Evaluation OUGD301

The experience of this module has taught me a lot about the way I work, the type of designer I am and where I want my work to go. In my rationale I stated that I wanted to “Focus on several areas of design, which will hopefully integrate with one another to give me a well-rounded set of skills, and style of design”; I think that I have tackled this quite well because I chose five briefs that all required very different outcomes, enabling me to improve my skills in several areas of design. The Occasions brief has turned me onto a new area of design that I had never considered before and the contrast between the Penguin brief and Leeds Public Arts brief has shown me the diversity within layout work, and that it can be quite interesting and fulfilling.

I feel that this module has really benefitted from the experiences I has working with design agencies over the summer. The Leeds Public Arts brief has really helped me to understand how working with a client can be really helpful, but also a nightmare when you don’t agree with their design choices. Getting the balance of good design and client’s wishes right is quite hard, but necessary and a very important skill for the future. The feel that I have been able to focus my work, and make decisions based on commercial viability and how the client would respond to the designs, rather than just doing what I like and think is best. The Sustainable Packaging brief is tied to a very specific client, but as I had no actual client input I had to think about the designs from my point of view, the customers and the clients. I think that this has brought out better work from me, and has made me think more about how my work will fit into the market place.

I have managed to tie my studio practice to my dissertation through the sustainable packaging brief mainly. The research and work I am doing has informed me about sustainability and I have allowed this to filter through into the other briefs I have been doing, but I have not made it the main focus.

I have discovered that my design work benefits from good research, and planning of the outcomes that are going to be made. I know that I am very organised, and that my design work is clean and structured. I can see how this is a good thing, but there are opportunities to take risks, and I need to make myself have a go at these, or I fear that I may get stuck in doing quite nice tidy work.

I am looking forward to my final major project because I know that I will have the opportunity to do briefs that I will feel safe and competent working on, but also to look for briefs that I may not have considered before. This is because I know that now is the time to push myself and do work that I want and can experiment with, rather than playing it safe and feeling a bit boring.

Context Cakes...

One of the outcomes of the final crit was that I needed to put my cake boxes into context. I took this on board and photographed two of the boxes with a cupcake, to show the context and also to give them some scale.




I do think that giving the boxes some context really helps to just give instant understanding of what the packaging is for.

Oh (Stolen) Christmas Tree...

After the final crit, in which our presentation boards were discussed, I photographed my presents and bags in context. I realise that it is December, but I was struggling to find a christmas tree, or christmas setting to photograph them in. I resorted to stealing/borrowing a plastic tree from the cafeteria in college and rearranging the decorations so that I could photograph my presents underneath it. These are the photographs that I put on my boards, and I feel that it does really help to give some idea of how appropriate they are.





(I did put the tree back!)

Gifts Galore...

I have finished producing the wrapping paper for my Occasions brief, finally!
It has taken a little while to produce them; partially because I had to do all the foiling which I needed to find time to do, partially because I had to organise putting the foiled designs through the printer to finish them, and partially because I was scared that it would all go horribly wrong! Anyway, here is a photo (taken on my desk) of 4 parcels wrapped in the paper. I am going to photograph the whole range together and individually so that I can present them on my boards really cleanly.



Overall I am quite pleased with the outcome; Unfortunately the print of the black once the metallic areas had been foiled has not lined up perfectly, but there isn't an awful lot I can do about it. So, I've decided that it will do for the photos and submission as it is mainly the concept and design rather than the finish I can achieve within college.

Alice's adventures in the photography studio...

I spent most of yesterday in the photography studio trying to get a product shot of my finished Alice book cover. Angus helped me with the photos; he has a really good camera, which meant that we were able to catch the shots we did whilst keeping the overall design looking really crisp. These are my 3 favourite photos from the afternoon (we took about 100!)







Thank you to Angus for his help, I really appreciate it!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

Sara and I were informed on Monday that our design for the Public Arts Strategy had been chosen to go to print. We had a meeting with Vanessa on Thursday and went through the changes she wanted to make to the document, which we agreed needed to be made. The majority of the changes were relatively low key; images or small errors in the text. The screen shots below show some of the changes we've made...

This layout had an image of two cars behind it, and the coloured boxes were a dark purple. We changed the image to a much more vibrant close up of a post-box and altered the colours so that they contrasted with the image, but complemented the overall design.


These 'chapters' were on the same spread with the peg image between them. We gave them their own double page spread (DPS) each, and added an additional image. This gave each section its own personality, and the text had more room to breath.





These are the revised action plan spreads. Originally the design was over 3 DPS, not it fits over 4. We have added the column titles on each spread, rather than just the first and use the same layout for each. We chose images that were very ambient, and all had a nature theme, this also meant we could keep the colour palette very similar for these pages as they are all part of the same section.



These are the new layouts for the "flowcharts", which in the meeting we clarified to just be "charts" as they don't actually need to flow in anyway. We have given each chart it's own DPS which means that the text isn't so squashed. Each one also has it's own image behind it, and fits in with the layouts of the other pages. We are SO pleased that we were able to change these, as the charts have been a real struggle since the beginning.



These spreads contain the information relating to flowcharts. These now have a DPS each aswell, which means that the images we have used are much more a focus of the page. It was particularly important that the pliers on the crate were visible (I'm not sure why, but Vanessa was very clear about that). We feel that spreading the information out more has allowed the document to become much more readable and everything feels less squashed in.

Finally, this is the front cover of the document. We have made a tiny change here; the Leeds is written in bold and has been moved onto a line of its own. I am not a fan of this because I don't like widows in text, but Vanessa wanted the Leeds to stand out a little bit more, and she asked to have it moved onto its own line.

Cover to cover...

I have printed the Alice book cover design onto several different stocks to see what effect it has on the overall design and whether the colour is suitable.

The covers stocks, from left to right, are:

Heavy double sided newsprint, Coloured medium weight paper and Off-white cartridge paper





The red stock, though very vibrant, looses a lot of the overall punch that the design has, using this stock is not an option.
The heavy newsprint works well because of the thickness and the way that it sits over the hardback book (though the final design may not be hardback) The off white colouring is interesting but makes the book look old and used, which isn't something you would want to see on a shop shelf when looking for a new and exciting book.
The cartridge paper is just off white, not very different to plain paper bar the texture. The laser print does not take well to the texture of the cartridge paper, and is prone to rubbing off or smudging, which isn't great!
This stock test has been useful because it has highlighted to me that the likely outcome for the book is; that the cover will be thick with a laminated finished to prevent it spoiling. The use of plain white gives the book a fresh and bold cover design, with the red and black combination really popping from the cover.