Ending Evalution

Initially when applying for this course I had the misconceptions of being immersed in an arty world of creativity, days out in the parks and industrial landscapes; armed with a sketchbook looking for inspiration. Voyages to unparalleled worlds of electronic beams of light and techno images, which the weirdest of ways relates to the last project, my previous ideas came to be; though more towards the end of the course than the beginning. Constantly throughout the assignments having to jump threw over these academic hurdles, which made me realise my previous thoughts before starting, really were a misconception.

Our first assignment helped me adjust to the pace of higher learning, before this course 6 form had been a slow drag towards deadlines, with no velocity for work at all. Where as here the volume needed-mixed with the time length allowed really told me this was another level; the name higher learning does have the Ronsil effect and is a clear step-up from A-level and college courses. I initially started like a bat out of hell, researching, designing and generally doing everything that made me ignore one crucial lesson I needed to learn early, to be successful on this course and in the industry. This was the importance of time planning, with the necessary time sheets to produce every week; your time actually had to be properly planned out and thought about. Given that I had never done anything like this before, it really took some time to adjust. Halfway through the first assignment I saw the real benefits, after my initial zooming off with getting all the work done, I had looked around and saw that know one else was at my current stage; knowing this I really slackened off thinking that I could take somewhat of a breather. This was soon proved as being the wrong thing to do, as when looking around I saw the majority of people had not only caught up with me, but overtaken where I was currently at. Now in the rush to get myself back up to par, I let the quality of my work slip and the time sheets had really been thrown out of the window, by such a rollercoaster ride throughout the first assignment. Frankly this was the main reason for not passing the first assignment, but in this I did learn the lesson of proper time management helps the quality of your work and also helps you to explore your priorities a bit more when decided when and where to do things along the way.

With this in mind, I started the next assignment with the death of the first one hanging over me as referral work needed to be done and focused on; which made doing this current one hard… having to go threw tutorials that I wouldn’t need until a few weeks time. I was eager to get on with this work there and then. Though because the first assignment was a website plan too it helped everyone cut a few corners that they’d learnt previously, but still the intensity had been heightened and we’d stepped up another level to what our production would continue you at throughout the year. This meant adjusting again and with the referral work still in the background, I found it hard to juggle both… this is really where my referral rut started to take shape. I saw myself focusing too much on the design work, and not paying enough attention to the real ground work that needed to be done so I could do this design work more effectively and too a higher level; this was another lesson I’ve learned throughout my time so far on this course. You can’t run without laying solid foundations to run on.

Going hand-in-hand with the A3 assignment was Image Rights, one that required you to do a lot more graphical tasks along the way; personally this made me happy as obviously I’d really say that is my forte when it comes to the overall task of ‘Website Design’. Within the A4 assignment was the creation of banners for the Jazz artist, the first real graphic thing we’d done throughout the course and up to this point probably the most enjoyable. I really enjoyed the timed part of it where we had to sit down and do all the developmental work in such a short amount of time. It helped me get a real feel for the industry pace. I think this is where I started to shine some what, hoping that the graphic talent I had gathered of the years was able to be showcased throughout this assignment. Which all culminated recently when I was told, if I had not referred the assignment due to my Image Restoration work not being up the level of my other work I’d of nearly reached merit or actually reached the merit criteria for this assignment. Though still laying in this referral rut and finding it hard to get out, trying to focus on 3 assignments this time and also time manage all this effectively was pretty hard going at times. I know from the real rush towards the end of this assignment to complete that all 3 at the same time really effected how I worked on them and how I was able to divide my time between them.

Now finally onto the building of the website, I was eager to get started; get one with the actually website and get something up and running online, but due to my referral rut I was stuck doing A3 work until I finally had it perfect and was able to get on with my design. Frustration set in as I started going ahead with the online design without the final word from Steve to say I could actually do the design how I wanted, and that he was happy with it. Though finally I managed to get the original work passed and sorted so I could move along with the Website work, and due to my earlier progress I had a bit of a jump start on this and was able to get along quite quickly. No huge problems ever really occurred throughout the building of the website stage, and the design I had finally worked out suited the target audience and everything fit together nicely. Recently during the referral work for this assignment, I managed to streamline the site a whole lot more and really make it something that was user friendly and manageable with the good addition of lightbox; and also the taking away of a useless diverting page. Helping the user’s to get to the information they wanted a lot more easily.

Having ‘Revert to Type’ alongside the Builder helped me a lot, when it came to me getting overly frustrated when building the website, I was able to settle back with some design work for the A6 assignment, whether it was the presentation or the timed tasks. I think this was one of the main enjoyments for me during this assignment; it helped me fathom some real ideas about the pace set when actually in the industry and also the developmental process that had to be done so quick, you needed to be on top form all the time. Not only this, it also give me some ways to explore mediums of design that I’d never really dabbled in before, such as newspaper articles and even so much as product specific designs for the paint tubes we had been given. During the A6 assignment there was the under lying presentation looming, well I only say looming in retrospect because up until this point I had been comfortable with doing presentations and was quite confident when it came to my abilities to do them. I think a few factors like not being fully prepared added up to me not performing as well as I previously had done; this mixed with the fact it kept getting built up from the first time and I un-characteristically let the pressure get to me rather too much. I’ve learnt how to prepare in properly in the future and hopefully there will not be a repeat performance of this.

Though out the course developmental work has been mentioned when it comes to the graphical side of your work, I knew this was important but never used it as effectively or to such a large scale as I did when doing the A7 assignment. I really stepped my development game up here, I felt I really needed to show the diverse range and quality of idea’s I could come up with… I tried brainstorming as much as possible just to keep bringing new ideas hoping to improve the quality of the final work I would come up with. This assignment has been my favourite overall and a nice finish to the year, I was very happy with the final CD Digipak produced and it conveyed exactly the message I wanted to, taking elements from the name ‘Gas’ and influencing my whole layout and really being one of the main features of the design. I felt the music was thrusting you into a whole new out of this world dimension, so I knew I wanted to create an environment that was kind of gothic and eerie but at the same time mysterious; hoping that a buyer would be drawn in by the cover wondering what could be behind an intriguing design. Alongside this CD design, was the ‘Emit Records’ logo, I knew something that you wouldn’t see everyday was appropriate. I had a lot of idea’s when it came to the logo and originally wanted to go for something a lot more freeform, to really convey an out of this world feeling something that wasn’t really hitting any limits and could be taken various ways. In the end I went for a logo that used the ‘E’ in an interesting way, to really help get some brand identity to the company and hopefully make this something that people would see and recognise anywhere.