Design Practice Evaluation

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

I feel like I have begun to establish my skills to my advantage and used them appropriately in these 3 briefs. I have developed my use of mixed media illustartion effectively in my opinion – cutting and sticking and colouring over and there arrangement placed together. In particularly for these briefs I have used a different style of mixed media, inspired by Marin Haake and Sally Faulkner. I painted a range of coloured backgrounds, and then used the various colours to make the object which I was making, cut out singularly by hand. I would not say I am the most patience of people, however I really enjoyed doing this despite it being hugely time consuming especially working on the Dove brief.

I did from the start plan ahead, working again to my advantage allowing me to know exactly what was expected at the end of each week and what projects were taking longer than I had initially thought. This really benefited me during the final week when I am normally in a state of panic, where as this time round I was calm and I new exactly on each day was left to do.

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

I think here thee is room for improvement. I feel that the Dove project research was very limited and I could have researched into the brand a lot more and recorded it. The questionnaire results taking form my brothers two class at Newham School in Bedford, I found shocking. These girls were 14 and 15 yet could already see so much wrong with themselves which was not true. It demonstrated clearly how the medias vision of a perfect body image is targeting and effective children younger and younger now.

However the gardening brief I think I researched well, helped with my mum being a keen gardener I had lots of resources here to gain information, though I could of done questionnaire to see what my target audience would want to find out exactly, (The 10 things you should know about). However I chose to see this title as subjective to what I thought people should know about gardening, so they were in my opinion the top ten things my audience should know starting up.



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

I would consider the strengths within my work would be image illustration and now layout. I was not very used to image and large chunks of text combined producing a publication in the gardening brief, this is partly why I chose it to push me forward out of my comfort zone. I made it work for me, I tried to make the layout fin to read, and engaging to keep my audience interested and I personally think it has worked. I am very pleased with the overall final prototype.

This piece still involved a lot of hand rendered pieces cut out and scanned in, but also a lot of added vector work which again was something I was not confident or strong in. particularly the front covers I designed for the main publication and its two subcategories. I liked the simple style and I made them work for me and fit in with my hand rendered design style.
As I said above, I really enjoyed cutting out and sticking so I will take this new method of mixed media on board and defiantly use in again in future projects. I feel that this year I have created a bank of different methods which I enjoy doing and I could use in my projects.
My next step would be to combine my photography with my illustrative style, overlapping and playing around with there arrangement.

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

Allow more time for idea development. However this these briefs were al fairly short and snappy I would say that I have developed my ideas enough in the time I was given – but for future projects I should exploit my ideas more the get the best possibly outcomes.

On reflection I would also say that looking through my work it may not be clear to a viewer what is actually going on, why I have chosen designs which I have and not others as my design sheets are mainly packed full sheets and hard to pick out the relevant writing. I will in future projects make them clearer and simplistic to it is easier to see my design development and choices with reasoning.

My blog is appauling, and I have hardly touched it during these last 5 weeks. It is a huge let down and I NEED to get into the habit of sitting down a couple of times a week and doing it. It lets me down and a lot of extra research could be done on it.

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

1. Pick up my photography again, an combine it within my work, this will increase the range of mediums which I will be using.
2. Allow more time for design ideas to develop, exploiting my ideas to create the best potential results.
3. Present my ideas in a clear, concise format so they are easy to understand and easy to make the links and connections with my design desicisions.
4. Improve research skills, wider understanding of my audience and what they want.

5. Blog everyday to increase regular posts to inform others what exactly I am doing.

Attendance – 2
Punctuality – 4
Motivation – 4
Commitment – 4
Quanity of work produced – 3
Quality of work produced – 3
Contribution to the group - 3