End of Module Self-Evaluation

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Through my induction and also through my own experimentation, I have learnt to use Illustrator. Before, I did not understand how Illustrator could be a useful tool and instead always hand drew my images or used Photo shop. I think I have effectively applied my new skills, as they were used not only in the Illustrator brief, but both of the No News is Good News briefs which I created after my Illustrator inductions. Through the group work I also learnt more about Photo shop through my peers.

I have now developed typography skills through this module. In my previous education I had not been taught about typography, so I have found this fascinating as well as extremely useful and have tried to apply what I have learnt about typography in all my briefs. I learnt about the rules of letter forms, but found it quite difficult to apply these when creating my own typeface by hand, and as a result, some letters were out of proportion.

Through this module I have developed visual communication skills. At first I found this difficult, such as with the visual thinking brief, where there is a good idea behind my work but it is not obvious to the viewer. But I believe I have improved these skills, especially after my research for What is Graphic Design, and I think this can be shown through my Alphabet Soup typeface, which I believe is understandable by itself.

2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I have used the Internet, books from the college library as well as relevant existing examples of Graphic Design that I have collected for research. They have informed my design process by showing me what works well, but also in some cases bad examples show me what not to do, such as colours which don't work together. As well as this, research is useful for me to know my competition, so I don't create something which is identical to something which has already been made. Research has been the starting point for each brief, especially important for the mail shot brief, as I had never created a mail shot before, or experimented with unique foldings, so research helped me to understand what a mail shot is and how useful it can be.
I haven't done much primary research, but to improve in further modules I think this important.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I am quite critical of my own work and so find it difficult to identify strengths. One strength that stands out in my work is that I am always continuing to develop it after receiving feedback. I regularly discussed my work with tutors to ensure improvements could be made.

Another strength is that I believe I have always created work that is relevant for the target audience. I have always listed considerations such as target audience before planning a piece, and I believe this is how I have capitalised on making my work relevant.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

Although I am creating many design ideas at the start by hand, I tend to stick with one idea from the start, and not attempt to create the others.

Colour is something which I felt I didn't understand well previously, so a lot of the colour I have used seems to be quite irrelevant, more to make a piece look attractive than having a purpose.

I don't think I have focused on presentation as much as I should have, I would address this weakness by using relevant stock and being more careful with folds and cutting in future.


5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

Next time I will try different ideas instead of just rushing in with my first idea. Making mock ups of an idea and developing it may lead me to a better quality piece of design.

I will think about stock, experimenting with different stock which may make my pieces stand out, such as the use of stickers. I will try unusual sizes and shapes as well instead of choosing the safe option so that my pieces are unique.

I will evaluate my work as I go instead of just reflecting at the end of a brief, as I feel evaluating has been a really useful process with I never previously used. This reflection will hopefully help me to stop making mistakes and realise what is working well.

Now that I am beginning to understand colour, I will be more careful about picking colours with relevance, rather than just choosing colours I think look good. I think this will help to share my message through visual communication.

I will spend more time considering layout. Some of my designs didn't work too well because of their layout. I will try both horizontal and vertical orientation, and consider how folds can effect a layout. By doing this I can choose a layout which makes the most sense and therefore make my work easier to understand and so more effective.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas
(5= excellent 4=very good 3=good 2=average 1=poor)
Attendance = 4
Punctuality = 5
Motivation = 3
Commitment = 4
Quantity of work produced = 3
Quality of work produced = 3
Contribution to the group = 3

No News Is Good News: Part 2 - Mail Shots

Brief: Produce a mail shot that distributes, disseminates and reinforces your message to an appropriate list of recipients. (160mm width x 105mm height) There should be 10 editions of the resolution and 1 visually appropriate mailing list. One resolution must be mailed back to college.

Considerations: What do you want to say and how do you want to say it? What will the mail shot achieve? Does it direct you to a website, encourage you to attend an event, is it interactive or is it self contained?

Initial Ideas:

Celebrity gossip magazine

• Ticket to a magazine launch party
• Advertising Celebrity forum
• Mini magazine
• Vouchers for magazine

1.

2. 

Advertising a wedding company

• In the style of Perry & Brand's Wedding invites
• Win a dream destination wedding

1. 

2.

3.

Development

To find inspiration, which was especially important as I had never created a mail shot before, I started by browsing the internet and looking through books at existing mail shots.
I decided to go along with the idea of my mail shot advertising a celebrity gossip magazine. The interesting twist to this would be that the gossip magazine was online, giving readers the chance to join in and give their opinions on the latest celebrity gossip. I decided the layout and style would be similar to my final image and type high impact poster regarding Katy Perry and Russell Brand's Indian wedding. This is the design idea that I chose to develop further.

I tried to re-arrange my image and type poster so that it would work horizontally for inside the poster, but I don't think this is as easy to read as it is vertically, so I decided to re position the mail shot so that the text was inside.

This question, which contains opinions in the hope of provoking thought from the reader, was placed in the middle of the mail shot instead of the image and type poster.

This is an initial layout plan for the mail shots, but the folds are not accurate, so I redesigned this.

Development After Progress Crit

After my progress crit I made some changes to my designs based on the feedback from tutors and peers. 

I created this lowercase typeface in the same style of the uppercase typeface I had already created for the posters, because I thought readability may be an issue if uppercase was used for all text. I created it in Illustrator by messily tracing around Myraid Pro, and filling in the counters.

This is the re arrangement of type after feedback.

The images below show a mock up mail shot I made to give me an idea of how the real thing would look. After creating this mail shot, I realised there were a few things which needed neatening up and perfecting before I would be ready to print in high quality in the digital print workshop.

    Front of Mail Shot                             Back of Mail Shot

Inside                                     Opened Completely

Final Mail Shot Design

Outside

Mailing List

In the brief it is stated that a visually appropriate mailing list is required to accompany the mail shots, so having already considered the audience to be young woman (15-25) with opinions on celebrity gossip, I began to think about where these mail shots could be posted.

• They could be distributed to places where the target audience would be likely to spend time, so they could read them and then take them home to remind them to visit the website. These places include coffee shops, hairdressers and shopping centres.
• The mail shot could be sent out to student accommodation, where the target audience will be living. These students probably won't have much money, so they may be more inclined to visit an online celebrity gossip website rather than buying a magazine. Also, they may have a lot of spare time, so this is suggesting something they could do when they are bored.
• The mail shot could be sent to people who already are signed up to celebrity fan clubs, mailing lists, email newsletters etc, who may be interested in finding about more about their favourite celebrities.
• The mail shot could be sent to people who subscribe to similar gossip magazines, such as OK! A possible partnership could be formed. 
• The fictional company "Oh!So Celebrity" could form a partnership with an already successful company with the same target audience and similar qualities, and so the mail shot could be sent out to their existing customers. For example, the existing fashion company ASOS (as seen on celebrity) would be a perfect partnership.
• Influential people known for their interest in celebrity gossip could receive the mail shot.
• The mail shot could be sent to internet cafes, meaning that the website can be visited there and then.

No News Is Good News: Part 1 - Posters

A statement of fact based on my research

British Comedian Russell Brand marries American Pop Star Katy Perry in India

Brief: Produce three high impact posters that deliver a message (a statement of fact) from your research. The posters must work as a set, and the first must be produced using only type, the second only image and the third being a combination of the two.

Ideas: Type Only

• An elegant, romantic, interlinking typeface
• The ‘B’ of Brand could be placed on its side to look like a heart

  
• A font could be created with is a mix of both the fonts used for Brand and Perry’s personal branded products
• Type could be placed in the shape of a love heart, or the shape of the country of India

  

Image Only

• An over emphasized features cartoon drawing of Brand and Perry in traditional Hindu wedding attire, or shrunk to be toppers on a wedding cake

  
• A wedding related illustration of the pair containing hearts, cake, rings and other symbols of marriages

  
• An image of the pair in wedding attire cut out of a red paper heart, in the style of illustrator Rob Bryan
  

  

  
  
• An Indian wedding illustration, with the heads of Brand and Perry over sized as if replacing the heads if the Indian couple
• The statement is spelt out with drawings

  

Type and Image

• The shape of the country India contains the statement in the middle, with symbols connected with marriage decorating the outside of the page

  
• The shape of the country India contains a cartoon style illustration of the pair, with newspaper style heading overlapping edges, and symbols concerning the pairs occupations and lifestyle scattered around the outside of the country

  

  

  
  
• The type is made up of smaller images concerning the pair, marriage and India
• The statement is spelt out with drawings, with type underneath to make it obvious what it means
• An image of the pair in wedding attire cut out of a red paper heart, in the style of illustrator Rob Bryan

Development of Design Ideas

I decided to develop my favourite design ideas on Photo shop and Illustrator

Image Only

I have made my statement of fact with images only using pictures found on Google image

I then decided to recreate these images on Illustrator, allowing me to make sure I am only using two colours as stated in the brief. I chose to use red to symbolise love, and gold to symbolise the luxury of the wedding of Katy Perry and Russell Brand, and then white as I felt that this colour would go well with red and gold.

Initially I tried placing a red background behind these images, and used a golden outline, however, I thought this made them particularly difficult to understand. I played around with different thickness of strokes, colour of strokes, and background colour until I found a style I thought looked good, would be able to work as a set as was understandable. 

Final Design

Type Only

As inspired by the image of the Goodfella's pizza box, recorded on my design context blog, I experimented with arranging my statement of fact text into the shape of a love heart. The second example shows the design after I neatened and corrected it.

The font I have used is Myraid Pro Regular. I did try this idea with different, more decorative fonts which relate to romance, but they made the text quite difficult to read. As stated in the brief, I needed my work to be clear, understandable and high impact, and so I decided to stick with this font. 

For the final piece, I turned the image horizontal, as I decided this was what how I wanted my other pieces, and as it was stated in the brief that the images must work as a set, I felt I needed to change the orientation of this design. I was still unsure about the use of font, as I wanted to ensure readability but also use a font that was visually attractive. I decided to create my own font on Illustrator, by messily tracing around an existing font, which I also used in the type and image design. 

Final Design

Type and Image Combined


I redrew a neatened image of one of my earlier design ideas onto card, simplifying it so that it would be easier to cut out with a scalpel, and also to make sure the design was kept clear and understandable. I kept important aspects but also tried to ensure the image would still be visually attractive. After cutting out the image I scanned it in. I was really unsure about which way to apply colour, but decided on a similar concept to the type only piece, to ensure the images work as a set.

Final Design

Changes


After the feedback from the evaluations I made some changes to my image poster. I have made the drawings simpler, and added an arrow to mean 'in' and I have taken out the heart as this was not part of the sentence I was trying to explain through image. I have concentrated on editing the colours so that the piece works better in a set than it did with a white background.

Here I have altered the image poster to be image and type. However to use this in my set, I would need to edit my existing image and type image and change this to only image. I have changed the orientation of my piece to vertical, and have grouped relevant things, such as "British Comedian Russell Brand" onto their own line. I think the text matches really well with the images and the layout not only makes the image easier to read and understand but is more exciting that just two lines. I really like this image so would like to use it in part 2 of this brief.