OUGD405 Evaluation

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
Throughout this module i have been doing alot of work using grids and layouts. With having the workshops with Lorenzo on type and grids this has helped me alot in the way in which i developed my products through the module. I have learnt how effective a grid actually is and how much variation you can have in a layout from just using the same grid. 
For this module is has been centred around research, i have learnt more and more about research and how if you do it thoroughly enough you can get much better products from this. Varying the research, instead of doing doing it all online also helps, and you can find out new things which can change the direction in which your work goes. 
For the 100 things brief of the module i have been working at an A6 size, this has been very limiting in the space you have to design. I have learnt how to work at small scales, creating effective designs that still can portray the information across to the given audience. Also learning how to display inforamtion through other means than just text helped this limitation become a success.
In the first brief 'how to' we were working in groups, so we had a lot of interaction between other students within the course, for me this was something i learnt to deal with, it didnt always go well throughout the project and we did have some differences between us all, but learning to deal with that and get on with the work we needed to do got us through and we did manage to produce a good, professional final piece.


What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
For the design design production stage of this module, i have developed the skill of getting the right research. Looking into the subject in general isnt enough, i found out, i had to delve in deeper to get the relevant information i needed to be able to produce the work for these briefs within this module. As this was a research module, this definatly was the skill in which i developed the most within the development stages. 
For the actual designing part of the brief i did more development work to start off with, instead of getting my idea and just running with that, i kept the idea general and then planned things out on paper first, in doing this it made the idea develop and worked into the final products i have produced, with lots of changed throughout. Also doing this made me come up with more creative ways to produce the same thing. By going back to the idea and making it more specific as i went through the project made it become very focused and aimed at the target audience in the end. 
I applied this way of working to both briefs we did and i found that when i came to designing it, it was easier for me as i had a clear vision of what i wanted to produce and knew what i wanted it to look like, spending longer on the development stage definatly helped in the long run.


What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
The strengths in this module for me have been working within publications. For bothe the briefs i have produced some sort of publication, working with type and image and grids. This was something i enjoyed before this brief started and something i was really interested in, so being able to use a full module to work on this has been great. I have found that working with grids has made my work alot better, the layout within all the books i have designed look very clean, focused and well thought out. I think they look professional, yes i do think parts could be improved but everything thinks that when they look back over there work. But i definatly think my strength has been working with type and image and grid within a publication and i think its something i want to continue with and develop more.
I also think that my planning/ development stage of the '100 things' is a strength within this project. From produce more design sheets with more variations of an idea, i have explored as many ways as i could think for the layouts within the books. Having all these layouts there in front of me i could pick and choose the ones i wanted to take further and develop into the layouts for the booklets. Having this all planned out in front of me, made the designing so much easier and i knew when i sat down doing it what i had to do and how to do it. 
Working within Indesign i think is a strength of mine now, and i will continue to use this through my next projects and develop my skills and understanding of this program to produce more and more publications. Along with the other skills i have listed here i will use all of these to there maximum within the next projects and keep on produce this standard of work.


What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
I think the weaknesses within my work is that im not experimental enough. Even though i like all the work i have produced and think it looks professional when i look back over it i think that i could of improved bits here or done it in a different style. I think that i have worked with something that i feel very confident with and know alot about and in that sense been working in my comfort zone. I think that i need to be more experimental in what i produce maybe?
The other thing is that i need to produce more designs. I have done alot of design sheets and planning everything out, but then only taken one of these idea through to the final finished product. On this project it was hard as we had alot to deliver in the time we had for the brief but in future i want to design more of my ideas and then i have more of a choice which to use or could even mrege ideas together to create a better one.


Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? 
- Look at stock more carefully and do more test versions with the stock i want to use. This was a big thing in the last brief for me, i had tested different stock for the different elements of my booklets, but when it came to front covers it all went wrong. They printed out really nice and i liked them but then i folded them to make them into the covers and they all cracked down the spine, this spoilt the look. Testing this in future will definatly stop this from happening and make my overall work look more professional and the standard higher.
- Be more experimental - I would like to try new things, instead of working in the area that i know alot about and confident with, i want to try different things, like working in big scales; A1, A0. Experimenting with the style of work i produce too.
- Have a more focused idea from the beginning - When i first start i always spend alot of time thinking of what to produce, i need to just start drawing and look into my research more to generate these ideas quicker.
- Work with different techniques - I keep telling myself to experiment with different techniques; screen print, letter press, foil blocking etc this will add to the professionalism of my work and make it look alot nicer if done right. I need to find the time to learn these new things
- Think about the context of the work - Even though on this last project i did do this more as my outcomes were based around the target audience in all the ways i could think of, but in general i need to put my work into context more, if its a poster put it in the place it would be hung, if its a book, take it to a book shop photograph it, maybe even ask what people think about it.


How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
5= excellent 4= very good 3=good 2=average 1= poor 


Attendance = 5
Punctuality = 5
Motivation = 4
Commitment = 4
Quantity of work produced = 4
Quality of work produced = 4
Contribution to the group = 5