evaluation

This whole module for me was a real eye opener for what I wanted to focus on for the time being in my design career, which is illustration. I learned a series of other things along the way, which has made me a better designer in a number of different ways.

My original briefs I had wrote were ones I wanted to do and for people I would like to work for in the future, I knew using these purposed briefs would get me the portfolio pieces I wanted. Since leaving second year I knew it was time to focus on myself and what I wanted to do and that is what this module was all about for me, in terms of my rationale I mentioned things which I had previously learned from the prior two years at Leeds college of art and I wanted to focus on these elements in order not to make the mistakes I had done before and in order to make the module a fun and challenging one.

This module was a bit of a slow starter for me as I worked out what I wanted to do which is create illustrations for clients in various contexts suiting the brief, but my main issue was that I was not creating the form of illustration I wanted to, in working on the drop dead brief (brief one DD) I learned all about using the wacom tablet, which was the main gain out of the brief, the brief stretched on a little bit longer than I had originally intended due to it being such a long start getting my head around drawing straight to screen and learning all about different strokes, textures and calligraphy brushes not to mention file sizes, formats and scaling. Round about illustration two I started to get the hang of the tablet and was able to complete my drawings a lot faster and neater than originally.

My second brief however (front) was one which was a very misled brief and taught me all about how even though you have wrote a brief sometimes you cannot stick by it and it needs to be altered, I found myself producing editorial work which is not what I wanted to do same with (DD) the publication in my design practice is not what I had intended on doing and after altering the briefs I chose to get rid of areas of the brief to simplify them and extend on the stronger areas, front ended up being completely changed to Halloween decorations which in my opinion made a lot more sense and it looked a lot better once I had mocked up some of my ideas for packaging and products, I found that the napkin I made for this brief was a very successful piece and once it was changed to decorations I had a lot more fun producing for it.

Looking into time scale and organization there were a few problems along the way the first few projects went more or less according to my time table in my progression folder but there were key areas throughout this module were things went really wrong, the 6^th of November being the worst one which was when I got home from the army one weekend and found that my Mac book would not turn on which meant I had lost out on blogging and digital design for Sundays and any time after 8-9pm once college had shut, and the two pathetic snow days off were awful for me as I needed access to the Macs at university at least. I also lost data for some of my day briefs, which were progression screen grabs, and extra file of ideas, which are still unable to access. Due to having some financial difficulties lately it has strongly effected a lot of the module, one being that I couldn’t mock up a lot of my projects which I had been looking forward to doing and the other being I couldn’t get my Mac book fixed until after submission. After this situation happened it left me in a odd state which meant I had to work faster and in more detail as I knew I would be missing out on some long nights, as when I get home that is when a lot of my ideas flow being away from the studio.

Due to this set back it was very foolish of me to produce so many small briefs which left a lot of my time really slim especially due to the fact that there was no way I could focus on over time work, However once getting some pay in by the army I was able to finish off a few projects one being the tattoo flash book which taught me all about producing different kinds of illustrations and producing them for a odd scale using different stocks and print processes not to mention binding, I found this brief a very rewarding one and felt as though it was one of my strongest briefs I had completed as well as drop dead in which I learned all about different types of t-shirt printing and which works better for a contextual piece which answered the briefs specification.

I found that although a lot of the odds were against me I was able to produce all my boards, admittedly not in the quality I originally wanted but to a high enough standard to present them and in a very clear manner a lot better than any of the other boards I have produced over the years here.

Overall I answered the aim of my rationale and produced the work and gained portfolio pieces that I am very proud of showing off, using these forms of illustration I have had a few responses and gained a few clients who just want drawings doing for them which is great for me as I haven’t had anyone so interested in my work like this before. The module has been adventurous and a great learning experience were I have gained many new skills and have learned a lot about different processes and what can go wrong in them, most of all I believe the best thing I learned was how to juggle a series of briefs at one time. With the time I have left on this course I want to take my next briefs to the limit and go all out as I now know the power of context, I am very excited to start designing and starting something new, I know this is what I want to do now as I am still excited about my work and love what I do.