End of module self-evulation.

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them? 
I have developed greater knowledge of typography by creating my own font. I've also picked up on the relationship between text and imagery and how sometimes it so easy to get this wrong. My main skill i have developed is Illustrator because i'd never used this before and its going to play a big part in the rest of my design work. I think i've applied all these skills quite effectively but theres also always room for improvement. 


What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? 
I've gone out and collected physical evidence such as newspapers. I've also used work from previous projects to aid another if i feel the two things link. My main source tends to be the internet. All these things give me ideas for my own design work and sometimes form the basis for a project im doing. 


What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
My imagery tends to be hand drawn which i then manipulate using photoshop. In the future I can look at using illustrator to develop my skills on that programme. The design process i use is also a strength because this helps me come up with positive final solutions. 


What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully? 
I could look at doing more research on project topics im not too familiar with. My work is also very independent and i need to begin getting regular feedback from other people, such as tutors. 


Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? 
- More research on certain topics; this will give me greater understanding and possibly better final resolutions. 
- Have more conversation with tutors; this will give me reassurance when it comes to my work and could improve it with regular feedback.
- Use illustrator more; this will build my skills. 
- Spend more time re-working final pieces; it will give me more resolved outcomes.
- Look at my blogs on a regular basis so that keeping on top of them does not become a problem. 

No news is good news; message and delivery.

For this brief we had to develop a mail shot in response to the research we had already done for our poster series. This outcome could come from a question, opinion or statistic. My particular project is based on the influence that television has on children such as violent behaviour. 

I thought an important factor is obviously the way the message is carried so this is where I began until I was satisfied with a design. 

                                        

This is just a quick mock up of the sort of thing that would go on the inside of my envelope, that I took to crit so I could get peoples opinions on the information. 

Here is my initial idea for the envelope. 

After the interim crit I took into account everything that had been said and then re worked my idea, this just shows the examples I came up with before deciding on a final idea.

I feel this is a better answer than my initial idea because the information is less daunting and straight to the point. I also like the fact that the envelope now doesn't give too much away so will make people want to open it. 

My mail shots (minus the one that was in the post)

For my mailing list I chose people/companies who had some link to the child age range my problem focused on. It would be sent out to places like doctors surgeries, childminders and nursery schools.

No news is good news; message interpretation.

For this project I had to choose a fact that I had found when producing my initial research. There had to be some sort of proof that it was a fact such as a statistic. The fact I chose was "66% of children (ages 10 - 16) surveyed say that their peers are influenced by TV shows". With this fact I then had to design a series of three posters, one containing just text, one imagery and one both. The imagery had to be relevant to the fact. 

I had an idea straight away of the type of imagery I wanted to go for, that included children and the different things that influence them via television. I still experimented with this in a few ways until I was happy that it represented my fact successfully. Here I also looked at how I wanted the text to look. 

I went for the cartoon drawing of the two children because I felt that this was simplistic and I chose a font that I felt sent a strong message to the audience through the fact its quite blunt and bold. Here I have explored various different layouts so I could get three that worked well as a series. 

 This is the final piece I originally designed for the brief. However, after reading the comments I was given at the crit stage there was a number of things I could do to improve it. Some of the comments were things like people didn't understand the imagery and its relevance. 

After re-working the original solution I came up with imagery that played on the fact that TV can apparently make children violent. I feel this works a lot better because the imagery works for itself and is even more simplistic than before. 

Illustrator.

For this brief we have to take a letter we designed for the brief alphabet soup, re-create it using illustrator and then  create 26 variations of this one letter on an A1 sheet. The first session was about getting to know how to use the features of illustrator and how to trace shapes. 

Once I knew how everything worked I could then trace my letter so it was ready to work with. 

I then used some of the tools i'd been shown to create a few variations of this letter just so I knew what was available. Most of these letters have been created by illustrator effects so as further development I can now look at actually moving the anchor points to distort the actual letter. 

These are all the variations I created before choosing the best 26 for my final piece. 

This is my final design. I think its overall quite successful because i've used a range of techniques. I really like the fact i've placed a lighter 'R' in the middle because this breaks the whole thing up a bit. 

Below is the information I need when sending my final piece to print.

Preparing for print: 

A1: 594mm x 841mm 

Landscape orientation 13 x 2

Resolution: print - 300ppi    screen - 72ppi

Colour mode: CMYK and RGB

File format: JPEG, PNG, GIF (lossy - screen) 

TIFF, PSD, PDF, IND, Ai, EPS, PS (lossless - print) 

PDF or EPS.

Alphabet soup two.

For this brief I had to design an alphabet that visually represented my partner.

As a starting point I mapped out all the things I found out about my partner that I thought were relevant and also certain characteristics I would like my font to have. I then looked up the meanings of the five words I chose to focus on that relate to my partner and also found some fonts I felt were appropriate.

Here I exploring various ideas I felt visually represented my partner, I used the fonts I had found previously and manipulated them to enhance them more. From this I could get a clear idea of which I preferred. 

This is further development of the ideas that I thought worked best. Here I was looking at if lower case, upper case, serif and sans serif worked best. I also explored colour a little bit to see what effect this had. I used my partners name to see how the overall idea was coming together. 

Final Piece. 

Name badge. 

After the crit I then re-worked my alphabet to come up with a better solution for the advice I had been given on my current final solution. 

These are a few alternative solutions that I came up with that still work around the same ideas that I had previously. From this I was able to choose one idea that I thought was more successful than my original.

I feel this is more successful than the original idea because it looks more sophisticated and I have moved away from this whole 'cartoony' look that came through my other idea for no particular reason. I've still kept the feature of 'bold' to show his personality but i've also chipped into the letters to represent the insecurity that is also part of him. 

I also tried the same technique but with lower case, I don't find this as successful because it doesn't represent this idea of a bold personality as well as upper case does and I don't find the overall impact strong enough. The 'ABC' at the bottom of the page is another way I could present the alphabet using the same ideas but I prefer the first 'reworked' idea. 

Alphabet soup.

For this brief 'alphabet soup' I have to design a set, series or sequence of ten letterforms that communicate the word 'vanish'. Each letter has to be A6. 

To start off with we got into our blog groups and added our collections of letters together that we found over the summer as part of the summer brief. 

We then had to choose one letter that we found interesting to work with. We needed ten ways of categorising this letter so we could look at the variety of styles of this one letter. Our ten ways were: serif, sans serif, italic, bold, hand rendered, computer rendered, contemporary, traditional, point size and decorative. 

This task was part of the research for when we started to explore our word and so that we could understand the ins and outs of typography more. 

As a starting point for my word I brainstormed ideas for things like how I want my letters to look, how I can visually communicate the word I have been given and people I could gain inspiration from. 

As a starting point I looked at different fonts I could use that suited my word. I found that depending on the idea I had some fonts were more suited than others. My first idea was string, the idea was that throughout the ten frames the 'S' would slowly lose its shape. 

My second idea was to use a media where I could gradually take some of it away throughout the ten frames. I feel out of the pencil and the glitter idea, glitter worked best because not only did it look better but with pencil it never completely vanishes. The third idea was a less literal interpretation of the word vanish, the idea is that the letter would fall and eventually vanish off the final frame. 

For the third idea I chose a very decorative font because throughout ten frames I would slowly make the letter vanish which meant I would need more to work with. Instead of just taking parts of the letter away I replaced this with glue, this is because I felt it made the idea look more interesting. The forth idea was another example of how I could make the letter disappear. To start with i tried a hand rendered approach but this didn't work because the ink had soaked through the paper so i tried it with printed letters and it was a lot more successful. 

The sixth idea was based on the fact that if you blow a balloon up and carry on, eventually it would have to pop. I chose 'S' because it can be quite a bubbly font. It would gradually get bigger until it 'vanished'. For my final idea I looked at making the letter disappear by covering it. Throughout the ten frames i'd gradually colour the background in until the letter was gone. 

From doing all of these experiments I could then choose my favourite idea. 

My final piece. 

How to...

This is from my first brief 'HOW TO...' which is a five people group brief where we were looking at the problems student face when they first begin university. As part of this brief we have to design something to solve one of these problems for students. For our initial research we wrote down some of the problems we have faced as new students so far. 

Out of all the ideas we came up with we then narrowed it down to just five. These five ideas were then taken down by a tutor for each group in the class and then we had to choose one from a hat. After doing so the idea we had to work with was weather conditions in Leeds. 

We composed a list of everything that is weather related so we could start to develop ideas. 

We then came up with our 'problem' and 'solution'. Our problem was the fact that students who are new to Leeds aren't familiar with the weather conditions and we came up with the solution of creating something that showed students how to create essentials for the weather conditions using household equipment. We then looked at our list of weather related things and separated this into two different seasons, winter and summer.

This is where we began looking at different ways we could inform students on how to survive the weather conditions. We chose three from this list that we thought were most appropriate to our idea. 

We wrote what we intended to do for each of these three ideas and then another group of students looked at each of these ideas and decided what they thought we be best for us then to go on to produce. 

For our final pieces we will design four posters, two for summer and two for winter. As there was four of us we decided to design a poster each. I chose yoghurt aftersun and here i have mapped out my ideas for what will go on my poster and how it is going to look. These ideas were shared with the group so each poster contained the same type of information. From this i could then design my final piece. 

The final piece I designed for the series. 

The four final posters.