In terms of researching for the What is Good brief, I was really pleased with what and how much I discovered. I tried to look for primary, secondary, qualitative and quantitative research and when narrowing down to what was the most relevant, I was able to find a lot of factual evidence to back up my concept statement from book and internet sources. I continued to research throughout the whole project, which is something that I have improved on, because previously I have thought of researching as being the first thing you do on a brief and then just refer back to it when developing ideas. However, this brief meant that I continuously had to look for research, whether it be inspirational packaging material, laughter health facts or printing processes. There was always something new I needed to find out and I actually really enjoyed coming across new websites, or interviewing my target market - something that I never felt confident in doing.
However the design for print booklet brief was the opposite as I know I could have researched a lot deeper and more thoroughly into printing processes and understanding all the various methods that are on offer to the designer. I see now that I didn't have an equal working balance between the two briefs because initially I became so involved in my ideas for 'What is Good?' I tried to turn this around towards the end and focus on what I have learned over the module and put my research into the booklet, but I realised it was the development of the layout and researching existing magazine layouts that I found more interesting than how my booklet could be printed etc.
This is the area that has let me down overall. I spent too much time investigating into production processes, and reading books such as Ambose/Harris 'Print & Finish', 'Colour' and their 'Production Manual' but didn't document thoroughly enough or experiment into any appropriate processes myself. I specified what would be involved to commercially print my work, but I know I could have gone out of my way more to research stock and commercial costs of prints, for example. I initially wanted to gain experience in contacting printers and experiment with at least one finishing print technique, such as spot varnish or embossing instead of just writing about it in the booklet. However I feel that I covered 'how to prepare your work for print' successfully and learned a lot in the mac inductions about colour and software and wanted to get that aspect across as the main content of the booklet.
I feel like my idea development for the 'What is Good?' brief and the way I annotate ideas as to what works and what doesn't shows a clear path to how my final resolution came about. I definitely improved on visualising my ideas and putting them into practice. I have improved dramatically on design software, in particularly InDesign and Photoshop. I think I could have covered more of a breadth and tested out more of my initial concept ideas that I documented, but if I did I probably wouldn't have allowed myself enough time to exhaust the idea that I went with.
In terms of the content and the message delivered in both briefs, I feel like the final resolutions are fairly successful. There are always going to be improvements and alterations needed to perfect them, but I am pleased with the amount of effort and time I have put in to developing my work. I am particularly impressed by the final "what is Good?' resolution photographs, where I went to a health spa and documented it with the promotional material within the context that I aimed for it to be set in. I talked to a lot of people about the product while I was there and they all gave useful feedback in terms of which idea they would most like to see there.
The documentation and organisation presented throughout are what I believe to be my strongest areas, as I always think of presenting my work clearly so that if I wasn't there to explain it, it would speak for itself. I document my thoughts on design sheets visually or with annotations, and evaluate my ongoing process here on the blog. I live by 'to-do lists' and always set myself targets to complete the work on time week by week. The weaker areas of my work that I have addressed within this evaluation, I hope to improve on as I move onto the next module and I will take with me my stronger skills and continue to improve on those too.
Five things I would do differently next time:
1. Stop writing ideas, put them down on paper visually instead.
2. Visualise a broader range of ideas - don't just document them and go with one.
3. Be more experimental - don't be afraid to get stuck in and put techniques into practice.
4. Balance all briefs equally - don't prioritise one over the other.
5. Keep referring back to the brief and read every bit of it so I don't miss anything or read it too late.
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