OUGD503: Module Evaluation

Although I may not have thought it at the time, on reflection I thoroughly enjoyed this module. The challenge of managing my own time and the freedom to choose briefs that I found interesting made the workload feel more exciting. However when it came to time management at the beginning of this brief I was far from organised. With the Joe Pointon and Penguin briefs I had started out wanting to complete them before Christmas but became relaxed with a 'I'll do it later' attitude and they were only completed mid March, although they were both finished before the module and brief deadlines this wasn't a particularly professional way of going about my work process. That being said when I finally did sit down and focus on them I produced solutions to both that I am very pleased with, it has taught me that I am not a long haul project kind of a person, I work best with tighter deadlines, working non stop and staying late for three to four weeks followed by periods of calm. This is how I work best, and although it can be argued that I could've done the same amount of work over a longer period of time the lack of pressure makes me lazy where as stress and deadlines make me focused, nothing wrong with this, I'm sure many designers are the same.

Because I was free to choose my own briefs I only picked projects that I had good few concepts for initially, I think this really helped with my idea generation, there was no pressure to come up with a strong idea, I already had a couple for each brief. For the Moo brief, a task that I set myself to complete in a day, I had had a strong concept when reading the requirements a few weeks earlier so when it came to producing my solution the process was a lot easier. Though I can't say that all of my initial ideas and concepts were the ones that ended up being executed, in fact quite the opposite for some briefs. For the Penguin brief I had started out wanting to play on a literal visual for the 'freak' part of Freakonomics however in the end I used the tone and style of the books content as my basis for a solution. For secret 7” I had a defined and definite visual in mind with a specific style, however through execution the style was warped and altered until it became something entirely more suitable.

Researching wasn't an essential part for some of my briefs, particularly secret 7 and feathr, which were very open to interpretation and applied a 'do whatever you want' mentality but for others, especially my larger briefs like WWF and Penguin, research was essential. For WWF I produced a large body of research, to begin with it was looking into social media scavenger hunts for a potential solution followed by a full on analysis and break down of the Amazon rain forest ecosystem to support the games design. For penguin I started with what I used to class as research, which was looking at, taking photos of and analysing various examples of book cover designs for economics based literature. However what really assisted in producing my final solution and concept was reading Freakonomics and studying info graphics and various different ways for displaying information in an interesting and visually beautiful way.

Over this module I have learnt to time manage, I've also began to understand what I need to do to get the best out of my work process and time. I've also better understood conceptual thinking and applied this to many of my briefs honing in my ability to understand what a solution needs to communicate and producing the means to communicate it as clearly as possible with the right tone of voice within the right contexts. There are still improvements to make though, I can always do more for each brief and I need to find a way to add the pressure I feel is so essential to get me working to my full capacity. I also need to apply more research to my next set of briefs, using it as a backbone for the concept and final design, where I have done this already it really shows in the work, I just need to do it more. As a whole I am pleased with my outcomes and although there were many moments where I was lazier than I should've been, frustrated and out of motivation and creative ideas I managed to pull through and produce designs that I am proud of and although I still relied on illustration for many of my briefs (feathr, secret 7, moo) I managed to apply a more graphic approach to it all and find a good symbiosis between my two disciplines.