End of Module Evaluation

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

The main skills I have learnt and developed is my presentation skills. I applied my presentation skills by creating a range of design boards displaying different work; I improved upon these skills by learning from others and having my own work critiqued. I would also say that as I had nine briefs I had to create nine sets of design boards and I feel that the amount I had to create gave me more and more experience, I think that from having this experience and new skill I created a good set of boards for each of my responses.

I have also improved upon my brief management skills and the ability to not just concentrate on one brief at a time, this module really pushed me to divide my attention to a range of different briefs and even though I am still not entirely comfortable with this I think I have vastly improved and I managed to answer nine briefs which I am pleased that I managed to do.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I think that one of the main methods of design I have improved upon in this module is my Photoshop skills and knowledge in particular using this software to create mock-ups. I have learnt so much about templates, layers and smart objects, at the beginning I had relatively no experience in this area of design and now by the end of this module I feel quite confident when creating mock-ups now and I have even helped others. Learning these new skills enabled me to create new visuals that I wouldn’t of done before, also creating mock-ups meant that I could expand the range of my design without any extra cost but it would still show what I wanted and needed to, I think that this has been one of the most valuable things I have gained from this module and I am sure that I will continue to do this.

Another unexpected approach to my design production that I have used and improved upon in this module is my illustration skills, being both digital and hand-rendered. My response to the Body Shop brief really pushed my illustrator skills and I created bright/ colourful/ highly illustrative pieces, I would never usually go into that much detail and so I learnt that I could do it, but I also learnt that I don’t particularly enjoy working in this way. As well as this I answered the Cath Kidston brief by hand drawing/ painting my ideas, this improved my hand-rendering skills and combining it with digital editing made my design work really well, again I feel that I have learnt that I do not particularly want to produce work of this nature again.

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

I feel that in all of my briefs I have created strong, well thought out concepts, I created them with meaning and thought, and everything had a purpose behind it, I think that I am quite strong in my conceptual development and I will continue to create thoughtful design and work, which will make a range very strong.
I also think that one of my new strengths that I have developed within this module is my presentation skills, or presentation boards, this module really helped me to explore this and I feel happy with every set of boards I created in response to each of the briefs, I will use this new skill and continue to achieve high standard presentation boards, and final work boards, so that I can showcase my work to its full potential.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

In this module, I feel that I did not create a lot of printed work, this might be due to the nature of the briefs I chose but I feel that if I had more printed material I would have had a wider range of outcomes and my overall work would be stronger for this module. In the future I will try to not pick a lot of briefs that only require digital work, so that I can explore print a bit more.

I also think that my blogging skills aren't particularly strong, at the start I completely forgot about blogging and throughout I felt that I concentrated on the creation of my work and got slightly carried away without thinking about showing my development process, or more importantly talking about it, in the future I will try to blog as I go along, so that my development process is shown better and that I can reflect more upon what I have done, and others can see this too.

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

Start from the beginning, I need to start my modules/ briefs immediately when they are set rather than concentrating on other work/ modules that I am currently working upon, that way I will be able to start other briefs quickly and have more time for other things, as well as this a similar thing I will address is my selection of briefs, I again need to do this quicker than I did in this module, I feel that I didn’t select briefs imminently as I was overwhelmed by the choice and the wording on the briefs, by doing this I hope that I will gain more time to produce a better quality of work and a larger quantity.

I also would choose more wisely, for instance when selecting a brief I need to be more careful with my selection and really read what they are asking for and work towards design that I want and like to produce, from doing this I hope to gain stronger outcomes and maybe even ones that will win! As well as the selection of briefs I also need to consider my choice of who to work with, I think that if I made a more considered choice then I would have an equal partner who would take on an equal role in the work load etc. I also would like to work with someone who has similar interests but different skills so that I could learn from them and we could possibly create something really strong.

Attendance- 5

Punctuality- 5

Motivation- 3

Commitment- 3

Quantity of work produced- 3

Quality of work produced- 4

Contribution to the group- 3