Just going to generalise this is an overview of my year.
Wanted to start with what weaknesses/ mistakes I feel I have had this year – get that out of the way first so I can focus more on what I can capitalise on next year and things I can work on. Don’t want the presentation to focus on the negative, but rather the positive as one of the things I’ve realised about myself is that I obviously am still learning and this year has been a massive learning curve for me, I will make mistakes, but can learn from these – which is an aspect of my design practice I’ve struggled to come to terms with as I try to be too much of a “perfectionist” and this course has really helped me see that I can’t always get things right every time. An example here of something I wasn’t hugely happy with when it was finished just because I felt I should have spent a little longer on it.
Sometimes, I’ve gone with an idea that at the time I thought was good and then later come to see it’s turning out not how I expected, this in turn has shown me that a simple idea can work just as well and my ideas don’t always need to be so complex. For example the cover design for the speaking from experience brief change numerous times and just wasted so much time.
Above - progression for the front covers for 'Speaking from Experience'.
Photography was always something I wanted to learn but thought I would never be able to take good photos. The visual language workshop really helped me think about trying it for the 100 brief and this was a turning point in how I now work. Not only did I find it a quick method to produce final visuals, but it was very easy to create lots of visual variations. This wasn’t what I ended up with but I wanted to show how I produced variations.
Letterpress was something I never imagined of doing but despite it being a lengthy process I think the outcomes are stunning than computer generated type – and I think I am quite appreciative of it because it does take so long.
Layouts are another thing I am getting to grips with, it is something that I have obviously learned at the end of the year, but I think it was something that really helped me creative visuals for the speaking from experience brief – these are some examples of what was produced.
I feel that a lot of my work has predominantly been produced on the computer and what I really want to do is spend more time using some of the skills I’ve learned this year, such as letterpress / screen printing / photography etc to create more unusual and interesting imagery. I’ll admit that my time management and decision making hasn’t been brilliant this year and that using the computer to create images seemed a bit easier and quicker.
Something I’ve really enjoyed doing at the beginning of this year was looking at typography. I think that if I continue looking at typography I could turn into one of the these type ‘geeks’ but I really think it is something I could be good at – maybe not actually creating fonts, but more about applying typography effectively.
After the few collaborative and group briefs I have encountered this year, I don’t yet feel I know who or what type of person I can work with well, or in fact what type of skills I want from someone I work with, I think this will come when I truly know what design path I want to go down, which I think I am nearing. I think another factor is people don’t yet realise what I can offer to the design process as I know this year I have put myself down and been some what reserved in offering opinions to groups.
Time management / decision making / leaving things until last minute and not having enough sleep! Obviously these factors have a knock on effect to not getting enough sleep, and in turn my work isn’t as effective. This is something I’ve definitely learned from and won’t be making the same mistake next year.
It shows that if I had continued with the original design instead of trying to over work it, I ended up with pretty much the same thing. But I realise it takes confidence.
Although I didn’t do very well in my elective, I did really enjoy learning the art of print and being able to explore new techniques. What I’ve loved about the course is every taught session has served a purpose for me, which I don’t feel I’ve had in the past, I now feel I am learning more about the technical side of graphic design which is helping me start to produce ‘better’ work – for example if I had not learned about type and grid I don’t think I would have tackled a magazine for my speaking from experience brief.
