Assignment Three: Reflections on Tutor Feedback

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.