OUGD504 Evaluation

OUGD 504 Evaluation

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

Design for print has improved my overall knowledge of how the print process works. I originally found learning about colour theory quite tedious and hard to remember. Colour theory is quite information heavy and I just found it hard to concentrate and remember the information I read and heard about. Although it was difficult figuring out colour theory it has been extremely useful to understand and to succeed in print I think its crucial you grasp the theory.

I found learning about different print processes such as embossing and more technical colour processes such as spot colours and varnishes more interesting and easy to understand. 

Overall I am happy with my print books and i think it was worth while amending the print book several times. 

Design for web brief was something totally new to me. When we had the first web workshop I thought I was going to struggle with the coding and it was quite intimidating. The software worksops and brief has allowed me to gain practical skills that I can defiantly use in the workplace. I am also interested in web and have taken up a live web design brief. I still have a lot to learn for example making my website dynamic so they can appear on smaller screen resolution and also other devices.

The website I choose to make for design for web was reasonably straightforward, but not simple. I was happy with the design originally but unfortunately the design doesn't function the same on every browser which is very disappointing, I didn't realise how bad it looked on a small screen which I think has let down work I have done.

I got some really nice images for my portfolio for design for print and web. I choose the Mutton Quad brief which allowed me to explore branding across a range of media. I think the best decision I made was to photograph my final images in the photography studio. By doing this it really allowed to show my design off to it full potential. 

I tried to make an even better website then the one for design for print. I found it a lot easier to get into the web design this time around. I am going to do another website for my responsive briefs which will hopefully be my best one yet and I will make sure that all the mistakes of the previous websites will be fixed. The Design for print and web brief allowed me to use my newly acquired knowledge of website coding using HTML, CSS and Java script.


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

What I have learn and will always include in my future practice is to think big and wide. Clients like to see where the product could go. For example I have started mocking things up I could not physically make. For example I put a logo on a van in my ISTD brief which is not possible for me to physically do. 

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

As I mentioned before I will always make sure my work is properly documented for example taking my work to the photography studio and getting it photographed well. I have made sure that the work I am doing is good enough to possibly go in my portfolio. 

I think my design boards have improved since last year and I will continue to improve these. I made a template this time around which I used for all of my presentation boards. Using grids and guides really helps.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future

Although I wasn't behind before the hand in I left getting everything ready to put in my plastic walllet and handing in until the day before, resulting in me panicking and not realising my design for web didn't work on every browser...

I vow to in the future makes sure my folder is ready a day before hand in. I don't know why I left it to the day before. I know I did all the work but I just didn't feel prepared.

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

I will try to manage my time equally for all of the brief. I will not spend more time then I need worrying about one project.

I will make sure I am prepared for all of the crit with material printed out. Even though it costs more money in print it is worth it as other peoples opinions are good and you generally receive good feedback.

I will produce more printed off mock ups and I will test more mock ups before printing them as a final printout. 

I will make sure I am working in a way that means my work process and methodology more efficient. I will label everything correctly for example from the start, by doing this it saves time in the future.

I will try to explore more types of print processes with this idea in mind from the start rather then deciding what method I am going to use to produce the work at the start of a project.

Ethical Gold - Presentation Boards PDF

These are my final presentation boards for A History of...
(Ethical Gold)

Mutton Quad - Final Presentation Boards PDF

These are my final boards for the ISTD brief 'Mutton Quad'
(KËRN)

Mutton Quad - Business Card Development

The aim of this process was to make the edges of the business cards orange. I used an acrylic ink instead of oil based ink which meant that the ink bled into the other business cards.

Here you can see the result o inking the business cards. Even though I used a vice to press the cards together the ink still bled.

I decided layer orange stock between two pieces of white stock to get the orange edged effect. This gave me far better results which you can see on my design practice blog. 

Print information pack - Final ISSUU Documents

Finals

These are my final print information packs for 'what is print' I uploaded these document to ISSUU from the PDF documents I created in InDesign.

Before I started designing the print information pack I was weary of using InDesign and avoided it as much as humanly possible. The first infopack was a struggle to create but I managed to slog it out and now I familiar with the software. This is extremely useful software to have the skills in so overall I m pretty chuffed with the over results of creating my infopacks and at the same time learning new software skills!

I now use Indesign to create design board layouts as it is easier then using illustrator in my opinion.

Print information pack - Front Cover Development

The images above were the first front covers I designed for my print infopack. I wasn't happy with them so I decided to continue designing. I wanted to keep the colour of the front colour the same as the contents. These were the only restraints. 

These were the second set of covers I designed, again they were not right. Every time I design something the next time I open the document I hate the design. 

Final front covers

Same style, really similar but I am reasonably happy to use these as the font covers. I will upload the 3 whole document to ISSUU.

Mutton Quad - Final Images

This is the second time I have booked the studio to photograph these images. I explain on my last post about why the last images didn't work out. I replaced the grey background with a steel blue. The problem with the grey background was it looked like another generic white background photo shoot. The grey looked like a shadowed white.

The blue makes the orange colour scheme pop off the background as well. I used to lights with umbrella defuses place left and right of the layout. 

Although these are the images I am going to use for my final I still need to do some mocking up. For example I am going to put my the KERN logo on the glass water bottle.

One thing I would of changed is my hands; when I took the pictures of the business cards in my fingers, my fingers look disgusting because of the macro lens when they are as a matter of fact very well groomed.

Product mid ariel shot. I tried to mimic the style that is popular on Behance at the moment. 

The water bottle was left over from the Bacardi brief (Responsive) I did not use it in the end but thought it looks great included here. It gives the restaurant branding some reference/context.

i touched the photos up and here you can the orange looks quite vibrant as before it was quite faded and soft. 

The macro lens gives it a really nice effect with a depth of field. Business cards in focus and the menu out of focus.

 I will mock the logo on these images.