OUGD503 // Module Report and Evaluation

OUGD503 Responsive Module Evaluation.

Key aspects that are covered:

- Images of products

- Introduction to each brief outlining the concept

- Evaluation of each brief, covering influential stages of the project and the good and bad points

- Module evaluation. A full evaluation on the module as a whole, covering the key aspects of the module - what I did, why I did it and the good and bad points of it all.

Summative Evaluation

This module for me has been great, i have really enjoyed doing the live briefs and taking part in work which is set outside of the course. The briefs have felt like they are set to a standard which would be expected when working in the industry so this has been a good experience for when that happens.

The time scale on these has been a big influence for me, I have realised that alot of the briefs haven’t taken that long as i expected and i have been able to do alot more than i thought when i first set out. Its been a good way to break up working on other modules too, especially with the research part of the module we are doing at the minute, its been great to be able to have another module there which is purely design and the great thing thing about it is we could use a brief just to cover a couple of hours which is good to get away from another module.

I have liked being able to choose my own briefs and working around work which i think is good for my own practice, things which influence me and what i would like to do in the industry. I have always looked at selecting briefs which i think would look good in my portfolio and working to the standard which i would want to have in my portfolio, I have found that these type of briefs have been the YCN and D&AD briefs because they have more background to them and have more information which makes them a better brief and something that you can work on to expand into a wider range of products. Along with that a couple of the smaller briefs i have undertaken I would still think are on the same standard and would use within a portfolio - the Secret 7” and Hellfire i definatly would consider and I still think these are as strong as the others.

The range of briefs that I have covered has been another attribute to the module, I think i have worked over a large range of products throughout all the briefs, which again is something i wanted to do when i set out. I didnt just want to work on publications or branding, but i wanted to look at briefs which required me to so different design work to what i am used to doing. Take for instance the Feel Good and Milkup briefs, both of them are packaging briefs which require bottle label designs, usually this wouldnt be the sort of design direction that i would go down in a normal brief, but because these were the set outcomes it seemed a good challenge for me to take on and in doing that i have found myself enjoying these types of brief just as much as a publication or print brief.
Which takes me onto working out of my comfort zone. I have definatly found myself doing work which id different from my usual type of design, but this has been a great experience for me, i have ventured out of my comfort zone and when i did start doing them i was unsure what to do and where to start with them but once i got going, i loved it and now i wouldn’t think twice about taking on a a much wider variety of briefs in the future. It has also broadened my idea of products and what i know i can design and produce well.

The main thing with working out of comfort zone is that i have learnt so much new things and techniques. The major one for me is that i have improved so much on my illustrations skills, from doing the partner brief which left the illustrations down to me to do, I learnt alot from that, mainly having the confidence to do it and do it well, which has proven in the rest of my briefs because from then on, i think i have used illustration in every brief since. Another skill i have imporved upon is mocking up designs, the best one for this is the Feel Good Drinks, the tehcniques and tools i have learnt from doing the bottles in that brief have taught me alot for in the future and i learnt this by just trying it out and seeing what happened. I think that is something else i have taken from alot of these briefs, not to be afraid just to try it out, nothing can hurt by trying and if it doesnt work then rethink and do it again.

I believe that this module has taught me the value of presentation skills and photography skills. For every brief i have done part of the deliverables is being able to present the work to the client or for submission, which has meant to do presentation boards. In the past these have been the thing i hate the most, just because i never felt confident in the work i was putting on them was right and making them communicate the idea through images etc on a laid out peice of paper. But now after doing it for the last 10 briefs i have done, I think that i have got alot better, both with the images and content i am including in the boards and the general layout of them, i feel as though this has been a good skill to learn more about and something i have definatly taken with me throughout the module.
Along with this having the photography session part way through the module which showed us how to photograph our work to the best ability by using certain set ups and lighting to get it looking the best has made me realise that the photography of the work is crucial especially if you are presenting something through images and not having the actual object there. I have always taken images of my work in the past, but never thought that much about it and just taken it where ever, but after doing that workshop and seeing the results of using the photography studios, it is so much better and makes the work look better too. Its the finishing touches that count and get that given deal or extra marks.

All of this module has been about working on live briefs, i have done a mixture of big and small competition briefs and some live  briefs from clients. Having the work there that could actually be used by a certain company, does put the pressure on, but i felt that i worked better under this pressure. I wanted my work to be better and produce a much higher standard of work because i wanted it to be chosen or be the winning entry, this definatly worked in my advantage. The best experience was having two of the competition briefs winning prizes.One of my Secret 7” designs was one of the judges choices and is now going to be displayed in an exhibition, which for me is a first and something which i find exciting. I loved the idea of the brief and that its all for charity, but having my work exhibited where there will be other professionals is a great start to getting into the industry and getting contacts.
The second was the Milkup brief which was a Designcrowd competition. This was for a client in China and right from start when i submitted my design i had a feeling i had a good chance because the client was in constant contact with me asking me to resubmit and making changes to the design. I did eventually win and won $200, which again was the first time i had been paid for design work. Not only getting paid was an advantage, but the way in which the client was always talking to me made it as though it was a client brief and not a competition which again having feedback and constant contact with a client is good experience, along with the fact my design will be used in China.

The creative partner brief for me was a good learning curve. In the past when we have done group briefs i havent really enjoyed it because in most of them the brief didnt go aswell as planned and ended up being a failure. This time it was different though because it was only one other person, which i was working with Greg. Overall i did really enjoy working wth Greg and we had no upsets or argument thoughout the whole brief. I think we played it right with the way we worked together and split the work down to work on the area we were both good at. This is the element which i liked the best, being able to split the work and get twice as much done in the same amount of time was great, but i did also think that the communication on this was abit of a let down. I didnt really get any input or knowledge about what Greg was doing, unless i asked him about it and had to keep asking him what he was including etc to find out about what he was doing whereas i feel as though i asked Gregs opionion on the work i was doing more and made sure he was happy with it as i was working on it and going along. A couple of times there was the incident of not turning up or on time which is soemthing you have to take into consideration when working as a pair because on certain parts we needed both of us there to do it. I would of liked to do a third element to the brief aswell but Greg was too keen on it and we did run out of time, so that wasnt really anything to do with us working, the time scale was just rather small.
Through doing this brief as a partner i did learn that compromise was important, you had to take into consideration how other people work - Greg preferred to work at home on his own whereas i preffered to work in the studio, i think this i why i felt a little left out on his side of the project because he would do it all at home on an evening or just not come into the studio when he was working on it. Working over two different media like we did in our and the digital not being my strongest area proved evident when i had ideas which neither of us knew how to do - compromising on the idea or what we wanted to produce definatly came into play on this side of things.
I did think this brief was a good experience and it proved to me that i can work in a group, i just prefer it to be a smaller group - this could work in my favour for looking for industrial experience, i now know i prefer smaller groups so looking for a small studio would work better for me as a designer than looking at big companies.

When looking back over this module at the work i have produced, just through this document i think it illustrates what this module has done for me as a designer. I feel as though i have learnt so much in this short time of doing it and that my work has moved on leaps and bounds from the experience of working on live briefs and doing things that i find interesting. I think i found the areas of design that i like the most from working through a wide variety of briefs, but there are also some area which i like but want and need to work on more to get them up to a better standard - Branding.

The briefs that i have enjoyed the most are Fedrigoni, Feel Good Drinks, Secret 7”, Its NIce That and Hellfire. I belive that these are the best briefs out of the ones i have completed and i think this because i have found them most interesting and connected with the brief better which in turn made me think of a better concept and idea. I like to know about the subject to get the best out of the design, but to do this i need to be interested in it or i wont get that much from it. When i know i like a brief and i know i want to work on it, it always has the best result. I now know that whenever i take on a brief or start a new brief, i need to find something within it which makes me interested in it, be it the subject itself or looking for an interesting format, concept or idea for me to work on and carry it through.

If I was to do this over again, I would spend as much time on it from the beginning as i have given towards the end, because in the last 3 weeks or so, i have loved working on these briefs and i think created the best design work from these so far this year. I just wish i had of done this from the start.

Taking away from this brief i have areas of design that I am realy interested in - publication, branding, packaging illustration and certain ways to takle these by looking at stock and formats. I still think that i need to work on some of these areas more than other in particular Branding, but that will come in the next module i am doing.

I am happy with this module and the work that i have produced i think it has had a big influence on me as a designer and shown me new things about myself.