OUGD406 | Studio Brief 04 - Evaluation

Studio Brief 04 has been the most difficult project in terms of time management as we have had 4 deadlines to focus on. However, it has been enjoyable to reflect on the year and pass on valuable advice to the first years.
Despite the difficulties of time management, I feel that I was well paced throughout the whole brief. I had a print booking ready so I knew the time I had to produce my final outcomes. I was well prepared with ideas and reflection for the interim crit, and by the final crit I had a solid idea in its final stages before production.
I am extremely pleased that I have pushed my materials in this brief. Foiling is a new favourite technique and I plan to use it for small (or larger) touches on my future projects. I was pleased with myself for learning how to do it myself. I also enjoyed the simplicity of the technique and now I have the confidence to carry it out. I have also pushed to experiment with stock. Unfortunately, the supply of stock in Leeds is poor. Despite this, I have gone away from the standard papers available in the print room. It is also useful to get into the habit of considering stock at all stages of the design process. Vinyl is also another technique I explored, I would have preferred to experiment and test this prior to production but as this was only mentioned in the final crit I was unable to do this. It is good practice however to understand what can go wrong when producing a vinyl piece.
I was also glad that I pushed myself typographically to create my own hand rendered typeface. This was not only enjoyable but useful to begin to understand what materials and techniques produce the best results for this process. I also felt the typeface put my own personal stamp on the work making it unique to me.
I am also pleased with how I managed to test certain techniques before creating the final piece, as well as printing quick mock up posters to understand the scale that I was working with. The process of testing is gradually becoming a strong stage in my projects which is good for my design process as a whole.
There were some elements that lacked in my project. Unfortunately, this was research. I rushed too quickly into the experimental stage and my research got left behind. The research that I did carry out was extremely helpful to me, however I feel that my designs would have been more successful if I pushed my research that little bit further. I did research techniques first which I have rarely considered which was a bonus to my project.
I also fell behind fairly quickly with my blogging and it is likely that I have missed some key points as a result. I am normally quick to blog about something - it is usually blogged about within a day. My descriptions and analysis of my work was poor as a result of this and perhaps my work would have been more well justified if I had been able to keep up with this.
I also feel that I spent too much time experimenting with foiling and did not consider the posters as a whole. The type choices for my descriptions were informed but I did not explore all my options first.
Overall, it has been a successful project and I am particularly happy that I was able to push my knowledge from first year for my final project. I feel that I am becoming more creatively confident and willing to take risks with these projects. I am also feeling more confident in finding out information and techniques for myself which is a very useful skill to have.