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.