http://issuu.com/danhartdavies/docs/brief_3_report2?workerAddress=ec2-52-91-68-57.compute-1.amazonaws.com
Thursday, 14 April 2016
OUGD503 | Module Evaluation
On the whole I have found OUGD503 to be a
very difficult module. When we were first briefed I was really looking forward
starting all the different briefs and choosing what I could work on and
deciding for myself what I would get out of each project. The fact that the
work I was going to produce was going to be seen by people outside of our
university and in the real world was a big incentive for me to produce the best
work I possibly could.
The first brief I started on was D&AD’s
Monotype. This brief set the task of finding an issue we felt strongly about or
felt like need more awareness and create a type-focused poster campaign for it.
From the start I had a few ideas as to what I would choose; NHS funding,
student costs, immigration and refugees, but I eventually got to police
brutality. I chose this issue as out of all the ones I had thought of, this has
the least time on the news and headlines compared to the others. Yes, a police
shooting will make the headlines for a week or so, but after that, everybody
has forgotten it’s a problem until it happens again. I wanted to reflect this
in my work by making people realize they need to ‘look closer’ at the issue in
order to see the full scale of it. I believe I was able to do this by using different
opacity for different parts of my poster, making some more visible than others
upon first glance.
My peers really seemed to like this
concept and the message I was putting forward so this is the idea I ended up
using for my final resolution. Although I do like the concept and idea and how
my posters turned out, I feel if I presented more ideas and asked ‘which one is
the best?’ rather than ‘here is one of my ideas, what can I do with it?’, I
would have had more potions and possibly come out with a better outcome.
In the middle of this brief I also
started working on Secret 7, which I was very happy about as I had enjoyed it a
lot when doing it in level five. I knew this module would have a lot of
overlapping briefs and commitments from the start, and I was hoping that this
would help me get my organizational skills up to scratch, but rather than help
me I believe it affected my work. As I have said many times, I need to improve
my time management, and it was no different in this module.
I am quite pleased with my Secret 7
outcomes as everybody I have spoken to about them has really liked the design and
the concept behind them. Although I had to explain the concepts; I, along with
others, like how abstract they are. At the start of the brief I did want to
maybe try some more experimental designs as this was the perfect brief to do so
as it had very lenient rules.
When it came to Brief 2 in OUGD503 we had
to collaborate with at least two other creatives. I knew from the start that I
really wanted to work on the Design Bridge brief, but thought it was a big
project to bite off if I were alone, which is why Brief 2 was the perfect opportunity
to work on it.
My group consisted of me, Aaron Major and
Alex Robertson. I wanted to work with two other graphic designers as I thought
this brief was a lot more suited to a graphic designer’s skillsets rather than
an illustrator or an animator. The three of us all worked really well together
and we all contributed the right amount to get a good final product. I leaned a
lot from this brief as it was only the third time I have ever had to work
closely with a group. I learned how to communicate my ideas in a clearer
manner, negotiate ideas and designs and most importantly for me probably making
sure I am organized. I felt more organized with this brief as I didn’t want to
let my team down by giving them work late or not doing it at all as that would
make all of us just fall behind. We used Google Drive to share our work
instantly which was a great help to us.
OUGD503 Studio Brief 1 | Evaluation
Individual Evaluation
Before starting studio brief 1 I was rather excited to get underway because I was looking forward to producing work that was for something else rather than university. I chose the Monotype brief as in the past I have always enjoyed working on poster design and most of the time been very pleased with how my work turned out. This brief seemed like a big challenge as it was type-only, something I had only had to do once near the start of level five. As I really enjoy working with type I was hoping to use this brief as practice to further my layout skills that I have learned over the course of this course.
I found this brief very difficult once I got started because I did the same as I always do; I got an idea and tested it out, then got good feedback and ran with it, rather than pitching a few ideas to my peers. My concept focused on the idea that everybody knows that police brutality is an issue, but to really understand the scale of the problem you may need to look closer. I reflected this in my work by using different opacity with the type and background to make some aspects of the poster harder to see, making the viewer have to physically ‘look closer’ in order to see the whole of the design.
I got really good feedback from my classmates on this concept and their suggestions helped me take this concept forward n the design process as I then added a background, which gave my poster that added depth it needed so it didn’t look so minimal and simple.
I really struggled with time management with Studio Brief 1 as this brief included this large brief and then two Secret 7 briefs. This is something I always try to improve and get better at and have mentioned in almost all my project evaluations. I am improving as each module passes but I hope and am fairly certain by level six I will have it sorted. My attendance for this module probably didn’t help my time management and is more than likely reflected in my work; although there was a reason for my absence I do realise in the future I need to make the most of studio time in order to get the most from this course.
Wednesday, 13 April 2016
OUGD503 Studio Brief 1 | Type Choice
As this poster is type-based, the choice of font is very important. When first desiging the poster, in my head I thought that I would use Courier. My thought process behind this was that Courier is similar to the font used in type-writers, and old police reports and official documents would be written on these and it just seemed to fit in my head.
This didn't actually work when applied so I tested out some other fonts to see what would work. In the end DIN seemed to work best and seemed the most suited. The fact that it's a sans-serif automatically conveys a modern design aesthetic, which I think is important because my concept sort of focuses on how people nowadays just take their news from the headlines and then a few weeks later it's forgotten.
I was worried at first about it being too thin so I then tested DIN Bold which seemed to work better.
OUGD503 Studio Brief 2 | Collaboration Evaluation
Evaluation
For the
Design Bridge brief, we had to design a brand that sold unisex beauty products.
I really liked the look of this brief as I thought it seemed pretty challenging
but also very interesting. From what I read of the brief I couldn’t see a role
in which a animator or illustrator would play a part, which is why I wanted to
primarily work with graphic designers.
My group
consisted of myself, Aaron Major and Alex Robertson. I was looking forward to
working as part of this group as in the past I have enjoyed being part of a
team, especially with Aaron and Alex. Going into the brief I was hoping to
learn a few new things from difficulties that I had not faced before; such as compromising
on what typeface to use, what layout to go with or even colour of stock. All
these things seem like small and trivial aspects of a project, but when people
disagree on what they think is best, it could mess up the future of the work
flow and contribution. This is something that you never have think about when
working alone, which is why working with others has proven to be a valuble
lesson for me.
Thankfully,
me, Aaron and Alex all worked really well together. I feel like everyone pulled
their weight and contributed as strongly as they could in order to produce high
quality work. Every few days we’d meet up and talk about what we had done and
what needed to be done. By doing this we were able to keep on top of tasks and
have a clear idea of who was doing what and when by. This worked very well as
each of us knew that if we didn’t get our tasks done, it would make the whole
project fall behind. The main areas I covered were the posters and the brand guidelines.
Alex covered the labels, the layout and the production, and Aaron did the
mock-ups and digital work. Each of us helped one another and had input into the
decisions that went into each area so one person didn’t go completely off
track, but in general they were our set roles.
Our team
was very organised in how we shared our work and ideas. At the start of the
project we came up with a very simple and rough timetable on how we would spend
our time, this included when we would meet and discuss the project and
deadlines for when we had to share our digital files. To share these files we used
Google Drive, this allowed us to instantly share any work we had done with one
another. This greatly impacted our productivity for the better as we were able
to get any files we needed.
Overall I
feel I definitely gained a lot from this project and would certainly work with
Alex and Aaron again. I learned how to communicate ideas in a clearer manner so
that others understand how you got to that idea and why it could work; this was
something I had not had to much of before group work. This project also helped me with time management
as I didn’t want to be the only one that didn’t do my set task on time and made
the group fall behind.
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