End of year Evaluation

For me personally the last 6 months of the year I have changed my design direction around 180 degree’s for the better. I am no thoroughly enjoying the work which I ma producing and it excited me. Before this, I was not playing to me strengths so I was trying and failing in certain areas, such as type and layout. However I now feel fully confident in my own illustrative style to continue and push my experimentation with it further.
My portfolio shows a more broad spectrum of my design practice, and less of my illustrative style – this is because I have only now became fluent in it. However I think it clearly shows what makes me tick, the style, layouts and the media used, which is mixed media and photography. It shows a range of application which my style and way of working can be applied to, this is very effective as it shows the audience variety within my portfolio.

In the last 6 months I have used my initiative more started to do much more primary research into contemporary designers. I think the turning point was when I was in London over February time and I saw a same sample of Mike Perry’s work in a small gallery in Soho. I subsequently now have a huge interest in hand rendered typefaces, and I would now like to combine illustration with them like Kate Moross work.
Similar artists who I have found who helped me become confident in my illustrative style were martin hake and sally Faulkner. They both used mixed media collages hand cut out to make there illustrations – so I have tried to combine both of there skills within my work, especially for the dove brief.
However if I want to extend my practice and produce hand rendered pieces like Moross, these will not come easy to me. It will take time and careful playing where yeah section of text will go and I have found this year that I do have a tendency to over complicate pieces. This will be a big challenge however I love her work and style so combing hand render text with my illocutions will be the next focal point.
I would also like experimenting much more with colour and making my pieces more vibrant and exciting. Again before now I haven’t really been bold or brave when using colour, sticking to the minimum choices. So next year and over this summer I was to start this and play around.

Things to take further and push myself harder for are research skills and experimentation skills. To achieve the best possible solution and allow for mistakes when experimenting and producing the final product, I am going to have to start my research earlier and become much more thorough -visiting galleries for primary sources, questionnaires etc as this year I had too much secondary sources research.

My proposed dissertation title is the history of celebrity endorsements in branding and advertising. This is a topic, which interests me, in understanding peoples desire and fascination with the celebrity lifestyle, I find it quiet humorous and humorous and sarcasm is a common theme within my work. However in relation to my design practice it could lead to possibly mockery adverts and fake celebrity branding.