What If... Self Evaluation

The problem identified was that rough sleepers to not seem to be making use of the medical care available to them.

The evidence to back this up was taken from an article I found on The Leeds Accommodation Forum, one particular quote that stood out to me was made by John Rossington, who is a team coordinator for the Leeds Rough Sleepers team, "Many clients are becoming seriously ill. We believe that this is due to injecting crack cocaine." Another quote from the website is, 'He said 48 people had died in the last 12 months from drug-related problems in Leeds and there had been four drug-related deaths among rough sleepers in just the last eight weeks.' I believe this is enough to show that substance dependent rough sleepers are not getting the medical help they need, which makes them incredibly vulnerable, especially with the nights becoming colder.

Another member of this team revealed a shocking statistic, "95 per cent of our new clients have drug and alcohol problems. It's going up and up all the time."

To ensure my research was valid and reliable, I used a multi-method approach, which produced quantitative and qualitative research.

One method, which was secondary, is Internet research, my first site I visited was Shelter, because I knew it was a large charity that centres around problems with housing, but I didn't know a lot, so by visiting this site I was able to learn more about the charity and homelessness. From this I extended my research to other shelters in Leeds, including the St. George's Crypt, I first found out about this from a book, Nick had taken out from the library. On the website I read an interesting interview with a homeless man named Dougie, this is a qualitative method, but still secondary. I also found out some quantitative data, which was to do with the history of the Crypt for example, it has been open for over 78 years.

One of my primary research methods was a short telephone interview, this was with a man named Martin from the St. George's Crypt, who I believe is the Director of Fundraising for the charity, some questions were open ended and some were close ended. The closed ended questions for example, 'How many people of no fixed residence use the Crypt's facilities?' produced quantitative data, as I found out that around 60 people use the Crypt in the day time, and this number drops to about 15 in the day. However, 'What can the public do to help?' is not quantifiable.

The group as a whole formulated questions to put into a survey which was posted by Hazel on Survey Monkey, which produced a lot of quantitative data, that enabled us to produce statistics, and also qualitative data that could be analysed, this was a great way of gaining opinions from people, and its quick and easy to publish. This was also a primary research method.

I found the telephone interview quite useful, it gave us some numerical data to work with, and it was first-hand, primary evidence. Sometimes, it is nicer to speak to people, rather than taking evidence from a book or the internet for example.

The survey seemed to be really useful as well, it gave us the opportunity to view people's opinions of homelessness and their reactions in general. From studying research methods in the past, I knew this would be quite successful as you can reach out to a number of people in seconds, it is incredibly cost-effective, and the survey was quite short so people would not mind taking the time to complete it.

However, I think the research that kick started the formulation of the new problem, was the article on rough sleepers and the number of drug related deaths. This drew the group's attention to a more specific problem within homelessness, as previous research had identified medical centres for the homeless in Leeds, but this shocking statistic shows that they may not know where to go.

Some research that informed the response to the problem, would be the research into medical centres, particularly Leeds PCT on York Street. Our resolution was to direct rough sleepers to this place if they were in need of a doctor.

Finding statistics that were valid were problematic, this is because when the volunteers do the head count, they have to adhere to strict rules, which involve not going in certain areas, for health and safety. Therefore we did not have any true statistics that we could depend on, we could only loosely use them. Another problem, is that we were unable to find statistics from this year, or work out what is classed as 'Leeds', as the count could just be in the city, or may generalise to the surrounding areas.

This was overcome by not using statistics in our work, and the only statistic we did use, we had worked out on Google Maps, which was that it is a 26 minute walk from the underpass near Woodhouse Car Park to the Leeds PCT.

If there was more time available the group could have carried out a rough sleeper head count over several days, or attended a number of shelters and carried out interviews with the rough sleepers themselves.

It would have been interesting but a little dangerous to work out the ratio of substance dependent rough sleepers who seek medical help to those who don't, as we only assumed that rough sleepers are not seeking medical help.

5 things I have learnt about the design process:

- Do not try and solve the problem, before you have properly specified the problem.

- When specifying the problem, do not try and solve the whole issue, find a problem within the problem.

- That everyone contributing in an almost equal way... is the way forward!!

- Be different from the rest, posters are not original and do not solve problems, this may be the case with stencils but it is unique and non-consumerist.

- It is possible to communicate to a target audience that we have not had contact with, you just have to consider the readability more.

5 things I would do differently next time:

- Settle on an exact problem before talking about visual ideas with the group.

- Work on the presentation more, I was extremely nervous, which is unlike me.

- Have more confidence with the work, even though the group received a lot of positive feedback, I was still unsure when presenting, however, now I am really pleased with the result.

- Rely on the internet less, and go out into the real world to research.

- Update my sketchbook as I go along instead of collecting the work in a pile.

End of Module Evaluation

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

I have learnt to organise my thinking better through diagrams and other visual methods that make it easier for me to interpret. Time management is another skill that is still developing, I wouldn't say it is perfect, but it is certainly much better than at the start of the course, which I already knew was one of my flaws, but I expect this will continue to improve as I become more used to the pace. I also think I have learnt the skill of producing designs in a short amount of time, as usually, there would be a time period of weeks/months to develop ideas, but this module has forced me to think and design much quicker, but still to a good quality.

My initial idea development has developed a lot more, as instead of racing to a computer with a few rough sketches the minute I get a brief, I draw until I can look at an idea and think yes. If there is any doubt at all I carry on sketching until I reach the potential final, I have done this at the initial stages of my briefs and you can see how my thinking works, and it helps me progress.

What approaches to/methods of problem solving have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

One of my main methods of solving the problems, is through mind maps, I use them to break down the idea, and organise information. For example, in the How to... brief to go into detail in a visual way, and in the Alphabet Soup: Visual Thinking brief, I used a thesaurus to help me come up with a variety of words, set out in a mind map to help me start thinking visually, which proved to be very helpful towards the design process. In the No News Is Good News Research brief, I wrote 20 words, and 20 images in order to kick start the process of visual thinking.

My response to a brief has developed as well, when I receive a brief now, like Irma Boom once said, 'I try to answer the commisioners request by raising a new question', for example, with the Alphabet Soup: Visual Thinking brief, when I received it I began asking, What is exaggeration? How much or how little of a change is exaggeration? How can i test exaggeration to the limit? How can this be represented on paper? I always raise questions now with a new brief which help me to look at different perspectives of tackling the problem.

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

From what peers have said during crits, I do a lot of research into what my brief is on to really make sure I fully understand what I am doing in order to attempt to successfully communicate the message, especially with the No News Is Good News brief, as I researched a lot into the Stephen Gately story, which lead me on to investigate heart conditions, which lead on to looking at Diabetes, so this made my work look better as I could discuss everything I had done into fine detail.

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

One thing I do notice when looking at my work, is that my work does not appear adventurous enough, now for some briefs it would not be appropriate to do something avant-garde and radical, however for some briefs I look and think, maybe I could have pushed myself further, for example my Alphabet Soup: Visual Thinking, I could have done something that really pushed the boundaries, afterall my word was Exaggerate. Therefore, I need to build up confidence to do this, and the way I gain confidence is in group crits.

A weakness i noticed in my Alphabet Soup: Illustrator brief, is again, the lack of excitement, mainly due to the program being quite alien to me, I will address this through experience and use of the program, as i have never been taught how to use Photoshop but over the past 4 years I have picked bits up as I go along.

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

1. Working directly into my sketchbook - I work into a rough book then organise my thinking and designing in my actual sketchbook which is neater in terms of interpretting, as at the start of a brief I doodle and write odd bits down that make sense to me but not to anyone else, this will not waste as much time if I work straight into the book.

2. I will trial ideas better before I assemble my final piece, this mainly applies to Illustrator, as I didn't experiment much before I produced my final A1 trace, which didn't look as good as it could have done, from this i may get a better standard of finish for my final resolution.

3. Book earlier for printing, it was incredibly hectic in the print department, and again, this could have bought me extra time if I had booked more than a week in advance.

4. Evaluate my work better as I go along, some of my evaluations are too brief, which may inhibit how I continue to develop my ideas, this will be addressed by taking more time with each design idea.

5. Blog my work as I go along, to begin with, my blog was always updated, but as the work load got heavier, i stopped doing it as much, which has meant i have not remembered things as clearly as I would like, so the blogs aren't quite as detailed as I would like.

5= excellent 4= very good 3=good 2=average 1=poor

Attendance: 5

Punctuality: 4

Motivation: 5

Commitment: 5

Quantity of work produced: 3/4

Quality of work produced: 3/4

Contribution to the group: 5

No News Is Good News- Message and Interpretation

Overall, for my text only poster, I feel I completely answered the brief, it was high impact, clear and served its purpose of informing and persuading, however, I disagree with some of the comments that were made during the anonymous crit about this poster, as the person had said it was too sinister, but then suggested I used a 'dripping blood font', which is contradictory and also would move away from looking like a public health campaign to an invite to a Halloween party, so the person had not understood what it was about, the other person thought that it worked well as the colours worked well and I think this is because they were used in the correct weights and quantities, as there was only a small amount of red to make it the first noticeable element of the piece which then leads to the bright white text.

Looking back at the potential final 2, the black and the white, the white could be used as well, maybe in a hospital, as the white indicates it is clean and clinical, whereas the black is more likely to symbolise death.

My image only poster was incredibly weak, I think in theory it worked well, as the message behind it made it highly significant, but to other people, they did not see the question mark hidden within the heart, I did try other methods such as using a red question mark but it was too obvious and looked slightly tacky!

This weakness was picked up on by the comments from the crit, and it a was suggested I used a heart symbol, which is what I had done in the first place but received extremely negative feedback form peers as it seemed to communicate love rather than health. Even now, I am still unsure of how I could have improved on this.

My text and image together was average, the heart image was backed up by the text, but the text was not as effective as it was not on its own. Also, the image had to be made smaller, to allow room for the text, so the question mark appeared even more unnoticeable.

Again, due to the weakness of the image, I am unsure of how I could improve this, other than scrapping the heart altogether. Maybe the ECG line showing someone alive then dying could be used underneath the text, however, it does not really communicate undiagnosed illnesses.

In terms of answering the brief, the three posters stuck to the 2 colours plus stock guideline, they were in the format of 2:1 at A3 scale, the message was simple and to the point and finally, the three were visually consistent.

Alphabet Soup: Visual Thinking

I was pleased with my final resolution, I think from my first thumbnail to my end result the work has improved considerably, to start with I seemed to restrict myself, and then I decided to think out of the box and try working in relief. When the whole classes letters were lined up on the wall, a few people commented that my letter was the first one they were drew to due to it's three dimensional and bright appearance. And it's due to this different but dynamic appearance that I feel it communicates exaggerate quite successfully.

In terms of durability, the letters won't last long due to some elements of the letters being stuck out at odd angles, however I had them photographed so there is evidence of how they were originally.

Ellis evaluated my set of ten letterforms, I was pleased with the feedback, as it was constructive, on the whole it was positive feedback, she felt it was a creative idea, but wondered how the letterforms would look if they were all in one colour, rather than multi-coloured as if they were all the same it would make them look more uniform. I agreed with this comment, but felt it would lose it's fun feel.

She also felt I could have experimented more with materials, this is entirely true, all I did was construct the letterforms out of coloured card I already had, and there was no consideration into other materials. What may have worked is coloured foam, if I stuck with the polychromatic scheme, as this would be easier to manipulate and wouldn't crease as easy, however, it is not a particularly sturdy material.

I was quite surprised that I had designed a style of type that would only work by handcrafting, as normally I would use a computer to get that absolutely perfect finish, there were a few areas that let the design down due to parts of the card fraying, and some of the foam squares were exposed and so it looked a little untidy at times.

Referring back to the brief, I think the brief was answered, as in the mandatory section it specified that each A6 should contain one letterform but all ten should demonstrate a range of possible solutions, my letters do this, as the letters have been exaggerated in different ways.

Alphabet Soup Final Evaluation

The personality traits I responded to was Maya's background as up until last year she lived in Dubai so I chose an Arabic style font, which needed softening up as it was a little harsh to start with.

The result appears to be effective in the fact that the typeface is related to Maya on a more personal level as it focusses on her background, and represents her as an individual, the typeface is just a stroke as if it had have been filled in it would not be appropriate and would lose the femininity.

Some of the people in my presentation liked my end typeface they thought it was completely different to other work on the walls, someone did pull my idea apart about the way some of the letters were, this is something I had picked up on earlier, but to change it would have lost the Arabic feel.

My tutor, liked my idea, she said it was ambitious and inventive, however, she felt it would be better as a brush stroke rather than trying to draw it, as it doesn't give much freedom and fluidity. The action points I were given were experimenting with solid colour, uppercase letters and maybe re-working some of them.

One of my main weaknesses, were my glyphs, in the Afarat font the glyphs were quite strange so I found it hard to work with them, another particular weakness was quality of line.

I thoroughly enjoyed this brief, it was interesting and challenging, and helped me to realise an idea can be good and seen through to the end with a pleasing outcome, even if I don't think it will.

How to... live with people you don't like? Evaluation.

We all played a number of roles in the group, one of my roles was to create a variety of slogans that related to tea and then the rest of the group picked their favourite 2 to be used. Another of my jobs was to design and create the packaging to put the tea bag in; I also helped with the printing of the sticker sheets and mug holder. We all put input into the design of the mug holder, so we all had an equal say and it wasn’t just one person that was responsible for it all.

I feel I performed my roles within the group to the best of my capabilities; the jobs I took part in were successfully completed on time, and matched the criteria which was set by us as a group, and fitted the criteria from the brief. I also tried to help others where possible in order to make sure our product was completed on time and to a high standard.

As a group we did have a few obstacles to overcome, which involved being one team member down, which seemed to make us work even harder and come up with an idea that hasn’t been done before, compared to our ideas earlier. We all worked together, everyone had a say in what everyone was doing so it wasn’t just a case of, ‘You go away and do that and we will stick it together at the end’, and I think from the final product, it is evident that it was a team effort.

The positives of working in a group are that when we originally sat down to think of ideas, we seemed to just bounce our thinking off each other, as someone would say an idea and then another person would take that idea even further. Also, we each had different specialist areas which made us even stronger, whether they were illustrators or good at designing packaging, and we all said that if we had have been given this as a solo brief, we probably wouldn’t have come up with this idea, which really shows 6 heads are better than 1, in this case.

The negatives of working in a group is that sometimes, people want different things and work in different styles which can cause issues, especially if all but one person agrees on something, it’s awkward knowing what to do next, as you can’t bully a team member into agreeing on an idea, and we did encounter this issue.

Next time I would manage time a little differently, although we met the deadline and had a final product we were pleased with, there were a few minor flaws physically, as the card that was used to create the mug holder would not have been strong enough to be carried around. We should have experimented with different weights of card to see which would be more practical.

I think our attempt at coming up with a resolution to the brief was good as we had acknowledged the fact that we physically can’t make people get on with one another, however with our product, it could be a point of socialisation and communication, which may help ease the problem, so I’m not sure how the resolution could be improved as it’s down to the individual whether the situation is resolved.

The overall product I feel was to a high standard and I think we produced something that was original and light hearted yet serious as it is a common problem and is not easily resolved. The colours of the products and the whole feel of it in general was very appropriate, we used tea stains as the background, a font created out of tea stain/texture and the ‘peace’ sign on the mug carrier was also created out of the ring that mugs sometimes leave on the surface it stands on, which may seem like it is a little over the top, but visually it fitted together really well. The tea bag envelope was also created in a similar style, and the stickers for the mugs were created from the ‘tea font’.
As a group we all felt proud of the product and we could all step back and feel pleased with the hard work we had put in.

Our presentation was interactive as we got the audience to feel the brief by making cups of tea. I feel the presentation went quite well, we had one person presenting the product, and two people talking through the idea, which may have seemed as though the other two and me were just stood there, but we decided if we all took it in turns to speak, it would look a little bit school-like.

Ten things I want to achieve by the end of this year...

In no particular order...

1. Gain confidence in my work- I struggle to see my work as being good, which can make my ideas seem weak.

2. Learn new software- I would like to learn bits of Fireworks, InDesign and Flash.

3. Be able to manage my time better- I do sometimes leave things until the last minute, a bad habit that needs breaking urgently!

4. Be more competent on Photoshop- I can work on it quite comfortably with knowledge of a few shortcuts but I would like to learn more.

5. I would like to learn how to create a short film- in the digital media suites, this could be very useful in terms of advertising etc.

6. I would like to find some form of work experience- I'm not bothered whether it's paid or unpaid, everyone needs to start somewhere.

7. I would definitely, definitely love to pass this year!

8. Make contacts with people- acorss courses, or even outside of the College altogether.

9... I will have to think a bit longer for the next two, it's tricky to think as these need to be attainable yet they need to challenge me.