OUGD405 - Self Evaluation

This is the self evaluation from this module.

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN		LEVEL	04
Module Code	OUGD405
Module Title	DESIGN  PROCESS

END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION

NAME	Danielle Harrison

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them? I have learnt how to use InDesign which made the Research, Collect, Communicate project a lot easier when I was laying out my recipe book because I used the A Master page so the grid system I made was the same on every page. I have also learnt a lot about printing, just because I have done it a lot more and been taught it in the InDesign induction, and I am getting used to different settings when printing books, using the bypass feed, bleeding, making double sided documents and how ink looks on different stock. This helped with the Postcard Project which was double sided, the Research, Collect, Communicate project where I printed a book and also chose stock to work well with the ink, and the How To brief when printing a double sided net for the bookmark stand. I have also managed my time a lot better as I haven’t been stressed with any of the projects from this module and feel like I had enough time on each to complete them to a standard I was happy with. 2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? Two of the projects I did were food related, Typogateaux and Research, Collect, Communicate, and it really helped me to write down all the ingredients and look at different recipes in books or online to help me create my own. Baking the cake for Typogateaux, and being able to cook some of the recipes that were in the recipe book also helped me know that the cake would taste fine and the recipes I included in the publication would be useable and accurate. I also found getting feedback useful, whether in crits, questionnaires or from the group, about if the recipes were good to include and what people prefer, what flavour cake is peoples favourites, and whether the illustrations worked well in the group project we did for How To. I find it easier to take feedback now and would rather have other peoples input rather than just do what I want to do, as design is for other people. 3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these? I think I used a lot of my software skills in this module, with creating the publication in InDesign, and the illustrations for it on Illustrator. I also made the illustrations and bookmark stand in the How To brief in Illustrator, and I received good feedback on both, so I think they both worked well. I was also good at sticking to deadlines that I made for myself, within a group, or on the brief. The group project was important for sticking to deadlines because I needed to create illustrations and give them to the rest of the group so that everybody else could complete their part of the brief, or I would have been holding them up. I also finished the publication a few days before the deadline so that I had time to learn how to bind it because I had never done it before and I didn’t want to leave it last minute. 4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future? I think the biggest weakness in my work is drawing because I’m not very good at it, and it puts me of doing lots of design sheets or making illustration a big part of my work. I have some books on drawing though, so I’m just going to keep practising so that it doesn’t affect and ideas I have on the next module. 5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? More research to see if the How To brief was working, perhaps asking children what they thought of the illustrations and what books they read, as that was our target audience. This would allow use to see how successful our idea was. Do some test pieces of the Typogateaux, because it wasn’t very good to look at even though it tasted nice. I think the original idea was too ambitious, and it didn’t turn out how I wanted it to look like. This could have allowed me to change my idea early on, because I had got quite a few that I liked. Do more sketches before I go to screen because I could develop more ideas and different styles rather than going with what I first create. For example, I could have drawn the ingredients for the recipe book in different styles rather than going for the first one that I did. This meant I could have shown more at a crit, and got feedback on what people preferred. I could have done more research for the postcard project because I didn’t do much, and this could have improved the final postcards that I did. Experiment more with initial ideas, different ways of distributing, different nets, different illustrations, layout ideas and/or text to improve my designs and have a more focused end resolution.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance					X
Punctuality					X
Motivation				X
Commitment					X
Quantity of work produced			X
Quality of work produced				X
Contribution to the group				X
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

OUGD402 - Group Plan

In a group with Victoria, Anisha, Beth and Jasper, we had to discuss what we had done for three PPP Tasks, and make a plan to complete the work in two weeks. I had finished all of the briefs, and everyone else had mostly finished them as well, so it was mainly checking what we had done, and going more in depth.

• Study Task 2 What Is Graphic Design - Part 1

Everyone in the group had completed this task, so we just needed to check it and make sure that it is labelled properly.

• Study Task 3 What Is Graphic Design - Part 1

Making sure that there are lots of different images of graphic design, which are referenced and appropriate, and making sure that they are all analysed.

• Study Task 4 What Is Graphic Design - Part 1 (Websites)

We agreed to make sure that images aren't just analysed with a brief sentence, but that we look at the brief and answer what it asks of us: Write a brief statement defining your understanding of each of the design areas Identify 10 examples of each discipline and 'categories' them by genre, audience, content, sector, budget and/or any appropriate method as discussed in your groups. Comment on the effectiveness of the examples with regards to content, format, function and media. 

OUGD402 - Where Am I Now? Task 4

I have to evaluate two parts of my life since I have moved in September, the personal and professional side. I have to identify:

• 10 things that you have learned about yourself as an individual and as learner. These should reflect your personal development and individual journey since the start of the programme.

• 10 things that you have learned about yourself as a designer. These should reflect your growing awareness of your own interests within graphic design as a subject, discipline and profession

The ten things that I have learned about myself as an individual and learner are:

1. I used to live on Rustlers burgers and chicken korma microwave meals at home, but since I have moved I cook meals everyday from scratch, and I am really keen on using my slow cooker to make meals as well. I even cooked a Christmas Dinner for eleven people, whereas I didn't even know the difference between an oven and a hob before I moved to Leeds.

2. I hate mess. I never used to clean up at home because my mum did everything for me, but I have turned into a clean freak since I've moved out and I very organised at getting my flatmates to tidy the kitchen with me when I can't bear it anymore. 

3. Outside of uni I spend most of the time with the four girls in my flat, and I prefer working with them because it motivates me to get on with doing work too. Also, once we have done a substantial amount of work we reward ourselves with Grey's Anatomy. If I don't do my work, I will finish it while they watch Grey's, so I always make sure that I get it done.

4. I'm an early bird, so it isn't a problem for me to get up really early in the morning and get some blogging done, and I prefer working then rather than at night. 

5. I've always been good with money and saving it, so that hasn't been much of an issue since I moved away. I find it easier to save money on food because I always cook with about 4 people every night so we share ingredients, and I never spend much on nights out because I don't need a lot to drink, and we all share a taxi. 

6. I don't do a lot of laundry, about a load a month, and whenever I go home I get my mum to do it for me. That's the only chore I am really bad at doing, and even when I do my laundry my cousin does all my ironing for me as I live with her. 

7. I don't miss home at all, I think that's because I live with friends from home, and my two best friends from home live down the road. I also see people I know from home whenever I'm out, as a lot of people move here for university from Grimsby. Friends from home come up every weekend as well, so it hasn't been hard or lonely moving away.

8. I've always gotten my work done at school and college on time, and that hasn't changed here. I almost always do the work as soon as I get it, and keep on top of blogging so that it doesn't become a chore. 

9. Now that I live with people, I am more considerate of others because I don't have my music up loud, I clean up after myself and help my friends when they need help.

10. I think the only drawback with mainly spending my time with friends I already knew from home and with the people we live with, I don't spend a lot of time with the people on the course. A lot of people on the course live with each other, go out a lot together and are really close, and although I have made friends on the course I don't feel I am as close to them  because of how I use my time outside of uni. 

The ten things that I have learnt about myself as a designer are:

1. I thought I would miss sketchbooks when I got to university, but I much prefer blogging. It saves time, it can be done anywhere and it is much easier to reference blogs and designers work.

This screenshot shows my blog, and it was really easy to have a link to the website I found the images of as the heading, which is something I couldn't do in a sketchbook.

2. At college I thought I would go into hand craft things like papercutting, but most of the briefs I have done here I have done on Illustrator, and I much prefer that, and I think the briefs worked well. For example, on the second How To brief, I created illustrations for children, and I got good feedback on them, and they worked well with what the rest of my group were producing for it, so I was really happy with them. And even though for the most recent brief the illustrations I produced were hand drawn on a graphics tablet, they were still digitalised and edited on Illustrator.

Here is a papercutting piece I did at college, and although I really enjoyed it and wanted to go a lot further with it, since the briefs I've got here, it isn't something I am as interested in anymore.

This is one of the illustrations I created for the How To brief, and it is very different from the previous piece of work that I did. 

This was for the research brief, and although I did it on Illustrator, I drew it on by hand first, then on a graphics tablet, so it still has a hand drawn effect.

3. I now think more about the distribution and finish of whatever I am making, including the stock it is going to be produced on, whether it needs to be bound and the type of packaging I will need to make. Before, I would have chosen my idea around whether I could produce it, but now I will go with the idea that I want and learn how to bind or create the packaging if I need to, to make it work. I think that is most evident in the publication brief I have just finished, because I thought about how the stock would affect the illustrations and colour, and the tone it would present. I also didn't know how to book bind, but I learnt it for the project, and the InDesign induction helped me a lot as I didn't know how to use it, but it helped me lay out my publication a lot easier. 

This is the binding that I did for the book, and in the crit feedback that I got, they commented that the stock was a good choice, so it shows that it is worth it to consider the stock when making a design.

These are some envelope mock ups I did while doing the Message and Delivery brief, and by doing these it helped me decide the final envelope I should make, as I decided what looked best and how to make sure that the net worked. 

4. I have always been interested in packaging, and at college no one else was interested in it, so I didn't think it was a very popular aspect of design, but since being here there has been plenty of opportunities to create packaging, a lot of people are interested in it, and I've been taught that 'packaging and promotion' is a really big part of design and so my interest in it has deepened, and I've got to research it a lot more. As part of the second How To brief I researched a lot of packaging and I really enjoyed it, and created a bookmark stand for it as well.

Here is the bookmark stand that I made, and it held the bookmarks in that Daisy created, with the illustrations on that I made. 

Here is a screenshot at some of the packaging that I researched. It is all packaging aimed at children because that is who are target audience was, and I really enjoyed looking at it. 

5. I have also learnt a lot more about branding and identity, which is another thing I have become really interested in since being here, and really want to go into it when I leave here. After researching different agencies and blogs, I found one that I really like called Anagrama.

I think the best part of this website is when you click on a piece of work, the designers tell their design decisions, and there are lots of images of the whole identity so its really helpful in seeing how other designers continue a look and feel across a range of products, and they do it really well.

6. What I also realised I like about packaging since I've been here is that I am really interested in food packaging. Whenever I research design, I always find myself drawn to  food packaging, and when I created some moodboards for the Printed Text and Reading brief I focused on packaging, and when I created them I realised they were all for food. 

These were the moodboards for the Printed Text and Reading research that I did, which features a lot of food packaging.

7. From doing various research tasks, I found one designer who documents his life every day, every year, and makes an annual report in the form of an infographic, and I found it really interesting and inspiring, so I have started to do it as well. I have an excel spreadsheet which I'll make an annual report about myself in a years time. 

8. I love crits, I think they are really useful, and I wold rather have people be honest and tell me what they think about my work so I can make it better next time, and know what other people think works and what doesn't. At the beginning of a project its useful to get feedback because it gives me confidence to go with an idea if other people think it's a good idea as well, and when I'm designing it it is good to get feedback to see what other people suggest. That's what I liked about working in the How To brief when I created the children's illustrations because people commented on some changes I could make, and then they really liked them, and I think they worked well with that everybody else created with them. 

These are the bookmarks that Daisy made.

 This one of Jasper's photographs that he took, and then put Emily's mural design on top of it. Because the images were really high quality and he made the murals fit with the wall, I think they are really effective.

 This is the sticker chart that Mellisa made, and I think that by her extending the neck for the poster it worked really well with the concept.

 This is one of Anna's posters which included my illustrations with Emily's typeface, and I thought they worked well as a set.

This is one of Emily's murals she made with her own typeface and my illustration.

9. I feel like the research that I have done for all the projects here is so important because it has helped shape the information that goes onto my designs, and also influences how I design things. This is evident in the mailshot I produced for the Message and Delivery brief, as it was about gender inequality, and it was so interesting to research. 

Researching into the subject helped define what was featured on the mailshot, and I wouldn't have been able to do the brief successfully if I hadn't researched into it. 


10. I really like how fast-paced the briefs are, because designing for different projects is fun, as they all have different requirements and topics, so there is opportunity to do lots of different things. It also isn't boring, because at college having projects that lasted a couple months meant that they dragged on, and I've found I produce better, more concise work here than I did at college. I think the project where we had to create a typeface for somebody else was really challenging because it had to be based on someone I didn't know, and it surprised me how little time I needed to actually create a typeface that my partner was happy with, and that I was happy with, and I had justified reasons as to why it was designed in this way too.