My final feedback came in the form of a very useful video conversation and notes. This allowed for reflection on assignment five and the course as a whole. It also supported the sharing of resources and other references my tutor felt would be helpful.
Section Five was obviously about drawing the course together but in some ways aspects of it felt repetitive. There were elements like the infographics which we hadn’t covered before that I would have liked to have spent more time on and been given more exercises to help develop.
Project Feedback
The French Hen exercise I enjoyed, and found developing the different iterations intriguing. I wasn’t sure I had quite achieved what I was looking for and my tutor confirmed this, as he noted ‘ the transparent wine glass was a nice idea but got a bit lost in the final versions.’
Chase Housing Association felt to me a bit like the earlier Light Bulb exercise. It seemed that lots of ideas just kept coming. I was pleased with the outcome and my tutor felt the final version worked well. Initially, I thought it was a bit of a dull exercise, in part because I had a sense that logo design was not going to be a strength, it needed an attention to detail I’m not always good at. When we discussed this my tutor highlighted the value of this learning in terms of how I approach a brief that I feel to be dull. In this case I think my solution was to keep doing as many iterations as I could until something caught my interest. It was when I started thinking about the architectural nature of housing that I found a way in that interested me and I felt I could produce something distinctive.
I recognised a theme in the SingOut and infographic feedback that my earlier sketchbook versions had more energy and this got lost in the process of conversion to digital. I must apologise to my tutor who must be fed-up with highlighting this without seeing a result. I completely agree with the comments but as yet have not quite found the best way to address it. I think this partly comes from the fact that my confidence hasn’t quite reached the point where I feel I can completely let go. Learning the digital skills has been an important part of my GD1 journey and I recognise that my designs do tighten up as I use the different packages but having put so much effort into this area of learning it is hard to step back from it!
This has been a useful learning point as developing my work is as much about letting go sometimes as it is about feeling I have to demonstrate all my new skills and show progression. I wonder what my work might have been like if I had ignored InDesign and Illustrator all together.
We had a useful conversation about my desire to feel I knew the rules before I could be presumptuous enough to break them. I think this may have placed an unnecessary constraint on my work and I have also noted and tried to address an underlying assumption about what I think ‘good’ graphic design looks like. I recognise I have imposed some self-limiting beliefs on myself on occasion.
The TypeWitch story is a first tentative step in being out and proud playful!
Birthday List was an exercise I loathed (verging on hated) doing, I didn’t get the point of it at all, and I didn’t understand why anyone would want one of these. All the examples I looked at were gendered and clichéd, which is probably why my final result looks as it does, it became an exercise in exasperated completion rather than creativity. I accept my tutor’s view that this got too clipart in form. I should have been braver in finding a different form and perhaps thinking about designing an app rather than a poster. I have now played with this idea following my tutor’s feedback.
Assignment Feedback
I enjoyed this assignment and was reminded of one of my introductory postcards for assignment one, my love of books. I think I have gravitated to the book design exercises throughout the course. That is not to say I see it as a comfort zone, I definitely still find it challenging. I was pleased to note my tutor found my designs had a:
…dynamic use of colour and composition.
I recognise in his feedback that I have fallen into a common newbie trap of ‘designing as if the front and back covers will be seen at the same time.’
His advice to ‘think about them as interconnected but visually discreet’ is helpful. This was a bit frustrating as initially I was going to design them completely separately but was then worried they wouldn’t be consistent enough! Another indicator that I should probably trust my instincts more.
I have now reworked them to make them more distinct but connected.
I appreciate that my tutor has noted:
There is energy in your drawing that could be utilised more within your graphic design.
Having not drawn for years I have been surprised to find how much this has become part of my work and I am very keen to keep it going as I move back into photography.
I can’t express how pleased I am I took this course, it felt like a step into the unknown at the beginning but it has had a big impact. Had this been my second course I might have considered changing to creative arts but I hope to integrate all I have learnt into my photographic work. I am definitely seeing myself as an aspiring artist-photographer now. I want to finish by thanking my Tutor for such wonderful support, I felt he has understood me throughout and while I haven’t quite got to the point of fully expressing my playfulness in the final designs I am on the way and expect this to grow as I move to Level 2. During our conversation he gave me some good advice:
Show how you think and not how you finish, and keep it simple.
I have now collected a range of graphic design resources with different types of activity to help me keep this work going and to ensure that my range of influences are as broad as possible.
Thank you.
