Tag Archives: Self-reflection

Assignment Five: reflections on tutor feedback

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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.

 

Assignment Four: Reflections on tutor feedback

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Sentence created using a deconstructed typeface

Reflections on tutor feedback Section 4

I think it is fair to say that this may not have ben my strongest section, possibly because I felt more constrained by the ‘conventions’ of typography. Although I may have made assumptions about there being a right way to do typography. Reflecting on my tutor’s feedback and my work I was less playful and experimental than I have been in other sections. Ironically, I actually enjoyed this section more than I thought I would and feel like I had to learn the conventions before I could start to break them or play with them.

My tutor acknowledged this, ‘you’ve clearly tried to get to grips with the conventions of typography, and where you’ve started to challenge these conventions, the results have been stronger.’

Feedback on the projects is very helpful and I can absolutely recognise the strengths and weaknesses that are highlighted. The suggestions for developments in taking some of the work forward are useful: 

  • Taking the digital work back into analogue in the visual world
  • Building on the hand drawn quality of anatomy of typeface
  • Developing the quotes in different typeface
  • Reviewing the use of typefaces and developing more options in the posters

 My tutor highlights a useful point in the typesetting/hierarchy project that my layouts ‘were functional but lacking in you’re your usual spark.’ I think this is true and is probably because I felt more constrained by what the outcomes ‘should’ look like. His observation that I am probably more interested in design that is more visually dynamic is very true. I did feel like I needed to learn some of the rules before I was confident enough to look at breaking them. Recommendations to look at the work of other designers who are more free and easy in their treatment of typography is incredibly helpful.

Feedback on the assignment is very clear and fair, and recognises that working on two designs was a good way for me to develop my ideas. The comment on the minimalist version moving more towards a different format, like a series of cards, is interesting and something I might think about with other work. It was nice to read that he felt with the minimalist version that,

 “This was an interesting idea and the relationship between the form and content are playing against each other very well.”

I am pleased that the use of white space seemed to work and recognise that as I worked more on the design there was a danger that I started to fill the space I had originally created. My tutor suggests: 

“Perhaps think about where else grey and red can be placed to add dynamic but without diluting your intentions.”

Developing the other design further by thinking about a more 80s print aesthetic is an interesting idea and something I can explore. It is encouraging to have feedback that suggests my more playful approaches and drawings work and can be an acceptable part of my design practice. It was good to know that,

“The subsequent designs do take an 80s turn, and while these designs are very simple, you have managed to capture something of the era in the colours and layouts.”

I will develop my sketchbook work further and note the research points. I had looked at vernacular and protest typography but this may not have been clear on my learning log as it is under the research section.

The concluding pointers for the final assignment are really helpful ad I will keep them in mind.

 “The final part of the course focuses on layout by exploring how to design leaflets, flyers and posters. This is an opportunity to continue to understand the ‘rules’ of graphic design, but also for you to bring some of your playfulness in how you challenge these conventions. Tackling projects with more than one starting point works for you, so keep this approach going.”

I also have some useful references to follow up (I love the idea of finding kindred spirits!):

  • Phil Baines
  • Jamie Reid
  • Aesthetic Apparatus
  • Ed Fella
  • Peter Blake’s album covers ( I had looked at some of these but am happy to follow them up further)
  • Allie Brosh
  • Richard Littler

 This was an interesting section in that in many ways it felt very familiar, I regularly write reports so working with hierarchies and different typefaces is not new to me. I definitely learnt a lot about the development and conventions of typography and think I possibly imposed some self-limiting constraints that were not necessary. It is good to see the work of other designers that is very free in its typographic treatment. Ironically, I actually quite enjoyed this section definitely got a lot from it, I was nervous it would be very technical but think I had started to find my own way of working with the conventions.

 

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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Research Point: Critiquing my work

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Design Council Double Diamon model two red diamonds showing product design process

Research Point (Page 44, OCA Graphic Design): Critiquing my work

How do you approach being self-critical? What issues does it raise? Do you have friends, family, colleagues or a group who will critique your work for you?

Thinking about critiquing my own work is not as simple as it might appear. There is obviously a process of decision-making and editing that occurs without which I would never be able to select a final design, but surfacing what at first appears to be an intuitive and not necessarily conscious process is not easy. Inevitably it raises aesthetic concerns about beauty, ugliness, and so on, my first response to the question of how I critique my work is ‘I know it when I see it’ and ‘it’s the version I like’. A response that I accept may be less than helpful and doesn’t necessarily give me, let alone anyone else, an insight into my design process.

Design Council Double Diamon model two red diamonds showing product design process

Design Council ‘Double Diamond’ model

In researching ways to describe the process I came across the Design Council’s “Double Diamond” four step model:

  • Discover
  • Define
  • Develop
  • Deliver

Although this seems to apply more to physical product design I thought the iterative process of diverging and converging seemed familiar, indeed it is very like a model I developed for my own research process in terms of my organisational studies. I find this awareness a useful part of my own reflective practice because it helps give me a sense of when I might be opening out (idea generating) and when I need to focus down (problem definition and solving). In getting to understand this process I can start to recognise times when I have moved through the process and narrowed things down too quickly or when I am spending too long idea generating. Sometimes this is when it is useful to bring in external feedback, as I may not always spot for myself how something might be developed further or focused down more.

After a bit of research there seems to be some common areas of advice around how to review your design work:

  1. Make sure you are answering and working to the brief: as a freelance consultant I am very familiar with working to a brief and also recognising that the contracting process can be iterative as a project develops
  2. Consider current trends: this to me needs to balance of what is ‘on trend’ and what is gimmicky or trying too hard. You don’t want a design that looks very dated or out of touch or lacking in ideas. Equally, it seems to me to reflect back to the brief – is the client looking for something timeless, fresh, traditional, contemporary and so on
  3. Try different perspectives: upside down, monochrome, stripped back to outline and so on
  4. Slow down and step back: this is something familiar to me from my work writing, I need to have time to review and edit (although this is not always within my control)
  5. Remember design theory: colour, composition, typography, balance and so on
  6. Make a storyboard: tell the story of the design. I have a preference to lay different ideas out on the floor or put them on the wall so I can physically see and live with them for a while
  7. Emotional attachment: there is another element that doesn’t seem to get mentioned very much, which for me is important and that is about emotional engagement with your ideas. I know there are ideas I become wedded to and all the rational analysis in the world makes it hard to shift from that idea

I think there are some basic questions that I follow that echo the process in the course workbook, they are not necessarily always in awareness and that is something to be developed further:

  • Have I answered the brief?
  • Is the design usable (I might add beautiful, funny, happy etc., if it’s appropriate to the brief)?
  • Do I like the concept at a glance?
  • Is the design trendy?
  • What is the message or idea? Does it communicate what I am intending?
  • Am I emotionally engaged (if so to what degree)?

I like the point made by Design Shack –

“Good design answers questions. It often answers them before users have a chance to even ask them.”

Interestingly, it is often the approach I take in my consultancy work too – my self-reflection stems from asking ‘what question am I trying to answer?’

In terms of wider feedback I have family and friends who are often willing to share their opinions. I also make use of two of the OCA Facebook fora (Photography Level 1 and Visual Communications). I haven’t shared anything through OCA Discuss yet, partly a usability issue because of accessing the site on occasion, and I think partly because of a need to build my confidence in a new field first.

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Assignment One: Introducing Myself

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Introducing myself – the final set

Introducing Myself – the process

Initially, on tackling this assignment I was thinking in terms of a coherent series but as I began developing different ideas I decided to use it as an opportunity to experiment with a range of techniques and approaches. I started with a mindmap and developed the ideas from there. After the minimalist sketches I worked on lots of little thumbnail sketches to develop more ideas.  I have created a set of five postcards that introduce different aspects of my personality, my interests and my life.

 Minimalist Books

As a starting point for the set I knew I wanted to try something very stripped back and quite minimalist. It is not a style I am very familiar with so I thought this would help me start to think in graphic design terms. I did some research online and started a Pinterest board for my postcard inspiration. During the research I found the work of Genis Carreras and that really helped me think about how I might communicate the essence of something important to me (particularly his Values and Philographics series).

Using a mindmap as a starting point I made four small sketches based on a notional ‘work, rest & play theme,’ these then developed into four postcard size ideas, of these it was Work and Books that I preferred. It wasn’t until I had worked on some of the other postcards that I then came back to this set and decided to go with books. I also felt it was something I might be able to try in Illustrator.

Johari Window

The brief made me think a lot about how best to introduce myself. Whether I should represent my work, my home life, my personality traits or preferences and so on. This led me to question how much it is ever possible to share anything that might go beyond the superficial. How can I introduce what I might not even know about myself?

I do a lot of personal development work and use a variety of models and was reminded of the ‘Johari Window’. I decided I wanted to include this as one of the postcards and quickly sketched the two by two matrix.  I did an internet search and found that almost all the diagrams used for the model are four boxes with text in each but I wanted something more visual and very simple.

I did an initial sketch using circles (like ‘minimalist books’ it was in part inspired by the work of Genis Carreras) and decided to go with that approach, I didn’t do any alternative versions as this felt right very quickly. I then decided that the simplicity leant itself to my first tentative steps to learning Illustrator.  I used the full circle for those aspects of me known to myself and to others, half circles for those elements known only to me or only to others and then a black rectangle for those hidden aspects. Where I did try alternative versions was with the colours but given the infinite variety available this felt a bit like falling down the rabbit hole! I’m not sure I got the colours quite right but I was really pleased to get as far as I did in Illustrator!

Smile

Two postcard size collages with people laughing, cats, cupcakes, pencils and a beach

Alternative Smile Collages

Smile was prompted by my enthusiasm to do something playful and built on some earlier collage work I had done for a previous module. I could have made it a Photoshop composite but I wanted to keep it as tactile as possible and preserve the cut edges. I simply thought of things that made me smile, collected some images from my archives and royalty free sites and played on the page. I created three collages and chose the bicycle version for the final selection.

I really enjoyed making these and was surprised how quickly they came together. It was a good reminder to play and not be too caught up with ideas of ‘perfection.’ The sunflower was printed just as my printer was playing up but I decided to keep it because I quite liked the effect. I’m not sure whether ‘Smile’ fits a graphic design label but it certainly says something about me!

 

 

Still life

An early idea in the formstorming was based on some of my recent still life work. I have spent some time researching the history of still life and particularly the Vanitas tradition. The Tulip for me has now become loaded with meaning – connoting beauty, wealth, capitalism, economics, life and death. I experimented with framing the the tulip in different ways and decided on the less cropped version. I wanted to show an almost ethereal tulip and to include the text ‘still life’. The words are arranged for the reader to read them in different ways – stillness, life, still life the genre, and still living!

 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This was the last of the ideas to emerge and came out of a desire to create something different in format. As the others were evolving I was trying to think of something that might have a more sculptural or ‘off the page’ feel to it. This was in part influenced by some recent photographic work on still life where I was trying to break the conventional frame of the image.  As I was continuing with collecting for my Pinterest Board I came across the book cover by Nina Jua Klein.

This was just the inspiration I needed and it got me thinking about what text I would use by way of introducing myself. I went through favourite books, articles and so on but nothing quite landed. A lot was happening around current affairs at the time in terms of Brexit, migration, horrendous atrocities and complex national conflicts and so on. It was also the time of the Olympics and Paralympics. I was reminded of the 2012 Paralympic opening ceremony (I have a connection to one of the two Artistic Directors) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) presented itself. I felt it was a perfect text to use in terms of my concerns for social justice, equality and human rights in general.

The UDHR also felt right because Article 27 enshrines the right to participate in the cultural life of the community and I know how privileged I am to be able to do so.

Article 27.

 (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

I experimented with a range of layouts, and after many hours of cutting up and re-positioning the strips I produced a sculptural version, I then photographed the final result.

All the postcard backs were produced using Publisher, I didn’t feel I was ready to tackle InDesign but that is next on the list. With hindsight it was probably a mistake to do it this way as I then needed to make some convoluted format changes to get them to a suitable state to upload. I should have been brave and done them all in Illustrator, which I think I would do in future.