Vogue...

At the beginning of the brief I felt that for such a short amount of time, I would not be able to produce something I was entirely satisfied with. Although it is not the idea I had in mind, I have proved myself wrong, and am quite pleased with what I have produced. I feel what I have designed is appropriate to the brief; it communicates the personality of Vogue, in a slightly negative but somewhat truthful manner.

My research was fairly limited compared to how I would usually research for a project, and in turn proved to not be use to my final piece, as my original idea was to create an “anti-Vogue” magazine cover, because Vogue is always shown in a positive light, e.g. the magazine, so I wanted to create something a little more controversial.
Research that may have been useful to the project may have been more silhouettes and figures, as ideally I would have loved to have done an illustration, but this is an area which I am quite weak, and would need a lot of time spending on.

Other than a memory stick disaster, the only obstacle I struggled with was the time, which made me all the more determined to complete the brief. I think the timescale forced me to make decisions that normally I may have put off for a while. If the timescale had have been different I would like to have done a photo shoot with a model in a Tim Walker style, in the fact that the props would have been human sized to emphasise the small models, and how they are represented, basically as robots who are told what to do, how to look and how to eat. I think this would have been interesting, but I am pleased with my final poster.

I did learn a lot in this brief about myself, as it showed that when I put my mind to it, I can do something which I otherwise may not have believed I could. I think my thumbnail stage was incredibly weak, but as mentioned in my book, the idea came together by accident, and impulsively I went with it, and I am glad I did.

Collection 100 Product Evaluation

I think I have come a long way from my research, to say I started with Christmas as a topic and had a very hard time finding a direction to go in, I am very pleased with where I have ended up. I have really challenged myself with creating a film, and editing it.

I think the end product, 100 seconds of jokes is quite funny, however it is not what I had originally set about accomplishing, as I was hoping to get 100 people to tell 100 jokes, however, one important lesson I have learnt is putting people on the spot in front of a camera asking them to tell a joke, is not incredibly successful, my close friends who really understood what I was trying to accomplish were very helpful and volunteered to tell multiple jokes, however this was not suitable to my brief. However, some people, no matter whether I gave them a joke, would not entertain the idea, sadly some are in my class...

The film and DVD set up is extremely basic, because a) I had no idea how to create something intricate and b) because I wanted the focus to be the jokes, not the way the menus are built etc. I have included the other jokes on the disc as I felt it would be a complete waste if they weren't included.

I did find the DVD quite entertaining to watch back, however I found myself staring at frames either side of the screen on a lot of the jokes, although I tried to set the camera up so this was not included and it was just the plain neutral background, it appears I was not careful enough. If I had the knowledge I would have cropped the shots to erase this, as it did become quite an annoyance.

Jokes that went wrong have been put on an outtake film, however, some were just too offensive and I have had to get rid of them completely. I do understand some of my jokes included are close to the mark, but a lot of comedians are, there is a warning on the poster and DVD cover to warn people that it may cause offence.

I like my 5x5 grid of images of some of the participants, it gives a clue again to what is on the disc without saying "This disc contains jokes"... As the photos were taken against the same background, it gives consistency although the lighting does vary.

After research into the DVD posters, I used the same visuals from the DVD packaging, but included the DVD logo and a 'review' to make it more realistic, and to show what the poster is promoting as it isn't quite as obvious as some posters, for example, some have, directors names, actors names and awards won printed on.

I do believe I have fulfilled my brief, and do hope that my film will make someone smile, if not laugh, people have asked to watch it, and from every person I have seen watching it they have laughed several times.

If I had chance to revisit brief, I would consider advertising volunteers to tell jokes, rather than put peopleon the spot, although some people were more than happy to help, I do understand it can be a little daunting in front of a camera. Also I would have liked to photograph every person that told the joke, but I did not have access to a decent camera all the time, and again I think that would add to the horror of being in front of a camera.

I was extremely thrilled that second and third years took part, I am usually a really chatty person, but I was quite worried about approaching them, especially near deadline. The vast majority were very nice and helped out, and made comments on my project, and it is still nice that some ask me how I am getting on when I walk down the corridor.

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

I feel my research skills have improved massively, with the ‘What If’ brief being a guideline to what research is required for a project. The Collection 100 brief has looked at a different way of information collection, for example, the facts, opinions and objects.

Skills in software again have improved as I imagine they will at the end of each module, in the Photoshop brief I learnt how to export a number of Photoshop files into a PDF presentation. I learnt the very basics of putting together an image sequence together on Final Cut Express from exporting images to a batch on Photoshop. I enjoyed learning Final Cut so much, I decided to incorporate it into my Collection 100 Product brief, and learnt how to video on camera, play it back into the computer and edit the project using the timeline, the blade tool and selection tool on Final Cut Pro. I then had to learn to export it to the correct movie format so that it could be burnt on to a DVD. I learnt a few more things in Illustrator, from a peer, they explained the best way for me to create a net, which involved using the pen tool, this again was quite an important skill for the Collection 100 brief, as without it I would not have been able to create suitable DVD packaging.

I learnt book binding this term, which was really interesting; however I was quite ill so as much as I enjoyed it, I really didn’t want to be there. It is something I would definitely like to learn again, and integrate into my briefs of the future. I was pleased with the end products that I had created; they look quite professional and smart. I feel this has been quite an essential skill for my Graphics work, as if I wanted to create a book; I would have had no idea.

I have spoken to more people this term; for example, I have spoken to second and third years, which happened through approaching them for help in one of my briefs, last term I had not spoken to them. Also I spoke to some older students briefly as I was lucky enough to be able to sit in on a talk to the second years from a Graphic Designer.

I have started to plan out what to do with my time which is a skill developed from the Time management PPD session. This helps me to work to certain targets for specific times to make my aims attainable.

The Visual Language – Photography day brief has helped me to look more carefully when considering frame and format, which was considered when photographing my yellow object for the Photoshop brief. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? Categorisation has been an approach to my research in a number of ways, for example, the Collection 100 – Photography brief was the small introduction to categorisation, as the photos had to cover, words, textures, people and places.

The What If brief looked at categorising research based on its form for example, quantitative, qualitative, primary and secondary. Collection 100 was heavily focussed on categorisation and the workshop about methods of categorising before the brief was issued at Christmas. I have also learnt to look deeper into research, and question things to help solve the problem, for example in the topic of homelessness we realised the high amount of deaths from drug abuse in recent months, and questioned why aren’t those people getting help, which lead the project on to be about informing rough sleepers of where they can get medical help.

What strengths have you noticed in your work and how have/will you plan to capitalise on these?

I think my level of creativity is quite a strength in terms of format, for example creating a stencil/sticker idea to navigate rough sleepers to medical help for the What If group brief, and a lot of other groups made posters, and so I have learnt and will quote, ‘Posters do not always solve problems’.

Also in my Collection 100 Product brief I created a film, as publications featuring jokes, usually are written down, on the internet, in crackers and in joke books, which have clearly been done before.

Back up research is quite a strength in my work, and shows how I have arrived at certain outcomes.

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

Again, I seem to leave my sketchbook work until near the end, although I was much more organised with it than the previous module, I did leave some bits until the end, which ends up creating unnecessary stress for me.

Another weakness is my graphic abilities, when looking at my work I feel I am not always that adventurous, although creating a film was very out of my depth, in terms of the printed work, I would love to learn illustration, to get out of the idea of using computer type all the time.

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

- This is probably an issue I will always try and improve, but my time management is something I will try and manage differently, especially with printing, to allow room for technical hitches.
- My development work needs to be kept together so it all feeds into one in continuous flow, as some development is in my sketchbook and some on my blog.
- I will try and present better at crits, I am normally not a nervous person, but I do worry sometimes presenting an idea to a small group as it can feel a little pressuring, especially when it may be an idea that is something out of the ordinary.
- I will try and learn not to be so pessimistic about my work; this is an issue I have had since school, and something I do aim to overcome. I am not entirely negative in the fact that I say, “My work is rubbish”, but I do tend to say, “I am not entirely sure about this idea…” so I need to learn confidence better.
- I will learn to dissect the problem properly before trying to jump into something too early; this is something I learnt in the What If brief.

Attendance – 4/5
Punctuality – 4
Motivation – 4/5
Commitment – 4/5
Quantity of work produced – 3
Quality of work produced –3
Contribution to the group - 4

Blog Group Discussion...

Posted here, as the members blogs were not uploaded.

Chris Anderson - I was in his Crit Group on Friday, so it was interesting to see where he had taken his ideas after the discussions the group had. He has took the idea of categorising the masks he is making into decades which I think is a really good idea, for example for the 60's decade he has a Beatle inspired hair cut mask!

Emma Cooper - Emma's idea has also slightly changed, which was a suggestion I made, instead of creating one pop up book of a tree with 100 branches, 10 books of 10 trees with 10 branches inside, this may work easier in terms of crafting, and will be easier to read the facts printed on the branches.

Ben Mckean - This is the first time I had seen any work by Ben so it was interesting, I think the Lego book is an interesting idea, however, I suggested the images of the lego structures he photographed should be on a white background for consistency.

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.