Thursday 14 April 2016

OUGD603: You be You- Evaluation

This was the first brief I tackled and I think it was an interesting start to the year. I'm not someone who has a great passion for UX, app or digital design and so I think it pushed me a little but out of my comfort zone to advise on the designs of each page and the overall look of the final product. However I am comfortable with branding and logo design so it was a project with a good balance of comfortable and uncomfortable moments.

The process of collaborating with someone professionally and someone outside of the college was rather alien to me. It made it rather difficult at certain points when I would have to wait for feedback for a few days and rush to get elements achieved within specific deadlines on others. The better times of working together happened when we both shared the same space and were able to communicate directly and better put across our ideas and points. When messaging and emailing someone about the look and feel of a brand or app it's very difficult to put into words, so the times we were able to work together really helped.

I also found that collaboration and working for a professional client made some areas rather difficult, a lot of the time my ideas would be shut down and I would be forced to develop designs that I just didn't like. I found that successful collaboration requires listening to your partner and client but also putting your foot down and defending an idea when you think it's the strongest. I think that the final design of the logo was down to a combination of both these ideas and the final design is better for it.

The look of the finished piece is different from what I usually produce, the subtle gradients and clean vectors is a bit more professional than some of my usual image based design, but the logo and app icon is simple and effective and applies easily and well to the rest of the app pages. It was crucial that the two visual elements of logo and app married well on a screen and I think they do. Because of my input into the final look of the app pages and his feedback on my logos and icons the two elements fit together and look like they were designed together rather than created by separate people, which is a positive thing.

Overall I am pleased with the result, and I think if I were to repeat this brief again I would ask to spend more time with the two of us working in the same space. I would also request direct contact with the client instead of having to translate passed along feedback and messaged. I think clearer communication on all parts would've cut out a lot of unnecessary time and development meaning we'd get to the final project a lot quicker. 

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