New blog hub for year 2 and beyond can be found at David Gasi Bloc.
A portfolio of commissioned, self-initiated and selected course work is also now available.
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Monday, 24 August 2009
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Module Structure Poster
Got a book a few weeks ago called Typographic Systems by Kimberly Elam, inspired the piece above. Looking forward to the degree show tomorrow, pretty excited about seeing the 3rd years work on display.
Friday, 5 June 2009
1st Year Portfolio
Have just finished this ahead of submission on Monday. Now, to finish the presentation.
Click Here To Open Portfolio (174kb PDF)
If there are any glaring errors, please gimmie a shout.
Click Here To Open Portfolio (174kb PDF)
If there are any glaring errors, please gimmie a shout.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Design Practice - End Of Module Self Evaluation
1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
Learning the basics of how grid systems was very important to my development. I was able to apply a simple grid system to the design direction boards for the final brief, which may not be noticeable, but helped speed up the process. I've since grabbed a book called 'Typographic Systems' from Magma to investigate further and am looking forward to getting stuck into this over the summer.
Screen printing is process that I have pretty much avoided all year. Before this module, I'd found the preparation/process laborious, results unpredictable and the time it takes to generate work inestimable. In short, screen printing really intimidated me. But, as the final brief developed it became evident that screen printing on to fabric would be most appropriate for the resolution. As such I took on the challenge and I'm glad I did. I'm a bit more comfortable with the process now and began to enjoy printing the t-shirts by the end. There's still so much to learn, but I now appreciate screen printing far more than after the inductions.
Discovering and printing on clear sticker paper continues my fascination with translucent/transparent stocks and surfaces. Am drawn to physical layering and effects it generates and the opportunity it creates for interaction. Experimentation on this front shall continue.
Listening. As I will go on to below, I just listened more. Particularily to crit feedback. Although I didn't directly follow crit feedback, I did take comments on board and responded to suggestions in my development during the final brief. It's not as if I had been dismissive of past crit feedback, but that I had just filtered comments after internal reflection, but without testing their merit. Actually testing out the feedback either strengthens the current course of development if it doesn't work, or improves the eventual resolution if it does work. So there really isn't any excuse for not continuing to do this.
2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
Midway through the final brief I carried out a survey, which taught me one of the most valuable lessons I've had on this course; I need to listen to what other people think/want/say. The survey responses helped my resolution by shaping the development in a focused and productive way. Put simply, I believe the resolution would not have been half as strong had I not consulted my peers on their thoughts about my problem. Their feedback made responding to the brief far more fun and helped revise the problem to something more relevant and representative of the 1st year as a whole. Lesson learnt.
During the final brief I had to make a desicion not to rush to a resolution, but back that my steady development and refinment of the problem/message/resolution. The survey ate up a week I hadn't anticipated as in response to the findings I made adjustements and refinements. But I believed it would be worth the extra effort and worked hard to manage my time to complete a resolution I am happy with. There wasn't any panic, but that said I just managed to pull it all together and next time I would prefer to get to the survey much quicker and spend more time on appropriate and useful development.
After months of taking notes in a moleskine I take everywhere, I decided to buy a larger A4 spiral bound notebook. Then I started cutting and sticking in research, along with sketches and design notes. I found that after a few initial design sheets with lots of rough ideas, the notebook became the best way for me to develop my ideas and visuals. At times I wished the pages were larger as room ran out and all I wanted was a sprawling page, but what it did afford me was portability - I could take my brief (and current development) everywhere with me and respond to my ideas and research where ever I went. This approach seems to work well for me so will attempt again at the next opportunity.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
Still trying to finish work as high a standard as possible, without (I hope) neglecting the message or development.
Spending a fair amount to time/effort on the ideas/concept and tying to to the audience and message. Work really hard to get this right before starting the resolution, I think this help the outcome and makes me feel more confident as the brief nears its conclusion.
Feel I am beginning to relax a little more and enjoy the process, trusting my ability a bit more perhaps and starting to manage my time a bit better. Had a lot going on outside of college, but think I managed to navigate through okay.
Engagement with design is increasing. Becoming much more natural to grab ephemera and just notice the design, art, inspiration around me. This is a big deal for me as I felt at the start of the course I would never be switched on to design when not working on something. Thankfully this is not the case and I'm slowly starting to be in the mind set I want, more of the time.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?
Was a bit ambitious with my final brief and had to cut a small section of the planned resolution out. With better time management I could have managed this extra element, but it perhaps wasn't necessary. I could potentially work myself into the ground when maybe I don't need to, but instead could be more realistic sometimes and perhaps prioritise elements of a resolution into those that are essential to the the message across and those that aren't. As I would like to practice simplicity where possible, the later category should therefore be dropped and some time/thought freed up for the relevant elements.
Money. I'm not currently taking into account how much it costs to produce development and resolutions. At present I just go with an idea, and will spend the money required (within reason!) to facilitate the outcome. At present this is directed mainly at books, consumable and materials. Will obviously need to address this in the future, possibly making budgets up, etc to manage or at least keep a record of the money I spend on each brief.
Am possibly sacrificing aesthitic quality for conceptual depth, creating situations where the ideas are well thought out, but the message isn't communicated as effectively because the resolution is lacking visually. Must remember the visual part helps deliver the communication.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
Listen more - Other people have interesting things to say and sometimes can steer the development ship in a new, but beneficial direction.
Do surveys earlier - I know how useful they are now, so need to schedule them earlier in research and development so I have time to respond to the results.
Critical secondary research - Just do more of it, finally starting to get more into existing design and am currently missing the chance to learn more from it by not performing critical analysis.
Stay on top of the blog - I let it slide a bit and have not benefited for writing thoughts as I have them or as events happen. Backfilling posts is less useful when its well after the fact, the chance to benefit from the any insight gained may be lost.
Be ambitious, but realistic - Don't underestimate how long tasks take or plan for work patterns that are too draining. Be realistic. Work hard, but know that design is a marathon, not a sprint. Have to stay healthy to keep producing work.
6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
Attendance - 4
Punctuality - 5
Motivation - 4
Commitment - 4
Quantity of work produced - 4
Quality of work produced - 4
Contribution to the group - 4
All said, I am happy with how the year has gone. I feel far more confident already I am doing the right thing by returning to study. It's a big commitment at my age, but I couldn't imagine doing anything else now. Feel really lucky I'm on this course and that I have such a cool people around me and the environment to express myself in. Enjoying myself emmensely. Keeping an open mind as to where I'll end up as a designer, what I'll specialise in, etc as I am constantly discovering. There is so much left to learn. Will continue to soak it in and see where I end up.
Learning the basics of how grid systems was very important to my development. I was able to apply a simple grid system to the design direction boards for the final brief, which may not be noticeable, but helped speed up the process. I've since grabbed a book called 'Typographic Systems' from Magma to investigate further and am looking forward to getting stuck into this over the summer.
Screen printing is process that I have pretty much avoided all year. Before this module, I'd found the preparation/process laborious, results unpredictable and the time it takes to generate work inestimable. In short, screen printing really intimidated me. But, as the final brief developed it became evident that screen printing on to fabric would be most appropriate for the resolution. As such I took on the challenge and I'm glad I did. I'm a bit more comfortable with the process now and began to enjoy printing the t-shirts by the end. There's still so much to learn, but I now appreciate screen printing far more than after the inductions.
Discovering and printing on clear sticker paper continues my fascination with translucent/transparent stocks and surfaces. Am drawn to physical layering and effects it generates and the opportunity it creates for interaction. Experimentation on this front shall continue.
Listening. As I will go on to below, I just listened more. Particularily to crit feedback. Although I didn't directly follow crit feedback, I did take comments on board and responded to suggestions in my development during the final brief. It's not as if I had been dismissive of past crit feedback, but that I had just filtered comments after internal reflection, but without testing their merit. Actually testing out the feedback either strengthens the current course of development if it doesn't work, or improves the eventual resolution if it does work. So there really isn't any excuse for not continuing to do this.
2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?
Midway through the final brief I carried out a survey, which taught me one of the most valuable lessons I've had on this course; I need to listen to what other people think/want/say. The survey responses helped my resolution by shaping the development in a focused and productive way. Put simply, I believe the resolution would not have been half as strong had I not consulted my peers on their thoughts about my problem. Their feedback made responding to the brief far more fun and helped revise the problem to something more relevant and representative of the 1st year as a whole. Lesson learnt.
During the final brief I had to make a desicion not to rush to a resolution, but back that my steady development and refinment of the problem/message/resolution. The survey ate up a week I hadn't anticipated as in response to the findings I made adjustements and refinements. But I believed it would be worth the extra effort and worked hard to manage my time to complete a resolution I am happy with. There wasn't any panic, but that said I just managed to pull it all together and next time I would prefer to get to the survey much quicker and spend more time on appropriate and useful development.
After months of taking notes in a moleskine I take everywhere, I decided to buy a larger A4 spiral bound notebook. Then I started cutting and sticking in research, along with sketches and design notes. I found that after a few initial design sheets with lots of rough ideas, the notebook became the best way for me to develop my ideas and visuals. At times I wished the pages were larger as room ran out and all I wanted was a sprawling page, but what it did afford me was portability - I could take my brief (and current development) everywhere with me and respond to my ideas and research where ever I went. This approach seems to work well for me so will attempt again at the next opportunity.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
Still trying to finish work as high a standard as possible, without (I hope) neglecting the message or development.
Spending a fair amount to time/effort on the ideas/concept and tying to to the audience and message. Work really hard to get this right before starting the resolution, I think this help the outcome and makes me feel more confident as the brief nears its conclusion.
Feel I am beginning to relax a little more and enjoy the process, trusting my ability a bit more perhaps and starting to manage my time a bit better. Had a lot going on outside of college, but think I managed to navigate through okay.
Engagement with design is increasing. Becoming much more natural to grab ephemera and just notice the design, art, inspiration around me. This is a big deal for me as I felt at the start of the course I would never be switched on to design when not working on something. Thankfully this is not the case and I'm slowly starting to be in the mind set I want, more of the time.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?
Was a bit ambitious with my final brief and had to cut a small section of the planned resolution out. With better time management I could have managed this extra element, but it perhaps wasn't necessary. I could potentially work myself into the ground when maybe I don't need to, but instead could be more realistic sometimes and perhaps prioritise elements of a resolution into those that are essential to the the message across and those that aren't. As I would like to practice simplicity where possible, the later category should therefore be dropped and some time/thought freed up for the relevant elements.
Money. I'm not currently taking into account how much it costs to produce development and resolutions. At present I just go with an idea, and will spend the money required (within reason!) to facilitate the outcome. At present this is directed mainly at books, consumable and materials. Will obviously need to address this in the future, possibly making budgets up, etc to manage or at least keep a record of the money I spend on each brief.
Am possibly sacrificing aesthitic quality for conceptual depth, creating situations where the ideas are well thought out, but the message isn't communicated as effectively because the resolution is lacking visually. Must remember the visual part helps deliver the communication.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
Listen more - Other people have interesting things to say and sometimes can steer the development ship in a new, but beneficial direction.
Do surveys earlier - I know how useful they are now, so need to schedule them earlier in research and development so I have time to respond to the results.
Critical secondary research - Just do more of it, finally starting to get more into existing design and am currently missing the chance to learn more from it by not performing critical analysis.
Stay on top of the blog - I let it slide a bit and have not benefited for writing thoughts as I have them or as events happen. Backfilling posts is less useful when its well after the fact, the chance to benefit from the any insight gained may be lost.
Be ambitious, but realistic - Don't underestimate how long tasks take or plan for work patterns that are too draining. Be realistic. Work hard, but know that design is a marathon, not a sprint. Have to stay healthy to keep producing work.
6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
Attendance - 4
Punctuality - 5
Motivation - 4
Commitment - 4
Quantity of work produced - 4
Quality of work produced - 4
Contribution to the group - 4
All said, I am happy with how the year has gone. I feel far more confident already I am doing the right thing by returning to study. It's a big commitment at my age, but I couldn't imagine doing anything else now. Feel really lucky I'm on this course and that I have such a cool people around me and the environment to express myself in. Enjoying myself emmensely. Keeping an open mind as to where I'll end up as a designer, what I'll specialise in, etc as I am constantly discovering. There is so much left to learn. Will continue to soak it in and see where I end up.
Friday, 29 May 2009
Speaking From Experience - Resolution
Final brief over! Explanation/notes/evaluation to come ... including development work. For now here are some photos showing where the last 5 weeks disappeared. :)
The resolution consists of t-shirts that are packaged in a box that is intended to be reused as a holder for briefs. The box and t-shirt are branded with a combination washing care symbol and a crop of our BAGD briefs. The back of the box is labelled with care instructions that can be read for either our briefs or the t-shirt packaged inside. The t-shirt is complete with a hang tag which is a sticker of the logo on the front and a short fill in the gap exercise on the reverse, which brings attention to the elements of a brief to consider such as audience, message, due date, etc. Inside the t-shirt is a hard board insert which acts as a device to fold out the t-shirts neatly and carries a message informing the interactee that this box indeed has a further use, to hold their briefs.
Given the strength of message (i.e. branding!) in the above elements, I decided to make the t-shirt design more abstract, focusing on designs that were perhaps more fashion oriented than delivering a direct message. The rational was to use parts of the logo to generate the designs, so that the overall package would be tight in consistency, addressing feedback from the final crit. The designs are intentionally difficult to make sense of, as its playing on the idea that the t-shirt is hard to read, but the brief isn't. Though I'll admit this could be adding a layer of complexity which my not be communicated without an explanation! Perhaps not such great design in a communication sense, but aiming for the t-shirts to work as a fashionable item was a greater priority.
The resolution consists of t-shirts that are packaged in a box that is intended to be reused as a holder for briefs. The box and t-shirt are branded with a combination washing care symbol and a crop of our BAGD briefs. The back of the box is labelled with care instructions that can be read for either our briefs or the t-shirt packaged inside. The t-shirt is complete with a hang tag which is a sticker of the logo on the front and a short fill in the gap exercise on the reverse, which brings attention to the elements of a brief to consider such as audience, message, due date, etc. Inside the t-shirt is a hard board insert which acts as a device to fold out the t-shirts neatly and carries a message informing the interactee that this box indeed has a further use, to hold their briefs.
Given the strength of message (i.e. branding!) in the above elements, I decided to make the t-shirt design more abstract, focusing on designs that were perhaps more fashion oriented than delivering a direct message. The rational was to use parts of the logo to generate the designs, so that the overall package would be tight in consistency, addressing feedback from the final crit. The designs are intentionally difficult to make sense of, as its playing on the idea that the t-shirt is hard to read, but the brief isn't. Though I'll admit this could be adding a layer of complexity which my not be communicated without an explanation! Perhaps not such great design in a communication sense, but aiming for the t-shirts to work as a fashionable item was a greater priority.
*** Update *** As promised, here is some of the development work, starting with images from the final crit. These are the packaging/brief holder box and detail of a t-shirt design.
Crit feedback was that I was on to something, and that the branding was working, but there was too great a gap between the t-shirt design, packaging illustration and the brand logo. It was at this point I attempted to create a tighter visual coherence between the physical elements that made my resolution.
The logo was developed from the design development board to the following resolution. Crit feedback had suggested I needed to make the logo look more like the brief was in the washing care symbol. So with some tweaking and comments from others, I believe I found the most recognisable part of a BAGD brief to crop out and pop in the basin. All washed and cared for.
Copped some flak for previous logos looking too middle aged man oriented ... although I didn't agree with this sentiment, I took the criticism on board and continued to develop my idea. Here's hoping it holds interesting and relevant enough, delivering the message to my target audience in a somewhat unique and unexpected way.
Crit feedback was that I was on to something, and that the branding was working, but there was too great a gap between the t-shirt design, packaging illustration and the brand logo. It was at this point I attempted to create a tighter visual coherence between the physical elements that made my resolution.
The logo was developed from the design development board to the following resolution. Crit feedback had suggested I needed to make the logo look more like the brief was in the washing care symbol. So with some tweaking and comments from others, I believe I found the most recognisable part of a BAGD brief to crop out and pop in the basin. All washed and cared for.
Copped some flak for previous logos looking too middle aged man oriented ... although I didn't agree with this sentiment, I took the criticism on board and continued to develop my idea. Here's hoping it holds interesting and relevant enough, delivering the message to my target audience in a somewhat unique and unexpected way.
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