Speaking from experience self evaluation

What problem did you identify?
That people didn't seem to go away during research visit week - didn't make the most out of their "free time" and I felt it was really important to go.

What evidence did you find to support your decisions?
Well i asked people on the course and a few second years to see what they said, plus as the brief was called speaking from experience - I felt I should talk about my experiences. I felt that going away on research visit week really changed the way I worked, opened me up to new ways of working - just by looking around at my surroundings and seeing other people's work. I felt it was really important to make yourself more cultured as it gives great starting points for ideas generation if you are more knowledgeable.

What methods did you use to gather your evidence and what forms did it take?
Mainly I asked people on the course and used my own experiences to draw upon. When looking into other cities / places to go I did general research about what to do - this was because I felt I felt that just seeing other places / buildings etc was as good as seeing other peoples art / design as it gives original starting points for your own work, rather than drawing on other peoples work.

How did these inform your response to your problem?
The research into other cities gave me a good insight into what there was to do in various places.

What research could you have carried out that would have proved more useful?
I spent a lot of time researching the cities, when in fact it would have been better to look at the top 10 or so things to do.

Five things that I have learned about the design process over the last five weeks:

• Not spend too long researching.
• Make decisions quickly.
• It is better to make lots of visual variations.
• That I quite enjoyed creating magazine / journals.
• Not to get too bogged down with one idea - if I don't like it - move on quickly!
• One other thing - to start with the inside pages first - not the cover - spent far too long on that - it changed loads as I struggled to keep the inner pages uniformed with the cover.

These are also the five things I would do differently next time.