Thursday 22 May 2014

OUGD603 // Module Evaluation

1. What skills have you developed thought this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Throughout the year I have worked on many briefs which have all encounted different skill sets. The main areas that I have developed throughout the year are my craft and print skills. These have been the ones which I have worked on the most within all my briefs. Developing these skills have influenced my practice and made me think more about using them after the course has finished. Looking into screen - print studios is something that is a definite.

Aside to print and craft skills, my digitals skills have also been improved, working throughout the year on my illustration skills has brought this area of design on par with the rest of my practice.

Within all my briefs the skill set has been applied in different ways, this has been due to different formats, paper sizes, and media types. I have mainly worked within the print medium all year round, but trying out different techniques and methods within these areas has created an effective practice of applying design.

2. What approaches to methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

Printing methods have become the main part of my practice, throughout the briefs I have undertaken I have tried to vary the methods I have used to create a range within my practice. I have worked on a lot of print work, which has used screen-printing heavily. This use of print within my practice has informed me about a subject area that I really enjoy and it has changed my opinion on what could be a career route once leaving uni.

Other methods such as book binding and printing techniques have been used throughout the projects, theses have all been built upon from what I have previously learnt and informed my practice in a positive way.

3. What strengths can you identify within your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

The strengths this year within my work are publishing and editorial and print. I feel that these two have been the main focus of all my briefs and the main things that I have produced within each of the briefs. I have worked on the skill level of both of these areas to produce a high standard of work and towards the end of the year I think this is clearly evident within what I have produced and shown. There have been other areas such as packaging and branding which I have worked on, I think these are still strengths of mine, but the other two are the most dominant and the ones in which you see mostly within my work.

I have also built upon concept and idea generation this year, I think the concept of each of my briefs are strong and show a good understanding of the subject area and the brief I am working on. This in turn has developed the idea generation and made this process a lot better than it previously has been.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I think my weakness with year has been knowing when to stop working on a brief. There has been quite a few briefs which have gone on for a lot longer than they needed to and no more work was produced to show for this. Whereas some of the shorter briefs I created a much larger product range and the brief as whole was much more considered.

The second thing I could of worked on more was probably my drawing skills and design sheets. I found myself working in notebooks and bits of paper, to drawn down ideas when they came into my head. Now there is nothing wrong with this as the idea is still there and can be developed, but by having the design sheets it makes it easier to see the route of the design and what I can work on to develop it further into a better product / design.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

- I would of liked to have a clear knowledge of what I wanted to work on from the beginning of the year, but in not knowing the year has panned out as a good experience and ended with me knowing what to do.

- Focus more on print. Even though print didnt really come into my practice until the end of the dissertation and dialigue exhibition. I felt that I could have incorporated it more into my future brief within the year and spend more time in the print room.

- Collaborate more. From the collaborations that I have done this year, I have felt they have gone really well and the work produced is probably some of the best within the year. Knowing this I wish I had of collaborated more and worked with other people to get a better understanding of how people work and how to work with them effectively.

- Commercial work. I feel that alot of my briefs this year are very much design led. I think I would gone back and chosen some other briefs that had more of a commercial element to show that they could work / be produced as a real physical thing.



Attendance - 5
Punctuality - 5
Motivation - 5
Commitment - 5
Quantity of work produced - 5
Quality of work produced - 5
Contribution of the group - 5

OUGD603 // OUGD603 Summary

I feel that this year has been a great success. I have defiantly been more engage with the year as a whole and I feel that I took control of it and produced some great work. At the beginning of the year, I set out the brie which I thought would be best for me, soon after starting to work on certain briefs, I realised that the idea of being hands on and physically making things was becoming more apparent within my work. I tailored my brief from here onwards to accomodate for this.

It wasn't until completing the dissertation and working on the practical element, that I really started to know what I wanted to do. I have always been interested in print and this has been the main medium in which I work in, but researching into the subject further within my dissertation gave me a greater understanding and appreciation for the subject. I put everything I learnt through the research into practice by producing the COP practical element and it was this that made a sudden change to my practice.

After working on COP module and having this idea of print in my head, alot of my briefs changed either on the outcomes or I worked on completely different briefs. I really got into the idea of print and focussing on creating beautifully crafted products for every brief that I undertook.

The main brief from throughout the year was Dialogue exhibition, this brief went on for the majority of the year as it was a huge project that consisted of a lot of smaller elements to create the final exhibition. As a project that the final outcomes was based on print, this again was within my area of design and working on the project, especially the print and curation side of it, really opened my eyes yet again to the design area. I found that I was enjoying being down in the print room, much more than being sat at my computer in studio. Working on print gave me something to focus on and engaged me all the time, whereas I found that I got bored really easily sat at my computer working. After working on dialogue, this again pushed the idea of print for me and I brought the physical print back into some more of my other briefs.

The year has presented its ups and downs, I feel that the briefs and times before christmas weren't that great, the briefs I completed then are of a good standard and ones which I don't think I wouldn't do again, but they weren't in the right direction for me and my practice. Although it was doing them briefs that proved to me what I did actually want to work within. After christmas I felt that I found my feet and started to work on the briefs that really engaged me and I started to produce much better work which I was proud of and confident to show. From then onwards I think I have developed as a designer further and further.

I have found the self-directed approach of the year good and bad. I have liked the fact that it was self-directed and all the briefs were down to us to choose and work on, but in some instances I did miss the structure of having the different modules and set deadlines. The latter end of the year, I did start to set myself clear deadlines and made myself stick to them as I found some of the briefs went on for much longer than they needed to. With this year being structured how it was, it has felt more relaxed, but I still feel as though I have produced as much work if not more than last year. One thing I did miss from the previous years was the crits. I always used to find these useful and often changed projects etc from the feedback of the crits, not having as many of these this year was a shame as I do think they are valuable to the brief and for feedback.

Overall this final year has been a great experience, I feel that as a designers it helped me massively realise what I want to do when I leave the course and my time here has been great. The year has gone really fast and I am going to miss the atmosphere of the studio and everyone involved with the course. I wouldn't change anything that I have done this year and I don't think I would do anything different if I was to do it again, because everything that has happened throughout the year has had some effect on my practice - in a positive or negative way, but either way it helped develop and define the type of designer I want to be and the designer I am that is leaving the course. The past three years have been very valuable to me and have been blast, I am very proud of being apart of Leeds College of Art.

Wednesday 21 May 2014

OUGD603 // Statement of Intent

At the beginning of the year we had to fill out a statement of intent, so state what we were going to do throughout the year and the briefs we were going to undertake. Looking back at this document it has changed a lot over the year and I think I have only done a couple of the briefs I set out on this document, due to changes within my practice, I swapped around brief and found other things that I was interested in.

To show what I have done this year and how the year has been as a whole, I have re-written the form so that it is up to date.



Brief 16 // Typocircle // Presentation Boards

Final presentation / submission boards to evidence the full project from the start to end. The presentation boards show the research, development, concept and final outcomes of the brief.


Brief 15 // DFGA // Presentation Boards

Final presentation / submission boards to evidence the full project from the start to end. The presentation boards show the research, development, concept and final outcomes of the brief.


Brief 14 // Design Context Book // Presentation Boards

Final presentation / submission boards to evidence the full project from the start to end. The presentation boards show the research, development, concept and final outcomes of the brief.


Brief 13 // Luke Beevers Photography // Presentation Boards

Final presentation / submission boards to evidence the full project from the start to end. The presentation boards show the research, development, concept and final outcomes of the brief.