Final Essay

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 22^nd 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 3^rd 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.