OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - Reponsive - Self Evaluation

In this module I picked briefs that would allow me to improve my design skills and communication skills, as well as enhance my exposure in the professional world.

In the first studio brief I worked on two minor briefs - Cocoloco and the Colouring Book brief. These were chosen mainly because the outcomes required were packaging designs and illustrations - two areas that I have not focused on this year in any other modules. I thoroughly enjoyed the packaging brief, mainly because it incorporates aspects of branding and luxury design, which are areas that I feel the most confident pursuing in Level 06. The colouring brief project was my least favourite in this module, purely because I do not enjoy illustration and find it very difficult to do well. Despite this however, I managed to improve my Illustrator skills in the project, and produced an illustration that, I feel, is successful in combating stress. Looking back, everything in these two briefs went to plan, mainly because I was organised and stuck to a time plan. If I could have done anything differently I would have submitted my mandala patterns, as I now think they held more potential for getting featured in the book.

I also worked on a major brief - Megalodon. This was a paid live brief that was taken on purely because of the opportunities it provided in terms of gaining new contacts in the superyacht industry and possible future clients. Out of all the individual briefs completed this was the biggest success because my designs were accepted for use and production by the client. Completing such a professional brief improved my presentation skills and communication skills hugely, and has improved my confidence when completing briefs outside of University. I also learnt how important time management is in this brief, as clients expect deadlines to be fully met in the real world, and how you can challenge the client to put across your design views - not just go by theirs.

Overall, I found the collaborative project far more challenging than any of the individual briefs completed, purely because it was difficult to keep regular communication with other course students and ensure that everyone completed an even amount of work. As I am used to working with Harrison, through the Designbytwo project and PPP collaboration, it was easy to keep updated with him; however, as Grace and Oli had different coursework deadlines and University schedules, it was quite difficult to meet up. Despite this I think that I became aware of my social skills, as myself and Harrison were constantly in charge of setting up meetings and keeping the team organised.

As a whole, I am really proud of the outcome we produced for the Hasbro brief, as I think it has a very high chance of getting through the competition. Despite the challenges, in regards to communication, we did work well as a team, producing all deliverables on time and submitting the work to D&AD. I definitely think that my confidence has improved when approaching other course students. I also have a better understanding of what is expected from Award organisations, and how beneficial they can be. I essentially chose to do the Hasbro party game brief because barely any people were interested in doing it at LCA. This will allow more of a chance to potentially do well in the competition, as less people will be entering for it. All-in-all, creating a party game was very different, but a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the design process and found the concept process very interesting too. It is definitely one area of design that I would like to explore further in the future.

Overall, responsive was one of my favourite modules completed on the course to date. Having the chance to choose my own briefs allowed me to focus on improving certain areas of my practice, and allowed me to complete work that I thought would benefit to my professional practice in terms of exposure and connections. In Level 06 I am definitely going to enter more live competitions, and want to continue working with other course students to further improve my communication skills.

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 02 - Deuce Studios Report: Printed Publication Photographs

As we want to upload this project to Behance to gain some further exposure, we chose to photograph the publication and other printed outcomes. As we also only had time to produce one copy of the publication, we also needed to take photographs of the work we have produced as can sadly not hand in physical copies of our outcome. The outcomes produced can be seen below.

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 02 - Deuce Studios Report: Physically Producing The Publication

After producing the digital Issuu publication we now had to think about how we would produce the publication. As the stock choice had already been considered in the design development stage, we were able to print all the pages at University after the G.F Smith paper arrived.

In terms of putting the publication together we only ran into two main problems. The first was joining the separate inlay page onto the central double page spread. At first, superglue was used; however, as the stock is very thin the glue dried as seen below. We therefore had to use double sided tape and later bind it in so that it would not fall out or move.

The attached inlay piece of paper can be seen below. Once we had clipped the pages into position we were able to bind the publication. I chose to sew bind the publication as it is visually much more personal than staple-binding a publication. I sew bound my publication in the OUGD404 module last year; therefore, found the process very straightforward.

The second problem we had was how we would trim the edges of the publication, as the acetate is quite thick and difficult to cut through with all the pages together. To resolve this, we used the digital guillotine for the first time. This allowed us to get a straight, clean cut through all the pages. As it was our first time using the machine some of the margins were cut slightly shorter than we had liked; however, overall, the result was as desired.

Initially, we printed the posterzine off at A1 size with James' thinnest stock. When it came to trying to fold up the zine it was extremely difficult as the folded pages ended up being very tough and thick to bend. Some of the ink marked the white pages as we had to push very hard with the bone folder. Instead of sending such a large sized posterzine we chose to print an A3 version off that was much easier to fold and include in the postage sleeve.



The final part of the production stage was to make some stickers. These were taken from the publication, and also from some of our Designbytwo posters. A matt stock was used, as these stickers last longer, and they were printed in the digital print room using the lazer cutter.

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - Context of Practice - Self Evaluation

Overall, I found OUGD501 to be one of the most enjoyable modules on this course so far, mainly because I was able to research a lot into technology, marketing strategies and statistics - areas that I knew little about when starting this year. As I have never considered marketing as a career choice before, it was fascinating to learn about digital marketing, data, social media and the possibilities online. This is definitely one area that I would like to continue researching into in Level 06 to see if it is a potential career path I could work towards. It was for this main reason that I chose the technology question for my research proposal for next year.

Whilst I enjoyed this module I struggled quite badly at the start of the year to find a question that I thought suited me and my practice. Now that I have completed the essay, practical and research proposal fully however, I feel much more confident and am determined to settle on a question that I will stick to at the start of Level 06. Whilst dissertations are a lot more work I think that I now find the process of handling more substantial projects easier to handle. Next year, I am going to try and manage my time better with a weekly plan.

All in all I think that this module went well. I am proud of the practical outcome produced and think that it does quite strongly link to the argument and themes covered in the essay. If I could have improved anything I would definitely have planned my time better at the start of the year.

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - Trip To New York

Last week I went to New York for a few days to see the sights and meet some family friends. Whilst I was there, I tried to see as much design as possible with the time I had. Some of the most prominent and relative things to my practice seen can be read below.



The last time I came to New York was when I was very young, therefore I never really appreciated the Subway signage before. The black and white contrast between type and boards made the wayfinding process very clear and straightforward. Furthermore, the colour-coded lines, similar to the London Underground, made it much easier to find out which trains to take. Using the subway frequently made me realise how simplistic wayfinding needs to be to be effective.

When in a food store in the centre of New York these crisps caught my attention, purely because of their packaging. Areas of the plastic have been left clear where the woman's glasses are, so that consumers can actually see the product. Whilst I do not do a lot of packaging design at Uni, thinking outside the box like this is one aspect that I am going to try and consider when approaching packaging briefs. It is so simple but really attention grabbing.

On the trip I managed to visit the Museum of Modern Art, where Tony Oursler's work is being displayed. He is a pioneering media artist that advocated for the debunking of fraudulent spirit mediums in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition therefore included a lot of old illustrated posters that focus on magicians and spirt mediums. Next year, for my dissertation, I am quite interested in analysing film posters and seeing what effect they have had on the industry. The posters seen below are definitely some that I could look into, as they had quite a interesting cultural relevance in terms of theatre that was going on at the time. This style of posters is one that I would love to possibly experiment with in a practical outcome.

Also at the gallery were a variety of other pieces of art. Some that caught my eye can be seen below.

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - Paid Live Brief: Bizarre Events

As I spend a lot of my free time producing music and playing at various gigs I am in contact with a lot of music promoters on Facebook. Recently, I was asked to rebrand a night called 'Bizarre'. The agreement was to deliver a final PNG logo for an agreed fee.

Initial ideas were based off of some sketches that the promoter over on Facebook. He essentially wanted to incorporate either a sound wave or speaker into 'Bizarre' type. Based on this, a range of initial were produced in Illustrator. These were sent over to the client on Facebook where we were able to regularly communicate. As we are both very active on social media, I was able to make the design process very efficient due to getting feedback very quickly.



Out of the ideas presented he liked the bottom left-two bold, white logos the most. He suggested combining the two and incorporating the sound wave into the letter 'A'. After a little more work I produced the logo below.

The promoter was very happy with this and paid me to use it for the brand. Completing such a brief was great, as it has resulted in more work coming from the same promoter. A few posters created for various upcoming events can be seen below.

This brief has taught me that it is important to charge by time spent, especially when working on social media, as people ask for small changes much more frequently which can take time and eventually make the process extremely long-winded. I am definitely going to try and keep in contact with this promoter however and work on further posters, alongside reaching out to some other promoters to try and find some more work. I have a lot of contacts in the music scene so this is a possible way to make some more money in Summer.

OUGD502 - Studio Brief 01 - Presentation Preparation & Outcome

Part 2 of Studio Brief 01 requires me to produce a 10 minute presentation that reflects my experience & response to the PPP and Responsive modules so far this year. To consider my main aims and concerns I tried to think about what I have learnt this year, and how it has informed my professional practice.

Main Aim - To push my creativity to learn and develop a wide range of skills.

Coding

This year I have used Coding Academy to learn a basic knowledge of coding. Many people that have come in for talks have highlighted that this is crucial in industry. After going to the Hey! Talks I realised that it is not a job that I would like to pursue, as the talkers essentially highlighted that you should love coding to do it as a job. New software, such as Adobe Muse + Experience Design are now responsive and constantly developing; therefore, in a sense, I feel that is important for me to continue experimenting with web design, without focusing on it as a career possibility.

Branding

I have found this to be my strongest area this year, completing multiple live briefs for responsive. These have allowed me to gain a few clients and work in the industry, which has been great for gaining more exposure on my work. Furthermore, I have also completed some live work outside of Uni. One example of this was branding for a play in Leeds called The Effect. It was a great experience to work on something that is live, and something that was actually distributed and promoted throughout Leeds centre. Branding is definitely the one main area that I am going to work more in moving into Level 06.

Editorial

As the first project moving in to Level 05 was an editorial brief, I immediately regained my passion for editorial design, as it is one of my favourite areas to work in. One concern that I had moving into the year was whether or not print is dead - after writing an essay in Level 04 on the topic I found myself doubting whether it is a viable career pathway to take. Luckily, I was able to get a slot on the It's Nice That x Printed Pages Tour, who essentially said that print is not dead and that young creatives should be pushing to keep editorial alive. They said that they receive at least 10-20 publications a week from all around the world, which was really encouraging to hear. Editorial design, I feel, is one of my strengths; therefore, am hoping to also specialise further in Level 06.

3D

Since leaving college I have been fascinated with animation and 3D motion graphics - particularly work by Manvsmachine as their work is extremely detailed and innovative. Myself and Harrison started a project called Designbytwo earlier in the year in an attempt to try and teach ourselves Cinema 4D - a 3D rendering software. From this, we were able to contact a design studio who showed interest in the project and the posters we produced. This led to an interview and ultimately us creating a report on them. Despite the success of our Instagram, I found that creating 3D visuals is extremely difficult and complex to do. The process is very time consuming and quite frustrating when trying to learn from scratch. Whilst I can now create basic renders I have found that the 3D sector of design is one that I do not want to pursue fully, as you must be very technically talented to work with studios such as Manvsmachine.

Thinking Ahead:

•  Work with Deuce
•  Freelance
•  Focus on my strengths
•  Build a strong portfolio + online presence
•  Graduate + join a design studio

The final PDF that I produced can be seen below. I wanted to keep it clean and straightforward, putting a focus on the aims and concerns mentioned above. I rehearsed the points written above and tied in some more information learnt this year to present the slides below.

Overall, the presentation went very smoothly; I managed to present it within the 10 minute time limit and received some great feedback at the end. Simon said that it was particularly good that I had picked up on the point that you should love coding to pursue it as a career, and that I have identified that it is not an area I would like to work in. Completing the presentation has given me a much clearer focus of where I want to be moving in to Level 06. I found that this year was very much about experimenting in different areas as much as possible; however, next year, I want to find my own style and begin specialising as much as possible. Branding and editorial design are currently my two most confident areas of design; therefore, I am going to continue building my skills in these areas and try to produce work that I am proud of/can put in my portfolio and on my Behance.