OUGD603: Penguin Award- Evaluation

Last year when I participated in the penguin design award it was the first brief I really connected to in terms of developing a strong concept and using research as a way to push a design further. It was the brief that made graphic design begin to make sense to me. This year it was nice to reflect on those memories and use elements of what I learnt then to develop my ideas now. For this brief my research consisted of discovering and analysing existing book covers within the feminist genre as well as researching into a particular design aesthetic; art nouveau. Both really helped develop a relatively simple idea into a much stronger one, a design which I really enjoy.

I spoke previous in my secret 7 evaluation that this style of brief is one I connect with and enjoy doing the most. The combination of creative freedom, visual representation and a decent amount of guidelines means that I tend to really enjoy these briefs from start to finish. I tend to have a problem when it comes to absolute creative freedom, I do too much, or try to accomplish too much and do everything, which usually ends up with many half assed ideas instead of one whole ass idea. So when it comes to briefs with restrictions, such as document size, must include body copy, logos and barcodes, I tend to do a lot better.

Overall I have enjoyed my brief, I really do like my outcome but on reflection there are ways it could've been improved. I think the concept and the 'pubes' design may have been a bit too subtle, unless told what they are meant to represent the squiggles simply look like ornate squiggles and detract from the nouveau aesthetic without adding much to the design as a whole. Plus the cover is far too ornate, it's pretty and lovely and I do think it is a lovely piece of design but it's no where near rugged or angry enough. If you are a random person looking at the cover, unaware the pubes are meant to be pubes the concept looses it's tongue and cheek sense of humour, something that I really did want to reflect in the final design. So maybe if I were to do this brief again I would find a more obvious way to balance beautiful design with a sense of rugged, daring fun and perhaps keep the intended tone of voice and concept, just find a more suitable and obvious way to fit it in.