Module 1: Evaluation

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

Throughout this module I have developed my understanding of design principles, colour, layout and typography, which has allowed me to produce work with a clearer meaning through communication. From the Illustrator lessons I have learned new processes that have helped me create designs in a number of projects. These skills and knowledge will definitely help me in future modules and briefs.


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

By using my design context blog, I was able to build up a number of artists/designers that influence and inspire me through my own work. I can always refer back to them for reference and find even more creative people out there to help me understand what Graphic Design is all about. Without doing this I don't think I would be able to produce work that I am happy with as they have pushed me to develop my designs.


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

Looking at my own work and asking my self what needs to be improved can be quite difficult. Not because it's already perfect, It can be quite challenging to identify areas that need improving and how I should approach it. This is something that will be on going and always a key factor to design work, without your own judgement I don't think you would be able to create design work effectively.


4. What weakness can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

There's never enough development. I normally write down a few ideas, find the one which is most appealing to me. Then start creating a design and layout depending on what the brief is. This is where I can stuck, as I don't have enough ideas to backtrack on and then work out why it doesn't work. I think this definitely my biggest weakness.

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

- Development! Spend more time generating ideas that will eventually produce a number of different outcomes.
- Blogging. I let myself get behind during this first month, which meant my work piled up. From this I now know to blog things straight away.
- I need to be more engaged design that is happening around us now in all contexts not just the artists that appeal to me.
- Time management will always be an issue to me, there never seems to be enough hours in the day which is crazy. It's something that I need to work on and start building an effective system to work with.
- I want to incorporate my illustrations into my work more, but I haven't mastered how to do this yet without ending up drawing irrelevant images to the brief.

6. How you grade yourself on the following areas?
5= excellent, 4= very good, 3= good, 2=average 1=poor

Attendance: 5
Punctuality: 5
Motivation: 4
Commitment: 4
Quantity of work produced:4

Quality of work produced: 3
Contribution of the group: 3

Illustrator Letterforms

Here are my final 26 letterforms for the illustrator brief. I have tried to keep them as simple as possible and not take away the importance of them being letters and not images.

Alphabet Soup: Part 2 - Final Images

These are a few images I have taken of my final created typeface for the Alphabet Soup project. I have also included relevant development to create a clearer understanding to what I was trying to achieve.

Alphabet Soup: Part 1 - Vanish

I've been drawing up some ideas for my 'vanish' word. The typeface used in these images is gill sans, it's simple clear and has simple, almost serifs.

Final Mail Shot

Here are some images of my final mail shots, cut out and ready to send. I think they work well as they are incredibly simple and the use of white stock help the image and type stand out. Overall I think that I needed more development to get a design that I felt would be more effective.

Mail Shot Ideas

These images are examples of some of the ideas I have been working on for the Mail Shot. I've tried to vary each design and incorporate different influences throughout.

Funnel Idea - After my crit I found a clearer understanding of what I needed to achieve for the brief. This idea is based on a funnel that has water draining through, which hopefully relates to the government draining money and my chosen article.

Airfix - I spent some time looking at various ways in which I could incorporate militia into my designs, as airfix models were prestigious and widely known. I tried to use the idea into my own design. It proved ineffective and hard to produce.

Green - Not too sure what this idea is based around. I just had a go at using type as the centre point of the design, with a calming shade of green. I felt this idea didn't fit the brief.

Research - Opinions

Opinions on the article ' Shunt for red october '

How to ... Final Group Images

These images are the final recipe layout designs for the 'How to cook a healthy meal in 15 minutes' brief.

Final Posters

These are my final posters for the brief. I decided to use a simple white background as I felt it made the type and image stand out clearer. By using type I was also able to create the submarine which I felt worked really well with the layout.

Colour Theory

Yellow. We had to collect a number of items that had the colour yellow on the object. As we started to analyse each object, and match them up the pantone colours. We noticed a massive difference between variations of the colour and our interpretations of what yellow meant to us.