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Assignment Three: Reflections on Tutor Feedback

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I wasn’t sure what to expect from my Part Three feedback because it has been an up and down section. I have found elements of the unit invigorating and exciting, while other aspects felt like a bit of a slog. It was good to read that my tutor felt that ‘overall your response to part three has been very good, with a number of excellent aspects to your practice.’

My use of Pinterest and other visual diaries were acknowledged, and I have been encouraged to cross fertilise my source of inspiration rather than leave them residing in separate boxes. This is something I will now explore further.

My tutor raises an interesting point about my symbols for ‘Reading Image’ being more like illustrations. This is a distinction I had not considered but having looked at them again I can see what he means. I may play with them further to see if something else emerges. I was pleased that my background research was recognised:

Undertaking primary research into the universality of symbols with the Thames valley Group was an excellent way of going about this project. This sense of enquiry was echoed in your sketchbook, which felt like it was trying to interrogate the subject as much as respond to it.

I find it interesting that my tutor has picked up on my thumbnails and the hand drawn quality of some of my work. I can see that this drops away when I start using the design software, so appreciate his comment that ‘you might want to think about how you bring more of this quality into your final pieces.’

I am delighted and more than a bit relieved that my ‘Abstract Cities’ was well received, as I noted elsewhere I found this exercise difficult so to know the outcome is acceptable is encouraging. I was also pleased that the montage was seen as a ‘sophisticated piece.’ It is one of the pieces I think I was most pleased with.

The feedback on Assignment Three is very helpful in that it has encouraged me to keeping testing, playing and exploring options.

The sense of fascination with the various permutations is evident in the work, and is pushing you towards a much more playful way of designing.

I do enjoy playing with different options but recognise I have to keep a balance between multiple iterations and finishing a piece! My tutor has also encouraged me to use my sketchbooks more to develop my work away from the projects, which I am sure will be helpful.

I am grateful for the suggestions to explore areas of interest in more work and to look at other designers, such as:

Particularly helpful are the pointers for the section on Typography, they encourage me to keep experimenting and to bring together my areas of interest to date. I appreciate this because I was concerned the next section would be quite ‘technical’ and therefore have a different feel to it.

Assignment 2: Reflections on tutor feedback

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It was very useful to have my tutor feedback from Assignment 2 as it has reassured me that I am working in the right direction. Accepting that there are always areas for improvement I feel like my confidence is growing. If nothing else I am less worried about picking up pens or pencils and sketching out my ideas.

The comments from my tutor indicate that:

Overall, your response to part two has been very good. There are some excellent finished outcomes (fruit and veg) and you reflect on your process thoughtfully.

In terms of improvements he has highlighted the need:

To think about how you document your creative process more visually.

This is something I will address in future exercises and assignments. There is definitely a process happening but I recognise that I don’t always capture it as I go and am then confronted with a mass of uploading which becomes a bit daunting. It is also a bit of a personality trait that I do a lot of internal processing and then make what seems to be leaps of logic to others because I expect them to have followed my process! I know it is something I have to be mindful of and that it is helpful for me to be able to look back on the stages I have been through as my work develops.

This has made me reflect on my process and given the feedback I thought I might try and do something visual. I looked at a number of infographics thinking I would try and develop my own. Some of them looked complicated and I wasn’t sure I had the Illustrator skills I needed – then I found the Squiggle which seemed to cover it beautifully!

A squiggle on page to show the design process from messy and untidy to a single line denoting clarity

The Squiggle, Damien Newman (published under Creative Commons)

My process tends to follow a format that I think is reflected in the Squiggle:

  1. Key words – analysing the brief
  2. Mind mapping
  3. Sketching ideas
  4. Researching online/hardcopy examples
  5. More sketches
  6. Shortlisting ideas
  7. Finalising ideas developed
  8. Feedback
  9. Improving final ideas

Project feedback

It is very helpful to have specific feedback on the exercises as I have found that they need a lot of work and they clearly build towards the relevant assignment. Generally, I seem to be approaching them appropriately and my outputs are well received. I was particularly pleased that the HG Wells book covers and Point of Sale materials received positive comments as they both took a lot of time and effort but were also the two I probably enjoyed the most.

Your HG Wells covers were very good, making some intelligent decisions…

Your point of sale artwork was excellent…

In terms of the visualising ideas, it is noted that while I had presented the physical materials well I hadn’t taken this through to a final design. I confess this was a misunderstanding on my part as I had read it as being about the different formats of the leaflets and didn’t do a design as a result! This is a good lesson in reading and analysing the brief thoroughly – clearly a client would not have been amused!

As with the overall comments, the main critique of the exercises is that I have not shared enough of my process visually, including mistakes and variations, which I fully accept and will address in future.

Assignment feedback

It was good to have positive comments in relation to Assignment Two:

Your growing card was very good. It had a clean visual quality…

The snake card was a simple but effective idea

The Tattoo card is good but perhaps the most conventional…the inside phrase and type worked well

My tutor has included a number of useful development suggestions that could have taken the ideas further:

  • Making more of the lettuce photo and creating a better connection between the front cover and the fact the card transforms into a seed tray
  • Maybe considering a different style of Tattoo without flowers to make it less traditional looking
  • Developing my own ideas for the ‘Bake’ card rather than using the stock photo

Of the ‘Bake’ card the feedback says:

As you’ve reflected on, the stock photography of the final card fell a bit flat, especially in comparison with the thumbnails you’ve developed. The sentiment and ideas were there, but your resolution felt off the shelf.

For me the crucial sentence in the feedback is:

Have confidence in the work you are producing.

As my write up for Assignment Two suggested, I think I knew this but I was seduced by the image and should have trusted my instincts and put it to one side. This feels like a very useful piece of learning. I may develop some of the ideas further if time allows as I finish the course.

Further viewing/reading

A number of blogs have been suggested as well as the work of El Lissitzky, which I will now follow up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Point of Sale feedback

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Love fruit poster with fruit heart in the middle

I am slightly conscious of working in my own bubble recently and although I have been getting feedback from friends and family it felt like I was at a point where I needed something more. I decided that with the point of sale exercise I would go to some of my fellow students and ask for their views.

I am not as confident in the graphic design field as I am with my photography so this was quite a big step. I felt comfortable approaching the Facebook Visual Communications group, partly because it is more visual platform and partly because I still seem to have tech gremlins logging into the OCA fora for some reason.

That aside I got some very generous responses and I am grateful to everyone that replied. Opinions naturally varied and some people preferred the backlit fruit whereas others liked the puppet warped fruit. Comments included:

…It reminds me of a stained glass window and I think would definitely work well from a distance. Using lots of different fruits too makes it versatile…

…this feels like 2 totally separate posters (the landscape version of sliced fruits) and not as coherent as the first image.

I like this, fresh and simple.

…it’s my favourite but I feel like the fruit blends into the background a bit. Perhaps a green or blue background would be punchier?

I really like the photographed fruit but the Heart + ‘Fruit’ in the middle is not as interesting to look at… I’d rather fill my eyes with all those translucent shapes! Why the typewriter font? Is there a reason for choosing it?

It was obviously great that people responded positively to the ideas but what was interesting was the questions that were raised:

  • The colour of the backgrounds
  • The choice of typeface
  • Whether there should be gap in the centre of the sliced fruit
  • The red heart being distracting

All the points were useful insights because they were not necessarily the things I had seen and/or they were a good test of whether I had made conscious choices about what I put where. Taking on the comments I played a little with the backgrounds, and the typeface and heart on the sliced fruit version. Thanks to Charlotte for suggesting what now seems obvious about combining the two ideas (if I were to rework it again I’d use a backlit orange slice too)! In the end my preference is still with the single fruit & veg on a white background but other people did seem to prefer the backlit versions.

While the process was a little nerve-wracking I’m glad I did it and it has given me confidence to ask for feedback again. It was particularly useful in highlighting the value of different iterations of a design and a good test of how willing I was to let go of some of the aspects of what I had produced. The exercise also highlighted the challenge of managing the seemingly infinite variety of solutions – colour, composition, typography etc.!

 

Assignment 1: reflections on tutor feedback

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A large pipe painted on a cream background with the words Ceci n'est pas une Pipe in script underneath

Graphic Design 1 is both a new module and a new departure for me so getting my first tutor feedback felt like an important step. I was prepared for a degree of critique, I knew it was a fairly eclectic selection, but I hoped I had made it clear why I had chosen each approach. Even with that you can never be sure what others make of your work.

I have now read through the feedback several times and am really pleased that for the most part my intentions did come across as I had hoped.  My tutor made a number of interesting observations under each postcard and has provided some really useful signposting to help build my design work going forward.

Postcard 1

My first postcard focused on my interest in still life both in terms of its form and as a richly layered genre that includes politics, economics, social and cultural commentary. My tutor is right when he highlights:

One of your challenges ahead is how to imply these meanings within your designs, so your intentions become more embedded in the visual decisions you make.

I accept that not everyone will know the history of the still life genre or the symbolism of the tulip so this is something I will consider as I develop my ideas. In his feedback my tutor mentions Magritte’s Treachery of Images (1928-29), which I did not have in mind but the ‘Ceci n’est pas une Pipe’ image is one I have used in my work presentations so perhaps it was an unconscious influence. The reference to Patrick Caulfield is also helpful and not one I would have thought of so I will follow that up. I have also since come across this book on Graphic Design and Still Life, which I will also try and get hold of.

Postcard 2

This postcard is the most minimalist of the set and I was interested to see if someone else would understand it. I had asked my family which of the minimalist designs I had sketched they thought worked and it was the books they chose. My tutor suggests that it is not a problem if the meaning is not immediately obvious.

Your abstract book jacket design works very well in drawing the viewer into your love of books. It wasn’t immediately obvious that these were book jackets, but that’s not a bad thing. It invited engagement with the reverse of the card to decipher the motifs.

I am pleased to read my Tutor’s comment that ‘an active love of books goes hand-in-hand with many aspects of graphic design.’ I am conscious of starting to look at books with more of a design eye and it is probably no surprise that my favourite books (particularly those I use for my work) have a strong design concept.

Postcard 3

I was nervous about the Johari Window, I felt the idea was good but I wasn’t sure my execution worked. My tutor’s feedback suggests it did achieve what I wanted.

Another conceptually strong idea translated successfully into visual form.

He also suggests extending the idea to use four separate cards each representing a different viewpoint on myself, something I will explore further.

Postcard 4

I am really glad the sense of playfulness comes over in the collage. I had so much fun working on this set of ideas and I’m pleased that came across. It is important to me to have this playfulness as a counterpoint to the more serious work conceptually. Perhaps my next challenge is to see how I combine the two. It is good to know that this can be part of my work.

Playfulness is often overlooked as an essential element of creative thinking, so keep this approach going in future projects.

Postcard 5

I was delighted that my tutor found this ‘the strongest of the set.’ To be honest it was the one I wrestled most with myself about including. I really wasn’t sure that it sat within a graphic design brief. I decided I would include it because I thought it did say something important about me and because it took some time and effort to make!

Your human rights card is the strongest of the set. I really like how you have approached this card, especially in how you’ve kept your playfulness going by experimenting with cut paper.

My tutor highlights that the approach I took with this card ‘makes this a rich piece of communication.’ This is an important statement for me because although it is perhaps something that should be obvious this concern with communication is something I am starting to recognise marks out GD1 from my photography courses. That is not to say my photography isn’t trying to communicate something just that I am now recognising it has a different emphasis.

Sketchbooks

I am enjoying building my sketchbook and see the interlinking of my blog, notebook and sketchbook as an important part of my development. Developing my thumbnail sketching has been a key element of the process as it helps me think through my approach visually and has served to build my confidence with starting to draw again. I will indeed ‘keep this process going’ as suggested by my tutor.

Suggested viewing/reading

My thanks to my tutor for a wealth of interesting references which I will follow up:

I have joined various OCA fora as well as the OCA FB groups (photography, visual communications and history of art) to interact with other students and to get different perspectives and feedback.

I am very happy to have completed the first assignment and am keen to explore the different avenues I feel it has opened up for me in terms of my graphic design work.