The things that I am happy I have achieved include the technical level of the work I have produced. I feel that I have reached a level of skills with software, layout, typography and craft that have enabled me to produce a really high standard of work. I set out at the beginning of this module wanting to produce a strong portfolio and this level of technical proficiency has enabled me to do so. Although I didn’t a very good job of planning how I was going to structure my time at the outset of this module, partly because of planning to do some live briefs that didn’t come through and partly because of indecisiveness. I think as the module has progressed I have managed to plan and organise my time fairly well. This gave me ample time at the end of the module to get things finished to the standard I want. I have managed to use and improve on a lot of the skills that I planned on utilising at the beginning of the module, including screen printing, photography and experimental typography, which I am pleased about. I have also improved skills that I hadn’t planned on improving or didn’t know I needed to improve most notably typography and layout and also creating a typeface. I undertook a collaborative project this module with Patrick Holmes, which is something I enjoyed a lot. I think we worked well together and brought different skills to the project; together we produced something which neither of us could have produced on our own. I think I have become comfortable in how I structure the way I work, working through a project in a (relatively) organised fashion and being considerate but decisive about the directions I take. I think my contextual understanding of where my work I fits into design, and also what kind of design work I want to do and who I want to work for has grown greatly this module. I think my biggest interest lies in working for the creative sector and cultural institutions, like galleries and museums.
In this module there are areas in which I am not happy with how I performed. I didn’t manage to fulfil all the things I set out to do in my rationale; I didn’t manage to make a website and didn’t manage to incorporate an element of sustainable thinking into any of my briefs. However this is, in part, due to one of the ideas I have drawn from the writing and reading I have done for my dissertation so far. I have come to think that to a greater or lesser extent graphic designers have a fairly limited role in what they can do regarding issues of sustainability, to quote Ken Garland the writer of the original first things first manifesto: “The reality for me is that my vote and my political actions are probably more important than anything I can do as a graphic designer.” (Ken Garland interview by Lucienne Roberts, 2006). I feel this is one of the reasons why I have not concentrated that heavily on using my graphic design practice to address these types of issues.
The only brief that I am somewhat unhappy with this module is the YCN Ted Baker brief, I think I jumped into an idea and a way of working too quickly and without enough thought, as a result my concept never really felt like it was going places. Obviously next module this is something that I want to avoid at all costs by giving plenty of thought and time in the planning stages of the project. On the other hand I feel as though I was not decisive and ruthless enough with the ISTD Environment / Typography / Environment project and I got bogged down in it, which can be really frustrating. It is good to see both ends of the spectrum and know how I work best. I think the way I work has become much more organised over the last two years however they way I document my work is still fairly erratic which is something I need to work on in the future. This module I did six briefs, which I feel was maybe spreading myself a bit too thin, in the future I would like be able to give more time and energy to a smaller number of briefs. I feel that I have played it fairly safe in this module, sticking with ways of working that I am comfortable with, and focussing on a highly finished end results as opposed to a strikingly original idea. While my projects all look great I feel that there could be room for more experimentation. Next term I would like spend more time coming up with exciting and original ideas, once I get into industry there will be all kinds of restrictions on the work I do, so now, while I have the freedom, it makes sense to be as experimental as possible.
