OUGD603 - Evaluation

In reference to the statement of intent I have completed a body of branding based briefs as intended. I have shown the ability to then extend each of them in the appropriate way so that I could develop my other skills within the design field.

The opportunity to focus on a collection of briefs at one time has shown that as a designer I have started to establish my personal style which is predominately through the modern approach I often take, with the use of sans serif typefaces and bold colour palettes. As a portfolio of work this will show consistency when future clients are looking for a better prediction of the type of work that I would produce for them.

The choice to be a part of a number of collaborative briefs has given me the confidence to pursue my career ambitions of being a part of a creative studio as I feel that I can work well as part of a team and the need to delegate tasks within a project is now something that I can see great value in.

Engagement with the professional industry and by having live clients has taught me a number of lessons, the main one being the importance of communication throughout the whole process. As a designer I have established the fact that I like to work closely with the client as it has proven to result in an outcome of a much higher standard and fulfilment to the brief.

This module has really taught me about the pressures of a large amount of work all overlapping each with different deadlines and differing outcome sizes. As a whole, time management can never go perfectly because within each of the projects there was a lot of relying on other people to deliver elements in order for myself to progress. I kept a fairly strict time management schedule in order to have each of the briefs ready for their individual deadlines, but some of the processes were a little longer when working with others or relying on myself learning a new part of the Adobe software. I found that this module required a very substantial amount of writing to support the design work, a lot of it in repetitive forms which as a whole took up a lot of my time and I felt a little time restricted in terms of pushing the creative elements that one step further. It is important to research into ach brief very thoroughly but I felt as though some of design work focused less on the aesthetic value and more on the theoretical process and ensuing that there was reasoning for each of the decisions made – which would not be as big of an emphasis in industry.

The module has taught me a lot about myself as a person as well as a designer, showing that possess a lot of self-motivation and pride in my work ethic. I was unfortunately ill for a large period of time half way through this module which really threw me off track in terms of my time management plan. Once I was able to begin working again I took this set back as a sense of motivation to prove to myself that I could catch up with everything through the establishment of a strict routine and self-motivation to complete a number of very long days at university.

The miscommunication in terms of industry experience caused me lot of worry as I had used my initiative and after briefing in 2^nd year I went and found myself a place in the London design studio for a month just before 3^rd started in order to avoid an interruption that it may cause me with the course and the specific sessions that we needed to attend. I fund this to be of great value as I was able to start the term having refreshed my skills and with a sense of ambition for graduation, knowing exactly what I was aiming for. We were then informed that this would not count because it was out of term time, so I spent a lot of my time stressing about finding more when actually it was very hard to get only two weeks at a studio. This process landed me a number of summer internships as each of the studio consistently advised me that this would value my progression much more than two weeks within the term. I took these opportunities and I am looking forward to completing them having the found out that we are allowed to have the placements after the May deadline.