the past year with digital software.

-I love to draw and like to put some of my illustrations into practice.

-I use many sources of inspiration not just graphic designers, i'm highly influenced my photographers and illustrators. 

What are your weaknesses and how do you intend to address these? 

As an individual:

-I'm not a very confident person, especially in situations like these.

-I tend to worry a lot and get myself stressed over silly things.

-I'm a shoe and bag-oholic, could be the reason for my horrendous money management.

As a designer:

-Public speaking

-I tend to play it safe a lot in my designs, don't push myself enough

-I'm not very good on photoshop and some of the design work i wish to do is done on that program, so i'm going to practice a lot over summer which will give me opportunity to design work of my own interest too.

-I don't know an awful lot about practical things such as book binding, letterpress and screen printing, this is something i'm going to get more hands on with.

What have you enjoyed and why?

As an individual:

-Loved living in Leeds, it's a really cool layer back city, with a great student vibe.

-Love the music scene here, nights out are always eventful.

-Met a great group of friends in my halls and on the course, feel really settled in to the city and can't wait to live in a house next year in Hyde Park.

As a designer:

-I've enjoyed sharing the studio environment with a bunch of friendly people who are all here for the same thing.

I've enjoyed some of the briefs, the ones we could fully get absorbed by such as 100 things, Theory into practice and What is a line i was really happy with the outcomes of my work.

-Love how over the year i've grown to like things i initially dint think i would love such as typography

What have you disliked and why? 

As an individual:

-This course is really full on and does need full commitment, so what you put into the course is what you get out of it and sometimes sacrifices to nights out have to be made!

-Hated not having a job this year and being short of money, so i'm going to work over the summer to make up for this.

As an designer:

-Majority of my work i did at the beginning of the year, shocked i even passed, but i suppose it's a good thing to show progression throughout the year to be able to make a difference as a learning student and as a young designer.

-I dislike the fact i'm not a fast learner, takes me a while to feel comfortable designing in certain ways, never the less practice makes perfect, hopefully. 

How does this affect your ambitions?

This year has definitely made me realise what i want to do past college years whereas last year when i was studying BA Photography in London i didn't really see any career prospects from it, i wanted to be able to put all my skills into practice, and a do a degree worth while and relevant to me for future ambitions. 

What did you want to get from the year? 

As an individual:

-I wanted to live in a calmer city, not as hectic and fast going as london for my student years and enjoy the experience of trying new things and meeting new people, and to just look after myself as as an individual.

As a designer:

-As a designer i wanted to move on from my A-level habbitts and start a fresh on a degree where i could gain new skills and be in a working environment with people of similar interests and personalities. 

Have you achieved this?

-I definitely feel like i've grown up a lot over the past year, and now have new ambitions as a designer and a as a person to full fill while i'm young and have the opportunities to do it. 

-Towards the end of the year i've been really happy with some of my work i have produced, and found that i want to experiment with new medias and would like to do collaboration work with other designers in the college, such as in fashion and photography.  

What have you discovered that you weren’t expecting?

-That this course takes dedication, and the graphic design is a hard subject to study, but hard work pays off and from now on i defiantly want to knuckle down and do well as a young designer to take full advantage of the course. 

Presentation - Brief and questions

BRIEF

Produce and present a 7 - 10 minute Powerpoint presentation that communicates a reflective summary of your experiences on the course to date. You should aim to identify who you are as a learner and a designer as well as how the things you have experienced over the past nine months have affected your current aims and ambitions. You should also attempt to communicate your ambitions for next year.

Background / Considerations

Your own personal development as an individual and as a designer is affected by all aspects of your life. This is an opportunity to reflect on the experiences from the past nine months that have informed the decisions that you have made/ are making about your future development. The ability to reflect upon your personal development can help you to gain confidence in your abilities as well as identify areas of strength, focus, ambition and improvement. What have you learned and what do you want to learn?  What mistakes have you made and how have you learned from them?  How will this affect your future development?  What are your strengths and how have you/will you develop them further? What are your weaknesses and how do you intend to address these?  What have you enjoyed and why? What have you disliked and why?  How does this affect your ambitions? What did you want to get from the year?  Have you achieved this? What have you discovered that you weren’t expecting?

Evaluation - PPP

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

I feel i have learned a lot through out this module about myself as an individual and as a designer. By documenting my progress throughout the year i feel i have gained skills in evaluating myself, my work and others work to show i have a better understanding of graphic designer. 

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

Throughout this module i there hasn't been an awful lot of design work, but the work i have produced for speaking from experience and who are you are both designs i'm not fully happy with, i wish i had experimented a little more with them before choosing a final outcome. 

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

I think i have shown an understanding of interpreting information about a given thing and been able to design some thing from it, where it has been dully affective i'm unsure but the concept and deliverable i have tried my best with. 

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I have shown weaknesses in my time management again, trying to juggle a few different modules which run at the same time, and meet deadlines for them all is hard work, i  do get the work done but just not to the standard i'd wish to. My way of overcoming this problem if to seriously organise myself and think of new working ethics. Ultimately i should of tried a lot harder with the ppp module as it's just as important as all the others because its a reflective practice of ourselves as individuals as well as designers.

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

Do tasks when assigned them to prevent having to go back and catch up with work.

Do a little more than the minimum requirements to show a better understanding of the work.

Keep up to date with work to relief stress.

No more all nighters; it destroys my sleeping pattern and the ability to concentrate in the studio.

Be more punctual to show commitment to the course.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Attendance: 3

Punctuality: 3

Motivation: 3

Commitment: 3

Quantity of work produced: 2

Quality of work produced: 3

Contribution to the group: 3

Speaking from experience - Final product

Final designs

Interior design showing map and key, information about the fashion style in Leeds

 Exterior design showing retro designs to arrest the viewers attention as well as useful links for the viewers to check out to find more information on clothing, and street names of shops. 

Speaking from experience - Design development

Designs in progress

L shape for Leeds

Peace sign - vintage

Out line of leeds - area trace

Colour code key

Crit Feedback

Exact to point

Front cover

Speaking from experience - Questionnaire&Crit feed back

Unfortunately there was a low response rate for my questionnaire, this is my fault for not sending it to a wider audience never the less the feedback i got was useful and helped me further with what i needed to research and consider for my designs. 

Below is the feedback i received in the first crit, this is when we pitched our ideas to a group of 6.

I received string feedback, my peers thought the idea was good and liked that i had a good body of research, the problem was solved and all i need to do is design. 

Evaluation - Context of practice

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

I feel i have improved on my ability to design type and produce a visual investigate or my understanding of it. 

Through out the module i have developed an understanding of how to speak confidentially about my work and deliver an appropriate and concise message about its concept, this is because of helpful crits and seminars with joe. 

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

Throughout this module i took advantage of the theory into practice brief and used my drawing ability to designs a typeface/ publication which reflects my interests as a designers as well as a person and i produced something useful and effective for another generation of female designers. I really enjoyed the brief as i fully investigated the anatomy of type, the history and evolution to produce my own typeface. I think the amount of research i did for this brief helped me a lot not only for the brief but as a designer, as i am growing fonder of type design. 

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

I think i have gained knowledge in graphic design as a whole from visiting the lectures, to discussions with joe and richard, this has helped me understand the the theory side of graphic designs as well as the visual.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

Unfortunately i underestimated my workload and time that i had to complete the module, with other modules going on along side context of practice i thought i could balance the work out evenly in which case this hasn't happened. My time managements skill have been very low throughout out this module, and my lack of commitment to the module until recently has shown, regrettably i haven't blogged a lot of my work because i lost it and lost track of time to be able to do it for the dead line. This is something i really need to work on, as i get too caught up in one brief at a time and forget about other important tasks and theoretical research which inevitably will help me in the long run. 

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

Give my self a timetable to get work done before crits and deadlines. 

Attend all seminars and crits as the feedback is necessary and i need to be more participating for others in the group.

Do work when given to me, not the night before it's meant to be handed in.

Keep up to date with work.

Do the work set and a little bit more, as it will benefit me.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Attendance: 3

Punctuality: 3

Motivation: 3

Commitment: 2

Quantity of work produced: 2

Quality of work produced: 3

Contribution to the group: 2

Evaluation - Design practice

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

I think i gained more skills in this module, first of all in the communication is a virus brief; we were asked to get into a group for working together i was matched with my friends Josh, Sophia, Emily and Kate and together we did a project about music. I liked the brief as i could explore areas of music and design something which i've always wanted to do, the out come was great and i enjoyed working with the group as we have a lot in common so we brought all our ideas together to designs something effective. From this experience i think working with a mixture off people is always best to get different opinions on work, but i think as the module progressed i realised i can work well on my own, with friends and with other peers. 

In addition i think i have gained skills in my design process, i have previously just went with my initial idea and developed from there, throughout this module i have used research and a range of designs to develop the final out come, this is something i need to constantly process. 

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

I have used illustrator for all of my designs in this module, and i feel fully confident in using the software now, however i would like to explore a lot more with photoshop and other design programmes this is something i will work on over the summer, practice and progress for year 2. 

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

Throughout this module i have used a range of colour in my designs, interacting colour with the concept of the brief. For example in the communication is a virus brief, it was a group decision to use the colour scheme we did as the colour fit for all the genres of music we were designs for, i believe decisions like this make designs more visually effective and i hope to pick up and do this with all my designs.  

I also think i have kept up to date with blogging during this module.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I wished i had used other ways of processing my work, for example i would of like to have screen printed my it's your choice products and perhaps use d the laser cutter, due to lack of planning an preparation of my actual designs i wasn't able to have the final products how i wanted them. Unfortunatly i had to print majority of my products in the has suite as i couldn't afford to print in the digital print room as there is a lot of other on going work i need to save money for, the is something i need to be more prepared for in the future as i wouldn't want it to bring my grades down for lack of final visuals. 

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

I will experiment with different medias and processes to show a range in my design and technical abilities.

I will book into inductions such as last cutting, book binding and screen printing again to make my self fully aware of how to do things my self.

I will spend more time designing, especially initial designs to show a wide range of experimental ideas.

I will keep up to date with blogging; previously this has held me back on other work i should be getting on with.

I will be more organised with my work and my money situations for the sake of my work.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Attendance: 3

Punctuality: 3

Motivation: 4

Commitment: 4

Quantity of work produced: 3

Quality of work produced: 3

Contribution to the group: 4

Evaluation - Design principles

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

I have learned numerous skills through out this module, in particular the understanding of colour theory with in design, type and grid and the nessesaties of layout in design as well as more photography skills. Whilst doing this module i realised there were a lot of things that interested me and some that really didn't. On one hand there was colour theory which i found visually interesting and wanted to learn more about it, and on the other hand there was type and grid which i wasn't such a fan of, it took me a while to understand it and work out how to use it in design, but now that i understand it i have realised how relevant it is.

The anatomy of type sessions were interesting and they made me a huge fan of creating my own typefaces, something that i wasn't very confident in doing because i didn't know all the ins and out of typeface design. From this i am eager to learn more about type but for now i think i have took advantage of what i have learned in the anatomy of type sessions and applied it to my 'what is a line' brief, it was by far my favourite and most experimental brief yet. I loved creating the typefaces, and lineup posters for the band crystal castles over all i'm really happy with the crystal castles merchandise designs, unfortunately i was short of money to be able to purchase t-shirts and screen print my designs, never the less the designs are on my blog and when i have a free few hours i'll definitely screen print the c.c t-shirts.

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

I realise now that the module is finished and i look back at the work that i have done and also should of done more of that everything that i learned is essential and i should of experimented and practiced with it a lot more to take full advantage of the skills learned. 

However the sessions we had with Lorenzo about type and grid and layout really helped me with my designs it made think about composition with in my work a lot more.

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

I found that my strongest points in my work are photography and i feel like my designs on illustrator have processed a lot since the beginning of the year, i feel fully confident in using the software, i still have a lot to learn but the past couple of weeks my working methods have changed a lot since i purchased a macbook, that alone has give me the ability to do more work and without it i think i'd of struggled even more the the design principles module as a lot of work i had to go back to and redo because i lost a lot of imagery which was on my old laptop. 

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these i the future?

I feel this module isn't my best, on one hand i have the 'what is a line' brief which i really enjoyed and if i had more time i could of done a lot more with. Where as the rest of the work i didn't feel i done so much with for example research for each of the areas we were learning, i could of made myself a lot more familiar about colour theory and type and grid. Unfortunately i do feel like i forget about design principles compared to other projects going on at the same time.

I'm also quite disappointed with my time management and design skills for this module, a lot of the work ended up being last minute and not up to standard, i definetly feel i could of done a lot better and wished i'd tried harder with the module. 

I also felt that i barley annotated my work while it was in process and evaluated the final outcome with is something i need to do more of in other modules.

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

I will manage my time more effectively enabling me to plan, organise and do more work on time.

I will research more appropriately to gain knowledge for running projects.

I will photograph and annotate my work more to show the full investigation and development of my work.

I will improve my knowledge of digital software programmes to be able to use them handily and not just for whats necessary. 

I will improve the quality and quatinty of work i produce to benefit my knowledge and under satnding as well as grades.

Attendance - 4

Punctuality - 4

Motivation - 3 

Commitment - 3

Quality of work produced - 2

Quantity of work produced - 2

Contribution to the group - 3