OUGD104 - Bookfair

 

Was quite disheartened when I found I hadn't manage to sell any of my hotdog books at the Leeds international contemporary artists book fair but I did manage to sell one online to some who had seen my work through twitter/flickr. When someone asked whether my book was for sale I created an etsy account to sell my book :-)

 

Interim Self-Evaluation

List 4 practical skills that you have developed. When have they proved useful?
1 - Finally learned how to use Illustrator which I know use for all of my work
2 - Having the screen printing induction at both Blenheim and Vernon Street has given me the confidence to use screen printing as a medium in the future. Also managed to sell one of my Screen prints online.

 

It might only be £4.99 from one sale of which about £1.50 was ebay fees It was still really exciting to know someone wanted to buy my work :)

3 - CTS has allowed me to analyse works of graphic design that have been relevant to my design practice.
4 - The photography elective was a huge benefit as I now take more pride in photographing my work as well as research for my blog.

List 5 transferable skills that you have developed. What have you used them for?
1 - Time management, as well as now always being on time, I am able to organise my time better, allowing me to work more efficiently.
2 - Team Work - Always struggled to work with other people but realised its important to learn how to share ideas and work with other people.
3 - Project Management - having more than one brief going on at the same time has meant i've had to manage different projects at the same time.
4 - Learning Spanish at the college was a great experience and will really be useful in the future.
5 - People skills - Learned when to say something and when to just keep my mouth shut.

List 5 things you have achieved. How they helped your progress?
1 - Being more confident when expressing or sharing my ideas - made it easier to work within a team.
2 - Going on facebook only after 9PM. Meaning I actually work during the day (thanks Sarah! :)
3 - Worked on a lot of freelance work before and throughout uni which has meant I've learned how to deal with clients and gave me practical skills.
4 - Learned how to cook a authentic chicken curry, means I don't by Morrisons ready meals :)
5 - More independent and finally realised how important it is to manage my finances.

List 5 problems that you have had to face. How have you over come them?
1 - Traveling home Saturday mornings on the 6:34 train. Killer. Haven't over come this though. Bad times.
2 - Confidence. I hate getting up and talking in front of a group of people, I mean I still hate it but it's not that bad :)
3 - Having come straight from A Level I found it quite hard to adjust to the studio environment but gradually got over this and pushed myself to work as hard as possible.
4 - I hate my flatmates. end of.


List 5 facts that you have learned. When have they been useful?
1 - Never knew the difference between RGB + CMYK.. oh my god. amazing.

2 - Illustrator uses vectors. wow.
3 - Realised that a train driver doesn't have a steering wheel and that the train runs on tracks. Genius.
4 - Be nice to Fred, Amber and Lorenzo.
5 - Book a time in print instead of relying on drop in.


List 5 things you will never do again. Why?
1 - Get upset about my module grade. Need to man up and learn from my mistakes.
2 - Use photoshop to design a catalogue. What was i thinking?
3 - Use comic sans. Because Fred would probably consider kicking me off the course.

4 - Neglect my blog. my blog is my friend.


Working as part of a group : Withdrawn
Qualities I appreciate about myself : Commitment, Responsibility, Ambitious, Punctuality, Organised
Attitudes that describe myself : Organnised, Informed, Committed
Attitudes that best describe the you work now? Organised, Focused, Informed, Critical, Committed

OUGD104 - What is a line? Presentations.

During yesterdays visual language session we each had to do a 2 minute presentation about where we were going with out projects and then got feedback from the rest of the group. Showing the current quick sketches and drawings that I had done as well as my primary research, the photographs that I had taken and the secondary research including all the illustrators that I had looked at the key points that where raised were;
- Thinking about having a particular theme within the objects that I am photographing and working from  (items found in the kitchen/fridge/particular shapes/certain coloured objects..)
- Looking at blueprints as secondary research
- Making sure I know what my final resolution will be and ensuring that it essentially has a purpose that is relevant at the end of the day

OUGD103 - Submission of work

 

 Final work submitted for the Letter, Sentence, Word,  Paragraph competition.. a day before the deadline? oops. 

Not sure if I'm entirely happy with the finished outcome as I had began to develop the idea in a different way without the colour wheel but decided against it as I don't think the concept was strong enough. I do think that the final could be considered more type as image rather than just pure type. My original plan was to get the individual posters printed on A1/A2 stock then photographing then and then submitting the photographs. Although the deadline had passed I think it would be a good idea to get them printed anyway just to see how they work on a larger scale rather than just A4 as I think this is far too small. Also I regret not changing the the type on blue and orange poster as there seems to be more orange and blue.. quite annoyed that I didn't spot this sooner and change it when I had the chance. I think that the poster with red and green on it works the best as the colours stand out the most, a little unsure as how good the yellow actually shows up. 

OUGD104 - Visual Language - Module Info

Going over the module info with Amber and listing everything that needs to be done. Ensure there is enough evidence of drawing.

OUGD103 - What is Graphic Design - Part 3, What is graphic design for?

OUGD103 - Communication is a Virus - Feedback from Group 1

Feedback from group 1, Sarah, Matt, Dom and Lisa 

We gave Group 3 there feedback.  This is a link to Baljeet's design practice blog page. The concept which was to test how visually aware people are or tell a lie convincingly was answered.  Niall gave a convincing performance as a guest speaker to the second year Graphic's students however we commented that they had not really delivered a graphic response to the brief.  Their presentation had engaged us as much with the anticipation of seeing Niall and was some what diluted by the fact they had been unable to capture his performance on video. The photograph in the presentation was difficult to see so whilst we could imagine how good it was, especially with Amber's enthusiasm, we really only had videos of five second years to back this up. 
We had difficulty answering the guide questions to the feedback as the group's work had mainly been focused on the character development.  Equally it was difficult giving negative feedback to what had on the surface been a very successful live result.  We considered how they could have answered the brief more fully, given more time.  As the group had developed a website and business cards they could have actually used this more fully in the lie/cover up.   The second year students could have been given time to look at the website and then videoed for their reactions.  (This fulfilling the Graphics response). Another idea was to start spreading a rumour from one second year student (virally, word of mouth) that indeed Niall was a setup.  They could have then monitored/recorded this.  

Developing the idea

Different ways in which we could develop the idea would be to ensure that we looked developing the identity of Oliver Histon. Could look at developing the idea of having a business card as well as ensuring that the website was actually live, if this was the case we would need to look at creating the work ourselves which could be really time consuming. One of the ideas that we were given was to try and see if Oliver Histon could apply for a job and see how far we could go in trying to land him a job.

If we were able to do the project again I think one of the key aspects would have been to film Niall's presentation and also not telling the seconds years straight away, a delayed reaction could have worked better. Also would need to consider recording the reactions of the second years better, could have a really well edited video.  

OUGD103 - Communication is a Virus - Feedback for group 2

Group 2 - Encouraging people to read more.
Beth Yates
Luke O'Brien
Charlie Crosby
Joe Warburton

Overall the group had a great concept and it was obvious that they really worked well together. Their idea of selecting particular quotes and putting these out into a particular location was really interesting, by having a simplified design within their work you could see how the concept worked. It was a shame that they couldn't use their desired location to put out boxes, bunting and other stuff as the Uni of Leeds does have a lot of people walking through, luckily as the weather was good their next location seemed to have worked quite well. The hot dog books were a great idea and it seemed that people were quite intrigued by them. The only negative comment that was made was that maybe there could have been some way to track how successful their concept had been and just how much their audience had engaged with it. Despite this it is obvious the group put a lot of time and effort into the project and it really paid off as the concept really focused on the title 'communication is a virus'

Everyone in the group managed to keep their blog up to date which was good to see as it showed that they managed to keep on top of everything :)

Leeds Loves Creativity brief

 

Decided to have a go at entering the "Leeds Loves Creativity" brief, which was set by Marketing Leeds to help promote the end of year shows at Leeds College of Art, Leeds Met and University of Leeds. Sticking to quite strict guidelines we had to use the Helvetica Neue and their was really a limited colour palette. I decided to research previous Leeds Live it Love it campaigns to get a sense of their style. I opted to go with yellow and orange whilst leaving the Leeds Loves in white as in previous campaigns. Quite liked working with this brief and it will be interesting to see the final design. 

OUGD103 - Communication is a Virus - Final Presentation

Above : The final powerpoint presentation that we had put together when presenting out work to the rest of the group. I began working on the layout of the slides and decided that it would work best being quite simple and just having the "Oh" logo at the bottom of each slide. Charlotte kindly led the presentation. Think that we presented quite well although we could have been more thorough about what our initial concept had been.

I feel that overall we had a strong concept and did manage to "Tell a lie convincingly" as Niall did a excellent job of fooling the 2nd years. As we did not manage to get video footage of Nialls presentation we had to rely on filming the reactions of the 2nd years after they had found out what had just happened. Overall I think that we lacked in actual design work, as in the end the website had never gone live. I had thought about having business cards designed and printed which could have been handed out to the second years but this just did not happened. As a group I think we worked well and really enjoyed the project as it was different to what we normally do, unfortunately I think the lack of actual design work and not having a clear final presentation let us down. If we had the option of doing the brief again I would definately ensure that we had a live website that could have been showed as well as getting a way of recording the presentation and editing this video so that we could have shown the rest of the group exactly what we did. I feel that as we were keeping such a big secret there seemed to be a lack of communication within the group as we struggled to tie down exactly what the purpose of out concept and how we were going to present a final outcome in the final crit.

OUGD103 - Interim Crit - Communcation is a Virus - Group Brief

During the crit that we had with Jo we discussed how we had began to develop the website and had decided on a logo for the creative identity of 'Oliver Histon' We were unsure as to whether we were going each create pieces of work for the online portfolio but when we discussed this with Jo she decided it would be better to use found work as this website wouldn't be shown to anyone outside of Univeristy. Jo also mentioned creating a real character profile Niall, (Oliver) looking into just what type of a person he is is he married, where does he live, where does he work, what are his likes and interests, what type of designer is he? Typographer, illustrator..

Audience: We came to the conclusion that instead of just fooling the 3rd years with portfolio surgeries that 'Oliver' will now be giving a talk to all years possibly in studio 4. By giving a talk to all years it makes the project more of a challenge as the 1st and 2nd years share a studio with Niall so it is likely that they will recognise Niall much easier. It also means we can test just how observant the audience are, or whether they really are gullible.

Purpose: The main purpose of the project is really looking into how easily people can be fooled into believing something that they are being told, it will test how much they believe what Amber has told them about the visiting professional. Also how aware are people about the surroundings they are in, will they realise that Niall is all of a sudden ill and cannot make it, how well can he disguise himself..

Plan of action: The plan for the final week of the project is to finalise the design of the website so that it is able to go live and we can start spreading the word that there will be a visiting professional coming to give a talk. Ensure that we can decided on a style of work that really emphasises the type of designer 'Oliver' is. Continue fooling the rest of the group with thinking we're doing a flashmob. ha. The most important part that we need to focus on is creating an character profile for Oliver to determine just what kind of a person he is.

OUGD104 - What is a line?

During this weeks Visual Language session we were given a blank brief which we had to fill in according to what our own individual brief will be..

Brief Title: What is a line?
The Brief: "A Mark indicating position, connection or boundaries"
- Creating a set/series of technical/measured drawings of objects.
Considerations: I will begin by exploring a range of different drawing techniques before putting together the final drawings in possibly A4/A5 format.
Target Audience: Could be anyone interested in drawing/technical drawing.
Tone of voice: Formal
Background: Exploring traditional drawing and looking at still life - art/paintings.
Mandatory Requirements: Blogging/sketchbooks/notebooks
Deliverables: A set/series of drawings (A5/A4), One final A3 or A2 drawing.
Studio Deadline: 26th April 2011

After writing the brief we then had to give it to some one else for them to re-write, I gave mine to Luis who then came up with this;

Brief Title: What is a line?
The Brief: "A Mark indicating position, connection or boundaries"
Create a set/series of technical illustrations/drawings based on various objects of your choice. These can either be exact representations or you can be selective in your choice of lines you will represent through the technical drawings. Explore both hand drawn and digital.
Considerations: Explore a range of methods of technical drawings. Consider your format as this can be dependent on the size and scale of the objects you have chosen to represent.
Target Audience: Could be anyone interested in drawing/technical drawing.
Tone of voice: Formal
Background: Exploring traditional drawing and looking at still life - art/paintings.
Mandatory Requirements: Blogging/sketchbooks/notebooks
Deliverables: A set/series of drawings.
Studio Deadline: 26th April 2011

OUGD103 - Communication is a Virus - Crit Feedback

During out initial crit we presented out concept to both Amber and Jo. Amber was aware of what we had been planning and when we revealed out big idea to Jo she thought we were being quite ambitious with our idea to have Niall in disguise. We had a discussion about who we would be fooling, 1st/2nd/3rd years. We talked about whether it would be worth having a lecture led by Niall in the lecture theater or just a small presentation about himself to the 1st/2nd years.

The key issues raised from the crit were; 

We needed to ensure that we kept out idea a secret and didn't reveal it to the rest of the group.

Needed to decided what kind of character profile we were going to create for Niall.

Who our audience is.

What is the purpose?

OUGD103 - Communication is a Virus - Design Direction Boards

For our initial crit we designed boards for our actual concept of telling a lie convincingly as well as boards for our fake brief of getting people to try something new. Put together for Eddie and Charlotte.

OUGD104 - Visual Language - What is a Line?

Visual Language brief, exploring the term "Line"

Visually investigating one of the following definitions;

"A formation of people, objects or things on besides/behind the other"

"A connected series of events, actions or developments"

"The descendents of one individual"

"A mark indicating position, connection or boundaries"

 

Rational;

OUGD103 - Communication is a Virus - Group Brief

Brief Title
COMMUNICATION IS A VIRUS
The Brief
You have been given a task. You are required to produce a graphics response that engages with a specific audience. Your response should consider the context and environment in which you aim for it to be delivered. You will need to identify this as part of your initial concept proposal.

You should aim to identify, analyse and use existing means of distributions in order to select an appropriate method of communication. 

Tone of voice

The tone of voice of voice should be appropriate to your content, the audience to which your work will be delivered and the context in which it will be viewed or delivered.

Background

What do you want to say? How do you intend to say it? What language would be appropriate?

Will the content be communicated primarily through type or image? If it is both what is the relationship between the two?

What are you aiming to achieve? Are you directing your audience to a website, encouraging them to attend an event? Will it be interactive or encouraging them to change their lifestyle?

A limited colour pallet, two colours plus stock, will allow for reproduction of your designs across a range of media.

You should resolve this problem by the deadline stated below. However, if you have plans to extend the scope and ambition of your response beyond this deadline you should include these proposals in your presentation.

Deliverables

Design development sheets.

Concept/proposal appropriate to your idea.

3 x A2 presentation boards identifying:
Concept
Content
Method of delivery

 

Studio Brief Deadline
Pitch:
Friday 11th March

Final Crit:
Friday 25th March 

OUGD103 - Design is about doing. Letter, word, sentence, paragraph. Live brief.

Show and tell; having not made any major changes over the weekend we had a show and tell session this morning where I had printed my posters on individual A4 card.

OUGD103 - Design is about doing. Letter, word, sentence, paragraph. Live brief.

After todays crit the feedback that I got was quite positive. Showing a series of developments people commented on how they could be improved further. I think that from the feedback I received i got some more ideas and think that I can take my posters further. Also need to ensure that they are printed individually so that they work as a series.

The mains points that were raised;

Think about using solid colour in the colour wheel (but that takes away from the type aspect)

Use the more abstract wheel but have a line that shows the wheel so that it more obvious

Make the words at the bottom the same colour 

Think about the scale (A1/A2)

I think i did really struggle with this brief as i have never really worked primarily with type. I feel that maybe my posters do focus a little too much on image and that I could really look at reworking them so that type was the focus point of them. Thinking back to the original idea of just have type showcasing the complementary colours I might look at developing this hopefully before the submission deadline.