Overall I have really enjoyed this module, especially the ability to work with clients and have a background experience of how things really work within the industry. I personally choose a series of projects according to my own interests & abilities but I also completed briefs, which had deliverables, which I haven’t had a chance to try yet within the course. Most of my work I have created reflects my emerging creative interests & ambitions within graphic design. The module has really benefitted my time management due to the different ways of working within quick turnaround briefs and longer development briefs.
The most challenging part of the module was right at the beginning of the module, when we had the chance to do anything we wanted. This freedom really struck me and I found it hard to decide on a brief for first project. I think what didn’t help mainly was the lack of inspiration I received from most of the released briefs on D&AD & YCN. Most of the D&AD briefs where not based about design but more animation and technology.
I also found it hard to mold my mindset to designing for the client rather than for my own desire. I found it really hard to start the development of the beauty salon logo, as her inspiration for her interior of her salon was very clinical and sharp. Whereas, my vision for typical beauty salons, are classy & calming, this made it hard to get myself in my clients’ mindset. But I soon came round by adding some of my own touch within some ideas and also giving some examples that she was expressing to me. This way of working worked in my favour as she went for my twist of incorporating the classiness and sharpness together.
I found that I concentrated on my live brief work more than my competition briefs, I think this was purely due to my interest within the D&AD competition as this choice of brief was to try something different, which I found wasn’t a good choice overall. I also think that I felt I had to impress my client, the face-to-face meetings where very daunting and I felt sick everytime, I took them more development incase they didn’t like etc… I do feel I had a very light view of the client relationship overall, due to them liking everything I did and therefore little needing to be changing every meeting. I feel the regular meetings when working with clients make the design decisions easier & therefore quicker, as they would choose the designs they preferred although, when working on competition briefs, this process tends to take longer due to you having to go on your won design decision in which you think they are asking for from the brief.
One thing I have learnt is to make sure you submit for competition brief well in advance. The experience I had with the D&AD website was will I will remember. I will definitely not make this mistake again. I told my collaborative partner about my experience with submitting for D&AD and suggested we submit 2-3 days before the day of the deadline of YCN. She agreed and we made sure that this something that we planned towards, although the YCN website was much easier to follow I am still glad that we decided to follow on with this wise decision.
I believe that I have developed many skills within this module; developing a strong concept, presenting work to clients, effective communication with work colleagues & finally design board layout with a deeper knowledge of realistic mocking up. I can now see how much presenting your work really effects your delivering of the final design. Taking lots of photos of each deliverable, that has been either well crafted will set yourself, for good feedback from clients. I now feel even more confident using Photoshop now as I used lighting effects to make the mock-ups look more realistic when using own photography for placement of finals. I have realised that just taking time to play around with the programme before the placement will allow myself time to develop with trial & error. I was very pleased with my bottle label mock-up for Purdey’s overall, which was something I was very worried about at the start of the brief.
Overall, I think the wedding invitations was personally my favourite brief. It allowed me to go back to my crafting side and adding different medias and making them work together as a set. This is what started my lettering and I really enjoyed the ability to be able to stylish lettering and allow them to work as a set with each other. I am very pleased with the outcome of this project and I will be helping with the process of making these over summer.
One brief I completed that I wasn’t too happy about the outcome was Secret7, I thought this would be a good chance to get another quick turnaround brief under my belt. But this backfired, as it took longer than expected and the outcome was not how I had envisioned it within my head. This was disappointing but I submitted it anyway, it didn’t get shortlisted which wasn’t to my surprise but I do feel that I have now realised to do more in depth research before starting to design even if it is just for a short brief as this will save you more time within the long run.
I am extremely proud of our concept on the collaborative brief, I do believe that we did work strongly as a team and that we both considered each others opinions. We would try each others suggestions, even if was reluctantly at times. There was a time when we both wasn’t as interested in the brief as we was initially, I think this was due to the difficulty of the design decisions due to us wanting to use the primary colours of the Morrisons brand but also believing this was effecting our event branding, making it look cheap. After a critique we has Sam had a brain wave of using a pattern as the background rather than white of yellow, from this stage on we both became very determined to create the best outcome we possibly could as we both agreed that we didn’t want to let the concept that we both thought was the selling point of our final outcome.
Overall, I do believe that I have developed my awareness of the industry within this module. I do wish I did as many briefs as I possibly could. Although, I do think that some of the briefs I have completed could have been pushed further. I have created a range of designs with a variety of responses, all of which I gave a good amount of time and gave great consideration for the result. I now feel confident enough to hand my business card out to possible clients, & ask them to contact me if they would be interesting in me completing any work for them, this is a great turning point for myself as I really didn’t believe in my work before. Is has definitely been my favourite module that I have complete on the course so far due to that true to life experience, the chance to work on a brief that is set for you, rather than completing a brief you have written for yourself.
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