Year 3 Design Practice

This module has been tough but definitely most enjoyable. I've really enjoyed being able to focus on our own subject interests and areas of design, and I think this has also had an effect on improving the standard of my work.

I think the amount of work produced seemed extremely challenging at times but really worth while. I think i've probably produced more work this module than the whole of last year put together which for me is really satisfying. I think the amount of effort put in to try and achieve this has helped to lead to an instant increase in the standard of my work and I feel really happy with all my outcomes. They are all something i'm pleased to add to my portfolio which is an aim I had right from the start of this year. I wanted to be producing a more professional standard of work and I think having this mind set gave me the motivation to keep on working in the aim of improving.

At the start of the module when I had decided on my 4 briefs, my initial aim was to complete one before starting the next so I could have my mind focused on one thing at a time. However we were advised not to do this and have all the briefs on the go. In some ways this was useful, if one brief came to a standstill I would always have another to move on to and it was good in the sense you could take a break from one brief and do something different with another one. However I did find a downside to this. I feel with brief two 'body shop' brief, I got bored of working on it and felt it never properly came to an end. I think this is probably due to not having a set aim from the start as to what I wanted to produce as well as spending so long on it. When we start final major project I will make sure I am more focused from the start with things such as deliverables and also setting myself small deadlines which I found helped me out a lot towards the end of this module. I started to set myself day to day deadlines which helped me to keep on top of things and always have something to aim for which was a big motivation.

Brief 1 - 'Chop Chop'
I think this was possibly my favourite brief i've done so far. I was really excited to start it and I just generally had more motivation with what I was producing for it. Although one of my final prints didn't turn out as well as expected I still feel generally happy with the final outcomes and feel it's quite a strong piece I can add to my portfolio.

Brief 2 - The Body Shop WInter Collection
I enjoyed this brief to start off with but I feel that I never really set myself a target with it and thats why I ended up getting bored and not really managing to finishing it to the standard I would have liked. I think if i had been more specific with setting my own deadline for this I could have got it completed and out the way rather than going back to it every so often because I needed to not because I wanted to.

Brief 3 - ASDA 'Necessities'
I wasn't sure how much I would actually enjoy this brief as I think re-designing something that already exists is quite difficult and can have many limitations. I think making the decision to do this as a collaboration was a good idea as it doubled the amount of ideas and options to a brief which I thought might not initially have had many available. I believe me and Ellis worked really well together, even though it's not always advisable to work with friends I feel this benefitted us as we had no problems with expressing our opinions and pushing each other to get the work completed. I feel we split the brief really equally yet have still managed to come out with products which can easily stand alone.

Brief 4 - M&S
I feel with this brief I could have got a lot more out of it if I had given myself the time. I feel I dragged some of the others out a bit too long and didn't leave myself enough time to complete this brief as thorough as I would have liked. I am actually really happy with the outcomes I have produced as I feel they would reach the M&S target audience well. I just feel I could have expanded on it and put a bit more consideration into my idea. With this brief being a YCN competition I can still go back and add to it in my own time before submitting it as the deadline for this is not until march.

I think one thing i've found out from this module is that I definitely made the right decision in having packaging design as my main focus. There was a point where I was worried I was focusing too much on it but I soon realised that whilst i'm on the course I should take the chance to really focus on what I want to do now and this will also hopefully benefit my future. I feel that attempting briefs just to add elements to my portfolio is not a good enough reason to be doing something. I figured this out when I originally set out to do a typeface brief but kept putting it off because it wasn't actually something I wanted to do and so I felt I wouldn't get anything useful out of it. Designing for packaging is what I will continue to focus on however I do want to remember not to neglect other areas of design which I felt I slightly did over this module. Certain things like promotional material for the packaging I had in each brief, I felt I pushed to one side, when really they could have helped out my range of deliverables a lot more if I put that but more focus in.