YCN; self-evaluation.

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

I have developed my collaboration skills so my ability to work with other people. This has been applied very effectively because between us we managed the work load well and did our own parts to keep the project together. If it wasn't for team work, we wouldn't have come up with the concept that we did. I also feel that i'm starting to enjoy collaboration more so this is another sign these skills are developing. I have also developed a practical skill, laser cutting. Before this project I hadn't used the laser cutter and although I had a lot of guidance from my partner with this skill, I feel I understand how this works now. This has been applied effectively to one of our final pieces. My communication skills have developed throughout this project because I had to constantly feed back to my partner if there was something I was working on, on my own. This has clearly been applied effectively because the final solutions have come down to communication and joint decision making. I've developed some form of curating skill throughout the project too because I did a lot of the work on the exhibition so i've had to learn all of the ins and outs when it comes to working with a venue. 

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

A lot of final pieces had to be crafted in some way whether it be through a machine or by hand. Personally I have developed my hand crafting skills through creating our swatch booklet because before coming up with a final design I created a lot of test pieces, so I in a sense practicing. This meant by the time it came to creating the final booklet, I was careful as to keep the design neat. Laser cutting has also been a part of the design production and a new skill that I have learnt. They informed the design development because it meant we had to design so that the text could be laser cut perfectly without the counters falling out. This made us think logically about our designs and pay attention to detail. Overall the methods of design production have mainly been hand-crafted or generally crafted in some way so this has given a sophisticated high quality finish. 

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

My ability to research throughout this whole project has been a strength because it meant we were constantly being informed on what was out there in order to help us make our own decisions. The fact I was constantly feeding back to my partner on ideas I had was also a strength because the project could not move on without doing so. Development of ideas has been a definite strength because I have explored a range of ideas before picking one with most of the final pieces. The ability to design things alone within a collaborative brief and still have them linking to other final products my partner has designed has also been a strength. To capitalise on all of these things I will make sure that I continue to do them and also do more to push them further to make projects even more successful.  

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in future? 

It took me quite a while to get started on any designing and general ideas, I spent maybe a week or so researching intially so in future I will make sure that I begin designing as soon as possible and research along side this so one can inform the other. 

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

1. Blog as I go; design decisions will constantly be evaluated and it may result in better outcomes. 

2. Speak to my partner every other day at least; sometimes we got a bit lost in other things we were doing so progress was intially slow. By communicating more, a lot more outcomes could be produced. 

3. Be more prepared for crits; we didn't seem to have moved on much everytime there was a crit and by being more prepared we could get better feedback to capitalise on that, that we did get. 

4. Use the library; some of the things we were looking at weren't very informed on the internet so by looking in books I may find something really interesting. 

5. Speak to people more out of crits; decisions could be made faster so more could be done. 

6. How would you grade yourself in the following areas: 

Attendence 5

Punctuality 5

Motivation  4

Commitment  4

Quantity of work produced 3

Quality of work produced 4

Contribution to the group 5

(1 being poor and 5 being excellent)