10 Things I Look Forward To This Year. PPP2.

At the begging go last year we were asked to write a list of 5 things that we want to learn over the next year. Mine were as follows:

• On this programme I want to learn the business of graphic design and how to make the most of my success, and how to research well and use my contextual knowledge to influence my work.

• I want to improve my printing processes and learn which is best suited to a particular brief or task.

• I want the know what type of graphic design I want to spend my career doing.

• I want to learn new techniques and approaches to a brief.

• I want to learn more about digital programmes and web design.

I think that this past year I have managed to learn a lot, more than I could have thought, and i think that I have met most of my goals from the beginning of last year. Firstly, I have learnt quite a bit about the business of graphic design and how to promote myself to my full potential and get the most from that. I also know that I am much more capable of contextualising my work and using this contextual knowledge to better my work. I know this from the context of practice work I did throughout the year and specifically the essay that I wrote. My printing processes have definitely improved, especially with the many workshops and individual learning I did in different print processes, such as screen print and letterpress. This also relates to another of my things I wanted to learn, with the new techniques I learned in these workshops, and so I learned new approaches for my briefs. I feel like after last year I am on much more of a direct path to knowing what kind of designer I want to be, although I still don't know exactly what I'll end up doing, I now know what I enjoy the most and what I want to look further into. I have learned quite a lot about digital programmes, especially InDesign and Illustrator, however I have yet to learn anything about web design and so this is still something I would like to continue to learn this next year.

After looking back at these we were asked to think about 10 things that we would like to learn and what we look forward to this year.

• Firstly I want to develop skills in web design and learn how to create my own website, and also further my skills in digital programmes, specifically InDesign and Illustrator.
• I would like to better my time management skills a lot more, and although I think I worked quite well last year especially towards the end, I still feel like I can get a lot more out of my time by being more structured and organised.
• I really want to try more print processes and practice more of the ones that I already know. For example I want to learn how to emboss and get better at screen printing, lino print and letterpress. I'll do this by attending workshops and taking some extra time to practice my printing processes.
• I want to attend more exhibitions and local events around leeds this year to get more involved with the community of art and design here.
• I want to involve myself in more live and competition briefs this year so that I can get my work out into the real world and start to broaden the work that I do, and hopefully win a competition or get some recognition from the outside world.
• I want to focus in more onto what I want to carry on into after this year and carry on into my career, and hopefully get a much wider skill set according to what I want to move forward with.
• I want to build up my portfolio with more professional work and work that I am proud of.
• I want to work more on collaborative work, especially cross year and cross course work, as I think this will benefit me very much in the future when it comes to working with clients and other designers
• I want to work more on my writing skills and context of practice work, especially in writing an essay and a body of work as this will be very helpful she it comes to writing my dissertation next year and also writing clearly for clients and other designers.
• I really want to further my skills in InDesign and Illustrator, whilst also learning new software such as dreamweaver and fontographer. I think this would be really beneficial to my work.

It's up to you - Studio Brief 2 - OUGD402

For this publication I want to focus on the things that I have learned about myself and about Graphic Design over this past year and so I want to create some sort of book or printed publication, as this is what I have enjoyed the most this year and it is what I want to continue doing throughout the course.

I began to look at different ways of creating a small booklet, but I also wanted to find something that is a bot out of the ordinary and not what you would expect from a standard booklet. The booklet needs to represent me and what I have learned over the last 9 months and so it must be creative and must show off some of the skills and techniques I have learned.

 

I really like how these publications are created, by taking away from the page rather than printing upon it, and the concertina of the first book is really interesting. However I don't think that something like this would show off a lot of the things I have learned this year and would not be very readable.















I think that the idea of having fold out pieces of paper and inserts in the publication is a good one, as it would give me the opportunity to write a little more about my progress and what I have learned over this first year of the course, whilst also giving the opportunity to have pictures of work and inspiration throughout the main booklet.

I think that using different sizes of paper within my booklet would be a good idea, as a way of differentiating between different sections of the booklet and different aspects of my year. Also using different coloured stock would work well so that I can spilt up my booklet into sections of work and learning and inspirations etc.

As a front cover for my booklet I want to keep it fairly simple. I was also thinking about other aspects to promoting myself and the idea of a business carder promotional card would work well to do this. As I was doing some visual research I came across this book that incorporated the business card format into the front cover and so I thought that this would work well as a front cover for my booklet. I could create business cards that look good both in and out of the book, using the area covered by the slit in the page to my advantage. 

There are numerous ways that I could slot the business card into the front page and so I will look further into this, and see how the business card will look both in and out of the slots in the page. 

I then needed to think about what content I would put into my booklet. I need it to be simple and easily understandable as I want this booklet to be more of a visual representation of how I have grown over the past 9 months on this course. However I still want to write about where I want to progress onto over the summer and beyond, and also include how I have come to make this decision from the things I have learned this year. I think that this should be mainly focused on the things I have gained from within university and how this has helped me progress, but I also need to include things from outside of uni such as my trip to Australia, which really helped me to grow independently and figure things out for myself. Also, living alone, away from home has really helped me to progress both personally and professionally as it has forced me to be more independent.

I want to keep my publication balanced with type and image and so I have collected a selection of images that I could include, some of my own images and some collected from other resources


When I began this Graphic Design course in September 2012, I knew a little about the subject and nothing about living alone. Since then I have grown and matured both personally and professionally. Looking back on the past 9 months and the work that I have produced in this time, it is easy to see how my design process and practice has progressed and improved. This was also the first time I have lived away from home, and so was forced to grow up personally and fend for myself which has been a very exciting experience. 

Personal -  Moving from a small town to a huge city was a big culture shock to begin with in September, but I have really enjoyed living in Leeds.

Professional - 

Australia - My trip to Aus was really influential in my decision to progress with print based work, and books and magazines in particular. In Melbourne there was an incredible shop called MagNation that sold purely magazines of any kind you could think of. Some of the magazines weren't too exciting but the design section had numerous exciting publications that I discovered. One of these magazines was Process Journal,and independent look on graphic design from around the world that is published by Hunt&Co in Melbourne, Australia. 
I met some really incredible people over in Hobart who I think have a much more relaxed attitude to life in general that people that I have met elsewhere in the world.Hobart itself is a beautiful city and I felt really relaxed and at home while I was there. The food markets were amazing and the whole city seemed to be full of creative people with a much slower pace of life.

 Process Journal - Hunt&Co.



























As well as this I want to include other things that inspire me such as certain design studios and work. 

While I was researching into my 'speaking from experience' brief for design practice, I came across a really interesting studio called Anagrama, who are based in Monterrey and Mexico City. One piece of work that they did on branding a restaurant was really interesting to me because o the use of type and colour, and how the whole of the brand fitted together seamlessly, even including the interior and exterior of the restaurant. 

 Although I have never done any branding work, I think that it would be really exciting to explore this over the next year and see where it takes me. I'm interesting in carrying the look of the brand over numerous materials and environments and how well this could work with different types of branding, whether it be corporate branding for a company, or branding for a product or place such as this example.

Another example of restaurant branding from Anagrama.

Five statements...

About me as an individual...

Travel
I have always loved traveling and visiting new countries and cultures. I find it incredibly exciting to learn about somewhere other than where I live and to immerse myself in a new place. Most recently i visited Australia which was the most exciting place I have visited so far. Melbourne in particular has a vibrant and young culture which I enjoyed hugely.

Food

Food is a huge part of my life, especially cooking and baking. I have a collection of cookery books and I try to cook nearly all of my meals from scratch, mostly because it tastes much better that way. Cookery tv shows are also a big love of mine and I tend to watch them much too often than I really should.

Music

One of my favourite things to do is listen to live music because it is always better that way. I've been going to gigs since I can remember and to festival every summer for the past 4 years, and I don't ever intend to stop. The best thing about music is that there is always something new and exciting and there is never a dull moment.

Scary Films

I love watching movies in general especially with the full cinema experience, but there has always been something about scary films that I love so much. I remember watching The Exorcist when I was 12 and thinking it was the greatest thing I have ever seen, not finding it particularly scary, but the story and the theatre of it all was fascinating to me and still to this day I watch about one a week.

Patterned dresses

I love patterned clothing, especially dresses and skirts.  I tend to spend a little too much on clothing in general and my weakness is a beautifully patterned and colourful dress.

About me as a designer...

I love books and magazines. It doesn't really matter what kind of book or magazine, as long as it is exciting and beautifully made I have a really interest in them. I already have a pretty decent collection of cookery and design books mostly, but I absolutely intend to increase this collection and include some of my own one day.

The cover of D&AD50, designed by Planning Unit, features a clear dust jacket printed with the numerals 10 to 50

Layout of body copy and image is one thing I would absolutely love to learn more about. I really love how inventive you can be with the way that a page or double page spread can look and how it flows.

The high line identity, by Pentagram New York.

I really enjoyed the recent project of designing a record sleeve cover and I think that this is an area I want to look much deeper into. I love going into record shops and seeing how innovative some designers are being within the format of a record sleeve and this really excites me.

Local Natives Hummingbird 

One skill i would love to learn is letterpress. I love the mix between the handmade and the mechanical of the process and that it leaves an indentation on the paper giving it an extra texture and dimension.

Swiss Legacy | Swiss Legacy, by the initiative of Art Director Xavier Encinas

Inventive means of showing information in info graphics is something i find really interesting. I prefer a piece that is very simple and clean and shows the information in a less obvious way and something that looks very aesthetically beautiful as well as being informative. 

The States of Europe, Andy Bolton. Detail Italy Southern

End of module self evaluation. OUGD405.

End of module self evaluation

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

I feel like my research skills have improved dramatically, in that i now understand different ways of researching and the importance of both primary and secondary research.I also think that my skills in photoshop have improved by learning how to use it more effectively and learning when i should use photoshop or illustrator, or both.

What approaches to methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I have approached this module with much more of an understanding of the subject matter i am working with which i think has improved my choices of materials, processes and ideas.

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

Some strengths that I can identify in the work I have done since starting the module are my use of computer software such as photoshop and InDesign which have improved a lot since the last module. I also think that my thought process an research methods have improved greatly, and to capitalise on these i will make sure that in any future brief i do plenty of research before i do any design work. I feel that this improves the work and gives it a lot more depth than my previous work.

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I can see that making sure my final products or pieces need improving, in that they don't always look professional or done to a very high standard, and i will address this by giving myself more time to create furure final pieces so that i can make sure that they look perfect and if they go wrong i will have time before the deadline to fix them.

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

1.     Look further into programmes such as InDesign that i'm not fully confident with so that my work can become progressively more interesting.

2.     Try to use some practical skills such as paper cutting or screen printing to develop my work and these skills.

3.     Look further into infrographics and different ways of creating and using them as this was something i particularly enjoyed this module.

4.     Continue developing my research methods to give my work a more contextual knowledge and a depth

5.    Continue to research my briefs deeper to give my pieces a deeper contextual meaning