At the beginning of the year, my first project was
entitled Branding and Corporate image. I joined the course a month after it
started, so I missed all introductions to everything etc, but I don’t think
this has made an effect on my work. In this project I think my final piece for
the School of Creative Industries logo was done to the best standard I could
achieve, however my final logo design for the Newcastle music hub could have been
thought about more, as I just went with a generic headphone idea, which I don’t
think I thought outside of the box for. I learned in this project that to come
up with a good logo, you have to think differently to designers, otherwise if
you don’t have something that makes you stand out from the crowd, then clients
won’t be attracted to your work.
Digital skills were a chance I had to apply the
stand out the crowd note, and that’s what I tried to do. The idea I had for the
logo was a scribble behind the T.M. and it all in lowercase letters so that it
looked like a child had wrote it. The final piece that I came up with didn’t
look like that at all. The fancy typography I used underneath for the strapline
was too big and looked out of place. On my poster, the photographer didn’t
listen to what photos I wanted, but didn’t show me so I didn’t find this out
until I had been sent the photos. I think if I had of known how to use InDesign
properly at the time my poster would have been laid out better and I would have
liked my final outcome. I learned that in order to get something you like you
have to make mistakes in the process.
By the time we got too after Christmas we started
Typographical and Editorial design, this project taught me how to use and apply
the grid system to lay out a magazine page properly. I also learned how to use
photo captions, headlines, subheadings and by lines. A headline being the main
title, subheading being something that makes it stand out, and by line to tell
you who the story is by. I did achieve the learning outcomes in the project. I
felt my time management worked well, I kept to the time plan in the brief and
did everything weekly so that I didn’t fall behind or get lost, or confused in
what I was supposed to do that week. I completed my project on time and handed
it in before the deadline on the 22nd of February.
Work based learning 1 was the first brief I found
that really challenged me this year. It wasn’t focused as much on the portfolio
as normal, but on how you work with 3rd parties, as in the
photographer, and the client, which in this case was Tyneside Cinema. We had a
briefing off the cinema, and the woman told us that they are 80% specialised
film, and 20% mainstream films, which is what keeps people coming to the Tyneside
cinema, as they have a reputation for being ‘weird’ and also that when the
cinema first opened in 1937 it was a news theatre. She also told us their
creative process for between them and their graphic designer, a lot of people
like to have a say in the posters etc so the designer has to go in circles
before he gets everything right. I took all this into consideration when I was
designing my final idea. Me and my photographers had the same idea of what we
wanted, so we didn’t have to do different shoots. I wanted some different
expressions, which I got, but I found it hard to communicate with the
photographers as they didn’t really listen well. If I was to do anything
differently in this project I would try and communicate better with the
photographers and the model, to get a better picture to work with. I wouldn’t
make any changes to my final piece, I like how it turned out. I like the
typography, although feedback from people has made it clear you can’t really
see the slight gradient which I put in the background. I completed this project
on time, and I learned from it that working with other people and bringing more
people into the project makes it harder to work as you have to communicate
between yous.
The final project of the year is called Practice
Enrichment, and this project is an illustration module. I like this module,
because it means I can do a lot of cartoons, and hand drawing things, as it
means messing around with different illustration styles, mixed media etc. I
chose to do The Wind in the Willows, and the first thing I did was buy the book
so I knew the story. I’m not quite finished but I understand what the story is
about. I have kept to the time plan for this module, and did everything by the
week that it’s stated. This project had a clear flow through the whole thing.
And I could put all photoshop, illustrator and indesign skills into use.
Photoshop was used to apply different styles, and change pictures around etc,
Illustrator was used for typography and indesign was used to put everything together.
I wouldn’t make any changes to this module. This module has made me sway more
to this kind of style for what I want to do as a career.
