OUGD303 EVALUATION

Its been a tough year full of ups and downs but over the course of my FMP I have learnt a great deal about my practice and produced work I never thought I’d be able to produce. The fmp was a fantastic opportunity to get the most out of all the skills and ideas I’ve been building over the past 3 years and had given me a chance to work on briefs which reflects my personal interests. With each module I feel like I establish who I am as a designer more and more. I am a concept driven designer with a focus on typography and branding.

A personal favourite aspect of my FMP is how varied my briefs are. It’s also nice to hear tutors and like minded students complimenting my work and comment how they can spot my style and my way of working, it’s unique to me, despite how varied my briefs are. I’ve also learnt I’m not necessarily focused on print finishes such as embossing or foiling, as I always try and approach and execute a brief in the most appropriate way I can through striking and dynamic designs. I do steer more towards DIY and lo-fi design deliverables.

One fault in my FMP is my perception of time and prioritizing my work. With weeks on end to finish a project, I get so caught up with what I’m doing that I’ve lost weeks working on one tiny aspect of a grand brief. I wish I made decisions earlier. This way each brief would’ve felt more substantial.

My FMP has allowed me to be more craft savvy than I have been in previous years and I’ve experimented with different binds and different formats. This is especially true for the No Comment Brief. I had to learn how to Coptic bind the publication but once I had finished it, I had a great sense of achievement.

A brief I am extremely happy about is the Owl brief. I felt I had executed that brief in the best way possible and set the tone of voice early on. It also allowed me to continue my branding practice and t really consider what to produce, rather than having an arbitrary list of items the brief didn’t need. Vinyl and working within the music sector is something I’ve always wanted to try and do and now I feel I’ve had a taste of that experience.

Looking back from last module and this module there’s also a great change in colour scheme. Previously I had consciously avoided bright colours as they were distracting the viewer from the concept, however, briefs like Owl have allowed me to have fun and not think too much about the concept and focus on the aesthesis of it. This freedom resulted in me using much brighter colours. I believe this to be due to a rising admiration of Hey Studio’s (Barcelona) work. They manage to achieve a very modern design style whilst using dynamic illustrations and colours.

A brief that didn't go too well was the fashion yearbook. The constant let down from the tutor's behalf made me lose the heart and exiting I had for the brief. It had tons of potential and was a great opportunity to work on a professional job with professional printers and the end result being a professional book which would be distributed up and down the country. 

The fashion tutors constantly failed to meet the deadline for students work and contact information, despite many meetings and 'tellings off' In the end we decided to take matters into our own hands by

creating a mock up publication and posters.

Another brief that didn't go 100% to plan was No Comment. The concept was incredibly strong but I feel the final deliverables don's really do it justice, I also think the photographs used in the publication
weren't dynamic enough. Granted I had said I wanted to show the beauty of the everyday but in my head was Martin Parr esque photography. I believe this to be down to Charlotte (the collaborator) truly understanding what I wanted. The first day of shooting I was able to point stuff to her and say 'yeah shoot that' but once she went solo the shots became repetitive. This is by no means a slur on Charlotte's work. She was great to work with but with a concept based around 'taking photos of people walking about in Leeds' there's not much you can do for it. I ended up making the project to be a photography and typographic brief. 

Hindsights a wonderful thing and there's always going to be something more I could've done, but the whole module has been an experience I can and always will reflect on my time at LCA. I've learnt and seen some amazing work and I'm looking very much forward to the end of year show.

Attendance - 5 Punctuality - 4 Motivation - 4 Commitment - 5 Quality - 4 Quantity - 4