End of Module OUGD101 Self-Evaluation...

Kirsty Hardingham

www.K-hardingham1013.blogspot.com

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

I have learned a lot during this module, i think the main thing is that the generating of ideas are endless and there is so many ideas and solutions you can generate from one brief. I found this out during the design a typeface brief, i had so many ideas and didn’t know which one to draw up as a whole alphabet and glyphs, i asked a tutor what they thought and they said i should draw them all up. Once i had drawn up about 7 versions i just kept designing. I really enjoyed this brief and pushed myself to the limit and since then i have been doing the same thing in present briefs. I have also learnt how to use illustrator, at start i hated it because i got frustrated but now i do a lot of work on it.

2.       What approaches to/ methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

With my design context blog i have gathered pieces of design that i find inspiring, which helps when i need some ideas. Im not really sure how i research to be honest, i just do it. With the research week brief of researching a headline i gathered information about tattoos and the history of them which helped me gain an understanding of what tattoos were used for and how they were recognised, this impacted my design and i developed my ideas from there.

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

I have now got to the point where i will experiment constantly with ideas, good or bad ideas is still an idea and ive learnt to take criticism as a learning curve.

4.       What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

I think that i could improve my digital skills, because throughout this module i have had the chance to develop work digitally but didn’t always do it because i wasn’t confident enough so i may have lost a few good or maybe bad digitised versions of ideas. I try hard to use illustrator but often get frustrated so i guess that is something i can work on.

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

-          The first thing is to push my digital skills to the next level to ensure i can experiment fully with a wider range of media.

-          Generate more ideas in a brief to have a wider choice in what to develop onto the final processes of a final solution as i felt with some briefs i didn’t push myself enough with my ideas and when you realise its the deadline for the brief and there was other things you could of done it makes you feel like you could have done better when actually its too late now.

-          Learn how to manage my time properly and effectively, i am quite good at this but some days i get lazy and just go home and do nothing when really i could have thought up several more ideas in college that could of made a big difference to a brief.

-          I wish that i had asked people constantly for advice on my work as it does really help, especially with people who aren’t afraid to tell you what they think. I know we have regular crits which are really useful but constant feedback is an essential part of a developing brief.

-          I wish i was able to speak more clearly about my ideas as i felt sometimes during crits i didn’t explain my ideas enough which meant people didn’t understand where i was coming from and i sometimes received unhelpful feedback.

6.       How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

5= excellent

4= very good

3= good

2= average

1= poor

Attendance= 4

Punctuality= 5

Motivation= 4

Commitment= 4

Quantity of work produced= 3

Quality of work produced= 3

Contribution to the group= 3

Illustrator Brief...

For the illustrator brief i chose to visually experiment with the letter 'B', i chose to do a capital B to set myself a challenge as i do feel its maybe harder to experiment with in a wide variety of ways. It also linked in with my flattened B from a previous brief. I needed to produce 26 variations of my chosen letter. Below are variations of my letter, produced in Illustrator. I have experimented with the bowls of the letter, the stroke weight, height and elongation, disfigurement of the outline, pattern and anything else that i could find to transform my letter.

I particularly liked the aesthetic qualities of playing around with the distort and transform tool, there were so many variations you could create, some subtle and others completely changed the formality of the letter.

We were allowed to use one colour (not including black or white) in this brief, i decided to use red as it stands out but i only coloured my original outline to emphasise that this is what i started with and i ended up with a wide variation of B.

Below is my final 26, they were to be presented on A2 landscape consisting of two rows of 13. Together they all work well and do show a variety of visual variations. I have chosen to use the samples that i distorted with the distort and transform tool. I like the curvaceous shapes and the similar continuity between each letter form. Keeping one letter form red looks really good too, it just adds that tiny bit of colour that i think brings it all together.

I do particularly like working with black and white as it keeps it simple and crisp, i mainly wanted to look at shape and keep it simple, i did experiment with different brushes and patterns but they were too fussy and it took you away from the smooth shape of the B.

Examples of others typographic experimentations:

No news is good news...message and delivery...

The B word...

The brief is to design a mail shot that can be send to an appropriate mail listing. The mail shot, much like part one of No news is good news has a restriction of two colours plus stock. The mail shot must pose a question, opinion or fact related to my initial research of tattoos, you can also combine these statements.

Statement of fact:
One in three Britons have a tattoo.

Statement of opinion:
Tattoos are a way of self expression.

Question:
Two out of three Britons dont have a tattoo, are you one of them?

Before i start to solve the problem set by the brief i need to answer the following questions:

What? What is it i need to communicate?

How? How am i going to communicate this?

Why? Why to i need to communicate this?

Who? Who am i trying to communicate this to?

Am i trying to inform, instruct, educate, persuade or promote?

When designing my mail shot, am i going to contain, conceal, deliver or reveal my message?

All these questions are being asked in order for me to deliver a message in a relevant and creative way in order to communicate with my target audience.

My initial idea was to design a promotion for a tattoo parlour, posing the statement of fact with a question:

' One in three Britons have a tattoo, have you got yours?'

This could work in two ways, either people can see it as simply a piece of promotional design for a tattoo parlour, or they could begin to argue against the fact that so many people have tattoos and they dont agree with it.

My audience will be over 18's, as thats the legal age for getting a tattoo and within that, people who dont have a tattoo. I want my mail shot to relate to the first part of No news is Good news, im going to use the same typeface, imagery and colour palet. With the imagery i was told that on my posters it wasnt clear what it was so im going to use it in a different context.

This is my first idea for my mail shot, it would either be the front or the inside of my piece of promotional design. I have kept most of the elements from my poster designs from message and interpretation. The imagery is the same but i have used it in a different context. It is now a sort of pattern to 'decorate' the background layer of my design. The  tribal tattoo design has been combined in different ways with English Rose symbol. I have kept the font the same as i think it works well in terms of representing the theme of my designs.

This design is the layout for the inside of my promotional design, the centre of the centre rose is where it will fold in half. Im going to use red as one of my colours still because it links with tattooing in terms of that you bleed slightly when having a tattoo done, its also a visually strong colour which catches peoples eye.

Examples of mailshots

This is the cover/ back cover for the above design, i have placed my fact on the cover along with the decorative tattoo pattern. Im not really sure though if this would make people open my mail shot as theres not really anything they can immediatly engage with. But then again on the back of my envelope i want to state the question 'Have you got yours?' meaning have you got a tattoo, but they wouldn't know this until they opened the mail shot. It captures peoples curiosity and they then engage with the mail shot, this is important and must work within my design in order to fully promote my 'tattoo parlour' in an effective way.

Because i am designing a promotional mail shot for a tattoo parlour, i did initially make a name up, that failed as it sounded tacky and boring 'Tattoo Ink UK'. So i changed it to 'SkinDeep', which is actually a tattoo parlour that exists. I think that this works a lot better as in a way it creates its so message : Is tattooing really just skin deep or is there more to it than what meets the eye, as people dont just have tattoos for getting a pretty picture permanently drawn onto their skin, they sometimes have a tattoo done for personal reasons as a way of self expression.

This is another design for the cover of my promotional design, again i've used the same font and decorative tattoo design. I have made a website up for my tattoo parlour, which does exist as a real tattoo parlour but is NOT the one i am designing for. This something i should of maybe researched before i chose a name.

I have looked at tattoo parlours in London as i want it to be linked with the English Rose design, i found a tattooing studio called Extreme needle based in London, whose colour scheme on their website is red, black and white so it fits in perfectly with my designs. Their logo also combines an elaborate design combined with the Queen, so again that link with England.

http://www.extremeneedle.co.uk/index.html

This is a 3 fold design, folding from the left to right, the question has been placed on the cover to capture peoples curiosity, the middle section has my fact on it which will also have a designed business card and once its opened out it will show the tattoo studios name and website next to it. I think this design works well, its simple and effective. I didnt want to over work my designs as thats not a style i like to work in, i think because i have like the decorative pattern that adds enough detail. If i were to make the mail shot's physical design too complex it takes the audience away from its purpose.

This design again is a 3 fold but it collapses down rather than from across. The question and fact will be on the cover together this time, although im not sure if its too much. The middle section which looks blank will have a business card in it and the bottom section has the tattoo studios name and website and a small caption that 'bigs' it up. This design could work well as a poster.

I then looked at making a poster that would unfold from a 2 fold design, because of the decorative pattern and the simplicity of the layout and use of text it could be something someone keeps and sticks on their wall. I did have a few technical problems when folding this poster up but i took it as a learning curve. I just had too many sections for being able to fold it down in an effective way.

This is the design for my business card, i have tried to keep it simple and to the point but kept the  continuity going from the other designs. I think that the reversed out text at the bottom works well, it just adds a different visual element.

This design is a 4 fold, folding across from right to left. The decorative pattern helps to link the four sections together so it doesnt look awkward when its unfolded.

This is one of my sample ideas, it is set up much like landscape card. I wanted to use silver envelopes to post my mailshot in, but i soon found out that this was not practical.

These are the nets for the above idea, it works well in terms of the inside aesthetics but the way in which the whole thing is put together is a bit boring.

The design of my business card has pretty much stayed the same, i did change the font though as i felt this one was too bold and didnt really link with the idea behind my mailshot.

Above are the three final pieces to my mailshot. I changed the design so that people could interact with it more and it was more visually exciting and engaging. The outside of the mailshot, on the back, has a question 'Have you got yours?' this automatically engages with my audience, it sparks curiosity and makes them want to open the mail shot to see what the question is asking of. Then as soon as they have opened that back bit ive captured them and they'l hopefully read the contents. The insdie design contains details of the tattoo parlour im promoting, such as the address and website, i created a patterned design from the imagery i used in my posters. The design is set as a background so its not the main focal point but its still there, kind of like hidden symbolism.

The rose symbolises The English Rose which there links with London as its the capital, and the actual tattoo parlour is in London, and the tribal pattern is a well known style of tattooing.

The way in which the pattern starts to climb up the page well and the layout of the information makes it clear for my audience to read and understand.

The typeface that i have used is Footlight, its a serif font that has a gothic feel to it. I chose this font because it looked as though it resembled tattoos.

The colours that i chose all have a meaningful purpose of being used. The red used for some parts of the text including the word 'tattoo' indicates blood, as you bleed when you have a tattoo done, not only that but red is an English colour in terms of St Georges Cross. The black has been used because tattoos have a black outline and it is a sophisticated colour. Finally with the silver i was going to initially print onto silver paper but it wasnt practical once i had tried it, so i went onto photoshop and found a Pantone metallic coated silver. The silver indicates the needle when having a tattoo also sterilisation, again silver is also quite a sophisticated colour.

Above is my mailing list, i have chosen 10 addresses of which it would be suitable to send my mailshot to:

Leeds college of Art Student Union

I chose to add the student union to my mailing list as we are over 18, which is the legal age for having a tattoo. Quite a lot of people in my age group are interested in getting a tattoo so it seemed appropriate.

Liberty Park

Liberty Park is a hall of residence in Leeds, so again my mailshot could be put into each flats letterbox, its an easier way dispersing my mailshot.

Vue Cinema

Vue cinema have booklets in which people can advertise their company, i know its not the same as a mailshot but then again the business cards could be put somewhere where people can pick them up.

I then picked a few clubs in Leeds where its popular with the student community, people could stand outside giving the mailshot out, which i know is defeating the purpose of a mailshot.

Because the tatto parlour is in London i found a few places likes clubs and the London Arts Student Union address, because its closer to there it is important to promote to the local area of the tattoo parlour.

I am really pleased with the final mailshot design, i had a lot of challenges throughout this brief and i would say it was the most challenging so far. I had to really learn from the mistakes i made in initial designs to be able to create something that had all the qualities it needed to be a successful engaging visual piece of communication design.

No news is good news.Message and interpretation...

Following the research i conducted for the first part of 'No news is good news', i have been given the task of creating 3 posters that 'deliver a personal identified message'.

One poster must be text only, one using image only and the last must combine the two visual tools.

The posters will be based on a statistic that i found which relates to my research. The statistic that i have chosen to visually communicate is:

'One in three Britons have a tattoo'

I found this statistic on the Daily Mail website, from a survey and article conducted in July 2010.

I chose this particular statistic because i felt that there was a lot of ways in which i could visually communicate this to an audience. I also chose it for it's directness. It's straight to the point, which is something i can show through the visual design.

I found some inspirational posters to help me with my own ideas, the main influence is the 'Keep calm' collection of posters, they are fun, direct and simple in their design. The colours that they use set the mood and their point is well communicated.

I was also drawn to this collection because of their use of imagery and type within their designs. It's an example of what i am heading for within my own designs. The layout is kept simple and is kept central. Having the layout like this draws you in and adds to the direct nature of the poster content.

My work:

With the mandatory requirements of the brief, (only two colors plus stock) i really had to think carefully about what imagery i would use for my posters as well as colors that will not only work well together, but they also need to set the tone of my posters.

Above is a selection of my developing ideas.

Although you cant really see the font on here, this poster printed out really well. The layout leads your eye across all the information and the colours used helped emphasise words of importance.

This poster is a development idea of type and image combined. I think the way in which i have used the image to replace one of the letters makes the whole poster flow better and link the image and text. I have also reversed out the colours and feel the red works alot better as a stock colour. It stands out more and links well with the colours of Britain and the Rose.

I think that the way i have visually tried to show how one in three Britains have a tattoo through the way in which i layout the type is working well, although it looks asthough the lower two 'tattoo's have been split in half rather than striker through.

This is one of my favourite designs, its so simplistic and minimalistic, it just works. The only annoying thing was that when i printed this colour stock it came out yellow, so people didnt understand the link between the colours i had picked and the actual fact being communicated.

This is the same as the above design but reversed out, but i dont think the colours work as well. It doesnt have the same effect.

Again the same as the above two apart from i have kept it red and added the Rose to see how i could make this a type and image poster.

This one was just experimenting, the imagery works but doesnt really say what im trying to say.

This is my image only poster, i think it works well as long as it's with the type posters, because it is quite hard to understand. As well some people have said that its not obvious its to do with tattoos.

I really like this poster because of its simplicity but it no good for what i need to be doing.

This is the same as a previous designs but i have striked through two of the tattoos so its clearer to understand what im trying to say.

This works really well, its simple, clear and direct. I got inspiration from the 'Keep Calm' posters.

This is the same as the above design but i have changed the imagery. But the imagery in this one doesnt really say anything about tattoos.

In this one i have taken out all the fill colour from certain segments and kept it to line only but it makes the poster look a bit empty.