OUGD403 Evaluation

Throughout this module I have learned numerous skills. Studio brief 1 taught me the basics of type and I feel that I am now more confident using type terminology and understanding how type is constructed. Also, before I started the course I had never considered the use of grids or realised their importance. Now I can understand how a grid can aid layout design and provide structure in letterforms. I now use grids in places I had never considered before such as powerpoints. I was pleased than in studio brief 1 I managed to come up with so many designs with a word that I found so difficult to communicate at first. I have now realised that I can face these sort of challenges. I do feel that I need to improve the neatness of my work and it is often quite scruffy and this discredits my designs. 

Before studio brief 2 I had never used illustrator. Now I am becoming confident in the basic tools on illustrator and am beginning to understand how the software works. Now I can't imagine not using it - Illustrator has become my primary tool for much of my work. For this brief I wish that I had tried to create and use a grid that worked, rather than tracing an existing font. Although I understand grids much more, I still don't understand their use in type. I am sure this is something that I will learn with time. I was really pleased that I managed to create my own typeface, I never imagined having to ability to do this. I now plan to use my own typefaces in future work to make it as original as possible. 

Research is something I have always found difficult so I found studio brief 3 particularly difficult. I was happy with the amount of research that I gathered, however I feel that I misunderstood the presentation side of things. I was under the impression that because we were encouraged to gather so much research we needed to evidence this. Unfortunately, the idea was I condense my research down into a digestible format. This is something I have learned for next time and will make my workload much easier. 

Finally, studio brief 4 has taught me that I am not as good at designing posters as I thought! My time management was lacking in this final brief so my final results did not reach their full potential, but I feel I did well with the time that I had. I feel that I need to become more experimental with colour and design, because I have developed a style and now I want to try something new. This style also restricts me from making good design for certain briefs. I did enjoy being able to use my new found illustrator knowledge to create a poster but it is clear that some practice is still needed.