This module has definitely been one of the most useful in the course so far for improving my skills in graphic design as a practice. The mixture of briefs in the module has forced me to create a lot of different outcomes and use a lot of different skills to create the resolutions, most of which I think have been the strongest resolutions of the year.
The YCN brief was a collaborative brief, which is the only time that I have ever worked in a partnership with just one other person. Originally I thought that this could have been difficult and really annoying when it came to decision making and designing, but the extent of the brief proved that to be wrong. I think that my collaborative partner was really well chosen, as Will and I share some design skills but also both have specific traits that the other does not. In this way we were able to compliment each others skills and create some really effective work that I don't think either of us could have done alone. It is this that has shown me the advantages of collaborative work, as even something as seemingly small as initial idea generation can make a brief turn in a completely different direction. Collaboration opens up a lot of doors that wouldn't be there on an individual project.
I think that there were still some aspects of the collaboration that required compromise on both of our parts. After all, design is very personal and very subjective and both of us have a different taste when it comes to what we like and what we want to create.
My strengths in this brief would definitely have been working with the logo and symbol when creating the packaging. I think that we worked really well together and the resolution boards show this.
The web design brief was one that I was actually really interested in. I have had a bit of experience in the past working with web design but have since forgotten the most of it. When we began learning in the sessions again, I found that a lot of the basics came back to me pretty quickly, and when it came to actually creating the 5 page website I think I remembered a lot about the structure of HTML and the use of CSS that helped. Of course it was insanely frustrating and there were a lot of things that made no sense to me, but I found it really satisfying and quite fun to create the pages when they worked exactly as planned. There are a couple of the pages that I would like to change in future as I don't think they support the others, specifically the 'About' page and the 'Checkout' page. I think that web design is definitely something that I could explore more in future, although I would need to really know a lot more about design for web. This was a really useful brief in the module and has taught me some things that I can definitely take forward.
The final stage of the module was the Product, Range and Distribution brief. This was definitely the most fun of all the briefs in the module and it was probably the most useful in terms of my development as a designer. The best thing about the brief is that it was pretty much completely up to me when it came to choosing what I wanted to do. My strengths and my interests mostly lie in illustration at the moment and I would like to move more towards animation. As such, I chose my brief accordingly and focused it on the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The main focus of the brief was probably the branding, where I gave the promotional campaign a logo and an identity in terms of style and character. This is one of the first pieces of design where I feel like the branding actually worked really successfully and could have been spread across pretty much any other promotional media and work effectively. This is something that I am a bit disappointed that I did not give myself more time to explore.
My strengths within this half of the module were definitely in illustration and in branding. I was really confident with my illustrations and I feel like the mailshot and the posters are all quite effective and relate to each other and the brief really appropriately. The branding is probably the best that I have created, even after trying in other modules and other briefs and I am really happy with the type-as-image style logo design.
My biggest weakness in the module has definitely been my time management and the amount of work produced. In fact, time management in this module has been fairly average for me although it still needs some real improvement as I find it difficult to judge how long to leave for certain things and end up getting behind quite quickly. As for the quantity of work produced, I think this is just because I take way too long to make things. I spent the majority of all my time in the studio during this module and spent hours at a time producing work. Even after all this time, I still end up with very little work compared to the hours that I have put in, which suggests that I need to speed up my work process and compromise with some things rather than try to make everything perfect.
In total this module has probably been the most useful, effective and the most enjoyable overall module of the year. It has taught me a lot about working in a collaborative team and yet also about working effectively in a completely independent and self-driven environment. I have become more confident in using illustration skills and even in things like layout which is quite unexpected. At the end of this module I have created some of the strongest work that I have so far over the entire course and am looking forward to continuing the same level of quality into the third year.
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