OUGD101 How To...

How To... Self Evaluation

The role I took on in the group was to think about and solve the problem of how students could keep the bathroom free from shampoo bottles, as Emma had said there was a big problem carrying all her toiletries to the shower. I would like to think that I did my job well and created something that fitted in with the general feel of our products.
I think to say we had just met and had to get a project finished within a week we did fairly well to come up with ideas and actually discuss them with each other. As a group I think we addressed the problem well and came up with practical solutions to answer our brief. It was good to listen to others opinions, thoughts and bounce ideas around as I think this helped us to reach some sort of conclusion fairly rapidly.
On the negative side, I feel that all our solutions were different from each other in some way or another - sizing/font/colour of the type, the shape of our toilet signs etc. We could have discussed further I think in order to make sure we definitely had the best solutions. We could have done to have been perhaps a bit faster in order to rectify the problems before the deadline. We also could have assigned further roles within the group - such as someone to illustrate, someone work on layout, someone create the type so they would all look part of the same "brand", but i suppose it's hard to put forward what you perceive yourself to be good at to a group of new people when you have no idea if they are better than you and fit the role better... but I guess we will soon find this out in the near future.
I think our presentation let us down, I don't feel we planned it enough or showed off our ideas enough for people to understand why we did what we did. I unfortunately at the moment don't have the confidence to present my work with conviction and find it difficult to not get nervous so I feel my section of the presentation was rather brief.
What I would like to note for the future is that I think now I am on the way to enjoying working within a group as I feel it will make me a stronger designer and will in turn help me build my confidence with working with new people and presenting my work.

10 Things I'd like to achieve in a year:

1. To become more experimental with my work in terms of using a variety of techniques.
2. I'd like to be able to work in a group better without getting stressed.
   
3. I'd like to have some defined direction in which I'd like to progress and maybe start to specialise.
   
4. To have more confidence when I present.
5. I'd like to have started to developed a style.
   
6. I'd like to be able to be proud of what I produce and actually be able to talk about it with tutors.
7. I want to be able to constructively criticise my work and realise when I've made a mistake and to know that it's not horrendously difficult to correct my work.
   
8. I want to build support networks with my peers and be able to talk to them continuously to help me develop.
   
9. I want to be able to put what I learn into practice and know what I can do well.
10. I want to have found out who I can and can't work with in order to help me improve my work and know who to call on when I need them and for them to know what I'm good at so I can reciprocate.

We will see what the year brings ...