Evaluation

Workshop work

The timetabled workshops were always enjoyable and an interesting range of briefs, I found that the type as image and the book brief were particularly enjoyable briefs. Allowing me to engage with typography in an illustrative way, something that over the course of the module, I realised that I can have success with. I feel that these particular workshops are where I really put a lot of effort in and I'm really proud of the standard of work that I produced for these briefs in particular, I especially like the 'Humans are terrible' poster, photography isn't something I normally work with, and I was terrified that it would feel alien to me, however, I feel like using handmade type and placing it in a real world environment was just an extension of what I do as an illustrative designer anyway and I'm really happy to have tried something new but still have it fit well into my portfolio of work, also it won the competition for displaying in the corridor.. which felt great. I was also really happy with the book brief work. The pice it's self was of a high quality and I sold half of my books and recouped the money I spent and turned a (very small) profit, this was a great feeling, putting my work out there and having it well received by the target audience and I'm really grateful to Amber for giving us an opportunity like that.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep on top of everything all of the time and some of the brief suffered because of this. most notably the editorial and signage briefs. I wasn't able to devote as much time to these as i wanted to and because of this, the final pieces aren't up to the standard of the rest of the work. the signage is mostly acceptable, however 'studio2 leading to 3' is illegible because of the colour choices I made rather hastily. I still feel the rest of them function moderately well. In terms of the editorial pieces, I had to rush them and so I don't think I considered how they'd sit in context all that well, resulting in some sub-standard work. In other places, I've had to turn around the work really quickly yet I've had some success, for instance the scale/frame/format brief, was put together very quickly, but I still think it communicates it's message strongly and well chosen layout makes it look quite effective.

Finally, I wasn't able to complete the 2D to 3D to 2D brief, I have no excuses, I was ill, missed the briefing and several days afterward and through bad organisation wasn't able to make up for the time I'd lost. This is unacceptable and in the real world it would mean losing a client permanently as well as income. I fully accept the blow that this might give to my marks and feel really disappointed in myself for letting it spin out of control. I do feel however, that holding myself to account and learning from this mistake is going to prove useful. I know I won't make this mistake again and I'm taking active steps to ensure that my life is under better control, including keeping a more thorough diary and a wall planner going.

Negotiated brief

The negotiated brief was a chance for me to explore more of what I enjoyed through the workshops, type as image. I decided to explore colours again, this time looking at the whole spectrum. I really researched the connotations of each colour in detail, as well as asked peers and others what the colour represented to them, giving me a list of adjectives that could describe each colour. I think that this was really helpful, narrowing the search for ways to represent the colours typographically, in quite a short space of time. From this I picked one adjective for each and began looking at the hand-drawn typography of others for inspiration, picking out particular traits that might inform the way I look at designing my own typefaces. This again narrowed down the way I looked at exploring the typography significantly, giving me a clear idea of the direction I wanted to go into.

At this point I began sketching letter forms quite loosely, until I came upon an aesthetic I liked. Ultimately, I didn't spend enough time at this stage, developing a wide range of responses, but I am extremely proud of most of my typeface designs. I'm particularly fond of the green typeface, the bold, gooey and the violet typeface, I particularly love the 'Q' it has a good flow to it and the flourishes work the most effectively on that letter form. I'm fond of most of the typefaces, all of them having something to keep me interested and entertained, however, orange, I really don't like. I don't think I like the colour in general, which made it hard to think of something appropriate in the first place, but then also it's execution wasn't brilliant, and I can't help but think that this was a missed opportunity to do something more forward thinking with it.

I feel that the layout was particular strength, though I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like from the start and this stopped me from really exploring a broad range of layouts. I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing, the layouts themselves turned out how I imagined them and looked really strong, individually and as a set or catalogue. I also liked the belly band. The typographical layout kept the feel of a catalogue, that hand crafted type may not have done.

All in all, I've really enjoyed this module, I feel that I've created a number of pieces that will go in my portfolio successfully and I'm grateful for the opportunities to learn that it has given me. I'm disappointed that I didn't always put the time in to get great results right across the board, but will learn from this and manage my time more effectively using diaries etc.