OUGD 203 Evaluation

This brief for me, was the most challenging brief I feel that I have done yet on the course. Which is funny because when writing the brief for myself I did feel like it would be clear and easy. I did initially struggle with what my brief actually was and it took a good few days to clarify what I had written and seperate out the different aspects of the brief in order to clarify the pretty muddled brief I initially wrote. I do feel that the brief I ended up running with still wasnt clear enough and did set me up for plenty of falls along the way, but it was good to be able to do a more layout focused product lead brief in which image was the secondary focus.

At the start of the brief I got very interested in researching records, design for records and logos and identity. It was helping to inform aspects about the design which I do often overlook such as secondary information like copyright, RPM, A side, B side etc. I think by considering this - despite the simplicity of this it helped me synthesise and replicate a legimate and professional looking set of end products. Altough, these products could have been a hell of alot better. I noticed alot of schoolboy errors with the layout of the back of the record sleeves and they could have been more innovative - which is the main reason im not really happy with the end result of this project; I definately need to spend more time on layout. I researched most aspects of what I was designing for to a point, But I think to inform me better in future I need to extensively look into a wider range of sources which relate to what Im doing in other ways - not just because it is the same thing, for example I coule have looked into motion graphics for visual research despite the fact I wasnt doing motion graphics. I also feel that The extended range of products was somewhat of an after thought and could have had alot more thought put into it. This is why ultimately I do feel that I've done a standard project and failed to push it into them more special stages.

I think that I havent evidenced my work correctly throughout this project. I should have been documenting every decision I made instead of just taking the design decisions as red - as fred said its good to get the bad ideas out  and then the good ideas grow out of that, and I Just didnt evidence enough of my bad ideas, which is stupid, because it only detriments me. However I think a key aspect of the success of the final products was down to the large amount of mock ups I made throughout the project covering a few different design directions to let me see the design working in context. Im also happy with the way I dealt with I fell like i've learnt so much from doing this project, coming out of the collaborative brief with Ollie - who is very attentive to the small details and gave me some really good habits.

I decided early on in the project - mostly due to the time of year and organising myself, that I wanted to use digital print methods over bespoke printing, for a few reasons;

1.  Seeing the products in context effectively required me to produce and manufacture my products in the same way they do in industry - often being artworks digitally printed onto glossy / satin card for records.
2. I have done alot of screen printing in the past and for me, it is less of a challenge as it is very easy to quickly generate alot of development work and I also havent really done much design for digital print througout this course - I wanted to see if i could get to a strong point with the digital work as I would with hand printed methods.

The answer to this was that I couldnt keep up with it and also producing a logo took alot more time than I initially thought it would. I suppose from there I instantly felt like I was behind the development of the rest of the work - despite pursuing a few design developments. I think also that because I set out in my brief for there to be Digitally available design development journals done instead of worksheets I felt like I had not got to a substantial stage with the finals. The finals themselves are produced to a high standard and fit well in their context but they are nothing special, and that is down to the way i tackled research and design practise.

I have learnt a valuable lesseon : If you feel like youv'e messed up, you probably have. I am pretty sure I did. But knowing that gets me excited about the third year and I think I am at the point now where The design can happen.

5 things I could do more effectively next time:

1. ATTEND all timetabled sessions
2. Evidence all my development work
3. Experiment with different design directions more
4. Bring more developmental work to crits
5. Spend more time on layout.

Time management and organisation.

In terms of the project itsself I worked really well and was very organised in terms of meeting personal deadlines. I set the first two weeks aside for logo development and research after writing the brief.  I finished this earlyer than I expected so This gave me a week and a half to develop physical products which then left me a week to develop and produce further developments such as a mailshot and also deal with the boards. In terms of what I got done and what I set myself to do, I managed this project efectively - the only things that let me down was the evidencing of development work.